Two week update:
Lost 6 pounds
Lost 1 inch off my chest
Lost 1/2 inch off belly
Lost 1/4 inch off waist

Getting up and going to the gym is getting easier, I look forward to it more, because I can already see results.

My clothes are fitting better and my energy is increasing daily. I am in a “healthy” routine and am enjoying the progress day by day. The great thing about a routine is, after it is established, it is automatic! You don’t have to think about it.

I know it is important to keep track of what I am eating and what kind of workouts I am doing, so this week I started a Twitter account to track all of my meals and workouts. This has increased the accountability (again) and at the same time has created a network of supportive people. So, not only am I using it to track my progress, but I am also getting support. Support is an important vehicle as you continue on your mission for fat-loss.

In 2 short weeks I have improved my body and created a network of like minded individuals. I am ready for the weeks to come!

The first thing you need to do is script your day. Simply set aside 5 minutes today to plan out tomorrow. Write down what time you need to get up, what you’ll eat for breakfast, when you’ll do your workout, what foods you’ll have for snacks, lunches, and dinners.

It’s also important to write down when you might want to cheat on your diet and come up with two solutions to this problem. For example, if you know that on Wednesday you have meetings all afternoon Wednesday, but then you have to go right from your meeting at work into a family event, then you know you have an obstacle to healthy eating.

So you simply need to plan at least two solutions around that, whether it’s eating before the meeting and then having something ready to go in the car or on the bus on the way to their activity.

By planning ahead, you’ll know exactly what you should be doing for fat loss at every minute of the day. That way you won’t have to make any snap decisions on the spot, and you won’t give into temptation. Make a plan and stick to it and you will lose fat fast!

The second tip to help you avoid cheating on your diet is to simply “believe in yourself”. Basically if you have the self-belief in yourself that you aren’t a cheater, then you’re not going to cheat, but you have to have what they call honest self-belief in yourself.

So you can’t just say, “Oh, I’m not going to cheat,” but then not really believe it deep in your heart. You must truly believe in yourself. This is a mindset you must develop.

The third tip is preparing your food in advance and ties in with the planning tip I gave you at the start. You need to set aside time on the weekend or during the week to plan your meals, do your shopping, and prepare as much of the food as possible (cut up vegetables, batch cook chicken breasts, etc.).

Most people would be best off to do Sunday morning rather than Sunday evening or Saturday instead of Sunday depending on their day. You might also need to do a mini-session during the week.

Planning and preparing and doing the shopping and then scripting out the meals are essential to stop cheating on your diet. It’s a very serious thing. If you want to have great results, if you want to have advanced results, then you have to go beyond normal and do advanced things. So that’s a mind set that people have to understand.

The fourth tip is to get social support. I can’t recommend social support enough for people. You can’t do this on your own. You need help from others to stick to your fat loss diet. If you work in an office, then you need to get a nutrition buddy who will support your decisions but also hold you accountable.

Obviously the office can be an area of support, but it is also going to be the area of most temptations because you’re going to have those people who are just trying to be a good person by bringing in the donuts and shoving them in your face.

Then you’re going to have those people who really should know better than to be a jerk and tease you about your diet and fat loss goals. There’s always going to be those people and you just have to plan for those people.

You need to go back to the scripting idea I talked about earlier and come up with two solutions to these people that are just being a headache to you. You also need to seek out the social support nutrition buddies at work and find someone who you see is doing the same thing as you and has the same goals. Eat lunch with them!

You also need social support at the gym to avoid cheating on your diet. Find a workout buddy or just ask people that you know stuff because people that know stuff are very happy to help you stick to your diets and workouts.

Finally, at home, try and get your family behind you. That is a really big problem in some families where one - maybe for example the guy or the girl doesn’t have a hard time with weight and can eat whatever they want and it’s very hard for the other person. So, communication is big in the social support network there.

The fifth tip to help you avoid cheating on your diet is simple. I want you to brush your teeth after every meal when you think you might cheat. For example, most people are good all day till about 4pm, so make sure you brush your teeth after eating a healthy afternoon snack.

Eating after you brush your teeth just isn’t that much fun, so it should help you control your cravings. Chewing gum is another great option. So is having a Green Tea. You can also use these tips after dinner, because that is when the 2nd danger zone of diet cheating comes into play.

Those are all just routines that you need to develop in order to build the power over food, rather than allowing food to control you. Day by day, take baby steps to improve your power over food and you’ll stop cheating on your diet.

So believe in yourself, stay busy, keep your mind off food, and plan ahead for all the obstacles in your life and you’ll lose fat fast by sticking to your fat loss diet. This doesn’t happen overnight. This might be a two-year plan where you go from binging twice a week to taking it down to once every three months but you will be better off for life.

It might take you two years to do that, but you know what? If you’re 30, 40 or 50 now you’ve still got another 50 or 60 years left. You may as well start now and get that habit into place. So think long-term there. Even enjoy the small victories and you can pull it off. There are small victories every day.

You must try and make tomorrow better than today and don’t beat yourself down mentally about it because you’ve got a lot of meals over the course of your lifetime. Just try and make the rest and the next ones better. That is how you stop cheating on your diet and how you lose fat for life.

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Recognition of Protein-Rich Diet Grows!
A study released by the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and reported in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that diets higher in protein may be even more effective than initially thought. The study tracked the weight loss of 132 severely obese people, half of whom ate a standard low-fat, low-calorie diet while the other half ate a low-carbohydrate, higher-protein diet. The end result: After six months, the people on the low-fat, low-calorie diet lost approximately four pounds, while those in the low-carb, high protein group lost an average of 13 pounds!

Soy-Based Meal Replacements Demonstrate Weight-Loss Success…
Soy-based meal replacements can effectively battle obesity, according to researchers at the University of Alabama. One hundred obese individuals participated in a 12-week clinical trial, during which participants were divided into two dieting groups. One group used soy-based meal replacements to lose weight, while the other attempted to lose weight without using the meal replacements. Of the 74 people who finished the study, those who used the soy based meal replacements lost significantly more weight and had a greater-than-usual improvement in their LDL cholesterol level for the amount of weight lost.

Increased Protein Sustains Weight Maintenance…
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Higher-Protein Diets Shown to Benefit Metabolism…
A 16-week study conducted at the University of Adelaide, Australia, found that replacing carbohydrates with protein from meat, poultry and dairy foods can benefit metabolism. Researchers divided overweight volunteers into two groups and placed one half on a high-protein diet and the other half on a diet with standard amounts of protein. Tests of the 57 volunteers who completed the study showed that those on the high-protein diet had significantly lower glycemic response after losing weight than those on the standard-protein diet.