For most of us, eating unhealthy foods is the norm. We are surrounded by food choices that are stuffed with empty calories which leaves us under nourished and over weight.

Eating healthy isn’t something that we can just will ourselves into. The environment we live in does not support it. Food manufacturers, including companies that serve us fast food or prepacked foods (the majority of our diets), know that combining fat, salt and sugar in foods ends up activating parts of our brain that make us want to eat more and more. We are no longer paying any attention to what our bodies are telling us about hunger, we are like addicts who just need that next bite.

When we commit to a program like P90X, TurboFire, Slim in Six or any of the great Beachbody programs, we need to change our eating as well as show up for the exercise for real transformations.  But it’s hard to radically change the way we eat.  So many people fail to eat right, see mediocre results and fall off the wagon.

So what is the solution?  Let me share with you what has worked for me.

Understanding that I might have an addict like relationship with food, I knew I needed to get my body to learn to love good food and, even more importantly, learn to dislike the fat, salt and sugar laden crap I had been eating.  Now many people would tell you that going ‘cold turkey’ is the only solution.  Clearly trying to eat some junk each day is a losing proposition because based on what I’ve shared with you about how our brains react to this junk, I’d lose control.    However, the problem with eating right 100% of the time is certainly for the first month or longer, we’ll start to resent having to eat right.  It won’t provide us the quick ‘hit’ that junk food does and given all the advertising we’ll see and the way the people around us eat, we are likely to fail.

So my solution is to eat extremely clean 6 days a week and on the 7th day, I cheat.  My cheat days are BIG cheats.  From shortly after I get up until about 8:30 PM, I eat junk.  And I eat a lot of it.  Now this has not one, but 3 unique benefits.

First, it’s actually good for your metabolism to jump your calories significantly once in a while.  If you continuously eat at a lower calorie level, your body will become more and more efficient at working with less.  That means you’ll eventually stop losing weight.  But when you have a cheat day where you eat 50% or more (I actually will eat about 2x the calories I eat on my 6 clean days), your body must figure out what to do with all the excess calories.  This pattern of occasionally jumping your calories keeps your metabolism from getting too efficient so you can continue to lose weight.

Secondly, when you know you have a cheat day once a week, it’s never that long a commit to eat clean.   At worst, you only have 6 days of eating rigtht until you can eat ‘wrong’.   When you see an advertisement that temps you, just say to yourself that you will eat it on your cheat day.  Same goes for when a family member, friend or coworker offers you what they consider a treat.  Pass it up or ask them to wrap it up for you and then put it in the fridge until your cheat day.

Third, if you really go for it during your cheat day, and you should, by the end of the day you feel fat, bloated and sluggish.  At this point don’t beat yourself up but attach the discomfort to the foods.  This is really important because as you do so, you will start your week wanting to eat clean and healthy.

The other techniques I use include buying fresh organic fruit that I like.  For me that’s berries (all kinds), cherries, pears, apples and grapefruit.  I can find at least some of these at Whole Foods (we don’t have a Trader Joe’s yet where I live).  Even the Super Target near me has a lot of organic fruit and veggies to buy.  The price is higher but buy only what you know you can eat before it will go bad and enjoy it.   Using fresh, organic fruit and organic veggies and salads will nourish your body and you’ll respond with not only increased weight loss, you’ll have more energy and start to associate good feelings towards these healthier foods.

Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Shakeology.  The more I take this shake, the more impressed I become with it.  It’s making weight loss easier and I have more energy and my hair, skin and nails have really improved.  In fact, if my nails grow any faster and stronger, I’m going to have issue with it.  As it is now, I’m having to significantly file my nails 2x a week which I never had to do before.  My hair is growing so fast, I’m going to have to tell my stylist to cut 1 1/2 inches each month I see her.   BTW, if you are considering Shakeology, you should also consider becoming a Beachbody coach to get it at wholesale price.  If you want to know more about getting Shakeology at wholesale prices, fill out the short form below and I’ll contact you.

I Would Like to Learn More About Shakeology at Wholesale Prices: