We all live in both anticipation and fear of the holidays. Grandmas and Nanas and Nonas and
Great Aunts who can all whip up the best traditional feasts and pinch your cheeks as you eat it.
Unfortunately, you know that their secret ingredients are a 50/50 mix of love and lard. And if
it’s your turn to host this year, you can’t be the person who doesn’t have a full fridge, gallons of
eggnog, and at least a pound of turkey for each of your uncles and cousins. So how do we get
through the holidays without ruining all the work we did the rest of the year?
- Bring Your Own: At any type of party, bring a dish! Most parties I’ve been to are seriously
lacking in salads, fresh veggies, and fruits, so it doesn’t hurt to add some low calorie fare
to the high calorie indulgent foods. Nobody has to know your spinach dip is low calorie.
- Send them Home: If you are hosting the party, a very important action is to send your
guests home with food…don’t even ask; pack it for them and send them home with it.
That way you’re not left with tempting leftovers during the “hangover” period. If you’re
hosting a potluck, do some organized planning ahead of time. If 15 people are coming
over, you don’t need 15 dishes (especially because you know this ends up being at least
five plates of cookies and brownies). Once you have a couple appetizers, a couple side
dishes, and a dessert accounted for, just tell the rest of the people they can bring soft
drinks, plates, napkins, etc.
- Clear the Table: If you’re hosting, serve the meal in courses, clear the table and pack up
the leftovers immediately once everyone’s kind of “done eating” that course. If the
turkey, salad, potatoes, and desserts are all sitting there for three hours, you’re going to
have three servings. The longer it’s in front of you, the more of it you’ll eat.
- Go The Distance: Don’t sit within arm’s reach of the cheese plate. If you have to
stand up, put your drink down, and lean over Aunt Mary to get to them, you’re not
going to have as many.
- Cleaning Crew: Offer to help clean up when dishes need clearing during the meal or
afterwards. If you can spend some time in the sink and suds instead of in front of
whatever’s on the table, not only will you be your mom’s favorite for helping clean up,
you’ll eat a little less.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Monday, December 3, 2012
Holiday Body Blitz (Part 3 - Meal Protocols)
I’ve designed an extremely effective rapid fat loss meal protocols for you to follow. Stick to it religiously excluding the 10% cheats that you plan for yourself. YOU MUST STICK TO YOUR PLAN. ANYTIME YOU CHEAT NEEDS TO BE PLANNED. DO NOT BREAK THE RULES.
Rapid Fat Loss Meal Protocols
• 2 “Regular meals”
- Protein+greenvegetables+oil/fat
• 2 snacks
- Cheese, nuts, small shake, piece of fruit, greek yogurt or cottage cheese
• 1 “workout meal” within 1 hour after workout
- Protein+greenvegetables+starchy carbs
• Hyper hydration
- 16 ounces of water with each snack, 8 ounces with each meal
• Belly blasting boosting supplements every morning such as a B vitamin supplement and a green tea extract
Rapid Fat Loss Meal Protocols
• 2 “Regular meals”
- Protein+greenvegetables+oil/fat
• 2 snacks
- Cheese, nuts, small shake, piece of fruit, greek yogurt or cottage cheese
• 1 “workout meal” within 1 hour after workout
- Protein+greenvegetables+starchy carbs
• Hyper hydration
- 16 ounces of water with each snack, 8 ounces with each meal
• Belly blasting boosting supplements every morning such as a B vitamin supplement and a green tea extract
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Holiday Body Blitz (Part 2 - Fat Loss Habits)
Before we can get into the real meat of this blog post we need to establish some basic key habits you need to start practicing in order to get ANY results.
Two glasses of water immediately when you wake up: there is nothing more important habitually than hydrating immediately when you wake.
Keep all eating within a 10-12 hour window: There should only be a 10-12 hour window between when you eat your first and last calories of the day. Once that window is closed, so is your mouth.
Eat your first meal when your first hungry: If you wake up at 6am and your not hungry until 9am don’t force food at 7am. Wait until 9am and then start your 10-12 hour window from there.
Don’t let more than 4 hours go without a meal: once you’ve started your 10-12 hour eating window keep all meals within 2-4 hours of each other
Protein and vegetable with every meal: don’t worry I’ll give you ways to eat vegetables that you won’t want to stop eating them!
Plan your cheats for 10% of the time: Let’s face it. You’re going to cheat. It’s inevitable. But only cheat if it’s a planned cheat and limit yourself to 10% of your total snacks and meals. (Example: CHRISTMAS DINNER?) so if you are eating 30 meals and snacks a week then three of those can be cheats.
Zero calorie liquids only: If you have any liquid that has any calories that counts as a cheat. This includes, milk, juice, cream in your coffee, soda (both diet and non diet), alcohol etc.)
