Perfect example: last night I was working on my taxes with my husband Bruce and the TV was playing in the background.  We had an early dinner, about 6:15.  Mind you, it was really healthy — turkey meatloaf, broccoli, Brussels sprouts and quinoa tabouli.  I was priding myself on the fact that it was light and delicious, I ate just the right amount and I felt satisfied. Throw in the fact that we leisurely ate at the table, a friend stopped by and we all caught up on our days, and I just had to chalk it up to an enjoyable experience.

But when I fast forwarded several hours, I was seriously getting hungry.  My first inclination was to get some of my favorite gluten-free snack: Mary’s Gone Crackers.  We have a stash of the herb crackers and they’re perfect with hummus.  Then I entertained the idea of some gluten-free bread with peanut butter or an apple.

But then I thought twice and reached for water instead.

Whenever I eat late at night, I never sleep as well. Sometimes I feel restless, sometimes I seem to have the oddest dreams and sometimes it feels like I wake up feeling tired.  The truth of the matter is that our bodies do best when we go to bed having had time to digest our food. Eating late means they’re often working over time as we sleep to digest things instead of simply resting.

Water is great because it can fill you up and nip hunger pangs in the bud. And no, I don’t mean I drank a gallon, just a 10 ounce glass.  Even better, drinking the water didn’t disturb my sleep, I didn’t drink so much that I had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, and I felt great when I woke up this morning.

The trick for me is to pause before I act. Instead of just mindlessly grabbing and gobbling up a snack, I took the time to think through what was most important for me.

What do you do to stave off late night hunger? Have you ever tried drinking water as a simple solution to nip snacking in the bud?

This week, yours truly, The Clean Eating Coach, is on clean eating fire, having planned, shopped, prepped and cooked my way to delicious healthy food that my husband and I can enjoy all week.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t want you to think that every week is perfect and I always have my ducks in a row. Far from it in fact.

This past weekend I was wrapped up with my niece visiting, and doing a photo and video shoot for my new clean eating website.  In between leaving the studio and going to see “Annie” with my niece and mom, I squeezed in some quality time at Whole Foods, both eating lunch and doing some shopping.  I honestly hadn’t had sufficient time to plan out the meals, so I brought my meal planning gear (planning forms, recipes and cookbooks) with me and literally hatched my clean eating meal plan while eating lunch in Whole Foods.  Then I quickly navigated the aisles getting the items I needed.

Here’s a look at what I’ve whipped up so far and plan to eat the rest of the week:

• Asian style salmon baked in parchment paper. This is one of my favorites. We had this for dinner on Sunday night and it was delicious.  Watch the video I created to see how easy it is.  I substituted the salmon for flounder. It works well with most fish.
• Steamed broccoli with a touch of toasted sesame oil, kosher salt and pepper. I bought some beautiful broccoli and made enough for leftovers on Monday night.
• Quinoa tabouli. I love this side dish, so super easy and delicious, and quinoa is a whole grain high in protein.  Check out the recipe and video. We’ll be enjoying this for the next several days.
• White bean and kale soup. I’m a big fan of eating soup for lunch, especially during cooler months.  This soup is so easy and delicious and you can whip it up in no time. Plus, getting more greens in is simple when you put them in soup.
• Turkey meatloaf w/kale and spinach.  I love the clean eating recipe I found in Tosca Rena’s Eat-Clean Diet Cookbook.  It’s super simple and delicious. I made it on Sunday even though we didn’t have it until dinner on Monday. We’ll be enjoying this for the next several days so there will be minimal cooking, allowing time to get our workouts in at the gym.
• Roasted asparagus w/shallots and lemon zest.  I love asparagus and it’s so easy to roast.  A bunch will last us a couple of meals.  I’ll be whipping that up tonight.
• A stir fry is in the plans for Thursday night.  I’ll thaw out a couple of chicken breasts on Wednesday and prep the veggies so cooking will be simple and quick on Thursday.  I’m sure there will be enough for either lunch or dinner on Friday.

