Paelo,low carb or clean eating.

Clean eating is a term made up by people who don't understand nutrition.

For weight loss, ALL THAT MATTERS, IS CALORIES. You can eat pop-tats and cookies all day.... stay within your caloric range, and lose weight.

Unless you have some sort of medical issue, just watch your caloric intake. Eat the foods you enjoy and train yourself to eat like this for life without taking away things you love.

Fruits and vegetables that are seasonal, locally grown and purchased from a CSA or from a farmers market taste sooooo much better than factory farmed produce from 1000 miles away. Buying this kind of produce makes it much easier/tastier/more enjoyable to eat a lot of fruits and vegetables and you don't have to add flavor with fat and salt.

I guess this is a version of "clean" eating but I prefer to think of it as finding the tastiest option and enjoying it.

I really wonder if people who "hate vegetables" have only been around factory farmed produce.

Just eat normal foods at a calorie deficit and avoid ones that cause you issues. Clean eating is such a silly term and means a myriad of different things to different people. Don't over complicate it

Have a look at the link

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1175494-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants?hl=guide+to+sexypants&page=1#posts-18361594

^^^All of this^^^

Clean eating is a term made up by people who don't understand nutrition.

For weight loss, ALL THAT MATTERS, IS CALORIES. You can eat pop-tats and cookies all day.... stay within your caloric range, and lose weight.

Unless you have some sort of medical issue, just watch your caloric intake. Eat the foods you enjoy and train yourself to eat like this for life without taking away things you love.

Did you really just say these things together?

OP: you'll find a lot of people here mock the phrase "clean eating". If you're hoping to improve your health, then cleaning up your diet is a good place to start if it's a SAD (standard american diet) to begin with.

There are a few good books for learning how to eat more healthily. Foodist, gives a good intro, and is a quick read.

Best of luck with whatever you decide. And there are groups for eat of the above mentioned eating approaches.

You just need to decide what works for your goals.

I really wonder if people who "hate vegetables" have only been around factory farmed produce.

More likely they just never learned to cook them right. My mother overcooks vegetables and plus when I was a kid we often got certain vegetables (green beans, I'm looking at you) canned. I was so shocked when I tried them fresh and prepared correctly later, some of the ones I disliked the most are now my favorites. (To be honest, though, I didn't hate all veggies even as a kid, I think because we were expected to eat them and so go used to them. Putting on my old fogey hat, I get the sense that a lot of younger people basically never even had them growing up, at all. Now get off my lawn!)

I'd say it's a bit of both, probably. I never had GOOD vegetables growing up. Now I can't get enough. And I firmly believe those who eat lots of vegetables have the best chances of long term success with weight maintenance.

I really wonder if people who "hate vegetables" have only been around factory farmed produce.

More likely they just never learned to cook them right. My mother overcooks vegetables and plus when I was a kid we often got certain vegetables (green beans, I'm looking at you) canned. I was so shocked when I tried them fresh and prepared correctly later, some of the ones I disliked the most are now my favorites. (To be honest, though, I didn't hate all veggies even as a kid, I think because we were expected to eat them and so go used to them. Putting on my old fogey hat, I get the sense that a lot of younger people basically never even had them growing up, at all. Now get off my lawn!)

I love vegetables

I don't see them as either/ or, but incorporate all three into how I am eating currently. Presently its more low carb focussed, but pretty much all the food I eat is real, natural food, as opposed to food that we as humans have screwed with in a bad way, ie wheat, or processed foods that almost come out of a chemistry lab, for example.

During the weight loss phase of my new diet, carbs will be the main focus, but I have already been giving some thought as to how I shall go when I lose the weight I am seeking to lose. At the moment, I can see myself transitioning into something that sees me eating most things, aside from added sugar and wheat, and including things like starchy vegetables, full fat dairy, dark chocolate, and the occasional unit or two of alcohol.