Plan Ahead: this is mandatory and only takes 5-20 minutes at the end of the day. Use the protocols in the next post.
Two glasses of water immediately when you wake up: there is nothing more important habitually than hydrating immediately when you wake.
Keep all eating within a 10-12 hour window: There should only be a 10-12 hour window between when you eat your first and last calories of the day. Once that window is closed, so is your mouth.
Eat your first meal when your first hungry: If you wake up at 6am and your not hungry until 9am don’t force food at 7am. Wait until 9am and then start your 10-12 hour window from there.
Don’t let more than 4 hours go without a meal: once you’ve started your 10-12 hour eating window keep all meals within 2-4 hours of each other
Protein and vegetable with every meal: don’t worry I’ll give you ways to eat vegetables that you won’t want to stop eating them!
Plan your cheats for 10% of the time: Let’s face it. You’re going to cheat. It’s inevitable. But only cheat if it’s a planned cheat and limit yourself to 10% of your total snacks and meals. (Example: CHRISTMAS DINNER?) so if you are eating 30 meals and snacks a week then three of those can be cheats.
Zero calorie liquids only: If you have any liquid that has any calories that counts as a cheat. This includes, milk, juice, cream in your coffee, soda (both diet and non diet), alcohol etc.)
Plan Ahead: this is mandatory and only takes 5-20 minutes at the end of the day. Use the protocols in the next post.
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Friday, November 30, 2012
Holiday Body Blitz (Part 1 - Introduction)
Congratulations on taking steps towards a better, healthier, happier life and welcome to the Holiday Body Blitz post. Over the next days this blog is going to serve as your go-to guide to burning fat during the holidays.
You see, the reason why I made this program is because without a doubt, the holiday season between Thanksgiving and right after New Year’s is the hardest time of the year to lose weight. There are a few reasons that contribute to this problem:
- No Game plan: the main problem is as simple as that. Not having any set structure of what your going to eat, when your going to eat and how your going to eat. Just by putting a plan in place you will be 10 times more likely to see results than if you just “winged it”.
- Always on the run: this is also the busiest time of the year for most people what with holiday shopping, kids, work deadlines and let’s not forget all the social gatherings.
- Holiday treats: they…..are….EVERYWHERE! Your boss has them on their desk, your co-workers have them on their desk, YOU have them on your desk or maybe in a dish in your living room or a little treat bag in your cupboard. Treats are constantly in your face for the next 40 days and there is little you can do about it.
- Social Gatherings: Work Parties, Friends Parties, Family Parties YOUR Parties…it’s an endless assault of alcohol and food.
So with these key points in mind I set out to design this plan in order to specifically combat every one of those excuses. I say excuses because let’s face it, once I expose the solutions to all of these problems listed above, 90% of people reading this will still use them as excuses to gain weight but they are really just trying to justify their own self-doubt and laziness.
YOU CAN DO THIS. YOU DESERVE THE RESULTS. STAY TUNE FOR MORE POST TO COME.
You see, the reason why I made this program is because without a doubt, the holiday season between Thanksgiving and right after New Year’s is the hardest time of the year to lose weight. There are a few reasons that contribute to this problem:
- No Game plan: the main problem is as simple as that. Not having any set structure of what your going to eat, when your going to eat and how your going to eat. Just by putting a plan in place you will be 10 times more likely to see results than if you just “winged it”.
- Always on the run: this is also the busiest time of the year for most people what with holiday shopping, kids, work deadlines and let’s not forget all the social gatherings.
- Holiday treats: they…..are….EVERYWHERE! Your boss has them on their desk, your co-workers have them on their desk, YOU have them on your desk or maybe in a dish in your living room or a little treat bag in your cupboard. Treats are constantly in your face for the next 40 days and there is little you can do about it.
- Social Gatherings: Work Parties, Friends Parties, Family Parties YOUR Parties…it’s an endless assault of alcohol and food.
So with these key points in mind I set out to design this plan in order to specifically combat every one of those excuses. I say excuses because let’s face it, once I expose the solutions to all of these problems listed above, 90% of people reading this will still use them as excuses to gain weight but they are really just trying to justify their own self-doubt and laziness.
YOU CAN DO THIS. YOU DESERVE THE RESULTS. STAY TUNE FOR MORE POST TO COME.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Three Signs You Need A Diet Break
One of the biggest mistakes that far too many people are making on their diet program is neglecting to consider a diet break. You’re seeing good success and as such, the last thing that you want to consider is stopping.
Or, perhaps you aren’t seeing success – it’s quite the opposite. Try as you might, that weight is just not coming off. You’re frustrated and wondering if you’ll ever be able to attain that dream body that you were going for.
