Clean Eating is Not Okay

This is a response to a Tumblr post disparaging the idea of clean eating. Take a minute to read through the original posts. I'm going to respond to this here and on my Tumblr, because there's a lot that I want to say about this post. First I want to say that I hear you, and I thank everyone above for sharing their thoughts.

A little background about me, because that will frame where I'm coming from: I grew up middle class and never had to worry about missing a meal. I've been overweight since elementary school. I made less than $10,000 last year (thanks, taxes, for bringing that disappointing fact to light), but I am fortunate to have a family that gives me support when I need it, including groceries. I am a 34-year-old white, Jewish, queer woman, with all the privileges/baggage that brings. I spent most of my 20s eating Lean Cuisine/Smart Ones/diet frozen foods, and it wasn't until I was 30 and moved to France that I realized I had no idea how to eat properly without frozen foods or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I was 30 years old with no idea how to feed myself real food.

I am currently a supporter of the Clean Eating "trend," and let me tell you why. Because I like eating whole foods. Because I like knowing what the fuck all the ingredients are in everything I eat. Because it actually forces me to eat more vegetables (ashamed to admit I've gone DAYS in the past without anything green). Because it goes along nicely with the idea of eating local – most things I find at the farmer's market (and I'm lucky that Tucson has at least two every day somewhere in the metro city area) are not going to have preservatives or artificial additives. Because I actually feel more connected to my food if I know what each individual ingredient is. Because I don't like restricting or calorie counting because it triggers disordered eating. Because I have found it affordable: there are clean grocery lists for Safeway and Trader Joe's, and they're easily transferable to your favorite cheap/discount grocery store. I never shop at Whole Foods, because I can't afford it. I can afford Trader Joe's and Safeway, and I'm privileged to be able to do so.

I, personally – and really this is all personal opinion only, that should go without saying –, have never thought of not clean eating as "dirty eating." I am not judging what you eat. Here's a secret, and I'm sorry to let you down, but I am not judging what you eat. I don't care what you eat. I don't have time for that. I'm trying to stay mentally and physically healthy and yet still sometimes counting calories and creating a detailed meal plan two weeks in advance, and I'm exhausted. I don't have time to care about your food, too. What you eat is just not important to me, I'm sorry. Was it supposed to be? I hope not. (You will see me snark on my blog when people come in to my coffee shop and order a sugar-free mocha with 20 pumps sugar free syrup, 10 splendas, non-fat milk, and extra whipped cream. I'm a believer in go-all or go-none. Whipped cream AND whole milk AND sugar syrup! So yes, I am shaking my head when that cup comes through my line, but I'm not thinking "And I bet she eats crappy food too!" I'm really not. I'm making the next drink. Because I just do not have time in my life to care what you eat).

Therefore, I never saw the clean eating movement as indicating any kind of moral/orthodox scale for foods. I do hear what is being said above about the connotations of calling it "clean" eating, and I respect those points and will happily call it "unprocessed" eating or "whole foods" eating from here on out. Food is food is food in that it's all digestible (except that Olean stuff, and what the fuck is that? I have anal leakage nightmares) and everyone's body can pick what it needs from it. My casserole made from whole ingredients is not any better or worse morally than someone else's bacon cheeseburger. It doesn't make me a better person, and it doesn't make them a terrible person. It makes us different people.

I'm not sure where the anger is coming from regarding food choices. As I said, I'm neither making your choices for you or caring what choice you make. If you want to choose the butter/cake/50-year lifespan, DO IT. Also, mmmm….cake. Also, my eating clean/unprocessed food is not removing this choice from your daily plate. You can choose to eat whatever the hell you want everyday, and more power to you, and I can understand being angry at the society that tells us all, every day, that we need to be on a diet. I'm angry at diets too. It's okay. I get really triggered and ranty when I see someone on my dash saying, "Oh no, I had two sweets this week, now I can't have any more sweets for two weeks!" because that, to me, is not how clean unprocessed/whole foods eating works. I like to pair it with intuitive eating, and sometimes my intuition wants a damn pizza. But I try and live by the 80/20 rule, where 80% of the time I'm eating whole/unprocessed and 20% of the time I'll have a nice, greasy pizza. So if we changed the name, with the same principles, would it be less of an issue? Some of the above responses sound angry that I won't fry a potato in canola or vegetable oil (although I will in EVOO or coconut oil, and yum!). I thought it was my choice? What I choose to eat for myself is never, ever imposed upon anyone else. My food philosophy does not invalidate your food philosophy just because they're different.

