Clean eating vs. just counting your calories

Both can be important. I eat 80% clean. As in Lots of veggies, good fats, good meats, nuts and seeds, small amounts of rice, do my best to limit sugar. Clean eating motivated me to cook which is super rewarding. My skin is amazing now compared to before, and no amount of calorie counting would have done that. With that said, I can still gain weight easily from eating too much, and calorie counting helps me control my portions. It's a good idea to start slow with clean eating though. You need time to learn to replace the easy to grab, bad foods you might be eating. Give it years if you need it. Health always trumps weight/looks and nutrients are super important so make sure you're getting the proper stuff. If you're not allergic like me to gluten, then I wouldn't feel shame around eating bread and lunch meat for a meal as long as you are getting plenty of vegetables and good proteins as well during the day. Bad foods are a lot less demonic compared to not getting the vitamins you need from real food. Perfect eating can be a stressful expectation that's not all that realistic or necessary.

"Clean eating" --- definition varies from person to person and has no real agreed meaning. Eat foods that help you meet your goals.

You can do both. Eating clean should be the bottom line rule, counting calories should be auxiliary just to make sure you are doing okay.

Also, counting calories does not mean you should indulge yourself on processed food even if you stay within your calorie budget. I do believe if you eat clean, your calorie should be automatically fine, and your weight will eventually come down. I've lost 7 lbs now, counting calorie probably once a week.

scjamieson644 wrote: »

My biggest struggle with weight loss has been making up my mind. One day i tell myself "oh just eat clean and don't worry about counting calories" other days I am like "why cant i just count my calories and eat whatever fits?" I am a student and on M/W I go to school all day so i pack a sandwich and feel guilty about eating the bread and deli meat because they aren't clean but they're also 45 calories bread and all the meat is less than 100 calories. I understand that there is nothing wrong with having to eat certain foods that aren't clean for a good amount of time but why do i get so down on myself about not enjoying/being able to eat "clean"? Is it okay to eat foods that are technically processed but are good in all the calories and macros?

I personally don't see anything "unclean" about bread...this is why the whole "clean eating" concept is so ridiculous and it's not realistic to think you're never going to have something processed...and the whole feeling guilty thing is absurd...you can eat very healthfully and still eat bread and still eat deli meat, etc. I don't find anything particularly nutritionally unsound about those things.

I consider my diet to be relatively "clean"...I eat a ton of whole foods and cook most things from scratch, whole ingredients or minimally processed ingredients...but I also enjoy a nice deli sandwich here and there and like taking my kids out for pizza now and then, etc...the whole notion that you need to be bang on 100% "clean" to be healthy is just plain stupid and leads to these ridiculous feelings of guilt and whatnot.

Eat a healthy, varied, and balanced diet and you'll be fine.

By the by, you can eat as clean as you want, but if you over consume calories it doesn't matter...you consume more energy than you require and you gain weight regardless of how "clean" your diet is.

StayFit_123 wrote: »

You can do both. Eating clean should be the bottom line rule, counting calories should be auxiliary just to make sure you are doing okay.

Why? There are lots of different definitions of "eating clean," but I used to do something similar that I called "eating natural"--basically I tried to make absolutely everything at home (pasta from scratch, never used canned tomatoes) and to eat local/in-season as much as absolutely possible (which had limits, since I live in an area without fresh produce much of the time). I didn't eat smoked salmon (except for that my dad smoked and sent me), cottage cheese or yogurt (I would have eaten yogurt if I made it myself), so on.

I still do a lot of this, as I enjoy getting my produce from local farms, for ethical reasons am picky about how I source my meat, so on, but I've stopped thinking that's anything but a personal preference and don't get hung up on it being somehow less good if I buy some dried pasta or canned tomatoes or even canned beans (nothing added) for convenience, veggies out of season/frozen, even bagged spinach, cottage cheese and yogurt and smoked salmon, so on. I also have stopped thinking that I should only ever eat homemade ice cream (although I suppose some might find that non clean anyway). Instead, I make things simple and just focus on calories plus eating a healthy balanced diet. It's nice to realize that if you include what you should in your diet and are mindful you don't have to be that restrictive or agonize about whether something really makes the cut according to standards that looking at it now seem unrelated to actual health or nutrition.

Also, counting calories does not mean you should indulge yourself on processed food even if you stay within your calorie budget. I do believe if you eat clean, your calorie should be automatically fine, and your weight will eventually come down. I've lost 7 lbs now, counting calorie probably once a week.

Processed food is a broad category -- steel cut oats, all cheese, many meats (boneless, skinless, bacon--technically all meats, in fact, must go to a processor), frozen fish, plain greek yogurt, cottage cheese, dried whole wheat pasta, quinoa, barley, rice, so on, not to mention anything you buy premade, super healthy or super unhealthy based on the ingredients. Worrying about whether something is technically "processed" is the kind of thing that to me makes things harder and distracts from the more significant questions like nutrition and how much you are eating. Might I avoid specific ingredients? Sure, but there are no ingredients in all "processed foods." I personally like to cook from whole foods mostly because I like to cook, but I also like to occasionally (or even often) use things like sriracha or olive oil or soy sauce when doing so, and focusing on whole foods works for me because it helps me be more attentive to what I'm eating, not because you couldn't eat as well without doing it.