Eating Clean - What it Really Looks Like

I have read a lot of research and literature about diet and nutrition. It's a topic that interests me and influences me. However, as easy as it is to read about the latest diet and the results it could have on your body, it's not always to easy to incorporate it into your real life. Sometimes, it's the sort of fad which you can maintain for a short amount of time but rarely do we find a way of eating which we can do full time, all the time, for the rest of time!

What works for me is a combination of things which I've garnered from a few different schools of thought. It's healthy but not unrealistic, quality produce based but not prohibitively expensive, requires only a little planning for big rewards in terms of health benefits and, best of all, is easy to maintain and doesn't make finding an on the go snack mission impossible.

What governs how and what I eat? There are a few requirements I have.

1) I do not ever want to feel that I am starving. I need to be eating sufficient in quantity and frequency that I never get that ready to gnaw the furniture feeling.
2) I do not wish to be at the mercy of cravings. For me this means cutting out sugar (except for fruit) and watching the timing and quantity of my carbs.
3) I want to feel energised! Plenty of vitamins and minerals and fuel for training.

So what does this mean in terms of my daily regime. Here's what today's menu looks like and how it fits around my training.

Breakfast was porridge made with water and skimmed milk, topped with low fat yoghurt, blueberries, almonds and a sprinkle of cinnamon. Large mug of coffee (my first love).

2km swim - post swim snack was a slab of homemade flapjack and a banana

Lunch - large bowl of carrot and fennel soup with one slice of granary bread followed by an egg salad (two hard boiled eggs, peppers, pickles, beetroot, cucumbers, tomatoes and a variety of leaves) and a large handful of grapes

Afternoon snack - a low fat yoghurt and a sliced apple with peanut butter (PB is second only to coffee on my list of favourites). Coffee number two.

Strength training at the gym - post gym snack will be some pre-cooked chicken breast and some pineapple (obsession number three)

Dinner tonight is a large seared tuna steak with a lime and chilli dressing and stir-fried veg with soy sauce and sesame seeds and I also plan to have one large glass of red wine, just because I fancy it.

If I'm hungry later in the evening I'll have either fruit with plain yoghurt or a slice of toast with peanut butter (or sometimes I have both).

This is a fairly typical menu for me. I make it easy to for myself to make good choices by preparing a few things in advance e.g. I always make a giant vat of soup on a Sunday and have cooked chicken breasts and hard-boiled eggs ready and waiting in the fridge. If I can lay hands on something wholesome as soon as I feel hungry, I'm all set. I don't do processed or pre-packaged food. I make as much from scratch as I possibly can. I like cooking so it's no great hardship. It also means that once my meals for the week are planned out and the cooking prep is done on a Sunday, I mostly don't even have to think about food choices for the rest of the week and for me, that's the real winning part of the formula.

If I'm out for a meal with family or friends, I just do the best I can. I'm not going to sit there like some self-righteous misery with a glass of tap water, eating only salad leaves while everyone else indulges. I'll get stuck in with the rest of them! But that's the exception rather than the rule and eating well the rest of time means that I'm generally pretty happy with how my body looks and feels.