I mean, I was technically raised orthorexic and have technically been orthorexic all my life.
Where food came from, what was in it, how it was produced, how were all big parts of growing up
This isn't meant to be insensitive or to minimise the issues around an industrial diet that effect many people.
Broscience incoming:
Eat what would be considered an ultra clean diet (but which is actually optimal). Eat the same volume as you normally would basically, it's not about losing weight. It can be done extremely cheaply and the wide options available are extremely tasty imo. You will cook a lot and bring food with you in lunchboxes. There's still probably room for blowouts if you can maintain for 90% of the time.
After a few months or a year your overall health and insulin response will have improved, your sense of hunger and sweetness will have changed, as well as your understanding of satiation. You may find that getting to and maintaining the weight you want becomes much less of a stress.
To be specific, ultra clean from my perspective means, apart from the obvious things:
replacing corn/pasta/wheat/potato with chickpeas/lentils/mungbeans/pintobeans/pulses_to_infinity/oats/ground_linseed/ground_hempseed/endlesss_options
replacing any solvent extracted oils, like canola, with mechanically extracted oils like olive
replacing anything processed (meat or vegetables) with cheaper unprocessed wholefoods you've cooked yourself.
Hope this doesn't sound like a smugpost, it's not meant that way.
Feels like I'm being set up for a fall here lol. I'm not a dietician or a scientist, like I said, broscience, but the general points are valid imo.
The varieties of corn and wheat available to us have been engineered for resilience and profitability and industrial agriculture, not for health. They are high glycemic index foods. Sugars in these foods are released quickly, in general, which leads to an unhealthy insulin response. Zoo-keepers have had to stop feeding primates as much fruit because modern varieties are developed to be so sweet that dental issues became widespread. The same logic apllies to varieties available to us. The form in which they come to us, white flour without husk or fiber for example, is too refined (fiber slows sugar release). They're usually more expensive too imo. Indian and chinese stores sell sacks of pulses cheaply.
Pulses are much higher in protein also. The protein slows the release of sugars for a more even insulin response.
Well shit I better get to it then :)
I won't define clean for anyone else, but have always taken it to mean that all the food you eat is prepared from single unprocessed ingredients.
sample breakfast: oats, egg, oil, nuts, seeds in whatever combination to taste, infinite variations
sample lunch: pulses, chopped vegetables, generous oil, piece of fish/chicken, salad leaves leftover from last night's dinner
sample dinner:pulses, vegetables, oiloiloil, fish/tofu/chicken/turkey/whatever, green salad
carry bags of mixed nuts/maybe fruit/tin'o'sardines for day snacking. drinks are black coffee and tea, beer or wine whenever there's an excuse, usually once a week tbh. These foods are quick to prepare and easy to pre-prepare and bring with you with a little practice, even if you've got very little time.
interesting. thank you for expanding on that.
very happy to. I mean, it's basically the way that athletes today are advised to eat afaik.
probably should also have mentioned that a $50 pressure cooker makes cooking pulses in quantity, for freezing in portions, sooo much quicker.
I'll stop now.