I will tell you that I did spend quite some time in the kitchen on Sunday afternoon prepping and cooking, so unfortunately, it didn’t magically appear already made, but the effort was worth it.  We now have delicious, healthy food that’s supporting our health.

What clean eating meals are on your menu for this week? What are you inspired to make? Do tell!

The good news is that I’m doing well with my eating, focused on clean, unprocessed foods that I’ve been making on the weekends. I’ve been enthused to try some new recipes, do some entertaining (we even hosted a clean eating dinner party over the weekend with some yummy dishes) and stay pretty true to my clean eating roots (doesn’t mean I haven’t had a few detours, but all in moderation).

But this does beg the question of what one’s to do when faced with the winter doldrums about eating. Once you fall off the wagon, it can be easy to just not get back on, justify that you deserve to not exercise or eat well because you’re tired or sick of winter, and just plain not do what you know you should.

Question is, what will it take to motivate you to eat clean, get through the next few weeks of winter and feel energized for spring?  I’ve put together a few simple things you can do to kick the winter doldrums to the curb and get reinvigorated about clean eating without a whole lot of “I really don’t want to do it” drama.  Remember, clean eating is all about keeping it simple, so no fancy schemes needed here.

1. Try a new recipe or food that intrigues you.  I’m a big fan of experimenting with foods that I’ve never tried making. For example, there was a recent article in Clean Eating magazine about how to prepare fresh artichokes. That’s one of those foods that I’ve never tried making because it looked complicated.  Truth be told, it’s really not, I just needed a little information and inspiration to help me.
2. Eat less meat and lighten up. It’s so easy for Americans to OD on meat.  We eat far more protein than we need and it’s often of mediocre quality, at best.  Plan your weekly meals with at least 1-2 less servings of meat and instead focus on the variety of plant based proteins that exist. I’m a huge fan of beans — they’re inexpensive and eat to prepare.
3. Add more whole grains.I’m always amazed out how easy it is to eat clean and inexpensively when you build more whole grains into your diet.  I love quinoa and making a pot on Sunday can add a healthy side dish to our repertoire that we’ll eat for 3 or 4 days.  Check out one of the simple recipes on my blog for delicious quinoa dishes — quinoa tabouli, Southwestern quinoa stew or basil quinoa — yum!
4. Revel in a leisurely meal.  So many of my clients spend copious amounts of time running around from one task to the next barely making the time to eat, let alone to really enjoy and savor a meal.  One of the simplest ways to tune into your body, eat less and kick start weight loss is to make time for meals when you can be present to your food.  Can’t do it every meal? Commit to at least twice a week when you can sit down without distraction (yep, I mean NO TV!) and enjoy your food.
5. Visualize how you’ll look and feel a month from now.  I’m a big picture kind of a girl and I love visualizing the result I want to achieve. There’s no time like the present to create a vision for your energetic, fit and happy spring self. It just may motivate you to try one of the first four steps.

What’s your plan to make it through the rest of winter and what’s one proactive step above you can easily take to give you a late winter kick start and banish those doldrums?

It’s not that I have celiac disease and can’t tolerate any gluten. I feel fortunate that my body isn’t sensitive to that degree. However, years of eczema, especially as a teen and young adult, have made me hip to the reality that avoiding wheat makes a big difference with my skin.  Can I eat some? Yes, but when I’m truly being careful about what I put into my body, it’s reflected in clearer skin. 

I was excited when I recently came across a fantastic gluten-free resource, Living Without Magazine.  This magazine and website is geared toward people with allergies and food sensitivities so it’s broader then just gluten-free issues. In fact, there are ample resources and recipes for people who are dairy-free, soy-free or have food allergies to things like nuts and seafood.

I was initially drawn to a recipe I saw for gluten-free turkey noodle soup.  I haven’t made it yet but it looked so good that I’m going to add it to my meal plan for next week.  It looks warming (fresh ginger root), flavorful (lemongrass) and healthy (I love anything with kale!), not to mention perfect for a snowy winter day like today (just wish I already had the ingredients).

