My Clean Eating Journey

In January of 2010, I made a goal to learn how to eat. I know, I know you might think I'm crazy since I have been eating since I was a baby. But I really wanted to learn how to eat well. I have always been into working out, but was less than stellar with what was going inside my mouth each day. Sure, I lost the weight after having each baby by following Weight Watchers, but I wanted to incorporate healthy eating into my life as my new "diet" and not a "diet" that I would go on and off of.

I started the year by reading "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" for my book club which opened my eyes to the ways that we get our food and the kinds of foods that I was eating. After finishing that book as well as Michale Polan's "Omnivore's Dilemma" and watching the documentary "Food, Inc." I started to make some changes in the foods that I was buying and eating. The culmination of my quest in learning how to eat was the book "The Eat Clean Diet" by Tosca Reno. Clean eating isn't something new, but she gave me ways that I could incorporate it into my everyday life and see and feel the results from it that I had been seeking. (I highly recommend all of these resources, but be forewarned, they will definitely change the way you look at and hopefully eat food!)

(Image from http://eatcleandiet.blogspot.com)

Clean eating is mostly about eating foods in their most natural state while avoiding the plethora of processed foods that we have become accustomed to eating as Americans. It is about becoming aware of what you are putting into your body at each and every meal and trying to fuel it in the best way possible. For me, it became a complete mind shift...instead of working out so that I could EAT, I had to learn how to EAT, so that I could workout...a completely different way of looking at food.


I've listed in the sidebar the basic principles of clean eating that Tosca Reno lays out nicely in her book. I am in no way perfect at this type of eating, but I have come a long way in the last six months. I feel better, I look better and I run better. (To give you the numbers...I've lost about 15 pounds, my skin is clearer, and I can fairly comfortably pull out 8-8:30 minute miles where before I was pushing 10-minute miles!) But the best part is that I feel like I am in control rather than food controlling me. And that is a great feeling.

I'll be posting tips that I try to incorporate into my own life during my adventures in clean eating as well as recipes and clean foods that I have found to be especially yummy. Hope you enjoy!!