What Does It Mean To Eat Clean?

Ever eaten your way through a giant muffin, a large chocolate bar, a whole bag of chips or a greasy piece of takeout chicken and felt good? Apart from the guilt trip, your body usually feels clogged, stuffy and congested after heavy sugary or fried foods, and you can feel tired and sluggish for the next hour or so. High sugar and fatty foods are not the normal foods our bodies were meant to have to digest, and consequently when we eat them, our digestive system slows down just as if we had poured mud down the bathroom plughole.

Do calories count? The basics of nutrition tell us that if we want to reduce weight then the exercise we do must use up more calories than those we eat. However, there are more to calories than meets the eye. The popular theory that a calorie is a calorie whether it comes from an apple or a chocolate chip cookie may look good on paper, but in reality your body may respond and function many times better to the ‘clean’ food (i.e. the unprocessed, un-sugared food). When you think about it, the apple is always going to have so many more vitamins, minerals and fiber than the choc chip cookie ever will have. Foods that are high in fiber and deliver large amounts of vitamins and minerals without a lot of additives, sugar, fat, or processing, are the foods that bodies seem to function best on.

What does "Eating Clean" mean? By eating clean we get back to foods that our body feels most comfortable about digesting, we have less digestive problems, less skin problems, and less period problems. We are more likely to feel energetic and healthy, and lose weight without trying because our body systems are working more healthily.