Plenty of people go through plenty of suffering trying to lose weight. But why does it have to be that way? Surely there’s some discipline involved, but the process can actually be empowering and personally fulfilling. Weight loss doesn’t need to be about suffering. Losing weight can actually be fun.
The fun part of losing weight is the fulfillment and personal satisfaction you get out of doing what you said you’d do. The fun part is seeing the pounds come off, week by week. The fun part is seeing yourself get back in shape. And, the very fun part is the free day that you enjoy each week. The free day is built-in to your losing-weight food plan.
What’s a free day? You want to be on a food plan that changes your body’s metabolism – one that flattens out your blood glucose levels, one that flattens out your blood insulin levels. The result is a body that knows how to burn glucose for energy, rather than a body that’s out of synch and stores glucose as fat.1,2
The best way to normalize your metabolism is to eat five or six small meals per day. This is not news. This powerful approach to maintaining optimal body weight has been around for many decades. And the multiple small meals food plan works just as well today.3
This approach has a surprise bonus – a built-in fun factor – the free day. The free day fulfills two important functions. First, your body needs to know that it’s not in starvation mode. If your body thinks it’s starving, you’ll begin to store fat. So you actually need to have a free day once a week.
Your free day also has a very important psychological purpose. You’re doing work and following a plan. A break from the plan is necessary, otherwise it’s going to become boring. It’s great to look forward to your free day and the opportunity to break the routine.
On your free day you can eat anything you want. After a while, you become less exorbitant on your free day. You still eat more pure-fun foods, but you find you’re eating less in terms of mass quantities. You just get more normalized, naturally, as you find yourself listening more to what your body really wants and needs.
Your free day, combined with the ongoing positive feedback from your bathroom scale, makes it possible and realistic to continue on the multiple small meals per day plan.
Over time your weekly weight loss decreases and eventually you stop losing weight – you’ve reached your body’s natural weight. This is a major accomplishment. Your food plan has become a way of life. You’ve learned how to eat so that you’re healthy, fit, and well. Make sure you celebrate!
1Otani H: Oxidative stress as pathogenesis of cardiovascular risk associated with metabolic syndrome. Antiox Redox Signal 15(7):1911-1926, 2011
2Brietzke SA: A personalized approach to metabolic aspects of obesity. Mt Sinai J Med 77(5):499-510, 2010
3Roth CL, et al: Changes in adipose-derived inflammatory cytokines and chemokines after successful lifestyle intervention in obese children. Metabolism 60(4):445-452, 2011
