How
many times have you stood in front of your closet and completely
ignored an entire section of clothing?
Before
I discovered the Somersize solution, I would stand in front of
my crammed closet and think to myself, "Someday I'll fit into
my skinny clothes again."
My
clothes spanned three to four sizes, my super-skinny clothes,
my normal clothes, my need-to-lose-5-pounds clothes, and my fat
clothes. When an important event was pending, I would muster up
the willpower to go on a strict diet to get down to that "skinny"
outfit. My diets always consisted of severely cutting down on
calories - adhering to minuscule portions of tasteless food. Or
I'd eat diet food supplements like shakes or prepackaged food
with the consistency of cardboard.
I
got results, but I suffered!
I
would lose the weight, but how I missed my dear friend, delicious
food! How I missed preparing wonderful meals for myself and my
family. (Well, c'mon, if I was going to suffer you don't think
I could watch my husband, Alan, indulge around every corner!)
I would get down to my "skinny" clothes for the date I needed
to look my best, and then I would go home and reward myself with
a feast of all the glorious treats I'd been missing. I'd make
roast chicken with gravy, mashed potatoes loaded with butter and
cream, and vegetables tossed in butter and Parmesan cheese. And
since I hadn't eaten sweets for soooooo long, I'd bake a sinful
chocolate cake and devour two large pieces (plus a few extra forkfuls
as I was cleaning the kitchen). Of course, I would vow to get
right back to a "healthy" way of eating so that I would not destroy
all the progress I had made.
I
wouldn't stay on the strict diet, but I would try to eat balanced
meals like a "normal" person. Before too long I'd find myself
creeping from the skinny clothes into the normal clothes. I wasn't
eating that much! Why was the weight coming back so fast? When
I could no longer squeeze my way into my normal clothes I'd graduate
to my need-to-lose-5-pounds clothes. Then I'd either start another
diet, or move on into my fat clothes. The cycle continued, year
after passing year. I was never obese, but once I hit forty, I
seemed to have a constant battle with my weight, a battle that
spanned about 15 pounds.
I
knew I was to blame. I had no willpower. If only I had the appetite
of a bird, then I could always be thin. If only I could resist
delectable butter sauces and chocolate brownies. If only I could
survive on a starvation diet. If only I could devote three hours
a day to exercising. But, no. I was lazy and without conviction,
and my fat clothes and I would have to live with the consequences.
Now I realize I could not have been more wrong. I was not to blame.
And neither are you. Ninety-five percent of us who go on diets
gain back all the weight and often more. Why? Are we all just
lazy slobs with no willpower?
Conventional
dieting in the past few decades has presumed that cutting calories
and increasing activity level is the key to weight loss. We've
all tried it and succeeded for limited periods of time, but cutting
calories is only a temporary weight loss solution. It is also
a potentially dangerous weight loss solution.
Body's
survival instinct
Here's what happens physiologically when you reduce your calorie
intake. Let's say your body is used to 1,500 calories a day and
you reduce your intake to 1,000 a day. Since your body is used
to running on 1,500 calories a day, it must make up for the missing
fuel source first by burning off your glycogen and protein stores.
(Glycogen
is stored with water, and therefore weighs more than fat. The
scale may reflect a substantial weight loss due mostly to the
loss of water, not fat. That's what the term water weight means.)
After
your glycogen and protein stores have been depleted, then your
body will begin to burn off your fat reserves to provide you with
enough energy to get you through the day. This initial burning
of fuel is why you will lose weight when you cut your calories.
After this initial weight loss, many of us reach that frustrating
plateau. We're still counting every calorie, yet we've stopped
losing weight. Why won't our damn bodies cooperate? It's survival
instinct. As our glycogen and protein stores are being depleted,
our metabolism will actually slow down to keep us from starving
to death. Your body adapts to survive on less fuel than it needed
before. Plus, your new lower metabolism means you have a slower-running
machine - quite simply, less energy to get through the day, leaving
you tired and listless!
