Can you control your weight by "clean eating" alone?
Options
Replies
-
CircleJerkk wrote: »It's easier to eat within calories when you eat "clean" Speaking from personal experience. After a couple weeks with zero sugar those cravings go away. If you balance your meals with a protein, starch, and vegetable you feel pretty satisfied and it lasts awhile. I never binge when I eat this way... but if I have any type of sugar it sets me off and I'll throw the whole kitchen down this gullet.
Sigh. Another pet peeve. You aren’t eating zero sugar if you eat fruits and vegetables and dairy.
14 -
"Can you control your weight by "clean eating" alone?"
My understanding of clean eating is that a person eats foods that are least processed without additives. I can overeat any food. It is harder to overeat broccoli or cabbage than ham or cheese.
I'm not going to say I can't control my weight without counting calories.
I have lost weight without calorie counting or clean eating. It was not consistant. I eventually regained.
Weight management watching my calorie intake no matter the food I eat is easier.0 -
This is such an interesting topic. We are actually watching a worldwide test of this theory in a sense with the new WW Freestyle program. While not technically "clean" it is along those lines. For some it's working and for others it's not. Personally I have to count calories to maintain. For others the "clean eating" path seems to work. I stick with what I have said since losing the weight... Do what works for you.
Food isn't really clean or dirty (I hate that term too) it's just food. Some things seem to be a better choice because they are easier on your system but making certain foods villans doesn't work for many as they have no desire for the lifestyle required to eat "clean". I am one of those. I know certain things are triggers for me so I avoid them. But eating nothing but whole grain, veggies and grilled meat is not sustainable for me.1 -
snowflake954 wrote: »CircleJerkk wrote: »It's easier to eat within calories when you eat "clean" Speaking from personal experience. After a couple weeks with zero sugar those cravings go away. If you balance your meals with a protein, starch, and vegetable you feel pretty satisfied and it lasts awhile. I never binge when I eat this way... but if I have any type of sugar it sets me off and I'll throw the whole kitchen down this gullet.
How, exactly, do you plan to avoid sugar for the rest of your life? Better to learn to control the cravings than to binge as you're describing.
I eat sugar that is naturally occurring, like in fruit. I don't eat packaged sweets. I've been doing it for quite while now, bud. It's not that difficult.7 -
WinoGelato wrote: »CircleJerkk wrote: »It's easier to eat within calories when you eat "clean" Speaking from personal experience. After a couple weeks with zero sugar those cravings go away. If you balance your meals with a protein, starch, and vegetable you feel pretty satisfied and it lasts awhile. I never binge when I eat this way... but if I have any type of sugar it sets me off and I'll throw the whole kitchen down this gullet.
Sigh. Another pet peeve. You aren’t eating zero sugar if you eat fruits and vegetables and dairy.
I guess I should have been more specific. I mean I don't eat cake, cookies, and other sweets3 -
CircleJerkk wrote: »snowflake954 wrote: »CircleJerkk wrote: »It's easier to eat within calories when you eat "clean" Speaking from personal experience. After a couple weeks with zero sugar those cravings go away. If you balance your meals with a protein, starch, and vegetable you feel pretty satisfied and it lasts awhile. I never binge when I eat this way... but if I have any type of sugar it sets me off and I'll throw the whole kitchen down this gullet.
How, exactly, do you plan to avoid sugar for the rest of your life? Better to learn to control the cravings than to binge as you're describing.
I eat sugar that is naturally occurring, like in fruit. I don't eat packaged sweets. I've been doing it for quite while now, bud. It's not that difficult.
So you don't avoid sugar, and you don't eat zero sugar after all. That's what the poster you are responded to was asking about. Avoiding added sugar and eating zero sugar are wildly different.11 -
You can control your weight by eating a specific diet alone, assuming that specific diet causes you to effortlessly eat the correct amount of calories to balance out your energy expenditure.
For some people, making an effort to avoid ultra processed foods will remove the excess calories in their diet and possibly increase their protein and fiber, and weight maintenance may occur. For others, they may easily replace any "processed" calories with nuts and seeds and big bowls of whole grains and avocados and homemade oil based salad dressings etc and still be eating too many cals.
Finding a way of eating that will make it easy to maintain CICO balance for the rest of your life is kind of the Holy Grail of what we're all doing here. I'd say incorporating more whole foods and less ultra processed foods is generally a good strategy for controlling CI, but the whole clean eating movement is just a bunch of arbitrary rules that are more beholden to "health" brands and media than to actual scientifically derived data. IMHO your own trial and error, tracking and data, will get you to your own personal weight maintenance plan far better than trying to fit into a defined diet.2 -
Someone should author a book titled “clean eating diet “ sell a million copies. On the last page put a paragraph saying don’t forget not to eat to much!5
-
CircleJerkk wrote: »snowflake954 wrote: »CircleJerkk wrote: »It's easier to eat within calories when you eat "clean" Speaking from personal experience. After a couple weeks with zero sugar those cravings go away. If you balance your meals with a protein, starch, and vegetable you feel pretty satisfied and it lasts awhile. I never binge when I eat this way... but if I have any type of sugar it sets me off and I'll throw the whole kitchen down this gullet.
