The Green Tea Diet Plan

Transcription

1 The Green Tea Diet Plan There has, over the last few years, been a lot of interest in GREEN TEA not just for its many health benefits, but also its use as a diet aid. Tea is known to have thermogenic properties, which basically means it increases the rate of your metabolism (or increases your body s temperature). Although, this is entirely true, there is not a natural substance around with a strong enough thermogenic effect to single-handedly allow you to lose weight. The key is knowing HOW TO USE green tea as a diet aid. The first thing to remember is that getting in shape is not a case of doing extra crunches in the gym, it s not about going on the Paleo diet or a low carb sugar fast, and it s not about just cutting back on fast food (though that s always advisable). The reality is that getting in shape is a combination of all these things and more. It s not a fad, it s a lifestyle choice. A choice whereby you agree to treat your body how you would like it to treat you. There is nothing you will ever own in your life quite as amazing and finely balanced (and forgiving) as your body, so a little tlc will add a lot of life to your years. If you enjoy your Tea Diet Plan, or you re interested in Personal Training / Nutritional Therapy (or even just have some questions), don t hesitate to contact us at info@521-healthdrinks.com, or contact us here

2 Green Tea Diet Plan Outline: Weeks 1 & 2: Meal Replacement & Food Substitution In this first part we re all about getting our diet in order. We re going to cut your calorie intake by swapping breakfast with green tea, and eat nutrient dense fibrous foods instead of a less healthy snack-style lunch. Calorie restricting is incredibly healthy when done right, and can give your digestion the break it needs to recalibrate. Get your GREEN TEA! (we have some delicious teas that come with instructions) Take a photo of yourself (in underwear). Put the photo somewhere safe(!), you will not be looking at it for 4 weeks. This is important because we are not measuring success with a weighing scales(!!!), we want improved BODY COMPOSITION!! (Optional) Make it public that you are starting a health plan, not a diet. A healthy body is a happy body, and a happy body will radiate and look great! That will soon be you! Do a shop and buy lots of leafy greens, cruciferous veg., frozen fruits and berries etc. Minimize grain based products and don t eat any junk! (anything ready-made/processed ) Remember!! If you have any questions, just send us an and we ll try our best to help! Weeks 3 & 4: Exercise Schedule Now that our body is starting to feel the benefits of a healthy, balanced diet, we re going to step our metabolism up a gear with exercise. Ideally, we d like this to be HIIT as it s the fastest way to see results in your physique. Read our HIIT guide, and plan your desired routine Decide what time suits you and then, no matter what, exercise gets done! Get ready for amazing results Week 5: Photo Test & Exercise Update This is the de-load week, the point where you take a break (without undoing all your hard won gains). Half your exercise schedule, and start eating a small breakfast (ideally decide on a plan and go with it! So, if you re going for detox, have grapefruits. If you re going for healthy and filling, have porridge oats. Don t undo all your good work by having a cereal and a diet coke!). Take your new photo for the photo test! Half your exercise (so if it s 4 times a week, do 2) Buy your well deserved (and awesome) breakfast for the week Take your test photo (try to do it at the same angle as before). Congratulate yourself, and more than that, feel awesome for taking care of your body. It deserves it more that you can imagine! Update your exercise routine with more challenging exercises and keep going!!

3 The first stage of your green tea diet will be replacement! This means that even though you ve heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day (that s not necessarily true, your first meal of the day is the most important insofar as your insulin receptivity is at its greatest), you will be replacing it with the most nutritious drink possible, GREEN TEA. Very simply put, in the morning you can take what vitamins/supplements you like, if necessary eat something small (dried fruit or nuts), and then sip on about 4-500mls of lightly sweetened green tea throughout the morning. Lightly sweetening it will help to keep your blood sugar up and help to stop you craving food. Have a second cup if necessary, but no food until lunch. You should do this from Monday Saturday (on Sunday you can eat as you like), Do this for 2 weeks before starting the next stage of the GREEN TEA DIET. This helps on 2 fronts, the first being that you cut hundreds of calories from your day and can stock up on any vitamins you may miss with a nutrient dense lunch. The second, less recognised benefit, is the relief this provides your body. Aside from the obvious strain constantly having food in your body has on your digestion, there s also important hormonal balances in play. We discussed already how we would start with our tea diet plan with a replacement diet. Let s discuss in a little more detail the science behind this idea, the applications of this diet, and the next stage of the diet. Firstly, the explanation! We will cover this in 2 parts, beginning with the 3,500 calorie rule and then looking at your hormonal balance. After that, we ll look at why you need more than a 10-minute abs style workout plan.

