This guest blog post was written by fitness and nutrition author Jon Benson I have his permission to share it with you.

What makes a diet stop working? What causes a man or a woman go on a diet, full of good intentions, only to discard the diet in a few weeks or months?

Is it discipline? Frustration? A lack of effectiveness? According to nutrition and fitness author Jon Benson, it comes down to one word: “Love.”

“Love is the key to staying on a diet, a workout plan… anything that requires a change of lifestyle. It may seem obvious, but unless you actually ‘love’ the diet you are on, there is little chance of you staying on it for very long,” says Benson. “All diets require a change in how you look at food, how you consume food, and even how you think about food. The problem is most diets make too many demands of the dieter right off the bat. They tell you not to eat certain foods, sometimes making that a permanent restriction, while allowing perhaps a day per week to ‘overeat’ your favorite foods.”

“This is a disaster waiting to happen… and there is a much more balanced, healthy and effective way to diet than this,” states Benson.

Ten years ago Benson was a somewhat typical American male: Overworked, over-stressed, and overweight. Benson’s weight put him officially into the “obese” category and brought with it all the associated disease states such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high triglycerides (a type of blood fat) and of course massive amounts of “stress fat” around the belly and chest region.

When Benson decided enough was enough, he, like so many others who are truly ready to change their body and their life, went a bit overboard. “Oh sure, I ate the typical dry chicken, oatmeal with nothing on it, bland rice, and tried to never eat anything I actually enjoyed. Lucky for me I actually love chicken, but most of my diet was composed of what I call my “hate foods”, not my love foods — foods I truly enjoyed eating. But my thinking was just like that of the typical dieter: ‘If I eat (fill-in-the-blank favorite food) I’ll get fatter and never lose weight!’ How wrong I was… and after I started and stopped my diet at least ten times during a course of three years I finally got the message.”

Benson decided to use his nutritional knowledge and his background in body shaping to his advantage. “I started thinking, ‘Why not focus on progress rather than perfection?’ Again, this seems like common sense, but most dieters are focused on being perfect all the time. So I began applying some old body shaping tricks to my dietary plan. For example, I started cycling my calories. I would eat more on one day, less on another. This kept my metabolism guessing and never allowed my body to hit that dreaded ‘no more weight loss’ plateau.”

“Then I decided to push the envelope. I started experimenting with including my favorite foods — pizza, pasta, and even desserts, all in reasonable quantities — on my higher-calorie food days. At first it didn’t work out too well. But then I used what I now call my “Caveman Principle” which involves strategically eating protein at specific times with a bit less food volume (and this allowed me to stop counting calories too!) and then including my favorite foods on specific days and, most important, specific times. Timing in this case is everything.”

Benson says this timing includes both time of day as well as eating higher-calorie, higher-fat, higher-carbohydrate foods only after exercise. “Specific exercise, done for short periods of time, can set the body up to receive additional calories and carbohydrates more effectively without storing them as body fat. You just have to have to know when to do it. Do it right and it works like a charm.”

“The end result was a loss of over 70 pounds of fat, and I never gave up eating my favorite foods… not once, but at least three times a week.”

A study conducted at the University of Phoenix could shed some light on why this approach to dieting may work better than traditional “calorie-counting” and overly-restrictive foods plans. People given the option of eating more frequently versus three meals a day ended up eating smaller servings of both healthy foods and, on some days, “junk foods” yet still lost more weight than the three-meals-per-day group. The evidence pointed toward the elevation of the metabolic rate through frequent eating and the psychological ease of being less restrictive regarding foods consumed.

“I believe food should be enjoyed, and in my opinion life is way too short to worry about eating perfect all the time,” says Benson. “When I crafted this approach into what is now known as “The Every Other Day Diet”, it became an overnight smash, and for good reason… it gave people a chance to have a life while they are losing weight. Let’s face it: Anyone can diet for a day or two, and that’s basically what The Every Other Day Diet asks of its users. Of course you cannot go hog wild on your Feed Days (the higher-calories favorite food meals) but just knowing your favorite foods are always just around the corner keeps you on the weight loss track.”

