OK! So here's where you have the most control of your results. There is one fact that will never change. The amount of fat our bodies store is directly related to the amount of calories we take in, minus the calories we burn off. There are only three things in food that consist of calories. These are carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. Within a couple days of intake, if any of these food types are not burned off, they become stored fat. In order to make your body burn off the maximum amount of stored fat, you must be in control of the quantity and timing of which you intake each of these food types.
By eating the right foods, in the right amounts, at the right times, you can really control the rate that your body burns off stored fat. Not only that, if you pay close attention to the nutritional information of the things you eat, you can find simple ways to cut loads of calories, without affecting the volume of food you're eating. This way, you never go hungry!
Nowadays, there are several healthy alternatives to the things we eat. I would be willing to bet that 99% of all foods have healthy alternatives. Many are artificial, but there is a new, rapidly growing market for all-natural healthy alternatives. A lot of these taste just as good, if not better than the actual thing. Most others- you adapt to quickly. For example: fat free American cheese tastes exactly like regular American cheese; but diet soda tastes much different than regular soda. I could not stand diet soda when I was fat. I thought it was unsweet, and watered down. However, within a week of regularly drinking it, it began to taste crisp and refreshing. Now the roles are reversed, and regular soda is much too sweet for me.
By eating the right way now, once you have your stored body-fat to a minimum, you can continue the same diet to maintain your healthy body. This is possible because, when you don't have to carry around all that extra body-fat, your body will require less fuel. By continuing the healthy eating you had been practicing, you will give your body everything it needs (and nothing more), and in turn, it will run efficiently- like a well maintained machine.
This concept is not found in most diets. Usually you are required to starve at least part of your body's requirements. Once you are at your goal weight, you either keep going and become underweight, or you go back to your old eating habits and become overweight again. As a part of the diet, you were never taught to eat healthy. You were never taught to maintain a healthy weight. You only know how to force your body to burn stored fat. This is why people gain back the weight they lose, or even worse; get stuck in a cycle of gaining and losing weight repeatedly.
The ideal method of becoming healthy, and staying that way, is a lifestyle change. Learn the healthy eating habits once, and be healthy for the rest of your life. It may sound difficult, but our bodies are amazing. After about a week, you will start to love eating healthy. Our bodies weren't built to run on fast food, but they adapted to it. Think of how easy it would be for them to adapt back to what they were built for- healthy food.
Now I know everyone is wondering what to eat. Where are the meal plans, the points, the food logs? Well that stuff never worked for me, and obviously, it didn't work for you either if you're reading this book. Do you want to write in food logs for the rest of your life? Do you want to count the points for every meal until you die? I sure didn't, and I definitely did not want to stick to a eating schedule or plan. That would have just set me up for failure. I have a busy enough schedule as it is.
What I needed was a better understanding of food and a new way to look at it. I needed to put the right fuels in my body, while satisfying my appetite and taste buds. A lot of people go on diets, slip a little, then give up. With standard diets, there are so many restrictions and rules that there is a narrow path you must follow, and if you step off that path, it is hard to climb back on. By simply practicing healthy eating, there is room for mistakes, but eventually, everything becomes natural. The principles are so simple that you can apply them to everything you eat. Also, you're not in a race to quickly burn off as much fat as you can, so messing up once in awhile isn't going to make a difference in the big picture.
With the convenience we have in America, just about any food we could ever imagine is right at our finger tips. This includes healthy and unhealthy choices. If we know the basic principles of what our bodies need, there are virtually an unlimited amount foods we can enjoy, while still maintaining a healthy body. The three things we need to pay the closest attention to are fats, carbohydrates, and proteins. Vitamins and other things your body needs are usually abundant in healthy foods. For anything else you lack, a good multi-vitamin is a simple solution. What matters most, when trying to lose weight, are the things that end up stored as fat.
First, I will talk about consuming fat. Fat is the easiest thing for your body to store as fat. This is for one obvious reason- it's already fat. When you eat foods that are high in fat, that fat is going to be the last thing your body wants to burn. Your body can convert carbohydrates and proteins to fuel twice as quick and easy as fat, and it always takes the most efficient route. Fat is meant to be stored as back-up energy and used any time the easier burning fuels aren't available.