Whatever the case may be, often the biggest way to resolve any dietary problem is to actually take a break. Constant dieting is going to place stress on the body so whether you’re seeing the effects of it already in the form of a plateau or you’re moving along great but are on the verge of suffering from the plateau, a diet break is a must.
Let’s have a look at three signs that indicate that it’s time you took a diet break so that you know precisely what you should be on the look-out for.
You Have Non-Stop Hunger
The very first sign to watch for that would indicate that you need to be taking a diet break is if you have non-stop hunger. When you’ve been on a reduced calorie diet for far too long, the body is going to start sending out signals that it’s time for you to begin eating more food once again.
This is its way of trying to prevent starvation. Hunger increases dramatically and it’s going to take all the effort in the world on your part not to eat.
When hunger seems almost too much to bare, that’s a good signal that it might just be time to give in and take that diet break.
Your Energy Level Has Plummeted
The second signal that a diet break is in order is if your energy level has hit a turn for the worse. This is another defence mechanism that the body has to prevent starvation from occurring. When you’re in an extremely stressed state due to ongoing dieting attempts, your body will try and make sure you’re as sedentary as possible as it just doesn’t have energy to spare.
By making you want to do nothing other than lie on the couch and relax, it accomplishes its objective nicely. Your daily calorie expenditure goes down and the rate of weight loss will decline.
You Aren’t Losing Weight
Finally, the last signal that it’s time for a diet break is if you aren’t losing weight. If you seem to be doing everything right and you are sure that you’re tracking your calories accurately, this is very likely what’s going on.
Your metabolism has slowed down due to that reduced calorie intake and now you’re burning fewer calories than ever.
With this slowed metabolic rate, fat loss also slows, moving you further away from reaching your goal.
So there you have the main signs that it may just be time to take a break from your diet plan. Periodically raising your calories up again for a week or so can do just the trick to get you back seeing the fat loss you’re after and feeling much better as you go about your diet plan.
Or, perhaps you aren’t seeing success – it’s quite the opposite. Try as you might, that weight is just not coming off. You’re frustrated and wondering if you’ll ever be able to attain that dream body that you were going for.
Whatever the case may be, often the biggest way to resolve any dietary problem is to actually take a break. Constant dieting is going to place stress on the body so whether you’re seeing the effects of it already in the form of a plateau or you’re moving along great but are on the verge of suffering from the plateau, a diet break is a must.
Let’s have a look at three signs that indicate that it’s time you took a diet break so that you know precisely what you should be on the look-out for.
You Have Non-Stop Hunger
The very first sign to watch for that would indicate that you need to be taking a diet break is if you have non-stop hunger. When you’ve been on a reduced calorie diet for far too long, the body is going to start sending out signals that it’s time for you to begin eating more food once again.
This is its way of trying to prevent starvation. Hunger increases dramatically and it’s going to take all the effort in the world on your part not to eat.
When hunger seems almost too much to bare, that’s a good signal that it might just be time to give in and take that diet break.
Your Energy Level Has Plummeted
The second signal that a diet break is in order is if your energy level has hit a turn for the worse. This is another defence mechanism that the body has to prevent starvation from occurring. When you’re in an extremely stressed state due to ongoing dieting attempts, your body will try and make sure you’re as sedentary as possible as it just doesn’t have energy to spare.
By making you want to do nothing other than lie on the couch and relax, it accomplishes its objective nicely. Your daily calorie expenditure goes down and the rate of weight loss will decline.
You Aren’t Losing Weight
Finally, the last signal that it’s time for a diet break is if you aren’t losing weight. If you seem to be doing everything right and you are sure that you’re tracking your calories accurately, this is very likely what’s going on.
Your metabolism has slowed down due to that reduced calorie intake and now you’re burning fewer calories than ever.
With this slowed metabolic rate, fat loss also slows, moving you further away from reaching your goal.
So there you have the main signs that it may just be time to take a break from your diet plan. Periodically raising your calories up again for a week or so can do just the trick to get you back seeing the fat loss you’re after and feeling much better as you go about your diet plan.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Head, Heart and Hands Featured Speaker Ernestine Shepherd was a guest on the Anderson Cooper Live Show this past Tuesday.
It is our pleasure to announce that we have arranged to bring Ernestine, who is a world class health, fitness and nutrition expert to our Jamestown Bluffs Library Branch, 4153 N. US Highway 67 on Saturday, November 10th at 1:30 PM for a 90-minute presentation.
Be sure to register and grab yourself a spot for this event. You can log onto www.getfit4christ.org for more info.
In the meantime check out the video below to see who won the push up contest.
Ernestine Shepherd Vs. Anderson Cooper Push Up Contest
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