I have been asked by patients and blog readers, what is eating clean? I could give the simple answer and say visit www.cleaneatingmag.com to learn more. However, I feel compelled to share my own personal experience with eating clean to give those who want to lose weight and live healthier some hope. On their web site they define clean eating as “consuming food in it’s most natural state…or close as possible to it.” It is not a diet it is a lifestyle. I have told patients for years that diets do not work. What I meant is that if you get on the diet rollercoaster you will be miserable and you will not be healthy. Elimination certain food groups such as carbohydrates from your diet will afford you weight loss, however it can also put you into a ketotic state and place tremendous pressure on your kidneys. Add the carbohydrates back into your diet and return to your “normal” bad eating habits and the weight comes back. Another example would be a low fat, high carbohydrate diet that causes a war with insulin and glucagon in your body. This occurs when you ingest a meal high in carbohydrates or carbohydrates with a high glycemic index. Your pancreas secretes insulin in order to store the glucose in the muscles and liver and then transports the excess via tri-glycerides to fat. Afterwards your insulin levels remain high in the blood and this blocks glucagon the hormone necessary to get glucose from storage back into the blood…so when your brain needs the glucose to function and it cannot get the stored glucose it tells you to eat more carbohydrates. This is not a good situation because you end up eating too many calories and put on weight.
Clean eating is nothing like the aforementioned examples. It is making the correct food choices and preparation so you’re eating a balanced low glycemic index meal that promotes normal insulin levels. This in conjunction with aerobic exercise and moderate resistance training to positively effect the basal metobolic rate and burn calories.
I have experienced this personally over the past 9 months. I initally lost 40 pounds and then added some lean muscle to have a net loss of 30 pounds and 15% body fat. It has become a lifestyle, eating the right foods at the right time and exercising 4-5 times per week. I would never thought I could do it at 48 years old, but there are people older than me that have had even better results. So make the choice today to eat clean and live healthier.
