Your Next Holiday Calorie Control Tip

Yesterday we discussed how crucial it is for you to have a PLAN to control your calorie intake during the holidays. Today's tip is even more simple and expands on the premise.

Plan on staying away from the booze.

Look, a drink or two isn't going to be the end of the world. But when two turns to three...

I'm not getting on my soap box here. I'm just telling you something you already know:

Booze leads to bad decisions. And in this case, we're talking about bad eating decisions.

When alcohol enters the equation even the best laid plans crumble. The extra calories from the cocktails is one thing. But really it's the extra calories you chew that start to add up.

One piece of cake turns to two...

A handful of chips turns into a a bag...

The dip sitting in front of you mysteriously vanishes...into your belly...

You get the picture. ;-)

Have fun. Enjoy yourself. Just be conscious of what alcohol does to your decision making.

Yours in health,

George

PS - Rememeber, Prograde Nutrition's HUGE Holiday Savings ends TONIGHT. You definitely want to get over to ProGrade Store right NOW and place you order to save 15% on all their killer products. It's my duty as a proud Prograde Partner to remind you ;-)

I Know You Know This

I know you know this.

You know you know this.

Fail to plan, plan to fail.

You can't just HOPE you're going to behave yourself at holiday parties. You can't just do the same old things you've been doing. You can't just  miss breakfast. have a light lunch and then go to a party filled with temptation and not go a little insane on the cheese platter ;-)

You have to plan your meals.

You have to plan your workouts.

You have to set your goals in stone.

You don't want to be the person that comes out of the holidays 5 to 10 pounds heavier, do you?

If you don't plan your strategy from preventing it, well, you can PLAN on getting some new clothes that fit your new size.

This is far from doom and gloom. You can still enjoy your favorite foods at parties. You can still have a great time.

But what you can't do is just free-for-all it and stuff your face with everything put in front of you. You know that.

Tell you what: Plan on taking a nice 30 minute walk this weekend and do some solid thinking about what your plan will be. And when you get back home, put it on paper and commit to it.

And think about how great you'll feel about yourself when January comes after you've followed your plan. Oh, and be sure to reward yourself to by doing something special for yourself.

Yours in health,

George

PS - As a proud Prograde Nutrition partner I have to remind you Prograde is having a heck of a Holiday Blow Out on ALL of their awesome products. Everything you need, including the coupon code to save 15% on all Prograde Nutrition products is right here: ProGrade Store

Hurry because this deal expires this Friday, December 11th at 11:59pm EST.  

7 Questions With Jayson Hunter, Author and Registered DietiTian

Whether you're a practitioner of  the BusyBod Workout for Fat Loss or are just looking to start eating healthy and shed some pounds, the Carb Rotation Diet is a great choice. The fact that when you're done with the program you never have to diet again is a huge plus in my book and if it was like all the other fad diets out there, I wouldn't be endorsing it. So I suggest you give it a shot.

So I decided to pick up the phone and ask Jayson for an interview. Luckily for all of us, he was happy to oblige. Here's the seven questions I asked him:

1)The goal of the BusyBod Workout for Fat Loss is to provide ultra-busy people with all the training and nutritional guidance and resources they'll need to maximize their fat loss and lean muscle gains. How does the Carb Rotation Diet help ultra-busy people who have no time to cook or count calories?

Well, it is designed to keep your eating habits simple and uncomplicated. One of the ways is by simplifying how you determine your caloric intake and by not counting calories. I have devised a way to determine how much and what nutrients you should be eating so that you can maximize your nutrition. There are also many simple techniques in the Carb Rotation Program discussing meal planning, shopping and how to prepare your meals to maximize your time

2)If you had to give one piece of advice to ultra-busy people looking to maximize fat loss, what would it be?

If I had to give one piece of advice it would be to eat frequently. Don’t restrict calories when trying to lose weight. You will see sure defeat if you try to starve yourself when it comes to losing weight.

3)What can BusyBod practitioners expect from the Carb Rotation Diet?

Well, they can expect to lose up to 15 pounds in just 30 days. They can also expect to be taught how to make easy behavior modifications so that once they are done with the program they won’t ever have to diet again. This is where many diets suffer in that they don’t teach you how to eat once you have lost the weight.

4)With a new diet system coming out what seems like everyday, how is the Carb Rotation Diet different from all the other fad diets out there? Is this another "low carb" diet?

Like I said previously many diets will get the weight off of you, but then they don’t teach you how to live and eat once you have lost the weight. So what happens is you end up regaining the weight you lost and then go on the next diet thinking it is going to be better. There is a science to how you control the intake of your carbohydrates. When combined with other nutrients in a certain form of timing you can greatly accelerate your fat loss and speed up your metabolism at the same time. This is not a “low carb” diet. It is a systematic way to manipulating your carb intake to maximize fat loss.