It can be compared to a bank savings account. Your body takes its calorie check to the bank, cashes in the proteins and carbs, and puts the fat in the savings account. Now it has a budget of easily converted energy (cash). Our goal is to go over budget. We want to use the easily converted fuel and then dip into the fat we just deposited. We need to spend quickly though, because we need to get to that fat before it clears the bank. Otherwise, our internal financial planner will invest it in a piece of real estate on Love Handle Mountain.
Now, of course our body wants some savings in case of an emergency, but it's not that greedy. If we can eat a healthy diet, our body will use up it's saved fat until it has just enough to feel comfortable. Once we have the right balance, our body will spend it's whole paycheck on the fuel it needs, and not have any extra fat to save.
Now what if we don't spend all of our protein and carbs (cash) on fuel? When this happens, it's either because we eat too much, or aren't active enough. Our body has payments coming in constantly, and it doesn't like to keep a lot of cash on hand. Once it has decided that it isn't going to spend all of its cash, it puts the leftovers in an envelope and it's en route to the savings account, to be stored as fat.
This is how our fat savings accounts keep getting, well- fatter. Now, most Americans already use these same concepts with money, so this should be easy for most of you. When it comes to calories, spend more than you make and your savings account will shrink. The main goal of this concept is to spend what you have before it's stored, because it takes a lot more work to go down to the bank and convert it back to cash (energy).
With that all said, it is still important to eat some fat each day. There are many nutrients our bodies need that only come packaged in fat. The best possible way to get these nutrients is by eating "good fats" (natural fats). Not only do good fats carry more nutrients, they are easier to burn. Think of them as a money order; not as liquid as cash, but more liquid than a check. Natural fats are those found in nuts, fish, vegetable oils, etc.. For more information on natural fats, the Internet is full of helpful information.
* I will post more on this later.A major benefit of eating a low fat diet is that you can eat a large filling meal, while still cutting quite a bit of calories. The reasoning behind this is that carbohydrates and proteins have about 4-5 calories per gram, while fats have 9-10. Therefore, you can substitute your burger for a piece of grilled chicken of the same weight, and still get just as full. Even by keeping the mayonnaise, cheese, and bun, you're still cutting a couple hundred calories. That is about what you would burn by running a mile.
Now I'm sure everyone knows about the low carb diet, and many of you have tried it. It is an effective way to lose weight, but it is not what your body was built for. Our bodies love carbs. They are easily burned fuel. We must treat our body and it will treat us.
There are many reasons why the low carb diet helps people to lose weight. One of the most important things is that the majority of foods we eat are loaded with carbs. The low carb diet is just another way of cutting calories. If you focus in on the carbs, you can cut most of the calories out of a lot of meals, right off the top. It does do good in that it gets people to pay some attention to the nutritional information on food packaging (the carbohydrate content), but all ofthe other numbers are there for a reason too. We really need to pay attention to everything.
The reason the low carb diet allows you to eat all the fat you want is because when you eat one gram of fat, it's going to take about 9 calories to burn that one gram of fat. If you eat one gram of carbohydrates, and don't burn it off before it stores to fat, that one gram of new fat will also take 9 calories to burn off. Even the foods with the highest fat content don't have all that many grams of fat in them. A large fast food burger, with everything on it, may have 35 grams of fat, while a plain bagel might have 60-70 grams of carbs. If you don't burn off those carbs, that's 70 potential grams of fat you're eating. So your bagel that would have taken 280 calories to burn off, now takes 630.
While you can cheat the system this way, if this diet was really a healthy way to lose weight, it wouldn't just be getting popular in the 21 st century. There are many negative things that come along with cheating. The most obvious, in this case, is the fact that you're starving your body of something it requires to be healthy.
Your body needs carbohydrates. Not only are they the easiest fuel for energy, they help keep your muscles healthy. Most people are already aware that muscles require protein, but carbs are very important to them as well. When you use your muscles, whether in exercise, or normal activity, they are broken down. When you rest, they rebuild. This is why, when you're active for a long consecutive period of time, your muscles eventually fatigue. Carbohydrates are used as fuel to quickly and efficiently rebuild your muscle tissue. By not eating carbs, you can eventually suffer from chronic fatigue.
Another serious side affect of avoiding carbs is the fact that they clean your digestive system. Elements in carbohydrate rich foods are rough. When they go through your digestive system, they scrape the walls and deter build up of debris. When you don't eat enough carbs, the grease from fatty foods allow food waste to stick to the walls of your digestive system, increasing the risk of developing intestinal and colon cancer.
