The Dirty Facts About Eating Clean
New here? You may want to subscribe to Trying Fitness by Email. Here are a few posts to get you started:
After years of being a couch potato, I finally developed a good exercise habit that I’m proud of. It was a struggle because I didn’t see anything fun about exercising. My next hurdle is finding the discipline to eat clean. Out of all diets to follow, I feel eating clean makes sense for me. However, getting my diet right continues to be a constant struggle. Diet will make or break your efforts. Below are my struggles with eating clean.
What is Eating Clean?
Eating clean is all about eating healthy foods that include lean meats, fruits, vegetables, complex carbohydrates, etc. Basically you shouldn’t be getting your food from a drive-thru window and should be avoiding foods that are over-processed, high in fat, sugar, and salt. It also means eating 5 or 6 small meals per day and eating every 2 to 3 hours.
Fact 1: Eating 5 to 6 Meals a Day Can Be a Hassle
I love food which is why it’s a struggle to maintain a healthy weight. However, I’m not used to eating smaller meals throughout the day. I’ve always been a breakfast, lunch, dinner person - sometimes skipping breakfast because I’m busy.
Fact 2: Cooking Every Day Kinda Sucks
Eating clean means no fast-food convenience and if you’re super busy in your daily life (which a majority of people are) you’ll be spending a lot of time preparing your 5 to 6 meals for each day. Whether you do it every morning, every evening, or once for the entire week, that is time that has to be found.
Fact 3: It Can Take the Fun Out of Dining Out
I’m invited out to eat all the time. Eating clean means ordering meals that are lower in fat and calories or requesting they are made that way. Your family & friends may be dining on their fried appetizers and creamy sauce covered pasta while you’re squeezing lemon on your salad.
Fact 4: Avoiding Sugar and Flour - Ugh!
Sugar and bread are two of my biggest bad food habits. Breaking myself of those two will take tremendous amounts of effort on my part. Sugar and bread are everywhere. I think out of the entire diet this will be the hardest part.
My Plan of Attack
Obviously eating clean isn’t easy or else everyone would do it. I am going to have to develop the habit of eating this way just like I developed a good exercise habit. It will definitely be a mental challenge as well. Now when I eat food I need to ask myself if it will benefit or harm. Here are some things I plan to do:
- Pick out “clean” recipes before food shopping
- Shop for the entire week
- Organize my tupperware to store pre-made meals in the fridge
- Cheat on Saturdays to satisfy cravings
del.icio.us
| Digg it
| Onlywire
| StumbleUpon
| 
Print This Post
Related Posts
- Eat-Clean Diet Book Review
- About
- Lose Fat Effectively
- Changing To A Raw Food Diet
- Drunkorexia Eating Disorder
Discounted Supplements and Strength Training Equipment
- December 13th
for me, it was/is very gradual. a few years ago i started eating desserts only 2-3 times a week. in july, i decided not to eat any dessert-type foods (cookies, chocolate, ice cream, cakes, that kind of stuff) until thanksgiving. had my fill of the stuff on thanksgiving and decided not to eat any more desserts until x-mas. then a few weeks later i became curious: what would it be like not to have ANY sugar? so i cut white, brown, golden, all that kind of sugar out. what a surprise. this is SUCH a drug. right now i’m only sweetening with fruit, honey and maple syrup. it feels really good.
i totally hear you on the 5-6 meals. part of the problem for me is that i have a family and they don’t want to eat like that. also, at least once a day i want to feel nice and full. hopefully i’ll be able to change that at some point, too.
Isabella - I agree that sugar is a drug - which is why it’s so difficult for me to kick. Looking forward to it though. Thanks for your input!
so … i’m curious … how are you coming along with this?
i’ve moved on to not even sweetening my tea/coffee anymore. that’s good. on the somewhat humourous but not-so-successful side, the other day i thought, hey, let’s bake without sugar! came up with this fabulous recipe for molasses-maple syrup shortbread - and promptly dug into the cookie dough like crazy. ooops! no more cookie baking for me, i guess - not for a while at least.
Eating healthy is like training to keep fit. You would not do push ups on one arm all day every week!
Eating healthy is the same, vary what you eat, small amounts throughout the day.
If you are training to keep fit, vary the training as much as possible, not too much at once and every day.
simple really.
http://www.runinthesun.com
[...] Eartha at Trying Fitness likes the idea of eating clean, but admits it can sometimes be a hassle. One of her examples: Fact 2: Cooking Every Day Kinda Sucks Eating clean means no fast-food convenience and if you’re super busy in your daily life (which a majority of people are) you’ll be spending a lot of time preparing your 5 to 6 meals for each day. Whether you do it every morning, every evening, or once for the entire week, that is time that has to be found. [...]
it is a pain in the arse huh? worth it? completely but hard none the less.
my husband always starts his sunday nights with:
i should eat better but it’s such an effort and…
(thats where I tune out. after years of offering to HELP :))
MizFit