The All-Day Fat-Burning Diet: The 5-Day Food-Cycling Formula That Resets Your Metabolism To Lose Up to 5 Pounds a Week (15 page)

THE BREAKDOWN

This diet is not a low-fat diet, a no-carb diet, or a vegan diet. It incorporates aspects of each, but this diet is based on science, not trends or fitness demagoguery; in fact, I’m hesitant to call this a diet at all.

I don’t want to use the word
diet
because this program is not based on deprivation. You’ll be eating nourishing, delicious meals that leave you satisfied, whereas following most diets ends up feeling like an ordeal. Even though you will have to put in some work, and there will be a few rough days here and there, this program will ultimately renew you from the inside out.

Every day for the next 3 weeks (and hopefully beyond), you’ll be waking up to easy-to-follow guidelines cycling you through the following five daily schedules.

Day
1:
The Low-Carb Day

Day 2:
The 1-Day Feast

Day 3:
The 1-Day Fast

Day 4:
The Regular-Calorie Day

Day 5:
The Low-Calorie Day

Let’s break down what each of these days looks like.

DAY 1: THE LOW-CARB DAY

Repeat after me: Not all carbs are bad. To some of you, that might sound sacrilegious, in which case you should repeat the phrase at least three more times.

No-carb and low-carb diets are but the latest in a long line of weight-loss trends dating back to the early 20th century. Why, in the 1920s, even cigarettes were marketed as a way to lose weight! In the 1950s, there was the cabbage diet, which held that eating a bowl of cabbage soup once a day was the way to a slender body. There was also the grapefruit diet and even the ridiculous Hollywood cookie diet that pushed special cookies made with a supposedly fat-blasting blend of amino acids.

However, thanks to the Internet and social media, the low-carb craze has taken hold in popular culture in a way no other diet has before. It was popularized by
The Atkins Diet
and
The South Beach Diet
in the 1990s, but since then has come to be thought of as a general rule for anyone looking to shed fat fast. These villainous carbs, we’re told, are inessential nutrients that cause inflammation and spike your blood sugar and insulin, thus causing your body to store fat.

It would be nice if the answer was as simple as that, but it’s not. If anything, avoiding carbs like the plague could do your body more harm than good. It’s all about determining which carbs are good for you and which aren’t and how many of them you really need. Here’s the lowdown on carbs once and for all.

As a general rule, eating more carbs than you need for physical
activity
makes your body less efficient at burning fat. With this in mind, we already know it’s important to place a reasonable limit on our carb consumption. Beyond that, we also know that all carbs are not created equal. White, refined carbohydrates—glutenous grains such as breads, pastas, and cereals—are what you probably think of when the word
carbs
is mentioned, but vegetables like broccoli and green peas are also carbs. Can you guess which ones you should and shouldn’t be eating?

Indulging in bad carbs can have damaging effects on your blood sugar and insulin levels, which can lead to further weight gain, diabetes, heart disease, and more. Good carbs, however, are an important source of energy for your body. The problem with trying to lose weight by not eating carbohydrates is that most of us require some level of carbohydrates to function at our best over the long term. So given that carbs aren’t as bad as they’re popularly thought to be, you might wonder why I’m suggesting you restrict carbohydrate intake on some of the next 21 days.

Reducing the amount of carbohydrates in your diet periodically does remain one of the best ways to lose weight. It tends to reduce your appetite and prompts automatic fat loss, without the need for calorie counting or portion control. This means that you can eat until you feel full and satisfied, and still lose weight.

But low-carb diets, in the long run, are no better than any other diet. As you become more active, keeping carbs too low for too long can have disastrous consequences. If you’re typically sedentary and carry around quite a bit of body fat, your carbohydrate needs are naturally lower because you’re using less energy. As such, you might be able to get away with a lower amount of carbs in your diet. On the other end of the scale, I’m pretty slender, hovering between 7 to 9 percent body fat, which means that if I completely removed carbs from my diet, I would whittle away to nothing in no time. I need carbs for energy, but rather than bingeing on them, I cycle them intelligently. So can you.

For our purposes, if you simply remove the unhealthiest carb sources from your diet—wheat (including whole wheat) and added sugars—then you’ll be well on your way to improved health and you’ll notice the pounds drop off almost automatically. However, to enjoy the full meta
bolic
benefits of short-term low-carbohydrate intake, you need to restrict other carb sources for specific periods of time as well. After all, we want to kick the fat-burning process into high gear. If you’re already mourning the lack of carbs in this program, don’t worry; you’ll be able to enjoy them to the fullest and without guilt on other days. Staggering your carbs (and calories) in this way is part of the magic of the All-Day Fat-Burning Diet.

