Eating Clean vs. Anti-Inflammatory for Midlife Weight Loss

Feel like you're eating healthy and "clean", but you're still not losing those midlife pounds?

You're eating the salad. You ordered the oat milk latte. You swapped your white bread for whole grain. So why isn't the scale moving?

Believe it or not, you can be eating clean and still triggering inflammation in your body every single day. And when your body is fighting inflammation, you're not going to be able to lose weight, no matter how many salads you ate this week.

In this episode, I'm walking you through the difference between eating clean and eating anti-inflammatory, and why this distinction matters so much in midlife. I'm breaking down what a typical "healthy" breakfast is actually doing to your body, why your estrogen levels are working against you in perimenopause, and how one small shift completely changed everything for my student Kathleen.

If you have been doing all the right things and still not seeing results, this episode is going to clear up so much confusion for you.

What You'll Learn

• Why eating clean and eating anti-inflammatory are not the same thing (and why it matters in midlife)
• How your "healthy" breakfast is triggering inflammation and crashing your blood sugar
• Why your body literally cannot burn fat efficiently when it's fighting inflammation and blood sugar swings at the same time
• The simple shift Kathleen made to her breakfast that gave her all-day energy and crushed her cravings

Resources and Ways To Connect

• Get the Free 21-Day Anti-Inflammatory Guide for Midlife Moms
• Discover how The Method can support your midlife weight loss
• Connect with me on Instagram 
• Get more free resources here

Transcript

Ashley (00:07)

Hello, my friend and welcome back to the Family Fork. I'm really excited because today we're gonna get into a topic that I know is going to clear up so much confusion for you. So if you have been doing all the things, like ordering a salad instead of a burger and swapping plain white bread for whole grain, putting oat milk in your latte instead of regular cream and the scale is still not budging, this episode is definitely for you.

Here's something that you might not be thinking about. You can be eating clean and healthy, but still be triggering inflammation in your body every single morning before 9 a.m. And when your body is struggling with systemic inflammation, it is gonna be so much harder for you to lose weight, no matter how many salads you ate this week, no matter how many steps you got in. So today I wanna talk about the difference between eating clean

and eating anti-inflammatory and why one of these is actually going to move the needle for you in perimenopause and menopause.

I also want to share a story about one of my students, Kathleen, who thought she was eating healthy throughout the day, but we made one small shift to her breakfast and it completely changed her energy, her cravings, and her ability to focus all day long. So grab your water, settle in, and let's get right to it.

Now, you may have heard me talk about inflammation before, and it's definitely become a hot topic in popular media these days. I recently sent an email to my list on this exact topic, eating clean versus eating anti-inflammatory, and that email had one of the highest open rates I have ever had. So that told me something important. It told me that you are confused about this, and it totally makes sense.

because the whole wellness world, it just keeps using these terms like they mean the same thing. Eat clean or healthy, eat whole foods, eat anti-inflammatory. On the surface, they all sound the same, right? But they're not the same. And for midlife women, this distinction is so important. Here's why. When you enter perimenopause and you start moving through to menopause, your estrogen is continually dropping.

estrogen is one of your body's most important regulators of inflammation. So as your estrogen goes down, your baseline level of inflammation, it just naturally goes up. And this is just what happens in this phase of life.

So if you are eating foods that may look healthy and maybe even marketed as healthy, but are actually inflammatory to your midlife body, you're just pouring fuel on a fire that is already burning. And then you wonder why the scale isn't moving, why your belly is so puffy, and why you feel tired and foggy, even though technically you're doing everything right. Okay, so let me back up and define what I mean when I say eating clean.

When most women say to me, I'm eating clean, what they usually mean is that they are choosing the better looking option. They're picking salad over a burger and fries. They're choosing whole grain bread instead of white bread. You're reaching for yogurt instead of ice cream, or you're drinking oat milk in your coffee instead of that sugary creamer. And honestly, those choices feel really good. They feel really responsible, right?

feels like you're doing the right thing for your body. And in your 20s, your 30s, those choices probably did move the needle for you. You probably did see results from cleaning up your nutrition. But here's the problem. Eating clean is too general for where your body is right now. So some of the foods that are universally considered healthy are actually working against you in perimenopause and menopause.

