If 'eating clean' is so easy for you, how did you get fat?
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I make pizza at home using organic and home grown ingredients which is not all that difficult. There is nothing to say that pizza is bad or can't be clean! Honestly, folks love to come up with excuses for not eating clean but that's up to them.
You are correct that pizza is not bad. But, pizza can't be clean because the crust is made from flour, which is processed. You may make something resembling pizza and call it pizza, but it's not really pizza if there is no crust.
I think we need to differentiate between " processed food " and processed food ". Grinding whole grains into whole flour is not the same " process " as grinding grains into flour, bleaching it white and with that getting rid of all nutrients and then adding fake nutrients and other chemicals to allow for longer shelf life. So, yes one can make pizza that is " clean " from flour that was only ground ( which I do not consider processed food, just like I don't consider washing strawberries or peeling an apple as " processed " ) and nothing else. The drawback is that the crust is a bit denser and heavier, plus the flour has a tendency to go rancid after a few month. Run-of-the-mill flour is processed in ways so that would not happen.
I've always heard clean food described as being as close to natural state as possible. Some don't consider any grains clean because they must be threshed. I think that's quite a stretch since other foods for which the outer shell or coating is removed are considered clean (nuts, meat, some fruits and vegetables). But threshing and then grinding is getting pretty far from the natural state.
But IMO the biggest reason ground grains are not clean is that grinding to flour changes the nutritional content. Ground grains quickly lose some of their nutrients to oxidation. I suppose one could make an argument for grains used immediately after grinding being clean.
So much is open to interpretation, but really if you are using flour and cured meats and cheese on a pizza, I doubt you'll find many that would consider that clean. Tasty, but not clean.
Curing is one of the oldest forms of preserving meats. You can cure meats yourself without a lot of the gunk of commercially cured meats. I'm thinking some just are grasping at straws with their definition of 'clean' essentially using their definition to eliminate certain foods. If they consider flour unclean because of threshing then they should also consider many other whole foods unclean due to the method of acquisition.0 -
I make pizza at home using organic and home grown ingredients which is not all that difficult. There is nothing to say that pizza is bad or can't be clean! Honestly, folks love to come up with excuses for not eating clean but that's up to them.
You are correct that pizza is not bad. But, pizza can't be clean because the crust is made from flour, which is processed. You may make something resembling pizza and call it pizza, but it's not really pizza if there is no crust.
I think we need to differentiate between " processed food " and processed food ". Grinding whole grains into whole flour is not the same " process " as grinding grains into flour, bleaching it white and with that getting rid of all nutrients and then adding fake nutrients and other chemicals to allow for longer shelf life. So, yes one can make pizza that is " clean " from flour that was only ground ( which I do not consider processed food, just like I don't consider washing strawberries or peeling an apple as " processed " ) and nothing else. The drawback is that the crust is a bit denser and heavier, plus the flour has a tendency to go rancid after a few month. Run-of-the-mill flour is processed in ways so that would not happen.
I've always heard clean food described as being as close to natural state as possible. Some don't consider any grains clean because they must be threshed. I think that's quite a stretch since other foods for which the outer shell or coating is removed are considered clean (nuts, meat, some fruits and vegetables). But threshing and then grinding is getting pretty far from the natural state.
But IMO the biggest reason ground grains are not clean is that grinding to flour changes the nutritional content. Ground grains quickly lose some of their nutrients to oxidation. I suppose one could make an argument for grains used immediately after grinding being clean.
So much is open to interpretation, but really if you are using flour and cured meats and cheese on a pizza, I doubt you'll find many that would consider that clean. Tasty, but not clean.
Curing is one of the oldest forms of preserving meats. You can cure meats yourself without a lot of the gunk of commercially cured meats. I'm thinking some just are grasping at straws with their definition of 'clean' essentially using their definition to eliminate certain foods. If they consider flour unclean because of threshing then they should also consider many other whole foods unclean due to the method of acquisition.
I think you are grasping at straws. Clean doesn't have to do with how old a process is or how much commercial gunk is included. It has to do with how natural a food is.
You don't produce flour by threshing. Threshing is to separate the grains or seeds. You grind those seeds to make flour. Most traditional clean eating guidelines would consider whole grains clean while they are still whole. Flour is not whole.
But yes, these days you can find a web site calling anything clean. Some even require foods to be eaten at certain times in order to be "eating clean". And some will say all grains are not clean but coconut oil is fine.0 -
There is no way in hell that I will ever label foods as "good" or "bad."
My sticker says I've lost 16 lbs., but I lost over fifty pounds in addition to that before I started using MFP. I did it just by eating less and moving more. Every pound I've lost was achieved with a "dirty" diet, and all my bloodwork is steadily improving. I feel great and I don't feel deprived. I just eat a regular, reasonable diet, but with smaller portions.
It pains me to think about all the people that completely give up their favorite foods in order to lose weight. It doesn't have to be that way. All these "food rules" are unnecessary and absurd.
Now all together to the tune of Pink Floyd's "I need a Dirty Woman"...join me if you know it, and consider making it your motto...
Oooooooo, I eat a dirty menu.
Oooooooo, I eat a dirty diet.
