Guest Post: Clean Eating and Me
Hi, everyone! I am away for a few days and won’t be able to blog per my usual schedule, so for today please enjoy this guest post from Candice. Her weight loss journey and dedication to a clean-but-flexible diet are truly inspirational. Enjoy! :-)
I’m Candice from Clean Eating and Me, a blog that details my journey through clean food, fitness, and life generally. Katie asked me to write a guest post for Health for the Whole Self while she is on vacation. Thanks for the opportunity Katie!
First, let me give you a brief description of myself. I recently lost 80 pounds. I did so by following WeightWatchers. During the weight loss process, I realized the harm that processed foods can cause.The majority of packaged foods contain large amounts of chemicals, including preservatives, dyes, and artificial sweeteners. Unlike drugs, most of these ingredients are only minimally if at all approved by the FDA prior to being used in products. The FDA typically only regulates these ingredients after harm is caused. That’s a risk that I don’t want to take. Not to mention that I feel 100% better when I eat clean than if I eat processed foods. So I moved to clean eating.
Second, let me describe what clean eating means to me:
- No more than 5 ingredients in a food. The only exception is if more than 5 ingredients makes sense. For example, with mixed nuts or trail mix.
- I must be able to recognize and pronounce all ingredients.
- No preservatives.
- I eat mostly plant-based foods. Fruits, veggies, and grains consist of the majority of food. I usually incorporate a small amount of meat into my dinner. This usually carries over into lunch because my lunches are typically leftovers from dinner.
- I eat only fat free dairy products, except for cheese where I usually choose 2%, mostly to avoid the unhealthy saturated animal fats.
- I eat as organic as I possibly can so that I can avoid the chemicals in non-organic foods. Certain things I will only eat organic, including all meat and all fruits and veggies on the dirty dozen list. In the past few months, I’ve made a few deviations from this rule due to cost prohibition. I now eat non-organic dairy and eggs.
- I eat intuitively. While I used to follow WeightWatchers and strongly believe in the program for weightloss and initial maintenance, I also believe that permanent maintenance is best done intuitively for me. I eat when I’m hungry and I try to balance my meals and snacks to meet my nutritional needs.
- Deviations are acceptable. Life is about living, not following rules all the time.
Third, let me give you a sample daily menu that I typically eat.
Breakfast
Oatmeal made with 1/3 cup oats, 2/3 cup fat free milk, 1 tbsp peanut butter (or other nut butter), and 1 banana sliced. I also enjoy overnight oats made with oats, berries, milk, yogurt, and peanut butter.
Lunch and Dinner
Lunches are typically leftovers from dinner the night before, but a smaller portion. For this reason, I lump lunch and dinner together. For example, last week, I ate what my husband and I refer to as “Porky Mix.” I ground an organic pork tenderloin, brown it, then mixed it with frozen corn, zucchini, and paprika. I served this over boiled new potatoes. Then I topped everything with flavored goat cheese.
Another example is my version of chicken cordon bleu. I wrapped proscuitto and swiss cheese inside an organic thin-sliced chicken breast and then baked. I served with some fresh sweet corn from our CSA!
If these food pictures tempt you to learn more about my food choices, then check out my blog, Clean Eating and Me, where you can follow all the clean eating tips and clean eats that I share.
Question from Katie: I know the phrase “clean eating” gets tossed around a lot. What does it mean to you? Do you follow any of the principles Candice outlined here?
Themocracy
For me, clean eating brings up some bad memories. When I was training for a bodybuilding competion, I was only allowed to eat CLEAN foods. I couldn’t have anything with sugar (not even some fruits!), or any thing processed. I think it was this that drove me into black and white eating. Now, I don’t want to give clean eating a baf rep because I had other issues going on at that time that made me cringe at the word. For instance, I only could eat 1200 calories a day of clean food then! Could you imagine!
Anyway, I realize the importance of eating clean most of the time, I just think the word still scares me
I was totally going to post what Val did, but she said it first. “Clean eating” in the bodybuilding world really left a sour taste in my mouth.
Great guest post and ideas to think about when eating and preparing foods!
I follow a very similar eating philosophy. Not rigidly, because my schedule sometimes causes me to deviate a little more than I’d like, but I try really hard to stick to eating “clean foods.” My body just feels better when I’m not junking it up with lots of weird ingredients and things I can’t pronounce. I also felt better about eating that way while pregnant and nursing, and now that we are trying for #2, it’s still of the utmost importance to me.
I guess my definition of clean foods includes foods that are all natural with as few ingredients as possible (unless it makes sense, like you said…) and preferably organic. It’s not always the easiest way to eat, but I feel the benefits on a daily basis, and I’m betting I’ll reap long-term benefits as well!
I’ll definitely check out your blog!
I definitely notice a physical difference on days when I eat less clean foods. I feel better with clean foods than with foods laden with chemicals.
To respond also to another comment, I don’t worry about natural sugars in foods. Only added sugars. I do not limit my fruit intake in anyway. I didn’t gain weight eating fruit and it won’t hurt me. At least that’s my philosophy!
