If you’re like many people, you might have tried a clean eating meal plan for weight loss at certain point in your life. While your goals are great, sticking to a clean eating meal plan can be tough. Stressful and hard to fit into your daily schedule. If you’re here and looking at this, then I take it you’ve already decided to try out this clean eating meal plan. Good to see you’ve finally made that decision! It’s not an easy thing to change your diet, and there are always going to be people out there who mock you for doing so. None of them are going to change though, and that’s why you need to make a change for yourself.
What Is Clean Eating?
Clean Eating a healthy lifestyle based on eating whole foods in their most natural state and preparing them in a way that benefits your health. Following the basic principles of clean eating makes it easier to achieve your weight loss and fitness goals.
When you “eat clean” you take out all of the processed and artificial “empty calorie” foods (the ones that bring no nutrients to the table) and replace them with healthy, clean whole foods you lose weight and reap some serious health benefits!
Here are just a few suggestions to help you make the necessary adjustments to make this healthy eating meal plan easier!
Easy Clean Eating Food Swaps
Ice Cream – Greek Yogurt
Milkshake – Smoothie
Pudding – Chia Seed Pudding
Cookies – Energy Bites
Milk Chocolate – Dark Chocolate
Cereal – Overnight Oats
Peanut Butter – Natural Nut Butter
Potatoes – Sweet Potatoes
White Rice – Brown or Cauliflower Rice
Mashed Potatoes – Cauliflower Mash
French Fries – Zucchini Fries
Potato Chips – Sweet Potato Fries
Tortilla Chips – Sweet Potato Chips
Soda – Water or Infused Water
Rice – Cauliflower Rice
Pasta – Spaghetti Squash or Zucchini Noodles
Pizza – Cauliflower Crust Pizza
Burger – Bunless Burger
Margarine – Butter
Vegetable Oil – Olive Oil
Sour Cream – Greek Yogurt
Heavy Cream – Coconut Milk
Cup of Sugar – Cup of Applesauce
Sugar – Raw Brown Sugar
Clean Eating Benefits
More Energy: Eating a diet full of healthy foods nourishes your body and gives you energy. A Clean Eating diet can also help stabilize blood sugar levels by providing you sustainable energy throughout the day so you won’t be going from a sugar high to sugar crash!
Improved Heart Health: A healthy diet full of fruits and vegetables helps lower coronary heart disease risk and protects against high blood pressure and stroke.
Clear Skin: Eliminating processed foods and eating more Omega-3’s like salmon along with fruits and vegetables is believed to clear complexions especially those who suffer from acne.
Mental Health: Clean Eating diets rich in Vitamins like B-6 and Omega-3 fatty acids support good mental health. Vitamin B-6 helps create the feel-good chemical dopamine.
Clean Eating Tips
Eat six small meals per day
Don’t skip breakfast
Combine lean protein & complex carbs into every meal
2-3 Servings of healthy fats per day
Practice Portion Control
Drink 2-3 liters of water per day
Cook at Home
Shop Local Farmers Market, and you’ll get the freshest ingredients that are in-season
Skip “diet” foods – they have extra sugar & calories
Eat More Protein – Diets containing high amounts of protein boost metabolism, suppress hunger and decrease body fat
Make Your Plate Colorful by adding more fruits & vegetables to each meal
How to Eat Clean
The best way to understand and implement Step 1 is to skip the boxed, pre-made foods. Instead shop the perimeter of the grocery store.
You’re only buying fresh food. Of course this is more metaphor than rule. Organic pasta, rice and beans are usually found in isles as well are organic whole wheat flour and spices.
Be sure to choose these ingredients in the purest forms, pick up the organic brown rice. Not the box of rice mixture with the spices. The only ingredient on the label should be “brown rice.”
You can have your chocolate, but instead of the “sugar free” chocolate candies that are full of artificial sweeteners, have a square of all natural dark chocolate (Chocolate Recipes). As for cheese, choose sharp cheese, you can use less and get the same cheesy goodness, thus saving calories (Cheese Recipes).
If you don’t quite feel comfortable cooking in this way, don’t fret. Lose Weight By Eating will provide you with what to eat to lose weight. It’s full of easy, delicious low calorie, all natural clean eating recipes. All these recipes taste like the comfort food you and your family crave.
