If 'eating clean' is so easy for you, how did you get fat?

I second it, great post

I too am food obsessed, if I didn't put weight on I would eat constantly, lots of lovely food. all sorts, healthy, unhealthy. I can eat clean, but only for a while before I really give in to the voice in my head that wants me to eat other stuff. I am a binger when I let myself.

Like the OP, this is a lifelong battle with myself that I face, and it's not easy!

Ive lost 17lbs in 87 days , this is the best ive done in a long time and this time its forever, I gained weight through pregnancy and over eating, it depends on definition of eating clean for me it is about cooking from scratch and loading meals with fruit veg and salad as I can eat loads but it isn't too high in calories and if it doesn't fit I work off extra calories. I usually fit my meals into my calorie goal and that works for me its all about the individual and how it works for them.
What you might call eating clean another may not but for me personally its about loading in the low calorie fresh foods and adding protein along side it and carbs from fruit and veg.
I have the odd day where I open the freezer and cook frozen breaded fish and chips because im a mum and that's all I can manage but I don't do it often and it fits into my calorie goal and so its no biggie really.
The reason ive failed in the past is trying to do it all perfectly all the time and no one and nothing is perfect it has to be realistic and within goal where possible but 100 calories over never killed anyone this is just my opinion we are all different id rather lose weight slowly and keep it off than go on a clean food obsession diet and fail

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 just started paleo and so far, I am loving it and its working exceptionally well. I chose it for medical reasons, and I do see it as a sustainable lifestyle change choice.

How did I get overweight to begin with? Bad choices. Too much unhealthy restaurant food, too much processed food, simply too much food. In the beginning of our marriage, when we were broke and just getting started, it was things like hamburger helper and cheap beef. As our income increased, it became more and more restaurant food.

I'm a serial yo-yo dieter, and have dropped major pounds on 1100-1200 calorie diets; however, I ALWAYS gained the weight back because starvation (and that's what it was) is not sustainable.

Paleo is not easy. It's hard - mostly because I'm new to it, I hope. Shopping takes thought, prepping and cooking takes longer than ever, but truthfully, the food my husband and I are eating is more enjoyable than anything we ate before. That's what makes it easy. I love to cook, and we love to eat; now we're eating better qualify foods that are super delicious. I am enjoying food more than ever!! Paleo foods are also filling foods; empty calories are not part of our diet anymore. We also have to restrict - I can't eat half a bag of nuts per day because I must still create a calorie deficit. Believe me, I want to eat them, but I don't.

I think the main difference is level of commitment (not knocking ANYONE's commitment). I'm just saying, if you're trying to eat "clean" or paleo, you're changing A LOT of things across the board rather than just restricting calories. To take on that kind of life change takes a lot of dedication and "I'm gonna do this" mentality. (Again, I'm not trying to offend anyone who's not paleo or does not eat clean - to each their own - I'm just addressing OP's question.)

I still struggle. I still incorporate "cheat days" because cold turkeying off all of the foods I used to love would be extremely painful. Those who have been doing paleo longer than me suggest that this is the first area I address when things start getting tough and losses stall. ::GASP:: Truthfully, the friend who suggested this is right. I had a bad week last week, and the scale showed it. I tightened things back up, and made a full turnaround.

Finally: please don't assume losing weight is easy for anyone; regardless of their choice of approach. It's hard for all of us, that's why we're here.

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...

Tonight I'm having sloppy joes with Arby's curly fries. Is it "clean"? Haha, of course not, but why deprive myself of food I like? You only live for so long.

I don't understand what 'clean' means. Is it cooking everything yourself (no ready meals etc), or is it nothing processed at all, e.g. soy sauce? Not to provoke an argument or gifs, I see it a lot and don't know what it means.

However, I'm a good cook and can make ice cream, pasta, cakes, yeasted doughnuts, pies and pizza from scratch. Not to mention fried chicken, chips, tempura, beef and yorkshire pudding, naan bread...the list goes on.

I'm a food obsessed chubber and love cooking - if homemade ice cream and steak and kidney pie (sometimes made with organic, or 'locally sourced' (ugh, I hate that phrase too) or grown myself ingredients) count as clean, it was dead easy to get fat.

Edit to add: I still eat the above, but considerably less of it than I used to.

I know for me personally it was what I ate at the time because frankly I didn't care. So we ate out most days of the week (fast food) and I would get the larger fries and drink and sometimes it would be twice a day. We had pasta when we didn't eat out and I never measured that always had way over the serving size and had very little fruits and veggies. That on top of having 3 kids youngest being 1.5 and he was the largest of the 3 I had gained a lot with him and eating the way i did made it that much worse. My biggest issue was sodium I had logged what I used to eat and I could have passed out with the amount of sodium I would have in a day.

Now with eating healthier there is a fear there about eating too much and trying to figure out what works and what doesn't with my hectic schedule being a single mom to 3 kids and working full time outside of the home. Plus getting helpful suggestions about how to up my calories throughout the day without feeling bad.

Edited to add that I am also working on a very strict low budget so it makes it a bit harder too, but I am figuring it out.

I hear ya!

I don't really know what clean eating is but the eating healthier part is easy for me. Although a lot of 'clean eating' people probably would not think I ate all that healthy :P All in the point of reference, lol.

However - my issue is portion control and the desire to eat for pleasure - like you mentioned. I want the food. I want more of the food regardless of healthy or junk. I want to eat and even though I may not be hungry and I don't restrict any foods, I feel deprived. At this moment I want to be fit *more* than I want to eat. I hope that feeling of being deprived goes away because if it doesn't - it is gonna be a long long road.

