Hey challengers,

Every once and there I get the questions like “What the heck is clean eating?” “Why should I eat clean?” “What is the whole deal about it?” “Do I need to give up on all food I love?”

Let me try to give you few simple answer to it.

1. You don’t need to eat less; you just need to eat right.

Once I had a post about it already, you can read here. The major problem with all kind of diets is that they forbid certain food. Usually those you like the most. Diets are strict with times when you should eat, portions, etc. Clean eating is not about that. It’s about teaching you how to divide the food during the day, how to combine it, what food to use, what are better alternatives to certain food. And by finding the best item in each of the food groups.

2. Eating in a pattern, every 2-3 hours keeps your body working

Are you one of those people who say: “Yea but I eat so little and only twice a day. How come that I am not loosing weight?” This is one of mistakes a lot of you are doing and not realising that is not going to work, when it comes feeling good and loosing weight. In order to start loosing weight is to make your body burn the calories. Body burns calories by both exercising and eating well. If you learn to eat every 2-3 hours you keep your stomach busy. By keeping it busy, he needs energy. And to get the energy, body uses the food that comes into stomach. So, by eating only twice a day or even worse – once a day, your stomach becomes lazy. Lazy in a way that starts storing the food, because it has the whole day to shred it apart and send it into all other departments in our digestion system. The worst thing a lot of you does is, eating only once a day, normally in the evening. Do you really think that is fair you give your stomach such a huge job to deal with at the end of the day? It’ll be dealing with the heavy food the whole night, kept you awake and you’ll get up in the morning, looking yourself in the mirror, all swollen and fed up of what you see. Do you get it?

Here are 3 main reasons why eating 5-6 meals a day is the best choice:

1. a) You wont feel hungry, no danger for craving attack
2. b) You keep your stomach working & by him working, burning calories
3. c) Easier dealing with tiredness, stress, headache, etc

 

3. Eating real food, reading labels & alternatives to it

By “real” food is meant the food that is in its “original” shape. No pre-prepared food, no marinated meet/fish, package, powder food, long lasting food, cheap mix spices, sugar packed food and on and on. I know sometimes it’s easier to buy already prepared meal and put it in the microwave. But if you care about your health stop doing that. Stop being lazy, because nobody is so busy that has no time at all to prepare this kind of meals. There is for sure at least an hour per day when you can cook the whole pot of delicious minestrone soup, lasagna, truffles, goulash, etc, divide it into smaller Tupperware and freeze it in for the next time. I accept no excuse at all! I am dead serious about it.

I am very obsessed by reading labels as well. And you should start doing the same as well. Be aware what are you eating. Please. Do yourself a favor. Food that can last “forever” has also chemical stuff that can make food last forever and are very, very bad for you! Food that looks incredibly beautiful, perfectly shaped, nice colors, delicious smell – most of the time contains “fake” ingredients. Read and if you cannot pronounce the word, get rid of it. Start buying fresh products, organic products, products directly from the farmer. And with those fresh products make your own meals.

The last but not the least, look for alternatives. If you can’t see a day without chocolate, learn to eat more pure chocolate (min. 70% of cacao). Or make your own chocolate. Instead of piece of a cake from the shop – make your own cake (click for recipe). Make your own truffles (recipe here). Make popcorn from an organic corn and bake it on the coconut oil (like in the good old days). You love French fries? Make your own sweet potato fries in the oven. Instead of buying cheap spices mix, make your own spice mix (normally those bough in the shop contain huge amount of salt).

4. Ditch that bad sugar and start tasting the real food

Once you ditch the sugar out of your life, your tongue will develop stronger awareness for the spices. Sometimes we get guests in the shop “complaining” that our “healthy” cakes are not sweet enough. That is because they’re so used of the sugar food, that our cakes with natural sugars (dates, dry figs, apricots, raisins, cranberries, honey, agave syrup) don’t taste sweet enough. Because of the sugar you don’t taste the real food, you don’t taste the ingredients in the cake.

Exactly the same thing is food that comes in powder and by cooking it you get a “meal”. How do you imagine that mashed potato, or those sauces that by blending it with water contains the same ingredients as freshly made? The powder-mashed potato is everything else but potato. I might sound harsh but stop being lazy and stop making excuses! Start enjoying the food and do something about it to feel better!

5. Eat 80:20

But, let’s get real. We’re all humans and humans make mistakes. Every once and there everyone likes a scoop of ice cream, the “bad” chocolate, the junk food, etc. Unless you’re competing for “Miss fitness” you’re allowed to have cheat meals. And this is what the number 80:20 mean. 80% we eat good and clean and we can allow ourselves to have 20% of “less” good eating. Don’t take me for granted, so if you have 10% “less” good eating per week, it’s awesome. But there must be the limit somewhere. 80:20 would mean, if you have 35 meals per week (5 meals per day), you could allow yourself 7 cheat meals. But like I said – it’s not a must and it’s not necessary, but you could. While eating this way, don’t make 7 cheat meals all dinners. Try as well not the make all 5-cheat meals in a day. The whole thing behind it is, that if you have a birthday to celebrate or a business dinner that you shouldn’t feel guilty of eating “different” for that meal. Because I don’t expect you to stick to a green salad if you are in a fancy restaurant for a date, or you’re with your friends out for a pizza.

6. Eat veggies – they wont make you fat

You can eat vegetables in unlimited portions. They wont make you fat but they will nicely fill up your stomach and you’ll eat less of the other, more fuelling food. If hungry, grab that crudités (recipe here).

I know this post is quite long, I hope you kept reading it and you’ve learned something from it. And most important, that you understand the meaning behind the clean eating.

Do you still have any doubts? Questioning about it? Bring it on. I’ll be more than glad to explain it to you.

 

Stay strong, it’s quite a journey, but it will bring you to the place you wont regret it. I promise.

 

Till next time,

lots of Love ***