Before you decide to close out of this blog post because you think it’s yet another “New Years resolution, diet, work out, become a model” write up, consider reading a few for a few more sentences. Yes, it’s a new year, and yes, I am starting this style of eating at the beginning of 2019, but I need you to know that I am NOT a believer in dieting. The reason I decided to post about how clean eating and why I feel its the best way to quickly lose baby weight is because I know it works.

I cringed as I typed that sentence. This post is totally not meant to sell you on anything, and that sounded salesy. So, before I move on to the what and the how, I do want you to know that I DID actually lose my baby weight in five weeks after I had Lydia. The Crossfit gym I belong to hosted a Clean Eating challenge at that time, but I was extremely skeptical to take part in it. Like I said, I am no believe in diets, I do not believe in cutting foods out till the point of starvation. I also hate the routine of dieting, losing the weight, then going back to your old ways expecting the results will stick around. So discouraging. However, after speaking with one of the instructors at the gym, she assured me that I could actually eat a lot during the challenge, and see big results.

Clean Eating sounded some-what familiar as I have read about and tried paleo based recipes before. The challenge provided a daily eating routine which included all three main meals with snacks in between. I also loved that the main goal was to eliminate intake of processed foods. After hearing that one beer or one glass a wine per day was not classified as cheating I was sold. That was something I could get behind. Cutting out everything you love is never going to create long-term success. Moderation and getting rid of things you know are bad for you anyway excited me.

So, I gave it a try. The first couple of weeks I hardly lost weight according to the scale, but I could tell that my clothes fit better, especially my pants. It felt good, the way pants should feel when you put them on. By the end of the challenge, I weighed 5 pounds less (meaning I lost one pound a week during the challenge). But here’s what was exciting, I lost 4.5 inches around my waste, 1.5 around each arm and two inches around each thigh. Yes, I was extremely pleased with the results for a five week period. And more importantly I felt better. For me, clean eating is the best way to appropriately lose weight. Because I am such a believer in this style of eating, I wanted to share with you how we plan to cook and eat clean as a family, and the progress I make towards losing this round of baby fat over a five week time frame.

The Definition and Benefits of Clean Eating

At its simplest, clean eating is about eating whole foods, or “real” foods — those that are un- or minimally processed, refined, and handled, making them as close to their natural form as possible. 

Fitness Magazine

To add to that definition, when I shop for ingredients for clean recipes, typically everything can be found around the outer edges of the grocery store. More processed items are housed in the middle aisles. Your cart will be full of fruits, vegetables and meat. Hardly anything is in a box. Cutting out the processed may seem impossible, but if you plan ahead it is definitely doable. Throughout this series of posts, I will share how we accomplish it as a family.

I think most of know the benefits of consuming healthy food versus unhealthy food, but here’s the major benefits of a clean eating lifestyle:

• More energy – a balanced, properly nourished body will always have more energy. It also keeps your sugars in check, keeping those fatigue-inducing sugar spikes at bay.
• Improves cardiovascular health – Simply put, not consuming those foods that “clog your arteries” is going to help your cardiovascular system, long-term. Healthier foods contain the nutrients that strengthen blood vessels, protecting against high blood pressure and heart disease.
• Prevents cancer – Again, I think we all know that processed foods have been linked to cancer. Consuming predominately fruits and vegetables fills the body with cancer-fighting anti-oxidants as well.
• Improves mental health – having an overall, well balanced diet helps regulate nutrients the body uses to create chemicals associated with our mental health.

Health benefit information from livestrong.com.

What You Can Expect From This Clean Eating Post Series

With all that being said, Eric and I would like to make this a permanent lifestyle change for our family. What IS HARD about clean eating is that it does take a fair amount of prep and planning. Plan to see our tips and tricks to planning ahead, how we get meals prepped for the week, resources and some of our favorite recipes in case you are interested in giving clean eating a shot.

What you should NOT expect is to see a bunch of before and after photos of myself. No one needs to see that (haha) and taking photos like that is so not really my style. I will, however tell you how many pounds I lose, and more importantly the inches I shed.

If you hung out till the end of this post, thanks! It was long….anything special you would like to hear about while our family makes this transition?