Eat More Fat Burning Foods
Fat burning foods are a staple in the Lose Weight By Eating weight loss plan.
We make small swaps to recipes to turn them into metabolism boosting foods.
For instance… swapping out buttermilk for almond milk in a pancake recipe. This can cut calories and add natural fat burners to your diet.
Little changes in recipes and your diet can make a big difference in your weight loss success. Check out some of my favorite metabolism boosting recipes.
Top Foods that Burn Fat:
- Hot Peppers
- Green Tea and Coffee
- Whole Grains, Quinoa and Oats
- Grapefruit and other Citrus Fruits
- Lean Poultry and Fish
- Beans and Lentils
- Berries
- Apples
- Almonds, Almond milk and Almond butter
- Eggs
- Greek Yogurt
- Spinach and Broccoli
Fat burning ingredients can be added to many recipes. Just keep in mind that organic food will have more nutrition and therefor more metabolism boosting nutrition.
Raw foods also have more nutrition. So a salad with raw spinach will have more fat burning properties than cooked spinach would, so whenever possible have these fat burning foods raw.
Plan your meals and log what you eat and drink.
I realize this sounds like homework, would it help if we called it studying instead?
Planning your meals and logging what you eat and drink is part of this “studying”. You will naturally start memorizing how many calories are in your favorite meals and ingredients.
Best of all you will learn your own eating habits and cravings, so over time you can better plan your meals to suit your cravings.
After a couple weeks you may see you consistently have a 3:00 pm craving for carbs. You can head off that craving in advance with a skinny sandwich at lunch. Or, a sweet craving at 10:00 am can be managed with a sweet oatmeal breakfast.
So as tedious as this one step might seem, it is an important step for both weight loss and maintenance later on and it holds everything together.
Having a meal plan helps you manage plateaus while keeping you motivated. In the long run you’ve studied for your new healthy lifestyle and for your new figure. It makes it easier to maintain your weight loss diet when you have done the studying.
So don’t skip this step, you’re studying for the most important test of your life… your health.
Meal Plan
By making a meal plan to lose weight, you are setting yourself up for weight loss success.
Have you ever become extra motivated to exercise after a purchase of a new yoga mat, or running shoes? Making a meal plan is motivational in the same way.
If you sit down and take the time to plan out your meals you are more likely to stick to it. This is because you took the time to do it.
You’ll find it’s easier to stay on plan knowing you have a yummy meal coming up later today, and you’ll be less likely to splurge knowing you have a plan to follow.
How Many Calories Should I Plan to Eat?
Since we are talking about setting a meal plan. We also need to talk about how many calories you should plan to eat.
If your goal is to lose weight, all you need to know is your goal weight. The equation is easy; add a zero to the end of your goal weight to find your daily calorie goal.
Just be sure not to go under 1200 calories per day! This will send your metabolism into preservation mode, which may cause your body to hold onto weight instead of releasing it.
Say your goal weight is 135 pounds, your daily calorie intake should be 1350 calories.
Move your body more.
Weight loss is 70% what you eat and 30% exercise.
Many people often think exercise is more important in weight loss and they disregard the healthy diet part.
That is why Step #3 is to move more. You don’t have to train for a marathon to lose weight, however exercise will speed up the process and, perhaps more importantly, tone your body.
Many people ask me what to do about extra skin, or loose skin, after weight loss. And the answer is always “that’s what exercise is for.”
If all you can do is a 20 minute yoga video after the kids go down for their nap, or a walk with the dog after work, find a way to make the most of it. And whenever possible increase the time you exercise, if even by 5 minutes.
How to Lose Weight Without Exercise
So what happens when you can’t exercise?
There are many people with health and physical difficulties who can’t exercise in the traditional way. For those people, I assure you that you can still lose weight.
Like I said above, weight loss is 70% what you eat and 30% exercise. So if you can’t exercise you have to be spot on with your diet plan to lose weight.
You also have to do your best to move your body more. That can mean taking the stairs instead of the elevator or even working extra hard at physical therapy.
Drink a gallon of water a day.
Water is key to losing weight.
Besides tasting great, studies have proven that drinking water naturally boosts your metabolism along with many additional water health benefits. It fills you up, flushes your system and naturally increases metabolism.
