More than ever, we are watching our budgets.  Those of us on a tight budget know how hard it is to decide to diet this week or feed the kids!

I am here to tell you, you can still feed the kids (definitely!) and lose weight – even when don’t know where the next meal is coming from.

I an age where, for generations, adults have been used to eating 3 or more meals a day, it is anathema to mention going without food for a time.  But still an honest look at history and how our bodies function on a fast would lay aside so much of our fears.  And that is really what is behind why we don’t even think of fasting unless you are a health fanatic or religious person.  Fear due to lack on knowledge and plenty of misinformation that is spread all over the Internet.

There is plenty of solid science behind the health benefits of fasting and those who know wish that folks would listen.  But now that the science stands behind safe gradual weight loss while on a fast, folks will be glad to know that they can put those unfounded fears to rest.

What we don’t realize is that no one – NO ONE – has ever died of fasting.  Now, folks have done protest fasts to the point of starvation.  There is a difference between fasting and starving.  One willingly puts themselves on a fast and when true hunger kicks in, you obey your hunger (you know it!)

Starvation is entirely different.  Here you may start out fasting but you continue to ignore the hunger signals and well, the body can only go so long without nourishment.  Still this goes on past 40 days, so you will just stay under your medical professional’s supervision and you will be safe.

But you can usually go well past an easy 3 day fast to 40 days or so (only under your doctor’s supervision!!).

What is so great is that you don’t have to worry about counting and measuring.  there are no tasteless meal plans and days of

So, I did and I can tell you it was a breeze!  There was one point that I nearly stuck an apple slice in my mouth but I caught myself before it was too late.

But seriously, I made it through the 24 hours like it was nothing.  then when I did resume eating I felt comfortable eating what I am used to not needing to stuff myself or over indulge just because I had not eaten in a day.

This being September 30th, I plan to update my own weight loss progress from time to time so look for my own category Marie’s Journey.  Oh, I guess i better tell you I want to lose 55 pounds before i am done.  Want to join me?  Get Eat Stop Eat and let’s do this thing!

You see, I have studied and read a lot about health over the years including fasting, but I thought of fasting for health and cleansing purposes which is something you do periodically to detoxify your tissues.  Fasting has long been practiced worldwide and across all cultures and religions for centuries.  People have used fasting for weight loss, too, but this has always been discouraged because “science proved” fasting causes you to lose lean muscle tissue and not necessarily fat.

Well, I finally broke down and got my hands on Brad’s report and I am telling you now that I was “awakened”.  There is no question in my mind now that short term internittent fasting could be the weight loss dieter’s panacea!  Take a look at these benefits:

• The weight you lose is fat and not muscle
• NO more measuring portions
• NO more counting calories
• NO more diet club memberships
• You don’t have to buy pre-measured meals
• You don’t have to give up your favorite foods !!
• You will save money (because you don’t eat for one to two 24 hour periods per week)
• NO more weird supplements and potions to lose weight
• Eat carbs, fats or whatever and when you like

It is total dieters fantasy!  I will be talking more abou the benefits of this in coming weeks and months as I apply this to my own weight loss journey.

Take a look at Brad’s site – Eat Stop Eat here

By: Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Turbulence Training

At this time of year, we can use every last tip to help avoid holiday weight gain.

So here are 5 more fat loss tips for beginner & advanced readers.

1) No liquid calories (with the exception of a post-workout drink).

Get rid of all the juices, the sodas, and the sports drinks. Liquid sugar is the last thing you need when you are trying to lose fat.

You must also limit your alcohol intake – especially if you are adding mix to drinks…that is a double calorie bomb! A single “Jackand Coke” is over 200 calories (100 calories from booze and 100 calories from mix).

2) No fast food.

Do not eat at fast food restaurants. Even if you choose what you think is healthy, remember this:

Fast food restaurants are all about profit.

And in order to profit while giving you cheap, quick, and easy to prepare foods, the quality of the food ingredients will be poor -
especially the protein.