Not everyone chooses a particular way of eating in the name of weight loss, and many do it to make weight loss easier. As someone else mentioned, I could get a 6 piece chicken nugget meal (or the chicken wrap) with medium fry, and some low-cal drink from McDonald's for a fairly reasonable 800 calorie meal (I don't really snack and need around 2000 calories, so an 800 calorie meal isn't that far off), but it won't really make me feel full, and I'll be starving two hours later. Or, I could have an omelet with ham, veggies, and cheese, topped with some sour cream, and a side of homemade hashbrowns, for a 600 or so calorie meal that will keep me full for at least twice as long.
For many of the people that I know that follow one of the myriad ways of eating that cuts out the heavily processed foods in favor of minimally processed and whole foods, their entire quality of life improved, because they felt better, and even various ailments (big and small) that were just dismissed by them and their doctors as things like "chronic condition," "inevitable part of getting older," "bad genetics," or whatever, cleared up when changing their diet.
There's a saying often tossed around the forums here - "nothing tastes as good as skinny feels" - for those of us that have found relief from various things that we didn't think we'd ever be able to get rid of, that saying is better changed to "nothing tastes as good as healthy feels."0 -
I started eating clean recently. I got fat after eating boxes of brownies, bags of cookies, 3 sandwiches in a day, anything and everything from the frozen section, pasta (mac and cheese and those sidekick type of things), chicken fingers, cheese and crackers (not in moderation), and eating fast food almost every day.
So eating clean made me lose weight because I'm not eating so much cr@p. 57lbs lost in 5.5 months. Yea I'll stick to eating clean.
actually it was a calorie deficet that made you lose weight....
sorry eating "clean" is a buzz word and will have no impact on weight loss if you don't do it in moderation too...
^^^This. You can chow down on processed foods or eat clean, but if you take in too many calories, it will be easy to gain weight. I have been avoiding processed foods for many years (albeit, on occasion I will eat something I shouldn't). I gained weight during pregnancy 2 years ago by eating clean, but eating way, *way* too much food. I lost weight eating the same way, but much less. I actually eat a lot (1600+ calories on the days I strength train/work out) and lost steadily. I just don't cram food in my mouth all day every day like I did when I was pregnant
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I don't think really anybody would say losing weight is easy. If it was... everyone would do it... or maybe... never need to because they wouldn't have gotten "fat" to begin with. If anyone says it's easy... they're lying. However, it doesn't have to be such a horrible experience. You just really have to change the way you see food... less as a pleasure... more as a necessity. That's not to say you can't enjoy what you eat... but I try to fill my day with mostly food that does something for my body... that isn't just empty calories. Every once in a while, or if I have calories left... I'll enjoy a little bit of ice cream or pizza or chips that obviously mostly just taste good and do little else for me. It's all about the balance.0
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My diet before actively trying to lose weight was for the most part what people on here would call "clean eating". I just ate way too much. I have always been able to put away a lot food. I don't really like a lot of processed food, don't really eat fast food and prefer savory to sweet food for the most part. I have always loved eating until I am stuffed but I am learning to be satisfied with less. For me it was a change in quantity I needed not quality.
I am the same too except that I prefer sweet to savory. I have never liked oily foods since they make me feel sick and have never really liked fast food. I just ate too much of "healthy" foods...as well as sweet/creamy foods. Add to that cakes and the like.
I gained weight by eating too much and now am losing by eating at a deficit while not completely doing away with the foods I like. That seems to be working so I'm going to keep doing that.0 -
And yet there are people like the girl a few posts above who claims not to crave or want any 'junk' anymore. I mean, I tried the 'clean eating' thing (for me it means no refined sugar, by the way, so basically no processed foods, but no homemade foods made with sugar either). I lasted 3 months. Maybe they're just in denial? Or maybe they never really liked fast food and pizza in the first place (which seems to be the case of some people here I see), but then why were they eating it?
Why would pizza have sugar in/on it??
A small amount of sugar is added to help the dough rise.
Fast food pizza is full of sugar. Dominoes puts it in the sauce to a large degree, to balance the enormous amounts of sodium in there. I might be exaggerating slightly, but I know it's an issue.0 -
Clean eating is a sham. Consider the following:
-Food doesn’t make people gain fat — people over-eating food makes them overweight.
-Eating some of your calories from less nutrient dense sources is not going to give you a nutrient deficiency.
-There is no evidence that any food directly damages your health in moderate amounts in every situation.
Source: Evidence Mag0 -
I started eating clean recently. I got fat after eating boxes of brownies, bags of cookies, 3 sandwiches in a day, anything and everything from the frozen section, pasta (mac and cheese and those sidekick type of things), chicken fingers, cheese and crackers (not in moderation), and eating fast food almost every day.
So eating clean made me lose weight because I'm not eating so much cr@p. 57lbs lost in 5.5 months. Yea I'll stick to eating clean.
actually it was a calorie deficet that made you lose weight....
sorry eating "clean" is a buzz word and will have no impact on weight loss if you don't do it in moderation too...
^^^This. You can chow down on processed foods or eat clean, but if you take in too many calories, it will be easy to gain weight. I have been avoiding processed foods for many years (albeit, on occasion I will eat something I shouldn't). I gained weight during pregnancy 2 years ago by eating clean, but eating way, *way* too much food. I lost weight eating the same way, but much less. I actually eat a lot (1600+ calories on the days I strength train/work out) and lost steadily. I just don't cram food in my mouth all day every day like I did when I was pregnant
I can't speak for everyone, but I'm pretty sure when people refer to eating clean that it has NOTHING to do with weight loss. Anyone can lose the weight eating anything, according to folks on this site. Eat entirely butter, under maintenance calories and you'll lose weight. But your body will go to hell and your insides will suffer if you keep this up over years and years. That's why people eat "clean," because they contain antioxidants or, at least are not oxidants themselves. Eating clean is for avoiding cancer, high blood pressure and heart disease years down the road, even though you can lose weight now eating whatever you want.