How, exactly, do you plan to avoid sugar for the rest of your life? Better to learn to control the cravings than to binge as you're describing.
I eat sugar that is naturally occurring, like in fruit. I don't eat packaged sweets. I've been doing it for quite while now, bud. It's not that difficult.
So you don't avoid sugar, and you don't eat zero sugar after all. That's what the poster you are responded to was asking about. Avoiding added sugar and eating zero sugar are wildly different.
Yes, that's true. I worded it wrong. I don't really think about fruits and vegetables as sugar because they don't have a bad effect on me mentally. No depression, anxiety, or binging. But of course without being more specific nobody would know that. So the only sugar I avoid is white sugar, or those added to foods, or really most processed foods.. since I eat canned coconut milk and I guess that is technically processed. My bad8 -
I read this article as essentially being about overcoming Binge Eating Disorder and losing weight because the author is no longer bingeing and can now make mindful, thoughtful decisions about what she puts in her mouth.
Personally, 'clean eating' caused me to gain weight, essentially because it led to binges rather than preventing them. I worked so hard on being 'good' with what I bought at the grocery store and the lunches I brought into work, only to utterly lose control when someone brought in doughnuts or chocolate. Something about it being restricted made it oh so much more desirable.
Now I try not to restrict what I eat, but keep the dietary emphasis on whole foods in the meals I plan. So if I spend all morning craving a Mars bar, you bet I'm going to buy one on my lunch break, but it'll be a treat after the homemade lentil curry and brown rice I've pulled out of the freezer.
I think that's kind of similar to what this article is talking about. By placing the focus on eating healthy foods while still allowing treats, you remove the "FORBIDDEN! EXCITING!" aspect of junk food, which makes it less desirable and easier to avoid.
And I've just spent 15 minutes thinking about Mars bars and chocolate and can tell you, without a word of a lie, I don't really want one right now
5 -
CircleJerkk wrote: »CircleJerkk wrote: »snowflake954 wrote: »CircleJerkk wrote: »It's easier to eat within calories when you eat "clean" Speaking from personal experience. After a couple weeks with zero sugar those cravings go away. If you balance your meals with a protein, starch, and vegetable you feel pretty satisfied and it lasts awhile. I never binge when I eat this way... but if I have any type of sugar it sets me off and I'll throw the whole kitchen down this gullet.
How, exactly, do you plan to avoid sugar for the rest of your life? Better to learn to control the cravings than to binge as you're describing.
I eat sugar that is naturally occurring, like in fruit. I don't eat packaged sweets. I've been doing it for quite while now, bud. It's not that difficult.
So you don't avoid sugar, and you don't eat zero sugar after all. That's what the poster you are responded to was asking about. Avoiding added sugar and eating zero sugar are wildly different.
Yes, that's true. I worded it wrong. I don't really think about fruits and vegetables as sugar because they don't have a bad effect on me mentally. No depression, anxiety, or binging. But of course without being more specific nobody would know that. So the only sugar I avoid is white sugar, or those added to foods, or really most processed foods.. since I eat canned coconut milk and I guess that is technically processed. My bad
This is precisely why people dislike the term “clean eating” so much. It’s arbitrary and subjective to the individual, essentially rendering it meaningless. Not to mention it’s unrealistic since as you pointed out, all the people who say they eat clean actually do eat some processed foods, and that’s fine. There’s a lot of nutrient dense processed foods, but people who hear these silly definitions and think they have to follow them to the letter might omit things like coconut milk, Greek yogurt, steel cut oats, quinoa, baby carrots, frozen vegetables, etc - because “processed”.
So why not just say, “I eat a primarily Whole Foods diet and limit added sugars because those are difficult for me to moderate”.... instead of saying “I eat clean”. People would understand and would likely not bat an eye at the former explanation.11 -
WinoGelato wrote: »CircleJerkk wrote: »CircleJerkk wrote: »snowflake954 wrote: »CircleJerkk wrote: »It's easier to eat within calories when you eat "clean" Speaking from personal experience. After a couple weeks with zero sugar those cravings go away. If you balance your meals with a protein, starch, and vegetable you feel pretty satisfied and it lasts awhile. I never binge when I eat this way... but if I have any type of sugar it sets me off and I'll throw the whole kitchen down this gullet.
