Transform Your Body, Part III: Changing Eating Habits

The most important component in accomplishing a physique transformation is establishing healthy eating habits.

As outlined in Part II of this series, establishing good eating habits is the first step in your transformation for several reasons:

• If you don’t eat right, much—if not most—of your effort invested in cardiovascular work and resistance training will be wasted. Good eating habits are the foundation for your transformation and will make or break your results.
• Your body needs quality food to fuel the physical demands of cardiovascular work and resistance training.

To accomplish a lifelong change to your health and appearance, take two weeks to focus solely on changing your eating habits without the added pressure of making other changes.

Changing eating habits is a difficult change for many people. Eating habits can be deeply ingrained. Many influences, such as culture, family, economics, and personal taste influence what you eat. Since birth eating has been an important part of your life, necessary for your very survival. It is hard to make a shift from something familiar into the unfamiliar.

Eating Right = Eating Clean

“Eating Clean” is a term coined by bodybuilders (they know a lot about transforming physiques) and is a dietary habit now used by many—if not most—serious athletes.

Eating Clean means eating several smaller meals throughout the day consisting of minimally processed lean meats, grains, fruits, vegetables, seeds and nuts. It is a return to nature and how people have eaten throughout much of recorded history.

Why Eat Clean?

Eating clean is the way to eat for your best health and appearance.

When you eat clean, you will:

• Naturally drop body fat
• Have more energy than ever
• Feel fuller even though you may consume fewer calories than before

Coupled with some exercise (resistance training and cardiovascular work), you can complete your transformation.

Steps to Change Your Eating Habits

These are the steps to change your eating habits:

1. Get your mind right
2. Do your homework
3. Make a Plan
4. Go Shopping
5. Stick to it

First and Foremost: Get Your Mind Right

Attitude is everything! Your attitude largely determines your ability to achieve any goal. If you think that making the change to healthier eating habits will be horrible and you are sure that everything will taste like cardboard, you will be right; your thinking will make it so.

To succeed you need to believe:

• Making the change may have challenging moments but you can do it. Others have done it, you can too.
• The first two weeks are key to breaking your physical addictions to sugar and the tastes associated to processed food from added fat and salt
• Clean food can taste good to you but it may take getting through the first couple of weeks to let your taste buds adjust
• Break it down so you don’t freak out: you only have to do it one day at a time, one meal at a time, it is only about right NOW
• You will be able to have cheat meals where you can have your favorite foods and deserts after you get through the first two weeks
• You are doing the right thing, you want to look and feel great. Each and every day can set you on the path towards your goal.

Do Your Homework: Learn How to Eat Clean

Once you have set your mind to eat clean, do your homework on how to eat clean.

There are great resources out there about eating clean. Your next task is to gather these resources and absorb their contents. (I wish it had been available when I needed it!!!).

A great book on eating clean is: The Eat Clean Diet by Tosca Reno

I recommend these following FigureFoodie posts as a resource to learn about eating clean:

• How to Eat Clean
• The Clean Eating Lifestyle: What to Eat
• Save Time in ’09! Time-Saving Tips for Eating Healthy
• 12 Tips for Eating Clean

Also check out Oxygen Magazine and Clean Eating Magazine.

Once you’ve absorbed it all, you should have a solid understanding of how it is done.

Make a Plan

Plan your meals for three to five days at a time. Write it all down in detail. Make sure to include the date and time for each meal as well as the food you plan to eat and your portion for each food.

Writing it down is absolutely necessary for your first two to four weeks as you find your way. Making a change requires you to make conscious choices about your food. Writing down your meal plan forces you to make tangible and conscious decisions. After you have practiced your new eating habits for about a month, you will find you don’t need to write it all out anymore.

Eating clean brings out the natural flavors and textures of real food. Make sure to include foods and recipes that interest you. The only eating habits you will stick with over time and the ones you enjoy.

Go Shopping

Next, you’ll need to go shopping. Use your meal plan to create a shopping list. When eating clean you will be shopping the outer aisles of the grocery store, keeping to the produce and the meat sections and straying to an inside aisle to pick up whole grains like oatmeal and brown rice.

A helpful shopping list for eating clean can be found here.

You’ll also need to make sure you have the tools to prepare your food. At a minimum you should have:

• A non-stick skillet
• A small, portable cooler and ice packs
• Re-usable, sealable containers and baggies

A basic food scale is also helpful but not required.

Be Prepared and Stick to It!

Conscious eating requires you to be prepared. After making your plan and purchasing your food, determine how and when you will prepare it. Will you be able to make each meal fresh or will you need to cook it ahead of time?
If you aren’t home for all your meals, plan on bringing prepared food with you in your cooler. If you are going out, it is a good idea to bring your next meal as you may often run into delays.

Eliminate any excuse to fall back to eating processed foods. For example, even if you plan to be home, it can be helpful to pack your food for the day in a small cooler. When you get busy later, you will be able to simply heat and eat. To save time, consider cooking your lean protein in bulk to use in different ways and add seasoning later.

Each and every day can set you on the path towards your goal. Set your mind to stick to it and know you will see results soon.

After two weeks, review your progress. You should have some real results: weight loss, size loss and/or increased energy. Review what worked well for you and what was a struggle. Make a list of your obstacles and create a plan to conquer each one.

Schedule a cheat meal once a week. It will help you stay on track. Denying yourself your favorite foods forever is not a good idea.

Keep going; consistency is key! Remember, bad eating habits are behind you; eating right will soon become your new habit.

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