5)Here's a question I get a lot, and I've heard different opinions, so I'd like to ask you. "I do my BusyBod workout first thing in the morning, do I need to eat something before I workout? (I normally just have a cup of coffee about 30 minutes before)"

Yes, you should at least have a small amount of fast digesting carbohydrates. The reason is because you have fasted from the night before and your glucose levels are low first thing in the morning. If you want to maximize your workout and burn the maximum amount of calories then you need to provide your body the fuel it needs to get started. If you only drank ½ a cup of orange juice 30 minutes before your workout you would be able to kick start your body and maximize your workout so that you burned the most amount of calories.

6)Can you tell my readers why eating carbs is beneficial to people whose main goal is to lose fat?

Carbs are beneficial for the simple fact that you need them to function efficiently. When you don’t eat enough carbs your body has to rely on other forms of energy and just doesn’t run optimally. The big thing in losing fat is controlling the carb intake and manipulating the intake in such a way that your body will shed fat faster than using other methods of weight loss.

7)Many of my readers travel a lot. What tips can you give the ultra-busy traveler when it comes to eating for fat loss?

One of the most important tips I could give is to not be afraid to ask for a change in your meal when at a restaurant. If your meal comes with fries as for a side salad or vegetables instead. If you meal has a sauce that you know is fattening then ask for a different sauce of no sauce at all. Most restaurants are very accommodating about this and are happy to fulfill your suggestions to make sure you are a happy customer.

It is all about making smart decisions in your food choices when traveling. Also, make sure you keep on hand some almonds as a healthy snack so that you don’t make a run through a fast food line because you don’t have anything to eat that is healthy.

Don't Be Scammed By Those HFCS Commercials

There was a big fuss a few months ago over the 2 commercials the corn refiners association has released regarding high fructose corn syrup. I saw the commercial online yesterday so I thought it was worth bringing up again.

To summarize, the commercials say that it is okay to consume high fructose corn syrup in moderation.

Well, what is moderation when high fructose corn syrup is in almost every food Americans eat today. 

Obviously their intent is to get people to eat more foods that contain high fructose corn syrup so that the corn refiners make more money. 

It was interesting that they showed fruit juice and a popsicle in the two commercials with one of the commercials was based on giving kids fruit juice. 

Need I say that most fruit juices on the shelves today contain less than 10% of real fruit juice?

So is it ok to keep feeding ourselves and our kids foods that contain high fructose corn syrup?

Is it harmful to our bodies?

Here are some facts you should know:

When high fructose corn syrup was introduced as a society we started veering away from whole and natural foods such as fruits and vegetables and starting eating more processed foods as well as more soft drinks.

If you substituted the high fructose corn syrup for sucrose in the same foods you would most likely end up with the same result. 

Many people overweight.

You see they both contain the same amount of calories.

Calories that we don't need.

If we just avoided these processed foods and soft drinks we would lose weight fast. 

If you drank a soft drink with high fructose corn syrup and a soft drink with sucrose you would end up with the same result.

A high calorie soft drink that our bodies do not need. 

The bottom line is this:

The definition of moderation to most health professionals is that something can be eaten every once in a while such as 1-3 times a week.

Moderation does not mean 5 times a day, which is what we tend to consume in high fructose corn syrup every day.

Go back to eating more whole foods such as fruits, vegetables, and natural grains along with lean meats and you will see that you lose weight fast and will keep it off forever.

The TRUTH About the Fat-Burning Zone

When I first set out on my fat loss journey from fat to fit, a lot of (misinformed) people told me that the only surefire way there is to losing fat is by exercising in the Fat Burning Zone. The theory is that in this zone of exercise intensity, the body uses stored fat for energy. At 60-70% of your maximum heart rate, 85% of your calories burned in this zone are fats, 5% are proteins and 10% are carbohydrates.

In a nutshell, the theory was that if I worked out at this pace, my body would burn only fat for energy. In other words, to get into this “fat-burning zone”, I needed to commit to hours of low to moderate intensity cardio every week so that I could shed my flab.

I’m sure you’ve heard this advice before. It's one of the biggest misconceptions in the fitness and weight-loss world, so I decided to spend some extra time writing about it. If long, slow, steady-state aerobics was the key to fat loss every person who crosses the finish line of a marathon and all of those people you see at the gym who are endlessly on the treadmill would have very low body fat. This just isn't the case.

Endurance exercise solely for fat loss does not make sense. Your goal as an endurance athlete is to become efficient and better at running, biking or swimming. A different plan of attack needs to be used to burn fat--a more effective and efficient plan.

The “Fat Burning Zone” has been greatly misinterpreted. The fat-burning zone is a concept that the body burns a greater amount of fat at lower-intensity aerobic exercise than it does at higher intensities. Actually, the body burns a greater percentage of fat at lower intensities than at higher intensities. At lower intensities, the body may burn 50 percent of the calories from fat, while at higher intensities it may only burn 35 percent. But at higher intensities you burn way more total calories—and more fat calories overall—than you do at lower intensities.

That is a key difference!!!

Remember, metabolism is largely a function of how much muscle you carry. Since aerobics does little to even maintain muscle, let alone build it, unlike resistance training, your metabolism is not increased while at rest.

You can forget all about long, boring cardio exercises with the BusyBod Workout for Fat Loss, we’ll have none of that!