Meal Plan: Week Four

Well, nothing groundbreaking to report on the nutrition front. In this case, that can be a good thing, though, as it means consistency. Michael's nutrition has been looking great, and his focus and dedication to it since he started is really paying off. When we started, he told us how intense many of his food cravings were. By eating portion controlled, well balanced meals frequently enough, those cravings have almost enitrely disappeared. In particular, he no longer craves sugar, which is a great accomplishment by itself. Generally, when people focus on eating better, especially in an effort to lose weight, the focus often gets put mainly on cutting out fat, or staying very low fat. While cutting out the wrong fats is critical, and maintaining an overall low fat diet is important to lose weight and keep it off, limiting sugar intake is just as, if not more important. This is because, while sugar doesn't contain fat, it is entirely empty calories (no nutritional value) that trigger hormones inside your body to store more of the calories you do eat as fat. In other words, the fat content in food alone does not make us fat, the foods we eat and the way we eat them trigger and release hormones that "train" our body to store more calories as fat - even if some of those calories are from "healthy" foods. In addition, processed foods and white flour cause much of the same effect. Therefore, it is absolutely critical to cut out as much refined and processed sugars as possible. The sugars you do get should come from natural sources, like fruit. Be very careful even with fruit juices, as many of them are loaded with additional sugars, or have a much higher sugar content than whole fruit.

By eating the way he has, Michael has been "retraining" his body to use the food (calories) he is eating as fuel, instead of wanting to store it. This is rapidly increasing his metabolism, which is also allowing him to oxidize (burn off) fat for energy when he is exercising, and allowing him to burn more calories even when he is at rest and recovering from his workouts. All of these improvements have been a big contributor in allowing Michael to lose 20 lbs. so far!! The results he is seeing already just wouldn't be as good as they have been if he didn't start making improvements to his nutrition early on. It can easily be at least 50% of the weight loss formula, and is a very important of our program here at FT. In fact, we consider it one of our "essentials", and truly feel it's what allows us to get consistently good and "predictable" results with our clients. We have another nutrition session with Michael at the end of this week, where we'll check in again, and see what we can teach him next. Stay tuned, as Monday we will post the full updates on Michael's weight and measurement losses. Exciting stuff!