Right now my coaching practice is full of women who are stressed out and wanting nothing more than to get at least 5 to 10 pounds of that stubborn fat and bloating off in a hurry. So I feel compelled to help more of you to do just that while we still have a couple months of summer left to go before the holidays launch.
What I’m about to share with you is my 10 Best Strategies you can implement right now as a jump start plan to look your best and feel like a million bucks in less than a couple weeks time. If you implement even just the first 3 on this list you will surely lose weight and belly bloating in a cinch…
« Take out all sources of the top 10 allergen and inflammatory foods for the next 2 weeks and watch your belly get flatter day by day…eliminate the dirty culprits that are making you overweight, unhealthy and zapping your energy. Read your food labels and hunt down and eliminate the hidden sources of all of these ingredients.
The top 10 are
1. Sugar (all sources except fruit)
2. Oils except for high quality olive oil (search your salad dressings and read labels, ask restaurants to prepare your food without oil)
3. Fast foods (fried, fatty or unhealthy, you know what they are)
4. Wheat (all the refined white stuff and even the whole wheat bread you have been thinking is healthy for you)
5. Dairy(you get your best calcium from greens not dairy)
6. Corn (Genetically Modified fatty filler Food most commonly used to fatten cows)
7. Soy (messes with your hormone balance and is also a GMO food)
8. Feedlot Raised meats (beef is a very inflammatory food and with all the added chemicals and fats it is a sure-fire weight gainer, not loser)
9.Alcohol (yes even the consistent glass of wine per night is a fat pill that attributes to belly bloat and is nasty to your weight loss efforts)
10. Packaged Processed Foods and Food Additives (if it isn’t fresh, real whole food that is something close to what your ancestors ate, put it back)
« Go 80/20. For the next 2 weeks, commit to eating 80% of your nutritional intake of foods from predominantly raw, fresh, organic vegetables and a very small amount of fruits limited to blueberries, apples or oranges. The other 20% can be your cooked sources of proteins from fish, egg whites and the occasional turkey breast as well as and grains like brown rice, steel cut oats and baked yams. You want to cut the crap and eliminate all the sugar, junky nutritionally devoid foods you can. Focus on eating nothing but real food. Like your grandparent’s grandparents used to eat. No joke! It was all organic back then and no one was living off our modern fat-promoting convenience foods.
« Switch all your sugar sources to stevia. That’s right. Give it up and you will be amazed at how much better you feel after a few days. You can cut your sugar cravings just by eating more protein sources and vegetables instantly.
« Drink nothing but water or green tea (you can make iced green tea sweetened with Stevia). Cut the coffee by switching to green tea. You MUST have at least 3 liters of water a day to eliminate bloating and to lose fat. Your fat burning metabolism and detox systems come to a halt when you are not sipping water all day long. You need at least 3 liters during the 2 weeks and beyond. Cut the sodas and especially eliminate the high fructose corn syrup. That alone is a fat packer. Think about your kids here too!
« Do a green drink in the morning to get your energy to skyrocket and make you feel refreshed and renewed. Got a VitaMixer or Juicer collecting dust in your cupboards or kitchen counter? Pull it out and fire it up. Try this simple juice recipe to start with every morning: 1 cucumber, 2 handfuls of spinach and 1 green apple. Refreshing, cleansing, detoxing and hydrating….ahhh!
« Get your cardio and strength training in first thing in the morning. You will always get the best fat burning results and lose more body fat if you train early morning as opposed to later in the day or evening since your hormones are in the perfect place early morning to receive the best benefits. Think about what you will get from exercise? What does it give you that nothing else can?: self-confidence, self-esteem, overcoming challenges, courage, discipline, perseverance, feeling powerful and like you can take on anything and win! Strong and healthy energy that vibrates from the inside out. Your workouts should never get easier…they should always get harder. You should be training no less than 3 days a week doing strength training and 3 of cardio…exercise creates the stamina to do more and get more out of your life. Push to make your gains continuous and to keep making progress. Mix it up and add more volume and load over time.
« Sleep! This may be the last thing you make time for and yet the single biggest factor that could be missing from your current lifestyle. Sleep will help you improve your health and your body’s ability to burn fat overnight. Set your alarm at around 7pm to remind yourself to start a wind-down ritual to be in bed by 9pm or 10pm at the latest so you can get 7 to 8 hours of sleep per night. Adequate sleep and reducing stress are the best for your health and your body. One poor night of sleep can create hormonal chaos and can make you hungrier! Being sleep deprived can raise cortisol and blood sugar levels and cause you to become insulin resistant. Higher levels of blood sugar mean lower levels of serotonin which increases your carb cravings. Optimal health, energy, focus, weight loss, burning fat, developing lean muscle is all increased when you get a good night’s sleep! Your 2 week goal is 7 to 9 hours of consistent sleep each night. No laptops, phones or radiating equipment in bedroom either. All of those things interfere with your ability to sleep well. Getting a good night sleep is like going the spa for a day…like a big relief and you need the recovery for energy to do your life
« No TV or late night movies. This actually keeps your brain turned on…in fact it keeps you stimulated and thinking. Set an alarm 1 hour before bedtime. When it goes off, agree to shut down. Take a hot, luxurious bath during this time. Getting warm and then cooling off helps your pineal gland to secrete melatonin so you can go to sleep. Connect with your loved ones before you go to sleep.
« No afternoon stimulants, no caffeine, starchy carbs or sugar after 3pm. This is a must if you want to prepare your hormones and your body to get a good night’s rest and burn body fat properly.
« Keep a food journal of every morsel that goes into your mouth. I say this not to help you feel bad about what you are doing, but rather to take a powerful step to becoming a conscious eater. It’s when we stay in the land of unconscious eating and negative emotional triggers that we stay on the merry-go-round of weight gain and weight loss. In your journal, record your food and beverage intake each day. Write down your story on day one of how you feel when you start. Do the same at the end of the 2 weeks so you can really see the difference in the changes you have made. Do your before and after weigh ins.
Take on one step each day! Tell yourself that it’s more about making small successful changes weekly than everything all at once. All the small successes add up to big huge successes overtime. Just stay as consistent as you possibly can. Surround yourself with positive motivators and people who will help you.
