CLEAN EATING, IT’S A LIFESTYLE – Part 1

HOW TO EAT CLEAN – INTRODUCTION and PART 1

Forget the juice cleanses, fasts, and fads. Check out the following tips for creating a clean eating plan that can help you detox, achieve optimal weight, body composition, hormonal balance every single day … it’s a lifestyle folks!!!

This two-part series is an intro, thought provoker, teaser to help you jumpstart the journey of taking your health in your own hands, overcoming chronic illness, or reversing/preventing nasty modern-life diseases like diabetes and cancer.

Active Life eXperiment will help you look and feel great, be happy and healthy, THRIVE, one bite, one step, one breath, one thought at a time by giving you the tools and the roadmap to tackle head on the three major causes/contributors to disease: poor diet, wrong way of exercising (not lack of!!!), and toxins/chemicals.

Adopted in part from article by Amie Valpone, HHC, AADP from “better nutrition” magazine published by the awesome Natural Grocers.

 

ONE SIZE, OR DIET, DOES NOT FIT ALL

Can we all benefit from a cleaner and greener diet? Yup! That doesn’t mean approach to this is prescriptive and you eat exactly what we put on our plates or what your doctor/dietitian/nutritionist tells you (unless it’s a serious medical issue and then you better follow the plan). Meal plans don’t work well, you don’t learn, and don’t build sustainable habits. And it’s all about habits!

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” Aristotle

And it’s not about labels either, whether vegan, frutitarian, Paleo or ketogenic. And it’s also not about “low carb”, rather “slow carb”, if we can borrow the words of Dr. Mark Hyman.

The most important thing is to eat clean foods that make your body feel good and healthy.

What are they?

 

EAT WHAT’S RIGHT FOR YOU YOU YOU

It does not matter what’s trending, what’s hot, what’s recommended by a friend, “influencer” or the “buzziest” superstar author. You and your body are the best experts on what you can eat. Your body’s internal mechanisms are far superior to any program, mechanism, tools modern society create to tell you what to eat.

Your friends, family, trainer, co-workers can talk about goat dairy “till the cows come home”, yet if it makes you feel ill, skip it. Plus dairy …. hmmm, you know how we feel about being the only species on Earth drinking milk of another species. Consume it as a treat!

What about animal protein? Some people swear you should not eat it. There is no need to feel guilty if you feel best after eating grass-fed pasture raised burger. Really. Food should make you feel healthy, energized, satisfied, not sick or sleepy.

Eat what’s right for you. What’s our take on this?

PROTEIN – meat, seafood, eggs

VEGGIES – green, root, tons of them, in season

FRUIT – mostly tart fruit and selectively. It’s nature’s desert!

FATS – healthy fat from nature is amazing, necessary for bodily and cellular functions, and DOES NOT make us fat!!!

***And since life happens, recreational drugs like sweets, alcohol or pizza/pasta on special occasions or occasional treat days are just fine.

HOW to tackle this day to day? HOW to make conscious decisions about when, when, why we eat?

Take this quick ALeX diagnostic and always stay active!

 

DETOX IS NOT A FAST OR A JUICE CLEANSE

This is a common mistake.

Let’s take spinach, a green powerhouse and a juicing favorite, for example. Spinach is also one of the most contaminated vegetables from pesticides. It’s on the Dirty Dozen list published by the Environmental Working Group (EWG).

Apples are another example – super popular juicing ingredient that can be full of toxins. And the cumulative effect of exposure to these toxins may contribute to weight gain and endocrine system disruption.

CONVENTIONAL APPLES RANK #1 on EWG’s Dirty Dozen LIST!!!

Putting them in a blender with other fruits and veggies, drinking the juice, smoothie, whatever through the straw does not make them healthier. You are just delivering the toxins to your body in a easy-to-absorb (not digest) form. This is on top of a fact that you are likely consuming way tooooooo much sugar in the first place and “drinking” your food. Apple here, strawberry there, mango, carrots. Let’s blend it all up. Ton of nutrients and vitamins? Sure, along with TON of sugar. Fruit is nature’s desert and just like all food, best consumed in its “whole form”.