In checking out the site, there are a host of gluten-free recipes and resources. Many of the recipes for baked good are probably things I would never make because they have far too much refined sugar (I like to keep it to a minimum and only use natural sweeteners) and just aren’t clean eating versions.  But I definitely got some great ideas for soups and other gluten-free recipes that I would give a spin.  You may also want to take a look at the gluten-free quick start guide that they have on their website.

What’s your favorite gluten-free resource? What do you do to build gluten-free foods into your diet that can still make cooking and eating simple and fun?

And yes, we’ve all been there before, myself included.  I can’t even count how many times I said, “but this time things will really be different,” only to retreat to my old, admittedly comfortable ways.

Creating a clean eating lifestyle, however, is something that we all endeavor to do for good, not just for a month.  And that takes a different set of skills to make happen consistently.  First and foremost it’s about shifting your mindset and determining that keeping yourself healthy, preventing disease and/or losing weight can be fun and is meaningful in your life.

Yep, I said it, FUN.  Doesn’t whipping up delicious, healthy meals that are totally appealing sound good?  Eating clean and feeling your best is only drudgery if you decide it is.  This is really about your mindset and the choices you make about your health.

For me, finding my clean eating groove meant thinking differently about the experience of being in the kitchen and preparing meals.  Instead of, “I have a ton of other things to do and I can’t wait to get out of here,” I began to see the possibility to relax and enjoy myself instead of rushing through on my way to completing a mile long list of tasks.  Needless to say, this was no easy task, and has evolved over time.

I like to do lots of prep and cooking on Sundays and I’ve created it into a meditative experience.  Sometimes I quietly chop and slice, enjoying the silence of being in the kitchen by myself, getting in touch with body and letting my mind rest.  Other times I put on one of my favorite jazz musicians like Pat Metheny or Joshua Redman and soak up the music as I work.  And for those days when I need a boost of energy, it may be the Black Eyed Peas or my favorite old schools jams from the 80s that get me dancing around the kitchen, totally in that joyous moment.

Truth be told, what I’m doing is hardly rocket science, I’m simply taking easy steps to make clean eating fun. When I’m relaxed, not racing against the clock and am feeling inspired in the kitchen, I have so much more fun and tune into the joy of creating healthy and delicious meals.  Not to mention that I swear the food tastes even better when I’ve got positive energy flowing through it.  Even better, I have the chance to reflect on the bigger reasons I’m doing this and how it’s supporting my long term health, not just in the moment for the day or week.

What do you need to do to find your own kitchen groove? What will help you get you inspired to keep coming back to the kitchen to create clean eating meals?

Take it from me, Wendy Battles, the Clean Eating Coach, if I can find my kitchen groove and feel inspired to make clean eating meals, I know you can too!

Even though we’ve been practicing clean eating for quite some time, his realization about our lifestyle really solidified that not only is he doing it (and liking it) but that his awareness has changed and increased.  And the best part is that it’s not about me beating him over the head with constant messages about clean eating.   Much to the contrary, it’s been an easy progression of subtle lifestyle changes over time. 

For example, we recently watched the movie Food Inc, an indictment of the food industry that makes you question just about every aspect of what you’re putting into your mouth.  Food Inc shares the powerful message that we should all increase our awareness about the source of our food.  Does it come from a factory farm or a local farmer where animals are treated with respect? Are many of things you’re eating genetically modified or are you eating clean, whole foods that aren’t processed?

We watched the movie and next thing I know, Bruce suggested that we stop buying meat in the grocery store and only buy it from one of several local farmers.  Mind you, we don’t eat tons of meat to begin with but I couldn’t help but appreciate the earnestness in which he responded to the movie and his thoughtfulness about our health.

Half of clean eating for me, is the willingness to shift your mindset and see other possibilities. It’s almost about envisioning a healthy future you’d like to have and seeing clean eating as a vehicle to help you get there. My simple mantra: prevention, prevention, prevention.  Clean eating is the means by which we’re creating the healthy life we want to enjoy, especially as we age.  It’s such a simple approach through which you can reap a myriad of benefits, not the least of which is a whole new level of awareness about what you’re eating and how that’s affecting you and the environment.

