Transcript

Weight loss

Weight loss is simpler than you may think. But keep in mind that weight loss is 60-70% diet. Exercise is important for managing your weight loss, so pick an activity you like at least three to four times a week.

But keep in mind that’s it is very difficult to burn off a diet high in calories. Imagine eating 300 extra calories a day – this is the caloric equivalent of less than a protein smoothie. You’d have to run for an hour to burn this off. You can see where I’m going with this. Most people eat way more calories than this when going over their daily calorie consumption. It’s simply not possible to burn off all the extra food you eat with exercise. You have to focus on your diet to lose weight.

To lose weight, many need to completely eliminate gluten because many are sensitive to gluten. Gluten is the binding protein found in wheat and a few other grains like barley, rye, and oats. You can read details about this problem on my blog Gluten Sensitivity Affects 1 in 3. However, even if you’re not sensitive, the wheat that is grown today is bred to contain far more gluten than the wheat fifty years ago. As a result, most people that eat gluten experience inflammation yet have no symptoms. This inflammation prevents you from absorbing all the nutrients in your food, causing you to eat more to obtain the nutrients you need. So, in this indirect way cutting carbs reduces weight. Some may need to cut out dairy due to sensitivities as well. Gluten and dairy are the most common food sensitivities.

To make thing a little simpler to lose weight, I’ve come up with six amazingly effective quick start rules because they help reverse the hormonal imbalances that cause you to be hungry and powerfully reduce cravings. For almost everyone, if you only follow the following Quick Start Rules you will lose weight!

Quick Start Rule 1:

Stay away from empty carbohydrates. This is the most important rule!

Avoid white carbohydrates (rice, flour, pasta, potatoes), sodas, fruit, and fruit juices. Basically, avoid any fruit, vegetable or grain no longer in its whole food form. This means no sugar. No white flour – whole grain only. You have to cut out all foods that increase your blood sugar. Blood sugar causes the release of insulin, which is the hormone that instructs your body to store fat. This hormone must be controlled with diet. So, you must cut out sugar, most or all fruit as fruit contains a LOT of sugar, and refined grains, which all turn into sugar in your body the same as if you ate sugar. Fruit is healthy, but should be avoided until you’ve hit your goal weight.

Quick Start Rule 2:

Limit Grains and Starches to One Serving a Day.

This means one bowl of whole grain cereal, whole wheat toast, brown rice, oats, sweet or colored potato, or sandwich a day. Try to replace rice, pasta, and potatoes with vegetables or beans whenever possible. While grains do contain nutrients, they cause a spike in your blood sugar – even whole grains. Wheat raises your blood sugar even more than sugar!! Did you know that? All of these above things have one thing in common. They were foods that were never, or rarely, available to cavemen. These foods don’t agree with our bodies because our bodies never evolved to handle them, which is why they contribute to obesity.

Quick Start Rule 3:

Eliminate Trans Fats.

Eliminating trans fats goes a long way to eliminating processed foods and fast foods – which contain flour, sugar, and MSG – all contributors to weight gain. Look for these ingredients on the label: partially hydrogenated oil, hydrogenated oil, shortening and interesterified fats. These act like plastic in your body, taking the place of healthy fats in your cells and brain, interfering with your body’s metabolism.

Quick Start Rule 4:

Eat Lean Protein at Every Meal.

Make sure to include a protein source for your first meal of the day. Animal Protein is preferred, but you can eat nuts or other protein sources. I’m not a huge fan of protein shakes, only because most are made of protein isolates, which should be avoided and eating real protein, like a chicken breast, is far superior nutritionally to a protein shake.

Eating protein for your first meal of the day kicks your body into fat burning mode for the rest of the day. Protein slows down the digestion of sugars and burns calories during digestion. It also keeps you satisfied much longer, leading to less hunger and cravings later in the day. Sugar and carb cravings are a sign that you’re not getting enough protein.

Our bodies require protein to continuously renew and replenish our cells, stabilize our blood sugar, and give us energy. Our bodies are literally made out of the amino acids that make up protein in our food. Many foods contain protein, but the richest sources include animal products like meat, dairy, eggs and fish, as well as plant sources like beans, nuts and seeds. When choosing animal protein sources, be conscious of the way the animal was raised and what it ate. Grass-fed beef and free-range chicken are healthier and more ethically sound choices than feedlot meats found in most restaurants and fast food.

Granted, everyone has different needs for protein. Eating animal protein at every meal may not be healthy or preferred for some people. Use these simple rules as a guide.

Quick Start Rule 5:

Eat 5 Servings of Vegetables a Day. Limit Fruit.

Make this convenient by having veggies around the house and for snacks you take to work. Try not to eat more than one serving of fruit a day, as fruit contains a lot of sugar. Eat low sugar fruits like berries, grapefruit and melons.

Quick Start Rule 6:

Don’t Eat Anything at Least 3 Hours Before You Go to Sleep.

Anything you eat before bedtime increases your insulin levels (the hormone that instructs your body to store fat) more than it normally would. No matter what you eat, it may be stored as fat.

Easy! These 6 Quick Start Rules alone will help reverse most of the hormonal imbalances causing you to only burn your food (carbs) for energy and get your body into fat burning mode. Time to flip the fat switch and burn that fat!

