I’ve saved the best for last the “diet”. You know folks I hate that word, I honestly do. Because diet implies restriction, it sends out warning signals to your brain that it’s going to be deprived! Have you ever noticed that as soon as you mention the word diet you automatically start craving some kind of sweets for me it’s cookies, lots and lots of cookies. That’s why I prefer to call this part of the regiment the nutritional program. It’s all about being educated, that’s all. I know I’ve been where you are. I have succumbed to the ‘cookie monster’ more times than I care to remember.
Do you know what the number one reason for binging is? You are not eating enough! That’s right you are not eating enough. Hunger is a very powerful physiological signal. If you’re starting your day off without breakfast or very little and then eating a small salad and tuna fish for lunch, you are setting yourself up for failure.
Why? Because by not eating enough through the day your blood sugar drops and you start craving sweets. Willpower alone will not be enough to help you with this as many of you already know from experience. And once you start eating the cookies or ice cream, in the evening it is very, very difficult to stop with eating a small portion. You then get a case of the ‘guilts’, promise yourself that you are going to do better tomorrow. Start off again without breakfast (probably because you’re still full from last nights binging) even less for lunch this time and we have started a vicious cycle.
We need to break this pattern by starting off with breakfast, balanced and nutrient dense. Eat every three to four hours, with a balance of protein, carbohydrates, and fats. However before we decide what and how much we are going to eat we must first figure out our calorie needs. There is a number of ways to estimate this or you could get your metabolism checked.
Once we have found out what your caloric needs are for the day we must reduce that total gradually, I recommend that you start by dropping your calories by only 200-300 calories a day for the first two weeks. For example if we found out that you needed 2,000 calories to maintain present weight we would decrease that to about 1,700 calories. Exercising in itself will cause your metabolism to rise. However, nothing is better than speeding up your metabolism and keeping it revved up than gaining lean muscle tissue. So with a properly designed resistance program, as you gain muscle your metabolism will rise and the more food you can eat without getting fat!
So it is important to have your body composition checked regularly, because you can stay at the same weight and still be losing fat, because you’re gaining muscle at the same time. Yeah! That is what we are shooting for, so if you desire to have that after dinner dessert (like I do!) you can, without the guilt trip!
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