The title is a little misleading.  Not so much that I feel bad about it but enough to make me comment on it.  It isn’t really a diet but a lifestyle plan that I am going to show you.  I am going to show you a system which not only allows you to eat lots of food but in fact requires that you do.  Crazy?  Carry on reading and find out exactly what I mean.

Paradigm

Paradigm is a word thrown around a lot in corporate boardrooms.  I am using it in it’s correct way, for describing a set of beliefs or assumptions in which further knowledge is developed.  Big words, what do I mean?  The following points are the building blocks for constructing the diet and lifestyle.  Enough chat, onto the details, in no particular order:

  1. Your body is an engine and calories are the fuel
  2. Low Glycemic Index (G.I.) Carbs are necessary to fuel your body
  3. Calories in < Calories out will inevitably lead to weight loss
  4. Your body is smart and adaptable
  5. Crash courses in weight loss are unhealthy and doomed to failure

Now we’ve got the ideas behind the diet, I will develop these thoughts into something useful.  If you don’t want to read about macro nutrient groups, skip down a few paragraphs.

What We Eat

Your body needs ample supplies of the 3 MACRO nutrient groups, Protein, Carbohydrates and Fat.  I balance these with the following proportion by calorie content:

  • Protein 30 ± 5 %
  • Carbohydrates 40 ± 5 %
  • Fat 25 ± 5 %  (I wouldn’t ever go above 30% fat content but never go below 20%)

Fat is the only macro group where I am specific.  If you want to lose weight, you cannot be eating lots of fat.  The rest are variable as suits you but I would try and stick within the 5% guidelines as best as possible.

Protien

Protein is pretty simple.  Your body needs it to help repair muscle tissue.  You will see later that you will be working out a bit so this is quite important.  I get my protein mainly from whey shakes but fish and chicken are excellent, low fat sources of protein.  Variety is the spice of life so feel free to mix it up.  Red meat is very high in protein and creatine but is also high in saturated fats.  It shouldn’t be your main source of protein.

A word on shakes, expensive American brands are not necessarily a good idea.  Not only are they over priced, they are lower in protein than some of the better brands and full of sweeteners which are bad for you.  Buyer beware.

Carbohydrates

There is a lot of bad press about carbs.  This is nonsense.  They are the best source of fuel for the engine that we call our body.  This isn’t a license to go out and eat cake mind you!  You need to be selective about the carbs you put in your body.  Brown rice, brown pasta, whole-meal bread, oats, the list goes on.  These have a low glycemic index and burn slower throughout the day.  Fruit and vegetables are an excellent source of good carbohydrates as well as dietary fiber which is also important but not specifically a macro-nutrient group.

For me, oats are the perfect carbohydrate source.  They have an ultra-low G.I. and are available in many products or even as a fine powder from http://www.myprotein.com which can be deposited straight into a protein shake.

Refined products should be avoided.  A general rule is the sweeter it is the worse it is for you.  Cane sugar is bad.  No more sugar in your tea or coffee.  The big exception to this is if you are about to work out.  There is nothing wrong with a sweet glucose type drink before hitting the gym since the sugar rush will help give you energy throughout the session.

Fats

What I have said about a 30% fat diet may sound bizarre but it isn’t really.  Organs such as your brain and eyes are made out of essential fatty acids (amongst other things).  The important thing is the type of fats you take in.  My “acid test” is wether the fat is liquid at room temperature.  If it is, then feel free to use it.  I have heard of people who take shots of olive oil to keep up their fat intake.  If it is solid, you should avoid it.  It’s going to sit solidly in your veins and arteries.  No-one wants that, do they?

Things like olive oil, nut oil and vegetable oil are fine.  Use them liberally in your cooking, remembering the advised maximum of 30% of course.  Animal fats are generally bad however.  Dietary Omega 3 and fish oil capsules are a good choice if you are out and about or don’t fancy shooting olive oil.  A big jar of these is affordable from most health food stores or supermarkets.  Feel free to go over the 1 a day limit.  I’ve often taken 4 or 6 in a day before with no ill effects.  Don’t go nuts and try and sue me though.  You make the decision, I only speak from my own experience.

The Diet It’s Self

Finally, the good stuff.  Now I have established some theory I am going to talk about how we can apply it.  We are going to create a diet where you eat 6 meals a day.  Each meal is small, no more than 500 calories and is built as closely as possible around the macro nutrient splits described above (40:30:30 C:P:F).  The reason behind this is based on the philosophy that your body is an engine, or perhaps more aptly a fire.  If you want your fire to burn all night you don’t put all the fuel on at 6pm.

We want your body to be expecting to be fed regularly and getting fed when it expects it.  This is very important.  You can perhaps afford to miss one of your six meals a day but you shouldn’t miss any more and you shouldn’t try to put more calories into the other meals to make up for it.  You should never be full but you should never be hungry either.  Bloating is bad, try to avoid it.  If you feel bloated try scaling down the calorie content of each meal.  If you find yourself fighting a gag reflex you’re eating too much too.  Scale back already!

