Five chocolate energy bars. Four large gourmet cupcakes. A three egg omelet with grilled shrimp, onions and cheese. Two large servings of macaroni and cheese. One very large piece of fried fish with extra tartar sauce. Half an organic cantaloupe. A mocha-caramel latte. And a colossal piece of chocolate pudding pie with whip cream and chocolate sauce.
And at the end of it all, I still lost two pounds.
It was all part of the plan. Namely, my 12 week program where I shed an average of 3 pounds of fat a week! How did that happen? Well, before we go forward, we need to go backwards a bit, so you know exactly where things started…
My weight has been an issue since the day I was born. I was a big baby, a fat kid, and ultimately a clinically obese adult closing in on 300 pounds. I eventually got my act together, took care of myself, and have since pursued a career in health and wellness, helping folks make the same transition I did so many years ago.
But that's not to say it's been easy. Like anyone else, I'm prone to bouts of laziness and have always struggled to keep my body fat levels in the normal range. As a result, I'm always experimenting with programs and strategies to fine tune my diet and get lean. It's something almost every trainer I know does on an ongoing basis; we are all our very own lab rats.
That said, I had some extra motivation for this latest test, namely a 40th birthday. And while I generally don't get too caught up in chronology, for some reason this one hit a nerve. Probably because 40 is about the time people really start to fall apart. It's also about as midlife as it gets. And the more I looked around, the more I realized I did not want to be or look like the average forty-something. I wanted to be at my best. And as a borderline obsessive/compulsive with a passion for health, I knew exactly what those numbers were. Heck, I wanted to be as lean at 40 as I had at any other point in my life.
That was that.
Now I knew going in it wasn't going to be easy. Actually, that's not true… Losing excess fat actually is quite simple and easy (just eat less food, dummy). The challenge is finding a program that allows you to effectively harness your own best formula for caloric restriction. That's the only true challenge of weight loss; finding the program that works best for you at a given point and time in your life.
It's not a matter of finding the magic formula. It is the magic formula. It's why different diet books work for different people. And why the program your coworker used to drop 30 pounds may absolutely not work for someone else. Ultimately, it's all about what works best for you.
And what works best for me is absolute extremism.
With that said, I probably would never recommend the specifics of my 12 week program to any of my clients. But I would absolutely recommend all of the components and strategies therein to anyone battling weight loss. The difference is simply a matter of degree.
Without rattling on too much farther, here then, are…
The basics of my three months of madness, which I will further break down in painstaking detail in the next article in this series:
1) Create a caloric deficit Monday through Friday
2) A planned overfeed/cheat day on Saturday
3) Fast on Sunday
That's pretty much it, the basic shell of the program. But as you'll soon see, exactly how you put together each one of these components, and the degree to which you do so, will have a dramatic impact on your overall results.
Until next time, eat well and be happy.
.t
Tom Trevino is a personal trainer and wellness coach with a penchant for writing, cupcakes, and grass fed beef. He can be reached at .