“The end result is a diet that just about everyone can fall in love with. Loving your diet is the key to dietary success, as I said. And I do happen to love me some pizza! I just use that pizza now to actually help me lose weight rather than gain it, all while staying in good health.”

Today, Jon Benson’s online best-seller, The Every Other Day Diet, can be purchased along with nine additional dieters bonuses, including the first 30 days of private email diet coaching free of charge, for only $39.97, and the program is guaranteed for a full 60 days. If you are not satisfied in any way, the company, Jon Benson Fitness LLC, will refund your money without questions or hassles. Click to watch a presentation on Jon’s “Caveman Principle” of eating and why it works so well for hundreds of thousands of people for fast, sustainable, and enjoyable weight loss.

For more info on Jon’s program ** click here**

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This guest blog post is a transcription between fitness and nutrition authors Jayson Hunter and Jim Labadie. I have their permission to share it with you.

Jim: I got another question for you Jayson. With yogurt, it seems to me every time I go to the store I see yogurt and it’s mostly sugar and some protein. So, is there any, in terms of yogurt, is there anything you can do? I mean is it a good source of protein? Is it an okay source of protein?

Jayson: The basic form of yogurt is a good source of protein. When I say yogurt, I’m not talking about the Key Lime Whip, Yoplait type or the strawberry flavored. Yogurt would be just plain yogurt and you can get it in no added sugar and things like that. You can also do just the plain yogurt and if you don’t necessarily love the taste, mix a little protein powder in it or something like that to give it more of a chocolaty flavor or a natural strawberry flavor, but you’re getting more protein in that way as well. So, yeah I would probably try to avoid all the extravagant flavored yogurts and just stick to the basics or stick to the no added sugar type yogurts.

Jim: Is there any particular brand that you recommend, that you eat?

Jayson: I think the brand that I eat is, I think it’s Dannon. I’d have to go and look probably. But it’s the no added sugar type, and tastes great, and it has I believe Sucralose so there’s not the risk of cancer with the aspartame type theory. Which, actually I just read recently that they’re finding that that has been blown way out of portion actually and there’re studies coming out to prove that, so, yeah I think it’s with Sucralose and I think it’s by Dannon.

Jim: Okay, so basically let’s go no added sugar, right? What’s what we’re looking at?

Jayson: Yeah and it actually – I think it tastes better than regular plain yogurt.

Jim: Alright, that’s awesome because I’ll tell you what Jayson, that’s the kind of thing our listeners want to know. That would definitely be something for your Blog and by the way Jayson’s Blog is at GetRidOfMyGut.com. You can keep up with the great things Jayson discusses. And for those who don’t know, Jayson is a registered dietitian. He’s not just some guy who’s spouting off theories and the latest thing he read in a magazine. Jayson is one of the people that you’ll see in the magazines. So, anyway, tip number 3. I’ve got here, eat whole grain carbohydrates. So now, what is a whole grain carb? What’s a good carb? What’s a bad carb? When am I supposed to be eating some of these carbs?

Jayson: A whole grain carb would be carbohydrates that are considered a good source of fiber. So, you know, staying away from the – you’ve heard the thing of no white breads and things like that and white rice, and to a point there’s validity to why people say that. I don’t know that they always know why they are saying it, but the reason that they should try to limit those is because those are usually made with process carbohydrates and very little fiber content. So, those two right there are going to dramatically increase your insulin level, and obviously we want to keep our insulin low and our insulin response low, so fiber is going to help keep that insulin level low like I talked about with the vegetables.

You’re whole grain carbs are going to be anything that really says 100% whole grain. Some whole wheat, you have to look though because some will say wheat bread. Well, wheat bread is just white bread that hasn’t been bleached. So you need to look for the whole grain or the whole wheat wording in it to find out, and look at the fiber source. Most of them should have at least 2 grams of fiber per serving, if not 3 to be considered a good fiber source. So, that will help you get you your answer as well with that. So, brown rice is – you mentioned meat and potatoes eat the baked potato with the skin. Include that skin because that’s going to give you that fiber, that’s going to give you your vitamins and minerals that are going to help that insulin level. Don’t just eat the white of the potato.

