Tom, If you accidentally pig out or over-indulge at a meal, (a Holiday party for example), are you better off skipping your next meal to keep your daily caloric intake on target, or should you just go ahead and eat your next planned meal and not worry about being somewhat “over” your planned calories for the day?

Michael
Wisconsin, USA

ANSWER:
Hi Michael, That’s a very good question, but I have to admit I did get a little chuckle out of the “accidental” part! Do you ever really “accidentally” eat anything? I think we are all responsible for everything we eat and how much we eat and until you consciously realize and accept this, and take the time to do some proactive meal planning, you will probably continue to have lots of “overeating accidents!”

To answer your question: after you overindulge, I definitely do NOT recommend skipping your next meal or skipping meals the next day to make up for it. I usually don’t even recommend cutting back either, although there may be exceptions where you could manipulate your meal size or macronutrient composition.

I generally recommend returning immediately to your “regularly scheduled meal programming,” because this continues to encourage the maintenance of positive habits such as eating 5-6 small meals every day.

I do suppose whether you cut back could depend on whether you’ve been on low calories a long time, how lean you were already, and on whether you were in a caloric deficit already. If you were in a calorie deficit for the day, then the extra calories might only bring you up to maintenance, not “over” your daily limit, which might not be as damaging as if you were in a calorie surplus.

If you were already very lean or had been dieting strictly for a long time (as in a bodybuilder coming off a competition), a large meal or entire high calorie day might not have any negative effect either. Your metabolism has a way of slowing down if you keep your calories too low 100% of the time.

With occasional (planned) higher calorie days, you’d be using the BURN THE FAT “zig-zag” or “cycling” principle, so eating more in this context can be a positive thing. (Note: You can learn more about this technique in the BURN THE FAT program at www.burnthefat.com). However, there’s a big difference between a planned “cheat meal” or a planned high carb, clean food “re-feed” day and a binge on junk food. Regardless of total 24 hour calorie intake for the day, you could still store body fat after heavy eating if it’s done at certain times and in a certain metabolic state.

Although I do prescribe calorie levels based on daily (24 hr) needs, I believe you should also pay attention to 3 hour “windows” when you’re thinking about adjusting your caloric intake. Calories and macronutrients (protein/aminos, carbs/sugar and fat) are partitioned into glycogen, muscle or fat tissue or burned immediately depending very much on present moment energy and recovery needs and on what’s going to happen over the next 3 hours or so as the food enters your system.

So, if you’re going to be plopping down on the couch to watch football games for the rest of the day and night after that big holiday meal, beware – you might just want to cut back on that next meal a little, especially starches and sugars.

Bottom line: It’s okay to eat small amounts of your favorite junk foods once in a while as planned “free meals,” and it’s a good idea to eat more in general from time to time to keep your metabolism humming along. However, your best bet if you’re really serious about fat loss is to avoid huge meals and avoid bingeing in the first place. ALWAYS practice portion control – even on holidays.

If you ever do slip, don’t beat yourself up, just get right back on the wagon with your next meal and remember, the past is behind you and today is a new day.

Your friend and coach,

Tom Venuto, CSCS, NSCA-CPT
www.BurnTheFat.com

P.S. If you’re interested in burning fat naturally in a healthy, sensible way, then be sure to take a look at Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle – it’s the best place to start your journey: www.BurnTheFat.com

About the Author:
Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilder, certified strength and conditioning specialist (CSCS) and a certified personal trainer (CPT). Tom is the author of “Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle,” which teaches you how to get lean without drugs or supplements using methods of the world’s best bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat and increase your metabolism by visiting: www.burnthefat.com

It is a common, but misguided, practice to try to lose weight by eating fewer and fewer calories, to the point of hunger. Along with this restricted diet they add in a recreational type of activity, such as walking, or cycling, or something similar in the hope of losing excess body fat.

Unfortunately, the combination of a restrictive diet and an incomplete exercise program leads to a process that is the exact opposite to what a person is trying to achieve. It actually causes muscle tissue loss, and this sends the body into survival mode, lowering the metabolic rate, thus putting the brakes on fat loss. Most people become discouraged, and simply never understand that the important element that they are missing is a muscle-building exercise.

Any back slide in body composition (muscle/fat ratio) due to a lack of intense exercise is compounded by the natural aging processes of our bodies. At around 25 to 30 years of age the body naturally begins to shed muscle tissue unless you work to keep it. This means that even if you maintain a consistent body weight over a twenty year period, say from age 30 to age 50, you will have significantly less muscle mass.