Your body needs carbs. They are not the enemy. You just need to know how and when to eat them. There are some simple principles here, but they are applied differently to each individual situation. You need to eat the majority of your carbs when you are most active; and you need to eat carbs when your muscles are fatigued.
For most people, the best solution is to eat the majority of their carbs during breakfast and lunch. By doing this, if you don't completely stuff your body full of carbs, you will burn most of them off by the time you go to sleep at night. During your last meal of the day, it's best to keep carbs to a minimum, that way you are sure to burn them off before you go to bed. When you are sleeping,your body requires a minimum amount of fuel. At this time, you are the most vulnerable to storing unneeded carbs as fat.
Another important time to eat carbs is after a workout. You want to get them in your body as soon as possible to fuel muscle growth. Carbs are the first things you burn when you're highly active; therefore, you deplete your body's glycogen stores. Glycogen is an important ingredient in building muscle. This is why sports drinks are filled with Carbs. If you workout at 10 o clock at night, you may even need to eat carbs late at night. You should keep them to a minimum, however, and allow just enough for muscle rebuilding.
When you first wake up in the morning, it is also essential that you consume carbohydrates as soon as possible. When you are sleeping, your body is fasting for a long period of time (longer than you would go without eating if you were awake). Your body will have depleted it's glycogen stores. Itis essential that you eat carbs at this time to replenish those stores, or your body will begin to break down your muscles to retrieve the glycogen it needs. This will result in muscle loss.
So now that you know that a minimal amount of fat is important to your body, and you must time your intake of carbs so they are used for the proper purposes; I will talk about protein. Protein is something that your body almost can't get enough of. It has been shown that, if you are trying to build large muscles, you need to eat at least 2 grams of protein for every pound of your body weight. Your body thrives on protein.
Now of course, just like carbs, it takes about 4 calories to burn off one gram of protein, but what makes protein so special is that our body has so many uses for it. Not only can it be burned as energy; just about every physical thing on our body consists of protein. Our skin, our muscles, our hair; they are all made up of protein. Our DNA is made up of protein. Our bodies can pretty much take all the protein we can throw at it. Of course you don't want to overload yourself, but your body will signal you when it's time to stop eating.
There is not much else to say about protein. We are protein machines. Protein is the most important material used to build our bodies. Carbs are the fuel used to build and repair them. And fats are the fuel reserves. In a very general scope, that is how our body operates. We need to provide just enough materials and fuel to do the job, because anything extra will be sent to storage.
With that in mind, the diet of choice for me, was the high protein, good timed carbs, low fat diet. Most people's problem is not that they eat too much. They just eat too much of the wrong things. Like I said before, there are several things you can do to cut unnecessary calories. When I used to eat at a restaurant, I would order a soda and end up getting 7 or 8 refills beforethe meal was over. Conservatively, I was taking in 5-600 unnecessary calories, but taking up the same space in my stomach as a diet soda or iced tea. That was the first thing that had to go. I stopped drinking as much of my calories.
Drinking calories is probably the worst thing you can do if you are trying to lose weight. Sometimes a glass of milk or fresh juice is important to your diet, but you can maximize the benefits of those calories by drinking all natural juice and nonfat milk. For the most part, however, the things you drink are just empty calories. By empty calories, I mean that they don't satisfy your hunger. If you stop drinking empty calories, you can cut several hundred useless calories from your diet each day. I know that a lot of people need coffee to get going, but can only drink it full of sugar and cream. You must find an alternative. Learn to enjoy it without those added calories. Add artificial sweeteners. Drink another no-calorie caffeinated drink. This area is where you can easily cut the most calories.
The next thing is: SALADS ARE NOT (usually) HEALTHY! My sister tried to get me to show her how I achieved such success at finally losing the weight. I told her, in general, what I was doing, and she needed to do. The main point I tried to get across to her was that she needed to start eating healthy. The next day I saw her and asked what she had for lunch. She said, "Mike, I ate a real healthy lunch- I had a salad!" Well guess what kind of dressing she had on it? Ranch!
The first bad thing about salads is that iceberg lettuce has absolutely no nutritional value. Even if you do get some spinach leaves or mixed greens, you still have a problem. That problem is, not even taking into consideration all the crap people add to their salad, the majority of salad dressings are full of fat and carbs. Most creamy salad dressings are basically flavored mayonnaise (straight fat). Most low, or non fat, dressings are all sugar.
