Eating Clean

Eating Clean

  • Total voters
    1,138
T

toastythemosty

Cathlete
Lets stay focused on eating clean! NO CHEATING HERE!!! Can you do it??? Lets see how tough you are!! Make a commitment and stick with it!
I will eat clean for.....
 
I voted for 6 days out of the week because I do have to treat myself and I like to do so when I am with my family like after church. I never go overboard though as I like to stay in control.

Charlotte~~
 
I do real good monday thru thursday, and when I do eat outside my so called clean eating, its not all that bad.... here lately I don't gain extra weight so I say at least 4 to 5 days of clean eating.... Rhonda
 
I did not vote as there is no clear pattern to my eating.

I am new to the concept of "clean eating" and I try to do what I can but I KNOW I "cheat" quite often.

I try to eat as clean as I can all day long during the week but I usually cheat come dinner time and often on the weekends because if I am out and about I will eat on the run and you know how that goes! ;)

For the times I am able to eat well, I am happy and this is enough for me....If I cheat, so be it. I am quite relaxed about it.

After the baby is born and I see what kind of weight I need to lose, I may make the decision to get more serious about it, but for now...I am very happy with my eating habits. I have definately made improvements and that is a good thing no matter what!:)

Have a great work out!

~Wendy~

I smoked my last cigarette on March 17, 2004 at 10:00 pm!

http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?WENDYMIN

http://lilypie.com/days/050519/1/0/1/-5/.png[/img][/url]
 
OK, Charlotte. I've committed for today. I've got to take it one day at time. I do eat very well all week M-F, but my portions I think are too large. So far today, I've had 5 egg whites and 2 morning star breakfast patties. For lunch I brought, a Boca burger, steamed mixed vegetables, strawberries and one matzo. My snack is an apple. I don’t have dinner planned just yet.
Susan C.M.
Nothing should be jiggling, unless it's jiggling off. - Cathe in HSC
 
Charlotte, I don't mean to be a party pooper, but my understanding of "clean" is a continuum. I mean some things are cleaner than others, but not that many things are all black or white. My goal is to eat as clean as I can. But it's more compicated than that. A potato may be clean, but it's too high on the GI for me to eat. Butter is clean, but has too much fat to fit into my eating plan. It's always a work-in-progress; trying to determine what works best for me and what makes me feel my best. It's taken me years to learn all about food and it's impact on my moods and health, and my eating plan keeps evolving.

Okay, nuff said. Sorry to be such a party pooper.
 
Nancy- I hear ya, but I don't mean to take this to extremes. Eating clean for me, might not be "clean" for someone else. I like to eat green beans from a can, some others feel this is not clean eating and only eat fresh green beans...something I can't find all the time at the local grocery store. LOL I just try to use common sense and not be ridiculous at the same time. I love butter on my bread, but I prefer to eat a tater in the morning. ;-)

Charlotte~~
 
There is a very long list of "clean" foods on another fitness website (for professionals) and neither butter or potatoes are on it.
Susan C.M.
Nothing should be jiggling, unless it's jiggling off. - Cathe in HSC
 
Basically, eliminating pizza, donuts, beer and ice cream is a good way to start off with eating clean. Again, I am not trying to be like the professionals here and never ever having a slice of bread with butter on it or a potatoe once in awhile. Besides, potatoes are not that bad for anyone...better than pizza, etc.
Charlotte~~
 
Ooooh....eliminating pizza....that's a tough one. I can do ok w/out the other stuff but I have a life long love affair for pizza. I'm trying to make it more healthy by just getting cheese and maybe some veggies but Pizza Day is going to have to be my only "un-clean" day!

Angie
 
The longer I eat 'clean' the less I want to 'cheat.' I voted for 6 days a week because I love the way I eat. I love eating 5 or 6 times a day and having colorful meals without any nagging doubt that what I'm eating will wind up making my butt 'fluffy'! :) When I want something sweet now, I eat a tablespoon of natural peanut butter or have a banana or a kiwi. I've never told myself that I can't have something but I find that I don't really desire or crave things that aren't good for me when they are not forbidden. I even made it through TTOM without chocolate!

