"Clean" eating vs. Moderation- what works for you?

ElliottTN wrote: »

Trying to think of the most non-offensive way to put this so pre-apologies if I offend, truly not meaning to do so.

From my time on MFP I have personally noticed:
Those who solely preach just the moderation aspect, like the "I eat fast food 3 times a week but under my caloric yada yada..." seem to be in reasonably ok shape. They are usually healthy, good head on their shoulders and so on. It seems a good mix of people who were once overweight and fought their way back and some that have just been actively maintaining for years and so on. Good people, great advice, great support for people actively trying to lose weight but body type is usually 'meh.

I just haven't met many in this camp with the body type or competition accomplishments that really impress or inspire me.

I have found the people that I do really look up to and reach out for advice and instruction both preach moderation but put most of their emphasis on clean eating. Not so much that they have to get organic everything but more in terms of packing as much nutritional value as possible into every single calorie they digest. Like, they make their pizza at home instead of buying papa john's. They don't eat fast food except on very rare occasions and so on. They plain out do not eat food designed to have an extended shelf life. It is either fresh or they do not consume it (with the exception of workout supplements.)

So, yeah, in short, it's the clean eaters (people who do not consume designer food is my definition) that have always impressed me and have the results I want. I am striving to be more like them and find that I overall feel better when I do.

Just my 2 cents, doesn't mean much but there it is.

C'est la vie. I personally find competitive body builders yucky to look at. I don't think I've seen any of them impress me with their skillz tending goats or running in dog agility, which are the things that are important to me.

Just because my goals differ from yours or my standards of dietary success are different from yours, neither my standards nor your standards are better than the other.

Moderation. Though if I was only eating 1200 calories, I wouldn't choose cereal to eat. It doesn't fill me up long enough. I do occasionally eat it now but I'm eating 1600-1800 calories, and sometimes I'm sorry I ate the cereal because later in the day it is harder to fit in other things I would rather have. And it also doesn't have enough protein for me to meet my protein goal.

JPW1990 wrote: »

jvt63 wrote: »

People who like to label themselves as "clean" eaters are essentially the same as the IIFYMers. However, the label makes them feel so much better about themselves and a lot of times is used to make themselves feel superior to others.

This is such absolute *kitten*.

That entitlement goes both ways. Search for how many threads talking about giving something up have a reply along the lines of "lol" or "no" on the first page.

Hardly any. Most of them ask why. Perfectly reasonable question given the fact that a lot of people are n00b's, like the OP, who aren't quite satisfied with their intake and think they HAVE to give something up. Getting to the bottom of their reasoning enables the people asking to provide them with targeted advice.

Speaking for myself, I have have experience to share with giving things up, doing without, and with doing moderation. I ask why a lot. I'm interested in helping others succeed in their goals. I suspect most of the other posters asking "why?" are as well. Informing the misinformed is a good thing.

I've never seen so much push-back against correcting wrong assumptions.

Alyssa_Is_LosingIt wrote: »

Basically what I got from this is that preservatives somehow inhibit muscle gainz.

K.

Your reading comprehension and sarcastic ability are both D students.

The definitions of eating clean change depending on what camp is presenting it (and from person to person), but eating clean as far as I am concerned means eating less processed foods, and eating more whole foods. So, for me, reducing processed foods with artificial sweeteners, artificial colors/flavours, refined grains and added sugars, and preparing my own foods would be a way of eating "cleaner".

I don't eat clean, and don't think eating completely clean would be sustainable for me. That being said, I have "cleaned up" my diet considerably to help me lose weight. I have diabetes. I need to eat proteins with carbs to avoid blood glucose spikes. Before I started using MFP and tracking protein, I could easily eat less than 30 grams of protein a day. I needed to radically increase both my protein and fiber intake in order to feel full with less calories and successfully lose weight. The processed foods I was eating had lots of carbs and fats, and little protein or fiber. Eating "clean" (whole foods, prepared at home), consiously chosing to include more protein, and including more "super foods" (chia seeds, spinach) makes it easier for me to meet my macro targets, especially fiber.

I have a hard time eating sugary treats moderately. One is too many, and 200 is never enough.... For the first 7 months of my diet, I found I was better off having no sugary treats. Otherwise I would binge, and go over my calories. Now I've gone from morbidly obese to overweight (and hope to be a healthy BMI by early April), I want my weight loss to slow (I was losing 3-4/lbs a week until this month), so I am increasing my calorie intake. I have decided to try to incorporate sugary treats in my diet to do so, and have successfully slowed my weight loss (partially due to topping up my glycogen stores). This is trickly, though, as the treats still trigger binges. It's a real tight-rope walk to figure out how to eat them and have it not be a disaster. I try to have a treat right before a run. The exercise helps quell the subsequent cravings.

