Q&A Wednesday: What Happens When You Regress From Clean Eating?

Q: Hi Erika, How are you? I had a question for you about clean eating. I started eating clean about a month ago, have lost 10LBS since and feel so good. I find that lately if I don’t eat clean, I get stomach ache and I live in the bathroom afterwards (if you know what I mean). I wanted to know if you experienced the same thing when you first started clean eating? I feel like it’s food withdrawal, I can no longer handle the bad food 🙂

I think, sometimes, people take for granted the little pleasures that come from eating clean. For starters, your body is operating optimally. You don’t need a lot of “stuff” to stay awake. You don’t need a “drink” – and I use that term loosely – to help you focus. Your body is more able to fight off disease.

But most importantly, your system is able to regulate itself. You don’t experience constipation. You don’t experience acid reflux as often (unless you naturally have a problem with naturally grown tomatoes… which would be really sad because tomatoes are dope.) A lot of the “digestion issues” that we get are merely our bodies responding to bad food. You take away the bad food… and you take away the problems.

But a funny thing happens when, after converting away, you try to go back. Since you now know what it’s like to go without digestion issues, the problems that felt “minor” before will feel like you’re giving birth now.

I mean, people think I’m often just being a snob when I say it, but I don’t revert back. For anyone. Or anything. Not because I “dare not eat crap food,” but because I learned the hard way – one good time – that there’s no place for that stuff in my tummy… because my tummy said so.

I recall the Future Mister, on his journey to convert over to how I eat, brought home some kind of healthy snack bar thing for me to eat. I, always appreciative of little things like that and not thinking twice about it went ahead and ate it. An hour or so later, I experienced headaches – which I never get, ever – and a bit of tummy pain. After trying to figure out what the hell was wrecking havoc on my body, I remembered the “healthy snack bar thing.” Sure enough, the side of the label listed all kinds of mess I don’t eat.

Don’t mistake this. It’s not “food withdrawal.” It’s “your body has been eating right for so long and wants to get this mess out of it immediately.” It’s not “Oh, your body wants this stuff back!” it’s “for the love of all things fit, why?!” It’s “I don’t know what I did to deserve this but karma is a cold toilet seat.”

Once you spend enough time without those symptoms, you stop treating them like its normal because you know a new “normal.” You know a body without constant gassiness, discomfort and [sometimes, unfortunately] pain. So do what you can to avoid the mess and you’ll do fine!