Clean eating for beginners is a way to approach how you eat by removing unnecessary fats, sugars, and carbs, avoiding processed foods, and embracing vegetables, whole foods, unrefined grains, lean proteins, and healthy fats. The more you practice, the more the craving for salts and sweets decreases and no longer satisfies. The idea is to combine a clean eating lifestyle with an active life that turns into long-term healthy habits.

Clean Eating: Chiropractic Functional Medicine Team

Clean Eating

Junk food refers to processed/refined foods, artificial flavors, sugars, salts, high saturated fats, and other foods that don’t provide nutrition. Clean foods fill the body with an abundance of vitamins and minerals, high-quality protein, and healthy fats, which improve heart and brain health, assist with weight management, strengthen the immune system and increase energy levels. Clean eating guidelines include:

Preparing and Cooking Own Food

  • Preparing and cooking your food is an easy way to control what goes into your body.
  • You control the salt, sugar, flavors, and fats with the objective of keeping the levels as low as possible.
  • Restaurant and diner food tastes great, but it is usually because salt, sugar, and butter are added to everything.

Whole Foods

  • Whole foods have not been modified, processed or refined, or saturated with preservatives, added sugars, dyes, fats/hydrogenated fats, or salt to add extra flavor or to enhance shelf life.
  • They include fresh fruits and vegetables, lean proteins, unsalted nuts/seeds, whole grains, full-fat dairy products, and dried beans/legumes.
  • Unrefined foods contain more nutrients and fiber, essential for healthy body function.

Balanced Meals

Limit Adding Salt, Sugar, and Fats

  • Avoid unnecessary additives, like fat, salt, and sugar, when choosing foods.
  • Clean eating detoxes the body, so pastries, hamburgers, fries, and fried foods begin to taste too sweet or salty because the body is no longer used to them.
  • The body and tastebuds become acclimated to whole foods with no longer a need for additives.

Five to Six Small Meals

  • Counting calories does not take into account the value of each calorie.
  • Making mindful decisions for all foods, like lean protein, complex carbohydrates, fats, fresh fruits, and vegetables, will make the calories count.
  • Eating five to six times a day in the right amounts with three small main meals and two to three healthy snacks prevents:
  • Over-eating
  • Skipping meals
  • Exhaustion or jitteriness from unstable blood sugar levels.
  • Helps to lose weight.

Nutrition Labels

  • Look for labels with few ingredients.
  • Avoid foods with labels that include words like modified, which indicates added processing, and words that end with the letters ose, which indicate added sugars/fructose.
  • Look for labels with whole grains and whole wheat.
  • High-calorie foods should have low saturated fat and sugar levels and calories that come from fiber and lean proteins.
  • Sodium levels should be as low as possible; the body only needs 250 mg daily.

Drink Plenty of Water

  • Water needs to be consumed throughout the day, every day.
  • Water will maintain body hydration and function and prevent hunger.
  • Sodas and other unhealthy drinks contain high fructose corn syrup and/or other refined sugars providing no health benefits.
  • Fruit juices contain more nutrients than soda but can be high in calories and sugar. Read the labels.

To start, take small steps so the body can gradually transition into healthy habits that will last long-term. This is a new lifestyle, not a trending fad. Individuals are recommended to ease into it, and then it will begin to feel normal. Injury Medical Chiropractic Clinic has a Functional Medicine team, including a certified nutritionist, to help individuals develop a nutrition plan specific to their needs.


For Beginners


References

Ambwani, Suman et al. “”It’s Healthy Because It’s Natural.” Perceptions of “Clean” Eating among U.S. Adolescents and Emerging Adults.” Nutrients vol. 12,6 1708. 7 Jun. 2020, doi:10.3390/nu12061708

Allen, Michelle, et al. “The Dirt on Clean Eating: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of Dietary Intake, Restrained Eating, and Opinions about Clean Eating among Women.” Nutrients vol. 10,9 1266. 8 Sep. 2018, doi:10.3390/nu10091266

Ghaderi, Ata. “A European perspective on “clean eating”: Commentary on Negowetti et al. (2021).” The International journal of eating disorders vol. 55,1 (2022): 49-51. doi:10.1002/eat.23615

www.nia.nih.gov/health/how-read-food-and-beverage-labels

Professional Scope of Practice *

The information herein on "Clean Eating: Functional Sciatica Clinic" is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional or licensed physician and is not medical advice. We encourage you to make healthcare decisions based on your research and partnership with a qualified healthcare professional.