How Much Water Should I Drink to Lose Weight
We recommend you try to drink a gallon of water (3 ¾ liters) a day. This will help weight loss and even in general better health.
A gallon of water may seem like a lot… but it’s a good weight loss goal to strive for each day.
The large amount of water helps increase your metabolism and flush your system. It’s a great aid to weight loss and an easy step that almost anyone can achieve
Benefits:
One of the major upsides of eating clean is that inflammatory, processed products are greatly reduced, while all sorts of real and mostly fresh/raw foods are encouraged.
Unfortunately in America today, many of the foods we eat are highly processed or genetically modified, so any diet that recommends you eat more natural ingredients is a major step in the right direction.
Processed foods tend to be irritating and hard to digest, since they can damage the delicate lining of your digestive tract. Any people dealing with allergies, heart disease or cardiovascular issues, arthritis, digestive dysfunction, insomnia, depression, or anxiety — basically all forms of chronic disease — owe it to themselves to eat cleanly.
Not only does eating clean help reverse symptoms of most lifestyle or inflammation-related diseases, but it can also be empowering, making you feel more energetic, self-confident, upbeat and calm.
How to Follow: Foods to Eat/Avoid
How do you begin clean eating? While this way of eating means different things to different people, some basic principles apply to just about everyone.
A clean eating meal plan consists of eating mostly plant-based, fresh foods (especially vegetables and some fruit), along with adequate amounts of quality protein and healthy fats.
Some people might associate clean eating with being “plant-based” or even vegetarian/vegan, but this isn’t necessarily true. It’s not about eliminating animal foods and only eating plant foods; it’s about creating balance and choosing the best quality you can.
Dr. Axe personally recommends about equal amounts (30 percent each or so) of clean protein sources, healthy fats and low-glycemic carbohydrates in the forms of fruits and vegetables.
Foods to Include:
- Fruits: strawberries, oranges, lemons, blackberries, limes, raspberries, pears, apples, blueberries, etc.
- Vegetables: broccoli, cabbage, bell peppers, Brussels sprouts, tomatoes, asparagus, garlic, cucumber, onions, ginger, etc.
- Nuts: almonds, cashews, pecans, pistachios, macadamia nuts, walnuts, Brazil nuts
- Seeds: hemp seeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, chia seeds, flaxseeds
- Legumes: black beans, kidney beans, pinto beans, lima beans, chickpeas, lentils
- Whole grains: quinoa, barley, buckwheat, millet, brown rice
- Healthy fats: olive oil, coconut oil, MCT oil, grass-fed butter, ghee, avocado oil
- Dairy products: goat milk, kefir, goat cheese, probiotic yogurt, raw milk
- Meat: grass-fed beef, lamb, venison, wild game
- Fish: wild-caught salmon, tuna, mackerel, anchovies, sardines
- Poultry: organic chicken, turkey, goose, duck
- Cage-free eggs
- Condiments: hummus, guacamole, apple cider vinegar, mustard, salsa, balsamic vinegar, liquid aminos
- Herbs and spices: basil, oregano, rosemary, turmeric, cinnamon, paprika, cumin, black pepper, etc.
- Natural sweeteners: stevia, raw honey, maple syrup, dates, monk fruit
- Beverages: water, tea, kombucha, bone broth
Foods to Avoid:
- Refined grains: white rice, pasta, white bread, breakfast cereals
- Added sugars: soda, juice, candies, cookies, granola bars, baked goods, ice cream
- Unhealthy fats: refined vegetable oils, shortening, hydrogenated fats, fried foods
- Conventional meat and poultry
- Farmed fish
- Processed foods: potato chips, crackers, frozen meals, microwave popcorn, processed meat, instant noodles, etc.
If a clean eating meal plan sounds far removed from how you currently eat, here are three steps you can take to get started:
1. Switch Up Your Fats
Work on removing “bad fats” and replacing them with nourishing “good fats.” This means choosing products that are free of hydrogenated (trans fats) and partially hydrogenated oils as much as possible, which is pretty easy to do if you cook with real fats at home and avoid packaged products or fried foods most of the time.
In addition to nixing trans fats, skip refined vegetable oils (including soybean oil, canola oil, sunflower and safflower oil), and instead use healthy fats like coconut oil, real olive oil or grass-fed butter when cooking.