If your body is being constantly fueled,  it will adapt to this and burn off more calories over the course of the day.  If you eat irregularly, your body will desperately try and store all the calories it can when you do eat.  The best way the body stores calories is in fat.  We don’t want that.  A nice side effect is the feeling of constantly being energized.  The general rule is calories in < calories out.  Here we are trying to increase the calories out, or the calories your body burns during the day.

Alcohol

Alcohol is a definite no as far as I’m concerned but live and let live.  I think if you try not drinking you will find the results much better in the long run.  For one thing you won’t have to battle with endless hangovers, meaning you will be spritely for your first meal of the day, early in the morning.  You also won’t be as tempted by the huge 1 million calorie, all of which is artery clogging saturated fat, kebab either.

I noticed that I actually had more fun partying when I wasn’t drunk too.  Win win.

Gym Work

You didn’t think you’d get out of this did you?  Tough!  No pain no gain!  Joking aside, gym work is important to losing weight and getting fit.  With your newly buzzed self from the extra calories you’re eating and your body’s higher metabolic  rate you will probably be itching to do something active.  You don’t have to go to the gym but some kind of cardiovascular work is important, as well as some resistance training.  The advantage of a gym is that you can accurately time yourself and have a guide to the calories you are burning.  Remember that this is just on top of your natural calorie burning rate.

Cardiovascular work can be cycling, running, rowing, whatever you fancy.  I row and cycle at the moment as I have a broken leg at the moment and can’t run.  Don’t kill yourself but break a sweat.  Do this as often as you can, no less than 4 times a week.  When you are feeling fitter you can introduce interval training.  This is more effective for general fitness and weight loss but requires some base fitness in the first place.  A good guide if you are running on the road is lamp posts.  Run fast to the first one, jog slowly to the next one, run to the next one and repeat for a mile or two.  The important thing here is to get creative.  You should enjoy what you are doing.  If not, you probably need to ask yourself if you really want to lose the weight.  If not, that’s unfortunate but there is nothing I can do about it.  If you are really stuck for ideas, try vigorous sex for 30 minutes 5 times a week and see where you end up.

Resistance work doesn’t necessarily mean benching 150kg or going on a ‘roid rage.  The best exercises are push ups and pull ups.  Do them until you scream, rest and then do some more!  Compound lifts, or lifts which use multiple muscles are a more efficient use of your time too.  For the legs, squats and dead-lifts are the meat and drink of any weight session.  Learn how to do them and do them well.  Don’t injure yourself though!

Gorging and Fasting

Because your body is expecting 3000 odd calories a day, if you suddenly do a juice fast then your body’s rest metabolic rate won’t be expecting it and will probably burn off a fair few calories anyway.  The critical point is not to do it too often otherwise you will get in the situation where your body is clinging onto the calories you do give it.  If you are eating as much as this diet suggests then you don’t want that.

Gorging is something you may want to consider.  Every now and then, starting say once a week and progressing to once every 2 weeks and once a month later, let loose!  Have something that you really wanted.  Don’t go too crazy, but don’t feel guilty about it either.  It is psychological.  If you think that you’ll never be able to have cake again but you really like cake the thought of dieting for months and months will seem pretty bad.  If you think “I can get to the end of this week and then I can have a nice slice of cake” the idea is more enticing.  I think that once you get on the healthy stuff, your desire for cake and other things is likely to die down quite quickly though.  There is nothing wrong with treating yourself every now and again, but don’t do it too often.

Closing Words

The trick to any diet and fitness regime is to stick at it. This diet will not have you melting away to nothing in weeks but it will promote a healthy lifestyle if you take the advice about macro-nutrients and apply it to the dieting structure and do some kind of exercise regularly.  There is no silver bullet.  Anyone who tries to tell you there is is lying to try and get your money.  I’m providing this for free so I have no other motive, just the condensed information of almost 2 years reading health and fitness forums, my own experience and some common sense.  If you like what I have read, you could always visit some of the sponsors links dotted around the website though.  They pay me, not the hosts.

I have written an appendix which details an example of a single day of the diet.  This is the kind of thing I would eat but feel free to adapt it to suit your own tastes.  Remember:  Small portions, regular meals, no refined food and no solid (at room temperature) fats and you should be fine

Appendix: One Day’s Menu

Meal 1 (7:00): Oat clusters or similar breakfast serial with semi-skimmed milk

Meal 2 (10:00): Oat flapjack with raisins, 2 Omega 3 caps

Meal 3 (13:00): Chicken salad sandwich on brown bread with low fat mayonnaise

Meal 4 (16:00): Oat flapjack with cherry and coconut, 2 Omega 3 caps

Gym workout (17:30) 1 hour 3o minutes approx

Meal 5 (19:00) Protein and oat shake, 2 Omega 3 caps

Meal 6 (22:00) Salmon steak, stir-fried veg and brown rice

Bed (23:30 ish)

That looks pretty good.  It’s just gone 22:00 and I need to eat… peace out guys!


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