Blog Information & Scope Discussions

Our information scope is limited to Chiropractic, musculoskeletal, physical medicines, wellness, contributing etiological viscerosomatic disturbances within clinical presentations, associated somatovisceral reflex clinical dynamics, subluxation complexes, sensitive health issues, and/or functional medicine articles, topics, and discussions.

We provide and present clinical collaboration with specialists from various disciplines. Each specialist is governed by their professional scope of practice and their jurisdiction of licensure. We use functional health & wellness protocols to treat and support care for the injuries or disorders of the musculoskeletal system.

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Our office has reasonably attempted to provide supportive citations and has identified the relevant research study or studies supporting our posts. We provide copies of supporting research studies available to regulatory boards and the public upon request.

We understand that we cover matters that require an additional explanation of how it may assist in a particular care plan or treatment protocol; therefore, to further discuss the subject matter above, please feel free to ask Dr. Alex Jimenez, DC, or contact us at 915-850-0900.

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Dr. Alex Jimenez DC, MSACP, RN*, CCST, IFMCP*, CIFM*, ATN*

email: coach@elpasofunctionalmedicine.com

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Dr. Alex Jimenez
Specialties: Stopping the PAIN! We Specialize in Treating Severe Sciatica, Neck-Back Pain, Whiplash, Headaches, Knee Injuries, Sports Injuries, Dizziness, Poor Sleep, Arthritis. We use advanced proven therapies focused on optimal Mobility, Posture Control, Deep Health Instruction, Integrative & Functional Medicine, Functional Fitness, Chronic Degenerative Disorder Treatment Protocols, and Structural Conditioning. We also integrate Wellness Nutrition, Wellness Detoxification Protocols and Functional Medicine for chronic musculoskeletal disorders. We use effective "Patient Focused Diet Plans", Specialized Chiropractic Techniques, Mobility-Agility Training, Cross-Fit Protocols, and the Premier "PUSH Functional Fitness System" to treat patients suffering from various injuries and health problems. Ultimately, I am here to serve my patients and community as a Chiropractor passionately restoring functional life and facilitating living through increased mobility. Purpose & Passions: I am a Doctor of Chiropractic specializing in progressive cutting-edge therapies and functional rehabilitation procedures focused on clinical physiology, total health, functional strength training, functional medicine, and complete conditioning. We focus on restoring normal body functions after neck, back, spinal and soft tissue injuries. We use Specialized Chiropractic Protocols, Wellness Programs, Functional & Integrative Nutrition, Agility & Mobility Fitness Training and Cross-Fit Rehabilitation Systems for all ages. As an extension to dynamic rehabilitation, we too offer our patients, disabled veterans, athletes, young and elder a diverse portfolio of strength equipment, high-performance exercises and advanced agility treatment options. We have teamed up with the cities' premier doctors, therapist and trainers in order to provide high-level competitive athletes the options to push themselves to their highest abilities within our facilities. We've been blessed to use our methods with thousands of El Pasoans over the last 3 decades allowing us to restore our patients' health and fitness while implementing researched non-surgical methods and functional wellness programs. Our programs are natural and use the body's ability to achieve specific measured goals, rather than introducing harmful chemicals, controversial hormone replacement, un-wanted surgeries, or addictive drugs. We want you to live a functional life that is fulfilled with more energy, a positive attitude, better sleep, and less pain. Our goal is to ultimately empower our patients to maintain the healthiest way of living. With a bit of work, we can achieve optimal health together, no matter the age, ability or disability.