Jim: Gotcha. Okay. So, trying to get back to one of the points you were talking about there, the bread. When I read a food label for whole wheat bread, what should – I’ve seen enriched flour or, I was taught when I was in school to always look for 100% whole wheat, you know is that the one main ingredient on whole wheat bread that we’re looking for? Or, how do we truly know that it’s whole grain as opposed –

Jayson: That’s, right, you do want to look within the first 5 ingredients for something that says whole grain, whole oat, as one of those ingredients. You want to avoid the enriched because that’s the processed portion. Then you also want to look at the fiber, because that’s also going to help – if it’s whole grain, whole wheat type product it will have fiber in it and it will be a decent source of fiber. If it has one gram or less of fiber in it it’s not going to be 100% whole grain.

Jim: Okay.

Jayson: To be whole grain usually means that they keep the skin or the husk of the kernels and different oats, the skin of those attached and that’s what’s giving it that fiber. To make the white breads and whatnot, they shuck all those outer skins off and just use the insides and that’s where you get just your white breads and you’re just plain wheat breads that haven’t been bleached.

Jim: Wow, that’s pretty cool. I never knew that.

Jayson: Learn something new every day.

Jim: Now you know, yeah. I’m sure glad I’m doing this interview. Alright, rapid weight loss diet tip number 4. Eat more healthy fats. Now, this is very confusing for people, I’m sure. Healthy fats, unhealthy fats, Trans fats, why is this going to be such a big deal when it comes to losing weight fast?

Jayson: Well, your healthy fats are actually what you see in the media and in your print advertisements is what’s usually called essential fatty acids, and what that means is that it’s fatty acids and fats that we cannot produce in the body on our own, so we have to get them through diet. And, why essential fatty acids are so important is, because there’s hundreds and hundreds of studies that are showing that it helps with brain function.

The government is doing studies with Alzheimer’s patients because of the role with brain function, it’s helping slow down that disease; help prevent certain diseases such as heart disease and cancer. The studies are actually now showing that it may actually increase your metabolism by as much as 400 calories a day and that’s the big one when it comes to just specific weight loss.

If you want to just throw out all the numerous health benefits of why essential fatty acids are good and just go off of the fact for weight loss and fat loss, it actually helps increase your metabolism and there’s also some studies showing that it may actually block what they tend to call pre-fat cells from turning into permanent fat cells. So, again, that’s another huge step in regards to weight loss and trying to prevent weight gain. And, essential fatty acids primarily are, what you’ll also hear or read, is Omega 3 fats.

You’ll see that fish is an excellent source of Omega 3 fats. Olive oil, people are promoting instead of using vegetable oil, use olive oil because of the essential fatty acids and the Omega 3s. Walnuts and Almonds are another good source and they’re actually a good protein source, they contain good fiber, and they contain healthy fat.

So, if you want a healthy snack, throw some almonds in a bag and take them with you to work, keep them at your desk. They’re a great snack to help you feel full; help boost that metabolism and it’s actually it’s a really good food for you in many ways. You know you’re getting your fiber, you’re getting your protein, you’re getting your healthy fat, you’re getting three of the five tips I’m giving you today just in one food, with that.

Jim: There you go guys. You have no excuse but to lose that gut of yours. So, Jayson we’re almost out of time. How to lose belly fat tip number 5. Eat frequent meals. Alright so we’ve got busy guys on the go that want to know how to get rid of that gut fast. I’m sure they’ve heard it before eat smaller meals throughout the day. They’re probably having a muffin and coffee for breakfast, having a big lunch, maybe not eating all afternoon, come home and eat a huge, huge dinner. How are these guys going to get 4-6 small meals a day?

Jayson: Well, you do have to do a little planning ahead, but if you use the previous four tips, you know, you could cut up some vegetables ahead of time on a Sunday and just put them in bags so that you have them available to put into your lunch or as a snack. Protein choices you’ve got the yogurt, you could hard boil the eggs, you could have some string cheese, mozzarella cheese, as a snack. Almonds, as we talked about.

