The Art, Science & Technique of Healthy Weight Loss

1. Eat 4-6 small meals day a day instead of the usual 2-3 large meals. Eating frequently will help regulate and boost your metabolism to burn more calories.

2. Consume whole foods that are high in fiber and low in sugar such as lean protein (lean beef, chicken, fish, and whey protein), fruits & vegetables (oranges, apples, strawberries, blueberries, broccoli, peppers, asparagus, carrots, nuts (almonds, cashews, & walnuts), and whole grains.

3. Eat low-glycemic carbohydrates such as vegetables, whole-wheat products and oatmeal instead of refined processed carbohydrates which usually come in a box or a bag.

4. Recommend consuming 25-35 grams of fiber per day. Since the average diet contains only 14 grams we could all use more fiber. Fiber will help satisfy hunger pangs as well as control insulin and blood sugar levels which tend to promote fat storage when they are elevated.

5. Eat some type of lean protein at each meal. Protein helps to satisfy hunger and provide the necessary building blocks to maintain lean body mass while losing body fat.

6. Consume adequate amounts of healthy fat foods such as olive oil, walnuts, almonds, Omega-3 fortified eggs or other Omega-3 products. Healthy fats are great antioxidants as well as help with brain function and many other essentials processes that take place in the body on a daily basis. Essential Fatty acids also help prevent certain diseases.

7. Recommend eating 5-10 servings of fruit and vegetables a day to meet your micronutrient needs. Vegetables also contain a good amount of fiber and help to control appetites and curb hunger.

8. Consume Green Tea or Water instead of calorie filled drinks such as soft drinks. Green Tea has many health benefits and should be drinking 1ml of non-caffeinated fluid for every calorie that you consume. This works out between (8-12) 8oz glasses of Green Tea or Water a day.

9. Balance your fat intake for the day. 1/3 should come from saturated fats, 1/3 from monounsaturated fats, and 1/3 from polyunsaturated fats.

10. If you want to start building habits then you need to follow a plan. Habits are formed by repetitively following a prescribed plan. Therefore map out your meals every day and follow them. If you follow your plan everyday for 2-3 weeks you will form habits that become part of your daily routine and you won’t even notice it. How do you think bad habits are formed? By repetitively doing something over and over again.

11. Include what I call “Superfoods” into your meal plan on a daily basis. These include but not entirely lean meat, salmon, low fat plain yogurt, tomatoes, spinach, mixed berries, whole oats, mixed nuts, olive oil, flax seeds(or flax meal), green tea, and various beans. These are just some of the “Superfoods” who should be incorporating into your daily meal plans.

12. Keep total fat intake under 30% for the day. This can be accomplished by not adding too many extra fats such as butter, sour cream, mayonnaise, etc. This doesn’t mean you have to completely eliminate these items, but do not eat them as a regular food item every day.

13. EXERCISE!! You can lose weight by just following a nutrition plan on its own but very few succeed at it and it takes much longer than when you eat properly as well as exercise. I am not talking about just getting on a treadmill for 30 minutes every other day. Though you can lose weight this way it is not the most efficient use of your time nor maximizing the ability to burn calories. The most effective way to lose fat is by strength training or some type of interval training utilizing strength training and cardiovascular exercises. A properly designed program can burn more overall calories in 20 minutes than 20 minutes on a treadmill. Also, the X factor in all this is that you will burn more calories per minute hours after you finished strength training because of the EPOC effect. Static exercise on a treadmill doesn’t produce this X factor.

14. Record what you eat and drink. You will be amazed at what you consume and not even realize you did it until you right it down and reflect back on the day. Keeping a food log is critical to your success because if modifications need to be made you need something to be able to evaluate and analyze. If changes aren’t happening like you had hoped the answer can usually be found in the food and or exercise journal.

15. Follow the 90% rule. If you can follow your plan 90% of the time then that is enough to have success with weight loss. If you find yourself breaking the rules more than 90% of the time then the chance of being successful with weight loss is not as likely. Your chances of failing increase significantly. Lose the all or nothing attitude and just take one day at a time. Reflect on your day before you go to bed at night and instead of getting down on yourself because you weren’t perfect just set goals to accomplish next day that would eliminate those errors.

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Metabolism – you’ve heard the word a million times but do you really know what metabolism is? Is it something you can touch? Is it located in a certain part of your body? Can it be operated on by medical doctors? And most importantly, can you speed it up?

Well, although you can’t touch or operate on the metabolism, the good news is that you can speed it up with the right exercise and nutrition strategy. This is good news because the average North American loses about 10% of their metabolic power each decade, starting at age 25.

Yet by focusing on the improving each of the 5 metabolic targets below, it’s entirely possible to prevent this metabolic slow-down. And this means a high metabolism for life!

Metabolic Target #1: The Muscle

A gain of 5 to 10 pounds of lean mass muscle will rev up your resting metabolism – the number of calories your body burns to maintain life – by roughly 100 calories – each and every day. Of course, you can build this lean mass through regular resistance exercise.

Interestingly, not only will this added lean mass speed up your resting metabolism, keeping it revving all day and night, the metabolism will get independent boosts from both performing the exercise and recovering from it.

Metabolic Target #2: The Afterburn

Through targeted and “energy system” training (otherwise known as interval exercise), you can increase the number of calories you burn during your workouts (about 300 to 600 calories per day depending on your body size and workout duration).

However, assuming you integrate these high intensity efforts frequently enough, you can also burn through another 100 to 200 calories per day – a post-exercise energy burst that eats up calories even when you’re sitting on your butt. This is called “the afterburn” and it’s one secret that those who build a fast metabolism have taken advantage of.

Metabolic Target #3: The Food

That’s right, even food can increase your metabolism. Undereat and the metabolism will drop. Eat the right amount and it’ll remain high while still allowing you to burn fat.

Further, prioritizing metabolically costly proteins, metabolism-boosting fats, antioxidant-rich fruits and veggies, and the right carbs at the right times (nutrient timing), can boost your metabolic rate by another 100 to 200 calories per day.

Metabolic Target #4: Exercise Variety

Whenever you perform a new activity, it’s likely that you’ll fumble around a bit before you get it right. In other words, we’re inefficient when performing new activities. In life, we’ve been taught to abhor inefficiency but in more metabolic
pursuits, inefficiency is a blessing.

When regularly changing your exercise program you’ll become a less efficient calorie burner. Much like a car in need of a tune up, your body will consume more fuel than it needs to operate, wasting away the excess as heat. Unlike with your car, however, when it comes to your metabolism, inefficiency is a good thing. It will coax your body into burning more calories – and more fat – for fuel.

Metabolic Target #5: Movement

Thanks to that desk job, family commitments, and great lineup of must-see TV, most of us move less at ages 30, 40, and beyond than we did during our teens and twenties. So the final secret to a lifetime of metabolic maximization is to move more.

In addition to the resistance exercise, the interval exercise, and the exercise variation discussed above, it’s important to “top off” your metabolism with some low intensity physical activity. Yoga, walking the dog, bike rides with the spouse – they all count. By accumulating at least 5 hours of physical activity each week, you can increase your calorie burning by about 300 to 600 calories per day.

If you’re young and haven’t seen the affects of father time, that’s excellent. But that doesn’t mean you wont! Make sure that you use a combination of smart eating, training and supplementation to keep that metabolism revving for life.

And if you’re older and your current lifestyle has negatively impacted your body, know that it’s not too late. Turn things around now and you can reverse the damage that’s been done.

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