I know I'm going on and on here. What I'm trying to say, is, for me, clean eating is a paradigm that assists with weight loss and healthier eating, not a blugeon to hit other people with (it's all about me ). Reducing added sugars helped me quell cravings and binges that would derail my diet. Reducing added sugars helped me lose a lot of weight fairly quickly. So, now I've lost 123 lbs in 9 months (20 before MFP), I'm looking at researching what it would mean to eat moderately, which would still mean eating less-processed, whole foods prepared at home most of the time. When I figure it out, I'll be ready for when I need to increase my calorie intake for maintenance.

And another note - Professor Mark Haub ate more than twinkies during his diet. While 66% of his diet was processed foods (Twinkies, Little Debbie Snacks, Doritos, sugary cereals and Oreos), he also had protein shakes, took multivitamins, and ensured he was getting fiber from beans and other vegetables. He ate healthy foods in front of his children so he wouldn't set a bad example . Sadly, if I had no concerns for my healthy, I would eat only processed foods like twinkies and frozen cookie dough all the time.....

ElliottTN wrote: »

Alyssa_Is_LosingIt wrote: »

Basically what I got from this is that preservatives somehow inhibit muscle gainz.

K.

Your reading comprehension and sarcastic ability are both D students.

Granted I skimmed what you wrote because that has not been my experience at all (there are some hard bodied people on here who don't eat "clean" by your definition), but you did say this:

They don't eat fast food except on very rare occasions and so on. They plain out do not eat food designed to have an extended shelf life. It is either fresh or they do not consume it (with the exception of workout supplements.)

Foods have shelf lives because of preservatives. You implied that these would somehow inhibit someone's progress. Which is false.

cwolfman13 wrote: »

I eat a whole lot of whole foods...but I'm not scared of white carbs (note that potatoes are whole foods) and I'm not afraid of some pizza now and then or some ice cream either.

You can get awesome nutrition and eat very healthfully and still have indulgences.

"Indulgences" is a great word. Yes, by all means.

Alyssa_Is_LosingIt wrote: »

Foods have shelf lives because of preservatives. You implied that these would somehow inhibit someone's progress. Which is false.

Actually, what you said is this:
"Basically what I got from this is that preservatives somehow inhibit muscle gainz.

I never implied preservatives would inhibit "gainz" or progress.

Look, I appreciate that you are now seemingly trying to have a rational conversation about the content in my post but we both know it is just a poor attempt to construct a facade around that lame attempt for you to be edgy and funny. I think you need less internet time today.

tedboosalis7 wrote: »

DebHutton55 wrote: »

Eat the right carbs, proteins and fats. Watch the quantity. Move! There's the key to healthy living and an outcome in your later years that has you with your memory and the ability to move around with ease. If you are just eating for your weight, wise up. It's taken me most of my life to figure that out.
Someone said, sugar is nothing unless you have a medical condition. So wrong! Read, read, read. What all this stuff is doing to your brain, is more important than what it is doing to your butt.
Of course, eat an occasional bad but if you start eating correctly, you don't have that desire anymore.

This is awesome. I love this statement: "What all this stuff is doing to your brain, is more important than what it is doing to your butt." Very well put. ♥

Some people tolerate a high carb diet better than others, certainly I am not in the lot of that kind of tolerance. I was borderline Type II and have an auto-immune disorder and had to change my diet completely - I lost the weight, gained muscle and strength, lost many of the symptoms of the auto-immune disorder (not all), and now awaiting my physical this week to check my blood work one year after I made this change.

I can say I have cheated maybe 5 times in one year - and during that time, it was morsels - I still eat chocolate but it has to be pure dark chocolate. I know what is good because I was a chocolatier at one time - successfully owned a business and sold it 5 years ago. I know what goes into confections and there's no way I would eat any of them now unless its pure dark chocolate. Chocolate has fiber - that makes it palatable to eat.

There's a real difference calorie for calorie between different foods - meat <> broccoli, for example. Both provide specific nutrients (or densities of nutrients) the other doesn't have. Further, to achieve the caloric equivalent of meat, it takes a hellalot of broccoli. Say an 8oz hamburger or salmon or tenderloin - take those three calorically and you would need to eat ALOT of broccoli - in fact, all three meats contain differences in nutrition unto themselves.

I do believe CICO matters but it matters within the context of your macros. For instance, not all fiber is digestible (insoluble v. soluble). Not all soluble fiber is digestible - those calories can essentially be thrown out - fiber is used by the body in a much different way than the "net" carb of that food. You can't store fiber (or most of it) because it's not made to be stored. It's made to be moved through the body and aids in the elimination process.

Protein requires protein calories to process it - then some protein is used for muscle synthesis and hypertrophy:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11255140

"Resistance exercise improves muscle protein balance, but, in the absence of food intake, the balance remains negative (i.e., catabolic)."

