7 Best Clean Eating Tips in 2023

Table of Content:

• Introduction
• What is Clean Eating?
• Why Should We Eat Clean?
• 7 Best Clean Eating Tips to Feel Better
• FAQs

Have you ever wondered how you can eat healthier and enjoy your food more? Well, clean eating is for you. It has numerous benefits for your well-being, and it’s something that many people think is overwhelming and very hard to control. Unfortunately, even more, people associate clean eating with restrictions and a need to control every calorie you consume. 

This makes people think that they will be just suffering over the whole period of eating clean and eventually will give up. 

But what if I say, that this way of thinking is absolutely wrong? What if I say that clean eating not only does make you feel better but also can be diverse and include plenty of products you might not expect in a “healthy eating” guide? 

That said, I want to introduce you to the plan for today’s discussion: we’ll start with what is clean eating and why you should start eating clean right after reading this article, we’ll talk about the best 7 tips to finally build a long-term, sustainable diet which will be enjoyable and will make your health and the overall life easier and generally better! We are going to end up this discussion with frequently asked questions about healthy eating so that you won't have any questions after reading this post.

Are you ready? Let’s get started by answering the question: “What is clean eating in general?”, because even if you think you know the answer to this question – you probably don’t!

What is Clean Eating?

Many people think that they know what clean eating means. They’d likely say that “it’s just eating only vegetables and bland chicken breast and giving it up in a few weeks of this suffering”

Well, it’s true. But partially. You see, eating clean does include eating more vegetables (we’ll move to this a bit later), but why should we eat some boring steamed vegetables? Why can’t we try to bake them with some sauce and cool condiments?

We should focus on saving as many nutrients as possible, but without ignoring our tastes and craving to eat something delicious. We also shouldn’t stop eating “junk foods” as some people call it. Of course, eating fast food every day isn’t going to make you healthier, but eating it once a week or even twice a week is not bad. 

I was also getting plenty of restrictions for myself, but it didn’t lead to desired results – I just gave up and started eating even more unhealthy food than I ate before I started eating healthy. My body just wanted to compensate for all of those times when didn’t eat something I wanted so much. 

This is not a smart strategy to build a good, clean diet. And this is where our tips which we’ll discuss in a moment will really come in handy. Just keep in mind one extremely important idea: everything’s good in moderation, but we’ll just make your current diet way more healthy, but not less enjoyable!

Before we move to our actual tips we should understand why we should eat clean, so let’s move to the next section!

Why Should We Eat Clean?

Have you been wondering how you can lose weight efficiently? And no, 2-week weight-loss marathons with almost no eating during the day isn’t something that will make us healthy and beautiful. You will just lose weight fast, and return the same weight in the next few weeks. Are we looking for it? Absolutely not

Now, how clean eating will help us with achieving our weight-loss goals? Simply by decreasing calories. And we will not eat less. We will swap our unhealthy high-calorie foods with better options that have fewer calories and more nutrients required for our bodies to properly function.

But clean eating might not only come in handy when we need to lose weight – keeping a healthy lifestyle which includes a healthy diet will make sure you have less risk of chronic diseases, for example, diabetes, heart diseases, and some cancers.

Isn’t it good? It is, and the fact that your overall well-being will get better makes clean eating something you will want to follow for the rest of your life!

7 Best Clean Eating Tips to Feel Better

Now that we finally understand what is clean eating and why we should use it to our advantage, let’s get into the best clean eating tips that will help you start on your clean eating journey!

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1. Focus on the whole foods

It’s a standard, but very efficient tip that is just a must-know if you want to get healthier. But what should you do?

Start with incorporating more vegetables and fruits into your diet. They’re delicious, very different, and low-calorie. If you don’t fry them in a big amount of oil – you will drastically decrease the number of calories consumed in every meal you eat. This will also make sure you get plenty of vitamins that your body needs.

You should also consider eating whole grains. They are lower in calories and have more nutrients. You will not regret it!

By the way, most of these foods are very delicious, and with proper cooking, you will make outstanding dishes that you will definitely enjoy! Try adding a bit of soy sauce or different condiments to your vegetables so that they taste better.

2. Limit processed foods

The next step you should do while incorporating whole foods into your diet is to make sure you don’t eat plenty of high-calorie processed foods. They're usually low in protein and high in carbs and fats. Most importantly, they don’t give your body any nourishing nutrients so you just gain more body fat without any purpose.

By eating junk foods or any highly-processed foods, you will increase your chance of getting diseases we’ve already talked about – cancer, diabetes, and heart diseases. If we wanna prevent them from happening.

