You may be considering starting a clean-eating diet. Clean eating involves eating more whole vegetables and fruits, less salt, less sugar, and more unrefined foods – the way nature intended them to be.
Everyone has different reasons for deciding to make positive changes in their diets and lifestyles. Often, it is a choice to be as healthy as possible, while warding off illness and disease.
While these are very good reasons for clean eating, you are sure to notice some more specific benefits, some of which may be unexpected. In what follows, are four unexpected benefits of following a clean diet.
- More energy –
Hippocrates was definitely onto something when he stated, “Let food be thy medicine.” When you follow a clean-eating diet, you are putting healthier foods into your body, resulting in better output. Food is the fuel of your body. If you put the wrong fuel (refined, simple sugars, for example) into your tank, then you are not going to get very far. This translates into energy. When you get the appropriate vitamins and minerals in your diet, it allows all your body’s systems to work better, making you feel more energetic. In addition, when you cut the sugar and simple, unrefined carbohydrates out of your diet, your blood sugar stays more stable so that your energy also follows suit. - Less constipation –
When you eat more whole foods like fruits and vegetables, and get more fiber in your diet, regularity is a positive side effect. In addition, this puts you at decreased risk of various cancers, especially colorectal. Fiber has been described as the brush that sweeps your intestines clean, by binding to harmful toxins and carrying them out of your body. - Healthier skin –
It is a known fact that the skin of smokers ages more quickly than that of non-smokers. It simply demonstrates that what you put into your body, is also reflected on the outside. Your skin is the largest organ of your body, and it is the first line of defence from organisms in the environment. When you consume refined sugars, such as those found in soda or white bread, your skin responds negatively. Acne and wrinkles are linked to excess dietary sugars. The addition of Omega 3’s to your diet, by eating cold-water fish such as salmon, or consumed in flax seed oil, can also be beneficial in the prevention and treatment of eczema. In addition, when you eat clean foods such as whole vegetables and fruits, you are getting antioxidants that help fight free radicals that attack your body’s cells, including those of your skin. - Decreased food bills –
Many people are worried that clean eating will result in higher food bills. However, when you consider that you will be buying less pre-packaged, processed foods and replacing them with whole foods and ingredients to make meals from scratch, your food bills should actually be less. In addition, if you have a bad habit of going through the fast food drive-thru after a long day at work, eliminating this will also be another way to save money.