Confusion & stress over clean, healthy eating

You should NOT feel stressed about food. It's wonderful to want to eat more fruits and veg, they're nice things to eat, but no WAY of eating is the "RIGHT" way.

Nutrient dense foods are important, but you can make small changes gradually, and still keep eating foods you love in moderation. What are you eating now?

There is no one definition of clean eating, that's part of why it is so confusing. A good read.
http://wannabebig.com/diet-and-nutrition/the-dirt-on-clean-eating/

Keep it simple. Avoid foods that bother you (if any), choose a lot of nutrient dense foods and enjoy the rest in moderation. Stay at or under your calorie goal.

Dont stress and keep it simple. You cna just eat a more balanced healthy diet as well as smaller portions of more calorie dense foods. I cant see anything wrong in basing your 80% around the 5 fruit and veg, complex carbs and lean proteins. The vast majority on here modeate and allow themselves a lot of the treat foods in moderation, pizza, ice cream chcolate, but they fit it into their allowance.

Just aim to eat healthily with an occasional treat, there's no need to eat 'clean'. I eat pretty healthily, I generally make my own meals from scratch, and snack on fruit, natural yogurt, cottage cheese, rice cakes etc, but I don't eat 'clean' (whatever that really means) and I do eat chocolate, ice-cream etc just so long as it fits into my day.

My diary is open and I've logged just over 1000 days, so you're more than welcome to take a look. I lost 66lbs eating like this after my 2nd baby, and I logged all through my 3rd pregnancy, and I'm currency losing weight after that.

VeeBanks wrote: »

@mamapeach910 Thanks for taking the time to look! I wasn't aware that I was eating under my calorie goal most days, guess I forgot to go back and look! Although I have heard a lot about needing a calorie deficit if I want to lose weight? Or is that just rubbish?

@DawnieB1977 Thanks Dawnie, I will friend you if that's okay? It's always good to have other good role models to check out occasionally Congrats on your weight loss so far!

When you joined up for the site, did you plug in your stats and your goals? All you need to do to lose weight is eat at a calorie deficit. That is true. The calorie goal set for you by the site IS at your calorie deficit, you don't need to eat under that.

Buy a food scale. It's the best investment you can make. Start weighing and measuring your foods. Select accurate data base entries. Every time you log something, double check that you're picking the accurate data base entry with either the USDA data base or nutritiondata.self.com.

Add an exercise you enjoy, if you like. Try not to overestimate the calorie burns. The entries for them in the MFP data base are notoriously inflated. Eat back half your exercise calories.

Add more nutrient dense foods to your diet like vegetables, fruits, lean proteins that you enjoy, and continue to eat the occasional treat like a cookie or two. It's fine.

I became more successful when I started to have more unprocessed food. It took a while to become accustomed.

Processed food like breakfast cereals and packaged meals are often high in sugars, simple carbohydrates, salt, and fats. Those sell the food. Selling is the point, not your health. Same marketing philosophy goes for "diet" foods in the stores.

I don't eat "clean" by any stretch. I have beer and pizza and other treats. But I do eat lots more veggies, mostly frozen bagged veggies because they are convenient.

Eating a healthy diet that includes a lot of variety and is high on nutrient dense food shouldn't be boring or stressful. I think that a lot of what might be useful in the "clean eating" message gets lost in the negativity of "you shouldn't eat that".

I really dislike the "clean eating" message for that effect.

Having said that, if you are unhappy about your current food choices, or find it bland, step up with the imagination of how you can prepare things.

For example, I like avocados, but I'm not going to eat them as a bland side very often.

Prepare them with:
- fig balsamic vinaigrette
- with shrimp and pico de gallo
- as the add-on in a tortilla soup
- in sandwiches
- in roasted chicken as a blend sauce

Invest in spices, pastes and sauces and use these in your cooking.

Hitting that 80/20 goal works when the 80 isn't covered in the bereavement of sorrowful abnegation. A nice chicken wrap with mint leaves and hoisin sauce tastes better.

VeeBanks wrote: »

@mamapeach910‌ I did plug in my goals and stats yes! So are you saying that the calorie intake MFP recommends includes a calorie deficit i.e. gives you a bit less than what you should normally eat? Sorry if that's a silly question haha.
@kommodevaran‌ @EvgeniZyntx‌ I know, personally I hate the term 'clean eating', I just used it in the title of this topic because it seems to be the thing nowadays to describe healthy eating! Bleh. That point about avocados is helpful!

Yep, if you put in that you wanted to lose weight at x lbs per week, that is the calorie level you need to eat to (plus half of any exercise calories you 'earn', as has already been said)

Healthy eating is having a good, balanced diet with plenty of variety that you can stick to

VeeBanks wrote: »

Hi everyone!