What discoveries have you uncovered on your clean eating journey? How has increasing your awareness about the food your eating helped you make some healthy changes?

Last week one of the episodes featured a piece on 5 silent killers in women.  In addition to the likes of hepatitis and uterine cancer, right up there on the list, as no surprise, is heart disease. I know most of you know it’s the number one killer of women, but the question really is about whether you’re taking proactive steps to prevent heart disease and lead a clean eating lifestyle the way you know you should.

For me, there are two specific actions you can take to decrease the likelihood of heart disease and heart attack: clean up your eating and increase your self-awareness about your body.  The former has everything to do with long-term, lifestyle changes, while the latter is all about being present in your body to notice when something’s awry. It’s the combination of these two actions that provides such a powerful method of prevention for women, yet we don’t always make either a priority.

Your willingness to embrace clean eating and kick foods full of sugar, sodium and preservatives to the curb, is the first step in supporting your heart health.  Whole foods like fruits, vegetables and whole grains, fortified with antioxidants, and low in fat and calories keep excess pounds off, blood pressure and cholesterol in check, and decrease the likelihood that you’ll develop Type 2 Diabetes.

To me, the beauty of clean eating is that it’s fun and you can get totally creative. Here are just a few ideas:

• Try a new fruit or vegetable that you’ve never had
• Go on a health food store tour and enlist your friends to join you; together you can discover all kinds of healthy foods
• Create a Clean Eating Club and cook with friends. Once a month you can gather and create simple and delicious dishes that are heart healthy

In addition to helping prevent heart disease through healthy eating, it’s also important to be tuned into what you’re feeling in your body and what feels normal for you.  Ever notice those days when you’re on the run with a lengthy to do list and barely time to eat? Those are exactly the times when you’re less tuned it. As women, we tend to be so focused on getting things done or doing things for others that we lose sight of ourselves. Imagine leading an over the top, multi-tasking lifestyle where we barely stop to breath deeply, get quiet and listen to what our body needs.

But preventing something as severe as a heart attack starts with body wisdom and your own self-knowledge. Time and time again I’ve read stories about women who tuned in enough to recognize that something just didn’t feel right, they remembered the signs of heart attack in women, and they made a beeline to the emergency room just in time to save their life.

Here are a few suggestions to help you tune into your body:

• Get a regular physical exam and yearly blood work to monitor your heart health
• Get familiar with the symptoms of heart attack in women so you’ll know what to look for. Here’s a handy guide from Dr. Oz.
• Slow down your hectic pace and make time to breath and listen to your body every day. Super busy? I bet you can fit 5-10 minutes in!

So what’s it going to be your life? Can you see the benefit of clean eating and tuning into your body to help you prevent heart disease? What are you currently do that’s working and where do you have room for improvement?

Interestingly, I’ve been checking out the gluten-free section of my favorite two health food stores for ages, yet never even spotted the crackers before.  As someone who tries to avoid wheat and gluten, mostly because it can aggravate my eczema, I’m no stranger to gluten-free products. In fact, it’s usually my inclination to reach for gluten-free brown rice crackers as a good option.

Recently a friend on Twitter connected me with Mary’s Gone Crackers, and they offered to send me some samples.  Little did I expect such a generous shipment and variety of crackers. I was immediately taken by all the flavors and varieties — onion, herb, original, black pepper and caraway, to name just a few. My clean eating care package also arrived with what they call “Sticks & Twigs,” miniature snack sticks in a variety of flavors like curry and chipotle tomato.

I have to tell you that when I opened up one of the snack sized packages and popped a cracker in my mouth, I was caught off guard. I’m used to the bland, not so exciting flavor of brown rice crackers.  They get the job done but there’s nothing to jump up and down about. And yes, even though several different brands come in a variety of flavors, I tend to opt for the basic ones. So when I bit into the cracker, I sure wasn’t expecting so much flavor.  At first, I wasn’t even sure I liked the crackers — they tasted bold and different. But I kept eating, and several crackers into the package it dawned on me that they tasted really good. That all the flavor and texture was a welcome and much needed change from my usual cracker routine.

