Fad diets and temporary eating plans have no place in our daily eating guidelines for losing weight. We recommend you make lifestyle changes… integrating healthy eating habits into your life, and sticking with them forever. Your focus should be balanced, nutritious eating, changing old habits and beliefs, and living a healthy life.

1. Eat 3 to 6 meals and snacks or mini-meals throughout the day. Keeping your blood sugar balanced and within its desired range all day allows for optimal energy, decreases the burden on your endocrine system and lets your body know it’s receiving a consistent supply of the glucose it needs. If your body receives nutrients on a regular basis, it has no need to store excess fat for emergencies.

2. Include breakfast soon after waking. You’ve been fasting since dinner, so supply your body with the energy it needs to take on daily tasks without creating stress and low blood sugar.

3. Include a source of carbohydrates, proteins and fats with each meal or snack. Each of these macronutrients plays a vital role in your health (carbohydrates for energy, proteins for structure and fats to protect every cell in your body). Each is digested at a different rate, releasing its energy into the bloodstream as it’s digested. By eating all three macronutrients at each meal, you’ll keep your blood sugar level consistent for a longer period of time and stay satisfied longer.

4. Include a vegetable or fruit with each meal. Produce contains so many health-promoting factors—vitamins, minerals, water, fiber, phytonutrients and macronutrients—that it’s no wonder these foods are considered the best for staving off disease. They are also generally lower in calories and high in fiber, so you stay fuller, longer, for less of your daily caloric intake. Guidelines for health recommend 8 to 10 servings daily; eating at least one serving every time you eat will get you close to that goal. Aim for 1 to 3 servings of fruit and have the rest in vegetables.

5. Eat a rainbow. While eating 10 servings of green fruits and vegetables is good for you, each color group provides a different set of phytonutrients (plant defense system) that protects a different system in your body. Eating a rainbow of produce daily will ensure you’re receiving full-body protection. Having a red, orange, yellow/white/light green, dark green and purple fruit or vegetable daily is a much easier way to ensure you’re getting in your 10 servings… and variety will keep you interested! If this seems a little daunting, aim for 3-4 colors daily and rotate through all five many times throughout the week.

6. Drink ample water each and every day. Your body is approximately 70% water. Think of all the ways you lose it—going the washroom, sweating, breathing, etc. To maintain your 70%, drink hydrating beverages like water throughout the day. How much? Take your weight in pounds and divide it by two; that’s how many ounces you need in a day  (e.g., a 150-pound person requires 75 ounces of hydrating fluids). Hydrating beverages can also include herbal teas or 100% fruit juice (in moderation). Dehydrating beverages (coffee, alcohol, caffeinated teas and hot chocolate) require two glasses of water just to make up for the water lost by drinking one glass of them!

7. Eat until you’re 80% full. One of the longest living people, the Okinawans, practice this way of eating. When you eat until you’re 80% full, you give your brain time to catch up with all you’ve put in your stomach. When you eat until you’re 100% full, you can end up feeling uncomfortably stuffed—perhaps at the 125% level—by the time your brain processes how much food you‘ve really taken in. When you’re 80% full, you allow your body to be hungry again when it’s time to eat in 3 to 4 hours

8. Live by the 80/20 rule. Your body is a fascinating organism—it deals with all you throw at it and yet you can still walk down the street. If you focus on eating whole foods (health-promoting foods) 80% of the time, then your body can handle the other 20%… when you may choose to indulge in foods that aren’t necessarily good for you, but you truly enjoy. Allow yourself to eat those foods you crave without guilt, which can create more damage in the body than the food itself! If you want to fast track your way to your ideal weight, 90/10 might be more ideal, but never deprive yourself completely of anything you really enjoy.

Vital Points to Remember:
Since this is a lifestyle change, creating these healthier habits may take some time and that’s okay.  It takes 21 days to create a habit – but you can do it if you have the proper resources and support.

With my 28 Day Fat Blast System at http://28dayfatblast.com, each day you’ll get a meal plan and a fitness plan for each of the 28 days. Plus, you’ll get action steps, lessons and assignments, this way by the end of the 28 days not only will you lose up to 20 pounds, but you’ll create new, healthier habits so you can keep off the weight.

Start creating new habits now by grabbing my Permanent Weight Loss Quick Start Program – 28 Day Fat Blast http://28dayfatblast.com!

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With our busy lives so many of us going mindlessly through our day. This includes during meal times. Here you will find five very simple tips that you can implement that will have your waistline shrinking inch by inch.

1. Pay attention. Don’t mindlessly inhale your food. Take time during meals to truly savor every bite you eat. Eat slowly. Chew each morsel and taste the food you put into your body. Turn off the television, radio, and any distractions, and allow meal time to be a time of relaxation and enjoyment.

