Clean living lifestyle easy changes

Each of the changes below can be as easy or hard as you want! If it seems overwhelming, then taper off some of your changes and start a little slower. This should be a positive and fun experience for you and your family – not something that you dread.

Last little disclaimer – if you were 100% on every single one of these changes all the time, you’d probably burn yourself out. Give yourself grace and “rotate which balls you drop.” For example, some weeks I’m so diligent about stretching and foam rolling but drop the ball on my sweat sessions – that’s ok! That’s what my body needed that week.

Clean living lifestyle change 1

drink more water

Drinking water not only helps your body to function better overall, but it can also help to detox and flush out your system. I tend to lean toward the direction of giving my body .5-1 oz of water per lb of weight. This logic makes the most sense to me because it’s specific to my body weight. In general, though, just drink more water!

By making this small change you’re helping your body to absorb the nutrients you’re providing it, as well as flush out toxins.

Remember that your body will adapt to the amount of water you give it. That’s why people who hardly drink any water don’t feel thirsty – but, if they were giving their body adequate water, they would feel so much better. Keep that in mind for when you’re in the adjustment phase and feel like you’re going to the bathroom every 6 minutes. Once your body adapts to the new water increase, it will start using it to surround your organs and better functionality!

Clean living lifestyle change: drink one more glass of water per day until you’re up to optimal ounces per day.

Clean living lifestyle change 2

Clean up your water

Do you know how toxic your water is even if you’re using a filter? EWG has this awesome resource where you can type in your zip code and get a list of the toxic ingredients in your water. For example, for my zip code, this is what we have in our water:

environmental working group water contaminants 

WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT YOUR TOXIC WATER

We filter our water through a Berkey Filter which removes over 200 contaminants in water. We also purchased a fluoride filter to remove the fluoride from our tap water. Click the image below for my affiliate link if you’re interested in a Berkey.

Clean living lifestyle change: this is a large investment, but if you want to make a smaller change, you could use a pitcher filter like the ProPur (I think it’s called ProOne now). This is a good filter and it’s much more affordable. If you do a side-by-side comparison of the Brita, Berkey, and ProPur filters, ProPur and Berky blow Brita out of the water (pun intended).

Clean living lifestyle change 3

remove “natural flavors” from your diet

Marketing will make the term ‘natural flavors’ sound like a good thing! However, the term ‘natural flavors’ is just another term for chemically processed. To earn the term “natural” the flavor only has to have one tiny drop of a natural flavor and the rest of the substance can be chemically processed. For example, the flavoring could be 1 percent real strawberry but 99% chemically made.

Clean living lifestyle change: remove something you eat or drink on a regular basis that uses natural flavors. For example, I’m in the process of getting rid of all our La Croix’s (I stocked up this summer) and switching to just using my Soda Stream (which I should be using anyway!). Gradually start ridding your diet of anything that contains natural flavors unless you know for sure they’re 100% natural.

Clean living lifestyle change 4

Start cooking more from scratch

loaf of roasted garlic sourdough bread with a cross scoring pattern on top of lace doily with garlic cloves on top

Part of a clean living lifestyle is making clean cooking a part of that lifestyle. The more surefire way to cook clean is to cook from scratch. When you can control what goes into the meals you’re making from start to finish, you’re truly eating clean.

Clean living lifestyle change: Choose just one thing to start cooking from scratch. Maybe it’s bread – make a sourdough starter! Maybe it’s your yogurt, or bone broth, or something else – just choose one thing. Once you have that down and it feels like second nature, choose another thing to cook from scratch.

cook from scratch while working from home

Clean living lifestyle change 5

Cook more meals at home

cast iron dinner idea sourdough skillet

Similarly, while we are on the topic of controlling what’s in your food – eat out less. The more you eat out, the less control you have of what’s in your food, what your food is cooked on, or how your food is prepared. Commit to eating one less meal out per month. That’s a totally doable change – if you’re eating out once per week, start by cutting out one of those per month. Then continue to cut out as possible. I’ll tell you, once you start cooking more from scratch, you won’t even want to eat out because your food will taste so much better at home!

Clean living lifestyle change: eat out one less time per month.

I was having some health issues, went to the naturopath and got some blood work which showed I was very intolerant (the highest on the scale) to eggs and dairy. At the time we were just buying the eggs and cheese from the grocery store. We completely cut eggs and dairy out of our diet, and then slowly incorporated high-quality, raw, and pastured eggs and dairy into our diet again. I had no issues! This is very anecdotal, but I’m not the only one with a testimony like this.

Clean living lifestyle change: source better quality food one at a time. Start with the most important things such as meat, eggs or dairy then move on to produce then move on to honey, then grains, etc.

Related: Read this post on how to source good quality food

I use exclusively cast iron, enameled cast iron, copper, and stainless steel to cook on. In fact, I shared in my Instagram stories a disturbing story about how a tea kettle I purchased off amazon had a lining on the inside of some kind of paint that started peeling off and getting into our water! You can see that story in my non-toxic living highlight on Instagram.

The moral of the story is that your cookware can be extremely toxic – especially non-stick pans. Non-stick pans can release a toxic gas while you’re cooking with them, and they can leach the harmful chemicals they’re made with into your food.