Sound
familiar? Tired, deprived, and a halt in weight loss. These are
all the trappings of a low-calorie diet. But it gets even worse.
Your body recognizes that it's not getting enough food, so it
starts to store away a portion of the food. It may use, say, 800
calories for fuel and store 200 as fat for later use. So even
though you're still living on poached chicken, rice cakes, and
celery sticks, you may actually start to gain a couple pounds.
That's when the deprivation outweighs the results and we feast
on any and every morsel we can get our hands on. It gets worse
still. By cutting our calories in the first place, we have forced
our bodies to slow down our metabolism, so our body actually needs
fewer calories to survive than it did before the diet. When you
go back to eating your previously "normal" 1,500 calories a day,
your body will have an excess of fuel, because it has adapted
to survive on 800 calories a day. That leaves 700 calories that
could be stored as fat for later use! That's why we gain all the
weight back and then a little extra - it's our new lower metabolism,
all thanks to cutting back on those calories.
Cutting
calories lowers our metabolism and puts our bodies on an unhealthy
diet roller coaster with physical and emotional ups and downs
that all of us would like to eliminate. Somersizing will help
you heal your ailing metabolism. I swear to you, you will never
have to diet again. All you need to do is commit to this simple
and delicious lifestyle and you will reprogram your metabolism.
My closet is no longer stuffed with a spectrum of variously sized
clothes. I have my skinny clothes and my skinny clothes and I
have Somersizing to thank for it. And guess what? I still eat
roast chicken (including the skin!) smothered with mouthwatering
gravy. I still cover my vegetables with butter and Parmesan cheese.
I still eat salad with real dressing. I just stay away from the
potatoes. And occasionally I still treat myself to sinful chocolate
cake.
The
simple way to melt away
You can eat sinfully rich foods, in abundant portions, in a way
that reprograms your metabolism to burn fat and give you a constant
source of energy.
Level
One is the weight loss portion of the program. Here's the basic
overview.
First
I eliminate a small list of foods that wreak havoc on our systems,
like sugar, white flour, and potatoes, and then I eat normal everyday
foods in combinations that aid in digestion and weight control.
In order to increase your metabolism, you must eat food! I eat
whenever I am hungry. I do not skimp on portions. I eat until
I am full and I never skip meals. Here's how it works.
I
have taken readily available foods and categorized them into four
Somersize groups:
Pro/Fats: Includes proteins like meat, poultry, fish, and eggs,
and fats in their natural state like oil, butter, cream, and cheese.
Veggies: Includes a whole host of low-starch, fresh vegetables,
from artichokes to peppers to zucchini and more.
Carbos: Includes whole-grain pastas, cereals, breads, beans, and
nonfat dairy products.
Fruits: Includes a huge variety of fresh fruits, from apples to
peaches to tangerines and more.
The
group of foods I eliminate are called Funky Foods, because they
don't fit into any of the four Somersize Food Groups.
Funky Foods: Includes sugars, highly starchy foods, caffeine,
and alcohol. (You will find complete lists of all of these food
groups in the book.) Here are the basic guidelines of Level One,
the weight loss portion of my program.
Seven
easy steps to Somersizing
1. Eliminate all Funky Foods.
2.
Eat Fruits alone, on an empty stomach.
3.
Eat Pro/Fats with Veggies.
4.
Eat Carbos with Veggies.
5.
Keep Pro/Fats separate from Carbos.
6.
Wait three hours between meals if switching from a Pro/Fats meal
to a Carbos meal, or vice versa.
7.
Do not skip meals. Eat at least three meals a day, and eat until
you feel satisfied and comfortably full.
Seven
easy steps. These seven easy steps are your ticket to freedom.
