Phase Two

In “Phase One” the task was to write down everything you ate for one whole week. Making note of servings you ate, calories per serving, saturated fat per serving and fiber per serving. Then keeping the daily totals on a separate sheet of paper. So, your numbers may look something like this for any given day:

Day 1

Calories: 2798
Fat Grams: 421
Fiber Grams: 79

For a majority of those that are overweight and they were doing an honest assessment of what they consumed everyday the fat grams will always be signifigantly higher than the fiber grams. This was actually day one for me when I finally decided to start losing weight, so the first day alone I was actually quite scared to find out just how bad my eating habits were.

Phase Two:

The next 3 weeks your only goal is to eat more fiber grams than fat grams per day. Seems simple enough right? Well, yes and no. It is quite surprising just how much fiber we do not get in our diet on a daily basis. Notice I am not asking you to cut calories. This exercise still requires you to write down everything you eat, which by now should become a bit easier, the only difference is to increase the fiber grams and decrease the fat grams. This is easily attainable by the end of the first week, once you get the hang of what foods are higher in fiber than fat.

YOUR ONLY GOAL IS TO INCREASE FIBER GRAMS AND DECREASE FAT GRAMS.

Since you already know what the high fat foods are that you have been eating up until now, the challenge is finding foods that are higher in fiber but still satisfying to your taste. This could mean something as simple as eating brown rice instead of white rice. Whole grain bread instead of white bread. Eating oatmeal or whole grain cereals instead of that breakfast sandwich on the way to work (thus reducing fat in a big way with this one change alone). This will also mean, NOT eating some of the high fat foods that you are used to eating. For most families that means, not eating out 4 or 5 times per week.

Most do not realize that ONE MEAL from a fast food restaurant equals 1,000 to 3,000 calories per person, plus 30 to 100 grams of fat per person.  And that was just one meal! Add that to day 1 and see how bad that day could have been. Like I said, that was only day 1, the rest of the week it got worse for myself because I would get that breakfast sandwich in the morning, then the fast food lunch and so on. I personally peaked at just over 6,000 calories just in one day during “Phase One”!

At the end of three weeks you should notice several things: increased energy, decrease in calories (without even focusing on that part) and having lost a pound or two. I say this to be fact, if you were true to yourself and did this diligently for three weeks. Now you certainly could eat a ton of sweets that are high in calories with no fat or fiber and did not lose a pound you gained a few, then you cheated yourself!

NOTE: Just because there is no fat or fiber value to a food product does not make it okay to utilize it as filler. Especially if you were not able to get the fiber grams equal to or greater than the fat grams you consumed. All you are doing is adding excessive calories to your diet, these are what I call “empty calories”. Be warned, they are just as bad as fat calories.

To YOUR Weight Loss Success!

Tags: Brown Rice, Calories, Daily Basis, Diet, Easy Weight Loss, Eating Habits, Exercise, Honest Assessment, Losing Weight, Oatmeal, Phase One, Phase Two, Saturated Fat, Weight Loss Strategies, White Bread, White Rice, Whole Grain Bread, Whole Grain Cereals