Update: Goal #28) Eat a Balanced Diet
April 18, 2010 8 Comments
When I threw out my 2009 calendar, I made resolutions like everyone else. One of those resolutions was to stop treating my mouth like a dumpster and begin to eat a healthy, balanced diet. Like my struggle to kick the soda habit, eating healthy has been a challenge for me. There are so many excuses not to eat healthy. It is too expensive, there isn’t enough time to prepare healthy meals, I don’t know how to cook and, of course, vegetables are yucky! Besides, pizza and cheeseburgers are delicious, why deprive myself of foods I enjoy?
My desire to change my eating habits is a direct result of my vanity. I want to be the guy at the beach that the girls whisper to their friends about but my vanity wasn’t enough to motivate me to change. One night I was sitting on my couch eating a Big Mac, drinking a Coke and eyeballing the box of McNuggets that I was about to devour when I decided to look at the Nutrition Facts for that greasy cheeseburger I was stuffing down my throat.
You know how you know something but you don’t really know it? I knew that eating fast food was bad for my health. I heard about it all the time. I even watched Supersize Me a couple of years ago but when I turned over that cardboard box with my greasy fingers and read the Nutrition Facts, it struck me. I had my “aha moment” and from that point forward I have been working on improving my diet in a real way.
At first change was slow. In between our normal home cooked meals of lasagna and tater tot casserole, we tried a couple of recipes I found on the Internet and we were surprised that healthy food could actually taste good but I didn’t want to put myself on a diet because I am not the type of person who believes in counting calories or eating cabbage for every meal. My goal was to find a way to eat a healthy, balanced diet where I didn’t feel like I was depriving myself of good food. I didn’t want to eat out of a box and pretend I was eating right (i.e. Healthy Choice, South Beach).
What I found was a something called Eating Clean and even though the books are titled “Eat Clean Diet“, what I found was less of a diet than a way of life, exactly what I was looking for. I read as much information as I could about what it meant to Eat Clean and what I learned about the program really resonated with me. It made sense. Eat nutrient dense foods, avoid processed foods and refined sugars, drink water.
After trying some recipes I found online, I decided to purchase the Eat Clean Cookbook and a book about the general principles of Eating Clean. Almost everyday we try to prepare a recipe from the cookbook and so far our experiences have been a mix of good and bad. Some recipes aren’t to our taste but we are having fun experimenting with different cooking styles and ”exotic” ingredients (Coconut Butter?).
The more recipes we try, the more we Eat Clean, the more we are moving into the program and away from our old eating habits. We purged our cabinets and refrigerator of almost all of our processed junk foods and donated it to the local church. I find irony in giving food that we decided not to eat to another person to eat but I couldn’t see it going to waste. We are now in the process of transitioning our cabinets to cleaner, healthier choices. It has been expensive, I will admit but I think after we have all of the basic ingredients, the cost will go down.
I am not one who promotes products but I feel confident promoting the Eat Clean Diet and recommend the book and the lifestyle to anyone who is looking to change the way they eat for the better.
About Steven
I think it’s just better to eat good food in general than to count calories! I’ve found that since I’ve started to eat healthier, I’m not eating half as much and am a lot more satisfied. Also, with the donating of food you won’t eat, at least someone else will be able to eat that way rather than having it go in the trash and someone goes hungry.
You can make healthy pizza! Put veggies and things on it, and make everything that you can from scratch and use a natural cheese that has less preservatives and things! (It’s the only way my dad and I can get my mom to eat pizza now, and it tastes marvelous.)
You might like ‘Homemade’ by Reader’s Digest. I really like it because it has recipes for how to make all those things you buy from the store without all the additives and preservatives. (Ranch dressing that won’t make me sick makes me happy.)
I am with you on not counting calories. I think people get really hung up on numbers and counting this and that. There is a huge difference getting your calories from McDonald’s than from a handful of almonds or sprouted grain breads. I wonder if the reason you eat less and are more satisfied is because you have switched from eating foods dense in simple carbs to more whole foods which tend to metabolize slower. One of the biggest points of the Eat Clean diet is to combine complex carbs with protein with every meal in order to slow digestion so you stay satiated longer.
Following this eating program has also begun to lead us down the path towards more organic foods. Some of the ingredients just don’t seem to exist any other way. Maybe they do but a typical grocery store probably isn’t going to carry them.
Thanks for your comment!
Hi Steven!
I’ve read through the Clean Eating materials too, and I think it’s a really good approach to changing your diet. I’ve made some of the recipes and found as you did that some were not to my taste, others were.
