This is the program to follow for the rest of your life. It's about progress, not perfection.
This three-week program provides you with exactly what you need to start losing weight. Each day's topic is informative and inspirational. Daily eating guides map out what you need to eat lean and healthy, and daily exercise routines give you workouts you can easily fit into any busy schedule. And when you feel yourself slipping, Larry is right there with the daily tips and, most important, motivation to stay the course. This is just the beginning of your journey to a happier, healthier you, and Larry is with you every step of the way!
DAY 1 - MEAL FREQUENCY
Welcome to your first day on the 21-Day Slimdown. Let me tell you, you're not going to believe how easy this first day is going to be. All you have to do is ... eat!
As I've said, the heart of the 21-Day Slimdown is eating. You eat to lose weight, and the first secret to the Slimdown is to eat more often in regular intervals.
Today, you're not going to worry so much about what to eat, but when to eat. All you must do today is eat every three to four hours. That's it! You're doing far more good for yourself than you know. Indeed, researchers have discovered that when people take the same amount of food they eat in their three regular meals regardless of what that food is and divide it into five meals, they start losing weight. Isn't that amazing? Just by sequencing your meals and spreading them out, you can start dropping weight without ever changing the food you eat!
THE POWER OF FREQUENT MEALS
Why are frequent meals so important? Although your goal is to get as much good food as you can past your fat cells and into your lean muscle tissue, you must be wary. Your lean muscle tissue can handle only a certain amount of food at a time. In other words, after you eat that amount, the cells in your muscles shut their doors and don't allow any more food in, no matter how nutritious it is, until it has burned up the food already there. So where does the excess food go? You guessed it: straight to your fat cells.
Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about. (I'm going to be mentioning calories here, but I'm only doing so to illustrate my point, not to make you think you have to count calories to succeed in this program.) Let's say it's lunchtime and you have the type of body that needs 500 calories to keep functioning until your next meal. But then you sit down at lunch and ingest enough food to add up to 1,000 calories. That excess 500 calories (no matter where it is coming from - chicken, fruit or cookies) is most likely to be stored as fat.
Are you getting the picture? If at some point during the day you eat a very large meal (which almost all of you do), you're liable to saturate your fat cells. And don't think you're doing yourself a favor if you overeat at one meal and then wait several hours before eating another meal. By then it's too late. Your body has already taken the extra calories from that first meal and sent them to its fat cells. What's more, all you're doing by waiting several hours to eat again is building up your appetite to the point that you'll almost certainly overeat...
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YOUR DAY 1 EATING GUIDE
Your task for Day 1 is very basic. You're not going to find any recommendations on what to eat - that will start tomorrow. I only want you to eat five meals today, each one coming approximately every three to four hours.
Please note: I'm giving you five meals each day because I count the snacks you're eating already as meals. (Considering the kind of quick food you probably eat during a normal snack, a snack is almost always higher in fat and often higher in calories than a regular meal.) Moreover, if you ever happen to note the times you eat during an average day, you will probably realize that when you include your snacks, you might be eating more than five times per day.
Another critical point to remember: This week, your third meal and fifth meal will look more like snacks and low-fat desserts. By next week, however, we will make those into light protein-carb meals just like the others.
I'm offering you times of the day you can eat, but again, I want this program to provide flexibility. You can decide when to have your first meal. Just make sure you start eating in regular intervals after you finish that first meal.
For instance:
| Meal 1 |
Meal 2 |
Meal 3 |
Meal 4 |
Meal 5 |
| 8 a.m. |
12 p.m. |
3 p.m. |
6 p.m. |
9 p.m. |
| Eat your regular breakfast. |
Eat your regular lunch. |
Eat a snack |
Eat your regular dinner. |
Eat a late-night snack. |
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DAY 2 - THE 60-SECOND WORKOUT
Today is another easy day. You will be continuing to work on your meal frequency, and you are going to add a couple of exercises to make your muscle tissue burn calories far more efficiently. All you have to do is two workouts today that last no more than 60 seconds each.
For those of you who haven't worked out in a long time: Don't be afraid of the word "muscle." Muscle is the best calorie-burning tissue the body has, and when the muscles are called into action, their calorie-burning ability can increase as much as twentyfold. And listen to me, you can get those results without having to use barbells. You don't have to do 10 reps while lying in a vulnerable position under a bulky machine. You do not, I repeat, do not need to devote several afternoons a week putting on workout clothes, going to a gym, spending an hour working up a sweat, showering, dressing again and going home.