How, exactly, do you plan to avoid sugar for the rest of your life? Better to learn to control the cravings than to binge as you're describing.
I eat sugar that is naturally occurring, like in fruit. I don't eat packaged sweets. I've been doing it for quite while now, bud. It's not that difficult.
So you don't avoid sugar, and you don't eat zero sugar after all. That's what the poster you are responded to was asking about. Avoiding added sugar and eating zero sugar are wildly different.
Yes, that's true. I worded it wrong. I don't really think about fruits and vegetables as sugar because they don't have a bad effect on me mentally. No depression, anxiety, or binging. But of course without being more specific nobody would know that. So the only sugar I avoid is white sugar, or those added to foods, or really most processed foods.. since I eat canned coconut milk and I guess that is technically processed. My bad
This is precisely why people dislike the term “clean eating” so much. It’s arbitrary and subjective to the individual, essentially rendering it meaningless. Not to mention it’s unrealistic since as you pointed out, all the people who say they eat clean actually do eat some processed foods, and that’s fine. There’s a lot of nutrient dense processed foods, but people who hear these silly definitions and think they have to follow them to the letter might omit things like coconut milk, Greek yogurt, steel cut oats, quinoa, baby carrots, frozen vegetables, etc - because “processed”.
So why not just say, “I eat a primarily Whole Foods diet and limit added sugars because those are difficult for me to moderate”.... instead of saying “I eat clean”. People would understand and would likely not bat an eye at the former explanation.
That's why I put clean in quotations. I am responding to the OP, and that is the title of this thread.4 -
CircleJerkk wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »CircleJerkk wrote: »CircleJerkk wrote: »snowflake954 wrote: »CircleJerkk wrote: »It's easier to eat within calories when you eat "clean" Speaking from personal experience. After a couple weeks with zero sugar those cravings go away. If you balance your meals with a protein, starch, and vegetable you feel pretty satisfied and it lasts awhile. I never binge when I eat this way... but if I have any type of sugar it sets me off and I'll throw the whole kitchen down this gullet.
How, exactly, do you plan to avoid sugar for the rest of your life? Better to learn to control the cravings than to binge as you're describing.
I eat sugar that is naturally occurring, like in fruit. I don't eat packaged sweets. I've been doing it for quite while now, bud. It's not that difficult.
So you don't avoid sugar, and you don't eat zero sugar after all. That's what the poster you are responded to was asking about. Avoiding added sugar and eating zero sugar are wildly different.
Yes, that's true. I worded it wrong. I don't really think about fruits and vegetables as sugar because they don't have a bad effect on me mentally. No depression, anxiety, or binging. But of course without being more specific nobody would know that. So the only sugar I avoid is white sugar, or those added to foods, or really most processed foods.. since I eat canned coconut milk and I guess that is technically processed. My bad
This is precisely why people dislike the term “clean eating” so much. It’s arbitrary and subjective to the individual, essentially rendering it meaningless. Not to mention it’s unrealistic since as you pointed out, all the people who say they eat clean actually do eat some processed foods, and that’s fine. There’s a lot of nutrient dense processed foods, but people who hear these silly definitions and think they have to follow them to the letter might omit things like coconut milk, Greek yogurt, steel cut oats, quinoa, baby carrots, frozen vegetables, etc - because “processed”.
So why not just say, “I eat a primarily Whole Foods diet and limit added sugars because those are difficult for me to moderate”.... instead of saying “I eat clean”. People would understand and would likely not bat an eye at the former explanation.
That's why I put clean in quotations. I am responding to the OP, and that is the title of this thread.
Yes but you also responded as if what works for you, will work for everyone: It's easier to eat within calories when you eat "clean". Speaking from personal experience. After a couple weeks with zero sugar those cravings go away. If you balance your meals with a protein, starch, and vegetable you feel pretty satisfied and it lasts awhile.
That may work for you, but many people have found the opposite. That heavily restricting things actually is what causes cravings and potential binges. And for me, eating protein, starch, vegetable is how I eat most meals, but that doesn't mean I don't still enjoy eating something sweet after dinner.7 -
I didn't read the article, but with regards to the general theme of controlling weight without counting calories, I've been doing that for quite a few years now. The bulk of my diet is lean protein, fruits and vegetables and "whole" foods. For me, it's next to impossible to over eat those things. I still indulge on a treat here and there or some calorie dense foods, but I never have to stress or worry about it.1
-
I didn't read the article, but with regards to the general theme of controlling weight without counting calories, I've been doing that for quite a few years now. The bulk of my diet is lean protein, fruits and vegetables and "whole" foods. For me, it's next to impossible to over eat those things. I still indulge on a treat here and there or some calorie dense foods, but I never have to stress or worry about it.
