Eating Clean

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If I could go back 15-20 years ago and publish my three year history of daily diet sheets from when I was training to become a healthier, fitter individual, and while training for bodybuilding, there is a very good chance that Tosca Reno’s Eat Clean Diet Books might have been preceded by Marissa’s Clean Eating Lifestyle Books. About eight years ago I was introduced to the Eat Clean Diet books and found them to be very familiar to the way I ate back when I embarked on my training program and decided to compete in bodybuilding (and with the exception of a few splurges here and there, the way I continue to eat today).

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In recent years, there has been a great deal of publicity about eating clean. What is it? To me, clean eating is avoiding processed foods, boxed foods, and sweetened beverages. Clean eating entails consuming foods that walk, swim, fly or grow in the ground. If you keep these 4 points in mind when you shop or sit down for your next meal you are well on your way to eating clean. It is also important to drink plenty of spring water throughout the day to stay hydrated. You will want to eat plenty of vegetables that are full of vitamins and fiber, along with complex carbohydrates, whole grains, and fruits. When you grocery shop stick to the perimeter of the stores. Skip going down the isles where you are most likely to find the foods you should be avoiding which are mostly processed foods and foods loaded with sugars.

Get in the habit of reading nutrition labels on the foods you eat. In all honesty, real food generally doesn’t have a nutrition label on it anyway. When was the last time you saw a label on a banana, or a sweet potato or a head of broccoli?  Read the ingredient list. When reviewing the nutrition label, be sure there are no more than 5 ingredients in the foods you are eating, and please make sure you know what they are and that you can pronounce them. Chances are if you haven’t heard of an ingredient or are unable to pronounce it, you shouldn’t be eating it.

Eating regularly is very important in addition to eating healthy and clean. Don’t be that person who skips breakfast and eats a huge dinner. Try and eat 5-6 small meals spaced out about every 3 hours. This will help keep blood sugar levels under control, keep your metabolism burning, and you will find you have more energy to get through the day. Every meal should contain at least 1 cup of vegetables. I usually try and follow a meal-salad-meal-salad-meal-salad mentality when I eat.  A salad can be just about anything, tuna stuffed in a tomato with cucumbers, or baby spinach tossed with grilled chicken, mushrooms, asparagus and faro. What I love most about salads is that they can be different every time. Skip the dressing! Enjoy the delicious flavors of the foods you are eating without the creamy dressings, or sauces to mask their tasty flavors.

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Being prepared goes a long way while trying to eat clean. My husband and I usually try to make Sunday’s our meal-prep day. We (and by we, I mean my husband) will make a weeks worth of whole grains including rice and quinoa, baked sweet potatoes, cut up our fresh vegetables, make a dozen or two hard boiled eggs, and bake or broil our fish, and chicken for the week. This way, our food is always prepared and we can grab what we need to take with us during the day. Many times, our left over dinners end up being used in our breakfasts, tossed in with eggs we’ve made some really delicious omelets. Clean eating does not mean boring, or bland; it simply means eating real foods.

                                                                                                

Of course, in order to have a well-rounded healthy lifestyle it is necessary to incorporate regular physical activity 5-7 days a week. I prefer to spend 20 minutes on the air-dyne bike (sometimes 2-3 times a day), participating in CrossFit, and weight/strength training with traditional bodybuilding movements. Find something you enjoy, something that will increase your heart rate and something you will stick with in the long run. Remember, this is a lifestyle.

Eating organic is also important. Avoiding foods that have been contaminated by toxic pesticides and fertilizers is another thing you will want to avoid (maybe that will be covered more in depth in a later blog). My husband and I are fortunate to have property to raise our own food. We have several gardens and grow just about every vegetable you can think of. We can everything we can in the fall so we can enjoy the gardens abundance in the winter months such as peppers, squash, Brussels sprouts and tomatoes. We raise sheep, turkey, pheasant, chicken and ducks, and my husband hunts and fishes for everything else (by now you are probably wondering what I do). On our farm we do not use any chemicals, pesticides, or fertilizers further ensuring that our family gets the best possible and most nutritious foods.

So, if you are ready to embrace a clean eating lifestyle for better health head over to your kitchen cupboards and refrigerator and start tossing out anything you might have a question about. You may find you need to head out to the grocery store next, remember to stick to the perimeter of the store, fill your cart with delicious vegetables, fresh fruits, whole grains and lean meats and wild-caught fish. (Again, in a later blog I will discuss why you should avoid farm-raised fish.) If you need a little more direction on where to start, here is Tosca Reno's meal plan for 1 week to get your started.

In an earlier blog, I talked about sugar in the diet and provided a link to a video entitled Sugar: The Bitter Truth hopefully you had a chance to listen to that and now have a better understanding on why it is important to eliminate this toxic substance from your foods and beverages. And by all means, please check out Tosca Reno’s collection of The Eat Clean Diet books, I recommend them often to my clients and promise you will find them very easy to follow.

Good luck to you as you embark on your clean eating journey.

In Health & Fitness,

Marissa

Get Fit! Be Fit! Stay Fit!