Small Step Diet

Christmas Day Feast!

2009-12-25T08:28:00.000-08:00

INDULGE IRRESPONSIBLY!!!

If there's one thing you must do on Christmas day it's eat. Blasted excessive calories! It's just the way it is, lots of food....Devour!

If you feel like it walk inbetween meals and keep active if it's possible. Moving will help you burn excessive calories.

Merry Christmas!

Staggering Calories

2009-12-17T04:37:00.000-08:00

For dinner last night my lovely wife, to feed me in the spirit of all which is sacred and holy, thinks these three food ingredients eating thing really....WORKS! I've only been doing this for two years now with the occasional splurge. Which you must do every now and again.

One of the less talked about attributes of weightloss is a thing called, "Staggering Calories. This simply means sometimes a good splurge is beneficial because it actually tricks your metabolism into burning more. If you normally eat 400 calories in a sitting and then go to 600 for one meal your metabolism kicks into high gear. For those of you just starting out trying this you can really feel the burn. It's an amazing technique. I'm not recommending anything, but I do this staggering calorie exercise about twice a week.

Bread Crumb Chicken
Chicken - Broccoli - Mashed Potatoes

4 oz Breaded Chicken - (280 cals)
1c Broccoli cooked in chicken stock - (40 cals)
1/2 c Mashed Potatoes - (80 cals)
1/2 tbls Ranch Dressing - (70 cals)

Calorie Total - 470

I actually ate another 1/2 piece of Chicken which brought my total calorie intake to actually about 610. Staggering those calories not only gives you more energy to burn it makes me at least want to go exercise!!

If you should have any questions about these Meal Wraps please do not hesitate to ask in the comments section or contact me at sirch59@yahoo.com

To the Small Steps

2009-12-15T19:00:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I just walk out into the kitchen and say, "What can I concoct today?" Usually, it needs to be quick and easy. So for experimentation I whipped up a quick Chicken Spaghetti dish with soy/grape jelly marinade. Oh my, it's actually a hidden gem of flavor! Little heavy in the carbs so I watched my portion.

Chicken Soy Speghetti
Chicken - Peach/Water Cress - Speghetti

1/2 c Chopped Chicken (150 cals)
1 c Spaghetti (90 cals)
1/2 c Water Cress/Dill (10 cals)
3 Peach slices (50 cals)
1/2 tbls Parmesan Cheese (70)

Calorie Total - 370

To make the Chicken Speghetti I cooked some speghetti in boiling water. Once the speghetti cooked, I drain it. In a pan I sautéd a quater onion and a clove of garlic in cooking spray. I then added the chopped chicken and the speghetti and mixed it all up and let it cook for a minute. Then I took a table spoon of soy sauce and a 1/2 a tablespoon of Smucker's grape jelly. I added a drizzle of vinegar and whisked it up and poured the soy mix into the skillet with the Chicken Speghetti. I let it cook for about a two minutes. I plated it and sprinkled Parmesan cheese over it.

Salsa Is Just Not For Chips!

2009-12-14T14:29:00.000-08:00

I find the breakfast below to be a creative use for salsa. Nothing to wake you up in the morning like spicy hot pepper fire in the mouth! Although, a milder mix is just as delicious. Salsa is one of those foods which I call a negative calorie delicacy. The consistancy and ingredients within can actually help your metabolism rise. And guess what? Metabolism rising burns calories!

Scrambled Salsalida!

Eggs - Pinapple - Salsa - Toast

1 whole egg - (90 cals)
1 egg white - (12 cals)
5 chunks of Pineapple (10 cals)
1 Slice whole wheat toast w/Black Berry Jellie (100 cals)

2 tbls Green Mountian Gringo Salsa (10 cals)

1 c Coffee Black (15 cals)

Calorie Total - 237

This is getting into definite negative calorie territory. Be carefully with this because it can possibly cause your metabolism to slow. You do not want to go negative too much.

Meal Wraps

2009-12-13T09:54:00.000-08:00

To honor this festive holiday season I've decide to actually POST on this blog again! Obviously, because there is so much food to sample this time of year we who try to diet and keep in shape generally force ourselves to eat more healthy. We increasingly telling ourselves we've got to stay away from too many calories by eating less or not eating certain foods. The key to successfully stay in shape is actually eating more meals of the right kinds of foods, combined together. However, this does not mean you can not eat certain foods to be victorious with the Small Step Diet.