4 3,500 Calories The 3,500 calorie rule goes something like this: 1lb of fat was tested under laboratory conditions and found to contain approximately 3,500 calories (units of energy), therefore to lose 1 lb of fat you must cut 3,500 calories out of your diet over a given period of time. There is merit to this idea, though there is a HUGE misconception surrounding this means of measuring potential fat loss (well, actually 2 misconceptions). The first misconception is the idea that by arbitrarily reducing your calorie intake, you can bring about controlled weightloss. For instance, you have been eating 3 biscuits every night as a snack, each containing 100 calories. You then, with painstaking resolve, manage to cut these biscuits out of your diet, by the end of the first year you have lost (ta da!) over 30lbs of fat. This is obviously ridiculous, but doesn t (as many nutritionists claim) disprove the theory! The key here is that you must run a 3,500 calorie DEFICIT, so if you give up the biscuits and start eating chocolates, or stop going to the gym unfortunately, those 30lbs of fat are staying right where they are. Your body is far smarter than you give it credit for, and studies have shown that people dieting will (unbeknownst to themselves) walk slower and move less than they normally would so as to save on energy expenditure. Now you know why it s not easy to shed those lbs!

5 The second misconception is that all calories are created equal, and that running a caloric deficit guarantees fat-loss, and not just WEIGHT-loss. Studies have shown that calories from unhealthy foods will affect you differently that calories from healthy foods, and can in some cases cause you to gain not just fat, but visceral fat! So even though you re not overeating, if you re eating unhealthy foods, they will cause your body no end of harm! If you run a caloric deficit, you WILL lose WEIGHT, though this might not be what you actually want. These days, most of the cutting edge diet plans and dieticians are talking about body composition, not fatloss. The key is that running a caloric deficit correctly will serve 2 purposes (balancing hormones and rebooting digestion), and is an exceptional and versatile foundation for creating a healthier body. Keep reading to see how to get in shape safely and healthily. Your Hormonal Balance: Your body has two goals when dealing with food, and hormonal responses that correspond to these goals. (This is very much a simplified view for now, ignoring the effects of particular foods on your hormonal balance, so as to first outline the concepts involved) Firstly, consuming food and then storing the calories and nutrients. Secondly, not eating food and allowing those calorie and nutrient stores to be used. The hormone in question is, for most of this, insulin, which is released into the body when food is consumed to deal with, among other things, the increase in glucose. When we eat too much food (particularly highly processed food), our insulin levels stay higher for longer, and our insulin

6 sensitivity drops. This is kind of like when you turn up the radio in the car to drown out the noise of the traffic outside, but after a while the music doesn t seem as loud as it first did. Your body has the same problem when you repeatedly force it to release insulin, eventually the signal will lose impact. Insulin is responsible for our body creating stores of energy (as fat, via lipogenesis) so that we may survive in times of scarcity. While our insulin levels are high, we cannot metabolise fat. This means that with insulin levels constantly elevated, it becomes increasingly difficult to convert fat stores into energy (a process called lipolysis). If you ve replaced breakfast with GREEN TEA, the roughly hours you spend in the fasted state on the tea diet (from 11pm to 11am), serve to decrease your overall insulin levels, to increase your insulin sensitivity and allow for lipolysis (the breakdown of fat stores for energy). The conditions necessary for lipolysis are low levels of insulin, and an increase in either/all catecholamines (dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine), growth hormone, testosterone, estrogen, and a few other hormones. We expect that you re probably looking at this and wondering what all of that has to do with your diet! The point here is that the old notion of eating less means losing weight is VERY out-dated. There is an awful lot going on when you gain/lose weight, and as we have already mentioned, calories from unhealthy foods will affect you differently that calories from healthy foods, and can cause hormonal changes! Having some green tea for breakfast seems like a simpler option When it comes to lunch and dinner, instead of a frozen pizza, make an omelette, have some fish, make a stir fry or even have a salad with a side of roasted sweet potatoes and broccoli. It doesn t have to be complicated, but once you make the step to Google recipes with X, instead of opening the freezer, you re half way there. The focus here is on natural (preferably organic), wholefoods. Eat meats if you like meat, eat vegetables, some grains (preferably without overdoing it), plenty of seeds and nuts, eggs, and fish. It s not going to be anything you haven t heard before, but it will cut down on the amount you eat, help you feel better, and help you to take control of what you put in your body. The Ab Fad: This has really been the trend of the last 30 years of gym culture, which took its beginnings in what many believe to have been the golden age of the