So let me walk you through what a typical clean, healthy breakfast might look like for a woman in midlife. And let's break down what's actually happening inside her body when she eats it. So you picture this, you wake up, you're trying to eat healthy. So you make yourself a piece of whole grain toast.

You top it with some yogurt, maybe a little vanilla or strawberry yogurt, something that has on the package promised to be high in protein. And then you pour yourself a cup of coffee with a little oat milk in it. So that feels like a pretty healthy breakfast, right? It checks all of the clean eating boxes and you're feeling really good about the balance. Healthy carbs, protein, yay you, right? But let's look at what each of those foods is actually doing.

So that whole grain toast, it looks good and healthy, but the gluten in that bread can be very inflammatory, especially for a woman in midlife whose gut health may already be more sensitive than it used to be. That flavored yogurt, you're led to believe you're getting protein, but you probably are getting some, but you're also getting dairy, which is inflammatory for so many women. And you're definitely getting hidden sugar.

Flavored yogurts have more sugar in them sometimes than a candy bar. And sugar, we know, is one of the most inflammatory things you can put in your body. And then there's the oat milk in your coffee. Oat milk, it has this really healthy, clean reputation. But when you process oats down into a milk, you end up with something that completely spikes your blood sugar so quickly. And that contributes to inflammation.

It's not the gentle anti-inflammatory swap that most women think that it is. So here's what has happened.

You've had toast, yogurt, and oat milk all before 9 a.m. and that's all contributing to your systemic inflammation. But here's the other thing that's happening. All three of those foods spike your blood sugar. They send it shooting up first thing in the morning. So then by about 10 a.m., your blood sugar, it crashes.

and you know what a blood sugar crash feels like. It's cravings. It feels like, my gosh, I totally need a snack. I need a coffee. I need something sweet. It feels like you can't focus at work or that mid-morning energy slump where you are just dragging and hoping you can make it until lunchtime. So now you're chasing your blood sugar all day long.

You crash at 10, so you grab something to pick it back up. Then it crashes again after lunch, and there you are, three in the afternoon, grabbing for something sweet. And by dinner, you're starving. You're so tired. Your willpower is gone. So you just end up overeating all the foods that you promised you weren't going to. And all of that, it started with a breakfast that you thought was healthy.

So this is the problem. This is why eating clean is not enough in midlife because your body is now fighting two battles at the same time. It's fighting inflammation and it's fighting blood sugar swings. And when your body is so busy putting out those fires, it's not going to burn fat efficiently. It just can't. It doesn't matter how many steps you're getting on your walks or how clean your salad was at lunch.

Your body is so busy with the inflammation and the blood sugar swings to do the work of actually letting go of the weight. So now let's talk about what anti-inflammatory eating looks like because I think there's this misconception, I know there is, that it's restrictive or complicated. I want to get that all cleared up for you right now. So anti-inflammatory eating is not about restricting.

Yes, you are going to reduce some of the things that trigger inflammation, especially in midlife, gluten, dairy, sugar, and for most women, alcohol. But the bigger piece of anti-inflammatory eating is what you get to add in. You get to add in healthy fats like avocado, olive oil, nuts, seeds, the kind of fats that actually help your hormones do their job and keep you full for hours. You get to add in colorful fruits and veggies.

not just boring iceberg lettuce on repeat, but real vibrant flavorful fruits and veggies that give your body the nutrients it needs to fight inflammation from the inside.

You add in anti-inflammatory proteins like wild caught fish, pasture raised eggs, good quality meats, the kind of proteins that are gonna build muscle, stabilize your blood sugar and keep you full and satisfied. So anti-inflammatory eating is really a more abundant way to eat. It's not less food, it's just better food. And it's not any harder than eating clean, it's more intentional.

You are choosing your foods with a purpose, which is to reduce inflammation and support your body in perimenopause so that it can actually do what you're asking it to do. Once you understand how this works for your body in midlife, it really does become second nature really quickly because you start seeing results. You start losing weight, have less brain fog. You stop forgetting your neighbor's name when you run into her on your evening walk.