So one can "move around" but if one doesn't eat the required macro, one creates a catabolic state that in essence wipes out the whole concept of "moving around"!

The remaining protein is then "storable." So figure 33% of your protein calories are convertible to fat.

I don't think there's a magic number when it comes to weight loss - for instance, many purport that eating 1500 calories would garner weight loss - but 1500 calories of what - does that figure exercise into it, and is that enough to sustain muscles over the long-term? Does that raise the metabolic set point to where you need to eat even less once your metabolism slows to 1500?

That's the problem with looking at things from just the CICO perspective. I do agree (and often get mislabeled on here) that CICO matters, but it matters within the perspective of your macros, the kinds of foods you are eating, the processing (or lack thereof) of that food, and your body's metabolic resistance (or lack thereof) to certain macros and foods.

Agree, agree, agree! I am working at losing weight and at the same time doing resistance training and cardio. It is so important for me to eat the right foods so that the weight I do lose is not coming from muscle and so that I keep my metabolism up all day long. The whole idea of clean food eating is to provide you with the best nutrients for your body no matter what your goals are!

donamari7 wrote: »

tedboosalis7 wrote: »

DebHutton55 wrote: »

Eat the right carbs, proteins and fats. Watch the quantity. Move! There's the key to healthy living and an outcome in your later years that has you with your memory and the ability to move around with ease. If you are just eating for your weight, wise up. It's taken me most of my life to figure that out.
Someone said, sugar is nothing unless you have a medical condition. So wrong! Read, read, read. What all this stuff is doing to your brain, is more important than what it is doing to your butt.
Of course, eat an occasional bad but if you start eating correctly, you don't have that desire anymore.

This is awesome. I love this statement: "What all this stuff is doing to your brain, is more important than what it is doing to your butt." Very well put. ♥

Some people tolerate a high carb diet better than others, certainly I am not in the lot of that kind of tolerance. I was borderline Type II and have an auto-immune disorder and had to change my diet completely - I lost the weight, gained muscle and strength, lost many of the symptoms of the auto-immune disorder (not all), and now awaiting my physical this week to check my blood work one year after I made this change.

I can say I have cheated maybe 5 times in one year - and during that time, it was morsels - I still eat chocolate but it has to be pure dark chocolate. I know what is good because I was a chocolatier at one time - successfully owned a business and sold it 5 years ago. I know what goes into confections and there's no way I would eat any of them now unless its pure dark chocolate. Chocolate has fiber - that makes it palatable to eat.

There's a real difference calorie for calorie between different foods - meat <> broccoli, for example. Both provide specific nutrients (or densities of nutrients) the other doesn't have. Further, to achieve the caloric equivalent of meat, it takes a hellalot of broccoli. Say an 8oz hamburger or salmon or tenderloin - take those three calorically and you would need to eat ALOT of broccoli - in fact, all three meats contain differences in nutrition unto themselves.

I do believe CICO matters but it matters within the context of your macros. For instance, not all fiber is digestible (insoluble v. soluble). Not all soluble fiber is digestible - those calories can essentially be thrown out - fiber is used by the body in a much different way than the "net" carb of that food. You can't store fiber (or most of it) because it's not made to be stored. It's made to be moved through the body and aids in the elimination process.

Protein requires protein calories to process it - then some protein is used for muscle synthesis and hypertrophy:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11255140

"Resistance exercise improves muscle protein balance, but, in the absence of food intake, the balance remains negative (i.e., catabolic)."

So one can "move around" but if one doesn't eat the required macro, one creates a catabolic state that in essence wipes out the whole concept of "moving around"!

The remaining protein is then "storable." So figure 33% of your protein calories are convertible to fat.

I don't think there's a magic number when it comes to weight loss - for instance, many purport that eating 1500 calories would garner weight loss - but 1500 calories of what - does that figure exercise into it, and is that enough to sustain muscles over the long-term? Does that raise the metabolic set point to where you need to eat even less once your metabolism slows to 1500?

That's the problem with looking at things from just the CICO perspective. I do agree (and often get mislabeled on here) that CICO matters, but it matters within the perspective of your macros, the kinds of foods you are eating, the processing (or lack thereof) of that food, and your body's metabolic resistance (or lack thereof) to certain macros and foods.

Agree, agree, agree! I am working at losing weight and at the same time doing resistance training and cardio. It is so important for me to eat the right foods so that the weight I do lose is not coming from muscle and so that I keep my metabolism up all day long. The whole idea of clean food eating is to provide you with the best nutrients for your body no matter what your goals are!

That is the goal of moderation as well. Along with not having to deprive yourself of the things you love. Both work IMO. Whichever works better is up to the individual...