You know those types of things and plan ahead to where you don’t have to think the morning of, “Alright what am I going to eat for my snack today? What am I going to do for lunch? And then I got that snack in the afternoon.” It’s all already in the fridge. If you do maybe an hour of planning on a Sunday or a Saturday, all you have to do is pack it. Put it in individual bags or Tupperware containers, throw it in your cooler or bring it with you and put it in the refrigerator at work, so that it’s available. That way, the less thinking you can take out of it, the better off you’re going to be.

Because it’s those times where you’re hungry and you have nothing in front of you that you end up going to the vending machine, or you end up not eating at all, which is actually really bad because, the reason you should be eating frequently throughout the day is it boosts your metabolism. Every time you eat your metabolism increases to digest that food. Your body uses calories to digest calories? So, you want to keep that metabolism revved up every day.

And just yesterday I’m working with a group of people at a local company here and one of the guys, he ate pretty healthy, he’s not severely overweight but he’s got a gut and it seems to be getting bigger. He was like, how do I lose my belly fat. And, he wasn’t eating frequently, so I said, “First, you need to start eating 4-6 times a day?” And that was the biggest shock to a lot of these guys; they were like “Really?” You know, because they are used to skipping breakfast, eating McDonalds for lunch and then going home and eating dinner.

So, the only change he’s really done is he’s eating 6 times a day and he’s lost like, I want to say 18 lbs or something like that since Thanksgiving. And that’s really the only change he’s done. We have not changed much else. It wasn’t like he was eating no protein and went to eating protein at every meal or he went to all non-starchy foods. He was, already doing some of that sprinkled in there already, but his biggest change was, he ate frequently. And the weight is coming off.

Jim: And for those of you who are listening to this, it’s January now that we’re recording this.

Jayson: It’s been like 6 weeks maybe, since we started with this.

Jim: And that’s rapid weight loss but it’s also permanent, safe, it helps metabolism, improves metabolism and that’s not a starvation diet where it’s going to cause massive problems down the road right?

Jayson: No, and he gets to eat. I mean, what guy doesn’t want to eat. You know, the worst thing about trying to lose weight is you think you have to starve yourself and that’s the exact opposite that you want to do if you’re going to lose weight. You need to feed yourself and you need to feed yourself consistently because then the weight will come off. If you restrict eating and that metabolism plummets cause your body has to survive. It goes into a survival mode at that point and it’s going to do everything possible to burn as little calories as possible because you don’t feed it frequently enough.

Jim: Absolutely. Alright Jayson, well we appreciate you being here very, very much. For all those guys out there looking to lose belly fat, get rid of their guts, get in shape, you’ve heard it here from Jayson. Again his Blog is GetRidOfMyGut.com, lots of great information there, got a great news letter, and he’s got a free e-book, 36 Potent Foods to Help You Lose Weight. It’s a very cool e-book and I definitely recommend you get on it and get that. That’s at GetRidOfMyGutDiet.com so be sure to check that out and Jayson, we will talk to you next time.

Jayson: Alright, thank you.

For more gut busting strategies check out how to lose weight fast and fast easy weight loss

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This guest blog post is a transcription between fitness and nutrition authors Jayson Hunter and Jim Labadie. I have their permission to share it with you.
Jim: Hi everybody it’s Jim Labadie the Carb Rotation Diet. We’re here today with the creator of CarbRotationDiet.com, Jayson Hunter. And we are going to be talking a little bit about the confusion there was the other day on the show The Biggest Loser, a lot of people watch that show. In the first week all these people, extremely heavy people lost a ton of weight and then the second week really nobody lost any weight.

In fact, to my knowledge, one person gained one pound. So, we want to explain what the confusion is and what exactly happens when you have that rapid weight loss. So, Jayson, right away let’s just get to the information. This is just going to be a quick pod cast to clear up any confusion people have. Why did people see such amazing results the first week and see none the second week?

Jayson: Well, if we just use this show as an example. They saw so much weight loss in the first week because they obviously tell you that they are on a special type of diet, they don’t really go into the details of what it is, but I can assume that it’s a higher protein, low carb diet. These people are obviously 300/400 lbs because they were eating too much, they were over eating, you know ingesting thousands and thousands of calories. They were not on a healthy weight loss diet before this. So, when they got to The Biggest Loser, of course they restricted those calories and put them on a special type of healthy diet plan.

