The All-Day Fat-Burning Diet: The 5-Day Food-Cycling Formula That Resets Your Metabolism To Lose Up to 5 Pounds a Week (18 page)

•
Fit fats:
½ shot glass (1½ tablespoons) for oils and butter (easier to measure/eyeball since these are generally poured); for nuts and seeds, 1 thumb-size serving for women, 2 thumb-size servings for men

Each element needs not be present at each meal, but do your best to keep them all in mind throughout the day. For instance, normally a green juice would consist of only leafy greens and other vegetables. However, you can power it up with a shot of flax oil or fish oil. Adding in these fats will not only stabilize your blood sugar but also improve your absorption of the fat-soluble vitamins found in the greens. With that said, I would strongly recommend that each time you eat (other than the odd apple here and there), you include protein and fiber in your meal. Doing so will prevent your blood sugar from rising and keep you full longer, both of which will help you lose fat instead of storing it.

For dinner, you might have a fillet of salmon (protein) cooked in butter (oil and fats) with a side of steamed greens (fibrous vegetables) and a small amount of quinoa (starchy carbs). Nuts and seeds would not be present in this meal—again, no big deal. You can always have a few almonds throughout the day. For solid meals (not smoothies or juices), these guidelines should yield a plate that is:

•
One-half fibrous veggies

•
One-quarter protein

•
One-quarter starchy carbs (if applicable on that day) and oils and fats

Remember to listen to your body throughout the day so that you eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re 80 percent full.

What about Liquid Meals (Smoothies)?

When making a smoothie, these serving sizes still apply to the ingredients you put into your blender. For instance, one smoothie (that makes 2 to 3 servings) might include:

•
2 hand bowls of fibrous veggies ⃗ spinach, Swiss chard, etc.

•
1 palm-size portion of clean protein ⃗ a combination of almond butter, hemp seeds, and protein powder

•
½ to 1 handful of starchy carbs/fruit ⃗ 1 cup of berries

•
½ shot of fit fats ⃗ 1½ tablespoons flax oil or coconut oil

What about Green Juices?

If you’ve followed my work, including my previous
New York Times
best-selling book
The All-Day Energy Diet
, you know that I’m a huge proponent of adding more fresh-pressed green juices into your diet. In
my
eyes, they are the magic bullet for achieving incredible energy and health. I’m not talking about the bottled, sugared-up “green” juices that you find at Starbucks or your local grocery store. I’m referring to fresh vegetable-based juices that you make from scratch at home.

When you make these, each version will have several handfuls of fibrous veggies but without their fiber, since juicing extracts the juice and discards the fiber. Thus, if you have a green juice, remember that all you are really getting is a ton of vital nutrients from fibrous veggies—no fiber, no clean protein, no starchy carbs, and no fit fats.

Starting your day with a green juice is great, but I would also suggest following your juice with something a little more substantial and balanced to keep you going longer. For instance, I’ll often start my day with a green juice (when I’m not fasting or too lazy to make one) or drink a liter of water with my Energy Greens, and then about 30 to 60 minutes later I’ll make some eggs or a protein shake or enjoy a protein-heavy cereal (like the “
No Oat–Meal
”).

Regular-Cal Exercise Guidelines

Do a full-body workout—bodyweight, eccentric, or strength. (Don’t worry, this will all be explained in the next chapter.)

DAY 5: THE LOW-CALORIE DAY

You can consider this final 24 hours of your 5-day cycle a wind-down session. It’s not as intense as a 1-Day Fast, but it is a gentle way for you to eat a little less than you did the day before. You accomplish this by simply eating about 25 percent less than you normally would.

Low-Cal Food Guidelines

As usual, I’m not recommending that you count calories. Just reduce your portion sizes a little. The easiest way to hit the mark is to use the Serving Size Simplifier that I just mentioned. For example, just take a handful of starchy carbs but remove about one-quarter of that handful.

What you’ll find in the meal plan for this program is that your
Low-
Cal Days will tend to be filled with more raw foods and some lean proteins. The reason is that these foods are naturally lower in calories yet loaded with greater nutrients. You’ll be able to eat as usual and still be under your regular caloric intake. That, in turn, will help your body shed some extra pounds.

You can also try any of the following:

•
Use a slightly smaller plate, bowl, or cup than you normally would.

•
Men: Use portion sizes based on a woman’s hand size.

•
Women: Use portion sizes based on a young teenager’s hand size.

As with your Regular-Calorie Days and 1-Day Feasts, you want to focus on eating a well-balanced diet; don’t restrict or eat an excessive amount of protein or fat. Simply follow the Serving Size Simplifier guidelines, take away about one-quarter from each serving, and that’s it. Seriously, that’s it!

