5 Tips For Easy Spring Cleaning

Spring is in the air! It’s a time for longer days and better weather. It’s a time to start getting ready for summer and bathing suit season. And it’s also a time for spring cleaning. Here are some great tips to clean up your home and your diet so you can feel more vibrant and get into that bikini come June.

1.Purge the Pantry

You’ll have a far easier time being successful achieving your weight and health goals if your pantry, refrigerator, and freezer aren’t full of junk food or trigger foods. Get out a bunch of garbage bags and start loading them full of all of the foods that do your diet more damage than good. Chips, cookies, soda, sugary cereal, crackers, frozen pizza and lasagna and anything else that calls your name when you’re not hungry. In an effort to reduce your environmental footprint, donate this food to homeless shelters (or your neighbors).

2. Reload with Clean Food

Once you clean out all of the junk, give yourself a pat on the back and then head straight to the market to fill the kitchen back up with clean, real, in-season, whole foods. Think of it this way – if it grew from the earth or had a mother, then it’s a real food. Load up with colorful produce (buy what’s in season and organic if you can), fresh fish (wild Pacific halibut, wild Alaskan salmon, black cod), whole grains (if you can tolerate them – quinoa, brown rice, amaranth, spelt, oats), hummus, beans, lentils, organic sprouted tofu, sweet potatoes, organic chicken and turkey breast, water-packed canned tuna and salmon, and pasture-raised eggs. Don’t forget to replenish your spice cabinet (throw out any spices that you haven’t used in a year). Spices make everything taste better!

3. Quick Diet Detox

Don’t go running for the hills at the word “detox”. We’re not advocating any crazy type of detox diet – no starving, fasting, or master cleansing (no elimination of entire food groups, either). Just some sensible tips to get your body to respond a whole lot quicker. Remember, we always focus on a balanced diet!

• Eliminate all alcohol
• Drink more water and tea (preferably green and herbal)
• Cut all refined flour and sugar
• Eat plenty of fresh vegetables, especially leafy greens and members of the cruciferous family (cauliflower, brussel sprouts, broccoli, bok coy, cabbage)
• Enjoy lower sugar fruit, especially berries
• Choose starchy vegetables, like sweet potatoes and butternut squash over grains. Pseudo-grains, like quinoa, amaranth, millet, and buckwheat are also good choices.
• Eat macro-balanced meals (carbs from veggies, protein, and fat)
• Have a good amount of protein at every meal
• Include healthy fat with each meal – avocado, olive oil, raw nuts and seeds, virgin coconut oil, ghee

4. Move Your Body 

Now that the weather is getting nicer, it’s time to take your workout outdoors. Hit the pavement or the hills on foot or by bike. Or look for an outdoor “boot-camp” class to really kick-start your spring. If you want to tone up, then you have to hit the weights or do some serious resistance exercises. Shape those muscles! Hey, if you’ve got it, then flaunt it! Most importantly, love your body.

5. Cook up a Storm

Get in the kitchen and make your own meals. No, you don’t have to be Julia Child or Bobby Flay – simple cooking is just fine. When you cook you own food, you control both the quality of the ingredients and the quantity that you eventually eat. If you don’t have a lot of time to cook, try spending one day a week to do big batch cooking – make at least 3 different recipes in larger than normal quantity and refrigerate and freeze portions that you can pull out for meals later in the week and weeks to come. If you need some recipe inspiration, check out all of our great recipes in the recipe archives.

Of course if you need some ROCKIN' recipes, check out our cookbooks, “No Excuses! 50 Healthy Ways to ROCK Breakfast!” and “No Excuses! 50 + Healthy Ways to ROCK Lunch & Dinner!” available on our website in both print and ebook formats.