Diet is for LOSERS!

Diet is for losers!

I’ve seen this happening over and over…The latest diet book hit the shelves, everyone is raving about it. My wife and her friends is part of the crowd and decided to jump in.

She and her friends lose a fair amount of weight. Happy faces, goal reached…

But so they think…

Life returns to normal and so the eating does too. No need to diet anymore, they have reached their goal. In any case one can only continue for so long on the diet…

One year later and the crowd is each 20kg heavier than before they started with the previous diet. So it goes on…and year after year the diets come and go and every year they end 20kg heavier than the year before.

No matter how good that diet is, it is still a diet which means a short-term solution. That short-term solution, year after year, wreak havoc on your metabolism and literally train your body in a complete negative fashion about fat-loss.

And every year it becomes more and more difficult to get that fat off…

Year after year your metabolism is slowing down and due to the strict diet interruptions your body thinks it must add-on as much fat to cope with these “starvation” periods.

This is as true for guys as it is for girls

Once your body is trained in such a negative way…it is gonna take some time to straight things out and reverse that process. By time I mean anything from 6-9 months.

And that is why most people later give totally up with dieting because nothing is working anymore even when they try it for months! And so they become…MASSIVE!

At long last it look like my wifes eyes has opened and she is done with dieting. She now start seeing the logic behind a lifestyle change.

What is a lifestyle change?

We’ll it is a lot of things but for this discussion I will focus on the eating aspect.

A lifestyle eating plan is NOT a diet. It is an eating regimen you will follow day in day out, year in year out…

You can change this regimen but it will always adhere to the same basic principles.

Those basic principles are:

You MUST eat every 3-4 hours.
You MUST always eat SMALL meals.
Every meal MUST contain a clean protein source (fat-less) with little carbohydrates (preferably in the form of lots of veggies)
At least 2L water per day.
No smoking and very little alcohol.
Potent multivitamin every day.
Cheating once a week with only one meal and do NOT stuff yourself even with the cheat meal.

Let’s look at the first principle: “You MUST eat every 3-4 hours.”

The bottom line is, your body is designed to be fed every 3-4 hours. The western 3 time a day eating habit is NOT good for the body. Your whole system works near perfect when fed every 3-4 hours. It keeps your blood sugar levels stable and is perfect for feeding muscle for growth and speed up a fat-loss environment.

Yes, it can be cumbersome to eat so often but the fast solution to that is protein shakes. Make sure it has no carbohydrates but a clean, preferably slow release protein matrix. Slow is better because it keeps the releasing of the protein stable over a long time and does not flush the body with too much protein at one time. Together with a shake you can eat a few veggies or instead a fruit with not too much fruit sugar (bananas and mango’s = no-no).

You will have nearly no cravings anymore because your body is fed the way it was designed to need food. You should not feel hungry at all. (Although initially if u were used to high volumes food it might be a bit of a problem and you might need a craving suppressant to help you through the initial period.)

You can carry a shaker and small container with the protein powder with you. To mix and eat takes you 3 minutes…there is NO excuse for not taking such a meal no matter how busy you are.

Principle two: “You MUST always eat SMALL meals.”

Small means a fist size protein with two fist size portion veggies or if rice/pasta, just one fist size.

Your body does not need more than this every 3-4 hours unless you partake in strenuous training (Then refer to my training eating regimen in my first blog post.).

Small also means your stomach will literally start to shrink. Yes, without loosing any fat the tummy will already be smaller just because of the stomach that shrinked.

Your body will also start to use the food more efficiently. You will feel less bloated and will have less constipation.

Principle three: “Every meal MUST contain a clean protein source (fat-less) with little carbohydrates (preferably in the form of lots of veggies).

Clean protein means NO FAT. Before preparing chicken, get rid of the skin and any visible fat. Any meat with any visible fat is completely out. The only red meat you should eat is fillet.

Fatless pork and of course fish is also great clean protein sources.

Protein uptake is more efficiently when the meal is combined with some sort of carbohydrate. But rather try to eat a fair portion of veggies (2 fist, maybe even 3 fist sizes) instead of rice/pasta. Bread should be avoided. Rice crackers and provita will be better choices. If you have to eat bread, then low GI.

Principle four: “At least 2L water per day.”

Yes, you might get the a frequent toilet routine the first week or so, but when your body is used to it, it will be near normal.

Water assist in flushing the bad stuff out of your body. It also assists with the metabolism of fat and as such will literally help with your fat-loss process.

Water has a multitude of beneficial aspects and you CANNOT expect a successful lifestyle change without at least 2L water per day. Less than 2L will also severely hamper your fatloss efforts.

Note: People training vigorously will obviously need higher amounts of water.

Principle five: “No smoking and very little alcohol.”

No lifestyle change can be made when any form of addictive substance is abused. Social drugs are COMPLETELY out. You cannot make a successful lifestyle change and think you can continue smoking. I am not gonna give you the ins and outs about smoking here…It is very well-known and available on the internet. Drinking more tha n one to two glasses per week will make you struggle to lose fat. Alcohol is a fat magnet! Especially for guys struggling to lose fat around the waist.

No serious fitness enthusiast or bodybuilder smoke, drink…it simply goes against everything that fitness stands for. Get rid of it!

Principle six: “Potent multivitamin every day.”

No matter how balanced you eat, you will struggle to supply the body with all the necessary vitamins, minerals and antioxidants it needs, especially when training hard.

It is rather crucial that you use a very potent multi vitamin daily, It helps the body to function optimally. And an optimal body makes it easier to get rid of fat, regenerate exercise damaged tissue and help keep the body healthy. It is proven over and over by serious athletes that a potent multi vitamin is very important.

Principle seven: “Cheating once a week with only one meal and do NOT stuff yourself even with the cheat meal.”

Once a week with one meal you can cheat…not more than that.

Plus after that cheat you must NOT feel stuffed. NEVER ever must you stuff yourself.

Eat what you want during this cheat but one or maybe two portions. After this cheat it must be a full 6 days before you are allowed to cheat again.

These are just core principles of eating correctly for a lifestyle change. There are many other smaller points of note…but don’t concern yourself from the start with too much info. The smaller your steps the better you can climb the ladder…the bigger the leaps the harder you fall.

Every week or so educate and learn more about healthy eating for fitness enthusiasts and climb the ladder step by step.

Just by following these basic principles you will have nearly and 80% success eating correctly. Make it simple and make it easy.