Good advice for help losing weight.

I mentioned in a past article that I spent some time as a personal fitness trainer. I got involved doing this after personally losing over 70 pounds and taking second place in a bodybuilding competition. This happened in 1996. Today I would like to share information that helped me accomplish this. Note that this plan may not work for everyone. Those with diabetes or strict food requirements may not be able to use this advice. Consult your personal physician before implementing this plan.

As a personal fitness trainer I realized the similarities shared amongst my clients as to why they were all over weight: Their lifestyle. By lifestyle I mean specifically what they ate and when they ate it. We have enormous control over own own body's metabolism. It can be manipulated in three ways: 1. The amount of food eaten. 2. The content. 3. The frequency by which we eat.

For example: Let's say that you are a working individual. You go to a job every day. You leave your house every day without eating breakfast. You wait until 12:00--1:00 p.m. to have lunch. If you didn't bring lunch, you will have to eat out. Your choices are quite limited if you only have a certain allotted time to eat. So, you eat fast food every day. When you arrive home, other aspects of life take precedence and dinner is not served until 6:00 or 7:00 p.m.. You consume a large meal, relax on the couch watching 'survivor' until you hit the sack at 10:00 p.m. Congratulations! You have the metabolism of a dead person, the main reason why you are overweight. If you continue to live this way, you will grow steadily heavier each year. There is one way to reverse this process: Change your lifestyle.

To explain how to do this let's examine the three ways to manipulate your metabolism starting with the frequency by which you eat. This is the biggest impact on metabolic rate. Eating only twice a day slows metabolism to a crawl. Eating FIVE times a day speeds it up. Eating five times a day with THREE HOUR INTERVALS is the best frequency for maximizing your metabolism.

Now let's examine the amount of food to eat. If you are now eating five times a day, every three hours BUT you are consuming enough food each time to feed a small nation, you're eating too much. A SMALL PORTION is what you are striving for. Each portion should take no longer than five minutes to eat. Or if you prefer, enough food to almost fill a nine inch dish. Basically, eat just enough food to fill you, but still feel a bit hungry when you're done. This will help you look forward to your next meal three hours away.

Finally, it's time to examine content. Because this aspect will be different for everyone, I will provide you with the basic formula, you will provide the ingredients. But first you will have to alter your perception of what constitutes 'breakfast,' 'lunch' and 'supper.' To accomplish this simply view your meals as MEAL #1, MEAL #2, MEAL #3 and so on. You will have to greatly expand what you used to consider as traditional 'breakfast' foods to include a GREATER VARIETY.

Here is the formula for your five meals:
MEAL # 1. You want to eat foods high in protein, carbohydrates and fat. WHAT? Do you think I'm insane? I may be but not when it comes to this. Protein enriched foods help feed your body's muscles and muscles burn fat most efficiently when energy is called for. So, eating a large amount of protein during the day is ESSENTIAL to weight loss. This first meal must also contain a large amount of carbohydrates. Why? The carbs you eat for breakfast help supply your body with energy during the course of the day. Do you know how sometimes you get sleepy around 2:30-3:00 p.m.? It's because your body is running out of carbs to burn. This is why it's important to eat carbs for breakfast. You must also include foods high in fat in meal # 1. Your body REQUIRES a certain amount of fat to help with different functions.

MEAL #2. As with meal #1, you'll want to eat a large amount of protein. You will also eat a medium amount of carbohydrates but you will NOT EAT foods high in fat if possible. There will be fat included in the food you choose for meal #2, so try to limit those foods that are naturally high in fat. Red meat is the highest with chicken, turkey and fish being the lowest.

MEAL #3. As with meals 1 and 2, keep your protein intake high. Now you will cut your carb intake down considerably. And again, no fat or very low fat foods for this meal.

MEALS #4 and 5. These meals you'll want to eat only foods high in protein if possible. These are the two hardest meals to get accustomed to. If you simply must eat some carbs, eat a small salad or some steamed vegetables with these meals.

Eating this way on a daily basis will help you lose weight. When you finally reach your goal weight and want to maintain that weight, simply add a SMALL amount of foods containing carbohydrates into meals 4 and 5. If you start to gain weight again, simply adjust the amount of carbs for those meals.

Here are some tips:
If you are not sure or confused about which foods contain protein, carbohydrates or fat, this information is available in book stores and on the internet. Don't rely on friend's or relative's advice. Go to the source.

Eating 5 times a day means lots of food preparation. Do this during the weekends or evenings. Cook large amounts of food each time and then separate it out into convenient bags for travel. Usually, meals 1 and 5 will be eaten at home so this is not a problem. The other 3 will have to be mobile unless you eat out for lunch. Remember to adhere to the formula as much as possible so make wise choices in restaurants or diners.

If possible, try to eat meal 5 no later than 7:00 pm.

Drink plenty of water during the day. When drinking water with your meal do not drink water as you eat. Drink some water after you have consumed your meal. Why? Because water dilutes your natural stomach acids. Ideally, what you want is for your food to be well coated and absorbed in this acid before diluting it with water.

Keep salt intake as low as possible. Salt retains water in these proportions: 1 part salt retains 100 parts water. So keep salt out of your meals if possible.

After the third or fourth day of implementing your lifestyle change, you will wake up very hungry. This is the first sign that your metabolism has sped up and you should start seeing the first signs of weight loss. Do not get discouraged and do not step on the scale every day. Check your weight every month for a true barometer of your progress.

Here's a tip just for the ladies: Do you know those days when you just crave sweets and chocolate? Try to refrain from eating those at night but include them in meal # 1. Your body will most likely burn off these BAD foods during the course of the day. Try not to make it into a habit.

If some of you readers out there decide to implement my plan, write into a comment box that you are, so I and everyone else can follow your progress and please pass along tips that you have discovered along the way. Best of luck, Ray.