Breakfast: Nut Granola

With blueberries, strawberries and yogurt

Workout: MGS

Snack: Protein shake and a banana

Lunch: Big lunch!

• 2 Tuna patties
• Golden baked potatoes topped with bacon and sour cream
• Steamed zucchini

Snack: Some strawberries and a piece of 85% dark chocolate.

Breakfast: Nut Granola

With extra walnuts and yogurt

Workout: MGS

Snack: Protein shake and a banana

Late Lunch:

• Sweet potato fries
• Cajun burgers
• Big salad

Began 24 hour fast until 3.30pm Tuesday.

Tuesday

The first meal I had today was a snack after pilates at around 3.45pm. I must say I was quite hungry.

Snack: Left over burgers and sweet potato fries

Dinner: Baked Pork Chops

Served with apples (baked with pork) and steamed zucchini and broccoli.

Breakfast: Nut Granola

With stewed apples and pears, blueberries and yogurt.

Nut Granola

Workout: Squats, chinups, overhead DB presses, curls and some core work.

It was really hot so I opted out of a hot lunch.

Lunch: Smoothie

• 1 tsp cacao
• 1 banana
• 1/2 cup blueberries
• 1 big handful of baby spinach
• 1/4 walnuts
• 1/2 cup yogurt
• 1 scoop chocolate protein powder
• Water

Snack: Regular latte with no sugar

Snack: Left over stuffed chicken breast

Dinner: Fish and Chips

1 piece of battered flake, some chips and 2 potato cakes.

Whenever I come across a conundrum like this I ask myself ‘Why’? Why is it that changing the way you eat is so hard?

The answer is in the question: Change.

Adding two, three or even four hours of exercise a week is usually pretty easy for most people. They can block off those few hours at the start of the week, usually on the way to or from work so an extra commute is not needed. There is not much thought involved, they just rock up at the predietirmined time, work hard for an hour and then resume their usual life.

You can’t do that with diet.

Nope, improving your diet to what it should be will probably initially have a huge impact on your social life, ‘relaxation’ time and even your work. It can seem so daunting just thinking about those changes that most people give up before they even take one step.

If you don’t put much thought into what you are eating at the moment, then improving your diet will probably seem like an insurmountable change.

I’ve been working on creating a more healthy diet for myself for the past 3-4 years. There have been set backs, job changes, fad diets and all the rest of it along the way, but it’s important to keep trying because over time a small amount of progress adds up to big changes.

This is why I’ve decided for both you and me that I am going to be sharing with you 30 Days of Primal eating. I will be completely honest with you with what I eat and I hope to share with you some recipes and tactics to managing a healthy diet.

I will also be sharing a weekly article with you to help get you motivated and inspired to change.

So please, join me on this adventure by following me by RSS or email.

See you tomorrow for Day 1!

They suck for one major reason. They are short term solution to a lifelong symptom.

Recently with the Royal Wedding a new diet sprung up called the Dukan Diet which Kate apparently used to lose weight in the lead up to the wedding. This high protein diet includes a very dramatic protein-only week for the first week.

If dieters survive the sudden energy drops and possible constipation, they are then allowed to reintroduce a small select variety of vegetables to their diet. Most people don’t eat anywhere near enough veggies so we can assume that this phase is extremely torturous too.

If you survive these two phases you can then start introducing some more foods back into your diet. However, now you’re not restricted by as many rules is becomes very easy to start slipping back into your old food habits. Before you know it the scales are going up again instead of down and you’ve put on 10kgs.

It seems rediculous but this is what happens to most people (including myself) when they come off a diet.

Evil scales

The Solution

The solution is simple. Most diets out there are such a drastic change from your existing diet that major weight loss occurs in the first couple of weeks. This is designed to suck you in.

You lose a lot of weight at the start and you go and tell everyone about it. A few weeks later the weight loss becomes less and less each week and you lose interest. Slowly old habits start resurfacing and your back at square one.

The trick is to do the opposite. Gradually introduce each change to your diet so that you can maintain those changes long term.

Here are four simple steps to follow in increasing your chances of losing weight and keeping it off.

1. Knowledge – Buy books like The Primal Blueprint. These will give you your end goal and tell you the important why’s of changing your diet.
2. Step by step – All things in life begin with a single step. Make the task of losing weight as wasy as possible by only making small changes one at a time.
3. Publicity – Tell everyone in your office, write it on Facebook, tell me. Make yourself accountable by telling as many people as possible that you are making this change in your life. It’s also a good way to find out who really cares about your health and who doesn’t. Keep talking to the positive people in your life about your changes to keep motivated.
4. Consistancy – This is perhaps the most important step. Once you have made a change, don’t stop after a few weeks. After time it will seem strange to go back to your old ways once new habit form.

Plan

Write your plan of attack today. Just change one small thing each week for the next 12 weeks.

It may be as small as cutting out that lamington you eat in the morning. Don’t think of it at a ‘diet’ but simply just eating healthier.

But for *insert diety here* sake don’t wait until Monday to start. Start tomorrow!!