Now you might have read that you can still make healthy choices at fast food restaurants. But you know what, that’s just politically-correct opinion. If it’s fast food, it’s poor food.

Walking into a burger joint and grabbing a chicken breast on a white bread bun with a piece of old lettuce and a half-green, half-pink tomato is “barely” healthy eating.

The politically-incorrect truth is that it’s going to take time and effort to eat properly. You will have to plan, shop, and prepare healthy meals. You will have to spend time cleaning, cutting, and cooking your food. That’s the truth.

But believe me, it will taste so much better than fast food, and healthy eating will make you more alert. Eating fast food will make you feel terrible, and will make you want to have an afternoon nap at your desk.

Make one small improvement to your nutrition everyday for the rest of your life.

3) Eat more fruits and vegetables.

If you are eating 2 servings per day, then go up to 4 servings per day by the end of the week. And even if you think you are doing great by having 5 servings per day, you still need to double that (take 2-3 weeks to work your way up to 10 servings per day).

Stick with fiber-rich fruits and vegetables – organic if possible.

4) Eat 1oz of almonds or walnuts per day (1/2 oz in the AM, and the other half in the afternoon).

Most nuts are roasted in oils (possible source of trans fats), so stick to natural or dry-roasted nuts.

Don’t panic…this small amount of nuts won’t make you fat, but will fill you up and help you lose weight.

5) Be consistent with your workouts.

And make sure the workouts are efficient and effective. To make it easy for you to follow, stick with the Turbulence Training fat burning  workout system.

It doesn’t matter if you train in the morning before or after breakfast, or at night before or after dinner, or at 1pm on days
when the moon is in line with Saturn…don’t worry about the details, just train consistently.

6) BONUS TIP: Go for a walk after lunch or dinner (or anytime you eat a big meal). Research shows this will help you control your cholesterol and triglycerides, plus any movement is better than sitting around watching the TV and snacking.

Improve your lifestyle everyday,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Author, Turbulence Training

PS – Change your workouts to beat a fat loss plateau.

“The constant shakeup is amazing. I look forward to my workouts. I feel so much better than I did 6 weeks ago. I had almost given up on fitness as I was becoming very frustrated with my plateaus. I started out at 233 lbs and am already heading for 225 in only a few short weeks. Thank you for developing this truly amazing program and for sharing with the rest of us. It’s very refreshing to enjoy working out again!”
Dave Heffernan

“Turbulence Training is AWESOME! I started working out in 2004 first time in gym at 39 yrs. Then I discovered T.T. in 2006 and started receiving unbelievable info on xercises/nutrition. Immediately I started incorporating T.T. in my busy schedule which is improving my strength, definition, flexibility and nutrition. Craig is quick to reply to questions and supportive. My confidence and strength has definitely improved. If I only knew of Turbulence Training in 2004. The gym crowd is really checking me out now.”
Kimmie Clark

“I lost 14 pounds this month and the weight is just falling off me. My wife says I now look like when we first met and I still have more to go. I can fit into my old jeans again which is a big deal for me. I just cut back on starches and bread and do your routine 2-3 times a week. I never thought in a million years that just 10-20 minutes of weight training followed by some cardio would get me such steady results. I even cheat a bit on the weekends.”
Billy Williams

Turn your health around with Turbulence Training:
==> http://besthealthyweightlossdiet.com/go?turbulencetraining

About the Author

Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Muscle and Fitness Hers, and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked Turbulence Training fat loss workouts have been featured multiple times in Men’s Fitness and Maximum Fitness magazines, and have helped thousands of men and women around the world lose fat, gain muscle, and get lean in less than 45 minutes three times per week. For more information on the Turbulence Training workouts that will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment, visit turbulencetraining.com

What really gets me is that these short term diets really don’t prepare you to keep the weight off even after you lose the 9 pounds. Maybe you do lose that weight and the jeans fit better. But most of us need to lose more like 35 pounds or more. Do you run through the program again and again to get it all off? OK. So, now what? How do you keep it off? And what about taking advantage of your body’s natural fat buring mechanism – muscle?