Clean living lifestyle change: Learn how to use a cast-iron skillet. This is very specific, but you probably use your skillets the most for cooking. Learning how to use cast iron well will not only help with cleaning up your lifestyle, but it will also make your food taste so much better! See the link below for my tutorial on how to season, cook with, and clean cast iron skillets.

Related: Tutorial on how to season and cook with cast iron

Clean living lifestyle change 8

swap out plastic in your home

Similar to the change above, plastic can leach harmful chemicals into your food (especially if you’re heating them up in the microwave). Even BPA-free plastic is not devoid of harmful chemicals.

Clean living lifestyle change: Swap out your plastic food storage containers to glass. If you’ve already done that, pick something else that’s plastic in your home.

Clean living lifestyle change 9

swap your cane sugar for natural sweeteners

Here's a pantry checklist for you so you can fully stock your kitchen with healthy foods on a budget to help with your clean living lifestyle. 

The keyword here is “natural” not artificial. Artificial sweeteners can actually be worse than refined sugars due to all their chemicals. Natural sweeteners are things like honey, maple syrup, maple sugar, date syrup, date sugar, and coconut sugar.

Refined sugars spike your blood sugar, cause kidney disease, liver disease, shortened life-span, increased desire for coffee and tobacco, coronary heart disease, hyperactivity and behavioral problems, violent tendencies, overgrowth of bacteria in the digestive tract, associated with cancer, and “feeding tumors” bone density loss and tooth decay, and so much more.

Clean living lifestyle change: Remove any refined sugars from your house and replace them with natural sugar. Don’t worry about things you get when you go out to eat, you can work on that later. For now, just control what’s in your own house.

Related: these Fall coffee recipes all use natural sweeteners

Related: These Winter coffee recipes also use natural sweeteners

Clean living lifestyle change: Commit to stretching and/or foam rolling for at least 1 hour per week. This can be done in one large block or split up over several days. Gradually work up to an hour several times per week. You can multi-task with this too – while you’re reading, stretch, while you’re listening to a podcast, foam roll, etc. My husband and I even made stretching and foam rolling a date-night activity! #wifeofachiropractorprobs

Clean living lifestyle change 11

sweat several times per week

This is kept very general for a reason. Not everybody likes a traditional “workout regime” and I’m a big believer in finding what works for you and doing that. If you love hiking until you work up a sweat, but can’t stand the gym – go for a few hikes a week. If you love doing Crossfit but hate Pilates, go to Crossfit! In any case, you want to make sure you’re sweating (meaning, getting your heart rate high enough to enjoy the cardiovascular benefits) several times per week.

Clean living lifestyle change: Chose an activity that you love and commit to doing it at least one more time per week and gradually increase until you reach at least 3 times per week.

Clean living lifestyle change 12

Swap to non-toxic products

thayers witch hazel an amber dropper jar and glass jar with q tips for a non toxic and clean living lifestyle. 

I have a whole post on why to use non-toxic products and where to begin (linked below), so if you need convincing or want to learn more about the common toxic ingredients, head there. In any case, start making the swap to non-toxic household and beauty products.

Clean living lifestyle change: start swapping out your products one category at a time. Start with something easy for you, like household cleaners, laundry supplies, or beauty products, then gradually keep swapping as you run out of your toxic products.

Clean living lifestyle change 13

clean and organize your life

autumn homemaking morning routine making bed. living a clean lifestyle by organizing your home. 

Wash your sheets (seriously, if you don’t you can literally get sick). Tidy up your car, closets, and dressers. By decluttering your life you’re also decluttering your mind. I’m big on keeping an organized home because when I do, my family and home seem to run better. You’d be surprised how liberating decluttering can be if you haven’t tried it yet!

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benefits of A clean living lifestyle

benefits of a clean living lifestyle. Homemaking becomes much easier!

1. Your body will feel better

You may experience fewer aches and pains, your body may actually be able to relax, and your mood will improve!

2. You will look better

Your skin will be more vibrant and your body will benefit too (maybe you won’t lose weight, but to a certain point, the scale really holds no bearing on ‘health’).

3. You will have more energy

This is obvious, but it’s probably my favorite benefit of having a clean living lifestyle! When I’m being good about clean living, I have so much more energy to care for my sweet baby boy! When I’m struggling to live clean, so does my energy!

4. You’ll sleep better

I didn’t realize how important sleep was until I wasn’t getting it. With my son, Jaxon, I had horrible adrenal fatigue (still recovering, actually) and it wasn’t until I started prioritizing clean living that I started to recover. Leave it to having your first baby to throw you off your clean living game, right?!

5. You’ll have a better outlook on life

When my body feels good so does my mind! I have a better outlook on life and I’m more positive in general. When my home is in order, I feel equally mentally in order.

6. You’ll get sick less

I get sick still. We all do. It’s part of building immunity. However, the idea is that you get sick less because you will no longer have a compromised immune system.

7. You’ll be less at risk for major illnesses and disease

When you rid your home and your body of toxins and start living a clean lifestyle, your body will thrive.

8. You’ll probably save money

When I stopped chasing the next best thing and started making more of what we consume in my own home, I started saving tons of money. I had a complete mindset shift away from consumerism and toward creating for myself and my family.