And, hey, I eat fast and processed food, too. Just tired of people feeling the need to make the distinction that "eating 'clean' doesn't cause you to lose weight." I get it. I think lots of people get it. We just don't want the bad stuff associated with eating that crap years later.0 -
for me the hardest part was actually getting the focus I need in order to stay on a diet. Without it, i feel like im floundering, and not having any power over my food choices.
Once I got that focus and determination, it actually was easier than the previous week when i didn't know where to begin.
The hard part now is when im hungry and I see a fast food place, all around my house, I'd love to scarf down something that made me fat that im not eating now, it would be easier than making my own food which saves calories and it would be nice just to have some of that old food that made me fat. i might have some of it occassionally, but not on a regular basis. so thats whats hardest, like when the food commercials come on tv and the fattening food looks so good.
I'd love to go down to the corner store and get some of their muffins and cupcakes. yesterday i went in for some milk, and they have these ads for this new cream filled cupcake with an ince of chocolate frosting.. sheesh! it looked so good, but it doesn't fit into my food plan, so i went away..0 -
"My question to those people is... if your relationship with food is so healthy... how did you get overweight in the first place?"
Because they NOW eat clean and NOW their relationship with food is healthy, HENCE the weight loss.
Clearly someone who was overweight in the "first place" wasn't eating clean then at the start of the journey. Its a process.
They eat "clean" and their relationship with food is healthy now SINCE losing weight - not when they were overweight at the start.
They developed new habits = new body.0 -
Clean eating is a sham. Consider the following:
-Food doesn’t make people gain fat — people over-eating food makes them overweight.
-Eating some of your calories from less nutrient dense sources is not going to give you a nutrient deficiency.
-There is no evidence that any food directly damages your health in moderate amounts in every situation.
Source: Evidence Mag
Yeah, in MODERATE amounts. Everyone I hear on these forums talks about losing weight no matter what they eat. The point ISN'T weight loss. It's about the things that ultimately make up your body. You are what you eat, I was once told.0 -
Clean eating is a sham. Consider the following:
-Food doesn’t make people gain fat — people over-eating food makes them overweight.
-Eating some of your calories from less nutrient dense sources is not going to give you a nutrient deficiency.
-There is no evidence that any food directly damages your health in moderate amounts in every situation.
Source: Evidence Mag
Yeah, in MODERATE amounts. Everyone I hear on these forums talks about losing weight no matter what they eat. The point ISN'T weight loss. It's about the things that ultimately make up your body. You are what you eat, I was once told.
And?
Staying within a certain weight range or calorie range inevitably requires consuming decent food at some point.0 -
Apologies for using 'fat', but overweight was too long to fit in the title.
I keep seeing so many threads about people who eat 'clean', avoid processed sugar, follow their hunger signs etc, and it seems so easy for them.
My question to those people is... if your relationship with food is so healthy... how did you get overweight in the first place?
I mean, I got fat because I love food, I'm obsessed with food (notice I didn't use 'addicted'), and it's just a huge part of my life. All my life I've just eaten what I wanted when I wanted it... I don't remember my parents ever telling me I couldn't have something. I just helped myself. I don't think I'll ever be able to just see food as sustenance... it's a pleasure. I've got much better at moderation and trying to make the most of my calories (taste-wise... I don't exactly meet my macros every day, lol), but I don't think the desire to eat more tasty food will ever go away. I'm aware it's going to be a life-long struggle.
Just really curious about this (and probably a bit jealous, lol. I wish I was one of those people for whom losing weight was easy).
Edited for bad, bad grammar.
I suppose I actually fall under this category so I will do my best to explain from my personal experience. I'm sure this isn't the only explanation, just mine.
I'm on a diet now and I find eating clean to be very easy, I don't have any cravings, I eat chicken breast, broccoli, other veg, fruit, tuna, lentils and no simple carbs other than some chocolate milk after a workout. Yet of course the reason I am dieting is that I am currently overweight.
So how did I get overweight? Well I have difficulty multitasking and I tend to get focused like a hawk on one thing in my life. For the last 3 years that was career. During that time I didn't give any thought to what I was eating or what I looked like. Not that I shrugged it off I honestly just didn't even notice. To notice what I look like or what I am eating I have to divert some focus to that otherwise I just don't care.
What that means is I find it very easy to diet and quickly shed weight but I find it hard to maintain and keep up healthy habits. 3 years ago before focusing on career I again had a focus on my health. During that time I dropped from about 190 pounds to about 155, increased my lean mass about 5 pounds and went from something like 28% bodyfat down to 14% bodyfat in the course of about 10 months. My profile picture is me at the end of that and why it is my profile picture is to help motivate me to regain that focus.
My concern is not "can I lose the weight and build strength" because I know the answer is yes. My concern is about how to then build healthy eating and exercise habits that become so routinue I no longer have to think about them.0 -
Clean eating is a sham. Consider the following:
-Food doesn’t make people gain fat — people over-eating food makes them overweight.
