Are you someone who has no idea where to start when it comes to eating healthy? This 6 week transition to eating healthy will help. In some ways, changing your diet is similar to making a successful resolution in that it’s conceptual at first. Your long-range goal should just be to eat well. As your healthy eating behavior becomes a habit, you will find the other intangibles (such as weight loss, energy gained, etc.) falling into place. The easiest way to accomplish this is a gradual transition from food choices that don’t help to food choices that do. By making this transition to healthy eating gradually over six weeks, we’ve found it to be the easiest diet program ever recommended.
Healthy Eating in 6 weeks
Working in a 6-week cycle, you can train (or trick, if you will) your body into craving more nutritious foods. This cycle is easier if you’re exercising because your body will crave the proper nutrients to re-build its broken down tissue.
Week 1
Eliminate the junk from your diet. That’s it, just junk; no potato chips, soda, candy, ice cream, etc. Other than this you may eat whatever you like… and here’s the kicker: you may treat yourself on this twice, and that means for TWO WHOLE DAYS YOU CAN EAT WHATEVER YOU LIKE AND STILL SUCCEED! If you’re not already doing so…start drinking more water than you normally do. We’re going to call it treating, not cheating because I feel the word cheat in and of itself is a negative word. We want to develop a positive mindset about eating more healthy foods and treat ourself, not cheat.
Week 2
No eating for 3-hours before you go to bed. That way your body can go to sleep in fat-burning mode, rather than in calorie-storing mode. For this challenge, each week carries over, so you still cannot have junk, except for the 2 days when you may treat and eat whenever and whatever you like. Increase your water intake to at least 64 oz (or more) per day!
Week 3
Eat 4 to 6 small meals a day. If you make yourself do this, the size will control itself because you won’t ever get ravenously hungry. Try to keep each meal balanced as close to 30% protein, 40% carbohydrates, and 30% fat as you can – and try and eat for what you will be doing for the next three hours (If you’re working out, eat more, sitting at a desk, eat less)… Still no junk food, and still no eating three hours before bedtime. You may treat on two days.
Week 4
Eliminate fast food and alcohol. This can be hard for many of us because we now have to plan our meals, but hey, it’s only for a couple weeks. Once you see that you can make progress on your journey without it, you’ll be less likely to want it. People tend to forget that alcohol has calories, and it also slows your metabolism. Treat ONLY ONE DAY this week. Remember to keep doing what we did in weeks 1-3. Your transition to healthy eating will be halfway done at this point.
Week 5
Eat whole foods. This means that you eliminate any processed foods from your diet, such as bread, most salad dressings, almost all cereal, lunch meats, cheese, anything with preservatives, and most everything served in restaurants. What you can eat are whole foods such as fruit, raw or steamed vegetables, meat (minus any type of sauce), natural grain rice, poached eggs, etc. It shouldn’t be terribly hard since your eating habits have been slowly changing. Still, it’s a hard week because it will feel like dieting. Try not to treat yourself, but you may if you find yourself getting ravenous – just keep your blowout to a minimum.
Week 6
Eat healthy. Eat whatever you want, following the general rules we’ve followed for the last five weeks. You may be surprised to find yourself craving something healthy instead of a candy bar or pint of Ben & Jerry’s. You should now be better at listening to your body because it will tell you what it needs to eat, as opposed to what you’re used to eating – especially if you’re working out. Keep a couple of treat meals, allowing yourself to give in to occasional indulgences. Just try not to overdo it.
What happens after 6 weeks?
Now take some time off and don’t think about dieting. Have your eating habits changed? Most likely they have. You may find that your body feels transformed and that you’ve shed some fat! More importantly, because you have gradually changed your lifestyle, your body is likely to maintain this change, without a lot of effort on your part.
You should know enough about yourself to tweak your next 6-week plan to suit you. Your transition to healthy eating is complete. However, keep the treat meals to a minimum if you’re trying to lose weight. They are important, and not just because they allow you to have fun. Whenever you are restricting your caloric intake, your metabolism wants to slow down because it thinks that you are starving. By “treating” a couple of days a week, you actually trick your metabolism to stay higher, so you lose more fat.
