What you are about to read may change your life. Up until now you have probably struggled keeping the extra fat off your body and have become frustrated with diets that usually end up causing your weight to yo-yo up and down.
You may have tried skipping meals, eating less, eliminating all carbohydrates, avoiding big meals late at night, maybe even sitting in a sauna until you were dehydrated, but none of these approaches work long term in keeping the fat off. The answer begins with the understanding of how your body utilizes its nutrients. There are 3 macro-nutrients: Protein, Carbohydrate and Fat.
Putting these three together in the right ratios is like knowing the combination to a lock. When the precise numbers are dialed in the lock opens. Miss even one number and the lock stays shut. The difference between “fat storage mode” and “fat burning mode” is dialing in the right numbers every three to four hours from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed.
The protein in your diet is especially important since it helps to build lean tissue, organs, enzymes and keeps our immune system strong and healthy. The carbohydrates help to fuel your energy needs and provide many useful nutrients, while fat keep our cells working right and allow us to stay in hormonal balance. Nutrition would be easy if you could eat any type of protein, carbohydrate or fatty food at any time but it just doesn’t work that way. Without knowing when to eat, what to eat, and how much to eat, you are at a real disadvantage when it comes to controlling your weight as well as maximizing your health.
I would like to share with you Ten Golden Rules that will help you understand how to keep off the extra fat while delivering to you great energy and better health.
Are Your Ready? Here We Go…
Rule #1
Keep your blood sugar levels at or near balance from the time you wake up to the time you go to sleep. This rule is listed as number 1 for a reason. Without applying this rule, hormonal balance, a lean body, cellular function, mental clarity and longevity becomes impossible.
The foods that we eat will dictate how your body’s blood sugar will react from meal to meal, day in and day out. Certain foods cause your blood sugar levels to race out of control triggering an over production of the hormone insulin. This will quickly lead to accelerated fat storage, dangerous levels of triglycerides or blood fats to be released in the arteries and a sharp drop in blood sugar. This sharp drop will drain you of energy, cause you to crave sweets, zap your mental clarity and wipe out any chance you have of burning body fat. In other words you are literally wrecking your health.
One week of eating with an emphasis on stabilizing blood sugar will blast your energy levels through the roof, not to mention make you feel better than you’ve ever felt before. Your body always strives to stay in balance. With your help the body can work a lot easier in reaching this state. With all systems operating a peak efficiency you achieve a new cellular harmony which starts to melt off extra fat, reduces stress hormone levels, improves your mood and leads to deeper sleep, causing a better overall repair and recovery from the previous day’s activities.
How do you stabilize blood sugar you may ask? Well, the answer is revealed in rule #2.
Rule #2
Blood sugar is balanced when the body receives the right amount and type of carbohydrates, proteins and fats. The ratios should be set at 50% slow releasing, low glycemic carbohydrates, 25% low fat, high quality proteins and 25% essential and nutritious fats.
Be careful here. It’s easy to eat the wrong type of carbohydrate, protein and fats and be nowhere near balance. It’s also easy to over-eat too much at one sitting and force the body back into a fat storage mode. Portion sizes are always dictated by the lean body weight of each individual and their activity level. Exercise more and you must eat more. Exercise less and you must eat less at each sitting. Learning the exact amounts will be covered a little bit later. For now, let’s focus on each of the macro-nutrients as a starting point. Let’s begin with carbohydrates, since 1/2 of all your calories should come from carbohydrates.
In this category you have three choices: Low glycemic, medium glycemic and high glycemic carbohydrates. Low glycemic carbohydrates enter the blood stream very slowly and therefore do not throw blood sugar levels out of balance. Because of this at least half of all the carbohydrates you consume should be low glycemic. The glycemic index is a rating of all carbohydrate foods and each food is given a score between 0-100. Surprisingly enough, a lot of foods that are considered diet foods are the highest on the scale. For instance, rice cakes, potatoes, white sticky rice, table sugar and most breads are at the top.
The lowest choices are most vegetables, fruits, beans and certain pastas. Making a conscience effort to eat low glycemic carbohydrates at each meal will make a significant difference in your quest to achieve optimum health. The best way to learn the details about various carbohydrates is to study the glycemic index list until you become familiar with the foods you should include. Your next step is to eat the right amount of protein with each meal. Not including protein with your meal will deprive your brain, liver, muscles and all cells of the vary thing they are made of. If your body needs 100 grams of protein a day and you only feed it 50 grams, it won’t be long before your immune system, muscles and entire body will feel the effects.
This is especially important if you are exercising regularly and have greater needs for protein due to the body’s repair and regeneration of muscle tissue. The quickest way for an athlete to reach a state of over-training is by not getting enough protein. Lean choices of protein include: egg whites, fish, turkey and chicken breast just to name a few. Higher fat proteins include: bacon, sausage, hot dogs, pork, whole milk and hamburgers. Remember our goal of balanced blood sugar. The right choices in the protein category make a significant difference in keeping our immune system strong and maximizing our lean muscle mass throughout our lives.
Fats are next and deserve close attention. Many people think that fats should be avoided completely, but if you believe that myth you will never reach a state of hormonal balance. For one thing, our hormones are made from fats and need certain types of fats to function properly. The body’s first line of defense depends on the quality of fats in our diet. Leave out the essential fats and you leave yourself vulnerable for viruses and disease. By incorporating the essential oils, also referred to as Omega-3 and Omega-6 fats, along with monounsaturated fat (also called Omega-9) you will give your body an amazing boost in several areas vital to maintaining your health. First off, these fats help improve blood sugar levels, improve metabolic function, deliver key vitamins to their proper spots as well as helping the body with the process of storing its nutrients in the cell. Incidentally, many of the attention deficient disorders, attitude problems and general moods can be greatly improved by adding the right amounts of essential fats into the mix.
There is currently an epidemic in essential oil deficiency in the world today due to the processing and refining done to most foods. We are challenged to get our good fats from fish, flax seeds or through certain supplements to assure maximum benefit. What most people don’t know is that not only are we deficient in what we need but we over consume the fats we should stay away from. Trans fat and hydrogenated oils do more damage to our health than just about any other single substance. Fats that have gone through a heating process change their shape and no longer nourish the cell. Instead, they damage the cell severely leading to many common diseases. Eliminating trans fats from your diet will elevate your health several levels overnight. Fried foods, packaged cookies, cakes and chips are all loaded with these dangerous fats and should be avoided. This is one area you would be best not to ignore. It could cost you everything in the long run.
Look for Golden Weight Loss Rules 3-5 in Part 2 of this 3 part series.
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