We’re beginning with your Low-Carb Day, as this kicks off the process of fat burning in your 5-day cycle. The main goal on this day is to deplete your glycogen stores, which will in turn make your body turn to fat as its main fuel source.

You’ll see that in the 21-day plan we actually start with two Low-Carb Days. This is done purposefully to lower your glycogen reserves (stored carbohydrates) so that your body starts tapping into more of your stored fat for fuel.

Food-
wise, we accomplish this by keeping your “net” carbohydrate intake—the amount of carbohydrate remaining after we exclude fiber—below 50 grams. The first thing I’m sure you’re thinking is,
What does that even look like?

Here’s a chart showing the net carb content of a few popular, healthy foods.

As you can see from the chart, it’s pretty easy to blow through your 50 grams of net carbs with a few pieces of fruit, so on your Low-Carb Day, we’re going to focus on eating a lot of vegetables. We’ll also be leaning on the secret weapon of your Low-Carb Day: protein. We know that getting plenty of protein has many advantages, as it
revs
up your metabolism, makes you feel full longer, and helps you retain lean muscle mass. It turns out that these advantages are just as beneficial to the fat-burning process as depleting your glycogen stores.

A 2012 study in the journal
Physiology & Behavior
revealed just how powerful protein can be when it comes to losing weight. Over the course of 1 year, the researchers compared four different dietary conditions.

1. Normal protein, normal carbohydrate

2. Normal protein, low carbohydrate

3. High protein, low carbohydrate

4. High protein, normal carbohydrate

Interestingly, the two groups eating the high protein lost the most weight. Furthermore, varying the levels of fats and carbs seemed to make no difference to body composition.
²

Low-Carb-Day Food Guidelines

•
Your goal is to eat fewer than 50 grams of net carbs on this day.

•
Avoid starchy carbs (root veggies, grains).

•
Eat protein at each meal.

•
Eat fit fats for energy.

•
Eat lots of leafy and cruciferous veggies.

•
Eat when you’re hungry, and stop when you’re full.

Eat Unlimited Amounts of These Foods

All Leafy Greens

Cruciferous
Vegetables

Other

Limit the Following Foods

For reference: 5 to 7 handfuls equal about 50 grams of net carbohydrates

VISUAL SERVING SIZE = 1 CUPPED HANDFUL

Avoid These Foods

For reference: 2 to 3 cupped handfuls equal about 50 grams of net carbohydrates

*These foods are part of the “fat and filthy” list and should generally be avoided at any time.

Again, we just want to avoid these foods on our Low-Carb Days since they will easily put us over our 50-gram net carb target. It’s not that these foods aren’t healthy, because many of them are; we’re just strategically avoiding them today to bring our carb load down.

Low-
Carb-Day Exercise Guidelines

Speed burst training (5 to 10 minutes)

Follow with 30+ minutes of low-intensity cardio, if desired

For detailed explanations of the exercises throughout the book, see
Chapter 6
, Step 4: Exercise Using the “LIFT Method” to Burn Fat 24/7.

Before we move on, I thought you’d appreciate answers to some of the common questions I get asked about Low-Carb Days.

What if I get hungry on Low-Carb Days?

Occasionally, you may feel hungry on your Low-Carb Days. This is because you’re avoiding starchy carbohydrates, which fill you up fast and contain a lot of calories. Ride through the hunger by adding more clean proteins, fit fats, and fibrous veggies to your meal. There’s no harm in eating some protein, fat, or more salad.

How many carbs should I eat at every meal?

Even though we’re aiming for fewer than 50 grams of net carbs, I certainly don’t expect or want you to start obsessing about that. The beauty of this plan is its simplicity. Just follow this one simple rule: On Low-Carb Days, don’t eat starchy carbs or fruit, but continue to eat clean proteins, fibrous veggies, and fit fats. Try to remember that when your 1-Day Feast rolls around, you’ll be able to eat those starchy carbs and fruits that you’ve given up today. Simple, right?

Cheat Tip: Replace Grains with Greens

You’ll quickly notice how both the Low-Carb Day and 1-Day Feast are virtually identical: Both call for you to eat lots of protein, veggies, and fat. There’s just one simple difference: On Low-Carb Day, we replace the starchy carbs and fruit from your 1-Day Feast with tons of fibrous veggies. In other words, wherever you would have had a starchy carbohydrate (say, brown rice, or maybe a mango), simply replace it with fibrous veggies.

DAY 2: THE 1-DAY FEAST