Clean & Mean Routine: Tip 1 – Eat Clean Food

TBR Clean & Mean Routine is a series of nutrition and wellness tips for people who wish to start the year right by living cleaner, healthier lives. New tips are posted every Monday from Jan. 13 to Feb. 24.

Tip 1: EAT CLEAN FOOD.

This week, from January 13 to 19, focus on eating clean, wholesome, nutritious food. I know, you’ve heard this many times before. Everyone knows that this is the key to losing weight. It really is! But, for most of us, the difficulty comes in applying it. We can eat healthy for a day, or maybe a week, and then we fall off the healthy eating wagon and feel like a complete failure.

The difference now is in your mindset. Change your mind about healthy eating. Do not even think that you’re going to start a new short-term diet today. You’re not. You are starting a new, better way of living. Ready? Game!

WHAT ARE CLEAN FOODS?

What food should you be eating most of this week? Clean food!

Clean foods are foods that are as close to its natural state as possible. They come from nature. These are fruits and vegetables, whole grains, lean meat, fish, and nuts. They rarely come packaged, but, if they do, they have only one or two ingredients in the label.

Choose a banana over a packaged bar.
Choose tilapia and brown rice over spam and white rice.
Choose fresh buko juice over soda.
Choose a handful of nuts over a bag of chips.

CROWDING OUT

By eating more clean food this week, we will fill our bodies with healthy food that make us feel satisfied so that we don’t even have space for junk. This is what we call CROWDING OUT in my nutrition school.

This week, focus on all the clean food you can have and get excited over it. Try a new fresh and healthy recipe. Think of new restaurants that serve awesome grilled salmon and fresh salads. Look forward to eating. Period.

Since we’re just starting out, you may notice that you still want to eat some not so good food. Go ahead. Don’t stress over it. Just do so in moderation and make sure you are eating the clean food that you should be eating. You’ll notice that, as you go along, you’ll be craving less of the junk and filling yourself with clean food without even thinking about it.

WHAT YOU DON’T WANT TO DO

Two things I don’t want you to do this week:

1) DO NOT think about all the food you will scrap from your diet this week. DO NOT tell yourself that, this week, you will not have red meat, rice, dessert and soda. This will leave you feeling angry and deprived. And, if you mess up, you will feel like a complete failure. Focus on the good food you will be eating and how you are nourishing your body.

2) DO NOT be too hard on yourself. I said we want to eat clean MOST of the time, but SOMETIMES we can allow ourselves to indulge and enjoy not-so-healthy food. So, if you want to have a taste of cake or a sip of soda, go ahead! Life is too short to quit eating cake for a whole year (I have friends who’ve done that. Boo to them!) I say, live your life to the fullest!

ARE YOU READY TO COMMIT?

Come and join me and others on our TBR Clean & Mean Routine!

Here’s how to join:

• Post a comment on TBR FACEBOOK PAGE that you commit to practicing the tip for the next 7 days. If you don’t have FB, you can post your comment on this blogpost.
• Watch out for our weekly TBR Clean & Mean Routine tip every Monday. I will ask you to post a comment on each of those weekly tips until February 24.
• Throughout the week, feel free to chat and converse with others in the TBR FACEBOOK PAGE who are trying to apply the weekly tips in their lives.
• By the first week of March, I will ask you to submit a story on how this plan worked for you and what changes you saw in your life. The most compelling and interesting submission will win a pair of running shoes from me.

Let me know how this week goes for you! See you next Monday!