-Eating some of your calories from less nutrient dense sources is not going to give you a nutrient deficiency.
-There is no evidence that any food directly damages your health in moderate amounts in every situation.
Source: Evidence Mag
Yeah, in MODERATE amounts. Everyone I hear on these forums talks about losing weight no matter what they eat. The point ISN'T weight loss. It's about the things that ultimately make up your body. You are what you eat, I was once told.
And?
Staying within a certain weight range or calorie range inevitably requires consuming decent food at some point.
Not according to a fair amount of the people who like to argue on this site. But it sounds like we don't need to argue, since we agree that it's a moderation thing. Cha-ching!0 -
Clean eating is a sham. Consider the following:
-Food doesn’t make people gain fat — people over-eating food makes them overweight.
-Eating some of your calories from less nutrient dense sources is not going to give you a nutrient deficiency.
-There is no evidence that any food directly damages your health in moderate amounts in every situation.
Source: Evidence Mag
Clean eating is what allows me to eat under my TDEE with ease without getting hungry. I recognize I could also lose weight eating calories under my TDEE having nothing but pizza and icecream but I bet I wouldn't be very comfortable.0 -
Right.
I'm from a working ranch in the Ozarks. We raised or hunted/ fished everything we ate (including sugar cane, thanks) and we don't have street lights or other infrastructure apart from shoddy electric. We still heat with wood.
I wasn't fat or even overweight eating TONS of real food (we didn't have fast food or even supermarkets OR filling stations within 30 miles) because I was slinging 70lb bales of hay or 50lb feed sacks or shovelling 7 tons of chat in a day. I have no clue how many calories we burned!
When I moved out, I began to put on some fat and lose muscle. I was going to school, so I started lifting weights and that fixed the issue but hello, I was under 22yo! (I'm in my 40s now)
As an adult, working a desk job, I eat some junk but not too much since I have autoimmune diseases, including variations of IBD. I can't eat grains (or garlic, or broccoli, or legumes). I can drink booze and eat sugar, though! Anyway, I was raised eating real food and *my* problem (which comes and goes) is overeating. I can sit down with a tin of coconut cream and eat the whole thing. I believe it contains about what I'm meant to eat in a day (calories). And that was a snack, even unflavoured/ unsweetened. That's not hunger-based eating. It's something else.
Long answer but the point is: most of my life I was strong and fit -- working like a man, although I was a little girl and eating what they call clean nowadays. It's just real food that you made yourself. It was SITTING and EATING when I'm not hungry that packed on these unnecessary 17lb.0 -
And yet there are people like the girl a few posts above who claims not to crave or want any 'junk' anymore. I mean, I tried the 'clean eating' thing (for me it means no refined sugar, by the way, so basically no processed foods, but no homemade foods made with sugar either). I lasted 3 months. Maybe they're just in denial? Or maybe they never really liked fast food and pizza in the first place (which seems to be the case of some people here I see), but then why were they eating it?
Why would pizza have sugar in/on it??
A small amount of sugar is added to help the dough rise.
Fast food pizza is full of sugar. Dominoes puts it in the sauce to a large degree, to balance the enormous amounts of sodium in there. I might be exaggerating slightly, but I know it's an issue.
"Full of sugar" is quite the exaggeration. I'm pretty sure they don't put any more sugar in it than I put in my homemade crust/sauce or else it would taste sweet.0 -
I'm a fat person. (Disclaimer)
I have "eaten clean", done "paleo", and "atkins". While doing those and dedicating myself to those, I DID struggle to get in 1200 calories a day. I lost a lot, too. 12 lbs in about a month. But they didn't stay off.
The reason I couldn't get in the 1200 calories/day while on those diets is because I DIDN'T LIKE THE FOOD. So if I couldn't have what I DID want, I just didn't eat. Voila.
Sometimes I don't get the 1200 calories/day naturally because I'm just not interested in food or very hungry - the first half of my cycle. If I'm watching food intake, I work to balance them out in the next half of the month.
Its not a good way to diet. I'm not 100% convinced that calorie counting strictly works as stated by thermodynamic peeps, but I'm falling on it because I just can't say no to every single food I like just because I need to lose weight.
If you're following something like "clean eating" (whatever definition you use), Paleo, or any other diet that may restrict some things, but still keep entire arrays of food available (ie - not something super, super restrictive, like some crash diets), or isn't something where the program supplies the food (ie - Nutrisystem), and you don't like the food you're eating, then you probably have bigger problems with regards to the types of food you're eating. Seriously, Paleo and "clean eating" really aren't all that restrictive, unless all you're used to eating is junk.
Even plain old calorie restriction requires you to make sacrifices, as does IIFYM. If you're only eating 1200 calories a day, that means you can't really eat that piece of cake that's 500 calories. Well, you could, but you'd be starving the rest of the day, because it doesn't really have much satiety and nutritional bang for its calorie buck. Generally speaking, ways of eating that recommend against eating that piece of cake altogether generally do so for a reason (whether you agree with it or not is up to you, though), but it's still exactly that - a recommendation. While calorie counting and IIFYM frame it as "you can eat that cake if you really want, but you have to find the calories and macros from somewhere else, so you might have to go hungry for part of the day to fit it in," "clean eating," Paleo, and their ilk generally frame the matter as "you can eat that cake if you really want, but the sugar, artificial additives, etc. aren't really great for your health in the long term (and may be a culprit in your issue with acne, heartburn, IBS, joint pain, {insert ailment here})." It's not like someone's going to come and arrest you for violating the tenants of your chosen way of eating once in a while.
