Diet

These clean eating pumpkin recipes will help you go from using pumpkins as a fall decoration to reaping all the health benefits this fruit offers. Pumpkins can make your home look good, and your body feel great.

The Health Benefits of Consuming Pumpkin on a Clean Eating Diet

The health benefits of eating pumpkin seeds and pulp are numerous. Also known as pepitas, pumpkin seeds provide various vitamins and minerals, including Vitamin K, Riboflavin, Folate, Magnesium, Potassium, Iron, and Zinc. Roasted pumpkin seeds are an excellent source of healthy fats and antioxidants. Their antioxidant level helps to reduce inflammation. Regularly eating small amounts of these seeds can also improve heart health and reduce the risk of contracting colon, lung, prostate, breast, and stomach cancers. 

Pumpkin pulp is packed with vitamins and minerals while being low in calories. This high fiber fruit contains vitamin C, E, Iron, Folate, antioxidants, and beta-carotene, which your body turns into vitamin A. The pulp in pumpkins can improve your immune system and heart health, protect your eyesight, and reduce your risk of contracting stomach, breast, pancreas, and throat cancers. 
Lower calories, fat, and carbs in pumpkin pulp make it a fantastic alternative to other carb sources like rice and potatoes. The high fiber low-calorie combo makes this fruit pack a nutrient-dense punch. Pumpkin may promote weight loss because of its ability to fill you up without taking up much of your daily caloric allowance. Adding pumpkin to your diet can help protect your skin from UV damage. The Beta-carotene, once ingested, works within your body to act as a natural sunblock.

5 Pumpkin Recipes You Need to Try

Pumpkin is a well-rounded nutrient powerhouse from the seeds to the pulp and can be a delicious addition to your clean eating lifestyle. Try these 5 clean eating pumpkin recipes to experience the health benefits for yourself.

Bacteria determine gut health in our gut microbiome. There are about 300 to 500 different kinds of bacteria living in our digestive tract. Sounds gross, right? Here’s the thing, most of these microorganisms are good bacteria and vital to our overall health. Unfortunately, there are a few bad apples, and an unhealthy gut occurs when we don’t have enough of the good bacteria and too many of those harmful bacteria showing up to our gut party.

Why do I need to improve my gut health?

Poor gut health with high levels of bad bacteria has been linked to obesity, type 2 diabetes, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, heart disease, colon cancer, arthritis, depression, anxiety, and autism. In addition to helping prevent these illnesses, improving an unhealthy gut can help make you less susceptible to autoimmune conditions, skin problems, and inflammation.

What are the symptoms of an unhealthy gut?

1. Exhaustion: Insomnia and trouble staying asleep can be symptoms of poor gut health. Serotonin is a hormone that influences sleep and mood. An unhealthy gut can produce inadequate amounts of serotonin, reducing our quality of sleep. 
2. Stomach problems: Think the Pepto-Bismol song; heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, diarrhea, plus constipation. 
3. Unintentional changes in weight: Poor gut health can hurt your body’s ability to absorb nutrients properly. This issue can lead to weight loss because of an inability to store fat or weight gain because of an increased urge to overeat to compensate for lost nutrients.  

How does my gut health affect my seasonal allergies?

Your gut health directly affects your body’s response to seasonal allergies. Your gut health determines the strength of your immune system. Physical reactions to seasonal allergies are your body’s immune system responding to environmental stressors. You can reduce your body’s response to seasonal allergies by improving the diversity of good bacteria in your gut microbiome. This will strengthen your immune system and calm inflammation within your gut. 

How to clean the unhealthy bacteria from your gut.

A good night’s sleep, a clean eating diet low in sugar, rich in fruits, whole grains, and vegetables, low in red meat, processed food, and dairy, and minimizing the type and amount of alcohol you consume are the first steps in clearing out the unhealthy bacteria and raising the levels of the good. If you choose to indulge, consider a glass of red wine, which has been shown to support beneficial bacteria.  

Clean eating is not the newest fad diet. It is a way of living that focuses on eating the right kinds of foods for fuel.

What do you eat on a clean diet?

Clean eating should be called simple eating. Whole foods are the name of the game. Get back to the basics with unprocessed fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, and healthy fats. When you look at a food label, you should recognize the number of limited ingredients it contains. If you can’t identify or pronounce the items on that label or the brand has ten plus ingredients, most likely, that food item is not clean. It would be best if you tried to eat foods that are as close as possible to their natural state. An example of this is oranges over orange juice, fresh turkey breast over deli meat, and vegetables over veggie chips. Foods with added fat, sugar, or salt are a no-fly zone. 

Is clean eating healthy?

Clean eating does not involve cutting calories or restricting oneself. Instead, clean eating principles are meant to fill oneself regularly with real, plant-based foods, balanced with lean proteins and complex carbs. Researchers reveal that plant-based eating styles focused on whole foods help lower your risk of colon and breast cancers, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, heart disease, and digestive disease. 

How clean eating can help your Pilates workout?

Complex carbs, lean proteins, and good fats sustain energy better than processed foods. Foods with these nutrients help fuel your body with the energy you need to excel in your Pilates practice. Working out creates tears in your muscle fibers. You get stronger via the rebuilding process your body naturally engages in using nutrients from the food you consume. Clean foods have high nutrient content and help to maximize the health benefits you receive from practicing Pilates. 

5 Clean Eating Recipes for Beginners.

I saw this article recently and found the wording interesting https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/08/opinion/sunday/women-dieting-wellness.html

The author makes the statement, “That said, I am probably never going to love my body, and that’s O.K. I think loving our bodies is not only an unrealistic goal in our appearance-obsessed society but also a limiting one.”  I have to disagree with her.  I would say she is still too young (32 years old) to come to an understanding to love her body.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not denying  how many diets I have tried.  The cabbage soup diet, the scarborough diet, and food combining to name a few.  I also had my share of  food/body issues.  Being in my late fifties, I see all the changes aging can make.  I  think about my complaints in the past and see how trivial they are.  When I hear my clients complain about “crepy” skin or flabby lower abs my retort is, “Well it is not cancer.”  That usually puts things into perspective.  I have lost several clients and friends to the disease.

The authors use of the term “pseudoscientific claims” does not bear weight.   The Keto Diet has been proven to reduce seizures in children https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-weight/diet-reviews/ketogenic-diet/ .  Friends of mine have lost weight on Keto, but the strictness of the ‘diet” has caused them to wane in their diligence.  However, for the most part, they have kept most of the weight off.  The emphasize on minimum sugar/carbs is something we as a society can use.

Another new one is the Intermittent Fasting trend.  It has strong evidence of warding off neurodegenerative diseases https://www.johnshopkinshealthreview.com/issues/spring-summer-2016/articles/are-there-any-proven-benefits-to-fasting

Fasting  seems more reasonable to me.  Once a week I have a 21 hour fast.  I have my last meal by 6pm and then do not eat until 3pm the next day.  I like  part of my time fasting is during my sleep.  I also like there is no need for a whole new menu, grocery list, and restrictions.

I do find it ironic, however,  I live a life where I can purposely starve myself.  I know there will be more research done on fasting.   It is so much better to fast than to take a pill.