I don't really buy into any dogma about what I should and shouldn't eat, but rather instead focus on eliminating or restricting the things I consider counterproductive to good/ optimal health. A lot of the paleo stuff fits into the right place for me with regard to what I would like to eat, especially that is encourages real, natural and non-processed foods, but thats as far as it goes, and once I lose the weight I wish to, I shall have no compunction to add in a few other things like dark chocolate/ the occasional glass of red wine/ etc.

All that said, I can't see myself going back to a mainly carb diet once I lose weight, and whatever I do eat I shall be ensuring I don't overdo it on the carbs, and transition to a moderate amount of carbs or something in the 100- 150g net range.

Edit: by the way, if starting on low carb, start slowly would be my recommendation, and do it in phases, ie reduce alcohol & cut any junk food first, taper back on the starches second & continue to reduce alcohol intake, maintain this level of carbs next for a while, and then finally you should be in the best place to start trimming the net carbs you are eating. Also if it helps, think of things on a swapping basis, ie I'm cutting out junk food, but can now eat more fried food, etc. That way, it might not seem like you are giving up things, so much as changing the things you can eat. Oh, and rule number one for me was to taper back the sugar, as without doing that I realised I would have no real control over what I ate, no matter how full I felt from a diet richer in protein and especially fat compared to before.

The first rule of nutrition: no one really knows anything about nutrition.

Eh. On the details there are conflicting things, and we can either evaluate what's known as best as possible, throw up our hands, or do what I'd recommend, which is avoid getting into the weeds unless for some reason it interests you, rather than stresses you out.

The debates you are talking about really don't change the fact that most people do just fine on a balanced diet built around a good variety of vegetables, fruits, and protein, carbs, and fat, with the existence of some balance mattering more to most than specific numbers, and with people being sensitive to how they feel. I'd add in that stuff like transfats probably should be dropped, especially if you aren't logging watch the amount of non nutrient dense stuff, including sugary stuff, as it's quite likely to lead to an overconsumption of calories, and that if you get in the habit of home cooking you will likely be consuming fewer calories and a more balanced meal too (at least if you have the kind of basic boring idea of what goes on a dinner plate that I grew up with).

Beyond that (and maybe a few other similar concepts) I don't think there's any need to cut out things or make up detailed rules or get into the weeds, like I said. If it interests you, sure, but someone saying "how do I need to eat to lose weight" is just going to get frustrated and confused by all the books and other sources that push one agenda or another, especially since there are many contradictions and a lot of them buy into some degree of inadequately supported fear mongering (i.e., your food has no nutrition).

If someone really needs to lose weight, losing weight is one of the best things they can do for their health, period (and it will lead to a reduction in internal fat too). In my experience many, many people end up also "cleaning up" their diets--in that they realize that they aren't satisfied or happy without working in more filling, nutrient dense foods, that foods you can eat in volume (like vegetables) make a difference, that many of the super high carb options, especially on their own, aren't filling, same with the diet or low fat stuff, etc. But if you insist losing weight must involve all this, a lot of people are going to get frustrated or see it as hopeless from the beginning or just get confused and latch onto silly and pointless rules that won't be helpful longterm (like those diet plans that set forth foods and say you have to eat 6 times a day or, yes, cutting out bread or all "added sugar" for most people -- I think I eat a healthy diet, and eat pretty much anything in moderation, it's just that I focus on filling up on nutrient dense things first).

The basis of the clean eating movement is that processed food is never as good as natural, untouched, or 'clean' food. For example, all formula for babies is still not as nutritional as breastmilk. Food with added supplements, or low-carb, or low-fat is really just genetically engineered to the latest fad. Eating clean is an attempt to return to how humans ate for millenium before the Industrial Revolution. The idea is that since nutritional science still has no definite picture, return to the way people ate when there was no obesity, diabetes, etc.

Oh, clean eating has so many more definitions than that!

