Easing into clean eating...how am I doing?

I LOVE the clean eating magazines! I like to LOOK at new recipes...I just wish I liked to COOK!!! LOL! But I do manage to try a new one every once in a while!

I think that EASING into it is a good idea! Build on each week's successes! It's all about a lifestyle approach, right?

To mix it up try some Almond butter, and of course there is that creamer with "fake" sugar. But yeah doing great. Raw is a great way to go too.

Regarding the last poster's Raw...

Eating more raw foods will really help you eat better. To do this, think in terms of how much is raw and cooked. That will get you thinking in terms of processed vs non-processed foods.

When I look at a meal, I think, how much of this is raw % wise and % cooked. 75% raw, 50% raw...these are good values to me. Dinner time, I usually go 25-50% raw so my food digests better. When I say "raw" I mean vegetables, fruits, and nuts. Don't go eating raw meats, I'm sure you know but for other people reading this, raw meat can carry foodborne illnesses, as well as raw milk.

The nutrients and enzymes are better maintained when raw. So like when preparing your meal, ask yourself, do you really have to cook those bell peppers for your fajitas? Can you eat a fajita w/o the bell peppers and instead just eat the bell peppers sliced up and raw? This is just an example. Red bell peppers have tons of nutrients. Look at the nutrients here:

http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/2896/2

I use this website often to understand which whole foods to eat / buy at the store. No wonder bell peppers are expensive! They have over 300% daily value of vitamin c, and over 90% value of vitamin A. It's better to get vitamins from foods than supplements (although I personally take supplements anyways). Plus the bell peppers have a fullness factor of 4.4, which is high, meaning less cals for your meal. I also like the website cause it has the "anti-inflammatory" factor, something which no other website I know of rates foods for. An example of a good food w/ a high inflammation factor is Fish Oil. It's rated like 30,000+. I take 2 fish oil pills every day. The opposite end of that would be a negative factor, like granulated sugar (-14), or white unenriched flour (-458). Even quaker oats instant oatmeal is -58, so that gives you an idea of how processed it is.

Processed foods are not necessarily bad. You need some foods to be processed for convenience and for maintaining nutritional value. For example, frozen vegetables are processed for your convenience and the process of freezing preserves the vitamins and minerals. Also pastuerization for dairy foods.

So when you say you want to cut out processed foods, just look at what percentage of your foods are:
-Breaded
-Bread / pasta made w/ white flour vs. whole grains
-Foods / Snacks from a box / pacakge
-Canned w/ tons of sodium for preserving
-Processed meats

You can eat processed foods here and there, but look at your food choices percentage wise and ask yourself are most of your foods processed / from a box? Or are the foods you eat close to their natural state? How much processing was involved for this to get to my plate? Freezing, canning, dehydrating.

Looking at your diary....

I'm just going to pick on things I see and give you a suggestion on what I do....

**Instant Oatmeal
I used to love instant oatmeal...then I realized I didn't need that crap that they add into those packes (the dried blueberries, the cane sugar, guar gum, flour, germ, salt). I would rather add my own agave nectar and fresh blueberries. So then I bought organic rolled oats from the bulk bins at whole foods. Then I realized that the nutritional content was even better in the steel cut oats bulk bin. So I switched to steel cut oats, and only eat steel cuts oats after some research on nutritional value. Here's some info about the differences:

http://www.thesweetbeet.com/steel-cut-oats/

Basically, the steel cut oats will keep your blood sugar lower b/c it's less processed and your body will break it down slower.

Sure steel cut oats takes longer to cook, but the TASTE is far better. I use a rice cooker now to cook them, and then I just make enough for a whole week, and store it in my fridge or freeze it in small containers (and Trader joe's Sells frozen steel cut oats in individual serving sizes as well). A pat of butter and some fresh fruit--amazing breakfast!

Back to your diary...
Yesterday's (thursday's) meals were just okay to me. The only foods that you ate that were non-processed were the strawberries and roasted veggies for lunch, and the baby carrots and romaine lettuce for dinner. So maybe incorporate more for breakfast.

Wednesday's meals were all very good to me. The only processed foods you had were the breakfast, the GU, ygourt and coconut milk. Still cocount milk is better than creamer in my opinion just comparing cals.

Tuesday's dinner was good to me. The rest seems like there's some processed foods (canned soup, granola and yogurt), and some good non processed foods (baby carrots).

I think if you were to eat like 50% processed and 50% raw or non processed, that is a good balance to start with. Seem like you are there are almost there. Then gradually build up to 50%-75% non processed foods or 50-75% raw.

If you like yogurts, you can switch out the granola w/ fresh blueberries, sliced bananas, or just don't have granola and have your flat out bread for lunch if you really like that bread. Like you don't have to have the granola and flat out bread back-to back.

I hope this helps you out! Good luck! Message me any time!!