Have any of you participated in any of the 7 or 21 day "clean eating" challenges?

What I learned from my own weight loss and change in eating habits is that it was “what worked for me” and is not something I can tell someone else to do.

Before a lifestyle change over two years ago, I would have considered the 7 or 21 day cleanse type trial. But I now know that those kinds of periodic challenges don’t work for me. So when I am asked about those types of things, I always reply, “if it works for you.”

For instance, I have had to stop eating things that convert easily to sugar: breads, pastas, rice, potatoes, fruit juices. Part of that is because two years ago I had elevated blood glucose, and was advised that if I persisted I would be considered “pre-diabetic” and would be diabetic within five years, and most likely sooner.

But my girlfriend tends to be hypo-glycemic, and needs to eat carbs occasionally during the day, and also have some orange juice in the morning. So we are like the sugar version of Jack Sprat and his wife.

I think those yo yo diets suck. Unless you change your daily regime and stick to it long term the weights going to come back.

When I was young, about 16, I went 7 days without eating. No reason, just wanted to see what happened.
I got really, super, super hungry for the first three days, then lost interest in eating. I also lost about 10 pounds which, at 5’7” and 115 wasn’t something I could really “afford.”
It was fine.

I haven’t heard of the challenges but will Google them now. Not interested for myself, just curious.

I don’t try to preach to friends on Internet or real life. I figure people do or don’t do what they like, and the last thing they want or need is a lecture from me. I do know that I see some friends constantly talking about shaping up since high school and now here they are, 3 decades later, still talking, not doing.

I eat clean every day, not just certain days…

Not being in the loop concerning the latest in American pop culture, I had to look “Clean Eating Diet” up. All the sites advocating this type of diet seem to have the following common denominators which are best defined on the site pushing the _7 Day Clean Eating Challenge:

1) Eat only whole foods. (To me this starts with unprocessed foods.)
2) Keep meals simple (As a bachelor, this is a given).
3) Eat slower.
4) Eat on a regular schedule (As a devout practitioner of Number 5, I eat when I’m hungry which happens to be small meals four or five times a day).
5) Listen to your body. (Always good advice!)

It sounds to me like they are simply advocating a rational adult diet. This is the way most American adults ate before, say, 1950. In other words, before the advent of the 300 pound high school freshman and the 30% per capita rise in Type 2 diabetes every fifteen years since.

I don’t think you have to be too religious about the Whole Foods thing either. Cheese is a processed food, if you want to get technical about it. I do think you should stay away from highly processed foods. Keep it as close to natural as you possibly can. But just replacing today’s gawd-awful snacks with fruit, vegetables, cheeses, etc., would do the trick for most people. And eat when you’re hungry, not whenever your hands have nothing to do. Food is sustenance, for chrissake, not entertainment.

It’s pretty simple. It means all the kiddy stuff—the junk food, the fast food, the half-gallon of Breyer’s at three o’clock in the morning, the never-ending bags of potato and corn chips, the chocolate and candy and sodas (including this ridiculous fad of sitting in front of the TV and eating pure shit like Kaptain Krunch and Lucky Stars for snacks—What kind of adult beyond their college years still eats like this?—are excluded.

I think this should be called The-Grow-the-Fuck-Up-Diet.

@Espiritus_Corvus

It means all the kiddy stuff—the junk food, the fast food, the half-gallon of Breyer’s at three o’clock in the morning, the never-ending bags of potato and corn chips, the chocolate and candy and sodas (including this ridiculous fad of sitting in front of the TV and eating pure shit like Kaptain Krunch and Lucky Stars for snacks—What kind of adult beyond their college years still eats like this?

^^ Unfortunately a lot of people in the U.S. eat like this. That is why I was asking this question. The people on Facebook have been advocating participating in only a 7 or 21 day clean eating diet. Most of them will go back to the junk food diet they were eating before hand and then wonder why they can’t lose weight and feel like sh*t all the time.

Exactly, @Kardamom. That’s why I hate fads, and dieting is always a fad. Fads get dropped.