Converting to Clean-Eating Made Easy

I really really care about your health and well-being, in case you couldn't tell.  I'm sharing all my knowledge and research with you for free through this blog, sharing all my healthy recipes without any cost, and trying to help you understand how Nature provides for our well-being, and how to utilize those provisions to get and stay healthy.

If you read my post, The Science Behind Healthy Eating, you'll know that what we eat directly affects how we feel and function.  If you read the whole thing, you understand how that works.  If you didn't have any of this knowledge before and were born and raised in the United States or any other developed country relying on agriculture or factories for food, you're having a lot of trouble applying this new information to your lifestyle.

I totally get that.

You either need a burst of motivation that just hits you really hard on the head, like, "Oh my god I'm so fat and I'm DONE being fat and I'm going to do whatever it takes to change that!" Or "Oh my god I'm sick all the time and I'm SICK of being SICK all the time and I'm going to do whatever it takes to change that!" Or "Oh my god, grandpa died of cardiovascular disease, and he could have prevented that from eating better, I don't want to wind up like that, I better do something NOW."

Or you need a nudge and some encouragement with detailed tips and guidelines.

Lucky for me, I had a variation of all those options listed above hit me in the head, and that's what catapulted me on my healthy lifestyle journey.  I was overweight and depressed and had also lost family members due to preventable, diet-related problems and I wanted to make a change in my own life for the better.  But I know this is not the case for everybody.  Most of you know you should eat better, but nothing has lit the fire under your butt yet, and you shy away from making the change due to intimidation or uncertainty of where or how to start.  So I'm going to try to offer some tips to help get you started.

Hopefully you at least have the desire to take care of your body.  We only get one, and it has to carry us through our entire lifetime.  It would really suck if it just quit working for you one day because you didn't take proper care of it.  What's really sad to me is how many people take better care of their cars than they do their bodies.  Or pour more effort and energy and money into their pet's health but completely ignore their own.  By all means, take care of your cars and your animals, but you only get one YOU, and YOU need to be in good health to continue to enjoy your car or your pet or whatever else you care about in your life, especially if you have children, and hope to have grandchildren.  I know I'm only 27 and have a 2-year-old and it's hard to imagine life as a grandmother, but I know I probably will be one someday, and NOW is the time to take charge of my health to make sure my body is in the best shape possible to enjoy those years ahead.  More importantly, NOW is the time to take care of my health to enjoy my son currently!  Hopefully you all can find the same kind of drive and motivation to do the same, before you get an irreversible wake-up call...

Making the change to clean-eating (I call it that because it's more broad, but I do like to follow a more Paleo approach if you like to tag a name on things) is pretty simple, really, and I think a lot of people's problems stem from over-complicating it.  With Paleo you eat what nature provides, not things that came out of a factory.  Even if the government claims it's good for you, like whole wheat bread.  Whole wheat bread is still not good for you.  First of all, wheat is not good for you anyway (again, discussed in my last post), second of all, it's still been through a factory and some sort of process before it made it to your grocery store!  You're avoiding processed foods, so yes, even the ever-wonderful-good-for-you whole wheat bread is off-limits.

One problem I think a lot of people have is focusing too much on what you can't eat.  Suddenly the list keeps getting longer and longer to the point where you feel like you can't eat anything!  But that's far from true, there are so many things you can eat on a Paleo lifestyle, they just might not be what you're used to.  No, you can't eat bread, or pasta, or crackers, dinner rolls, rice, tortilla shells, chips, pastries and baked goods, anything with any kind of grain flour in it, anything with refined sugar in it, etc. etc. etc.  Holy crap I just took all your food away from you!  No more sandwiches, no more spaghetti or fettuccine or macaroni or any other pasta dinners you probably frequently eat, no more crackers in your soup or for snacks, no more mopping up your plate with a dinner roll, no more side of rice, no more tacos or wraps, no more chips to snack on, how do you celebrate birthdays without cake or Christmas without cookies?  Breakfast without pancakes or waffles or French toast or biscuits and gravy or even cereal?  Not even oatmeal? You can't even grab a granola bar on the go anymore??  What?!?!

See what I mean?  Are you freaking out?  Yeah this is why I'm met with the "Oh my God you're crazy!!" attitude when I tell people I gave up grain and sugar, or simply that I converted to Paleo.

Yes, it takes some adjusting.  Like I've shared before, our first month of giving up grains involved meals consisting of steak, chicken, fish, and vegetables.  We didn't really know what else to do and it got pretty boring, even though we were experiencing some great weight loss and awesome health benefits.

Baby steps is a big thing.  Carbs are worse to eat later in the day as your metabolism slows, so if you're working towards giving them up but don't want to do it cold-turkey, then just change your last meal of the day instead of all of them.  Then work towards changing both lunch and dinner.  Then breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and ta-da, you've got it.  Remember, it took me a good year to feel like I'm in a good place, and honestly I'm still working on it.  I still have more cheat meals than I'd like to admit, but I'm getting better.  I'm at a place where I recognize what those cheat meals do to my body and how bad I end up feeling physically when I do eat poorly, so it's getting easier to just avoid it in the first place.

If you have a sweet tooth and like to keep cookies and candy around, throw it away and check out my "Post Index & Recipe Box" tab where you can find quite a few recipes I've already been posting that allow you to replace the bad stuff with equally-yummy healthy stuff.  Cookies, brownies, cakes, all kinds of good foods that are normally bad for you.