"Meal Wraps" are a term I created when I was trying to develop meals around the three basic foods of dieting. Protiens, Fiber, and Starch. Eating 5 times a day, every three hours with the right proportions is so important to not only eating healthier, but helps change your lifestyle eating habits for the better.

Here is a section of a Menu Wraps chart -

On the menu tonight:

Pork Chops - Green Beans - Mashed Potatoes

1 Lean Pork Chop baked - (230 cals)

1/2 cup Grean Beans cooked in water - (25 cals)

1/2 cup Mash Potatoes w/ 1 Tbls cool ranch Dressing - (70 cals)

1 Tbls Ken's steakhouse Honey Mustard - (65 cals)

(for dipping Pork Chop)

Calorie Total: 390

Ok, I had a Chrismas peanut butter cookie - 65 cals / So, sue me! ;-)

5 Questions - The Heart Of The Mater

2008-07-26T11:05:00.000-07:00

1: Why do I overeat?
2: What feelings do I get from eating?
3: How should I eat?
4: Where do fat calories get stored the most in my body?
5: How does eating effect my mood?

If you are feeling like you've fallen off the wagon by eating way too much the answers to these questions, if answered honestly should give you a deep look into why your losing focus. They should reveal how eating effects your overall perception of yourself. Changing your lifestyle so you actually eat less may require constant, motivational inspiration. These questions will help you stay focused. Thinking takes energy, but if you practice using your brain by asking yourself questions there is less likelyhood of you losing your motivation to eat properly.

Pounding The Numbers Into Your Head

2008-02-17T05:36:00.000-08:00

If I want to lose one pound of body fat I have to burn 3500 calories. Normally that would mean a calorie reduction of about 500 calories a day from what my current intake would be. A 20% reduction of CPD (Clalories Per Day) is a healthy reduction and also is small enough to give you the neccessary calories your body needs . Let's look at the numbers:

If you normally take in 2500 cals a day a 20% deficit would equal 500.
2500 X 20% = 500. 500 cpd X 7 days = 3500. 1 lbs a week

With exercise you should be able to burn or reduce about 7000 calories per week. It's important to note losing more than 1-2 lbs per week is not very healthy. When you're losing more then 1-2 lbs/wk your are in danger of losing muscles and you absolutely do not want to lose any muscle.

To Be Continued

2008-02-16T04:19:00.000-08:00

Getting on a diet and losing weight is one thing. Keeping yourself on that diet for life is another. We eat eccessively because of comfort. It's comfortable to us who to eat more than our body needs and this causes many health problems. It's no different than anything else that has to over work. At some point the machine is going to break down. It acutually gets tired.

Changing this habit of overeating has to be one the hardest lifestyle changes in existance for people who just love to eat. I see the looks on countless people's faces when I mention the word "diet." They treat it like work, and by perceiving your lifestyle change this way, it's bound to fail. Not many people realize overeating is a habit. You can definately change habits. The question is how do you change this habit effectively. You succeed at the little steps.

There are two phases to this lifestyle change. The first phase is getting your body and diet to a certain level. The second phase is maintaining this level for life. In the second phase you have to create a perception which is different than the first. In this phase it's all about living the diet, not following the diet. You have to set up the scenario in your mind this is your life now and this is how I live and eat. It becomes a part of you no different than any other perception you choose to have about life. It's exactly about what you expect to see in the mirror every day.

The small steps you take every day will lead to the ultimate desire of acheivement.

Plenty Of Protein

2008-02-13T17:12:00.000-08:00

Out of the three foods catagories, Protein, Starchy Carbohydrates, Fiberous Carbohydrates, protein is the food you should never skip during your meals. Protein is what keeps the muscles from eroding in your diet. It also adds energy and helps your metabolism to burn other carlories more efficiently. The key to eating protien is choosing lean foods. Beef, chicken, pork, eggs, nuts, and fish are all equally important in sustaining a well balanced diet. Fish especially has essentially omega 3 fatty acids which are very "good" fats to be include in your meals.

