Have Your Cake & Eat It Too

You have heard it a million-bazillion times before: Proper diet accounts for about 70% of what's necessary for successfully reaching your fat loss goals. While exercise plays an important role in shedding the pounds and keeping them off, the amount of time spent working out only accounts for 1/24th of the day, leaving you 23 hours you could potentially be sabotaging your goals with poor eating habits. Just like planning an exercise program is important to maximize results, it is also important to PLAN your meals. Here are some quick and easy tips for menu planning:

Find your daily caloric intake goal and divide it by 6. This simple math equation will tell you about how many calories you should be eating per a meal. If you simply divide your total intake evenly over 6 meals, for many women the average number will come out to between 250-300 calories per a meal if you eat every 3 hours. If you're the average guy it will usually come out to around 350 calories per a meal over 6 meals a day, which isn't too much food at all. Eating well balanced and consistent meals will keep insulin levels in check, sustain your energy levels throughout the day without crashing and keep your fat burning capabilities at their highest.

Find your daily caloric intake estimates by downloading the FREE "Body Basics Booklet" I wrote to compliment my Body Basics DVD.

Eat clean for five days and then "treat" a little on the weekends. This is exactly how I do my menu planning. During the week I eat very well and plan my meals for the most part. As a matter of fact, I typically eat the same thing every other day just to keep things simple and easy. When it comes to the weekends I eat well, but choose one meal on both Saturday and Sunday to really go at it an treat myself to what I want. A lot of times it is lunch or dinner on Saturdays and breakfast or lunch on Sundays. This practice keeps me sane, shocks my metabolism, sociable and allows me to still enjoy life a little!

Find what I call your "core" foods. Core foods are the staples of your diet, choices you can ALWAYS turn to for good nutritious value. For me, peanuts are a "core" snack food packing good fat and some protein whenever I'm running low on fuel. Chicken and turkey burgers are my "core" lunch/dinner dish that I find easy to cook and scarf down in a time crunch. For breakfast, scrambled eggs with turkey bacon and a piece of fruit is my time efficient, nutritious "core" choice. Pick foods you can eat often without getting sick of them, ones that can be cooked in bulk and can be easily re-heated when necessary. If you can find some healthy core foods you will be less likely to turn to Doritos and Snickers bars in the break room.

Don't drink too many calories. The only calories you want to be drinking in moderate amounts are: 100% organic fruit juices, organic smoothies and or your recovery drink/meal replacement shake no more than 2-3 times a day. Stay away from "fake" juices, lattes packed with cream and calories, soda and mixed alcoholic beverages as they can add up to empty calories VERY quickly.