In fact, Tiffany from The Gracious Pantry, one of the best sites for clean unprocessed/whole foods eating recently admitted that she's been eating this way for four years, and she's still overweight. Does that make her a failure? Does that make the way of eating a failure? I say absolutely not. She still feels better, healthier, and has more energy than when she ate junk. I know I feel a million times better eating unprocessed/whole foods than I do eating overly-preserved convenience foods. I like how it makes me feel. I don't know how it makes you feel. I know low-carb makes me constantly nauseated to the point where I just stop eating. But I'm not mad at everyone who eats low-carb just because it makes me feel like shit.

Basically – the rest of society is hard enough on us, so can't we all just get along? Here, have some coconut flour pancakes. Let's break whole wheat bread together and clear the air.

This is My Reminder to Myself

Dear Penny,

YOU CANNOT DO LOW-CARB. You just can't. You keep trying, and everytime you go "Oh yeah, I can't do this. Fuck."

Seriously, I think, "This time I'm gonna get it right!" Nope, want to throw up and die.

I lasted two and a half days this last round. I was even tracking to make sure I was getting around 50 carbs a day! Even so, my body just CANNOT handle that much protein. Or something. Because I nearly threw up eating my egg casserole and turkey bacon this morning, which I normally enjoy.

An acquaintance of mine (internet only, even though we used to live in the same town) has had great success on a low-carb diet, and that's great for her. She posted her Pinterest board of low-carb recipes, and I read them and thought, "Sure, I can eat that!' Except not exclusively, because I get to the point where I cannot eat any more low-carb food and then I'm at 800 calories for the day, and that's bad. Seriously, it makes me want to just stop eating altogether.

THIS IS MY REMINDER TO MYSELF. STOP TRYING LOW CARB. YOU'RE WASTING EVERYONE'S TIME.

Back to my perfectly acceptable goal of eating clean -- working to completely eliminate processed foods. And there's certainly a place for those low-carb recipes within that way of eating. I do want to eat less sugars. I just need fruit and oatmeal and whole wheat bread and peanut butter in my life. And that's okay.

Quick way to drop 200+ pounds!

HEY!

Since I last blogged, I've been lucky enough to shed 220 pounds! It was so easy! All I had to do was dump my cheating, abusive boyfriend. As anyone with quick weight loss results knows, it's easy to gain those pounds back and then some, and there have definitely been days when I've been sad or lonely and missing that 220 pound lump of man hair that always left his clothes on the floor and never cleaned the kitchen. But I've stayed strong in my resolve, and I know I'm never taking him back or getting involved with anyone who doesn't respect me. Now let's just apply that resolve to eating healthy, because basically consistently eating crap isn't respecting myself, and what kind of role model am I for a future potential mate if they see I don't have any self-respect?

Note: I'm not saying I'm not respecting myself because I'm overweight. I'm saying it because I'm choosing to eat nothing but unhealthy foods and no vegetables for days on end. I'd rather be eating healthy and fat than eating crap and thin. That's why I no longer eat Lean Cuisines or processed diet junk. Now THAT is disrespecting your body!!

A few things coming up for this blog:

• A monthly challenge we can work on together
• VLOGS! See my fat face talking to you!
• ACTUAL POSTS. Because for realz, I need to keep up with this space.

Here's some snark: Someone today at my coffee shop ordered a sugar-free, non-fat latte in a size-larger cup with EXTRA whipped cream.  YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.

Fall Down, Get Up, Keep Going

I'm frustrated. I'm making the same stupid mistakes -- rookie mistakes -- and as a result I've gained weight every week so far this month. I've been bouncing back and forth between diets and sticking to none of them. I'm just gonna count calories! No...I'm gonna do slimfast and count calories! No...I need to go back to Weight Watchers. No...I'm gonna do clean eating (that one didn't last out the day). No...I'm gonna do low-sugar!

 

Seriously? Just pick a fucking way of eating and stick with it. Because it's really not a diet. It's a way of eating for the REST OF MY LIFE.

 

I'm too fat and nothing fits!

 

 

I'll be honest, I've been using the MyFitnessPal app this year, and it has helped. For a week there my pants were even fitting more loosely! I wasn't tracking fruits or vegetables, however, giving them to myself as "freebies," and I think that stalled any real progress.