That being said, there is nothing wrong with eating your favorite foods IN MODERATION. And I agree that clean eating is a continuum rather than a black or white definition. There's a difference betwen eating clean for a professional bodybuilder or fitness competitor and eating clean for the non-professional. Professionals have a very regimented eating pattern that is geared toward preparation for a specific event, rather than sticking to that particular pattern throughout the year. I think if the everyday exerciser tries to strictly adhere to a professional's standard of 'clean' eating, they are setting themselves up for unnecessary deprivation and ultimate failure.

So I could even say I could commit to eating perfectly 'clean' for a month, but those foods that I don't miss anymore would magically become the most important thing in the world. And at the end of that month, you would find me curled up on the floor, trying to breath while chewing on 15 Reese's Peanut Butter Cups at once! I prefer to say I can eat any food I want and then choose not to eat that food right now.

Sorry to be so long-winded. :)


Edited to add:
Charlotte- I LOVE green beans straight from the can!
 
This thread should become a weekly sticky just to keep reminding everyone that you are what you eat. And by that I'm mainly talking about the junk food and processed/calorie laden/fat laden/sodium containing convienence foods people eat.

Charlotte...any green bean is better than none at all. Just be sure to rinse those canned beans to remove as much of the sodium as possible before you cook them. When I use canned beans or corn I drain/rinse well and then add chicken or veg. stock to give them some flavor. There have been studies on the nutritional values of canned veg. vs frozen and it seems they are affected about the same because prefreezing involves some cooking process also...so either way you are going to sacrifice some nutrients. But for those of us who live in cold climates and do not have ready access to fresh vegetables all year, we have to eat frozen or canned vegetables or we'd live on potatoes and onions all winter long! :p

And we don't have to take the 'clean foods' concept to the extreme unless you are a bodybuilder in training. Most people can live perfectly healthy lives eating butter and baked potatoes as long as they exercise and are eating a well-balanced diet and that means getting your FIVE-A-DAY of fruits and vegetables, meeting protein and calcium needs and NOT eating junk. Just don't eat regular potatoes everyday, or bread at every meal.

The problem's start when we eat too large of portion's, eat too much processed food that is high in fat/sugar/calories and low in nutrition.

I just read this in Fitness last night:

"A jelly doughnut contains 289 calories. A 135 pound woman would have to run for 29 minutes at a 10-minute-mile pace to burn them off. Consider whether you're willing to pay nearly a half hour of penance for about a minute of pleasure."

Now THAT is food for thought! I work out to stay in shape so I can be healthier and hopefully live a long and productive life...at the very least I am able to play sports with my kids and enjoy life to it's fullest because I am not limited by health issues caused by what I eat. I don't want to have to work out extra sessions just to burn off doughnuts and cookies.

Think about what you are putting in your mouth. Our bodies need fuel.
 
That's it exactly, LunaCat. The more you practice something the easier it is to make it habit. Eating 'clean' is as simple as just plain cutting out the crap, and once a person starts to practice that, they begin to lose those sugar/salt cravings and their tastes change. But people think it's too hard to eat a healthy diet...it's easier to grab that drive-thru burger or run into the gas station for chips and pop and call it a snack.

You need to help yourself by keeping healthy snacks at the ready. When you get home from the grocery with those fruits and vegetables, immediately wash them and cut/slice and put into containers so when you have that sugar craving you can grab a handful of honeydew or an apple, not a candy bar or cookies. When I get a craving for something salty I grab a handful of mixed nuts and olives. I love olives and there are so many different ones out there.

Eating should be pleasureable. Eating healthy foods makes you feel good and feel good about yourself.
 
What's YOUR definition of clean?

I am going to play the devil's advocate. Please forgive my rambling musings. :) Sorry to be a wind bag!

Is your diet REALLY clean?

As I understand it, clean is food in it's most natural state. That means minimal processing and additives. Not all foods can be enjoyed that way and require processing to be palatable. Olives are cleaner than olive oil until they are turned into the salty guys I eat. Have you ever tried eating an unprocessed olive. They are nasty! :) Was your olive oil chemically or heat processed or expeller or cold pressed? Which do you use?