You must remember, we're counting calories here so it's important to proportion the amounts of foods correctly. Anywhere between 4-6 oz of lean meats or protein per meal is about right. Mix up your proteins at each meal. Some people will be able to include a higher percentage in their diets simple because of their metabolism composition. Some are able to burn one set of food calories better than others. On average the percentages maybe be 20% protein 40% Fiberous Carbs and 40% Starchy Carbs. You'll have to work and see what percentage works best for your body type. Staggering your calories each day is important to jump starting metabolism.

Overall, Protein is the main food you should consider eating before any others at meal time. Your body needs calories to burn and protein gives it the right amount of feul.

Weight Training

2008-02-10T08:59:00.000-08:00

I imagine many people have this idea in their head that once they lose an amount of weight it will just magically stay off of those hips, thighs, stomach and butt. Some people have a delusion of thinking they can go right back to their old eating habits, and forget about what they've been doing to succeed for the past several months. People it's NEVER going to happen.

The small step diet is about how to take smalls steps so you may enjoy lasting success in your diet and fitness. It's a weight training program you must adhear too for the rest of your life if you want to remain fit. It is a lifestyle change in not only your eating habits, but you exercise habits too. The point is, you really can take small steps to accomplish success for the rest of your life, but without those steps, you will see the results you definately do not desire.

Let's review a concept:
In order to walk from one place to another you have to take one step at a time. In order to take one step at a time you have to put on one shoe at a time. Before that you have to tie one lace at time. Is the picture getting clear? Weight trainning is all about taking steps. It doesn't matter how small these steps are, they all lead to the desired outcome. One day at a time, one hour at a time, one minute at a time gets you to your destination. Without these steps, success is unlikely because you overwhelm yourself with fear.

Train yourself to accept taking small steps. Enough small steps lead to big outcomes. If you make your goals small enough, you basically have to succeed. If you can't walk a mile, you still might be able to crawl a foot. Set in motion some small step to take every day towards your goal.

...And you thought this was going to be about Dumb Bells, didn't you?

Eating Clean

2008-02-09T05:18:00.000-08:00

Eating clean means eating high quality foods. Foods which have the most natural vitamins and no persevatives. This kind of eating can seem very bland, but the health benefits will make a big difference not only in the way you feel, but in the way you approach your health. When thinking about eating clean there is one word you need to get ingrained in your head. This word is LEAN. When thinking of lean foods, you must think of foods which you know will help you to remain lean. Below I've listed several foods which are lean and can give you an abundance of rich vitamins and other essential nutrients your body craves.

Vegetables
Apples
Organges
Whole Wheat Bread
Whole Wild Rice
BlueBerries
Strawberries
Olive Oil
Wine (6 0z daily)
Nuts - Almonds/Walnuts
fish
Green Tea
Raw Honey
Cottage Cheese
Eggs
Lean Meat

Losing weight is really about losing body fat. That's the big difference in the Small Step Diet. If you do not consentrate on losing body fat then you are restricting a lean, tone body. Building or maintaining muscle is the real key to being fit and lean. Your body fat percentage should become your main focus over just losing weight. Eating clean will give you the nutrients your body need to maintain it's health, grow, and vibrant nature. By eating clean your metabolism is getting the most bang for it's buck. The is no question removing the sluggish foods from your diet and adding these lean foods will get the metabolism reved up. Adding a little exercise to build those muscles even adds more fuel to the fire.

Water You Waiting For?

2008-02-07T04:56:00.000-08:00

One activity which is very useful to your diet is drinking water. Many recommend 8 cups a day. Now this is alot of water to consume, but let's look at some of the benefits this provides.

Hydration - Drinking water keeps you from essentailly drying out and conserving fat.
Increases Metabolic Rate - Drinking water increases your fat buning factor because you body has to warm it up.
Washes out impurities - Drinking water can help get rid of toxics in your system by flushing them out.
Digestion - drinking water breaks down foods and makes digestion easier on your system.
Healthier Looking Skin - Drinking water keep everything moist and vibrant resulting in giving you healthier looking skin.

