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Quality in, quality out
Food is everything! Eighty percent of all cosmetic goals are determined by eating high quality, clean food (low in fat and sugars). Quality in, quality out! This is the secret to successful weight loss. Food determines how you’ll look, not the exercise choices you make.
The human body is a complex organism with the ability to heal itself when provided with the proper nutrients. Just as a fine tuned engine requires specific fuels
to function properly, so does your body. If the fuel is a poor grade, the body works poorly. High sugar and high fat foods such as muffins, cookies and candies spike insulin levels causing the body to store fat. Fatty proteins such as bacon or ribs raise your caloric intake to prevent weight loss.
Nutrients are involved in all the body processes, from combating infection and repairing tissue, to everyday tasks. Good nutrition is the foundation of good health. Calories should be well balanced with healthy carbohydrates and protein (see page 14). Without good nutrition the body’s normal functions become impaired and cause dysfunction.
The ‘weight loss’ formula
There’s no secret formula or magic pill. Surprisingly, weight loss is more a mental task than a physical task. The formula is very simple: discipline, motivation and organization. In the program we’ve developed, success is achieved by eating 5 to 6 small meals a day. The body when fed works to digest the food and speeds up your metabolism. Not eating starves the body, slows the metabolism and prevents the body from burning fat.
Not all calories are created equally
The type of calorie is crucial to your success. Food makes you look a certain way. Some foods we don’t recommend may be considered healthy but cosmetically they don’t achieve the desired look most people strive for.
Eat food low in fat and low in sugar. Limit refined carbohydrates bread and pasta; as well as foods high in simple sugars granola bars or candy bars, including your fruit intake. Limiting sugars whether from baked goods or fruit nature’s candy, is extremely important. Balancing your complex carbohydrates and protein, while limiting the fat, is the formula to achieving the body that you dream about.
Simple success tools
People are bombarded with confusing information. Beauty, fitness and bodybuilding magazines portray the ‘perfect’ physique. How do we go about achieving it?
1. Journaling: Record everything you consume daily. It’s easy to forget those additional nibbles that sneak into your tummy during the day. Revealing this through your daily journal is an eye opener. Journaling also helps to expose those triggers that make us overeat and the moods that set us up for failure.
2. Regular weigh-ins: The scale is a critical tool, not a measurement of success. Just as an accountant uses a calculator, or a mechanic a wrench, the scale allows you to make caloric changes for continued loss. Your weight must drop to lower your body fat percentage. If you don’t weigh yourself, it’s difficult to know whether you’re eating too little or too much.
| fact: People fail on diets due to hunger. When you’re full you won’t want to eat another bite. 1 gram of carbohydrates and protein is equivalent to 4 calories but 1 gram of fat doubles to 9 calories per gram. When consuming less fat, the volume of food increases reducing your hunger. The more quality food you eat, the healthier, stronger and leaner you become. |
fact: You’ll lose more weight plus look better eating starches such as rice or potato than eating bread. Starches aren’t the problem, it’s the fats we add that increase our body fat levels. Bodybuilders who eat 10lbs of potatoes a day can still drop their weight to extreme low percentages. Because of the volume a bodybuilder must eat, most begin with higher levels of starch to lower the food volume.
As your metabolism speeds up, you get hungrier faster that’s when higher volume foods such as fibrous vegetables are needed. For example: eating 80 calories of corn equals 1/2 cup of vegetables while 80 calories of broccoli is 2/3lb of vegetables, which will definitely satisfy your hunger. |
fact: Although hard to believe by increasing quality food into your daily diet, you’ll lose weight. The increase in calories must be gradual. When your body is satisfied, you’re less likely to eat simple carbohydrates.
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What to eat?
Complex carbohydrates
Why? To supply the body with the energy it needs to function.
How much? 50% of your calories should come from complex carbohydrates.
Types: Vegetables: Starchy vegetables: potato, yam, corn; Fibrous vegetables: broccoli, carrots, salad; high fibre whole grain breads and tortillas (limit 1 serving per day); beans or lentils; rice: brown, wild, basmati or jasmine; low fat, low sugar cereals: oatmeal, cream of wheat, Shredded Wheat; Fruit (limit of 100 calories per day).
Lean, low fat proteins
Why? Essential for muscle repair; provides energy.
How much? 50% of your calories should come from lean, low fat proteins.
Types: Lean chicken, turkey breast; egg whites; lean fish: sole, tuna, halibut; lean cuts of beef, bison, eye of round; and whey protein powder. Eat small quantities of no fat yogourt, cottage cheese and skim milk.
What to Avoid
Simple carbohydrates
Why? Spikes insulin levels causing the body to store fat.
What are they? Simple sugars: fructose (fruit sugars); sucrose (table sugar); lactose (milk sugars).
Limit
Most dairy products
But do eat small quantities of no fat yogourt, cottage cheese and skim milk. 50% of your total protein calories contain 15-20 % hidden fats.
100’s of pounds lost
One of our proudest success stories: a dear friend had a dream of standing on a body-building stage. He trained diligently in the gym but couldn’t lose weight and climbed to over 385 lbs. But he never let his dream die. With a change in food choices, discipline and dedication to hard work in seven months he lost the 165 lbs necessary to live his dream.
Three months after giving birth, this 5’6” new mom decided that competing would motivate her to lose her pregnancy weight. Her scale had inched its way to 195 lbs. She couldn’t drop the weight no matter how hard she worked out. Twenty weeks after setting her goal to change her eating habits, she stood on stage a svelte 127 lbs, winning the heavyweight female bodybuilding category.
Not just for looks
Last year the daughter of a client sent us a heartwarming email thanking us for helping her Dad live longer while doing it with quality. Changing to a healthy eating lifestyle helped her Dad drop the necessary weight to make him stronger to fight his disease longer.
Life is rewarding when we set personal goals and strive for them. Believe in yourself. Take each day one step at a time. Set goals along the way. Eating to lose weight is the key to creating your perfect body! H&L
For a ‘Sample Eating Plan’ created by National Competitors Brian and Donna Logue click here. Brian and Donna are founders of Elite Muscle and Fitness, 780-452-2605 www.bodyby24-7.com the Logues also head the Alberta Bodybuilding Association. |
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