Eat Clean Diet

Background

Oxygen Magazine columnist Tosca Reno wrote the Eat-Clean Diet based on her personal experiences with weight loss. Before she discovered how to ‘eat clean’ Reno was overweight at 200 pounds and lacking energy after giving birth to three children. She undertook an amazing transformation by changing her diet and lifestyle. Her approach was so successful that now she is an accomplished swimsuit model.

Eat Clean Diet Basics

Eating clean basically means that foods are selected from those in their natural state; unprocessed and whole. For example tomatoes are a clean food whereas ketchup is not. Homemade tomato sauce may be considered a clean food if it is prepared from scratch with all ‘clean’ ingredients.

This is not necessarily a low calorie approach to dieting with a greater emphasis being placed on the quality of the foods selected, although Tosca does provide some suggestions to help with calorie control.

Reno stresses the importance of eating a healthy breakfast every day and never skipping meals. She also encourages dieters to prepare for meals that must be eaten away from home by packing nutritious foods that travel well and by planning in advance.

She recommends six small meals every day that are to be composed entirely of clean foods. Each meal should contain around 300-400 calories and must contain protein as well as complex carbohydrates.

Cheat meals are allowed only once a week. This means that this is a very strict plan that will require a great deal of discipline in addition to implementing a dramatic overhaul of diet and lifestyle for most people.

Recommended Foods

A wide range of fresh fruits and vegetables form the foundation of the diet.
Complex carbohydrates include legumes as well as whole grains such as brown rice and oats.
Lean proteins such as chicken breast, turkey and fish.
Sources of healthy fats include olive oil, avocado and raw nuts.
Foods to avoid include all processed foods, refined grains, sugar, foods containing saturated and trans fats and alcohol.

Sample Diet Plan

Breakfast

Oatmeal pancakes with fresh strawberries

Morning Snack

Apple with raw nuts and dried fruit

Lunch

Mediterranean style French lentil salad

Afternoon Snack

Smoothie with fresh fruit and yogurt

Dinner

Roasted chicken breast with red potatoes and asparagus

Dessert

Apple cranberry crumble

Look for other meal ideas here.

Exercise Recommendations

Exercise is emphasized as being an essential part of any weight loss program and Reno advises readers to increase activity as much as possible as well as become involved in a weight training program for a minimum of 30 minutes on 3 days each week. She ascribes her own inspiring transformation to weight training to a large degree.

These resistance exercises can be used with the Eat Clean Diet.

Costs and Expenses

The Eat-Clean Diet book costs $16.95 and there are also several cookbooks available for around $19.95 as well as an exercise DVD for $19.95.

Pros

Recommends a balanced intake of all food groups.
Frequent meals spread over the day will prevent hunger while providing high quality nutrition at regular intervals.
Emphasizes how eating whole unprocessed foods will make you feel better as well as improve your health and appearance.
Emphasis in importance of adequate intake of essential fatty acids.
Provides very good recipe and menu planning resources with estimates of preparation time for meals in addition to nutritional analysis.
Will increase awareness of appropriate portion sizes.
Reno’s personal story of transformation is very inspiring and will help readers feel motivated and encouraged to make changes in their own lives.

Cons

Very stringent plan. Must give up all processed foods including refined carbohydrates, sugars, prepared foods and alcohol.
May interfere with social interactions, as eating out can be extremely difficult without deviating from the plan.
Recommends supplements that don’t have adequate scientific support of their effectiveness.

Conclusions

On the whole this is probably one of the best plans available when considered from the perspective of the nutritional quality of the diet. However Reno’s advice to completely eliminate saturated fats is questionable as there is evidence to suggest that they have important roles to play in health.

Eating clean requires tremendous discipline and may interfere with some aspects of the dieters lifestyle, but with careful planning it can certainly be achieved and it is probable that most dieters will be rewarded for their discipline.

Weight loss is likely to follow eventually but results will probably be slower than many other diet plans due to the relative higher calorie intake on this diet. The benefits of this approach however are that weight loss is more likely to be sustained and health will be improved in the process.

November 4th, 2011elizabeth brown

Thanks for making this program so accessible to all of us. My children are enjoying our new style of eating. They look forward to helping to plan meals and helping to shop for them. This is wonderful!
July 8th, 2011Jenn

I always ate whatever I wanted. Fast food all week long, tons of bagged snacks like chips and cookies, ect. Eating clean is changing my life. I have lost 18lbs so far and feel great. My confidence is back and I have no problem wearing my bathing suit this summer! 10 more pounds to go before Vegas and 20 to reach my goal! Lets push and see how we can challenge ourself to make the most out of the body we were blessed with!
July 5th, 2011Lovie weaver

I love clean eating!! I have lost over 95 pounds in two years and i’m so glad i picked up the oxygen magazine! I have all toscas books and refer back to them when i get off track. I tell everyone i’ m on a lifestyle change not a diet.
June 29th, 2011Kat

