Clean Eating

I'm going to qualify this first - if today's entry is full of typos, it's because I majorly, super crazy badly slammed my left middle finger in my cabinet at work. You know that kind of pain that takes your breath away and you actually have to hunch over and hold the offending area, all the while grimacing with tears in your eyes? That was me this morning. It took every ounce of strength in my being to not scream out a bunch of expletives - I'm sure my boss would have loved that. My finger hurt all day and it hurts to type, but because I know you're all waiting with bated breath for my next entry, here I am.

As part of my focus on a healthier lifestyle, I took a close look at what I was eating - or rather, what I wasn't eating. As I'd mentioned earlier in this blog, I would basically starve myself to keep my weight down - not good, as what I didn't know was that I was killing my metabolism. My eating improved when I started focussing on my health about three years ago but it still wasn't quite where I wanted to be. Enter clean eating!

I had heard about the clean eating concept but decided to investigate it further. I bought Tosca Reno's "Eat Clean Diet" and realized all the things I wasn't doing - focussing on unprocessed, fresh food and eating small, balanced meals through out the day. For those of you who don't know who Tosca Reno is, she looked like this before:



And here she is after clean eating:



This woman is 50 years old!! Sign me up!! Generally, the clean eating principles are:

1. Eat 5 or 6 small meals every day
2. Eat every 2 to 3 hours
3. Combine lean protein and complex carbs at each meal
4. Drink at least 2L of water each day
5. Never miss a meal, especially breakfast
6. Avoid all over processed, refined foods, especially white flour and sugar
7. Avoid saturated and trans fats
8. Avoid sugar loaded colas and juices
9. Consume adequate healthy fats each day
10. Avoid alcohol - another form of sugar
11. Avoid all calories dense foods that contain little to no nutritional value
12. Depend on fresh fruits and veggies for fibre, vitamines and enzymes
13. Stick to proper portion sizes - avoid super sizing

When I first read this I thought, this is it? It just makes too much sense! I've heard that that losing or maintaining a healthy weight is 80% nutrition, 10% exercise and 10% genetics and that old saying "you are what you eat" really is true. I've tried to incorporate the clean eating lifestyle and while I'm not definitely perfect (I love salty snacks and I do love me some McDonalds - my dirty little secret), I'm definitely a lot better than I used to be. And if I eating clean means I'll be able to rock a red bikini like Tosca one day, I'm in!