If you can visualize what you want to become, it will happen.
• Keep a food and beverage journal.
• Set your ultimate goal. Make sure it’s realistic and measurable.
• Set measurable mini-goals to help you reach your ultimate goal.
• Find some inspiration to motivate you.
• Break the barriers that prevent you from reaching your goal.
• Prepare and plan so willpower won’t be an issue.
*Check in with this person every two weeks and let him or her know how you are doing.
The Truth about Nutrition, Diet, and Fat Loss
Mass confusion
There are simply too many diet books, versions of food pyramids, and guidelines and too much other nutritional advice on the market today. Each source would have you believe theirs is the one. Much of the information is conflicting. Should you eat a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet? Or a low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet? Should you eat high-protein, high-fat? How about the no-dairy, no-wheat, no-fat, no-meat (and no flavour) diet? Just kidding!
Amid the cacophony of opinions, there is one thing that most experts do agree on. Most people are overfat because they don’t eat enough fruits and vegetables and they don’t engage in regular physical activity. It’s as simple as that.
The low-calorie weight-loss trap
I had to laugh when I heard the phrase “skinny fat person”, and that’s when it hit me. That’s what I have ended up being every time I went on a diet because all that I did was stop eating and didn’t have a real exercise program. Then my weight always ended up coming back even heavier than I was to begin with!
—Jim Barker, age 51, lost 43.5 pounds of body fat and
gained 0.5 pound of muscle
Many of the popular programs these days are based strictly on weight loss. Losing weight can be beneficial for many reasons aside from appearance—but only if you can maintain your current muscle mass.
Some of these plans are downright harmful, especially if permanent fat loss is your goal. For example, the diets based on very low calories are the biggest trap of all. They are seductive in that they offer quick results. But in the long term they are disastrous. Ultra-low-calorie diets are the cause of yo-yo dieting, which lowers your metabolism incrementally over time until it’s almost impossible to lose weight.
Research from the University of California has shown that crash diets—of fewer than 1,000 calories a day—slow metabolism down by as much as 45 per cent!
These diets fly in the face of what is now common knowledge: To raise your metabolism, you have to eat more healthy foods, not eat less! Eating less lowers your metabolism by stripping away your muscle tissue. It is the direct cause of the dieting plateaus that are so hard to overcome. It’s likely you’ll become a “skinny fat person” if you follow a low-calorie eating program.
“But,” you reason, “if I eat more I’ll just gain weight.”
Not if you eat healthy foods and exercise you won’t. If you consume small, nutritionally balanced, low-GI meals, at regular intervals throughout the day, your metabolism will be revved up all day long.
In other words, you need the 3-Apple-a-Day GI Diet.
Why I wrote this book
I’m not a diet guru on the talk show circuit. I’m not selling supplements or magic weight-loss powders. What I am is a registered dietitian, a bodybuilder, and a group training instructor with 20 years of experience in helping my clients lose fat, get fit—and stay fit.
My purpose in writing this book is to use my knowledge of nutrition, diet, and exercise to guide you to permanent fat loss and muscle retention without diet pills, supplements, or gimmicks. I would also like to clear the air of the confusion and disinformation associated with nutrition and weight loss.
The 3-Apple-a-Day GI Diet draws on all food groups in balanced proportions to help your metabolism do its job. It features apples because of their convenience, low glycaemic rating, and high fibre content—the latter two of which are extremely important in fat loss.
The control you need to succeed
The 3-Apple-a-Day GI Diet will give you the control you must have over your appetite in order to achieve your weight loss goals. You can achieve this control by balancing carbohydrates, proteins, and essential fats.
The plan is for people who want to make the most out of their lives, without perpetually looking for the one and only “next best diet”. Most important, this plan when combined with an exercise program, has been successful in helping people achieve permanent fat loss.
Nutrient recommendations
The next few chapters explain how the different elements in your diet can make you healthier or make you sick. Throughout I refer to the DRIs. These are the US Institute of Medicine’s Food and Nutrition Board Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs). They provide guidance on how much of each nutrient is needed in a healthy diet. These chapters will help you understand the importance of the major nutrients in your diet so that you can maximize your fat-loss efforts while getting lasting energy from the foods you eat. They will also make sense of the recommendations in the 3-Apple-a-Day GI Diet.
Carbohydrates—Good Food for Your Brain
The misunderstood nutrient
I feel good when I think of carbohydrates, because I know they provide the right kind of fuel for my brain cells. Unfortunately, many people shun them as if they were the plague. The fact is, carbohydrates have gotten a bad rap recently for weight-loss efforts, just like fat has in years past.
What’s more (and what dieters aren’t aware of), the types of carbohydrates you choose can affect your fat-loss progress to a very high degree. So let’s set the record straight with the facts on carbohydrates.
Diet fads seem to come in cycles. Remember when protein was the enemy and carbohydrates were the answer? Now the opposite philosophy is the new big thing. Yet with new findings about lean proteins, along with the Glycaemic Index, it seems that we were only half right on both counts.
The role of carbohydrates
At any given moment the amount of carbohydrates in the adult body
