To Be Continued

Getting on a diet and losing weight is one thing. Keeping yourself on that diet for life is another. We eat eccessively because of comfort. It's comfortable to us who to eat more than our body needs and this causes many health problems. It's no different than anything else that has to over work. At some point the machine is going to break down. It acutually gets tired.

Changing this habit of overeating has to be one the hardest lifestyle changes in existance for people who just love to eat. I see the looks on countless people's faces when I mention the word "diet." They treat it like work, and by perceiving your lifestyle change this way, it's bound to fail. Not many people realize overeating is a habit. You can definately change habits. The question is how do you change this habit effectively. You succeed at the little steps.

There are two phases to this lifestyle change. The first phase is getting your body and diet to a certain level. The second phase is maintaining this level for life. In the second phase you have to create a perception which is different than the first. In this phase it's all about living the diet, not following the diet. You have to set up the scenario in your mind this is your life now and this is how I live and eat. It becomes a part of you no different than any other perception you choose to have about life. It's exactly about what you expect to see in the mirror every day.

The small steps you take every day will lead to the ultimate desire of acheivement.

Plenty Of Protein

Out of the three foods catagories, Protein, Starchy Carbohydrates, Fiberous Carbohydrates, protein is the food you should never skip during your meals. Protein is what keeps the muscles from eroding in your diet. It also adds energy and helps your metabolism to burn other carlories more efficiently. The key to eating protien is choosing lean foods. Beef, chicken, pork, eggs, nuts, and fish are all equally important in sustaining a well balanced diet. Fish especially has essentially omega 3 fatty acids which are very "good" fats to be include in your meals.

You must remember, we're counting calories here so it's important to proportion the amounts of foods correctly. Anywhere between 4-6 oz of lean meats or protein per meal is about right. Mix up your proteins at each meal. Some people will be able to include a higher percentage in their diets simple because of their metabolism composition. Some are able to burn one set of food calories better than others. On average the percentages maybe be 20% protein 40% Fiberous Carbs and 40% Starchy Carbs. You'll have to work and see what percentage works best for your body type. Staggering your calories each day is important to jump starting metabolism.

Overall, Protein is the main food you should consider eating before any others at meal time. Your body needs calories to burn and protein gives it the right amount of feul.

Weight Training

I imagine many people have this idea in their head that once they lose an amount of weight it will just magically stay off of those hips, thighs, stomach and butt. Some people have a delusion of thinking they can go right back to their old eating habits, and forget about what they've been doing to succeed for the past several months. People it's NEVER going to happen.

The small step diet is about how to take smalls steps so you may enjoy lasting success in your diet and fitness. It's a weight training program you must adhear too for the rest of your life if you want to remain fit. It is a lifestyle change in not only your eating habits, but you exercise habits too. The point is, you really can take small steps to accomplish success for the rest of your life, but without those steps, you will see the results you definately do not desire.

Let's review a concept:
In order to walk from one place to another you have to take one step at a time. In order to take one step at a time you have to put on one shoe at a time. Before that you have to tie one lace at time. Is the picture getting clear? Weight trainning is all about taking steps. It doesn't matter how small these steps are, they all lead to the desired outcome. One day at a time, one hour at a time, one minute at a time gets you to your destination. Without these steps, success is unlikely because you overwhelm yourself with fear.

Train yourself to accept taking small steps. Enough small steps lead to big outcomes. If you make your goals small enough, you basically have to succeed. If you can't walk a mile, you still might be able to crawl a foot. Set in motion some small step to take every day towards your goal.

...And you thought this was going to be about Dumb Bells, didn't you?

Eating Clean

Eating clean means eating high quality foods. Foods which have the most natural vitamins and no persevatives. This kind of eating can seem very bland, but the health benefits will make a big difference not only in the way you feel, but in the way you approach your health. When thinking about eating clean there is one word you need to get ingrained in your head. This word is LEAN. When thinking of lean foods, you must think of foods which you know will help you to remain lean. Below I've listed several foods which are lean and can give you an abundance of rich vitamins and other essential nutrients your body craves.