If you enjoyed this article, get more by signing up for my monthly newsletter or adding my RSS feed to your favourite reader or alternatively you can get updates sent right to your inbox.

Image: puuikibeach

I’ll start off by covering the good things.

Lost 1kg of bodyweight

Well if you want to lose some weight, apparently vegetarian is a great way to go. I ate some many fibrous vegetables last week that my digestive system went into overdrive. The weight loss was also probably related a little to less calories, although as I said at the start of last week I did not follow Eat Stop Eat this week so there alone is around 2000 extra calories.

Back into cooking

One of the things I loved this week was that I started cooking again. I hit up Dave’s site for some recipes and made the vegetarian pizza’s, the Eggplant Parmesan (which was amazing) and an egg version of his Shrimp Stir Fry.

And the one bad thing so far:

Not enough protein and not enough calories = lack of energy

I felt a little fatigued this week, and although it may have just been my early starts, I think it might also have been that I didn’t eat enough high calorie meals. This week I am aiming to eat more rice, quinoa, sweet potato and other complex carbs.

I will try to follow this rough guide:

Breakfast

• Cereal (weet-bix/oatmeal)
• Fruit
• Milk
• Yogurt

Morning Tea

• Toast with Peanut Butter, Jam, Vegemite, Nutella
• Milk with Milo

Lunch

• Gourmet omelette with toast
• Vegetable stir fry
• Vegetable burritos
• Maybe some extra fruit and nuts

Dinner

• Sweet potato/quinoa/rice
• Salad/steamed vegetables
• Cheese mmm

OR

• Soup
• Vegetable casserole

Snack

• Yogurt and fruit/nuts

Stay tuned for next weeks update.

I’ve always wanted to try out eating vegetarian or vegan so when I saw this video I thought that this looked like a great way to ease into it.

I’ve decided as of this weekend (24/07/2010) I will be starting a 4 week trial of eating vegetarian during the week days and normal on the weekend. I will be eating lacto-ovo vegetarian which means I can still eat dairy and eggs so the change should be fairly small.

To ensure that I can get an accurate idea of how this change in diet will effect me I will be stopping Eat Stop Eat for the duration of the 4 weeks. If I hadn’t just come back from holiday where I wasn’t practicing Eat Stop Eat then I would definitely keep it going. However, seeing as I’m just starting back up again I’ve decided to stop for now.

Now, you might be asking ‘Why am I doing this?‘

Like I said already, I’ve been wanting to try being a vegetarian for some time. This is because I’ve heard reports online and from friends of increased levels of energy from eating vegetarian and vegan.

Secondly, our meat processing industry is pretty horrific in terms of cruelty to animals. By eating vegetarian 5 days a week I reduce my meat consumption by 71%. This will also mean though that I risk consuming too little protein, iron and other minerals found in meat.

I will be spending the next few days doing a little food research to ensure I do not get any deficiencies during my 4 week trial. I will be hitting up the Pro at Cooking website to try out some of their vegetarian recipes, especially Dave’s vegetarian pizza recipe.

Back to why I’m doing this… Thirdly, not eating all that meat also reduces my carbon footprint which is something we all need to think about.

Image: ConstructionDealMkting

To keep updated on my progress over the next 4 weeks simply sign up to my RSS feed via your favourite RSS reader or by emails straight to your inbox.

Eat Stop Eat is the work of Canadian nutritionist Brad Pilon. Brad has been working in nutrition since 2000 and in that time has become concerned with what is being given as diet advice.

Through his own and others research Brad has rediscovered the benefits of fasting. Not only in giving your body a break from digesting food, but also other benefits like increased hormone release.

You can read more about it on the Eat Stop Eat website.

My Experience

When I first stumbled across Eat Stop Eat on the Fitness Black Book site I was pretty skeptical. At the time I was just realising that the 6 meals a day diet was rubbish and was starting to eat larger servings but in less meals.

I had already come across fasting style diets when I read about the Warrior Diet by Ori Hofmekler. I had considered trying it out but was a little too scared because

it was so different from my then bodybuilding diet.

However, being that this was the second book on the matter of fasting I had come across I began to think that maybe there was something to it. So I went ahead and bought it, after all what’s $40 for a book right?

As I read through the book I was surprised that I was not finding any sort of diet plan or meal guide. That was when I realised just how easy following Eat Stop Eat is. There is no diet plan or meal guide!

After 2 weeks on Eat Stop Eat I noticed that I had more energy, I also noticed that in the mirror I looked a lot better. My abs and arms became a lot more defined..My quality of sleep was even better. I don’t know if this has anything to do with Eat Stop Eat, these are just the benifits I noticed.

Now I didn’t lose much weight, but that wasn’t my goal. My goal was to still be able to have a couple beers with friends or get a burger and fries for lunch. I was able to introduce these food items, which previously I would have called ‘holiday food’ or ‘cheat meals’, much more often and still look and feel good.

If I had wanted to lose weight I could have done so easily just by reducing the number of these h

igher calorie meals.

