Clean Eating 4 Week Update

My lady and I decided 4 weeks ago today to take the plunge and clean up our eating.  I started it off by going through the kitchen and getting rid of all the processed junk.  My beloved frozen pizzas, the "Healthy", frozen dinners, all the breads, pastas and white rice.  The crackers, the microwave popcorn, all of it went.  Then I went to the market and purchased fresh meats, fruits and veggies.  We have prepared all our meals now for 4 weeks.  We went once to a café for salmon, salad and steamed veggies.  I use only salsas for salad dressing and we have used just a little olive oil and real butter for cooking.  We drink only water, green tea and coffee.

Now remember when reading these results that I was already an adult athlete and I have not changed the amount of exercise I'm doing.  The intensity has changed because my endurance has changed and my times are lower, but the amount and my perceived effort have not changed.  I'm eating three meals a day, the last meal is around 4 to 6 o'clock.  My exercise is all in the morning after breakfast.  I have not been hungry at all between meals since I'm eating a lot.  I will often have a frozen juice pop in the evening when I come home from work at 9pm.

To start with my weight when I began eating clean was 182.2, today at the end of 4 weeks I weigh 171.2, that's a drop of 11 pounds.  But to me the most amazing thing is that my waist has dropped.  I was wearing 36 waist pants, they were comfortably snug, when I started and now 32 waist pants are as comfortable as the 36s were.  I didn't take measurements of chest, arms, ect....since this clean eating change wasn't about that but about how Sally and I felt and how my training times were affected.

My times for each distance have dropped during these 4 weeks as well.  My mile went from 11:47 to 10:59, my 7 mile route dropped 3 minutes and my 4 mile route dropped 2 minutes.  The other amazing thing is that before I started eating clean, I needed a nap after my training before going to work.  Now I don't, I come home do some chores and eat a good clean lunch and I'm ready to go.  Last of all, I was a smoker for 35 years and even though I quit almost 12 years ago my resting heart rate was still around 70 bpm, my resting heart rate has dropped to low 60s during the last month.

Now I'm not selling anything with this, no pills, potions or snake oil, just reporting on the changes I've noticed by cleaning up my nutrition.  Sally has had some dramatic improvements as well, the most notable is that her blood pressure has now come into the low average range.  She has struggled with that for years and takes medication for it.  I'm excited for when she sees her doctor again on that.

I will make another report at the end of the next 4 weeks.  I started this to be in better shape for the Cleveland games next month, that next 4 week report will be 2 weeks before the games.

Thanks for reading.

Dave