I am trying to slowly improve my overall diet and food choices, but I am finding it difficult to not feel restricted, paranoid and sad about it!
I see countless articles and videos about 'clean eating' but to me it just seems very restrictive and unimaginative - just turkey and chicken? Loads of nuts and avocado? (still trying to make myself like more nuts and warm to avocado more) I have been trying to up my intake of fruit and veg, and not snack on bad things, but I'm finding myself a little bit bored and unmotivated by all the example meals I have been seeing.

Can anyone advise me on what to do about this? I want to eat healthily AT LEAST 80% of the time, like a kinda 80/20 split, but I'm just feeling so unmotivated and uninspired. I am trying to incorporate much more exercise (currently working on the Kayla Itsines Bikini Body Guide), but I know that it's more about what you eat than your exercise regime!

Welcome!

For me, starting to overstress about something that I'm trying with food tends to mean I'm overdoing it or biting off too much at a time (which I'm prone to). I don't use the "clean" term, but I do try to eat a really nutritious diet and am into doing as much as I can with home cooking and sourcing my meat/produce from farms a bunch of the time, etc. I'm thinking that because some of this is new to you and there are so many different ways people do it with different "rules" that you might be putting a bigger burden on yourself than you need.

For example, just turkey and chicken is totally unnecessary. Right now I'm eating just fish as my meat, but normally I eat all kinds of meat. Plenty of meat is reasonably lean and even that which isn't (like some pork shoulder) can be worked in so long as you watch portions. And even turkey and chicken can be more varied than the skinless, boneless breast, of course--thighs and legs and roasted whole chickens, etc. But I recommend varying the meat.

Nuts and avocado are great--healthy and tasty and protect against the tendency some have to go too low fat. But if you don't love them, don't push yourself to eat them. I mainly use nuts as an accent to a veggie dish (like pine nuts) or as a small snack (and you can't eat that many anyway, given the calories). I eat maybe one avocado a week although I love them, since they are quite expensive here right now.

I'm not sure what you mean by bad things--you might be being a bit overly restrictive. If this helps, I'll go through how I do it, which I find pretty easy most of the time (I'm lazy, so making things easy is the key to my success!).

At first my biggest challenge was upping my protein, and I find protein really satiating, so it helps me to base each meal around protein. So I'll start by identifying my protein source. Then I will try to add veggies--usually at least a couple of servings. Then I add in my extras, whether it's fruit, dairy, or some kind of starch/grains. I usually get some healthy fat with the protein and the veggies (since I cook them in olive oil or add a dressing with some olive oil to a salad, etc.).

How this works in practice is that for breakfast I have a standard breakfast of eggs (the protein+fat) in a veggie omelet (the vegetables), with some feta (an extra). I usually want more food/protein, since I like bigger breakfasts, so I have some cottage cheese or yogurt and some fruit too. I vary this or pieces of it from time to time, depending on what I have at home.

For lunch I often do leftovers or make up lunches in advance. Lately I have some fish I cooked ahead (typically I'll do some kind of meat in the slow cooker in advance), and pair it with white rice (I am trying white rice since I usually workout at lunch hour and am trying it as a post workout carb--I used to do potatoes or sweet potatoes and sometimes I do no starchy carb at all), and a couple of kinds of green veggies (I usually whip these up when making dinner or breakfast). There are also a few places I like to buy lunch for variety--I'm comfortable with their calories and ingredients (I don't like making salads in advance, so this is often how I get a salad with protein, which I love as a lunch, and I also sometimes do a sandwich--I just try to make sure I can get veggies with it and it has an okay amount of protein). One of the places I buy lunch from has great chocolates, so as an occasional treat I'll buy a small serving of high quality chocolate.

Lately I like a snack in the afternoon, so I bring a protein bar (for me it operates like a sweet snack, but also fills me up and helps me meet my protein goal, which a baked good or chocolate on its own would not do much). Other alternatives I use are greek yogurt plus fruit or nuts.

For dinner I usually work around the protein I decide to have, and am really flexible with just using the veggies I have on hand. I usually do a starch with dinner but try to change it up--pasta (I usually use whole wheat but really so long as you have a healthy sauce with good ingredients it doesn't make that much difference--you should be getting enough fiber anyway), potatoes/sweet potatoes, winter squash, root veggies, celeriac, sun chokes so on--tons of options to keep from getting bored. With some meals I like fruit on the side (sometimes cooked, sometimes not).

And then, depending on what I've had the rest of the day, I very often have calories left, so try to have a little something after dinner. Often, for me, this is ice cream (measure out the serving), but it can be fruit or cheese or whatever seems pleasant.

I hope this helps rather than making it more complicated. I think the point is that there are certain goals I try to meet but beyond that I try to make it as easy for myself as possible. Rather than deciding I can never do something like buy lunch, I consider what my goals are (to have a healthy lunch that has protein and veggies) and then figure out if there are bought lunches that can work for me. Stuff like that.

For me lots of similarity for lunch and breakfast is fine, variety at dinner is needed more.