This is exactly what happened for one of my students, Kathleen, and I want to share a little bit about her story with you because I think you're going to recognize yourself in it. So Kathleen was notorious for not eating breakfast. She would skip it most days and when she did eat something, it was maybe like a granola bar and a cup of coffee on her way out the door. She thought it was fine. She was keeping everything light. She didn't have much time for breakfast anyway, and she honestly wasn't all that hungry when she woke up.

But what was actually happening was that she was starting her day by depriving her body of the fuel that it actually needed.

After not eating all night long, not eating was signaling this deprivation to her body, which was raising cortisol, which increased inflammation. Plus, without any food or only just coffee, Kathleen's blood sugar was poised for disaster that day. So inside of the method, one of the first things that we did was completely shift her breakfast.

I put her on a plan to eat 40 grams of protein by 10 a.m. and to fill up on anti-inflammatory foods in the morning, like vegetables, fruits, small amount of healthy fats, anti-inflammatory carbs.

And the very first day she ate that breakfast, she was in disbelief. She had energy all the way until 7 p.m. Her cravings were almost completely gone. She was able to focus at work without that constant background noise of like, what is my next snack? What am I? What is my next meal? I'm so hungry. She told me she felt like a completely different person. And that was one meal. It was just breakfast.

So that is the power of eating anti-inflammatory instead of just eating clean. It's not about eating a sad, boring salad, just hoping that the scale moves. It's about giving your body what it actually needs so that it can stop fighting and start letting go.

So if you're sitting here thinking, okay, this is cool, this all makes sense, but how do I actually do it? I wanna give you three things to take away from this episode. First thing is that clean eating is not the same as anti-inflammatory. So just because a food is healthy on paper does not mean that it's the right food for your midlife body. Your body in perimenopause and menopause,

It needs a more specific kind of support than it did in your 20s and your 30s. There's nothing wrong with you. If the old rules, they're not working anymore. But if you want to see results with your weight loss, you have to change your approach.

The second thing is that your breakfast might be the single biggest place where you are sabotaging yourself without even knowing it. If you're starting your day with whole grain toast, flavored yogurt, oat milk, granola bars, or any combination of these, you're setting yourself up for inflammation and blood sugar swings before the day has even started. So just look at your breakfast first. That is exactly where I would start. Third,

And this is so important. Anti-inflammatory eating is not about restriction. It is about redirection. You're not taking everything away. You're adding in the foods that actually help your body do the hard work that it's trying to do. Healthy fats, colorful fruits and veggies, anti-inflammatory proteins, foods that taste good, that fill you up and work with your hormones instead of against them.

When you make this shift, everything starts to change. The weight, it starts to come off. The brain fog lifts, the cravings calm down, and you get to start feeling like yourself again. So if you're listening, you're thinking, so good, Ashley, I wanna do this. I just don't know how to get started. Great, I've got a perfect tool for you. I have the free 21 day anti-inflammatory meal plan that walks you through exactly how to start eating

anti-inflammatory in a way that fits your real life. It's the same framework that I have used with hundreds of women, including Kathleen, and it is the perfect starting point if you are ready to stop spinning your wheels with clean eating that is just not getting you anywhere.

You can grab it with the link in the show notes. It is completely free. And I promise it's going to be one of the most useful things you can do for yourself this week. And inside the perimenopause weight loss method, my students get to take this even further. They're eating things like tacos, burgers, quesadillas, anti-inflammatory versions of foods they already love. They're not hungry all day. They're not overwhelmed with cravings.

and they're eating in a way that works with their body and perimenopause, and they're getting all of the benefits from it. But the guide is really your starting point. It's gonna give you a real feel for what anti-inflammatory eating actually looks like day to day. So your homework right now for this week is really simple. I want you to look at your breakfast and notice what you're eating in those first few hours of the day and ask yourself, is this clean?

or is this anti-inflammatory? Because those two are not the same thing. Then I want you to grab the guide so you have an actual plan in place.

Thanks so much for being here with me today. I really do think this episode is going to change the way that you look at your plate. And I'm really excited to hear how it lands for you. So send me a message on Instagram @theashleymalik and let me know what you're taking away from this particular episode. And I'll see you right back here next week on the Family Fork.