Freedom from the diet roller coaster, and freedom from the extra
weight that surrounds the skinny person inside you. As long as
you follow all of the Level One guidelines, you may eat until
you are full and still lose weight. That's the honest truth. Nowhere
will you read that you have to mix powders or take pills or count
calories and fat grams, or fast for the first week. Just follow
these seven easy steps, enjoy delicious flavorful foods without
ever going hungry, and you will reprogram your metabolism to help
you lose weight and gain energy. I know this sounds too good to
be true, but millions of Somersizers can't be wrong. They have
lost weight and still get to eat all they want every day. Take
a look at what you might eat in a sample day if you are Somersizing.
You
could start your morning with a piece of fruit, then have a shower
and follow up with a bowl of whole-grain cereal with nonfat milk.
For
lunch you might choose a large Caesar salad with chicken and a
side of sautéed vegetables sprinkled with Parmesan cheese.
In the afternoon you could decide to snack on fresh fruit or a
hard-boiled egg.
For
dinner, try a green salad with blue cheese dressing, a big juicy
steak, a side of broccoli . . . covered with cheese sauce if you
like and even a bowl of my sugar-free Vanilla Bean Ice Cream made
with my miraculous new SomerSweet. No deprivation here.
The
magic to losing weight while eating such rich food is correctly
combining the foods you eat at every meal. Your perfectly combined
steak dinner could be instantly destroyed by eating a potato and
a white roll with it, or having a plate of fruit for dessert.
Fruit should not be combined with other foods because it causes
gas and bloating and may upset the digestive process of other
foods.
We
keep proteins and fats separate from the carbos. But you do enjoy
whole-grain carbos on the Somersize plan when eaten at the right
times - they are especially great in the morning, with nonfat
dairy products. What a perfect energy boost for the beginning
of the day!
Overall,
look at the balance of foods - we eat plenty of fresh fruit and
vegetables to provide fiber, vitamins, and minerals; we get whole-grain
carbohydrates for energy and additional fiber; and we supply our
bodies with the protein and fat from meat and dairy products that
is so essential to our good health. By eating real foods instead
of processed and refined foods, we are supplying our bodies with
the building materials they need to keep us healthy and youthful
- not just on the outside, but on the inside as well.
There
is nothing healthy about replacing real food with fat-free products
that look like real food, except for the absence of any nutritional
benefit! When Somersizing, you are eating delicious foods, in
combinations that make your digestive system run like clockwork.
Food is digested smoothly and efficiently. Your body extracts
what it needs and discards the remainder while you melt away pounds
and have more energy than ever before. And because it's so easy
to eat this way, you can easily dine in just about any restaurant,
and you can prepare meals for yourself by using any of my Somersize
recipes or creating Somersize favorites of your own. Simple. Effective.
Incredible!
Later
on, when you reach your goal weight, you will graduate to Level
Two, the maintenance portion of the program. We loosen the reins
a bit and show you how to Somersize for the rest of your life,
without your weight fluctuating more than a couple of pounds.
That's the basic overview of the program. For those of you who
did not read my first two books, Eat Great, Lose Weight, and Get
Skinny on Fabulous Food, you are probably still skeptical. I understand.
We have been so brainwashed into thinking a low-fat, low-calorie
diet is the only way to safely lose weight that any program contrary
to that notion sounds like quackery. I promise I will not lead
you astray. I have always believed that my program is safe and
effective because I gathered information from many doctors and
nutritionists while creating it. But this information is on the
cutting edge and not universally accepted. Now, because of Dr.
Schwarzbein's additional clinical research on sugar and fat, I
have more medical research to back it up. Not only is Somersizing
safe and effective, it is essential to our health. Please don't
confuse my program with other high-protein diets that severely
restrict certain food groups, like fruit and carbohydrates. Somersizing
is a balanced plan that ensures you get all the necessary nutrients
and building blocks your body needs in order to thrive. Your body
will love it from the inside out.
Editors
Note: One of the main things that stops your progress when it
comes to healthy eating is your self esteem. If you love yourself
then you would also treat yourself better!
Find out how to love you and
why you don't.