Adding a squeeze of lemon or lime will give a little flavor to your water if you get tired of just drinking the plain stuff.

Drinking plenty of water is good for a person's overall walfare. Keeping hydrated allows the bodies functions to work better. Keep a bottle near you all through the day and drink to your well-being and good health.

Oh, one last thing. Make sure you have a clear path to a bathroom, you're going to need it all day long!

The Small Of It All

2008-02-03T06:49:00.000-08:00

One thing I've always noticed about people who fail at diets is they try to go all out towards a goal which will create immediate results. When these people don't get the results they're looking for they quit, determining it's just too much time and effort to go all out just to fail.

The whole point of taking small consistant steps towards dieting is to be able to see immediate results that are designed to succeed. You might not be able to cut out that 4 packs of sugar in your coffee all at once, but you definately can cut out 1 pack. Or half a pack, how about a quarter of a pack? The point is to make things so small you can't help but succeed.

Some people will have the attitude this will not accomplish much, but the reality is it will accomplish much toward consistant dieting. People trying to approach a diet with an all or nothing attitude, rarely succeed because they bog themselves down in seeing the all or nothing
results, immediately.

Think small attainable steps for your diet and fitness program, ones you can definately succeed at and you will be surprised at how each step moves you closer and closer to your ultimate goal.

Burning Calories

2008-01-27T07:23:00.000-08:00

Ok, so you understand the right diet together with enough exericse gives you the best way to burn fat and hopefully keep it off for good. The question now arises how much exercise is enough to burn those extra calories off? The answer depends on one thing. How much exercise are you willing to do? ALL exercise and physical movement burns calories.

What many people do not know is you can actually get to a point in exercising which has no more benefit to calorie burning. Too much exercise can produce a negetive effect with over exertion and you definately do not want to hurt youself. If you will, indulge me for a second by letting me make this analogy.

I'm a drummer. Playing drums is about learning finesse, contrary to many people's perception. Aren't you suppose to bang the tar out of the drums with each stoke? No, you're suppose to be as loose and relaxed as possible by letting the stick bounce and do all the work. Forcing the stick down into the drumhead actually will produce a loss of vigor after the stroke, causing a lack of smoothness and energy. Hard and "fast-as-you-can" produces only tenseness and rigidity in your muscles and before long will reduce needed energy for playing. The same happens with burning calories. At first you can get your heart rate going up to the maximum BPM, but then when you've spent that energy, it's gone. Evenly sustained exercise is favorable. It's not a, "less is more," kind of thing, it's a, "just about right," kind of thing.

It makes much more sense to exercise up to a point and then rest. Getting a heart rate up for a good 30 minutes is about maximum for calorie burning. Beyond that you may be burning residual calories, but not at the same rate or effect you were for the first 30 minutes.
This is not to discourage anyone from exercising or weight training beyond this immediate time because you can still build muscle and endurance, but even those have their limits.

The exercise plan I developed for the Small Step Diet is not in any way an end all to a good calorie burning exercise program. It is however an alternative to those of you who do not have the time nor the will power to take thirty minutes a day to raise your metabolism. Small Step Exercising is a good start which I conclude needs to be built upon by adding reps to each exercise each week as you progress with your diet.

Body Fat and Muscle

2008-01-26T05:49:00.000-08:00

Me and my friend were have a conserversation yesterday about weight loss, building muscle, and generally talking about diet. He's one of these people which can usually take a thought and put it so precisely it seems as though he is spouting some great insight! Here was the gist of what we concluded, which is what you should be concluding in your diet, weight loss plans. Weight loss is a by product of body fat reduction. What you really should be trying to do in weight loss is reducing your body fat by building or at least maintaining muscle.

BMI is the acronym for Body Mass Index and there are all sorts of calculations you can choose to find out what yours should be. Your body mass index tells you basically the difference between your weight and muscle percentage. Don't get too caught up on this because in the Small Step Diet the goal is to reduce Body Fat percentage and a good diet, which means eating right every meal, plus a meaningful exercise routine will be your guide to both losing weight and building muscle.

