Monday, January 23, 2012

What's the Deal with Clean Eating???? (aka The Not So Secret Secret)

For the MOST part we eat clean at my house.  Note that I said :FOR THE MOST PART...so don't call me out when you see me stuffing a juicy burger in my face.  Ha! Yes, people have called me out when they have seen me eating, gasp, junk food!  Everything in moderation is what I say. Our day to day eating is pretty much 'clean eating', but we will celebrate too. I actually celebrated from Thanksgiving until January 3rd by filling my body with anything that was offered, many trips to Starbucks, and a nightly martini.  It was fun, but my belly, intestines, skin, and mood paid for it too.
What is clean eating????  I could be totally wrong, but I will tell you what it means to me:
     To me, clean eating is eating as close to nature as possible. Fresh fruits and veggies, fresh meats, non-processed foods, very little fats, and eating as much made from scratch as possible. If I cannot pronounce an ingredient, we try our best to avoid it.  This is not to say that we NEVER eat Blue Bell Ice Cream or Taco Cabana, just not regularly.  I do not use all organic foods either, but eat organically where we can afford it. Honestly, we cannot afford the $7.99 chicken at whole foods to feed 5 very hungry people, but we do the best we can. A huge part of this is growing vegetables in my small garden and eating what I am growing each season.
     Clean eating did not happen overnight for us.  It was a process that happened naturally and took place over a few years. It started simply with just trying to cook everything from scratch. Then it was baby steps: replacing white pasta with whole wheat pasta, switching from white potatoes to sweet potatoes or mashed cauliflower, adding almond milk slowly to our diet, making air popped popcorn instead microwaved, using olive and coconut oils for cooking, slowly eliminating sugar from my morning coffee.
   I started to get to a point where I was getting very frustrated. I did strength training, cardio, and yoga regularly and I was eating what I thought was a good diet, but I was not seeing any results. How irritating it was to work SO hard and not see any changes. How frustrating it was to run a race and have stomach cramps and no energy at the end. How disappointing to try to strength train, but never see any muscle tone. 
     I was ready to give up and just go back to our old way of eating, but instead I walked up to the intimidating, strong, and beautiful fitness competitors, elite athletes,  and fitness models at the gym and asked them for advice.So picture the awkward and dorky me walking up to these fitness goddesses "Uh...Um...I noticed you are in great shape and stuff...uh...so, what are you eating?" (insert a dork-tastic voice).   I heard the same thing over and over :

1) The way you eat is 80% related to your physical performance, endurance, and they way your body looks.
2) I was not eating enough!!! (Stunned silent at this one)
3) Eat more fats (what the????)
  I took what they said to heart and made some bigger changes. I cut out all alcohol. I cut out refined sugars. I replaced anything white (flour, rice, pasta, bread) with brown and whole. I added healthy fats in the forms of avocado, almonds, walnuts, olive oil, salmon,  and soy and almond milk.  (And NO...soy milk will not give your sons BOOBS). I started cooking most of our foods using recipes from Clean Eating Mag. I also ate more! I ate MUCH more!
     I did not change my workout routine, but friends starting commenting within weeks about how more lean and toned I looked. They kept asking me what my secret was and if I was taking fat burners (NO WAY WILL THOSE EVER ENTER MY BODY).  No secrets, just clean eating, no alcohol, and avoiding refined sugars and flours.  (Except, you know, the way I ate everything over the holidays). An added bonus was what clean eating has done for my kids. They are sleeping well, eating well, and doing better in school. I have seen a huge turn around in their attention spans and the teachers have even commented on the improvement.
   I'm not going to lie to you.  This is hard and takes discipline, but I think that making it a slow process and allowing myself some "bad foods" sometimes is what worked for me. 

This is how I started our clean eating journey: Before I shop I plan a 2 week menu using Clean Eating Magazine and make my list from there. When I come home from grocery shopping, I wash, chop, and prep all of my fruits and veggies. It is a lot of work, but it is so much easier just to be able to grab a handful of veggies and throw them into my eggs in the morning or throw some chopped fruit into my kids lunchboxes.

 Although I am a photographer  , you will probably see a lot of iPhone pics on here. I had to take this one from my Instagram account:




I have gotten requests to show what I eat in a day, so I will get to that in the next blog post.
Is there any interest in seeing an example of my menu and grocery list?

Until the next post, THANK YOU so much for all of the kind words and encouragement. YOU will all motivate me and keep me in check. I hope that in return, you can take away a little something from this blog.