Oh wait, but what are all these weird ingredients?  Fortunately, believe it or not, I've been keeping it simple for you.  There aren't that many weird ingredients, so if you're interested in trying these recipes, you'll need a few simple things that you can either buy at most supermarkets (Schnucks's I know is a good one) or online (that's normally what I do, and therefore I've included links to those items).  Here's a starter weird-ingredient list for ya:

• Coconut Oil - refined does not have the coconut taste but isn't AS good for you, unrefined is better for you but still tastes like coconut and will make your food taste like coconut, so bear that in mind.  The link takes you to my favorite coconut oil on Amazon, it's the healthiest, cleanest refined coconut oil I've found so far so I like that I'm getting the nutritional benefit without the coconut taste, meaning I can use it to cook meats and vegetables and whatnot.
• Almond milk or coconut milk - these are easy to come by in most grocery stores, I usually get my almond milk from Aldi and my coconut milk from Schnuck's.  I've also made my own, which is super easy.
• Almond Flour - I buy this in bulk since this is the ingredient I use the most in baking.  Anthony's Almonds has the best price I've found so far online and it's been a great product to use, unless you're making cookies.  In which case you're going to have to splurge and get the really good stuff, which is Honeyville Farms.  This is the only product I've used so far that gives me a good, solid, delicious cookie.  Everything else I've used just spreads all over the pan and tastes like a glob of honey.
• Coconut flour - I've been using Bob's Red Mill, so Red Bud/surrounding area folks, you can actually order this through the co-op.
• Palm sugar (easiest sugar substitute - you can replace it cup for cup in recipes, and while it does have the same amount of calories as sugar, it's lower on the glycemic index so it won't spike your blood sugar)
• Stevia - I usually get packets from the grocery store, because I don't use much when I do use it.
• Arrowroot powder - I don't put this in many recipes, but I've found that it's a great thickener as an alternative to cornstarch, and it does make great breads and tortillas.  At this time I don't have any of those recipes posted, but I'll get on it!
• Coconut butter - this is only if you intend to make icing for your cakes.  It holds up way better than coconut oil.  Icing is the only time I've ever used this stuff, so it's not high on the priority list unless you regularly bake cakes.

Those are really the only "weird" ingredients you'll need, aside from a few random odds and ends I may have forgotten, but I try to keep it as simple as possible.  I don't want to go running for bizarre ingredients any more than you do, so I try to stick with recipes that call for the same things each time.  Not too bad, right?  Then there are a few items you probably already buy but you'll need to switch up a bit, like:

• Honey - buy local
• Maple syrup - ditch Aunt Jemima and buy organic, preferably Grade B
• Vanilla extract - quit with that imitation crap and buy the real stuff
• Apple cider vinegar - switch your white vinegar over to just cleaning purposes
• Dairy products - I advise to just quit buying and consuming milk all together, but if that's for some reason not an option for you right now then do avoid milk that came from cows that were pumped full of artificial growth hormones or steroids.  Same goes for cheese, yogurt, sour cream, etc.  If you can get organic, you'll be doing yourself a HUGE favor health-wise.  But I do advise to limit your intake of those items or avoid it all together.  I plan to write a post dedicated to dairy in the future, so hang tight!

That wasn't so hard, was it?  Other than that, anything else you need for your Paleo shopping adventure is "normal" stuff that you're probably used to buying anyway, but may need a little tweaking: 

• meats (try to avoid growth hormones, steroids, or meat from animals that have been abused or mistreated.  Go organic if possible)
• seafood, frozen or canned (wild-caught)
• fresh or frozen vegetables (organic if possible, otherwise local)
• fresh or frozen fruits (organic or local, and limit these if you're concerned about weight management)
• extra virgin olive oil
• herbs and spices (basil, oregano, rosemary, thyme, parsley, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, cayenne pepper, cumin, chili powder, black pepper, sea salt, etc.)
• canned tomatoes and tomato sauce (read the label to see if there's any added sugar or weird stuff)
• mustard
• pickles or olives (or anything else that's been pickled)

If you want to take the plunge like we did early this year and just flush out your pantry and refrigerator of any unhealthy temptations, things to throw away (or donate if unopened and not expired) are:

• any grain flours (unless you want to hang onto white flour to make play-dough or papier mache with your kids)
• white, brown, or powdered sugar
• sandwich bread or buns
• tortilla shells
• chips and crackers
• Bisquik or any mixes like that
• pasta and any pasta mixes (e.g. Hamburger Helper)
• rice and any rice mixes (e.g. Rice-a-Roni)
• sugary snacks/candy
• snack cakes/cookies (e.g. Little Debbie, Hostess, Pop-Tarts, Oreos, etc.)
• breakfast cereals and oatmeal
• frozen or refrigerated bread items (e.g. garlic Texas toast, Pillsbury crescent rolls, frozen pancakes or waffles, frozen pizza, etc.)

Basically if it's got grain or sugar in it, or any additives, preservatives, or artificial colors or flavors, toss it and/or quit buying it.  And you don't necessarily have to do it all at once.  You could start with the items that contain gluten (that is, anything with wheat or rye or barley flour) and eliminate those, and hang onto oatmeal and quinoa for awhile until you're ready.  I would avoid corn too because of GMO's, but I do like fresh grown corn from a garden so I'm a little lenient on that.  Or eliminate sugar first and work your way from there.  Think about what you don't eat a lot of anyway so it wouldn't be a huge shock to eliminate it all together, and work your way up.  Go at it one meal at a time, if you need to.  Or take it a week at a time and "cheat" on the weekends.  Like I said before, take it in baby steps.  Don't stress yourself out - stress does you more harm than good anyway.  Find ways to enjoy the process.  Think about all the benefits you've got coming your way by changing to a healthier lifestyle.  Do it for the weight-loss.  Do it for the clear skin.  Do it for the pain-reduction.  Do it for the energy improvement.  Do it for your spouse or your kids or your grandkids.  Do it for the opportunity to do things you previously couldn't do because of health restrictions.  The sky is the limit!

You've got this.  If I could do it, anyone could do it.  And you certainly won't regret it :).