Building muscle or at least keeping your muscle toned is the half of weight maintanance which should be concentrated on the most. Infact it is the focus which you definately should have when considering your weigh loss. The last thing you want to do in any weight loss program is lose muscle. Flab is the deathnail to not only keeping metabolism burinig at it's full furnace strength, but also will prevent a decently toned muscle.

The Best Worst Foods

2008-01-24T05:08:00.000-08:00

It's not what you eat, it's how much of it you consume. All foods can be good for you. What is bad is eating too much of the worst foods. High content beef, butter, margerine, ice cream, pork, etc... All these foods have a very high consentrated fat content. What is important however is thinking you have to stay away from these foods and that's just not correct. You need a little of these foods so your bodies metabolism can begin to burn fat. In otherwords you need a little fat to burn more fat. Here are some foods you should be including in the Small Step Diet:

Lean proteins - Beef that is lean, nuts
Skim Milk - It's just better than whole milk
Butter - On toast, or in cooking. No more than a tea spoon ever!
Margerine - Use this the less, only when you don't have butter.
Olive Oil - Great fat!

Yes, beleive it or not you should be eating a little ice cream and cookies.
Staggering what you eat will help your metabolism boost even more especially
by combining fruits or vegetables with you meals. Remember: A Fiberous Carb,
A Starchy Carb, and a Lean Protein are what make up a basic meal.

One last food which I think is very good for you and tweaks your health.
Apple Cider Vinegar. The beneifits from this stuff are enormuous and will
will help practically dissolve fat. A little teaspoon of vinegar every day will
benefit your diet beyond measure.

Yes, eat some real fat in your diet ever day to help boost your metabolism to it's
highest fat burning level.

Diet Success

2008-01-21T09:24:00.000-08:00

There is no doubt sticking to a diet is a hard habit to create. People who like to overeat desire to fulfill a perceived emptiness which does not exist physically, only psychologically. Whenever creating or changing a lifestyle there is a certain amount fear which can dominate a perspective.

The answer to succeed at change, real change with real lasting results is to take small steps. Steps sometimes so small you can not help but succeed. If your idea is to cut back on the portions of food you eat start to cut back with smidgins. One less grain of salt, one less grandular of sugar, one less potato chip, one less bite! Deal with what you can comfortably, realistically do. If you can do more, fine. If you have to do less, that's fine too. Time is not a factor in this concept of acheiving your goal, unless you make it a factor. The Small Step Diet is all about taking small steps. Those small steps will forever lead to bigger accomplishments.

Little Victories - Exercise For Life

2008-01-19T16:17:00.000-08:00

In any successful diet you should be utilizing a regular exercise routine. There are just so many healthy, physical, and mental benefits which can be derived from an ongoing routine. Many people have this, "no pain, no gain" attitude when exercising and it's detrimental to the overall concept of physical accomplishment. Exercising and your diet work together to boost metabolism. This is optimal for losing and maintaining a healthy weight.

Working out does not have to be hard work. You do not have to go to a gym, buy expensive exercise equipment, run 5 miles, or chop a chord of wood each day. It's not that those things are bad exercise habits, they would be quite good actually, you just don't have to do them to stay in decent physical shape and help in acheiving your weight loss goals.

Here's a list of calisthenics, if done regularly will give a great start to an easy exercise routine which you can do every day. If you do all the exercises on this list it might take you all of 5-10 minutes. The effects are enormous physically, and mentally will give you the attitude needed to continue exercising for successful weight loss.

1: JUMPING JACKS - 10
We all learned these in elementary school I hope!
2: WIND MILLS - 10 Reps
Legs spread apart shoulder length. Opposit hand touches tip of toe.
3: LEG PUSHES - 10
Lie on your back. Legs straight out 6 inches off ground. Bring knees up to chest.
4: KNEE TO OPPOSITE ELBOW - 10 Reps
Lie on your back. Hands behind your heads. Bring opposite knee up to elbow.
5: PUSH UPS - 10
Real ones!!!

Walking a mile or so with this exercise routine really makes it complete, but if you just can't walk, these exercises done each day will help build and maintain muscle you need to successfully burn fat.