No, let me tell you the only way you will take off fat is to regulate your food intake and build muscle. We have to eat a balanced amount of good fresh foods MINUS the “junque” food forms like white bagels, cookies, donuts, desserts, fried foods. What we are looking at is more fruits and veggies, naturally raised meats, wholesome dairy, a few grains, nuts and seeds. And no, by fruits and veggies I don’t mean catsup and french fries!!

You can practically gorge yourself on fruits and veggies – you’ll get a belly ache before you eat more than is good for you (unlike fried foods, icecream and sweets of which you can eat thousands of calories before you get sick). Lightly steam the veggies if you like and add a dab of real butter. No margarine. Bad stuff. Drink good raw milk if you like milk. Eggs are good for you despite all opinion to the contrary. Whole eggs – whites and yolks are meant to be eaten together.

OK. One thing the quickie weight loss plans leave out is real honest to goodness, heart pumping exercise! Your body was designed to move; to work hard. By sitting for hours at a time, you are setting yourself up to die a long slow death. I know this because I am acting as caregiver to two 70 something year old people that have led sedentary lives and both are crippled by their weight and a misuse of their bodies. They should still be walking but neither one can go about without a walker – just to get to the toilet!!!

Please, listen to me! You need to do daily exercise. Even if you do Turbulence Training like I recommend here, you should be doing something on the “off” days.

So this rant started out picking on a quickie weight loss plan and ended up preaching to you about exercise but do take heed. Don’t fool yourself into thinking a sound diet and daily exercise just isn’t for you.  Stay active. Use it or lose it!!

I suggest to you that you have Plan B and C and D as a contingency for when things go wrong.  Being flexible is the key to being less stressed, whatever the case may be.  Allowing yourself to let parts of your day go, but remembering to bring things back on course as soon as possible.  Here are some ideas to have in mind in the event that the inevitable happens:

• If you are stuck at the hospital with a loved one, take the stairs instead of the elevator to substitute for your workout.
• Most workouts can be done in parts, so do some stretches and basic weight training in the morning and the more active aerobic workouts when you are about town

• Don’t forget to stash healthy snacks in you bag or case like almonds, dried fruit, nuts and a bottle of water.

• If you have to eat cafeteria style food or fast food, stick to the items that you know are close to your eating plan.

Your diet or fitness program doesn’t need to get shipwrecked due to family emergencies.  The idea is to plan for when things like that happen and you won’t get caught for too long without getting back to the normal daily schedule.

As a healthy eater, you may be concerned about adding eggs to your diet.  The reports often contradict one another – with some experts saying you should limit your intake to two per week and others saying two a day are okay.

Eggs provide certain health benefits aside from providing the protein you need each day.  The protein factor is perfect for dieters because eggs make you feel full after eating them.  In fact, eating just two eggs in the morning has been known to reduce caloric intake by up to 400 calories according to the Rochester Center for Obesity in Michigan.

Another benefit eggs offer is that they provide eyesight protection.  Because eggs contain the antioxidant lutein, which is packed into the yolks, you get a built-in safeguard against damage to your retina.  Lutein in the eggs stops any inflammation of the macular pigment, which is what shelters your retina from harmful light rays.

Want to boost your brainpower a bit?  Eggs can even help your memory since a single egg yolk delivers 300 mcg of choline.  Choline is one of the most powerful components f acetylcholine, which has been proven to provide flexibility to neurons in the brain that keep your memory intact.  By ingesting a single egg, you’ve helped your neurons accept, process, and store information more quickly and efficiently.

If you’ve been plagued by urinary tract infections (UTIs), then you might also be glad to hear that eggs can help you stave them off in the future.  Eggs contain peptides, which are found in the whites of eggs as a protein that binds to the infectious E. coli bacteria and doesn’t let them latch on to the walls of the urinary tract.

Before you jump to conclusions that all eggs are bad for your health, you should weigh the information and where it’s coming from. A Harvard School of Public Health study found no link between the consumption of eggs and heart disease.  Some studies even show it improves your protection against stroke and heart attacks.