In fact, it's how various, generally more accepted ways of eating have come about. "Vegetarian" used to be (and in some places still is) what is now commonly referred to as "vegan" in terms of way of eating. Then, some people chose to alter that way of eating a little, and now you have a number of variations on it, some more "strict" than others in the tenants of refraining from animal products. The most common, of course, are the less strict, such as the lacto-ovo vegetarians, who consume milk and eggs, and pescatarians, who eat fish (and some don't consider them "real" vegetarian, but I consider them at least on the "vegetarian" end of the carnivore-omnivore-herbivore spectrum). You also have the more strict raw vegans and fruitarians. You also have people who consider themselves vegan (in the way of eating sense) in general, but won't go out of their way to avoid certain animal products in some situations (I know a few vegans who will still consume the bread or pasta in a restaurant, even if it was buttered in the kitchen, for example).
The same goes for those following other ways of eating. They're all generally meant to be frameworks in which to make decisions, so that the decisions can be made more easily. Even IIFYM is a framework of sorts, because you make your decisions on what to eat based on what macros you have left for the day (ie - if you have no carbs left, then you have to forego the pasta dish and get the steak instead, if you want to stay within your macro goals). You're not taking some kind of blood oath that would mean you'd keel over and die or something if you violated the tenants of the eating framework you're going with (contrary to what some extremists may want you to believe), but compliance with the eating framework that you've chosen is generally the goal you decided to try to achieve when you chose to follow it.0 -
Clean eating is a sham. Consider the following:
-Food doesn’t make people gain fat — people over-eating food makes them overweight.
-Eating some of your calories from less nutrient dense sources is not going to give you a nutrient deficiency.
-There is no evidence that any food directly damages your health in moderate amounts in every situation.
Source: Evidence Mag
Yeah, in MODERATE amounts. Everyone I hear on these forums talks about losing weight no matter what they eat. The point ISN'T weight loss. It's about the things that ultimately make up your body. You are what you eat, I was once told.
All food provides some amount of nutrition. Some foods provide more than others. "You are what you eat" is a trite phrase that should be retired. I'm not an avocado, even if that's all I ever ate.0 -
I started eating clean recently. I got fat after eating boxes of brownies, bags of cookies, 3 sandwiches in a day, anything and everything from the frozen section, pasta (mac and cheese and those sidekick type of things), chicken fingers, cheese and crackers (not in moderation), and eating fast food almost every day.
So eating clean made me lose weight because I'm not eating so much cr@p. 57lbs lost in 5.5 months. Yea I'll stick to eating clean.
actually it was a calorie deficet that made you lose weight....
sorry eating "clean" is a buzz word and will have no impact on weight loss if you don't do it in moderation too...
^^^This. You can chow down on processed foods or eat clean, but if you take in too many calories, it will be easy to gain weight. I have been avoiding processed foods for many years (albeit, on occasion I will eat something I shouldn't). I gained weight during pregnancy 2 years ago by eating clean, but eating way, *way* too much food. I lost weight eating the same way, but much less. I actually eat a lot (1600+ calories on the days I strength train/work out) and lost steadily. I just don't cram food in my mouth all day every day like I did when I was pregnant
I can't speak for everyone, but I'm pretty sure when people refer to eating clean that it has NOTHING to do with weight loss. Anyone can lose the weight eating anything, according to folks on this site. Eat entirely butter, under maintenance calories and you'll lose weight. But your body will go to hell and your insides will suffer if you keep this up over years and years. That's why people eat "clean," because they contain antioxidants or, at least are not oxidants themselves. Eating clean is for avoiding cancer, high blood pressure and heart disease years down the road, even though you can lose weight now eating whatever you want.
And, hey, I eat fast and processed food, too. Just tired of people feeling the need to make the distinction that "eating 'clean' doesn't cause you to lose weight." I get it. I think lots of people get it. We just don't want the bad stuff associated with eating that crap years later.
^^^^THIS0 -
I make pizza at home using organic and home grown ingredients which is not all that difficult. There is nothing to say that pizza is bad or can't be clean! Honestly, folks love to come up with excuses for not eating clean but that's up to them.
You are correct that pizza is not bad. But, pizza can't be clean because the crust is made from flour, which is processed. You may make something resembling pizza and call it pizza, but it's not really pizza if there is no crust.
I think we need to differentiate between " processed food " and processed food ". Grinding whole grains into whole flour is not the same " process " as grinding grains into flour, bleaching it white and with that getting rid of all nutrients and then adding fake nutrients and other chemicals to allow for longer shelf life. So, yes one can make pizza that is " clean " from flour that was only ground ( which I do not consider processed food, just like I don't consider washing strawberries or peeling an apple as " processed " ) and nothing else. The drawback is that the crust is a bit denser and heavier, plus the flour has a tendency to go rancid after a few month. Run-of-the-mill flour is processed in ways so that would not happen.
I've always heard clean food described as being as close to natural state as possible. Some don't consider any grains clean because they must be threshed. I think that's quite a stretch since other foods for which the outer shell or coating is removed are considered clean (nuts, meat, some fruits and vegetables). But threshing and then grinding is getting pretty far from the natural state.