 

I've been reading other weight-loss blogs and fitness blogs all day for inspiration, to rejuvenate my passion for healthy eating, exercise, and weight loss. 110 Pounds and Counting has been really helpful. She lost weight by counting calories, and went through a lot of the same metamorphasis I did -- starting with convenience packaged, processed diet foods and moving to making meals and whole foods. I hope I can someday be as inspirational as she is. In 2003 I weighed 265 pounds, and in February 2011 I weighed 147. Today I weigh 185. I can lose weight -- I lost over 100 pounds and kept it off for years. I'm horrified at how much has creeped back on, and that just makes me want to eat.

 

Here are two of the biggest dangers: Ice cream and pizza. I have long said if I can't have these in my life, I don't want to bother living, but they are HUGE trigger foods. When the Boyfriend and I get a pizza, I can eat no fewer than 4 slices. Of a large! With extra cheese! I usually give up tracking on MyFitnessApp on those days. I've actually been pretty good about portioning ice cream (though eyeballing it, not measuring), but when the ice cream I eat has 300 calories for 1/2 cup, that's just so much wasted calories.

 

(Boyfriend and I are doing No Candy this month, so that may be adding to my sweet cravings)

 

For a week -- just ONE week! -- I'm not going to order pizza or buy ice cream. You know what I can have? A Lean Cuisine pizza (portion controlled). My favorite is the Spinach and Mushroom. I can buy LOWFAT frozen yogurt and the new Cuties made with coconut milk. I hope this will help me get over the hump and tone down my addictions to these foods. At the end of one week, if I''ve made it, well let's see if I can do it for another week, and then see how long I can go! (Actually, this is how I learned to drop fast food. "You know, I haven't had Wendy's in two months! Let's see if I can go another month. Let's see if I can go five months. You know, I really don't need to go back." Haven't since 2008.)

 

Verboten!!

 

 

I'm aiming to exercise four times a week. I'm working on a post about that.

 

Also, I'm going to take PICTURES of ME. I used to do a "day in the life" photoblogs all the time. I was okay with having my picture taken. But my Facebook icon now is from September 2011. I'm so embarrased with how I look I haven't kept a picture of myself in months. But if I FORCE myself to look at me as I really am, I can no longer kid myself about my weight (like the only four or five shirts that fit me that I rotate every week aren't hilarious enough).

 

How many times do I have to start over? Until I get it right.

WELL HELLO THERE.

Welcome to 2012! Oh, we're already past halfway through the first month? Well, shit.

I'm blogging my goals for the new year on a collective called Together, We're Better, but I'm not abandoning this blog. Because there are still plenty of really stupid dieters out there. Someone must bring the snark.

I'm eating vegetarian for January, and it's going really well. I’ve been tweaking it more towards actually eating vegetables instead of just cheese and bread. Yesterday for dinner I sauteed a fake chicken breast with a ton of vegetables and soy ginger dressing. It was DELICIOUS. And so healthy! Who knew?

I'm also using MyFitnessPal to finally get back on track with writing down every thing I eat. I like that it gives you more calories for working out, even though in reality that's not really how weight loss works. Still, I've had my best luck and lost the most weight with the simplest diet of all: Eat less, exercise more. I'm on board with anything that encourages that.

Enough about me, how are you? Still sticking with that New Year's Resolution to lose a few more pounds? If not, ask yourself why? Too hard? Too strict? Seriously, the smallest changes can have the biggest impact.

How do you break the binge eating cycle?

This is a perfectly valid question being asked on the Weight Watchers Online Message Boards. I'm fighting the urge to binge every day, and I've been "on points" for eight days now.  

I want...
I want cupcakes. I want ice cream. I want a big breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes and eggs. I want to be able to eat something without worrying about the points.

Last Friday we went to a self-serve frozen yogurt place that's new in town. Thanks to Hungry Girl's tips on these places, I was able to calculate the points before leaving the house. I portioned one cup of yogurt into my giant cup, two tablespoons of marachino cherries, one tablespoon of cheesecake bites and two tablespoons of hot fudge. It was a large meals worth of points, but I hadn't touched my Weekly Points for the week, so it was fine. It was SO GOOD, and really satisfied my craving for an ice cream sundae. Yeah, it's still junk food, but it was an appropriate portion size and I tracked with my Weekly Points instead of just giving up and giving in.

Tip: If you fill this cup, it's probably a days worth of Points.

The problem I have is when I see people on the boards say "Oh, I know, binging is such a problem for me! I never use my Weekly Points. Today I had 15 nilla wafers [approximately 8 points]; I'm such a pig!"