Fats

Depending upon your metabolism, you need to increase or decrease your intake of fat. People with fat metabolism need to increase fats since they use this fuel source very efficiently. People that have a slow metabolism, which is evidenced by weight gain, fatigue, and the inability to lose weight easily, tend to not burn fat for energy very efficiently. So, you need to limit your fats to a degree. This does NOT mean going fat free. This means eating leaner types of meats, avoiding using too much oil and butter when cooking, and perhaps reducing dairy, but not using fat-free or reduced fat dairy, which is very unhealthy due to the processing the milk must undergo to make in reduced in fat.  Eat full fat diary, but just reduce it.

There is a ton of info on myersdetox.com™ that gives you all kinds of information and tips on how to lose weight. Dig in! If you’re having trouble losing weight with just diet and exercise alone, it’s time to take it to the next level – see my blog Trouble Losing Weight? Balance your Body’s Biochemistry. This will clue you into the other things you need to be looking at if you have a really hard time losing weight or have hit a plateau.

Sugar

I must warn you: All sugar is toxic to the human body. It promotes and grows cancer, not to mention it does at least 75 horrible things to your body, including causing diabetes and cardio vascular disease. A detriment to your gut flora, sugar has a direct damaging effect on your immune system. It actually blocks vitamin C absorption! On top of that, to process sugar, your body has to use up vitamin and mineral stores at an alarming rate. For example, one molecule of sugar requires 56 molecules of magnesium. This is why we have an epidemic of magnesium deficiency in our society. Americans consume 22 teaspoons of sugar a day on average. Fifty percent of these are consumed in beverages! So, cut this source out and you’re half way there!

All sweeteners, including natural sweeteners like agave, brown rice syrup, honey, maple syrup, etc are still sugar in your body even though some of these sweeteners have a lower glycemic index and a smaller effect on your blood sugar than regular sugar. And forget high fructose corn syrup. This stuff is deadly. It’s contaminated with mercury and made with genetically modified corn. You should aim to eventually eliminate it from your diet altogether.

Remember, excess sugar in any form, including fruit, can have negative implications. First, it causes a sudden jump in blog sugar, which signals the body to release the fat storage hormone insulin. In this way, excess sugar can contribute to fat accumulation and also inhibit your ability to burn stored body fat. If this happens repeatedly over time, the body can become insulin resistant, leading to type 2 diabetes.

I highly recommend doing a sugar detox like the 21 day sugar detox on balancedbites.com. But look for my sugar detox program coming soon! I’m in the process of writing and developing it!

Artificial Sweeteners

These include Equal, NutraSweet, Sweet ‘n Low, and Splenda. These are surprisingly carcinogenic – especially the aspartame in diet coke and sugar-free chewing gum! Aspartame, the sweetener in most diet sodas, is frightening. It was originally developed as an ant poison! In fact, you should sprinkle it on an area where you have an ant problem. It works great. Over 100 side effects from aspartame have been reported to the FDA. It causes headaches, seizures, and brain tumors. Most notably, aspartame releases formaldehyde in your body, a known carcinogen. It then excites and kills brain cells. All the other sweeteners carry their own list of side effects. Steer clear.

Instead use stevia, lakanto and xylitol. However, avoid Truvia and Stevia in the Raw. Truvia goes through 49 processes to make the final product. Stevia in the Raw contains GMO corn sweeteners and is also highly processed. Any artificial sweetener ending in –ol is an alcohol sugar and can cause intestinal distress, bloating and gas. If you don’t experience these symptoms it doesn’t, feel free to use xylitol. Stevia is a great. You will get used to the slightly different taste, but it’s still sweet! Liquid stevia tastes better. Popular in Japan, lakanto is a great granulated faux sugar you can bake with, unlike stevia. You’ll likely have to order it over the internet to try it.

Fruit

Try to limit or eliminate fruit, especially if you’re trying to lose weight or have a chronic disease like cancer or diabetes. The fruit of today is not the fruit of the caveman times. Cavemen fruit was sour!! Today’s fruit is bred to contain a lot of sugar and causes a lot of health problems due to its sugar content. Consumers want sweet fruit. Don’t you? I spit out sour blueberries! Tropical fruits like bananas, pineapple, and mango have a very high sugar content. Even though fruit contains a lot of phytonutrients, they’re not worth the damage that sugar can cause.

Goals

  1. Eliminate Sugar. This week I’d like you to try to go sugar free. For now, just try a one week sugar detox. I’m in the process of writing the Live to 110™ 3-week sugar detox. It will be a great guide to help convince you to get off sugar, all the surprising foods that contain sugar, and how to do it. But you don’t need a guide. Just stop eating it!!! The thing about sugar is that after day three it gets a lot easier. After three weeks, you no longer have cravings for sugar. The longer you go without it, the easier it gets. But an ingredient so ubiqitous in our environment is not so easily dropped. It will likely take you years of practice to finally eradicate out of your diet. I’ve been working on this one for years!
  2. Reduce Fruit. Next, I want you to reduce the amount of fruit you’re eating. Remember, the occasional low-sugar berry, grapefruit, green-tipped banana and green apple are okay.  These fruits can satisfy a sugar craving really well, without derailing your health or weight loss too much. Along with cutting out sugar, I want you to get into a mindset of eliminating all the foods that contain sugar – even ones that you previously thought were healthy.