Dietary Goals Completed
Goal #5: Change diet to a balanced and complete 6 meal-a-day plan, based on Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle COMPLETED!
This was the first goal I completed. After finding polyphasic sleep I decided that I needed to change my nutrition and excercise regiments. I’ve never been overweight but I knew I could improve on my diet. I ate 3 meals a day with 3 planned snacks in between. My diet was extremely high in carbs.
I searched high and low for a lifelong plan and found nothing but short-term diets and fads. Short-term diets drop weight temporarily but do not work over the long run. Finally, after extensive searching through bookstores, websites, and reviews I stumbled upon Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle.
This ebook was written a few years back by Tom Venuto. Tom is a body builder who has done extensive research into the effects of nutrition and exercise. He compiled his knowledge into a 350+ page ebook which turned out to be exactly what I was looking for. Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle teaches a lifelong plan of proper nutrition and exercise. Your diet consists of a proper balance of carbs, protein, and fats. Tom also teaches to use 6 smaller meals a day to help maintain your metabolism. 6 meals fits perfectly with the 6 cycle polyphasic sleep schedule I want to try. The recommended exercise routines are logical and straight forward. My only complaint is the lack of scientific references. However, almost everything he presents is logical and has been proven to work over and over again.
Major changes such as diet and exercise or sleep patterns can have a major effect on how your body functions. I decided that my diet was the easiest to change so that’s where I started. I began eating 6 balanced meals, totaling ~2000 calories. I had found that I was eating 2000-2500 calories a day prior to the change so I felt that 2000 would be a good place to start.
That was on November 21, 2005. Today I couldn’t be happier about my diet. I’m never quite full but I’m also not hungry. I very rarely have the urge to buy junk food. As the book suggests I cheat a maximum of once a week, usually some unhealthy snacks at a friends or a slice of pizza for a meal. The only downside I’ve found so far is that cooking all this food takes a lot more time and dirties many more dishes. I empty my dish rack 3 times a day now! As with anything, if you feel that there is a need for it you make the time. Now that I’ve been following this dietary plan for over 3 weeks the extra cooking time doesn’t seem to impact anything else. I’ve found ways to cut down cook times, such as cooking food in bulk and reheating for other meals.
The most common New Year’s resolution is to lose weight. Don’t give in to fad, unbalanced diets like Atkins. Following a lifelong, balanced diet with exercise will help you lose weight and keep it off for the rest of your life. Visit the Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle homepage and see if it’s right for you. Why not shed those extra pounds and get the best body you can have? Health is the single most important thing in life. Without good health you have nothing.
What about exercise? Well, that’s a seperate goal I will cover tomorrow.