Butter isn't clean because it's a component of whole milk. Whole milk has all that fat, so is it less clean than the more processed skim milk? No, because fat is not unclean. Fat is natural and desirable, even saturated fat and hence, clean. If you drink milk in a clean diet, it should be unpasteurized and unhomogenized although you may get a bacterial infection from your separated milk. Trans fats are dirty. I don't consider any fat bad, except trans fats. I don't drink cow's milk because I am not a baby cow but I do use cheese, sour cream and butter from organically fed cows with no hormones or antibiotics allowed. Not clean per se, but cleaner than regular dairy to my mind. And very tasty with good qualities to circimvent over eating, texturree, mouth feel, satiety.
My clean diet has to have flavor even if it dirties t up a bit. Leaner cuts of meat are the better choice overall but they aren't cleaner by definition. Heck uncured bacon would beat cured bacon and vegetarian bacon, both processed foods. Is a conventionally grown apple, bathed in pesticides and waxed for preservation more clean than organic apple sauce?

My diet is not perfectly clean but it's at least 90% clean. Sometimes 95! I don't eat farmed fish or factory farmed meat and poultry. Fish has to be sustainable too. I prefer organics but at one point I was so obsessed about it I shopped daily and it became a burden. Google orthorexia. I can be a disordered eater so I have to cut myself slack lest I decide just to quit eating altogether. I have to keep the avowed carnivores in my family happy too. Although the husband tells me it's okay to buy conventioally raised food. It's cheaper and his wallet trumps his health. But not mine. In spite of 25% fat and 10% sat fat in my diet, I think it comes up clean because of my love of organics but I also trust my dear old liver to help me out when I can't get to the organics store and have to buy conventional. I also think when we think clean we think more than merely unprocessed. What do you think?

But a potato? Will no one love the lowly Potato. It's St. Paddy's day for heaven's sake! :)

I don't worry much about the glycemics of potatoes since I eat them with protein and fat, which reduces the glycemic effect.

Bobbi http://www.handykult.de/plaudersmilies.de/chicken.gif "Chick's rule!"

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? - Mary Oliver
 
RE: What's YOUR definition of clean?

Bobbi...being a dairy scientist I have to clarify...

Pasteurization is used to kill any bacterial organisms that may be present in milk. Homogenization is used to break up the milk fat globules so that when you pour a glass of milk the fat doesn't rise to the top. For those of you who have never seen milk in its raw state, you now just got a lesson in dairy product processing 101.


AND...I love sweet potatoes. Roast those tubers in the oven with olive oil, salt, pepper, and it's practically sinful. And I mean real sweet potatoes, not those mushy has been's in the can.
 
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

How am I supposed to eat clean when someone just dropped me off a DONUT?????

Must...... resist.......
 
RE: What's YOUR definition of clean?

I like that, dairy product processing 101. You're a dairy scientist? How cool. :) My dad always put up his nose at the idea of drinking skim milk. You slopped the pigs with it once the cream was skimmed off for butter. That was back when everything was organic. I was studying the history of pesticides recently, to give you an idea of how I don't obsess about the cleanliness of my diet. I love sweet potatoes too but have a special place in my heart for the white ones. Used to dig them up in the garden with, here comes dear old dad again. He used to rinse them, slice them, salt them and eat them. I ate a raw potatoe in front of my father in law many years ago and he said, "What are you, a cannibal?" I haven't figured that out yet. :) I make mashers once a week. And get this, I bought a small order of MacDonald's French fries in a PMSy thing I had going on last week and I felt sick all night. I make fries for the kids every now and again but too often. It costs too much money to use expeller pressed canola to deep fry potatoes. And it looks too impure after a single deep frying. I think I'm going to have a sweet potatoe with lunch. Roasted as you suggested. Mmmm!

Bobbi http://www.handykult.de/plaudersmilies.de/chicken.gif "Chick's rule!"

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? - Mary Oliver
 
Don't drop it on the floor!

That's not being helpful and supportive, is it? Put the donut down, Shelley! Friends don't let friends dunk donuts. Look, around. Is there anyone you don't like nearby?. Give her the donut. Save yourself by saving yourself for the one indulgance you can't not eat. You are going to be faced with it and then you'll be haunted by the donut! If that IS the donut, enjoy!
Bobbi http://www.handykult.de/plaudersmilies.de/chicken.gif "Chick's rule!"

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? - Mary Oliver
 
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