The Best Ways to Clean Up Your Diet

The Best Ways to Clean Up Your Diet

By: Kate Lemley

http://www.cbs.com/daytime/the_talk/blog/?id=61452

One of the best things about summertime is all the fresh food you have access to! There is no better time to commit to a healthier lifestyle and diet. Processed food has become the main component in most people's daily meals. Each meal should really focus on fresh, natural foods instead. These highly processed and chemically enhanced diets are taking a toll on the general population, helping to increase the obesity and diabetes epidemic. 

If each of us starts focusing on preparing meals that focus on clean eating and change our unhealthy relationships with food, it will change our lives for the better. We can easily have better overall health, fitness and enjoyment with what we eat just by making a few changes and becoming more mindful about what we are consuming.

We all have to start somewhere, so decide to take the initiative and begin incorporating some of these healthy ideas into your daily life. Your physical well-being, general disposition and mind will thank you. Always remember it has to start from you and nobody else can do this for you!

• Get Rid of Processed Food in Your Diet - This can be difficult, especially when fresh food can be hard to find. Start small and try eliminating soda and corn oils from your food. Another easy approach is to start replacing refined breads and grains made with white flour to those with whole grains.
• Stick With Your Favorites - In order to be successful with a new diet and way of life, you will have to stick to some of your favorites and tweak them to become a healthier staple. For instance, if you love meat, start buying meat that is grass-fed and switch to pasteurized eggs. If you love fruits and veggies, focus on buying as much organic as possible.
• Change The Way You Shop - The grocery stores are designed in a very specific way - all of the fresh, whole foods are stored along the perimeter of the store, where the more heavily processed and unhealthy options are kept in the middle in the aisles. If you stick to the perimeter and buy most of your groceries from those areas, you will automatically be on your way to a healthier diet.
• 80-20 Is The Way to Go - Eating plans can easily become too nit-picky and hard to stick to, causing us to fail quickly. Clean eating can turn into something like this too, so make it a sustainable way of life by eating clean 80% of the time and allowing yourself to eat processed foods 20% of the time in social situations or when you don't have access to healthier options.
• Enjoy Cooking at Home - Eating out is a death trap for gaining weight and unhealthy eating. Restaurants are serving larger than life portions loaded with excess fat and oils. It's important to always know what's going into your food and be able to control your portion sizes. If you start cooking at home, you can learn new recipes, enjoy time with your family and discover a new pleasure for food.
• Read The Labels - The next time you head to the store, take some extra time to read labels every time you pick something up. You will notice that fruits and veggies don't have any labels whatsoever while more processed foods have a list of a million ingredients we can't even understand. Instead of eliminating processed foods altogether, focus on avoiding hydrogenated oils, artificial flavors, preservatives, lots of sodium and extra refined sugar.
• Change Takes Time - Changing over to a completely clean and healthy lifestyle does seem tempting, but it can be harder for some more than others. We become very used to the taste of high fat, high sugar foods and our taste buds will have a hard time acclimating to the new diet. To start off, try mixing brown rice with white rice or white pasta with whole wheat pasta. It can take quite a bit of time to adjust, so give yourself some slack and ease into it.

The most important thing to remember when attempting to switch over to a healthier, cleaner diet is to really start focusing on what you are consuming. Right now, most people don't give their food any thought; they simply eat and eat without considering the consequences. Challenge yourself to start being more thoughtful when you shop, cook and eat. This will give you a whole new perspective on what your body needs and how to live a healthier life.