I am a small town girl that was raised on fast food and sugar. By my early 20’s, I was depressed, overstressed and not sleeping. While trying to find my own cure for being tired and miserable, I embarked on a life-changing journey. I found that I was a hard- core junk food addict which left me feeling too lethargic to do any kind of exercise. After failing at every complicated diet and exercise regiment out there, I started adhering to a few common sense rules for myself. These simple lifestyle changes have stuck with me and countless clients throughout the years.1. Be a smart consumer and read labels carefully.
Fat free products are loaded with sugar. Fat does not make you fat – SUGAR DOES! When grocery shopping, meals should have no more than 400 calories and snacks 150 calories – buy nothing with over 9 grams of sugar.
2. No overcomplicated routines/no overcomplicated diets.
They have the highest failure rate because they don’t teach you how to live in the real world. Get back to the basic, common sense principles.
3. Never skip meals.
All of my morbidly obese clients have one thing in common – skipping meals. The moment you allow your blood sugar to drop (when you feel hunger pangs) you become a fat storing machine. You must eat small meals or snacks every few hours.
4. Don’t ever juice-blend.
Always eat the whole fruit, not just its sugary juices. Juicing takes out the fiber but leaves you with the sugars. However, blending fills you with the whole fruit (fiber) and a lot more nutrients.
5. Sugar is the devil.
Sugar throws our body into an immune suppressed, non-working state of chronic fatigue, depression, and hormonal imbalance. It is the leading cause of disease and depression in this country. To break the sugar addiction, get rid of refined sugar (anything that isn’t fruit or veggies) for 5 days in a row, then allow yourself to have one cheat meal on Saturday and one on Sunday. You will have curbed the chemical addiction for sugar and your brain will desire less.
6. Clean House - remove ALL junk from your kitchen.
Stop buying addictive junk foods, then hating yourself for not being able to resist.
7. Deprivation does not work.
When starting a diet, for the first two weeks add healthy, nutrient filled foods (low sugar fruit/veggies/lean protein and a multivitamin). Your body will begin to naturally reject sugars and processed foods.
8. Crunches are a waste of time.
If you carry weight in your midsection, you will just build muscle under fat – thus making you appear bigger! The only way to get a true 6-pack is to combine a healthy diet with resistance training.
9. Eat the Good, the Bad, then the Ugly.
Classify the food on your plate in the following: Good = veggies/fruit/lean meats, Bad = starches/bread, Ugly = dessert/alcohol. Be sure to fill up on the good first.
10. Satisfy oral fixation with herbal teas.
Curb late night cravings with your favorite flavored herbal teas. They have anti-oxidants and will satisfy oral fixations.
11. Water helps you lose weight.
Three liters per day can burn 50-75 calories and double your energy, as well as clear your skin.
12. Eat natural foods.
Research connects food additives that are present in many diet products with increased sugar and carb cravings.
13. Don’t be afraid to lift weights.
Cardio is the slowest way to lose weight. It’s all about resistance training. This will burn more calories faster, and also add much needed muscle to speed up metabolism. Concentrate working out on the bigger muscle groups like the chest, back, gluteus, hamstrings, and quadriceps.
14. ONLY do intensity cardio.
Forget about the heart rate monitor. Unless you have a heart condition, your cardio should be intense enough to feel your muscles burning. Raise ramp to maximum uphill and slow walk (almost a lunge) for 2 minutes. Then lower the ramp and run for 2 minutes. Take 1 minute to bring your heart rate down and then start over. Repeat 4 more times (equals a 20 minute session). It’s less boring too!
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