But one problem with that philosophy is that it ignores the fact that many of the "processed foods" being discussed -- many of the ways that how we eat are different than how our great great great grandparents ate (or however far back you want to go) -- are positive changes that make us healthier.

For example, my g-g-g grandparents were pretty much all farmers, some of whom lived not far from where I live (so similar climate). Assuming for the sake of this that they had little available at the store, this means that they were stuck with local produce and in the winter through early spring, basically what they could store in a cool place or can, etc. That's very limited (and requires work that most of us don't have the time for). (They also probably ate more meat than a lot of the "clean" sources approve of, loads of starchy carbs, and like I said, probably far fewer vegetables and fruits during certain times of year and a much reduced variety overall.)

So what are the "processed" foods available to me, that I use commonly, that my ggg grandparents didn't have? Well, the number one thing is fruits, vegetables, and even meats from outside the area and thus outside their normal season. I get the (debatable) environmental objections here, but condemning this would mean that it would be bad to eat a banana or orange (would never grow here), tomatoes or broccoli much of the year, etc. Also, it would prohibit commercially frozen and canned vegetables, and those (especially frozen) are to the contrary one of the best ways that we've made a variety of healthy vegetables available to people at reasonable prices (vs. not available at all).

Same goes for fish, obviously. I eat lots of salmon, for example, including smoked, plus lots of other fish that isn't local here. Even the fish that is arguably local (trout), I tend to buy frozen (and the vast majority of fish you see not frozen was at one point). So if I were being really restrictive about "clean" eating--or eating like my ggg grandfather--this stuff would be off limits. Yet I'd argue to anyone that it's more healthy for my diet to include them, rather than less.

Next, yogurt and cottage cheese. These are obviously processed. My ggg grandfather might have been able to eat them, but not purchased from the store in pretty little packages, especially not brought in from Europe. Again, I don't at all concede that because these are "processed" or "not natural" that they are bad for my health. I think they, to the contrary, add to the health of my diet.

So for me, this rule about no processed not only seems to make it impossible for me to buy anything from the store (everything is processed in some way, even the stuff on the perimeters where I mostly shop) and doesn't really get at the objection. I can make ice cream (I might bring out my ice cream maker this evening, even), so let's not pretend that the issue that anti ice cream folks have with ice cream is that it's processed. It's that they think no non nutrient dense food should be in one's diet ever or that sugar is evil. IMO, neither of those claims is true. If I work out a lot of have extra calories after my nutrient dense foods are all eaten and need more substance for my physical activity (as my ggg grandparents did, which is why their diets -- like the current USDA recommendations -- included LOTS of starchy carbs), then I need extra calories, and if I want to get some from ice cream in moderate amounts, why not?

So on. The point is rather than some silly scare tactic about modern foods or "processing," why not just exercise some common sense about what a particular item adds or doesn't add to the overall health of your diet, in context? Most people really aren't thinking that Ding Dongs are nutrient dense or contribute much but calories (or that they lack various additives that a home made cake wouldn't have -- although "clean" eating would seem to condemn both). So no one actually thinks it's good to eat Ding Dongs all day or build a diet around it. The question is if someone who really loves Ding Dongs (for the record I've never liked them, even as a kid) wants to have one once a week or so because otherwise she'll miss them, is that going to be something that breaks the rules or means that her diet is not healthy or okay for weight loss or that she should feel ashamed or disgusting for eating them. Absolutely not, and that's my problem with "clean eating" (as well as the fact that the rules are so all over the place and contradictory and that it's false to claim that foods are "unclean," and obnoxious too). It's really quite unhealthy to push this idea that foods are either pure and clean and make you pure and clean or else they are icky and unclean and make the people who eat them the same. And it seems obvious to me that this is part of the clean eating concept, given our overall societal weirdness about food and weight and so on.

(This last is just an effort to explain why I get so wound up about the "clean" terminology, even if the healthy claims separately are worth discussing, on a more specific level than "processed"=bad.