Eating Cleaner Means Feeling Better!
Current Weight (28 July 2024): 117.1 Kg, 18.44 Stone, 260.36 Pounds
Weekly Weight Loss: 1 Kg, 2.2 Pounds
Total Weight Loss: 20.6 kg, 3.24 Stone, 45.41 Pounds
Weekly Summary
Eating Cleaner Means Feeling Better!
Eating cleaner means feeling better, a new motto I’ve adopted this week, and it’s sticking in my mind. I’m a bit late to the party for this week’s weigh-in, but I have my reasons. I worked Saturday morning, so I couldn’t weigh myself at the usual time and place. In hindsight, I probably should have weighed myself early on Friday, as after the disaster of weigh day#37, I’ve completely got back on track this week. And that feels good. The thing you must do is, when you wobble, reign yourself back in and go again. A bad week won’t do too much harm. A bad month or longer will cause serious damage. And never forget that.
Wobbly Weigh In
I’ll be frank and admit that I weighed myself twice. First, on Saturday evening, we waited an excruciating amount of time for a takeaway to be delivered. I thought I’d get a reading after ordering calzone, garlic bread and chips. The scales showed a 600-gram loss. I had no plans to weigh myself Sunday, but after smashing the takeaway and walking Bowie just over 4000 steps, I decided to plonk my plates of meat on the scales. Another half a kilo shed! I gathered that a kilo loss was a more accurate reflection, given I’d had a very good week.
Fluctuating Weight
This little unplanned experiment shows how much weight fluctuates and why it’s important to weigh yourself at the same time and place on an empty stomach after the toilet first thing in the morning. However, sometimes life gets in the way.
Eating Cleaner Means Feeling Better!
What Is Clean Eating?
I must confess, this seems to be something I’ve come up with myself. I trawled through more of my audiobook by Chris van Tullekan, “Ultra Processed People”. An in-depth study into the horrors (and I’m not even exaggerating!) of what goes into most of our food. If you’ve not read/listened to it, I strongly suggest you do. When I write about clean eating, I mean food that’s not ultra-processed food (UPF). You’d be amazed at how much crap is in foods supposedly healthy, and the food industry has a lot to answer to!
Tuna Omelette is an example of clean food. Eggs, onion, tuna.
Last week, after listening to a good chunk of the book, I decided to start eating cleaner. Now, you’ll never completely eradicate UPF from your life, but by making a few choices, you can seriously reduce the amount of UPF that goes into your system.
Surprising Results
I’ve been surprised at the results. This becomes more than just weight loss. I mean, you can lose weight by buying all manner of diet products and reducing calorie intake, but I don’t think it’s a healthy way to go. The main stat that stuck out was the reduction in salt intake. I’ve never put extra salt on food, not even chips, but I always seem to be well over my limit with salt. One foodstuff I’ve quit, known for its high salt content and its being a UPF, is bacon, which I used to eat almost daily, so this is one reason my salt intake is lower.
Eating Cleaner Means Feeling Better!
Ditching UPF Sauces
I’ve started experimenting a little. I want to get away from pre-bought sauces. Mayonnaise and salad cream from the store have all kinds of nastiness, so I switched draping my work meal in unhealthy sauces and replaced them with tomatoes and raw carrots. And by Jove, it works, although, for a quick fix, today’s work food was bought from Tesco Scotch egg! Sometimes, you will eat UPF for a quick fix, but reduce your UPF, and you will feel healthier and better. Mutter to yourself, “Eating cleaner means feeling better!”. Works for me!
The fewer pre-bought sauces, the better!
It was not completely erased from the system; I had mayonnaise over the weekend! We are planning to start making our own mayo.
The NOVA System
The NOVA System divides foods into four groups. Click this link to read more about NOVA.
- Group 1 – Unprocessed or minimally processed foods
- Group 2 – Processed culinary ingredients
- Group 3 – Processed foods
- Group 4 – Ultra-processed food and drink products
The Open Food Facts website is an excellent source for discovering exactly what category your foods are. But it’s not without faults! My Tesco Scotch egg is classed as 1, 3 and 4. This foodstuff is not unprocessed, but it is hard to detect whether it’s processed or UPF! The general rule of thumb is to look at the ingredients. If it’s stuff you’ve heard of, it’s probably just processed. If there are all manner of nasty-looking and long-named ingredients, it’s probably ultra-processed. Once you get into the mechanics of the difference, your choices become a little easier.
Dr Van Tullekan suggests that if there are all manner of ingredients you’ve never heard of, it’s almost certainly UPF.
Example – Peanut Butter
This remains one of my favourite foods, but it must be cautiously approached! Slapping it willy-nilly on bread causes weight gain, but when mixed in (and weighed) with yoghurt, it’s an excellent food—I’d even say a superfood! But peanut butter comes in different guises; some have added nasty ingredients.
You can see what I mean by scrolling through the list. Anything with 100% nuts will be fine.
Sun-Pat’s no-added-sugar peanut butter is 96% peanuts but includes a nasty E471 stabiliser. This is exactly the sort of thing to look out for. In the case of peanut butter, it might only be a small amount, but it’s better to buy the cleaner version, which costs around the same.
Sun-Pat is a good example of how food companies try to dupe us. People look at the no added sugar label and buy it, thinking it’s healthier. Of course, once you get right into how this all works, you’ll start noticing all manner of nastiness in our foods. I wrote about this in a blog a few weeks ago, using the New You diet as an example.
Eating Cleaner Means Feeling Better!
Getting Started
Start scrutinizing the foods you eat. What are the ingredients? Use the Open Food Facts website to check. Start small; look at where you can make changes to something cleaner. You’d be surprised at what nastiness is in many so-called healthy products.
Fruit and vegetables in their original state are a good starting point. Avoid pre-packaged or anything with flavouring. Meat is great but not without flaws. Bacon and sausages are UPF. Beans, lentils, pulses, and natural or Greek yoghurt are excellent non-UPF foods. Rice and pasta are also numbered one on the NOVA system,
My Early Results
The cleaner you eat, the better you’ll feel. Early results gobsmacked me. I’m moving better. I had a long week at work, but eating cleaner gave me more energy and less hunger. These nasty additives are designed with addiction in mind and to keep costs down. Cleaner foods can be a little more expensive sometimes, but they eradicate hunger, so you eat less.
I still believe nothing is unlimited, but making the right choices leads to feeling much better!
The Week Ahead
Eating Cleaner Means Feeling Better!
Back On Track!
I felt like I had turned a corner, having trawled through more of the audiobook and gaining vital information regarding what we eat. The weekend was wobbly but not disastrous. I’m back to cleaner eating and counting consumption. I firmly believe that you need to check those calories no matter what you eat. One day, I’d like to ditch this! Weighing is a pain but something I’m used to!
The Turkish holiday is looming, which brings another set of problems, but they will be dealt with accordingly!