As you lose muscle mass, you lose all of the calorie burning and metabolic benefits of that highly active tissue. This combination leads to a “slower metabolism.” which has become a favorite excuse for many people’s weight gain. “I am gaining weight, but it’s not my fault my metabolism has slowed down.”

This is exactly the opposite of the truth; people are not getting fatter because their metabolisms are slowing down. What is actually happening is that their metabolisms are slowing down because they are getting fatter. For every pound of muscle tissue lost, you lose a little piece of your metabolic power.

If what you want is to lose body fat, you simply need to take the right approach to the problem. In particular, what you need to embark upon is a proper exercise program that contains at least 60 percent strength training exercise. This will keep the metabolism at its highest level during the fat loss process.

The balance of the exercise program should be made up of interval training, which is comprised of short bursts of activity, alternated with rest periods. An example of this would be 8-10 seconds of sprinting then a minute or so of walking, repeated up to 12 times.

Next on the list is a properly balanced nutrition plan that supports the exercise program so enough energy is available to the body to work out at a proper level of intensity (degree of difficulty) to get results. This plan should include 5 or 6 small meals spread throughout the day, no more than 3 hours apart to keep the metabolism humming.

Each meal should contain a protein source. Choose that first and then add a variety of vegetables to the meal. For the best results you need to focus on what you should be eating rather than on what you shouldn’t be eating.

Somehow you will need to get your head around the fact that this solution is an ongoing one. There is no endpoint that you are aiming for here. Your body composition will change (unfavorably) to a higher level of body fat to muscle ratio unless you work to keep yourself in good shape. But considering the benefits, this price is really a small one to pay in order that you can look so much better, feel so much better, and also be so much healthier. Seen this way, your decision to embark upon this lifestyle change should be an easy one.

If you need a comprehensive overview of the metabolic regulation fat loss strategies discussed in this article, be sure to check out Carolyn Hansen’s book Hot Metabolism, where she shows you how to take control of your body’s fat burning mechanism for optimum results.

This is one of the coolest things I have seen in a long time.

Fitness pro Jon Benson released a bombshell last week on the fat-burning world.

He is giving away a book’s worth of material in his freee 7-Day Personal Fat Loss Certification Course.

Freee… and get this:  Anyone who completes the course gets his book “The Radical Fatloss Blueprint” freee as well.

So there’s nothing to buy at all… in fact you get tons of freee stuff AND you can even earn bucks in the program.

It’s just too cool for words.

So go see it for yourself:

freee fatloss Course and book

Here is a short review:

The Course is for anyone who wants to become their own “personal” fatloss expert. It is complete with a quiz each day and more material than most people sell in a book… and it’s totally freee.

After the course, you get his “Radical Fatloss Blueprint” freee too. This is all about how he and a group of “guinea pigs” experimented with natural techniques and got up to 21 lbs of unwanted bodyfat off in just 21 days.

The average was 17.5, but some people got as much as 30 lbs off.

All with little to no muscle lost.

It then outlines the ‘exact’ workout and supplement “feeding” schedule Jon still uses to get into top shape in 21 days.

This is down to the ‘hour’… and it includes home workouts or gym workouts. Your choice.

This is his gift to my readers, and I am thrilled to share it with you.

Here you go:

freee fatloss Course and book

Enjoy the course!

If you ever needed another good reason to exercise, I’ve got one for you:

Exercise makes your brain bigger.

Actually this isn’t entirely accurate. To be more specific, exercise was found to increase brain size slightly, but far more important to increase “spatial reasoning.”

This is the ability to recognize patterns, remember phrases, numbers, and so-on. This was discovered by researchers at the Universities of Chicago and Pittsburgh.

It is also one of the most important factors to the prevention of Alzheimer’s and dementia.

My mom suffered with dementia the last ten years of her life. But unlike most dementia patients she was fully functional thanks to exercise. She drove and had a mind that was unbelievably sharp right up until an accident injured her beyond the ability to exercise.

After that, she mentally went downhill rapidly. Thankfully, she passed in peace… and she had ten wonderfully active years thanks to her willingness to take up weight training at the age of 71.

She eventually walked up to 3 miles per day and trained in the gym 3 days per week.

That kept her mind sharp, along with fish oil and N-Acetyl L-Carnitine, a wonderful brain nutrient.