15 comments:

  1. yes! I want to see your menu/list! I do the same thing using Cooking Light and I am on my now to check out Clean Eating as I am suppose to be doing my menu/list now!! I LOVE this!! (said like the little girl in UP when she says "I've got something' to Show ya!")
    Jessica R

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  2. Loving this Steph...we are trying to make small changes (just recently changed to 100% maple syrup from the regular junk out there). I would love to see your menu/grocery list...I have allergies, food sensitivities, sensory issues and extreme pickiness (with the kids). Daughter extreme picky eater and son will eat most anything (not a big meat fan, but is also anaphylactic to nuts). Loving your blog.

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  3. Thanks for posting this. I get the healthy eating stuff, shockingly I have done it for years. But I am missing the whole exercise thing, and although I promote activity in my kids, I have gotten very lazy myself and don't know how to shake it off:(

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  4. Prepping the fruits and veggies is genius! I need more tupperware :) My only problem is that I am limited on my vitamin K. If its green, I'm not supposed to eat it. Clean eating is exactly what my liver needs but I've honestly been so intimidated by it. So whats cooking?

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  5. Bring on the meal plans and shopping lists! Headed out now and that is the area I particularly struggle with ... tehn when I get home and dont have a plan we revert back to the old stand bys fish sticks and boxed mac and cheese ... I do the best I can to make those meals few and far between or for when mommy is not home ... but the better prepared I am the less likely they will occur. Love you and your new blog!

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  6. Stephanie... So when you only shop twice a month how long do your veggies stay fresh when they are pre-cut? I love the idea of cutting them all up but am concerned with the veggies getting slippery or mushy. Any secrets?

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    1. Kinmberly, my reply is below...I'm still learning how to reply on blogger...sorry if you are just seeing this.

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  7. Thanks for all of the comments. So glad this is being so well received. I plan on posting my fitness routines, workouts to do at home, recipes, lists, etc...as the weeks progress.
    The only veggies I seem to have trouble with are cucumbers and mushrooms. I have not found the secret to those yet. I have found that if I plan to use the most perishable veggies in the beginning and save the heartier ones for later (root vegetables, cabbage, etc) then I do not have to return to the store very often. If I do notice that something is starting to become wilted, I plan to use it right away...even if it means cooking the meal and then freezing it for the next week. If I have excess vegetables, I put them all out with nuts, a protein, and a cheese and have a "salad bar" night for dinner. I grow a lot of my own vegetables, so those stay outside in the garden until I am ready to use them. I normally do not have too much trouble with things going bad because between using them for breakfast, snacks, and dinner we usually use them all up. Thanks for all of the great questions! Keep them coming!

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  8. Great stuff Stephanie. So glad you stared this. I know that placement in the fridge and the.types of containers your fruits and veggies are stored in helps with freshness also. I prep mine ahead of time as well. I cant remember all the specifics because I usually eat mine before they go bad but for instance, I know strawberries and grapes do better when stored in ventilated bags or containers as opposed to sealed. Also using your hands to tear lettuce instead of cutting it with a knife will keep it from turning too quickly.

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  9. Your blog is awesome! I'm so glad you decided to start it. I'm already feeling motivated for the first time in a LONG time to make changes. I love how realistic you are with the changes you've made - it makes it feel possible to make those changes too w/o getting too down on myself if I don't do everything perfectly. I'm definitely going to follow your blog & tell others about it as well.

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    1. Thank you Liz! Waking up to this comment made my day!

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  10. Great reading & inspiration! Thanks! Can't wait to read about your recipes, lists & etc. Going to also check out the Clean Eating Mag! My wife, no surprise probably, usually cooks the dinners here. I used to cook all the time! Well, Casey recently had surgery(nothing life threatening-but serious enough & she is healing just fine). So, that left me with cooking/prepping every meal. I do love cooking breakfast for my kids! With having to cook now, it reminded I love to do it! But I don't have a range of meals. We're not fish eaters & I'm not fond of veggies, but eat them when my daughter asks me to. A lot of chicken in the diet. Love to grill. You had a tweet about chicken&dumpling recipe, hope it worked out great, would love to try that. Actually anything would be great! Thanks for posting and can't wait to read more!

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    1. Thanks Paul! I promise to get some recipes up here soon. So glad you stopped by!

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  11. This blog is very exciting to me. I need more motivation. It is so hard just like you said by being busy with the kids, house etc. I would love to run, but not sure I'm cut out for it. By reading your story I feel like I might be able to do it someday. And Paul, above, is my cousin, and he shared this link on his blog. Thanks.

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