Seriously? This is not a binge. Call me when you've gone through a half gallon of amaretto cherry cordial.

First of all, if your "binge" is 15 nilla wafers, then I don't know how you got fat in the first place. For most of us a binge is not counted; it's out of control eating and then you look back and go, "Whoa, what did I just do??"

Second, WHY AREN'T YOU EATING YOUR WEEKLY POINTS?! I'm not saying eat all of them, or even to eat when you aren't hungry. But 29 daily points is approximately 1,100 calories (hard to pinpoint since points don't take calories into account). That is really low. On the old plan, I ate around 1,500 calories a day. The Weekly Points are there to supplement the daily points. They're not shameful. You're not cooler or holier-than-thou because you don't eat them. You're just setting yourself up for a plateau as your body clings to every last bit of calories and fat you give it.

Some of the folks on the boards can be very competitive...trying to out-do each other with how little they can eat. I know this is not good Weight Watchers policy and they don't condone it, but they do make it easy for people to fall into a destructive eating spiral. If you have a genuine fear of eating all your daily points, or touching your weekly points, I urge you to go to a meeting or talk with a nutritionist or specialist.

Healthy eating is not all or nothing. We don't need to be afraid of food.

The "L" Word

This might be my biggest pet peeve in all the diet-verse. It’s Hooked on Phonics 101, people. When you lose weight, your clothes become loose. Nothing makes me judge you harder than misspelling this word (unless you spell "dessert" as "desert." I live in the desert. It is not a sweet treat). One “o” makes the z sound. Two make the s sound. It’s so prevalent throughout the online weight communities, that I think smart people are actually beginning to doubt themselves and start using the wrong word.

Nowhere, however, have I seen anything as bad as this one acquaintance I used to know. She was successful on Weight Watchers, and even became an employee. But she always used to say both online and out loud that she “loss” 50 pounds. A friend of mine used to joke that she must have lost the “t” somewhere in there too. This was the same girl who told us she didn’t want to eat at a Thai restaurant because she didn’t like “thigh” food.

I'm not saying everyone on the internet needs to be a spelling bee winner, but if you're a part of a certain community, it would behoove you to be able to properly spell key words.

My boyfriend would like to add the point that we shouldn't be saying "lose" weight anyway, as that plants the thought in our mind that it's something we need to find and get back, generally in a half gallon of ice cream. He recommends switching to "closer to my target weight." All hail the power of positive thinking!

Dieting – You’re Doing it Wrong

Nothing makes me snarkier than listening to someone who doesn’t know how to diet try and explain to others how their way is “totally gonna work” and obviously makes perfect scientific sense.

The basic premise of losing weight is Eat Fewer Calories than You Burn, but it’s not quite that simple. Last week I was having lunch with my aunt, and she was telling me how she was so bummed because she’d been working out two hours per day and only eating 1000 or fewer calories, and she still managed to gain a pound. NO SHIT. You are starving your body and sending it in to starvation mode. It’s going to hang on to every precious calorie you allow it. Not to mention you’re messing up your metabolism so even if you eat “normally,” your body will still want to hold on to calories.

An old college acquaintance of mine has recently begun following the new PointsPlus program, and is documenting her progress on FaceBook.  The last time I saw her, she was in the upper 200s. She is assigned 29 daily points, just as I am. The first three weeks she had very large losses, over 3 pounds each week. Last week she only lost a pound. So she has decided to take it into her own hands and cut down her points – now she’ll only eat 26 points until she’s over this “plateau.” I want to shake her.

1. One week does not a plateau make.
2. Are you exercising? At all? You might want to start there before you start cutting out points.
3. Normal, healthy weight loss is 1-2 pounds a week. YOU ARE DOING FINE. Losing more several weeks in a row is unhealthy, and if you couple it with no exercise, you’re gonna end up with a lot of loose skin. Trust me.
4. Going from 29 to 26 points is probably not going to mess up your body. But what about when  you hit a “plateau” on 26 points? How low are you willing to go?
5. Suck up a low loss week, eat a different variety of foods, and exercise more. Trust the damned program.

Look, I’ve been there. The Weight Watchers program can be particularly triggering to eating disorders, even if you’re not prone to them. I remember playing the “how few points can I eat in a day” game with the old system. The answer was eight. That is about 600 calories. That is fucked up. Starving yourself never leads to anything good. It either turns in to full-blown anorexia or it leads to a binge. Whatever diet plan you’re on, it was designed by marketers experts, so can you try to trust them for a measly four weeks?