I'm scared to eat clean!!!!

My boyfriend is terrible about eating vegetables when I make them! I've heard about a lot of people that use a food processor to cut up veggies into small pieces and then just mixing them into whatever you're making for dinner!

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Get a subscription to the Healthy Cooking magazine from Taste of Home, or google it to read ideas online. They put together tons of simple and usable recipes for the whole family. I love this magazine. If memory serves, it evens includes a week meal plan with shopping list. The nice thing about having the magazine, is that your family can help pick out ones they are interested in trying.

I also second SkinnyTaste.com. Gina has boatloads of recipes with great photos, and they are full of flavor.

Also, search the recipes on here. Lots of good ones.

But, start small. Try these things, to ease into healthier options.

1. Find fruit and veggies you and your family enjoy, and have them as a snack option. Use cottage cheese or yogurt as a dip. (My family loves plain greek yogurt mixed with dry ranch dressing mix. Heck, I use plain greek yogurt in place of sour cream and no one notices.)

2. Plan ahead. It is easy to use a crock pot, and prep meals ahead so you don't panic come dinner time. This also applies to lunch.

3. Swap out items for healthier options. I stopped buying standard yogurt, for greek to get more protein.

4. Monitor portion sizes. If you just can't live without something, add it in, with moderation.

Good luck!

Some good advice here! I was going to say about planning ahead and using a crock pot. I set up a whole chicken this morning for myself. It's more or less boiled with some veggies - I'll use the liquid to make soup later that will include the chicken, some veggies and maybe some lentils or other beans.

I often try to cook on the weekend some things I can microwave, at least for the first part of the week so I'm not hungry when I get home and needing 2 hours to prepare a particular dish.

I don't know how "clean" this is, but when I'm in a pinch, I will buy a rotisserie chicken from the supermarket deli, microwave some corn on the cob (in the husks) and maybe some other veggie. I'll have some fruit for dessert. I use the left over chicken to make other things like to top salad (buying the salad that's already if pressed for time), fried brown rice (not really with lots of oil though, but throwing in some egg whites, peas and maybe pineapple, a little soy sauce for flavor).

Have you tried making veggies - steamed or grilled - and maybe using some balsamic vinegar? That's something I love and your kids might go for the veggies if they've got some more flavor. Great on things like green beans or asparagus. I haven't tried it on many others.

Stir-fries are something you could do if you plan ahead. I like to chop of veggies and meat on the weekend so the prep work is done when I get home. All that's left to do is the few minutes of cooking. If I buy lots of chicken, I'll cut it up and freeze some of it ready to thaw and sautee.

I don't eat clean in the sense that I have excluded all condiments, like soy sauce, but I cook most of my food from scratch now and it's so worth it compared to buying pre-packaged, ready to eat foods. Just give it a try and be creative.

when I first started I bought the two biggest loser cookbooks, the orginal and then eventually the family cookbook. They both have really good recipes and I would just go through the book on Sunday and decide what I wanted to cook and shop for those ingredients. Took most of the guess work out of the process. Also too they make up for serving sizes so you are not wasting a lot of food. If the meal says serves 4 it will serve 4 and it has all the nutritional info with each recipe. I lived in a pretty rural area so had to sometimes modify the recipe for the ingredents I could find, but they all tasted good and my family all ate them with no fuss or fight. I found that having a good cookbook made starting a clean lifestyle easier. They cover all the topics too from breakfast to snacks and even desserts.

Tosca Reno has a clean eating cookbook out if you need recipe ideas. I like to use onceamonthmom.com for some different ideas too... it is a freezer cooking site with diet meal plans,whole foods, gluten free, traditional, etc... You do a lot of cooking in a day or over a weekend and then freeze it... easy throw in the oven/crockpot meals! The site even includes instructions, shopping lists, and labels.

thanks

I am with you. I want to eat clean, I really do. I do NOT like vegetables, I love fruit. I just can't get myself to eat the veggies unless I have some kind of dip to go with them. I am going to focus on the amount I eat right now of what I do have, to learn and control myself with what I enjoy and hopefully down the road I will tie in more healthy options and set a good example for the kids and hubby. Baby steps for this chick, this change is happening slow and I'm okay with that

I am with you. I want to eat clean, I really do. I do NOT like vegetables, I love fruit. I just can't get myself to eat the veggies unless I have some kind of dip to go with them. I am going to focus on the amount I eat right now of what I do have, to learn and control myself with what I enjoy and hopefully down the road I will tie in more healthy options and set a good example for the kids and hubby. Baby steps for this chick, this change is happening slow and I'm okay with that

A lot of times when I make meatballs/meatloaf/stuffed peppers, anything with ground meat (i use turkey mainly), I use my food processor to process squash, carrots, peppers or whatever else you have in your crisper, and I mix them into the meat. It keeps it from being dry and you can't even taste the veggies. My husband can't tell when I do it

Then don't. Eating clean doesn't always mean faster weight/fat loss.

Eating clean should not be use just to lose weight. You can eat as clean as you want but you will not lose weight if you eat more than you should. Eating clean is about longevity and good health in general.

But the thing is you don't have to eat clean for good health.

Eating clean is definitely healthier... Processed food is full of crap.. aka sodium, chemicals, refined sugars, artificial sweeteners, etc. Did you know that a can of mushrooms can pass FDA inspection and have up to 40 maggots in it? Disgusting. That alone is enough to make me want to stay completely away from canned/boxed and highly processed foods.

People who eat clean notice a huge difference in digestion, hydration, skin elasticity, body composition, muscle definition, etc. You can lose weight without eating clean.. but eating clean makes a huge difference is the way ur body feels.. literally. It'll be a lot less squishy. Especially if you have a lot of body fat to lose.

But again.. you don't have to throw it all out at once... just start eating cleaner. I don't eat completely clean but I definitely eat cleaner than i used to and I've seen great results.

I've noticed all those things and I eat processed crap all the time. I think its more psychological than anything when people choose to eat 'clean'.

Inch by inch, it's a cinch.

I was the same way as you a few years ago. What I did was meet myself in the middle - I'd make vegetable-based versions of the foods I craved. Sliced zucchini dipped in breadcrumbs and parmesan and baked became my new deep-fried cheese sticks. My previously meat-and-beans chili is now loaded with vegetables, sometimes even vegetarian. Potato chips became kale chips, milkshakes had Greek yogurt instead of ice cream, and so on, and so forth.

This is a great thread and thanks for the info on the "Eating Clean" mag!

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