Vegetables
Apples
Organges
Whole Wheat Bread
Whole Wild Rice
BlueBerries
Strawberries
Olive Oil
Wine (6 0z daily)
Nuts - Almonds/Walnuts
fish
Green Tea
Raw Honey
Cottage Cheese
Eggs
Lean Meat

Losing weight is really about losing body fat. That's the big difference in the Small Step Diet. If you do not consentrate on losing body fat then you are restricting a lean, tone body. Building or maintaining muscle is the real key to being fit and lean. Your body fat percentage should become your main focus over just losing weight. Eating clean will give you the nutrients your body need to maintain it's health, grow, and vibrant nature. By eating clean your metabolism is getting the most bang for it's buck. The is no question removing the sluggish foods from your diet and adding these lean foods will get the metabolism reved up. Adding a little exercise to build those muscles even adds more fuel to the fire.

Water You Waiting For?

One activity which is very useful to your diet is drinking water. Many recommend 8 cups a day. Now this is alot of water to consume, but let's look at some of the benefits this provides.

• Hydration - Drinking water keeps you from essentailly drying out and conserving fat.
• Increases Metabolic Rate - Drinking water increases your fat buning factor because you body has to warm it up.
• Washes out impurities - Drinking water can help get rid of toxics in your system by flushing them out.
• Digestion - drinking water breaks down foods and makes digestion easier on your system.
• Healthier Looking Skin - Drinking water keep everything moist and vibrant resulting in giving you healthier looking skin.

Adding a squeeze of lemon or lime will give a little flavor to your water if you get tired of just drinking the plain stuff.

Drinking plenty of water is good for a person's overall walfare. Keeping hydrated allows the bodies functions to work better. Keep a bottle near you all through the day and drink to your well-being and good health.

Oh, one last thing. Make sure you have a clear path to a bathroom, you're going to need it all day long!

The Small Of It All

One thing I've always noticed about people who fail at diets is they try to go all out towards a goal which will create immediate results. When these people don't get the results they're looking for they quit, determining it's just too much time and effort to go all out just to fail.

The whole point of taking small consistant steps towards dieting is to be able to see immediate results that are designed to succeed. You might not be able to cut out that 4 packs of sugar in your coffee all at once, but you definately can cut out 1 pack. Or half a pack, how about a quarter of a pack? The point is to make things so small you can't help but succeed.

Some people will have the attitude this will not accomplish much, but the reality is it will accomplish much toward consistant dieting. People trying to approach a diet with an all or nothing attitude, rarely succeed because they bog themselves down in seeing the all or nothing
results, immediately.

Think small attainable steps for your diet and fitness program, ones you can definately succeed at and you will be surprised at how each step moves you closer and closer to your ultimate goal.

Burning Calories

Ok, so you understand the right diet together with enough exericse gives you the best way to burn fat and hopefully keep it off for good. The question now arises how much exercise is enough to burn those extra calories off? The answer depends on one thing. How much exercise are you willing to do? ALL exercise and physical movement burns calories.

What many people do not know is you can actually get to a point in exercising which has no more benefit to calorie burning. Too much exercise can produce a negetive effect with over exertion and you definately do not want to hurt youself. If you will, indulge me for a second by letting me make this analogy.

I'm a drummer. Playing drums is about learning finesse, contrary to many people's perception. Aren't you suppose to bang the tar out of the drums with each stoke? No, you're suppose to be as loose and relaxed as possible by letting the stick bounce and do all the work. Forcing the stick down into the drumhead actually will produce a loss of vigor after the stroke, causing a lack of smoothness and energy. Hard and "fast-as-you-can" produces only tenseness and rigidity in your muscles and before long will reduce needed energy for playing. The same happens with burning calories. At first you can get your heart rate going up to the maximum BPM, but then when you've spent that energy, it's gone. Evenly sustained exercise is favorable. It's not a, "less is more," kind of thing, it's a, "just about right," kind of thing.

It makes much more sense to exercise up to a point and then rest. Getting a heart rate up for a good 30 minutes is about maximum for calorie burning. Beyond that you may be burning residual calories, but not at the same rate or effect you were for the first 30 minutes.
This is not to discourage anyone from exercising or weight training beyond this immediate time because you can still build muscle and endurance, but even those have their limits.

The exercise plan I developed for the Small Step Diet is not in any way an end all to a good calorie burning exercise program. It is however an alternative to those of you who do not have the time nor the will power to take thirty minutes a day to raise your metabolism. Small Step Exercising is a good start which I conclude needs to be built upon by adding reps to each exercise each week as you progress with your diet.