Truth to a beautiful body INSIDE and OUT: Eating Smart + Clean

Ever heard of paleo diets? Ever met someone who adopted the paleo lifestyle?
People who live a life of paleo eating habits are people who realize that the majority of the food out there these days is just not meant for us to be eating!
You think mother nature makes rainbow colored bits of sugar and puts them in a cardboard box as "fruity" cereal? Let me answer that for you, NO.

Number one rule that I stress to anyone who will listen: ditch the processed foods!!!

I challenge you to make a list of all your favorite, or most common, foods you eat throughout your day.

Example provided by roommate:

-Taco Bell

-Pizza

-Cheezits
-Chips

-Cheese

-Pistachios

-Dave's Killer Bread

Pita Chips + hummus

-Cola
-Starbucks

Now look at your list, or my example, and allow yourself to take note of how much processed food you take in. Don't worry though because there's a full proof way to change the way you approach satisfying your body and mouths desire!

Lets start with the Cheesits, pita chips, and Taco Bell. 

These foods are not very fillings, and yet they are desirable to eat because they all provide a crunchy, maybe flavorful, sensation. Now, using your noggin' start brainstorming some foods that provide flavor and crunch to them but don't come out of a box or commercialized wrapping! 

Example:

-Swiss Chard
-Spinach*

-Pecans*

-Almonds

-Carrots*

-Celery

-Cucumber*

-Apples*

-Onions

-Bell Peppers*

-Pears

-Grapes*

*My personal favorites for my day*

As I hope you can see, I just listed 4x as many options as our starting option of Cheezits, pita chips, and Taco Bell and every single option is tasty, healthy, and easily accessible in any grocery store that sells the same processed/boxed snacks!

Still don't dig what I'm saying? 

Read the labels, just like every product you buy (shampoo to makeup to food), reading the label can really open your eyes to seeing what you're really about to put into your body.

"Hey let's grab some of that fruity cereal! It's sooo good!"

"Oh you mean that: Sugar, corn flour blend (whole grain yellow corn flour, degerminated yellow corn flour), wheat flour, whole grain oat flour, oat fiber, soluble corn fiber, contains 2% or less of partially hydrogenated vegetable oil (coconut, soybean and/or cottonseed), salt, red 40, natural flavor, blue 2, turmeric color, yellow 6, annatto color, blue 1, BHT' ???"

"Uhm...maybe some oats with berries instead...?"

"Yeah man, I actually know where those ingredients come from!"

Shop on the perimeter of the store, because everything in the middle of the store is boxed, chemical filled foods that just won't do anything for you but make you feel worse inside and out. 

Even my favorite weight loss book (great even if you just want to be inspired to be healthier) by

Dr. Dean Ornish says that you don't have to go on some ridiculous calorie cut down, it's all about what you actually put into your body for fuel!

I LOVE food, I love cooking, and I love fast snacks, but for every point of my life I know theres is always a healthy option if I just remember these rules when I'm picking what I'm about to eat. I have a few of my favorite recipes books below for you to hopefully take a step in changing you eating habits :)