The best way to detox is to eat clean, organic (especially with items on the Dirty Dozen list, meats, and eggs) and completely bypass the toxins that make you sick, fat, and bloated.

Detox does not happen over the weekend. Stay tuned for Part 2 and always stay active!

 

 

 

 

Paperclip – an amazing tool for high performance in life!

“People vs. The State of Illusion” is a phenomenal movie that questions the very nature of reality through an examination of our perceptions, beliefs and imagination. As I was watching it a little while back, I saw huge parallels to our professional and personal lives. I remembered an exercise I learned from Tignum (Institute for Sustainable High Performance) couple years back; a paperclip exercise that helped me re-frame and take my game to the next level. It was very impactful and helped create a high performance environment for my friends, colleagues, and clients, which is why I decided to share today.

Given that all of us have about 50,000 thoughts every single day (some researchers put it closer to 70,000), it’s not a surprise that we have created our own reality, our own illusion of what the world is like. The challenge is that very often this world consists of many negative thoughts and negative self-talk. Some people say that “the greatest enemy lies between our ears”. I think we can turn it around, and turn our mind into our greatest ally.

Let’s see how we can do that.

• Grab 5-7 paperclips and put them in a pocket on your dominant side
• Pay attention throughout the day in meetings, calls, conversations. Everytime you catch yourself having a negative thought or saying something negative, take one paperclip from that pocket and put it in the pocket on the other side
• Do this for a week or 21 days, whatever works for you
• You will increase your awareness immediately and soon you will start catching yourself before you even go there, thus giving youserlf an opportunity to re-frame and say things in a more productive way

Goal here is not to create an eternally positive person who never enters conflict, instead a person, a colleague, a parent, a friend who is thoughtful, constructive, creates energy, trust, and a high performance environment.

Imagine…

• …the impact in those Monday morning team meetings, performance feedback, strategic planning sessions, conversation with a spouse (or yourself) and those family gatherings
• …the change of energy and engagement in your project team, group of friends, family
• …the relationship potential with your colleagues, clients, friends, and family

Are you ready to take your game to the next level one paperclip at a time?

Do it now and remember, always stay Active!

Jaro

Active Life eXperiment

Why I stopped listing to music while I run-hike-bike

Ok … I know some of your are thinking you would rather give up coffee… maybe not, but hear me out…I found 6 reasons why you may want to consider leaving the ipod, mp3, etc. at home:

1. Take a break from electronics devices

Our brains are so stimulated by phones, computers, radios, TV’s, iPods, iPads from morning to night that a break from this can be good for the brain, memory and may help you to be more creative. Click the photo to the right for a great article on NY Times.

2. Connect with nature: Studies have some that time in the outdoors and connecting with nature can be very healing and stress relieving. Great article on this (click photo below) courtesy of the University of Minnesota.

 

3. Connect with others: The power of a smile and genuine hello can uplift your whole day…try it rather than starring at your play list and see how good it can make you feel.

4. Connect with yourself: Notice your pace, breath, arm swing, feel for symmetry in your body and listen to the clues it gives you to push a little harder or take it easy that day.

5. Be Safer: Without music you can hear a rattlesnake’s greeting, people or bikes passing you, cars, and be generally more aware of your surroundings.

6. Be lighter and save money: It’s one less thing to carry, one less thing to worry about dropping and breaking (my old ipod has the crackled glass look from this). It’s very liberating!!!

If all of these ideas don’t convince you to make a complete switch, then maybe consider trying it for one or two workouts and see how you feel.

Of course, if you are stuck inside on a treadmill, resort to all distractions … iPod, phone and TV. I’ve been fortunate to only experience this once in the last four years. Phew.

Stay active,

Veronika Campbell

Physical Therapist, Strength and Conditionings Specialist and avid trail runner.