Pros

• No need to follow any complicated diet.
• No need to spend hours pre-preparing food.
• No need to count calories or measure food.
• You can do it any place, any time, anywhere.
• You are eating less food, so you save money!

Cons

• No guidance as to what to eat on the other days.
• Could be dangerous if you are not eating reasonably healthy already. Although this is highlighted in the book.
• First few fasting days do result in a real lack of energy. You need to be able to sacrifice these few days at the start or really enjoy drinking black coffee. After you adjust though you will find yourself full of beans as your body is not weighed down with processing food.

Is this book right for you?

I do not recommend Eat Stop Eat to you if:

• You currently do not have healthy eating habits.
• You are pregnant or lactating.
• You have no interest in sticking with it for at least 30 days.

Conclusions

I’m surprised Eat Stop Eat isn’t a bigger deal because it’s so effective. I guess it’s because the health and fitness market is so flooded with products that only the ones with the biggest marketing budgets get heard.

I really enjoy following Eat Stop Eat. It’s convenient, easy and makes me feel great.

If you want to take a step in the healthy direction, take the time to check out Brad Pilon’s Eat Stop Eat site.

Eat Stop Eat is so easy and effective that I have to give it a 4.5 out of 5. It loses 0.5 because, well, nothing is perfect is it?

Photo courtesy of Martin LaBar

I hate the word bulking. I loathed putting it in the title but I figured that at least most people know what bulking is.

For those who don’t know, in the gym world bulking refers to eating a large surplus of calories in order to put on weight. This usually means that you also put on a lot of fat which you then need to get rid of by doing a thing called ‘cutting’ in which you reduce your calories dramatically.

The idea is that at the end you hopefully end up with a little more muscle.

The reality is that your body just goes WTF and you end up doing a lot of damage to your metabolism and cardiac system. You also increase the number of fat cells in your body which makes it much easier for your body to store fat in the future. Not good.

But of course most guys don’t ever get around to the cutting stage and just live in terminal chubby bulking which is not what I or I assume you want. We want 6 pack abs and a functional body to boot.

Anyway, getting to the point. What I am trying to do is drop some body fat while still looking reasonably muscular. The reason I want to do this is because on July 1st 2010 (4 weeks from today) I’m heading off on a trip up to the Northern Territory for 2 weeks.

The Goal

My chief goal is to get some more definition in my abdominals as I’ve never had a visible 6 pack. Sounds cliche I know, but part of working out is looking good too.

So how am I going to achieve this in 4 weeks? Well I have been experimenting successfully over the past couple of months with a technique called Eat Stop Eat (affiliate link).

This is not a diet but a science backed eating technique that has allowed me to get leaner already then I have been in the past 10 years. It has also required pretty much zero effort and it has even saved me money.

What I’m going to do

Tomorrow I’m going to take some pictures as a measurement and update them each week (I’ll also measure my waist). I’ll also give you a basic rundown of what training I’ve achieved each week so you can get an idea of the full picture. Lets see how big of a difference we can make in just 4 weeks.

What I’m not going to do

• Eat obscene amounts of protein
• Only do light intensity cardio
• Follow any silly diet
• Count calories
• Eat food that I don’t want to
• Workout for more than 45 minutes at a time

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post. If you want to read more about Eat Stop Eat I have a free PDF on bad eating habits that you can download from my site.

Photo by FotoosVanRobin

Well I thought it might be nice to have a definitive list on the site of foods you should try to keep clear of when trying to lose weight.

Now I don’t expect you to stop eating these foods all together, that is ridiculous. I can’t really expect a chocoholic to give up their afternoon sugar rush overnight even if their waist and teeth would appreciate a break.

Instead I recommend that you simply reduce the amount you eat in one serving and then from there reduce the number of days you eat that food.

For example my loves are fish and chips and lollies (candy). However I’ll only eat lollies maybe twice a month and fish and chips once a month. I only buy enough to keep me satisfied, never so much that I feel sick afterwards.

This is a healthy way to enjoy unhealthy foods and keep balance and variety in your diet. The option is to move somewhere remote where those foods are unaccessable :)

So here are a few lists of foods that I recommend you just try to steer clear of when wanting to lose weight.

Foods that you know are bad for you:

• Fried food products (hot chips, deep fried chicken parmigiana)
• Sugar based cereals (Nutri Grain etc)
• Confectionery (including chocolate)
• Low quality take out
• High salt foods (you really do not need salt if the food is cooked well)
• Soft drinks (low sugar options as well)
• Flavoured milk
• Pizza

Foods that may surprise you:

• Refined cereals (Corn Flakes)
• Low fat dairy products (often contain large amounts of sugar)
• White bread (even the fancy low GI, high fibre types)

Foods that could be eaten less despite not being too unhealthy:

• Potato
• Large servings of nuts (even almonds)
• No sugar soft drinks (still contain high levels of acid)
• Frozen meals, vegetables etc. (eat fresh instead)

I’ll add to this list as I think of more. Any foods that you feel hold back your weight loss?

If you enjoyed this article or found it useful sign up for more great articles on the RSS feed or alternatively you can get updates sent right to your inbox.