A Clean Start
At 7 Saturday morning, my friend called to let me know that their 2-year-old had just come home from the ER. I was due to babysit her and her 3-year-old sister for the weekend while her moms went to Las Vegas to celebrate a birthday.
The toddler had a stomach bug, and even though the worse had passed, my friend was willing to stay home. I knew how long they had planned this trip and agreed to stick with the plan. Which is how I ended up dehydrated and delirious with fever the past 24 hours. Fortunately, the illness didn't strike until Sunday night after everyone was home and I was able to get sick in my own home.
But here it is Tuesday and I still lack an appetite and have trouble moving around, mainly because my body's sore from six hours of straight retching followed by 18 hours of shaking under the sheets. Tylenol doesn't work to reduce a fever if you can't keep it down.
I feel like I did after undergoing a colonoscopy several years ago. I feel "clean."
And, ironically, my friends are big into clean eating, so I was actually moving in that direction this weekend before illness struck.
Clean eating is pretty much like any standard diet, except you stay away from fake foods and those hybrids that are mainly chemicals meant to mimic real food.
Here's an important difference in clean eaters versus other dieters: the goal isn't to lose weight. And sometimes we are surprised at how real foods taste because we're used to them being enhanced.
Foodwise, here's what's involved:
Lots of plants. This is a no-brainer, of course. Most "healthy" diets are mostly plant-based.
Eat meat. But closer to the source. So, you'd get it from the butcher, not the frozen aisles.
Go grains. But only whole grains, when possible. And don't go by the labels on the front. Lots of "whole grain" breads and cereals are anything but upon closer inspection of labels.
Limit ingredients. This one might be tough for me. My husband loves to make fancy foods with page-long lists of items to include.
One more tip that I learned from a fabulous book my husband bought me for my birthday last year. Some frozen vegetables and fruits are actually more nuritious than fresh ones. As soon as a vegetable or fruit is picked, it starts to decay so that by the time it hits supermarkets, it's already losing vitamins. Picked too soon, the food doesn't reach its nutrition peak. Frozen vegetables and fruit, by contrast, are picked at the peak of freshness and flash frozen to maintain that level of nutrition.
The toddler had a stomach bug, and even though the worse had passed, my friend was willing to stay home. I knew how long they had planned this trip and agreed to stick with the plan. Which is how I ended up dehydrated and delirious with fever the past 24 hours. Fortunately, the illness didn't strike until Sunday night after everyone was home and I was able to get sick in my own home.
But here it is Tuesday and I still lack an appetite and have trouble moving around, mainly because my body's sore from six hours of straight retching followed by 18 hours of shaking under the sheets. Tylenol doesn't work to reduce a fever if you can't keep it down.
I feel like I did after undergoing a colonoscopy several years ago. I feel "clean."
And, ironically, my friends are big into clean eating, so I was actually moving in that direction this weekend before illness struck.
Clean eating is pretty much like any standard diet, except you stay away from fake foods and those hybrids that are mainly chemicals meant to mimic real food.
Here's an important difference in clean eaters versus other dieters: the goal isn't to lose weight. And sometimes we are surprised at how real foods taste because we're used to them being enhanced.
Foodwise, here's what's involved:
Lots of plants. This is a no-brainer, of course. Most "healthy" diets are mostly plant-based.
Eat meat. But closer to the source. So, you'd get it from the butcher, not the frozen aisles.
Go grains. But only whole grains, when possible. And don't go by the labels on the front. Lots of "whole grain" breads and cereals are anything but upon closer inspection of labels.
Limit ingredients. This one might be tough for me. My husband loves to make fancy foods with page-long lists of items to include.
One more tip that I learned from a fabulous book my husband bought me for my birthday last year. Some frozen vegetables and fruits are actually more nuritious than fresh ones. As soon as a vegetable or fruit is picked, it starts to decay so that by the time it hits supermarkets, it's already losing vitamins. Picked too soon, the food doesn't reach its nutrition peak. Frozen vegetables and fruit, by contrast, are picked at the peak of freshness and flash frozen to maintain that level of nutrition.
