Social media, and the internet as a whole, is littered with weight loss and dieting. What strikes me most is the overall theme of deprivation:
"I can't have ---"
"That's not allowed."
"That's dirty, I'm eating clean"
I have done diets involving deprivation. I remember being told when I was younger that you weren't doing a diet correctly unless you felt hungry. I'm sorry, but I hate feeling that hunger all the time. The thing about these diets is they make their participant unconsciously associate food with guilt. At no point ever should food equal guilt - either good or bad. Ever. What food you eat does not determine if you are a good or bad person. Every time I hear someone declare that they were "bad" because they ate a fucking cookie a little part of me dies.
What's wrong with "clean eating"? Many things. Firstly, unless you are dousing your sandwich in fairy liquid, this term means nothing. It simply cannot be defined because it means a different thing for different people. It can either refer to a low calorie meal, a non-deep fried meal, a gluten free and dairy free meal, no refined sugar meal, or unprocessed meal, for example. There is no universal definition. And if your dinner is clean because you eat a boiled chicken breast and brown rice does that mean that my steak and potatoes are dirty? What if I have a bagel and peanut butter, is that dirty? It's a bullshit term and the sooner people don't use it, the better.
The phrase I wish I could go around and tell everyone about is: Moderation Not Deprivation. I'll let you into a secret - you can eat anything. ANYTHING.
What.
Yep, anything. There is no such thing as a food "not being allowed", being "bad", and "dirty" etc. If you are involved in a sport then performance is important and as such you will benefit from eating nutrient dense foods (uhhhh why can't people just say "nutrient dense foods" instead of "clean"!?). This does mean eating high quality meats, vegetables, carbohydrates, and fruit. At the end of the day a protein is a protein, a carb is a carb, and a fat is a fat regardless of where you get it from, but you will notice an improvement in performance if you get the majority of these from nutrient dense foods.
MAJORITY!
Life is short and is to be enjoyed so there is absolutely nothing wrong with eating 80-90% nutrient dense foods and 10-20% YOLO foods. Like, couldn't give a flying fuck if this slice of cake was dipped in the tears of someone on herbalife and deep fried.
Moderation not deprivation.
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