2. Focus on High-Quality Animal Products
If you eat a lot of animal proteins (meat, poultry, eggs, fish, dairy), you want to make sure you focus on purchasing the best-quality products you can. Many studies have linked factory farmed meats and commercial dairy with inflammation, cancer and heart disease.
Opt for proteins that are grass-fed, pasture-raised, cage-free and wild-caught. This ensures you consume plenty of healthy fats such as omega-3s. Plus, there’s also concern over accumulation of pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics and hormones in conventional meats and other animal foods.
If you can find it hard to digest dairy, try raw dairy products, such as yogurt or kefir, which are probiotic foods and immune system boosters.
3. Remove Added Sugar and Make Your Grains Whole
Refined sugars and refined grain products make up a growing percentage of most people’s calories today. That’s a big problem, considering high-glycemic or refined sugars cause elevated glucose levels and contribute to insulin resistance, leading to weight gain, premature aging and degenerative diseases.
On top of that, refined sugary foods are usually “empty calories,” providing little nutrition, and many even contain antinutrients that hinder your ability to absorb nutrients like vitamins and minerals. Even many gluten-free foods can lack nutrients, so don’t necessarily fall for marketing claims on packaged foods.
Check ingredient labels carefully for added sugar (which can be listed under dozens of different names), and make your grains “ancient” and 100 percent whole.
Limit snacks and drinks that spike blood sugar most, which includes most cereals, sweetened drinks like juice or soda, white rice, white pasta, and white bread. We also get a lot of added sugar from sneaky sources like condiments, canned soups or sauces, lunch meats, pizza, “natural” fruit drinks, etc.
Wondering what to eat instead? Emphasize low-glycemic carbohydrates in the forms of fruits and vegetables, plus 100 percent (ideally sprouted) grains, which have high amounts of fiber, enzymes, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.
Fiber in whole grains and plant foods helps slow the absorption of sugar into the bloodstream, keeps you fuller, improves energy levels, and supports gut and heart health.
Sample Clean Eating Meal Plan
What can I eat in a day of clean eating? Here’s an example of meals that include some of the best clean eating foods:
Breakfasts:
- Tropical Acai Bowl with Mango and Hemp Seeds
- Avocado Toast 5 Ways
- Crustless Spinach Quiche
Lunches:
- Tuscan White Bean Soup
- Cauliflower Pizza
- Curried Turkey Salad
- Fish Tacos
Snacks:
- Gluten-free Banana Bread
- Chia Seed Pudding
Dinners:
- Grilled Honey Glazed Salmon
- Butternut Squash Ravioli
- Slow Cooker Chicken and Rice
Risks and Side Effects
In recent years, there’s been a growing concern over people who strictly eat clean to the point that it becomes obsessive and unhealthy. This has been termed “orthorexia,” a condition in which a clean eater takes things too far and starts experiencing high amounts of stress and preoccupation over his or her diet.
As the National Eating Disorder Foundation puts it, orthorexia is a fixation on righteous eating that “starts out as an innocent attempt to eat more healthfully, but causes othorexics to become fixated on food quality and purity. They become consumed with what and how much to eat, and how to deal with slip-ups … Self-esteem becomes wrapped up in the purity of orthorexics’ diet.”
There’s no doubt that a healthy diet is important for your health, but the amount of anxiety some people experience over making the perfect food choice all the time can really backfire.
If you notice yourself spending more and more time researching or picking out foods at the grocery store, becoming anxious when eating out at restaurants with friends or struggling to find foods that fit your growing criteria of what’s considered “healthy,” you might be developing orthorexia and should consider speaking with a professional.
Conclusion
- Clean eating basically means eating foods as close to their natural state as possible as part of a clean eating meal plan.
- This approach can help decrease inflammation, lower acidity and alkalize the body, better control blood sugar levels, remove toxins and artificial ingredients, and provide optimum nutrients.
- What are clean eating foods? Aim to eat a variety of fresh, plant-based produce and ingredients along with adequate amounts of quality protein and healthy fats (such as fish, grass-fed meat, free range eggs, olive oil, nuts and seeds).
- Here are three steps you can take to dramatically help improve your nutrient intake and lower your toxin exposure: Switch up your fats to get more good fats and less bad fats, focus on high-quality animal products, remove added sugar, and make your grains whole.