Could I just ask you how many calories (about) you eat in a day? This works for someone who can eat 2500 calories and up a day. A small woman with 1400 or less calories a day can't do this.1 -
WinoGelato wrote: »CircleJerkk wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »CircleJerkk wrote: »CircleJerkk wrote: »snowflake954 wrote: »CircleJerkk wrote: »It's easier to eat within calories when you eat "clean" Speaking from personal experience. After a couple weeks with zero sugar those cravings go away. If you balance your meals with a protein, starch, and vegetable you feel pretty satisfied and it lasts awhile. I never binge when I eat this way... but if I have any type of sugar it sets me off and I'll throw the whole kitchen down this gullet.
How, exactly, do you plan to avoid sugar for the rest of your life? Better to learn to control the cravings than to binge as you're describing.
I eat sugar that is naturally occurring, like in fruit. I don't eat packaged sweets. I've been doing it for quite while now, bud. It's not that difficult.
So you don't avoid sugar, and you don't eat zero sugar after all. That's what the poster you are responded to was asking about. Avoiding added sugar and eating zero sugar are wildly different.
Yes, that's true. I worded it wrong. I don't really think about fruits and vegetables as sugar because they don't have a bad effect on me mentally. No depression, anxiety, or binging. But of course without being more specific nobody would know that. So the only sugar I avoid is white sugar, or those added to foods, or really most processed foods.. since I eat canned coconut milk and I guess that is technically processed. My bad
This is precisely why people dislike the term “clean eating” so much. It’s arbitrary and subjective to the individual, essentially rendering it meaningless. Not to mention it’s unrealistic since as you pointed out, all the people who say they eat clean actually do eat some processed foods, and that’s fine. There’s a lot of nutrient dense processed foods, but people who hear these silly definitions and think they have to follow them to the letter might omit things like coconut milk, Greek yogurt, steel cut oats, quinoa, baby carrots, frozen vegetables, etc - because “processed”.
So why not just say, “I eat a primarily Whole Foods diet and limit added sugars because those are difficult for me to moderate”.... instead of saying “I eat clean”. People would understand and would likely not bat an eye at the former explanation.
That's why I put clean in quotations. I am responding to the OP, and that is the title of this thread.
Yes but you also responded as if what works for you, will work for everyone: It's easier to eat within calories when you eat "clean". Speaking from personal experience. After a couple weeks with zero sugar those cravings go away. If you balance your meals with a protein, starch, and vegetable you feel pretty satisfied and it lasts awhile.
That may work for you, but many people have found the opposite. That heavily restricting things actually is what causes cravings and potential binges. And for me, eating protein, starch, vegetable is how I eat most meals, but that doesn't mean I don't still enjoy eating something sweet after dinner.
Indeed, the author of the article seems to be one of those people who reacted poorly to heavily restricting things. She says it caused her to develop a bingeing issue, and that what worked for her was eating whatever she wanted in moderation but also (of course) paying attention to nutrition and calories (not counting), reading labels, and eating according to a schedule and plan that worked for her (3 regular meals and a snack, lots of vegetables, some lower cal but satisfying to her go-tos as snacks).
That's why I find it odd that it was presented by OP as about clean eating.2 -
Food is clean if it is prepared in sanitary conditions. Weight loss is 99% a matter of CICO. What people call clean eating is (usually) really orthorexia disguised as a healthy diet.6
-
Probably beating a dead horse but most people who control their weight with "clean eating" alone, in reality, just have a limited appetite.
Go to the "gaining weight" subforum and find a post from someone who is underweight and looking to gain weight. They usually mention that they just don't like to eat very much or can't eat much before feeling full.2 -
cbohling1987 wrote: »Probably beating a dead horse but most people who control their weight with "clean eating" alone, in reality, just have a limited appetite.
Go to the "gaining weight" subforum and find a post from someone who is underweight and looking to gain weight. They usually mention that they just don't like to eat very much or can't eat much before feeling full.
Lol you've never seen me at a buffet, or a dinner out. I've never been anywhere close to underweight and was once a decent amount overweight. If left to my own devices, eating a highly palatable, processed, calorie dense diet, I'll pack on the pounds in no time if no other controls are put in place.1 -
My friend who controls her weight by doing what she describes as "clean eating" will never be found on this web site because she doesn't feel she needs it. I, as stated, am a calorie counter as are most MFPers. Otherwise, why would you use the site?
So we are rather self-selected CICOs.
And, it seems to be working fine for me!4
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 391.6K Introduce Yourself
- 43.5K Getting Started
- 259.7K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.6K Food and Nutrition
- 47.3K Recipes
- 232.3K Fitness and Exercise
- 393 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.4K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 152.7K Motivation and Support
- 7.8K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.3K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.3K MyFitnessPal Information
- 23 News and Announcements
- 937 Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.3K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions