How to Eat Clean: 5 Ways to Clean Up Your Diet Today
Clean eating doesn't have to be a complete kitchen overhaul. In my experience, the women who make the most lasting changes aren't the ones who went cold turkey on everything — they're the ones who understood a few key principles and built from there.
This isn't a "30-day challenge" or a detox plan. It's a way of eating that supports how your body is actually designed to work — including how it manages blood sugar and glucose throughout the day. Once you understand the basics, it becomes second nature.
Here's where I tell every client to start.
1. Learn Your Food Groups — and What to Prioritize
The foundation of clean eating is knowing which foods serve your body and which ones drain it. At Well + Easy, I teach a low glycemic approach to clean eating because it maps so naturally onto what your metabolism actually needs — steady energy, stable blood glucose, and nutrients that work with your body.
A simple framework to start with:
Eat freely: Fresh fruits, green and non-starchy vegetables — aim for these to fill at least half your plate. Kale, broccoli, spinach, green beans, cabbage, bok choy. These are non-negotiable, and they're among the lowest glycemic foods you can eat.
Eat in moderation: Whole grains (brown rice, whole grain pasta, oats), lean proteins, eggs, legumes, dairy, cold-pressed oils, and starchy vegetables like potatoes and cooked carrots. These have a moderate effect on blood sugar when eaten in reasonable portions.
Eat less of: Added sugar, fried foods, white flour, margarine, hydrogenated oils, and alcohol. These spike blood glucose quickly, offer little nutritional return, and scaling them back makes a noticeable difference — often within days.
One practical tip: build your plate around vegetables first, then add your protein and grain. This naturally lowers the glycemic load of your meal without any calculating or measuring.
2. Take Your Digestion Seriously
This one surprises people, but it's closely tied to blood sugar regulation: if your digestion isn't working well, your body can't absorb nutrients properly, clear waste efficiently, or manage glucose the way it should.
Ideally, you'd have a bowel movement for every main meal. Realistically, once a day at minimum is the baseline to aim for. If that's not where you are, it's usually a fiber issue — and the fix is exactly what you'd expect: more vegetables, more fruit, more whole grains.
Fiber also slows the absorption of glucose into the bloodstream, which is one reason a low glycemic diet and good digestion go hand in hand. Eat more plants, drink enough water, and give your digestion time to catch up. A sluggish gut affects everything downstream.
3. Cut Back on Salt — and Replace It With Something Better
When women start eating more whole foods, one of the first things they notice is that they reach for the salt shaker more. That's normal — vegetables need flavor. The problem is that most of us are already consuming far more sodium than our bodies need, which shows up as water retention, puffiness, and stiffness. For women managing blood sugar or insulin resistance, excess sodium can also contribute to elevated blood pressure, which compounds the metabolic picture.
What to look for on labels: sodium chloride, sodium, and anything labeled "added flavoring."
What actually works instead: fresh herbs, dried spices, citrus, garlic, and a small pinch of good salt when you need it. Once you cook with herbs regularly, you'll stop missing the heavy salt entirely.
4. Drink More Water Than You Think You Need
There's not much to complicate here, but it's worth saying plainly: most women I work with are mildly dehydrated and don't know it. Staying well-hydrated supports kidney function, digestion, and — importantly for blood sugar — helps your body flush excess glucose through urine when levels are elevated.
Eight glasses a day is a reasonable baseline. You can also get water from food — fruits like watermelon and grapes, and vegetables like cucumber and leafy greens have high water content and count toward your daily intake. If plain water feels monotonous, add lemon or cucumber slices and call it a win.
5. Pay Attention to Acid-Alkaline Balance
Your body works hard to maintain its pH balance — but the foods you eat can either support that process or work against it. An overly acidic internal environment depletes nutrients and can contribute to low-grade inflammation, which is one of the non-food drivers that keeps blood sugar elevated even when you're eating well.
Acidifying foods (to moderate, not eliminate): red meat, refined sugar, white bread and pasta, coffee, alcohol. Many of these are also high glycemic — so dialing them back serves double duty.
Alkalizing foods (to lean into): green vegetables, avocado, potatoes with skin, almonds, fresh fruits, cold-pressed oils. These overlap heavily with a low glycemic food list, which is no coincidence.
You don't need to obsess over this. You just need to notice whether your daily intake leans heavily toward the acidic column — and, if it does, bring in more alkalizing foods to balance it out.
Clean Eating Is a Practice, Not a Perfection
What I want you to take away from this is that clean eating is about understanding your body and making choices that support it — including your blood sugar, your metabolism, and your energy — not following a rigid set of rules until you burn out.
These five principles are where I start with every client because they work. They're the foundation everything else is built on. When you understand why each one matters, they stop feeling like restrictions and start feeling like common sense.
If you want to go deeper on low glycemic eating and blood sugar balance, I write about this every week in my newsletter, Living Low GI. You can join us at wellandeasy.com — it's where I share what I'm actually recommending to clients, what the research is showing, and how to make this work in real life.
And if you're already eating clean but your blood sugar numbers still aren't moving — that's a sign there may be more going on beneath the food. The Whole GI Protocol™ addresses both the low glycemic dietary framework and the non-food root causes (sleep, stress, inflammation, hormones) that keep glucose elevated. You can learn more here: Whole GI Protocol.
Sources
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Slavin, J., & Lloyd, B. (2012). Health Benefits of Fruits and Vegetables. Advances in Nutrition, 3(4), 506–516. https://doi.org/10.3945/an.112.002154
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Dahl, W. J., & Stewart, M. L. (2015). Position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics: Health Implications of Dietary Fiber. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 115(11), 1861–1870. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jand.2015.09.003
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He, F. J., & MacGregor, G. A. (2010). Reducing Population Salt Intake Worldwide: From Evidence to Implementation. Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases, 52(5), 363–382. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pcad.2009.12.006
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Popkin, B. M., D'Anci, K. E., & Rosenberg, I. H. (2010). Water, Hydration, and Health. Nutrition Reviews, 68(8), 439–458. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1753-4887.2010.00304.x
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Schwalfenberg, G. K. (2012). The Alkaline Diet: Is There Evidence That an Alkaline pH Diet Benefits Health? Journal of Environmental and Public Health, 2012, 727630. https://doi.org/10.1155/2012/727630
About the Author
Jen Polk, H.H.C. is an IIN Certified Health Coach and integrative nutrition practitioner specializing in low glycemic nutrition, insulin resistance, and metabolic health for women 35+. She founded Well + Easy in 2011, and has spent over 12 years helping women stabilize blood sugar and release weight through her signature Whole GI Protocol™. Her work reaches more than 20,000 subscribers through Well + Easy and her newsletter, Living Low GI. All content on this site reflects Jen's professional training, personal experience reversing insulin resistance, and 12+ years of client work in metabolic health.
This content is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always consult your healthcare provider before making changes to your diet or health protocol.