Eating just one packet of some salad dressings is about as bad as having a huge cheeseburger. If you insist on a salad, you must use a low calorie, low or non-fat dressing, but like I discussed before, we need to fill ourselves up with healthy food. A salad usually isn't going to fill you up.
While we're on the subject of salad dressing, another important thing that must be cut is mayonnaise. Now I say losing this weight was one of the easiest things I've ever done, and it was. When I was fat, however; if you would have tried to make me eat a sandwich without mayonnaise, I would have probably flipped out; but when I was looking for ways to easily cut calories from my diet, it was something I had to at least try. Jarred did it, why couldn't I? I was definitely surprised to find out how many alternative healthy spreads I could put on my sandwiches. There is even non-fat mayonnaise, if you could believe that. It took me a little while to really find what I liked, but eventually, I did. The healthier I became, the more I craved the healthy stuff. Now, just the thought of mayonnaise kind of makes me feel sick.
Those are a few of the things that can have the most impact on cutting your unnecessary calorie intake without any real effort from you. Now you need to get into the details. You need to really look at what you eat and ask yourself: are there any acceptable healthy alternatives?
You may need to try different things before you find what you really like, but eventually you will. One important thing is that you have to be open to try new things. When I was fat, I was narrow minded when it came to food. When I started to eat healthy, I got excited to try new things. In the beginning, it was hit or miss, but eventually I learned what I liked and didn't like.
One of the places I cut a lot of my calories was from burgers. Boy, I love a nice juicy burger, but I couldn't eat a few burgers for every meal anymore. I decided to replace them with grilled chicken. Whenever I would normally eat a burger, I would now have a grilled chicken sandwich. I also discovered a variety of soy burgers. When I read the nutritional information on the box, I had to give them a shot. They are all natural, and filled with protein, while having a very minimal amount of fat. To my surprise, they were actually really good, not the real thing, but very tasty still. I still enjoy a real burger at a barbeque or a special night out, but I keep it to a minimum.
Although not immediately obvious, it's these areas where cutting a few unnecessary calories can add up, or um- subtract. I would sit here and list them all, but the possibilities are endless. Even so, if I listed a bunch of them, it would be too much information for you to remember. You need to just apply the right concepts to your eating, and by discovering things on your own, you will learn them on a much deeper level, making it easy to remember. Rather than giving you all the answers, you will have the tools needed to apply to your eating, wherever you are.
So what if you're at a restaurant and don't have the nutritional information available to you? Well everything can't be perfect, but once you have been looking at the nutritional value on packaged foods for long enough, you will eventually just know what is healthy and what's not. The healthier choices on the menu will even start to sound better to you.
And Dessert? Well, I've saved this subject for last on purpose. My mom is a pastry chef, so I am very critical of my desserts. The alternatives just don't cut it for me. If I am going to treat my taste buds to dessert, I am going to do it right. This is an area that you need to use to treat yourself. You can't just go around pigging out on dessert; just like you wouldn't give your dog a box of treats and tell him to help himself. It has to be a treat or a reward. Maybe after a week of eating healthy and exercising, you can have a nice dessert after a meal on the weekend. Even having dessert a couple times a week wouldn't be bad. Just remember, the more unnecessary calories you cut, the faster you're going to burn stored fat, and dessert is usually loaded with unnecessary calories. So if you can go without dessert, you're going to burn the fat that much faster.
I guess the concept would also be the same for big, unhealthy meals. If you want to have a cheat meal once a week, go ahead. I lost over 80 pounds, but I still took my girlfriend out to a couple nice dinners every weekend. While you can have these meals, you must still apply the most important concepts: don't drink your calories, and lose the high fat salad dressings and mayonnaise. You can have your burger or pastrami sandwich, but by cutting these extra calories, you're still doing better than you would have before.
The eating section is the longest section in the book for a reason. That is because it is where the majority results are derived. I will talk about exercise next, but healthy eating is the key to a healthy body. It is a lot easier to not do something than to do it and then exercise to undo it. By not eating unnecessary calories, your body will not store extra fat in the first place. Even so, exercise is still very important to your health and I will explain why in next section.
*Follow my posts in order to read the rest of the book. I should have the book posted in it's entirety within the next few days so stay tuned!Labels: Eating Healthy, How I Lost 80 Lbs- eBook