My philosophy of nutrition is similar to Tosca Reno’s but not quite as strict. Most of my meals are home cooked from real ingredients which, as Michael Pollen would say, my grandmother would recognize. :)
We no longer routinely eat fast food, or food that comes in a box or bag. A couple of exceptions are pasta, which I still cook occasionally, and Triscuits (which I know have too much salt but nobody’s perfect!). It’s hard to remove grains from the diet, but we’ve cut back a lot. I have two teenage boys who take their lunch to school every day, so some form of bread is a necessity. We do make sure it’s whole grain though.
While I haven’t lost any weight and don’t need to, my boys have both lost around 8 to 10 pounds each. They don’t feel any more hungry than is normal with teenagers, and they don’t feel like they’re on a diet either. They still go out with their friends and eat out sometimes, but they’ve learned how to make better choices.
I agree that knowing what you’re eating and knowing the impact it’s having on your body is a better motivator than vanity. If you can keep it up long enough, you’ll get to the point where those “old” foods that you used to love will not seem so good to you any more. Greasy food gives me indigestion and soda leaves me feeling incredibly thirsty later! I ate cake at a party recently and actually felt nauseous from the sugar later. :(
I find that I use a lot of recipes from Cooking Light magazine – if you work your way through Clean Eating and still need more ideas, check their web site. Most of it is tasty, the recipes are rated by users and the nutrition is pretty sound. Pick and choose as you like, and enjoy!
You might want to check out Ezekial Bread. I find it at Trader Joes. It is incredible and there is no sugar or enriched flour, just sprouted grains. It is really dense and it is totally different than the bread I am used to but I like it. It actually has substance (and the raisin bread is delicious). We still eat pasta and grains but like you, we try our best to find a whole grain version.
One thing that Tosca emphasizes about Eating Clean is that if you need to lose weight, this program will help but also, if you need to gain weight or maintain a healthy weight, this program will also help with that. This isn’t about becoming rail thin like a runway model and I like that. It is a balanced approach towards healthy living.
About eating sugar and feeling nauseous, I know how you feel. I was eating something the other day and I commented on how sweet it was, almost overpowering and it was something I used to love! I almost couldn’t finish eating it. It is surprising how quickly your taste adapts to new foods and what one was delicious isn’t so much and more and what you used to think was gross, well, it actually tastes pretty good.
Thanks for your suggestions, I will have to check them out!!!
I will definitely have to check out this Eating Clean thing, although I, as well as you, will not look at it as a diet. I refuse to “diet” because I think while diets are set up for people to lose weight, most people fail to keep up with them because they are too high maintenance. But the one thing that has not been mentioned is that eating healthy alone is not going to help anyone keep weight off. While eating healthy foods may keep you feeling full longer (which will mean that you are eating less calories in general without having to count them) it is simply going to get you eating healthier. By adding exercise in as well, you are not only helping to lose weight, but you are toning your body as well. Combining both eating healthy and exercising for 30 minutes a day, you are giving your body the attention that it deserves.
Steve, I continue to enjoy your blog immensely and will continue to follow it for as long as it continues. You’re articles have not only inspired me, but you list of 100 things (which always seems to grow with time, which is great) has inspired me to create a list of my own. Thank you for the commitment that you have given to this blog – I hope that I can learn that as well.
“Eat Clean” sounds interesting. I’ll look into it.
I don’t believe in diets. Eating what I want in moderation is the way to go for me. =)
“The only time to eat diet food is while you’re waiting for the steak to cook.” ~Julia Child
Jersey, I don’t believe in diets either. Not at all! I think that is the reason why eating clean really resonated with me. You are not restricting yourself of anything aside from processed foods and refined sugars. A person could argue that by eliminating those types of “foods” that it is very restricting. I prefer to look at it another way, that I am eating food that is actually good for me and provides the nutrition my body needs to function like it should. To me, that is what is important.
Trendy diets like Atkins or eating grapefruit might cause a person to lose weight but at the end of the day, they are not a healthy approach to dieting and are not sustainable. When a person ends their diet, because they have messed up their metabolism with these weight loss gimicks, they quickly put the weight back on. Eating clean is basically the antithesis to dieting. Eat healthy foods in moderate quantities but frequently. The eating schedule is 6 small meals per day in order to boost your metabolism. Lots of proteins and complex carbohydrates. Lean red meats, chicken, lots of vegetables and whole grains. The things we should be eating but aren’t.
Like I said before, this just makes sense.
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