Once again, we see the power of exercise. It increases the QUALITY of your life.

Quantity is no where near as important to me as quality.

The links at the bottom of this newsletter are to my books on exercise. Pick the one that appeals to you most and take action.

Your brain will thank you, as will the rest of your body.

One of the best ways to start exercising when you are over 40 is by using the routines covered in “Fit Over 40″.

This book profiles 53 different men and women, age 40 to 80, all sharing their workouts, nutrition plans, and mental empowerment techniques.

It is a MUST-HAVE for anyone wanting to begin exercising or improve their level of fitness after the age of 40.

For a freee fat-burning course from Fit Over 40, go here –

http://www.fitover40.com/go/40sfitness <— Freee Fatburning Course

Manifesting Life Within The Moments

by Jon Benson

Take a pen and a sheet of paper and just start doodling. Seriously.

Congratulations — you’ve just created something from nothing…an image that never existed before nor will ever exist again, carved from the moments of your alloted time on this planet.

Hang with me — this all deals with your level of fitness, the power of your mind, and the success you have in your life…

www.mpowerseries.com
Any child recognizes their power to create. Most even realize the power to mold their own destinies. Children know when they’ve done something “wrong”, even when they’re doing it in most cases. They also know the “destiny” that awaits them in the form of dad coming home from work!  Perhaps they do not know the particulars, but they get the basic idea.

Somewhere along the way, someone or something talked most of us out of the idea that we have anything to do with our destiny, let alone that we can manifest our moments, literally creating our destiny by existing fully within the moments we are given and making the most out of them.

To some, this sounds as if one is trying to “play God”…but this is not true. Instead, I believe that we are called by existence itself to manage our lives and our destiny through the application of powerful, truthful thinking that inspires consistent, Core-motivated action.

That was a long sentence, but an important one. Let’s break it down.

M-Power is founded on the Principle of Core Ethics ™. This applies to your body, mind, relationships…you name it.

Core Ethics is a combination of three crucial and universal truths:

1. Truth
2. Responsibility
3. Abundance

More specifically, truthful thinking, ruthless responsibility, and flowing abundance. These are the key distinctions within my key distinctions!

All three of these distinctions are covered heavily in M-Power, but for today I’d like to give you some broad-stroke truths to apply in the art of manifesting your moments.

First, by thinking truthfully (as opposed to “positively” or “irrationally”), one can see that words become our world. James Allen took a passage from the Bible to clarify this in his book, “As A Man Thinketh.” What we think produces a conversation with our self — the most important of all conversations, as it’s by far the longest. This produces the words we say to ourselves and to others. These words are either based in truth or based in fiction.

Saying, “I’m going to die if I don’t get some ice cream” is, of course, utter fiction. Yet most people use this type of language all the time. The opposite is the “positive thinking” camp — the ones who look in the mirror and say, “I’m fit, and I’m beautiful!” when they’re not…and they’re not!

The alternative, and the way to begin manifesting your destiny in the moment, rather than in some far away, mystical “someday”, is to say this:

“I am in the process of learning what I need to know in order to become more fit, healthy and attractive every day of my life.”

This is not a false statement if you are so much as reading this article!

Remember this scientific fact:  any form of energy that is non-truth creates dissonance, and dissonance remodels cellular structure. That sounds kinda complex, but all I’m saying is this:

You lie, you die.

Really.

Photographs of water prove this point. Saying things that are not true to the speaker changes the structure of water molecules. Speaking words of hate do the same. You are programmed to live in harmony with yourself, and the language we use on a daily basis is often the opposite of harmony. It is the creation of dissonance. And we wonder why we have all this mental and physical disease in our world!

Your very cells scream out, “Take responsibility!” Speak in truth, both out loud and to yourself, and watch what happens.

This level of accountability to yourself will produce flowing abundance, or wealth in every area of your life that flows outward rather than remains bottled up inside of you. “Canning abundance” as I call it is a sure-fire way to total overwhelm in life. You must share it — and by doing so, you reap more.

Become a manifestor of moments;  moments that add up to the time of your life.

You can start today by joining up with an entire team dedicated to three things in your life:  your health, your wealth, and your total abundance.

Read more, hear testimonials, and even get a freee 41-minute audio called, “What’s Really Missing?”, all right here —

www.mpowerseries.com
Make the moments, and make them count!

Jon Benson
Creator, The M-Power Inner Circle