2. Use a plate. Eating directly out of the box or package can easily lead to overeating—not that we don’t all do it on occasion. When you don’t set aside a portion, that small handful of pretzels quickly becomes two, then three and so on. Take time to put a serving of food on a plate or in a bowl. Eat that portion and only that portion. Many people find it useful to use a smaller plate when they eat meals. A small place loaded with vegetables and chicken, meat or fish seems like a lot of food, but in terms of calories it’s a very reasonable amount. The message your brain receives is that the plate is full, so it should be more than enough to eat.

3. Use hunger as your guide. Let your stomach tell you when you’re hungry and full. Eat when you feel hungry and stop when you’re satisfied. Often we let the clocks guide our eating: it’s noon, so it must be lunchtime. We often eat whether we’re actually hungry or not. We also allow ourselves to finish an entire meal without even realizing we were full 15 minutes earlier, force-feeding ourselves out of habit. The way to stop this is through awareness and listening to our bodies. It is helpful to stop eating when you are 80% full and allow your brain to catch up with your stomach to signal it is full. Once you’ve developed a lifestyle that includes a routine of healthy eating, your body will let you know when it’s hungry and it will also crave healthy foods. Eating several (five to six) small meals a day is much more beneficial for your body and your metabolism than the traditional three big meals. A little saying I’ve reminded clients of over the years is,  “Nothing ever tastes as good as being thin feels!”

4. Doggy bags are the new must-have!  You don’t have to clean your plate, no matter what you were told when you were a child. Save the leftovers for another meal or snack.  Many people make a habit of ordering a meal or sandwich and immediately asking for half of it to be put in a doggy bag. They are more than satisfied with half a serving (especially with the jumbo sized servings in restaurants) and also have another meal to take home. If you choose to stay at the table and talk after a meal, remove your plate so you’re not tempted to keep nibbling…and never pick off someone else’s plate (this includes your kids)!

5. Embrace slow and steady. We all want to reduce our weight quickly, but that doesn’t necessarily allow us to establish habits that will sustain our new weight over time. When we make overall lifestyle changes, the weight that disappears is not going to return. Rapid weight reduction may feel good in the short term, but the results are rarely permanent.  Usually that weight comes back and then some (usually an additional 10 pounds). Focus on healthy living and feeling good versus losing weight. Our subconscious mind will naturally want to help us “find” what we’ve “lost,” and this includes those pesky pounds. That’s one reason why we shouldn’t focus on “weight loss,” but on a healthy lifestyle instead. This will effectively lead you to your ideal weight—one that will be easy for you to maintain permanently. After all, there‘s no point in losing weight only to gain it back!  When your focus is on a healthy lifestyle and not a number on a scale, your ideal weight will come!

To help you create a healthy Mind-Body lifestyle that results in permanent weight loss, I invite you to check out my new book – The MindBody FX Lifestyle. You can get a free sneak preview of my book along with a free consumer awareness guide at: http://www.weightlossconsumersguide.com

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Do you have a habit that confirms a belief about yourself? Is that habit serving you well or is it confirming a belief you wish was different? For instance, do you always “super-size” your meals?
If so, this is confirming a habit that you are super-sized! You may reject the idea that this is so, but actions speak louder than words.

• Do you believe a meal isn’t complete without dessert or a glass of wine or some bread? 
• Do you have a hard time wasting food and feel you should eat everything on your plate? 
• When you lose weight do you believe you should hang on to your fat clothes, just in case!? 
• Do you believe that you’ll never succeed at losing weight?

So, how do you begin to change your beliefs and form new, more positive health habits? The first thing to do is stop lying to yourself!  We all do it. How many times have you promised yourself to stick to a healthy portion size and not eat too much, and have instead gone to the fridge and eaten everything in sight? 

Changing your entire lifestyle may seem a little overwhelming at first, but you can ease into it by taking these small steps to form new healthy habits:

1. Envision the end result. You’re not changing a habit for the sake of change itself, but because doing so will get you closer to achieving or having your “ideal weight.” If you have a habit of watching TV for a few hours every night and eating an entire bag of potato chips, turn the TV off and substitute reading or a walk.

2. Take a reality assessment. What’s working well, what needs improvement, and what’s getting in the way of your progress? Your exercise routine of lifting weights may be going perfectly well, but what if you would really like to find a more interesting way to tone your muscles? Put that on a list of things that are important to you and start working on it.

3. Pick a challenge—any challenge. You don’t have to pick a big challenge to begin. Think in terms of improving one percent a day or even a week—something very attainable. For example, if you drink several cups of coffee or tea a day, but want to cut out caffeine, start by drinking one less cup per day or even one half cup less. Within a short time, you’ll have weaned yourself from the habit.

4. Action is the key. Form a plan for staying on track. Keep a written record of your progress.  It’s easy to forget the little victories, but going back and looking at a journal of success—even in the smallest areas—gives you a mental boost and encourages you to stick with your plan.

By taking small consistent steps and really committing to and persisting with your new habits—I guarantee that you’ll have a new perspective and belief about who you are and what you can accomplish. You can then move on to choosing the next healthy habit you want to develop and strengthen.