What a concept — an all-organic, gluten-free and wheat-free cracker that’s also vegan, has no hydrogenated oils and contains Omega 3-fatty acids. Even better, they boast a variety of whole grains — quinoa, brown rice, flax seed, and sesame seeds. I thought all the flavors tasted great with my favorite hummus but I was especially enamored with the caraway.

My last time at the health food store I finally noticed the crackers on the shelf in the gluten-free section and they surely aren’t cheap,  but I would be willing to pay a little extra for something that’s organic, clean eating and so healthy.  And it looks like you can get better pricing by buying them online via Amazon which I might be willing to try.  Nonetheless, I’m excited to have a tasty, whole grain alternative to the usual gluten-free fare that’s got me so intrigued.

Have you tried Mary’s Gone Crackers before? What was your experience like?

• Bring your favorite delicious and healthy dish to a party you might be attending. That way, you know there will be something you can enjoy without all the guilt
• Fill up on water when you arrive at the party to curb your appetite before you get into snack mode
• For every alcoholic drink you have, drink a glass of water afterward. It will hydrate you and won’t be full of empty calories
• Substitute high fat, creamy dips for low-fat and tasty hummus
• Replace your favorite refined white flour crackers for whole grain varieties. I’m a big fan of Mary’s Gone Crackers, delicious gluten-free crackers that pack a flavorful punch
• Want chips? Make your own! You can easily bake homemade potato or sweet potato chips that will satisfy almost any fan
• Kale chips anyone? These yummy treats can be made in minutes and the perfect way to add in some dark leafy greens that even kids will eat
• Grill mini turkey burgers. You can save calories and fat by substituting low fat turkey for beef
  Use low-fat cheese instead of the full fat variety
• Make a batch of cookies with whole grain flour and your favorite natural sweetener. They’ll satisfy a sugar craving and taste great too
• Whip up a pot of delicious veggie chili. It’s so good you won’t even miss the meat!

I’ve always said that the best vehicle to ensure clean eating is to plan your meals.  Meal planning helps you begin with the end in mind, create balanced meals with a variety of clean eating, no- processed foods, and save big bucks because those random acts of buying what strikes your fancy are long gone.

These days we’re all trying to maximize our dollars and do more with less given the state of the economy and the cost of food. One of my favorite ways to maximize savings is to do a periodic pantry challenge.  Simply put, I go through my pantry and see what I have stocked up that I can use for simple and quick meals.  So instead of always starting from scratch and creating dishes that have an endless list of ingredients, I put my creative skills to the test by coming up with interesting recipes based on what’s around that can contain minimal ingredients.

Here’s a short list of what I found in checking things out in my pantry:

• quinoa pasta
• fire roasted salsa
• steel cut oats
• gluten-free bread mix
• tandoori chicken seasoning packet
• canned salmon
• quinoa
• vegetable broth
• kidney beans
• black eyes peas
• coconut milk
• brown rice
• organic canned pumpkin

Based on what I found, I can already see making some quick and simple dishes that require minimal additional ingredients. For example, I’ll make beans and brown rice and add the salsa in for flavor.  I’ll make pumpkin soup in my Vitamix blender which also calls for coconut milk. I’ve made it before and its yummy.  I’ve got chicken breasts in the freezer that I can use with the tandoori chicken seasoning packet and I’ll use the canned salmon in salads for lunch next week.  I’ll whip up steel cut oats for breakfast and add some chopped nuts and fresh fruit.

That’s just a simple start based on a quick round of brainstorming. I can already see that I will buy so much less at the store over the weekend based on what I already have.

So that means healthy meals, money saved and lots of clean eating — that sure sounds good to me!

What about you, are you up for the clean eating pantry challenge? Can you see the possibility of creating healthy meals based on what you’ve got in the freezer, refrigerator and pantry? I challenge you to not only go through and see what you have but to also cut your grocery bill in half in the coming week based on this activity!

So get busy now. Go check things out and come on back and share what you found. We all have the ability to practice clean eating without a huge amount of effort or expense…you just have to have a plan.