Food Groups

2008-01-05T02:45:00.000-08:00

For the second principle of the Small Step Diet its all about what you eat and when you eat. There are essentially three food groups you need to pick from when creating meals, these are:

1: Proteins - meats, eggs, fish, nuts.

2: Fiberous Carbohydrates - Any Fruit or Vegetable

3: Starchy Carbohydrates - Potatoes, Rice, Cereal whole wheat bread.

Together these three foods form the basic ingredients to make up the optimal nutrients which by working together give your body what it needs to rev up your metabolism. If you're going to eat every three hours, as this diet suggest, it's good to plan ahead. Eating from these three food groups together also gives your body the neccessary elements it needs to sustain it's health. Portions are important because eating too much of one thing will cause an inbalance in overall structure and might slow down your weight loss.

The way you need to approach your eating is by understanding NOTHING is off limits. You may eat anything you wish. What you need to grasp however is to know what you are eating, and how it will effect your weight and health. Two foods which cause your body to gain the most weight and break down your health are Refined Sugar, Saturated Fat. Just because these food are fattening, does not mean you should completely cut them out of your diet. They too have their role in balancing a diet, albeit as little as possible.

Here is a typical schedule of eating times. Let's start with breafast: If I want to eat 2550 calaries a day to maintian my weight, and I'm going to start eating at 7 am. My times to eat will be, 7 am - 10 am - 1 pm - 4 pm- 7 pm. Every three hours, To maintain a weight of 165-170, my calorie break up will be:

2550 / 5 = 510 cals a meal. That's alot, you'll probably eat less than this because you'll have a hard time eating that much in one meal. Portions are important because by observing how much you eat will hopefully get you into a habit of controlling aggressive overeating. I'll give you an example of breakfast and show you how it breaks down calorie wise.

Protien/EGGS: 3 whites 1 w/yolk scrambled = 132 Calories
Fiberous Carb/APPLE: Sliced = 81 cal
Starchy Carb/CEREAL: 1 cup (Honey Bunches Of Oates) w/ skim milk = 170 cal

Calories: 132 + 81 + 170 = 383. I'm short by 127 cals!!

When you add up the calories in this typical breakfast you realize you come up short from your daily target, however it also gives you room to splurge if you're still a little hungry. Another egg white or a piece of whole wheat toast with a little butter is fine. Understand eating every three hours is a key to getting your body's metabolism in a rhythm to help it increase it's burning factor. It's important to get into this rhythm, but if you miss by half an hour or so sometimes, you're not straying too far off the beaten path.

Small, substainable meals are what makes you create an integral habit of learning how to portion your food correctly so you may give yourself the right amount of calories at each meal. The overall calorie intake for the day is important, but the meals and their eating times are what drives your metabolism to work on it's highest level. Getting your metabolismn to burn hot is what we are trying to accomplish.

Do I Have To Count Calories?

2007-12-30T08:29:00.000-08:00

Let's take a look at the first principle of The Small Step Diet.

Counting Calories.
There is one reasons why you need to know your caloric intake for each day.
*So you can know you're eating the right amount of calories.*

Some people make such a big deal out of this, but it's really a simple principle. The less calories you eat, the less weight you'll maintain.

How many calories do I need to eat to lose weight?
There are many places online to figure this out, but let me give you the basic, simple, general rule for figuring out how many calories your body needs to maintain a weight. (I've listed some online calculators and websites that will tweak and give you a more precise figure on the bottom of this post)

Here's the simple formula to generally figure out your daily calorie needs:
*Multiply your desired weight by*
(15 ) for men
(14) for women

Example:
I weighed 205 lbs when I started. My target weight was 170 lbs.

170 (pounds) x 15 = 2550

This formula is general. It's definately not exact, but it will give you a target weight of an average man and woman which is good enough to use if you quickly want to know what to shoot for.

The Small Step Diet is all about taking small comfortable steps towards your goals. The thing to remember is you'll get to your ultimate goal by stepping forward. It doesn't matter how small those steps are, time is not the factor. It's taking those small steps and advancing forward that count. This is what will give you success.

The Small Step Diet concept here is to take this desired weight figure and determine for yourself how much to reduce it by.

If you weigh 200 lbs and want to weigh 170 you need to reduce your calorie intake by 450 calories a day to get down to this desired weight.