7 bodybuilding era. People started to emphasize appearance over performance, and easy quick-fixes over hard-earned improvements. There are many, many ways to get bang for your buck in the gym, but crunches/sit-ups (or any other 5 minute exercise hero) are not one of them. Crunches (and situps) have been proven time and again to damage your back (through a mixture of repetitive stress and poor technique). The repetitive stress alone of doing hundreds of crunches, never-mind the issues with lower back support and the potential to teach your muscles to fire incorrectly, should make you think twice about taking on one of these programs. No Crunches! No 2 Hour Chest Workouts (unless you re a competitive powerlifter) No Bicep Curls/Tricep Kick-Backs No TRX decline inverted assisted backwards push-ups/pull-ups No No No Machines! (including bikes, treadmills, chest-press etc.) Yes to compound movements (whole body movements like squats, deadlifts, cleans, push-presses etc.) Yes to circuit training or HIIT! (Check out our HIIT guide for more info) Yes to being as strong as you look, and looking as good as you feel! Ok, so now we know what s happening behind the scenes, it s time for the real fun getting in shape! The next step

8 By now you have begun to substitute healthy green tea for calorie /carbohydrate dense (but nutritionally sparse) breakfast foods like processed cereal, toast or sugary yogurts, and you will be already running a calorie deficit. You ve substituted healthy whole-foods in for processed foods that contain additives, preservatives, and artificial flavourings. It s time to start firing up your metabolism and helping your body to feel good! This is the time to remember that your body will appreciate the attention, and will have you feeling great as its way of saying thank you. Getting into a manageable (and effective) routine now is vital. So far we ve: 1. Learned More About How Our Body Works 2. Replaced Breakfast with Green Tea 3. Helped Balance Our Hormone (insulin) Levels 4. Maintained Our Daily Energy (Calorie) Expenditure Rate 5. Switched Nutrient Dense Foods for Pre-packaged Convenience Foods

9 This final stage will be where you really start moving in the right direction. You ve done the hard work in beginning your fasting, so now it s time to start really getting in shape. The problem with most diet plans is that they cause you to lose weight, not fat. That is a problem you will not have. This last part of the Tea Diet Plan is where you begin your exercise routine. This next step can be done in the safety and comfort of your own living room. Exercise, but not just any exercise. I want to make very clear, yoga is NOT exercise (it s a wonderful system of movements designed to help you reconnect mind and body, and it has its place in many well-rounded holistic health plans). Jogging is NOT exercise (it is an unusual system of movements designed to give you knee problems, just kidding). Pilates NO 5 minute abs NO. We are looking for something specifically DESIGNED to get you in shape. What you are going to be doing is very simple, is scientifically proven to be the most efficient and effective way to lose fat, will give you energy, and will help you get in shape. You will follow the HIIT principles. And with HIIT you will be using compound movements that involve more muscles and that burn more calories. I ll explain a little bit about it below, and you can see your 2-week routine HERE.

10 Almost everyone in the fitness world now agree that shorter work-outs (anything from mins) are more beneficial for health and weightloss. Scientists have confirmed that people using the HIIT philosophy can burn as many calories in a 10 min intense workouts (and in some cases more) than those whose workouts last over an hour. The keys to success are exercise selection, work rate, progression, and feedback. 1. You must pick exercises that will give you good return on your time investment 2. You must maintain a sufficient work rate to bring about changes in your body 3. You must remember that your body is designed to adapt to external stressors, and as such will get less and less benefit from the same stimulus. That is why you see people day after day after day on treadmills making very, very little (if any) progress. You need to challenge your body, allow it to adapt, and then challenge it again (and again). 4. Feedback must come in the form of record keeping. For those who love record keeping, this will be a delightful bonus. For those who are a little more sane, please remember that this is the fuel that will keep you going. Every time you increase the length of your workout, or your work rate, or successfully include a more challenging exercise, or step in front of the mirror and see a healthier body glowing back at you, this needs to be documented so you can feel good about the progress you re making. These are all indications that your body is healthier, your joints and bones will be happier, your heart will rest a little easier knowing you are taking care of it, and that you are starting to work with your body instead of against it.

11 Congratulations!!! Here we are at week 5! Who d have thought you d make it this far?? Obviously we did(!!) or we wouldn t have written this Diet Plan! Check off your list below, enjoy your de-load week, and get ready for a new health push! Remember, health is a lifestyle choice, so don t give up after making it this far. You ve experienced the benefits of a healthy lifestyle, & we promise it only gets better from here! See you in 4 weeks!!! Your goals for this period have been to: 1. Cut down your caloric intake 2. Detox with tea, and re-balance your insulin sensitivity 3. Eat more whole foods 4. Re-train your body to move and exercise 5. Begin to really work on your body composition*: a) Lose 1 inch off your waist b) Lose 2-3% of your body-fat (not weight) 6. Feel better! *If you are looking to lose an inch off your waist, or drop exact bodyfat percentages, make sure you take not of them before you get started! Tick them off and see how far you ve come! If you ve enjoyed your Tea Diet Plan so far, or you re interested in Personal Training / Nutritional Therapy (or even just have some questions), don t hesitate to contact us at - info@521-healthdrinks.com, Green Tea Diet Plan - or contact us here