But IMO the biggest reason ground grains are not clean is that grinding to flour changes the nutritional content. Ground grains quickly lose some of their nutrients to oxidation. I suppose one could make an argument for grains used immediately after grinding being clean.
So much is open to interpretation, but really if you are using flour and cured meats and cheese on a pizza, I doubt you'll find many that would consider that clean. Tasty, but not clean.
I think you may be mixing aspects of Paleo or Primal with clean eating. Both avoid grains but clean eating does not. Carry on...0 -
I read a post the other day and I think it was true to some extent. He said often people are afraid of going over so they prefer staying under...not willing to eat doesn't mean they are not hungry or not capable to eat to that amount. Dieters often succeeded for the first a couple of months because they rely on this "willpower" or "mental block" as you mentioned...I still find it hard to believe an over weight person who used to eat more than 3000 calories a day find 1200 hard to hit. Not being rude, it just doesn't make sense to me.
I don't know why this is difficult to understand, but I tend to agree with the person I think you are quoting.
Part of it is that people seem to be somewhat different in what makes them feel full. For me it's much more volume than just calories. I could eat a piece of cake with tons of calories (or most of a pint of ice cream) when not particularly hungry, and it wouldn't necessarily make me unable to eat my next planned meal. But, on the other hand, if I eat a giant salad with few calories (and a mostly vinegar-based dressing) or a huge serving of broccoli with a normal serving size of meat, I'll be full and stay full until my next regular meal, even if I didn't get all that much in calories, ordinarily.
So what I think happens is that people who mostly ate thoughtlessly, and often with a lot of wasted calories (foods that they wouldn't have elected to eat if they'd thought about the calories vs. the pleasure--I used to eat a ton of stuff, like from the bread basket at a restaurant or random treats people bring to share at work, that way) start thinking about what they eat and often overcompensate in thinking they can only eat "healthy" and often low cal or low fat foods or going overboard on cutting out starchy carbs, and find that they are still generally satisfied, they don't feel hungry and aren't craving anything, and are getting only 1000 calories.
They know they should eat more and how to do it if they really think about it, but there's this fear, this idea that I'm okay without all those foods and am not hungry, should I really eat something I don't need to and am not hungry for just to add calories? It seems counterintuitive. Plus, there's probably a fear on the part of many that if they reintroduce some of the stuff they cut out and aren't particularly craving, that they might start craving it.
That all happened to me, to some degree, although I think part of the process is relaxing and deciding it's okay to eat fries or ice cream on occasion (in moderation) or to go out to eat or whatever it is you like. But I really do think the fact that people who are used to eating in ways that add up to a lot of calories without necessarily eating much food find it surprising and are scared to mess with it when they learn that just eating in ways they consider healthy can be quite filling is like one of the least surprising things about dieting, although I get that it might get tiresome for people who have been here for a while or something.
(And by healthy here I'm talking about the subjective perception, not denying that calorie dense foods can be healthy or that healthy is really a better description of an overall diet than a food item.)0 -
I make pizza at home using organic and home grown ingredients which is not all that difficult. There is nothing to say that pizza is bad or can't be clean! Honestly, folks love to come up with excuses for not eating clean but that's up to them.
You are correct that pizza is not bad. But, pizza can't be clean because the crust is made from flour, which is processed. You may make something resembling pizza and call it pizza, but it's not really pizza if there is no crust.
I think we need to differentiate between " processed food " and processed food ". Grinding whole grains into whole flour is not the same " process " as grinding grains into flour, bleaching it white and with that getting rid of all nutrients and then adding fake nutrients and other chemicals to allow for longer shelf life. So, yes one can make pizza that is " clean " from flour that was only ground ( which I do not consider processed food, just like I don't consider washing strawberries or peeling an apple as " processed " ) and nothing else. The drawback is that the crust is a bit denser and heavier, plus the flour has a tendency to go rancid after a few month. Run-of-the-mill flour is processed in ways so that would not happen.
I've always heard clean food described as being as close to natural state as possible. Some don't consider any grains clean because they must be threshed. I think that's quite a stretch since other foods for which the outer shell or coating is removed are considered clean (nuts, meat, some fruits and vegetables). But threshing and then grinding is getting pretty far from the natural state.
But IMO the biggest reason ground grains are not clean is that grinding to flour changes the nutritional content. Ground grains quickly lose some of their nutrients to oxidation. I suppose one could make an argument for grains used immediately after grinding being clean.
So much is open to interpretation, but really if you are using flour and cured meats and cheese on a pizza, I doubt you'll find many that would consider that clean. Tasty, but not clean.
I think you may be mixing aspects of Paleo or Primal with clean eating. Both avoid grains but clean eating does not. Carry on...
I never said clean eating excludes grains. I said flour is not clean. But there are many who think clean eating = paleo/primal. Of course they also think sausage is clean. IMO it's these people who have ruined the whole idea of 'clean eating'.0 -
Clean eating is a sham. Consider the following:
-Food doesn’t make people gain fat — people over-eating food makes them overweight.
-Eating some of your calories from less nutrient dense sources is not going to give you a nutrient deficiency.
-There is no evidence that any food directly damages your health in moderate amounts in every situation.