Remember, you can change yourself and the way you interact with others. This is the path to true happiness and success! Knowing that you’re in complete and total control of your life and the healthy lifestyle you choose to live means you have the power no matter what happens or what others say. You have the freedom to find your true self and determine who you’ll become, which includes implementing healthy habits and living your life happy and at your ideal weight permanently.

How to Stop Sabotaging Your Weight Loss Efforts
To help you master the Mind-Body Connection and implement new, healthier habits that will lead to permanent weight loss guaranteed, I invite you to grab my free sneak preview to my MindBody FX Lifestyle book and Free Consumer Awareness Guide at: http://www.weightlossconsumersguide.com.

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How would you like to have all the clients you want, clients who become your raving fans (instead of drop-outs)?

If you’re a coach, a personal trainer, or another type of health and wellness professional, you probably know the pattern, especially with weight loss clients:

They start out really excited and seem very committed.  But just a few weeks down the line, they begin missing appointments, and the next thing you know, they’re gone. 

That’s really frustrating and a big blow to your ego as well as your pocketbook.

Fortunately, Tom Terwilliger and I have found a solution for the “disappearing client” syndrome.

You see, the reason your clients are disappearing is that they’re disappointed. Their weight loss isn’t happening fast enough and it’s just too hard and complicated. 

But what you really need to know is this:

Like most traditional wellness and weight loss experts, you’re probably focusing on diet and exercise.  But those are not nearly as effective as you’d like to believe — and we see proof of that all around us.

If diet and exercise worked, there wouldn’t be many overweight people in this country — after all, almost all of them have been through the drill many times over.

So what does work?

Giving your clients tools that deal with the REAL reason they have a weight problem — tools that address the way they think and feel about food, their weight, and themselves.

Once you include the mental and emotional aspects in your coaching and training, you’ll start seeing results, and so will your clients.

Once they do, they’ll be very happy campers indeed, and they’ll tell their friends too.

Find out exactly how to do that during the Free Webinar, which I’ll be hosting together with my friend Tom Terwilliger (Former Mr. America, Celebrity Personal Trainer and Goal Achievement Expert).
Here’s the link to sign up http://www.builda6figurecoachingbusiness.com/

P.S. Here are just two things you’ll discover in our webinar:

•  How to set your own hours and have more freedom with the potential of creating a 6-figure+ income 
• How to stop trading time for money and leverage your time instead by working with groups where you can make $500, $600, even $1,000 an hour

http://www.builda6figurecoachingbusiness.com/

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Personal trainers and coaches often struggle with “Disappearing Clients Syndrome.”  But now, a FREE webinar with Weight Loss Expert Melonie Dodaro and Celebrity Personal Trainer and Former Mr. America Tom Terwilliger offers a solution.

Every year, millions of people make that same New Year’s resolution: to lose weight.  And they seek out professionals to help them.  Yet sadly, most of them are sorely disappointed by the results.  And so are their coaches and trainers.

Here’s the all too familiar scenario: clients are gung-ho when they first get started, and yet a just few weeks down the line, they start skipping appointments.  After that, it’s just a matter of time until they disappear altogether.

“Unfortunately, most coaches and trainers don’t know how to deal with their clients’ minds and emotions, and so they tend to stick to familiar territory.  Yet until they start helping their clients change their mindset and handle their emotional issues more effectively, their clients won’t succeed.  And once again, those clients will be off looking for the next fad or miracle weight loss method,” says Dodaro

The former Mr. America says, “The problem is that most trainers and coaches approach the weight loss process by focusing entirely on diet and exercise.  As their clients fail to get results, they tweak their dietary prescriptions and pile on more exercise, all to no avail.  Instead, they should be dealing with the real issue: the mental and emotional aspects of weight loss.”

In their free webinar, Dodaro and Terwilliger will be sharing their weight loss approach and their business building strategies, and will also introduce their brand new MindBody FX Facilitator Training program.  The webinar will take place on January 19th, 2011 at 6pm PST/9pm EST. More information about it can be found at http://www.builda6figurecoachingbusiness.com.

Here’s some of the information that will be revealed during this complimentary webinar:

• How coaches and wellness professionals can not only retain their clients but also turn them into raving fans who will send over their friends too.
• The #1 thing health, wellness and fitness professionals must do if they want to close the revolving door – and have clients keep coming back instead of chasing after the next fad
• How coaches can differentiate themselves from all of the other professionals offering weight loss solutions
• Simple ways to add additional revenue streams to your health and wellness business by offering services that more than 60% of the population needs
• How coaches can leverage their time and earn $500, $600, even $1,000 an hour

The free webinar is open to coaches, personal trainers, nutritionists and health and wellness professionals who want to offer their clients weight loss solutions that deliver guaranteed and lasting success. To register for this free event, go to: http://www.builda6figurecoachingbusiness.com.

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