Saturated fat is what contributes to a rise in cholesterol, and eggs only contain 1.5 grams of saturated fat and 5 grams of the “right kind” of fat you want to put in your body.  In addition to being healthy, eggs contribute some beauty basics your body needs, like helping your hair and nails by providing sulfur, vitamins, and minerals.

This may not seem much differnt from our first law but there is a subtle difference which is why I cover it here.

If you are like me, your grandma told you to finish your food to be a member in good standing of the “Clean Plate Club!” What our dear grandmother did was set the stage for over eating and over weight. It is “sin” to leave food on the plate, after all! To top it off she made that food so yummy we not only cleaned our plate, we went back for more!

What if she had just put a bit of everything on the plate and we went on to eat slowly until we were satisfied. Then a few hours later – not half a day later – we could come back for more. This slow steady flow of nutrients into our bodies would tell that brain of ours, “You are getting enough, there is no starvation. No need to store (in the form of fat)”.

You see, our body is NOT like a gas tank. When we fill out car’s tank with gas, we know that this fuel will steadily be metered into the carburetor and burned as needed. A partial fill takes you only part way then you have to fill again.

Our body, on the other hand, receives the food into the stomach. Whether it is a snack or a full blown meal, it is processed, converted to usable nutrients. But whatever is not used is either discarded (this happens to the indigestible fiber as well as food that was not chewed thoroughly) or stored (you guessed it, fat). Then we want to fill up our tank again in 3 or 4 hours no matter how full we filled the tank before. More food to be processed or stored (as fat). And so it goes.

Because we have ready access to tasty food and lots of it, we (that’s you and me), need to act as the carburetor to our body and slowly, steadily “meter” it or we will get “flooded” and won’t start!

There are lots of eating plans out there. The tips I just outlined will give you a checklist to go by to find a plan that suits you and will help you safely and healthfully lose weight.

Next time I will go into how exercise figures into all of this.

Law #2 – Eat as closely to natural as is practical.  Now, remember, a law is something that is fundamentally true.  It is established science that our bodies function best eating the foods that are closest to the way the Creator made them.  Even from an evolutionary standpoint, our bodies still function best on nature’s best for all of recent history.  No, we have not developed a way to subsist on biscotti and Caramel Macchiatos and live, long strong lives.  Sure we can go for a while but sooner of later our body says, “where’s the beef? – veggies, grains, fruit, etc…

So, where does that leave us?  The bare facts:

Raw or lightly steamed veggies. Fresh fruit. Get used to shopping your local produce department. Better yet head to the organic produce section. Learn to do without anything canned or industrially processed (sorry, Marie Callender pot pies are a thing of the past if you want to get well and lose weight)

Minimally processed/cooked meats and animal products. Naturally raised beef, chicken, fish, etc. and their by-products, milk and eggs. Learn to walk past the bologna and lunch meats, yes, and that lovely roasted rotisserie chicken, too.

Raw dairy products and whole eggs. Bring on the butter and whole RAW milk! Yes, you can lose weight while eating butter and whole eggs. Just make adjustments to overall caloric intake. You are missing out on some of the most “real food” when you pass up butter and eggs. It may be difficult to swallow (pardon the pun) but current medical advice is not necessarily sensible nor is it truly backed up by scientific research. More often than not, current medical convention is motivated by other things besides helping you to get and stay well (hint: the almighty dollar).

History shows otherwise. Man has eaten whole eggs and butter for millennium without a problem. So why do we have heart disease and other illness associated with modern man? Look at how our modern diet has changed to get a clue. The only logical conclusion is: processed man-made food forms.

Cereal grains like oats, barley, wheat, rice. Oatmeal with raisins. Brown rice with butter and veggies. Whole grain bread from freshly ground grain. This makes sense. Brownies, candy bars, Captain Crunch cereal, frankly, are misuses for grain and grasses (most sugar comes from a grass, by the way – sugar cane).

