Getting Results From Waist Exercises: The Seven Day Challenge, Part II
In Part I we discussed an approach for gauging your progress through the challenge.
This is vital not only for its own sake, but to help keep you motivated to remain on track.
If you know you lost 3 inches in the first 3 days it will probably be that much tougher for you to cheat and give up those inches.
Next we'll examine how to program your food intake for the challenge.
Plan Your Meals One of the primary excuses for eating improperly is insufficient time/planning/preparation/etc.
So you're a lousy meal planner? Don't sweat it, it's correctable.
In fact, let's start dealing with it now.
If your seven day challenge begins on a Monday, start planning on the Friday or Saturday prior.
Make a list of each of the meals you will have Monday - Sunday.
From that list we'll generate a shopping list, do the shopping, and create the meals.
What should your meals be? Very simple: protein and vegetables.
The only carbohydrate you will be permitted while doing this challenge is legumes, generally known as beans: lentils, black beans, pinto beans, kidney beans, and my personal favorite, refried beans.
Why legumes? Two reasons: first, it's hard to give up carbohydrate cold turkey and the beans should help satisfy some part of your carb hankering.
Second, without any carbohydrate whatsoever it's easy to exhaust your energy and feel sluggish.
Where energy is concerned beans are your friend.
Things to avoid: • white foods (bread, pasta, potatoes, rice) • dairy • any foods with added sugar • any fluids except water (we usually tend to drink a huge amount of calories...
stick to water for a week) These foods will result in a glycemic spike, which actually will cause your system to attempt to store inbound calories as fat.
To keep this from happening you will ingest foods for seven days that don't induce a glycemic spike.
Some sample meals from my personal menu: • six egg whites microwaved over a cup of refried beans • grilled chicken with blackening spice (it's simple to find a recipe, just be sure to omit sugar) and raw spinach with olive oil and pepper • grilled hamburger patty with mustard (most mustards contain no sugar - check out the label) steamed green beans (found in the frozen food aisle, microwaveable in 4 minutes or less) • broiled flank steak with salt and pepper and steamed broccoli with olive oil • baked chicken breast topped with a paste of olive oil, cilantro, cumin, and chili powder with raw spinach and olive oil • grilled tuna steak with blackening spice and steamed green beans with olive oil If I really must snack between meals I'll grab a half-cup (around a handful) of nuts, ideally raw and without all of the unpronounceable chemicals used to "dry roast" nuts.
Once you've made your menu for the week, buy groceries and then prepare any food that needs preparation to ensure that cooking is as simple as possible: cleaning and cutting chicken, making hamburger patties, etc.
Go! Once your food is prepared and you've taken your measurements you're ready for day one.
Now it's time to execute.
Eat meals well before you're very hungry, generally 2-3 hours apart.
If you permit yourself to get very hungry your judgement will go out the window and you'll be more prone to cheat.
Keep the meals small and frequent.
This will prevent you from becoming hungry throughout the day.
Take your measurements every day at the same time.
Impedance scales are usually impacted by hydration levels, therefore I typically step on the scale upon waking to make certain that the measurements are consistent.
If your numbers increase a bit on one day, don't be concerned.
Fluctuation is natural.
If you're tempted to cheat (and you will be, it's ok) there are a few tricks you can use to stay on course: • have some nuts for a snack and a couple of large glasses of water to fill you up • have a stick of sugarfree gum (sugar substitutes will cause a small glycemic spike, however, so keep the gum to a minimum) • open your notebook or computer, review of your measurements, and think of how great it's going to be tomorrow when they've improved - IF you stay on track • keep a notebook on hand and whenever you have the urge to cheat, make a note of what it is you want - on the cheat day right after the completion of the challenge you'll treat yourself with whatever you want out of your "cheat notebook" • I once worked with a well-known actor who would buy whatever it was he wanted when he had the impulse to cheat - cupcakes, sugary snacks, cake, etc - and take it home and put it in the freezer for when his cheat day arrived at the end of the week.
It satisfied his urge and at the end of the week he had a freezer stuffed with junk food that he usually ended up throwing out.
A waste, yes, but better than blowing it on your midsection.
At the end of the week look at your numbers and see how you performed.
Once you have a successful challenge behind you the next project (after you take that well-earned cheat day to eat whatever you like) is to take the lessons learned and make them into habits that will last a lot longer than a week.