Source: Evidence Mag
Yeah, in MODERATE amounts. Everyone I hear on these forums talks about losing weight no matter what they eat. The point ISN'T weight loss. It's about the things that ultimately make up your body. You are what you eat, I was once told.
All food provides some amount of nutrition. Some foods provide more than others. "You are what you eat" is a trite phrase that should be retired. I'm not an avocado, even if that's all I ever ate.
How unbelievably stupid of a comment was that? I mean, not to be rude, but that was so assinine I'm taken aback. When you say, "I'm not an avocado, even if that's all I ever ate," it sure sounds like you have issues. OF COURSE YOU AREN'T AN AVOCADO! I mean, goddamn, who would ever think that literally. I'm seriously baffled. That's like if I said I was so hungry I could eat a horse and then you asked me if I literally ate an entire horse. Seriously? It's a figure of speech...
However, what do you think makes your hair grow, nails grow, body grow, what regenerates your white blood cells and organs and all of the other medical stuff I don't know or understand? THE FUEL YOU PUT INTO YOUR BODY! The food you eat literally comprises you, or at least is used and converted into the stuff that comprises you. So in a semi-literal way YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT!
ETA: Just did an internet search for you are what you eat, which I didn't really expect to settle anything. Granted, this was a very brief search, but most of the arguments went, "I eat french fries, but I'm not a potato." Yeah, we all thought you were a potato, or an avocado...0 -
Clean eating is a sham. Consider the following:
-Food doesn’t make people gain fat — people over-eating food makes them overweight.
-Eating some of your calories from less nutrient dense sources is not going to give you a nutrient deficiency.
-There is no evidence that any food directly damages your health in moderate amounts in every situation.
Source: Evidence Mag
Technically speaking, there's no evidence that smoking leads to lung disease in every situation, or that drinking leads to fatty liver disease in every situation, either ("moderate" consumption or otherwise).
That, of course, is the issue with consumption and health. Some people will get lung cancer, emphysema, COPD, etc. from smoking (even "moderately"), some won't. Some will get Diabetes or other insulin issue from eating a high carb diet (well, many would argue that most will end up with some sort of insulin issue, given the rates of T2D, pre-diabetes, and other disorders with insulin issues as a hallmark), some people won't. There are simply too many variables for something to occur 100% of the time in people, short of being an acute poison.
However, there is actually quite a bit of evidence about the effect of various types of food on your body, and their effects on your health. For example, carbohydrate consumption is pretty directly linked to serum triglyceride levels. Carbs, of course, also increase your blood glucose levels, which can be damaging if your body can't keep that level under 140 (the point at which nerve damage starts). They're also known to exacerbate neurological issues (that's how the ketogenic diet came about in the first place - it's phenomenal for people who suffer from seizures, and many other neurological issues have been shown to be helped by going ketogenic or at least cutting way down on carbs). Overconsumption of Omega-6 fatty acids compared to Omega-3 fatty acids (which is pretty much guaranteed to happen unless you specifically avoid it, because most things are made with seed oils, which have insanely high proportions of Omega-6) is linked to systemic inflammation and inflammation based disorders (ie - arthritis, etc), as well as cardiovascular issues, cancer, and autoimmune issues. These are just a few examples. So...yeah. Your third point, at least, is seriously flawed.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12442909
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/71/2/412.full?ijkey=34cf92dd47dd2ac896d0e975e1f108ef31aa5b16
http://www.phlaunt.com/diabetes/14045678.php
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2367001/0 -
I'm a fat person. (Disclaimer)
I have "eaten clean", done "paleo", and "atkins". While doing those and dedicating myself to those, I DID struggle to get in 1200 calories a day. I lost a lot, too. 12 lbs in about a month. But they didn't stay off.
The reason I couldn't get in the 1200 calories/day while on those diets is because I DIDN'T LIKE THE FOOD. So if I couldn't have what I DID want, I just didn't eat. Voila.
Sometimes I don't get the 1200 calories/day naturally because I'm just not interested in food or very hungry - the first half of my cycle. If I'm watching food intake, I work to balance them out in the next half of the month.
Its not a good way to diet. I'm not 100% convinced that calorie counting strictly works as stated by thermodynamic peeps, but I'm falling on it because I just can't say no to every single food I like just because I need to lose weight.
If you're following something like "clean eating" (whatever definition you use), Paleo, or any other diet that may restrict some things, but still keep entire arrays of food available (ie - not something super, super restrictive, like some crash diets), or isn't something where the program supplies the food (ie - Nutrisystem), and you don't like the food you're eating, then you probably have bigger problems with regards to the types of food you're eating. Seriously, Paleo and "clean eating" really aren't all that restrictive, unless all you're used to eating is junk.
Even plain old calorie restriction requires you to make sacrifices, as does IIFYM. If you're only eating 1200 calories a day, that means you can't really eat that piece of cake that's 500 calories. Well, you could, but you'd be starving the rest of the day, because it doesn't really have much satiety and nutritional bang for its calorie buck. Generally speaking, ways of eating that recommend against eating that piece of cake altogether generally do so for a reason (whether you agree with it or not is up to you, though), but it's still exactly that - a recommendation. While calorie counting and IIFYM frame it as "you can eat that cake if you really want, but you have to find the calories and macros from somewhere else, so you might have to go hungry for part of the day to fit it in," "clean eating," Paleo, and their ilk generally frame the matter as "you can eat that cake if you really want, but the sugar, artificial additives, etc. aren't really great for your health in the long term (and may be a culprit in your issue with acne, heartburn, IBS, joint pain, {insert ailment here})." It's not like someone's going to come and arrest you for violating the tenants of your chosen way of eating once in a while.
