Cleaning Up Our Diets

One of my favorite quotes by Alwyn Cosgrove is that you can't "out-train a crappy diet". I am living proof of that. I worked hard at the gym for a long time, getting stronger and building muscle but could not budge my body fat. It wasn't until I finally decided to clean up my eating that I finally started seeing that muscle I'd been working so hard.

I must confess I detest the word diet. It has such a negative connotation to most of us. Truth is, if you eat anything at all you're on a diet, but not everyone makes the best food choices. I'm also convinced dieting as we know it is the wrong approach. For the most part it's unsustainable, deprivation is depressing, and the body wasn't designed to operate without complete food groups. So how do you clean up your eating?

For us it was a matter of daily choices. I literally changed my eating overnight. Jimmy made his changes more gradually. Consequently he's had greater success. Starting with simple changes is doable. Choose one or two new changes a week and stick to them. Pretty soon you will have changed a lot of things in a relatively painless way. Here are some changes we incorporated along the way:

Bake, grill or broil your meat instead of frying

Choose mustard instead of ketchup or mayo

Switch from breakfast cereal to oatmeal

Try olive oil and balsamic vinegar for salad dressing

Drink 2-3 more glasses of water a day than you have been drinking

Choose a sweet potato instead of a white one

Switch from regular soft drinks to diet (add fresh lime for taste)

Mix almonds and raisins for a quick snack

Eater smaller meals more frequently

Plan for eating the foods you crave (for us it's mexican)

Here a picture of one of Jimmy's typical meals now

(that's a 97% fat-free turkey burger)

If you'd like an easy read on cleaning up your eating that makes sense, pick up a copy of The Eat Clean Diet.

The Eat Clean Diet can be found in my Amazon Store. Please see my disclosure statement.