You do want those six-pack abs to stick around for awhile, don't you?
This is vital not only for its own sake, but to help keep you motivated to remain on track.
If you know you lost 3 inches in the first 3 days it will probably be that much tougher for you to cheat and give up those inches.
Next we'll examine how to program your food intake for the challenge.
Plan Your Meals One of the primary excuses for eating improperly is insufficient time/planning/preparation/etc.
So you're a lousy meal planner? Don't sweat it, it's correctable.
In fact, let's start dealing with it now.
If your seven day challenge begins on a Monday, start planning on the Friday or Saturday prior.
Make a list of each of the meals you will have Monday - Sunday.
From that list we'll generate a shopping list, do the shopping, and create the meals.
What should your meals be? Very simple: protein and vegetables.
The only carbohydrate you will be permitted while doing this challenge is legumes, generally known as beans: lentils, black beans, pinto beans, kidney beans, and my personal favorite, refried beans.
Why legumes? Two reasons: first, it's hard to give up carbohydrate cold turkey and the beans should help satisfy some part of your carb hankering.
Second, without any carbohydrate whatsoever it's easy to exhaust your energy and feel sluggish.
Where energy is concerned beans are your friend.
Things to avoid: • white foods (bread, pasta, potatoes, rice) • dairy • any foods with added sugar • any fluids except water (we usually tend to drink a huge amount of calories...
stick to water for a week) These foods will result in a glycemic spike, which actually will cause your system to attempt to store inbound calories as fat.
To keep this from happening you will ingest foods for seven days that don't induce a glycemic spike.
Some sample meals from my personal menu: • six egg whites microwaved over a cup of refried beans • grilled chicken with blackening spice (it's simple to find a recipe, just be sure to omit sugar) and raw spinach with olive oil and pepper • grilled hamburger patty with mustard (most mustards contain no sugar - check out the label) steamed green beans (found in the frozen food aisle, microwaveable in 4 minutes or less) • broiled flank steak with salt and pepper and steamed broccoli with olive oil • baked chicken breast topped with a paste of olive oil, cilantro, cumin, and chili powder with raw spinach and olive oil • grilled tuna steak with blackening spice and steamed green beans with olive oil If I really must snack between meals I'll grab a half-cup (around a handful) of nuts, ideally raw and without all of the unpronounceable chemicals used to "dry roast" nuts.
Once you've made your menu for the week, buy groceries and then prepare any food that needs preparation to ensure that cooking is as simple as possible: cleaning and cutting chicken, making hamburger patties, etc.
Go! Once your food is prepared and you've taken your measurements you're ready for day one.
Now it's time to execute.
Eat meals well before you're very hungry, generally 2-3 hours apart.
If you permit yourself to get very hungry your judgement will go out the window and you'll be more prone to cheat.
Keep the meals small and frequent.
This will prevent you from becoming hungry throughout the day.
Take your measurements every day at the same time.
Impedance scales are usually impacted by hydration levels, therefore I typically step on the scale upon waking to make certain that the measurements are consistent.
If your numbers increase a bit on one day, don't be concerned.
Fluctuation is natural.
If you're tempted to cheat (and you will be, it's ok) there are a few tricks you can use to stay on course: • have some nuts for a snack and a couple of large glasses of water to fill you up • have a stick of sugarfree gum (sugar substitutes will cause a small glycemic spike, however, so keep the gum to a minimum) • open your notebook or computer, review of your measurements, and think of how great it's going to be tomorrow when they've improved - IF you stay on track • keep a notebook on hand and whenever you have the urge to cheat, make a note of what it is you want - on the cheat day right after the completion of the challenge you'll treat yourself with whatever you want out of your "cheat notebook" • I once worked with a well-known actor who would buy whatever it was he wanted when he had the impulse to cheat - cupcakes, sugary snacks, cake, etc - and take it home and put it in the freezer for when his cheat day arrived at the end of the week.
It satisfied his urge and at the end of the week he had a freezer stuffed with junk food that he usually ended up throwing out.
A waste, yes, but better than blowing it on your midsection.
At the end of the week look at your numbers and see how you performed.
Once you have a successful challenge behind you the next project (after you take that well-earned cheat day to eat whatever you like) is to take the lessons learned and make them into habits that will last a lot longer than a week.
You do want those six-pack abs to stick around for awhile, don't you?
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