INTRODUCTION
Welcome! I’m glad you’re here and that you’re ready to explore the process of becoming clean(ish).
Do any of these descriptions sound like you?
• Are you worried about the chemicals that are ubiquitous in our modern environment and feeling inspired to make changes in both what you eat and how you live?
• Are you confused about what foods are “clean,” and if some foods are not “clean,” then does that mean they are “dirty”?
• Do you want to be able to eat foods that you love (and that taste good) without doing a math problem first? Are you tired of restricting whole food groups and have the feeling that there has to be a better way? Are you completely over counting and tracking?
• Are you stuck in diet-brain mentality, particularly after scrolling your social media feeds? Does it all leave you so confused that you aren’t sure what to eat anymore? Should you be carnivore? Or raw vegan? Or maybe something in between? (Spoiler alert: YES … the magic is in the “in between.”)
• Are you tired of living in fear, worrying that every decision you make might be a mistake?
• Are you wondering about all the health claims being made about foods and products these days (Non-GMO? Organic? Grass-fed? All-natural?) and unsure which really matter?
• Are you interested in taking things up a notch when it comes to the foods you choose, with a goal of increasing the amount of nutrients you eat?
• Do you want to learn about your body’s amazing abilities to “clean up” a lot of this mess and how to promote more self-cleaning, just as nature intended?
• Are you looking for simple swaps that can make a big difference?
• Are you longing for a sense of balance in your life?
• Are you ready to develop a personalized action plan that you can begin to implement today, add to over time, and maintain for the long term?
• And finally: Do you want to know the basic concepts, but without some of the overly scientific deep diving found in many other books about nutrition and health?
I have written this book to address all those issues and more.
The book is founded on several principles that I would like for us to agree on up front:
• We are bombarded with a larger variety of chemicals (through our environment, as well as through our foods, our personal care items, and our cleaning products) today than ever before.
• In general, what we are eating now is different from what people ate prior to the modern era.
• A combination of poor nutrition and toxic overload is creating all sorts of problems within our bodies.
• Our bodies are designed to protect us against toxins so we can exist in a state of wellness, and we can help our bodies self-clean by making changes in what we eat and how we live.
• Even if you’re not well today, there are steps you can take now that will help your body heal, leading to better health outcomes in the long run (and fat loss, if you want it).
I’m going to talk about each of these concepts in more detail, but not exhaustively. That’s because each topic is so robust that it could be a separate book. In fact, there are fantastic books about each of these topics, and after reading this one, you’ll probably want to do some more reading about the topics that interest you most.
This is a book about overall health and wellness, and is not a “diet book” in the traditional sense of the word. That being said, the current obesity epidemic is related to the concepts you’ll learn about in this book, and I will explain as we go.
Think of the rise of obesity as the tip of the health-and-wellness iceberg. What lies beneath the surface of the water is the massive state of our overall poor health: it’s huge, it’s dark, and it’s murky.
The obesity crisis is one of the most visible parts of what’s going on with our health in general. So, let’s first have a conversation about obesity.
Are you ready for some shocking news? According to the CDC:1
Obesity is a common, serious, and costly disease.
• The prevalence of obesity was 42.4 percent in 2017/2018.
• From 1999/2000 through 2017/2018, the prevalence of obesity increased from 30.5 percent to 42.4 percent, and the prevalence of severe obesity increased from 4.7 percent to 9.2 percent.
• Obesity-related conditions include heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and certain types of cancer that are some of the leading causes of preventable, premature death.
• The estimated annual medical cost of obesity in the United States was $147 billion in 2008 US dollars; the medical cost for people who have obesity was $1,429 higher than those of normal weight.
Yikes … We are inching up on the halfway mark, when 50 percent of adults will be considered obese. How many more years before that shocking statistic becomes a reality? And keep in mind that we are talking about the number that are obese, and not just the percent of people who are overweight. The same CDC report from 2018 shared that more than 73 percent of Americans over the age of twenty were considered to be overweight. That means that only about one in four members of the adult population was within a normal weight range at the time this report was released.
After smoking, obesity is considered to be the leading cause of preventable death, and the rise of obesity rates is not just happening in the United States. In fact, it’s so prevalent that many are considering it to be a pandemic.2
Did the whole world suddenly decide to stop trying to maintain a healthy weight? Did we all just give up? Or has something changed?
No, we haven’t given up … but we are confused about how to solve the problem. In many ways, we are trying harder than we ever have before in human history and yet still failing. I read one estimate that said Americans spend over $60 billion each year on weight-loss products. If money could solve the problem, we would be solving it left and right. I certainly spent enough money over the years on weight-loss solutions (that didn’t work long term and mostly didn’t even work in the short term).
What if I told you that the answer isn’t in spending money on weight-loss products? After all, if it were, we would all be slim. Instead of buying products, supplements, and programs, what if you could make some changes in what and how you eat (as well as when you eat) and not only would you finally be able to lose weight but your body would be healthier in the long run? Also, what if you learned that it doesn’t need to cost you more money than you are currently spending on food and you might even be able to spend less overall?
Does it sound too good to be true? Keep reading.
We live in a blame-the-victim society. If we would just stop eating so much, we would be able to lose weight. Are we eating more food now?
Well, yes. We actually are. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the average American used to eat around 2,880 calories a day in 1961, but by 2017, that was up to an average of 3,600 calories per day.3
So … it seems like the answer is what we have always been told. We are eating too much. Eat less. Problem solved.
Except that we have tried that.
Copyright © 2022 by Virginia Stephens