When a race horse is given a diet, the trainer goes out of his or her way to make sure it gets just what will feed the animal as healthfully as is practical. Nothing pre-bagged or cooked for it, either. Fried? Sugar coated? High pressure processed? No, if the trainer has any sense will he or she give this animal only the BEST and closest to how the animal’s fodder is found in nature.

What makes us think we can get by on anything less? Do we think somehow we can endure highly processed foods – that we somehow have “evolved” to a higher ability to digest man-made fats, chemical sweeteners and food forms? I’m here to tell you, no. Our bodies treat processed foods, fats, and chemical additives like any other toxin we ingest – our livers go into hyper-drive to deal with everything we throw at it. Often it is neutralized and carried away in the blood stream, through the kidneys or bowels and out.

But more often than not, these undesirables get immobilized and stowed in the nearest place it can find. How about, hmmmm, let’s just stick it in this fat cell over here – that’s a nice out of the way place to stick it. Or worse, stick it in the joints (gout? arthritis pain?)

No, like the race horse, we must eat as close to nature as is practical if we intend to have a healthy, trouble free life.

Next time…eating smaller meals.

No, I guess not. Not just because diet is such a nasty term either. Nowadays “diet” means “confusing” to me. What do you do? Do you eat high protein diet or low protein? Do you eat high carbs or low carbs? Can you have fat and what fat is good for you? Artificial sweeteners – poison? Drink water but don’t overdo it… Exercise or not to exercise.  See what I mean?

How are we to muck through the mire of weight loss facts and recognize fiction. Who do you believe? After all, Dr Soandso did years of research to prove his diet. This other Dr. prescribed her “one and Only BEST” Diet plan and saved countless lives.

Well, I am here to tell you it’s time to go back to school. It’s time to do a little research ourselves – dig into this general topic of how to lose weight safely. In case you wanted a bit of a head start, this is what I am learning in my own digging. I have broken this down into Laws for Sensible Eating.  I call them laws because for the past 10,000 years of human history they have not changed.  How man and woman converted food to fuel for their bodies has not changed.  So, we can make some assumptions based on that.  I will take these “assumptions” one at a time.

#1 Law – Eat Less.

That seems like a “duh!” But let’s think about how our bodies have behaved in the past 10,000 years of human history. This amazing “machine” is designed to stay alive even the most dire circumstances. Man has had to be resourceful for most of recorded history in getting his food. There were times of feasting after killing a deer or a young goat which may have been eaten with the roots and greens that were gathered for the occasion. More often than not man has had to go from one feast to another with several weeks in between.

Before domestication there was hunting and fishing, foraging and gathering. Wandering was a way of life for most peoples. Yes, some folks gathered into villages and cities but these were places of trade for the nomadic peoples. There were frequent hard times – times of famine. Assuming people ate when there was plenty, thus stored body fat, they could carry through a long time before true starvation set in.  Some cultures still exist today that exist on this means – whole tribes in Africa, for instance.

As we became more “civilized” we learned to tame certain animals to be raised on purpose: for food and clothing. Purposely planting and raising certain crops made it easier to stay in one locale and therefore people stopped moving on. It became easier to get more food. Meat was more accessible. Produce was plentiful. Life became easier – no more feasting/famine cycles. Starvation was getting to be less of an issue.

Nevertheless, the design of the body didn’t change – hasn’t changed in some 10,000 years, experts say. It was designed to work efficiently while eating less more sturdy exercise. It was designed to store up excess food (in the form of fat) during times of feasting in order to carry through to the next feast.

Is it any wonder that our intelligent body is only doing what it is designed to do? Store fat in times of feasting. It makes sense, right?

Did you know that no one ever, EVER died of undereating.  Think about that one.  Now I am not talking about starvation – the complete absense of food or water.  I am talking about eating less, even very little will not kill you. 

On the other hand, over eating is the #1 cause of death today, if you account for diabetes, heart disease and cancer as by-products of poor lifestyle and eating habits. 

So, eat LESS – live longer!!

I’ll give you a “taste” of what is to come… just what to eat!