200lbs (3000cal) - 170lbs (2550cal) = 30lbs (450cal)

This means you need to eat 2550 calories a day to maintain the weight of 170lbs.

Let's say you want to reduce your weight to 165 lbs in three months. Thats 1 - 2 lbs a week. This is optimal weight loss to perserve muscle and correct body fat. Faster weight loss than this may cause reducions in these two areas. So when you hear or see those advertizements to lose weight faster than this, consider the factors.

Calorie Calculator
FitWatch

Free Diet & Weigh Loss Journal
FitDay

2007-12-29T07:39:00.000-08:00

The Small Step Diet Of Life

NOTE: I am currently right in the middle of writing a small book with the same title. Obviously, a more condensed version of intricacies and elaboration will be in the book.

The Small Step Diet Of Life is not complex, nor is it something so regimented as to make the concept too difficult. It's simple. Take small steps to succeed. I've listed sort of a table of contents on how this diet is made up.

1: Find out what your current average calorie intake is and reduce it by 20%.
Yes, you have to count calories!! Calories are what make you gain weight. It's important to know not only know how many calories go into your body, but also the type of calories.

2: Eat foods from three basic food groups as meals every three hours.
A: Protiens
B: Fiberous Carbs
C: Starchy Carbs

3: Create a calastenic routine and do it on a regular basis.
This routine should be something consisting of, but not limited to any physical activity which increase your heart rate. Walking, Running, Jumping, Marching, Push Ups, Sit Ups, Lite Weight Lifting.

These are the three basic principles which make this diet work. However, what will make you successful at this diet, is the understanding of taking small steps and improving on those steps as time moves forward. Losing weight should be done as a gradual process. 1 to 2 pounds a week is about right.

In my next post I will go into all the details of each of the 3 principles. If you have questions please post them, and I will answer them as soon as possible.

2007-12-25T08:26:00.000-08:00

Innovation can be a great and wonderous thing. Taking giants leaps to gain success is ideal for the ultimate over acheiver. There are people who do accomplish success by great innovation, but in my experience most do not succeed in their overall goals by trying to take giant leaps to move ahead. However, many do succeed by taking small, easy, steps. It's almost impossible to fail by using this method of taking one step at a time to proceed toward a bigger goal.

You might not be able to move the whole mountain of rocks at once, but what you can do is move one rock at a time, or maybe just a pebble.

The Small Step Diet revolves around this easy step concept. If you are overeating, and engaging in a completely unbalanced diet, then it is unrealistic to think you can break a cycle of a dependence 'cold turkey.' I'm not in any way saying you can't change your eating habits empatically, but your body expects a certain fulfillment, and a drastic alteration from the feeling of comfort takes unwavering will power to achieve.

Here is a little secret to know about any weight loss program. 1 to 2 pounds a week is optimal weight loss. Why not more? Because we want to lose fat, not muscle. Fat is what is harmful. When most talk about wanting to lose weight, it's not really weight they want to lose, it's fat. Body fat is what needs to be measured in a good weight loss plan. Losing more than 1 or 2 pounds a week might be an indication of losing muscle. Keeping this muscle is a goal of the Small Step Diet.

2007-12-23T04:56:00.000-08:00

I'm a big beliver in simple and learning the secret. This diet is simple, although there really is no secret. If you desire is to lose weight and keep it off you have to eat less...calories.

I know there are some of you who might have a weight problem which is not based on calorie intake but rather thyroid gland, or some other obscure health difficulty. I have no medical background so I can not write about to those problems concerning your weight. What I can write about is learning how to take small steps to complete a larger goal, and this is a diet not just for manipulating the weight of body, but for better managing the weight of life.

2007-12-22T15:48:00.000-08:00

Who's hungry? Let's eat!

Eating is what this diet is all about. Infact you have to eat more times a day for this diet to actually work correctly. "Sure," you say. Just remember this: A car needs gas to run the engine. Your body needs food to feed metabolism.

This blog is going to be more about a lifestyle change than just dieting, but the concept of this diet is enormous to everything you do in life.

Come to this site often and learn about, what I have coined, 'The Small Step Diet Of life.'