Low-Cal Exercise Guidelines

I’m sure you’ll be delighted to hear this: Today is a day off. Use this day to let your body relax, recover, and bounce back. If you feel compelled to exercise, then just do some yoga or stretching, go for a walk, or do some very light cardio for no more than 15 to 20 minutes. Remember, a day off does not mean you should do nothing but sit on the couch. You still want to move throughout the day.

You should look forward to your days off because they are when your body has a chance to regenerate. Most people who love to exercise overdo it, thinking that more is better, but that belief leads to little more than overtraining injuries and stagnant results. Think about it this way: Your body repairs itself and grows during sleep. Would you ever deprive yourself of sleep? Not willingly. So think about your days off as being as necessary as sleep for your body. Don’t rob it of the important downtime it needs to bounce back stronger. After all, tomorrow you’ll start again.

Here’s a quick overview of how the 5-Day Food-Cycling Formula will work over the next 21 days. And remember, there are
two
Low-
Carb
Days to begin the plan so that we prime your body to rely more on fat than carbohydrates as its primary fuel source. I want you to get off to a great start!

CHAPTER
6

STEP 4: EXERCISE USING THE “LIFT METHOD” TO BURN FAT 24/7

T
his is likely the chapter you’ve been dreading the most. Ironically, it’s my favorite.

I never fail to be surprised by how much misunderstanding and trepidation surround working out. People who have not yet committed to a regular exercise routine have the general perception that you have to kill yourself to get in shape. Nothing could be further from the truth. In the 1970s, Jane Fonda popularized the phrase “No pain, no gain,” and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s where all these misconceptions started. What’s sad is that this perspective keeps so many away from regular exercise; given how daunting it all seems, is it any surprise that people turn to diets instead? That’s unfortunate, because diets alone are quite useless. That may sound like an overstatement, but it’s not. We’ll explore why shortly.

The truth is that regular exercise is essential to maintaining a trim and healthy physique. There is no way around it. However, spending
hours
on end running on a treadmill, doing situps, or bench-pressing extraordinarily heavy weights doesn’t have to be part of the equation. In fact, it
never
should be. Make no mistake, exercise does take dedicated work on your part, but it doesn’t require you to sacrifice all of your time and energy.

My clients are always stunned at just how little they have to exercise to achieve real and lasting results. That’s the pleasant surprise I want you to experience. In this chapter, we’re going to explore my unique LIFT method of exercise, which not only cuts down on the amount of time you spend exercising, but also guarantees substantial weight loss when performed in accordance with the eating and resting guidelines I’ve outlined in this program. In fact, it’s my hope that you find yourself enjoying the routines I’ve created for you. Over the next 3 weeks, you’ll find that good exercise doesn’t drain you but, in fact, energizes you and gives you the charge you need to power through your days. What’s more, you’ll learn how simply staying active throughout the day through micromovements goes a long way toward keeping you slim. Sound too good to be true? It really isn’t.

WHY DIETS DON’T WORK AND EXERCISE DOES

I bet you’ve dieted before. If you haven’t, someone close to you has. Either way, you’re equipped to answer two questions for me: First, was it a pleasurable experience? Second, did it work?

The answer is likely no on both counts, right? I can’t think of anyone I know who has honestly enjoyed dieting. It’s always an ordeal people moan about, and all I can do is shake my head. What’s more, even if they are successful in losing a few pounds, a few months later they find themselves right back where they started: chubby or overweight, complaining about how stressed and miserable they are, and trying to convince everyone—especially themselves—that they’re going to start a new diet soon. I must say, it’s tiring just thinking about it.

According to a January 2015 story in
U. S. News and World Report,
nearly two-thirds of dieters regain the weight they’ve lost on a diet
within
the first year.
¹
That’s a lot of people, especially when you consider that roughly 45 million Americans will try a new diet every year, according to figures from Boston Medical Center. That’s a lot of time and energy being wasted, but the diet industry just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Those stats from BMC also reveal another surprising figure: Those 45 million people will collectively spend $33 billion each year on dieting methods.
²

I am a part of that industry, but I’m positive my clients are in that small minority of dieters who drop their excess weight and keep it off. I’m telling you these statistics, though, because I don’t want to mislead you, and I want you to know that I won’t push any miracle pills or programs your way. I want to tell you the truth. That begins with telling you why dieting is pointless. Aside from the misery of it all, your body simply isn’t programmed to respond to a diet in the way you’ve been told it will. Let me explain.

Your body is always using energy to perform all manner of external and internal functions, even when you’re sleeping. This rate of energy use is called your
basal metabolic rate
. You gain energy from the food you eat in the form of calories, and this keeps your metabolic rate chugging along. If you eat more than you burn, your fat storage increases. Thus, the only way to make sure you’re expending more energy than you’re ingesting and storing is to increase your basal metabolic rate.

The only way to increase your basal metabolic rate is to increase your lean muscle, and the only way to increase your lean muscle is to exercise. It’s really that simple.