Clean eating is for sure a life style choice. The cooking if you choose to cook is easy. The food choices can be quite simple or more complicated as you choose. It is about the quality of foods, eating smaller amounts often to you are never hungry and so blood sugar stay fairly level. While not specifically for diabetics, it is easy to make this a nutrition plan for individuals with many health issues, including allergies, diabetes, heart health issues, MS, inflammatory health issues including arthritis, over weight, under weight, hypoglycemia, etc. This nutrition choice is eating for better health. For someone who feels that 5 to 6 mini meals of 300 calories is too much, you can trim a little protein and a little complex carbohydrate each time, and get 5 x 250 calories which may sound better to a small woman. But this eating style is not about counting calories, it is all about really good nutrition. Your body will find its set point or happy weight if you persist. You can certainly have a cup or coffee, or a variety of teas. There is sugar and then there are better sweeteners, so you may want to experiment. We are what we eat. For someone who wants details about the program before buying, you can go to a book store and check out the contents. Or you can buy a single copy of one of the RPK magazines and get the big picture in every issue. Or go online, sign up to be a follower and learn about the lifestyle eating program, read tons of recipes, read about people who choose this as a lifestyle. We are responsible for our own health. Mostly, this reminds me of the way we ate when I was a kid, growing our own produce, canning and freezing our vegetables and fruits, and raising and processing our own protein sources – from dry beans to beef. No antibiotics or toxic sprays on that food.
May 31st, 2011Erin

It seems that 6 meals at 300 calories/meal is a lot. I am only 5’3″ and 1800 calories/day seems counterproductive to a weight loss plan for someone who is petite.
May 2nd, 2011ted

There’s a sample meal plan and recommended foods above. What more do you need? We really can’t post pages from the diet as that is a copyright violation.
May 2nd, 2011Miriam

can somebody please list the diet for me. I would like to see what I can eat and how before I purchase the book with the recepies
April 21st, 2011Erika

@Jacqui LaMarre-Cox

She recommends taking your coffee black but I personally cannot do this. So instead I switched to tea, I can easily do tea without anything added. I understand coffee is a requirement for some so if that is the case you can try drinking americanas or switch to agave syrup (still sugar but not quite as refined) or stevia (naturally sweet plant) and skim milk. I love the eat clean diet and its not a diet at all you just have to commit to it. Eating out is also not that bad either you just have to get used to asking for changes to your orders and asking lots of questions about how it is prepared. Good luck!
March 6th, 2011Alan Nelson

We as Americans have fallen into a life of convenience when it comes to nutrition. There is a nasty game being played amongst fast food restaurants and food producers in this country. The main contributors in both instances are sugar, and preservatives. The food industries have added sugar and other chemicals to food in order to make them taste better, last longer, and become addictive. When our bodies try to process these things our entire system goes awry. With all of the health problems we have in America, why not examine the common denominator? Our diet just may be the culprit. It stands to reason that if we can fix ailments by adjusting our diets, is it not possible to think that we can cause problems the same way?
When people are educated about the ingredients they ingest, they then have the power to choose for themselves if the risk outweighs the benefit .If a major awareness was brought to the dangers of sugar and preservatives in the way that only a mass marketing campaign can reach, perhaps the public may not be so innocent to the dangers they incur when choosing to ingest such things. Making a cognitive choice to take more time and invest in our family’s nutrition may well be what helps to save us of certain future health problems.
February 15th, 2011Anne

Eating Clean is the way to go! This is a lifestyle change, not a diet.
February 10th, 2011Jacqui LaMarre-Cox

can u still have a coffee with milk and sugar once a day?
January 5th, 2011Jaqui

For me the diet isnt tuff, i like the food even though i have many allergies to fruit and nuts. My biggest problem is i llllove wine and cant seem to give it up and just one glass is no fun
November 24th, 2010Karla

I lost 28 kilograms with clean eating and cardio + weight training in 1 year. Thanks for being an inspiration Tosca
November 6th, 2010Kristin

I really, really want to start eating clean. I am apprehensive and afraid I won’t succeed. I need motivation and encouragement.
September 29th, 2010Kelly

I recently learned that – due to some challenges with my health that I am determined to overcome – I cannot eat caffeine, sugar or anything processed. I have already cut most of those types of foods out of my diet. This plan was recommended to me by a friend and looks like it’s going to be exactly what the doctor ordered! I am extremely grateful for having found it and am looking forward to starting my journey toward optimum health.
September 8th, 2010tonya cooper

This is by far the easiest life change ever, Tosca is brilliant, her books are easy to follow and the recipes are amazing!!! I continue to lose inches and body fat and am never hungry, Thank you Tosca
September 7th, 2010Lucy

Changed my life – and i can’t even eat all the food she tells me to eat and never hungry.
Thank you Tosca!
July 29th, 2010Barbara

Feeling great eating clean, so much energy and my skin is radiant. Lost 5 pounds the first eight days, and have yet to start exercising!!! Cant wait. Love her book, makes such simple sense.
July 23rd, 2010Che

Amazing! I love Tosca! I lost about 15 pounds on eating clean…and if you fall from the plan, it’s so easy to pick it up again! It’s a life plan, not a blueprint for dieting. She personally wrote me back when I contacted her a few years ago. I am not hard core into the weight training, but everything else works! It’s such a natural path to eating and living. It ALL makes sence.