Glycogen is created from the carbohydrates and starches that you eat. So, for ever gram that you store in your body, you also store 3-4 grams of water. So, if you look at it from the stand point of maybe someone was eating 500 – 700 grams of carbs and they were storing all this glycogen and they cut it to 200 grams of carbs, well you can also cut out about 3-4 grams of water for every one of those carbs you just cut out. And obviously that’s weight on the scale and leads to quick weight loss.

And, when you see that, the metabolism kind of goes into a shock so, you lose all that glycogen and the extra grams of water which is weight in the end, and then not to mention they were exercising like crazy which none of them had really done before, so they’re going to lose water weight anyway from the amount of perspiration and body changes that are taking place and all the stuff that your body has to do to adapt to that exercise now. And your body generally fluctuates about 3-4% on a daily basis anyway.
So, if you look at it from the stand point of some of those men are 300-400 pounds, a 3 %- 4 % change could be, 12 pounds in either direction. And obviously women that are 200 lbs or 250 lbs, you’re looking at maybe 10 lbs in either direction, 8 lbs in either direction, somewhere in there. And women tend to fluctuate even more then men in regards to water weight on a daily basis just because of the hormone levels. When you saw the weight loss they were getting, such as 15 lbs, 18lbs, I think someone lost 29lbs. Most of that is the initial shift because of eating less carbs, eating less calories as well as just general water weight loss because of the increased activity that they were now doing along with their healthy diet plan.

Find out more on carb rotation diet in Part 2
For more info on Carb Rotation Diet program **click here**

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This guest blog post was written by fitness and nutrition author Rob Poulos I have his permission to share it with you.

People are confused more than ever about how to burn fat. They are confused about the best way to go about achieving the body they want. They are confused about what works and what doesn’t, and the reasons why. There are countless individuals slaving away in gyms and fitness centers around the country right now.

They are working tirelessly, almost every day, on the treadmill, stair-climber, elliptical, etc. to burn those calories and fat. They also might be lifting weights several times a week for hours at a time to build some strength and muscle. They might even join a few aerobics or spinning classes too.

They are probably also trying one of the latest diet strategies that promises miracle fat burning and weight loss. They could also be spending a lot of money on the latest and greatest dietary supplements that could be that miracle pill that will aid in weight loss. They are also carefully watching the scale as their main judge of fat loss progress.

If it goes up a pound or two, they may behave rashly and maybe even change up their entire workout or diet program! And of course there are others are doing variations on that same theme.

After all, this is the kind of stuff that many of the popular fitness and diet gurus typically recommend to burn fat. But with so many different strategies and plans being pushed as the be all and end all, what happens is we tend to overboard.

And when that happens, we lose sight of what really matters in achieving lifelong fat burning, fitness and health…the principles than many people don’t know about, most people have forgotten, and only a select few put to use to achieve lifelong health and fitness. These are the same principles I used to drop over 40 pounds of unwanted body fat, keep it off, and revitalize my life!

With any exercise or nutrition program, you’ll probably lose some fat initially, but far too often the progress doesn’t continue or doesn’t come as fast as the person would like because they’re using a temporary mindset. They’re only focused on the short term and one specific goal. So they end up switching to something else, and the cycle continues until they’ve become consumed by this cycle of confusion.

I believe that this is one of the biggest, if not the #1 reason for the lack of fat loss and fitness progress that is being experienced by the masses of exercisers and dieters in the world. They are jumping from one fad diet or exercise routine to another, while losing sight of what’s really important, and what really works.

Simply put, they are exercising far too much, not nearly intensely enough, and trying to adhere to unrealistic diet recommendations.

If instead they focused on a long term plan, a lifestyle as it’s often called, and didn’t worry about “losing 10 pounds by summer”, they would find it far easier to do the right things most of the time.

And those right things include brief, progressive, and intense resistance training, eating a diet full of nutrient rich foods, drinking tons of water, and getting plenty of quality sleep and rest. The students of my Fat Burning Furnace method understand this and are reaping the life long health and fitness rewards because of it. Are you?

For more info on Rob’s program **click here**

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