Also, I’d love to talk about sugar. Some experts say you should cut it out completely, some say that it will lead to huge sugar cravings that will make your life less enjoyable. They recommend consuming moderated amounts of sugar, and I completely agree with them.

Let’s be honest, sometimes it’s very hard to not eat a delicious cake or chocolate-chip cookies that your grandma baked specially for you. And we shouldn’t refuse. We just should keep in mind that eating 10 cookies in one go isn’t good, but eating one cookie a day, or even two cookies isn’t bad,

Don’t go crazy with restrictions, it’s not a marathon, but a diet we want to follow for the rest of our life. We’ll focus on it more a bit later.

3. Cook at home

Now, guys, we’ve got to go to our kitchens and start learning some basic cooking techniques if we didn’t do so.

Learning to cook on your own will help you with being aware of the products you consume. You will be able to avoid the hidden sugars, fats, and additives often found in restaurants and fast food.

You will also be able to add any products that you want, any tastes that you want. This is an extremely powerful technique when it comes to building a healthy eating plan and even preparing your meals for the whole week.

4. Drink Water

Common one, but never less important. Staying hydrated helped me to achieve a few goals at once: get cleaner skin and feel better in general. I started drinking even more when began working out. 

I tend to drink about 2.7L of water a day, and this is one of the best habits I’ve ever incorporated into my life. Firstly, water consumption dilutes hunger. Generally, tend to drink about 2 – 2.5L of water every day. This is going to be enough for you to shine!

I personally used many water tracking apps, now I use BeWet – one of the best in my humble opinion.

5. Be careful with portion sizes

Let’s be honest – overeating or undereating will not lead you to healthy results. Even if you eat the healthiest food in the world, you can be sure that this will not have as good an effect as you expect it to while overeating.

Portion sizes are essential, and I personally recommend you draw on your perception. Eat until you’re full. But as soon as you feel it, stop eating. Even though you might feel like you can eat more – don’t do it, it’s the easiest way to overeat.

Take a look at the image below and see how you can divide your plate for more effective and clean eating.

6. Plan your meals

Planning is a great strategy to make sure you’re not eating junk food throughout the week. 

Still, we can’t predict our life, so if we eat a few cookies a day that is not in our plan – it’s okay, don’t judge yourself!

7. Don’t deprive yourself!

By far the best tip I can give you today. This is why people usually give up on eating clean. The problem is – we’ll not be able to predict every single aspect of our life. We will never be in total control of our wishes and cravings. If we deprive ourselves of eating something we like, then where’s the sense of our lives?

Believe me, eating out of your plan, and eating junk foods is normal, and will not make your health instantly worse. Remember what I said at the beginning of this article? Everything’s good in moderation! Some foods might now be very healthy for our bodies but might be very good for our mental health, which is an extremely important part of our well-being. If you don’t have a healthy mind – you don’t have a healthy body.

It’s not a race, we’re not competing on how healthy our meals will be. There’s no point in doing so. We’re just trying to feel better and health our best lives. This is why I don’t want you to deprive yourself of any foods you’re craving! I had this experience before, this almost led me to ED, and I don’t want anyone to do the same!

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Summarizing everything that’s been said, clean eating is an extremely powerful tool for living your best life and becoming the person you want to be. But, you shouldn’t go crazy and look for the healthiest diet ever. You should find something you truly enjoy and stick to it. We want to build a sustainable diet that you can follow!

Before we and up, let’s look at frequently asked questions:

FAQs

Q: What does clean eating mean?

There’re a few definitions, but the most basic one is eating whole, minimally processed foods. Avoid junk food and I’m sure you will succeed!

Q: Is clean eating the same as a diet?

No, despite I called it a diet several times throughout the whole article – it’s not a diet, but a sustainable way of eating. We don’t set any due dates, we’re just trying to be healthy for the rest of our lives.

Q: Can clean eating help with weight loss?

Yes, clean eating can help with weight loss as it encourages consuming whole, nutrient-dense foods that are typically lower in calories, added sugars, and unhealthy fats than processed alternatives.

Q: How do I start eating clean?

As I said, focus on eating clean, focus on consuming whole foods, like fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, whole grains, and healthy fats. Avoid processed foods, cook at home more often, stay hydrated, and practice portion control. Meal planning and prepping can also help keep you on track, but you don’t necessarily need to do it if you don’t feel like you need it!

Q: Do I have to give up my favorite treats when eating clean?

Absolutely not, you don't have to give up your favorite treats completely. Clean eating encourages moderation and finding healthier alternatives to enjoy your meals! Allowing yourself the occasional eating food you want will just make your mental health better and make sure you feel good anytime!

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