Great guest post! I really enjoyed your story and how you define cleaning eating.
I would love to eat like you! I think your guidelines are not too hard to follow and you actually get to eat a wide variety of foods.
Congrats on your weight loss! I used WW to lose 15 lbs and if used correctly it is a great program!
Congratulations on your weight loss, and thanks for sharing your clean eating evolution with us! I love your definition of clean eating but have a question about fat-free dairy. Most fat-free dairy products I have found, I don’t consider “clean” because they tend to have added ingredients and/or preservatives, and many are higher in sugar and sodium than the “regular” versions. Do you have any specific examples of good clean fat-free dairy products you like? Thanks!
Just jumpping in here, Stonyfield dairy products are great! One of the only organic Greek yogurts out there.
I do find that fat free dairy products usually have unwanted ingredients, but I search for clean ones. Skim milk is usually clean with just added vitamins. Like Heather said, Stonyfield products are good. Chobani and Oikos (the Stonyfield greek yogurt) are great, as is Fage, though it’s significantly more expensive.
Plain yogurts (or anything else for that matter) are cleaner than the flavored varieties. Flavors always add more ingredients and in some instances more chemicals.
That melty cheese looks amazing! I try and follow and clean eating diet for about 99% of my life, but sometimes you just need a chocolate bar or french fries!
Personally, I am really turned off by the term “clean eating” because it implies that some food is “unclean” or “impure” or “bad”. As someone who has had an eating disorder and still has lingering food issues, I try not to think in such a binary, black and white way. I try to avoid rules.
That being said, I eat in a way that sounds very similar to yours. (Although I prefer my dairy products with some fat — more yummy and filling.) I just think of it as choosing to focus on unprocessed food, made from scratch. My occasional less-healthy treats are usually either home-baked or from a bakery, not processed stuff with unpronounceable ingredients. But occasionally I have a craving for something processed, and I prefer to eat these things on those rare occasions rather than labelling them as taboo or off limits.
Congrats on the weight loss!
For me “clean eating” means a lot of fruits and veggies, whole grains, and as few processed foods as possible.
I believe clean eating is eating things as close to their natural state at possible, whether this means organic, raw, grass-fed, full-fat, whatever. Sometimes eating this way isn’t possible if cost or travel get in the way. Flexibility is key, because I truly believe stress is more detrimental to our health than a piece of cake or some conventional yogurt.
I’m still working on clean eating. Which for me, means cutting processed foods out. I’ll be honest – I’m trying so hard to kick the Splenda habit but haven’t been able to yet!
Congrats on your weight loss, Candice!
I can’t say this clean eating thing will work for everyone. It will definitely benefit some in recovering back healthy habits, but for some people who have OCD tendencies to FEAR processed food a bit too much, and freak out over the details of clean eating…well, that was me, and I’m recovering back my ability to eat and enjoy anything without losing my peace.
A balance, that’s what we need. And that’s clean eating to me.
I think balance is a good idea! I think any “diet” can lead to OCD habits if taken too seriously. Flexibility in life generally is usually a good thing.
I would say I clean eat about 75% of my diet. I think clean eating is eating whole foods (non processed foods). I know I feel so much better and less of a sugar crash. I do need, okay maybe just enjoy, some processed foods.
I have to agree w/ Val. I think that the blogging community in some regards has tarnished the notion of ‘clean eating’. I think it’s a diet tactic that helps me maintain a low caloric intake masked in healthy eating.
How about just eating what your body wants. Most of the time, it will honestly want to eat clean..if you’re not feeding emotions. Good luck w/ the WW stuff. I’ve lost 100lbs on it..but after awhile it turned into an obsession and a full-blown binge eating disorder.
Keep eating intuitively. And if you do, you won’t need points
For me, clean eating is the opposite of a diet for weight loss. Instead, it’s a “diet” for life. It isn’t about weight loss, it’s about giving my body what it needs to survive.
I can see how WW gets obsessive. I was a bit obsessive about it, but I got to maintenance and moved away as I focused on creating a way to eat for life, not just for one day.
Congrats on your 100 pound weight loss! That is amazing!
I think Candace described clean eating really well. I would add that it means eating food that make you feel good during AND after eating them.
i think what bodybuilding refers to as clean eating, isn’t the same as a healthy well balanced diet.
enjoyed this post, it’s always good to remember to make choices that are best for our bodies
Thanks for helping demystify the definition of “clean eating”! To me, it mostly means to eat whole foods, skip the preservatives, additives and chemicals, and eat intuitively.
Thank you all for your comments. I really enjoyed reading all of them and hearing other’s perspectives on clean eating. It is funny how each of deal with food in different ways. For me, I am least obsessive when eating clean. I tend to get addicted to processed foods and will actually be more obsessive with them then with clean foods. We’re all so different.
Thank you for all your nice comments on my weight loss as well. And thank you Katie for giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts on your blog!
Congrats on the weight loss. Have you ever read the book Clean? It’s a 3-week cleanse type thing but follows the principles you are.