It's about changing your relationship with food so that it's healthy. Before I started logging on MFP, I was not exercising a whole lot and I ate all the wrong foods. One day, I tried a little extreme version of clean eating and started to eat paleo. I did this for 3 weeks, lost 5 pounds, and that changed my relationship with food completely. I didn't count calories at all. I don't eat paleo anymore these days, but I'm a lot more conscience of the foods I put into my mouth (most days!). My relationship with food has changed.

This is what I see happening with me as well as a begin my paleo conversion. I'm simply more conscious about EVERY decision I make about food. It doesn't mean I've become obsessed; I'm finally beginning to learn what makes me feel good and what makes me feel bad and what makes the scale move up and down.

I second it, great post

I too am food obsessed, if I didn't put weight on I would eat constantly, lots of lovely food. all sorts, healthy, unhealthy. I can eat clean, but only for a while before I really give in to the voice in my head that wants me to eat other stuff. I am a binger when I let myself.

Like the OP, this is a lifelong battle with myself that I face, and it's not easy!

Same here. I lost the weight a few years ago and have maintained since, but clean eating has never come natural for me. And I doubt it ever will. I wish it would! I regularly fall off the wagon unfortunately. Good thing is that I always climb back on, but I wish I was a little better balanced at this stage!

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.

It's not the fooad that created your overweightness, it was the fact you ate too much of it.
You lost weight because you cut down on your caloric intake.

Exactly this. My extended family, parents, etc., are all farm-raised country folk who make and eat everything from scratch. They eat all their fruits and vegetables, too. They just eat a lot of it. A LOT of it.

I was brought up on junk/processed foods. As I'm sure a lot of people were/are. I didn't eat well, or in proportion for a long time because I didn't really know how to and adverse effects of such a lifestyle were not apparent in my childhood. I was very, very active as a kid, so I was burning off all the excess calories. But, then I left school and the exercise tapered off, but the diet remained unchanged. It started slowly at first, but lbs started to creep on, and then loads of lbs.

Since then I've had to re-educate myself with regards to food, and now eat a lot more 'real' (ie, non processed) food. I'm not overly strict and do eat processed stuff occasionally, but not very often. And I had to go through the whole 'diet/low fat food' phase to get here. I'm also exercising regularly again.

Don't forget that gaining weight is not only about hunger. Or poor food education. A lot of it is emotional. I lost all that weight, and maintained it for a couple years and then I had a really ****y and stressful year and used food as a comfort, in a big way. Things are on an even keel again now and so I re-started my healthy lifestyle (several weeks before I found MFP).

Just wanted to point out that becoming fat in the first instance, is more likely down to upbringing rather than difficulty sticking to a certain lifestyle. What you do about as an adult though, is all you.

Great post, I totally agree. I ate way too many hot pockets yesterday. I was under my goal, but I felt like having junk.

On the same note, I also don't understand the "I struggle so hard to reach 1200 calories!" people.

Really? because I exercise a ridiculous amount of restraint every day to stay under 1600... That's why I was overweight before.

This is 100% me as well. The miracle days where I'm under my calorie goal effortlessly are few & far between. Most days, I'm fighting myself all evening .

I would also say though that changing my eating habits didn't seem to be as difficult this time around as I expected it to be. Maybe I was just ready for a change, and that made it seem easy. But I think that some people really do manage to make a lifestyle change, and once they do that, 'clean' eating is easier. I personally don't eat clean, I just eat more veggies now than I used to, and it's made all the difference for me & whether I'm under my calorie goal consistently or not!

Hey there lady!!! OK... you are right on the money with this question!! However, maybe those people used to have an unhealthy relationship with food and then had that Aha moment and changed... I will be totally honest and say i am 90% clean eating! I prepare only clean foods but i do eat at restaurants and i do go to freinds house for dinner etc. I will always moan when i think of eating a reece's peanut butter cup, but I will reserve eating them for special treats and i don't mean 4 times a year I mean maybe once a month or whatever and i am damn sure gonna have cake on my birthday and probably on my kids birthday too! BALANCE... lets chant this together... Balance your nutrition, treat yourself, be nice to yourself and love yourself no matter what you do. I can't say i have it all figured out all I can say is I'm on the right road.

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...

The difference is the calorie deficit is a result of eating clean. If you're eating to satiety and eating 'dirty' you'll eat a lot more than if you eat clean.

In the end, there is a caloric deficiency and that's why the weight is lost but it's not a forced deficiency and that makes a huge difference.

People only have so much willpower. If you're only staying under your calories because you stop yourself from eating (even when you're hungry), then you're going to go right back up once you stop counting calories.

People always say 'oh you'd gain weight if you ate 4000 calories/day of clean foods". Yes, that might be right, but good luck trying to reach that eating meat and vegetables. I could probably eat that in one meal going to McDonald's.

This also doesn't take into consideration the effect on BMR (and there's some good evidence that if you're hungry, your body is telling you you should eat, and if you don't eat, it negatively affects your BMR)

True. Sorry I guess I put it hand in hand. I mean in terms of quantity. 2 plates of veggies and meat (and I feel ridiculously full) or a box of brownies for dinner (where I still want to eat more). You absolutely need a calorie deficit to lose weight.

I should also note the other benefits that I experienced since eating clean: lower cholesterol, reduced signs of diabetes, hair growth