In fact, it's how various, generally more accepted ways of eating have come about. "Vegetarian" used to be (and in some places still is) what is now commonly referred to as "vegan" in terms of way of eating. Then, some people chose to alter that way of eating a little, and now you have a number of variations on it, some more "strict" than others in the tenants of refraining from animal products. The most common, of course, are the less strict, such as the lacto-ovo vegetarians, who consume milk and eggs, and pescatarians, who eat fish (and some don't consider them "real" vegetarian, but I consider them at least on the "vegetarian" end of the carnivore-omnivore-herbivore spectrum). You also have the more strict raw vegans and fruitarians. You also have people who consider themselves vegan (in the way of eating sense) in general, but won't go out of their way to avoid certain animal products in some situations (I know a few vegans who will still consume the bread or pasta in a restaurant, even if it was buttered in the kitchen, for example).
The same goes for those following other ways of eating. They're all generally meant to be frameworks in which to make decisions, so that the decisions can be made more easily. Even IIFYM is a framework of sorts, because you make your decisions on what to eat based on what macros you have left for the day (ie - if you have no carbs left, then you have to forego the pasta dish and get the steak instead, if you want to stay within your macro goals). You're not taking some kind of blood oath that would mean you'd keel over and die or something if you violated the tenants of the eating framework you're going with (contrary to what some extremists may want you to believe), but compliance with the eating framework that you've chosen is generally the goal you decided to try to achieve when you chose to follow it.
This is such a great post and something I've been thinking about, but wasn't quite able to put my thoughts together quite so eloquently, so thank you :flowerforyou:0 -
my two cents..
People go from one extreme = over eating on everything and being obese; to the other extreme = cutting out all "bad" food, eating clean, and they then lose weight so they think that is the only way and then they read all the BS junk science about how sugar makes your fat, and processed foods make you fat, etc,etc…when in reality overeating on ANY food makes you fat...
From my perspective it is far easier to overeat cake than overeat fresh brocolli. COULD I do it? Maybe, if I REALLY tried. Am I likely to do it? No.
LOL, the problem I see here is after eating brocolli, I just want to eat cake...
Yup, everyone is different!! Cake makes me want more cake :P
its called learning to moderate yourself and having a modicum of self control. Back in my fat days I could eat a few pints of ice cream or a whole cake by myself..however, I learned, over time, that I can eat one serving of ice cream, one cookie, etc and fit it into my day. I have ice cream every night..
my diary is open...
And nobody is obligated to do it your way, thank God.
I'm not interested in having "ice cream every night", not at all. I'm also not interested in a single serving of ice cream, or one cookie.
I'd rather go weeks, or months, without either then get that little tease. So that when I do indulge I can eat as much as I want to.
At the end of the day you'll likely have far more ice cream in a year than I do with your single serving nightly, but I damn sure will feel far more satisfied for my liking with an every once in awhile ice cream blow out.
That's why people must find what works for them, not what works for everyone else.0 -
I'm gonna say eating healthy not clean, but I find it quite easy now because I have a better understanding of it. I used to eat gay I want when I wanted, I wouldn't say I was crazy but some days I would have like 4 chocolate bars in a row, I was more of a boredom eater than anything. I also hated sports so I didn't do much in physical exercise after about the age of 8, and I was always being told I was 'built this way' by family because a lot of my family have large frames and a lot are rugby players, so it's kind of the 'norm' for guys in my family to be big and beefy, but now I have an understanding of it I find it quite easy. I think of my calories as kind of money, like.. I can either have a chocolate bar for 200 calories which will fill me for 30 minutes, or a can of soup which will fill me for 2 hours. Plus I want to be healthier, you only get one life and I don't want to be sat in a chair in a couple of years not being able to walk due to my weight, and the way it's affected my confidence is enough to give me determination to lose weight, I hate going out with my friends because I feel like I 'stand out' for all the wrong reasons like my weight. So yeah, but I think the main reason is understanding what I can eat with my calories, what will fill me up the most.0
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Apologies for using 'fat', but overweight was too long to fit in the title.
I keep seeing so many threads about people who eat 'clean', avoid processed sugar, follow their hunger signs etc, and it seems so easy for them.
My question to those people is... if your relationship with food is so healthy... how did you get overweight in the first place?
I mean, I got fat because I love food, I'm obsessed with food (notice I didn't use 'addicted'), and it's just a huge part of my life. All my life I've just eaten what I wanted when I wanted it... I don't remember my parents ever telling me I couldn't have something. I just helped myself. I don't think I'll ever be able to just see food as sustenance... it's a pleasure. I've got much better at moderation and trying to make the most of my calories (taste-wise... I don't exactly meet my macros every day, lol), but I don't think the desire to eat more tasty food will ever go away. I'm aware it's going to be a life-long struggle.
Just really curious about this (and probably a bit jealous, lol. I wish I was one of those people for whom losing weight was easy).
Edited for bad, bad grammar.
I totally agree with you OP! I love food, all kinds of food, and it's a daily struggle to eat healthy. For most of my life I was able to eat whatever I wanted and not gain weight, so I have found it extremely difficult to get out of that mind-set.0
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