Day 16: 21 Day Metabolism Makeover

Time for some honesty...yet again! Changing my eating is HARD for me...really hard! The Food Lovers Fat Loss System is easy to follow, but I am just too addicted to food. After the first 21 days of this program you can chose one of two options. The first option is to continue to do the original plan...cutting out sugar, alcohol, and white flour or you can change to the "Food Lover for Life" program where you start adding those things into your diet. I think I'm just going to stick with it until I reach my weight loss goal. I am going to weigh and measure myself on Monday, and continue to do that every week...starting each week over fresh...still trying to learn how to eat healthy for the rest of my life without depriving myself of what I love.

I really need to dig deep into the material so I can learn how to turn the unhealthy choices that I have been making into healthy ones. There are ways to tweak certain recipes to make them healthy and keep a person's metabolism in fat burning mode continuously. Here are the secrets I've learned in the past 16 days:

• Eat within an hour of waking up in the morning
• Exercise 5-6 days per week
• Eat every 2-3 hours
• For breakfast, lunch, and dinner have one serving each of a protein, a fast carb, and a slow carb
• For snacks try to stay around 150-200 calories without a lot of extra sugar (protein in snacks is also helpful)
• Drink 80 ounces of water per day
• Stay away from alcohol, with the occassional glass of red wine if it's been a good week
• Stay away from sugary, super-caffeinated drinks at Starbucks, and coffee with cream in general
• Take nutrional supplements daily
• Get 7-8 hours of sleep each night

These are the few guidelines I've compilled for healthy, "clean" eating. My goal is to stick to this plan, and see the results of my hard work by Christmas! Two weeks ago I weighed myself and I was 179 pounds. My goal is to get down to 159 pounds by 12/25/12. That gives me seven months to loose the weight...basically three pounds each month...doable!

I'm thinking of starting a "Clean Eating and Exercise" Accountability Group on Facebook, so let me know if you're interested. I want to keep it to under ten people.