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THE EASY TRUTH ABOUT MUSCLE TRAINING
I admit, I was once a bodybuilder wannabe. I devoted my life to the gym. But today, my workouts are a lot easier and shorter, and I don't feel like I am missing a thing. I want to let you in on a little secret. If you closely watch a big-time weightlifter do a series of repetitions with weights, you'll notice that the time he is actually lifting is about 60 seconds or less before he takes a long rest.
Essentially, that's what you'll be doing, except you won't be producing the stereotypical "pumping iron" muscle. This will be lean, silky, beautiful muscle. You'll be taking your long-dormant skeletal muscle tissue (which right now probably feels like fat) and you'll be rebuilding its elasticity and tone.
I can't tell you how many of my old-school colleagues give me a hard time about the idea of my 60-Second Workouts. They say, "Oh, come on, who can get in shape in 60 seconds?"
And I always reply, "Hey, I've met a lot of people who have turned their lives around with just one 60-Second Workout." As time passes, they add more 60-Second Workouts each day. I know people who were unable to get through 30 seconds of a 60-Second Workout, and a few weeks later were doing a dozen of them per day.
Despite all the huffing and puffing you see at health clubs, the truth is that the most elementary resistance exercise - leaning one arm against the wall, placing your two hands together and pushing - stimulates the kind of muscle activity that can burn calories. It's not the weight you use that counts, it's how you use the weight.That's one of the beauties of the 21-Day Slimdown. Rather than being inundated by a lot of restrictive...
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YOUR DAY 2 EATING GUIDE
Are you continuing to spread out your meals evenly? If you are the type who has tried all your life to eat twice per day at most, you're probably wondering if you can make yourself eat every three hours. All I want you to do is try. Add meals, whatever they are. You have to get yourself into the routine of meal frequency. If you are the type who nibbles and eats all the time, then try to limit yourself to five specific mealtimes every three hours. Don't get impatient and think there is so much more to do. Just by spreading out your meals, you are reconditioning your body to lose weight.
Let me again show you how to spread out your meals:
| Meal 1 |
Meal 2 |
Meal 3 |
Meal 4 |
Meal 5 |
| 8 a.m. |
12 p.m. |
3 p.m. |
6 p.m. |
9 p.m. |
| Eat your regular breakfast. |
Eat your regular lunch. |
Eat a snack |
Eat your regular dinner. |
Eat a late-night snack. |
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DAY 3 - THE BALANCED MEAL
Today we learn about another cornerstone of the 21-Day Slimdown: what you will be eating. By the end of the day, you are going to eat one perfectly balanced meal. In the 21-Day Slimdown, it is imperative you have both a lean protein and a starchy carb at each meal with a fibrous vegetable thrown in as often as you wish. The lean protein and starchy carb are the two vital elements in your eating program, and you want to do your best to get both on your plate at every meal.
I have no doubt that some of you are already thinking, "Lean proteins, starchy carbs and fibrous vegetables? You call that appetizing?" If you see the simple recipes and meals I provide for you each day, you'll realize very little is being removed from your usual choices of foods. You'll only end up preparing or ordering some of those foods differently.
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THE NEED FOR BALANCE
Here is the beauty of eating this kind of balanced meal. You will be eating twice the amount of actual food you usually eat in a typical high-fat meal, and you'll still be taking in fewer calories! I can't tell you enough that by eating more high-quality foods, you lose weight faster!
Every time you eat, it is important for you to remind yourself that all calories are not created equal. The calories you get when you eat a french fry are far different from the calories in a baked potato. If you eat a bite of food that contains just 1 gram of fat, you will have ingested 9 calories (those are called fat calories). But food from 1 gram of starchy carbs provides 4 calories, and food from 1 gram of lean protein also has just 4 calories.
Do you realize the implication of these numbers? Here is what you could substitute for 2 teaspoons of butter: 1/2 cup of oatmeal, four egg whites, 2 cups of broccoli, 4 cups of lettuce or 1 1/2 cups of air-popped popcorn. That's a heck of a lot of food. At the University of Alabama, doctors asked a group of volunteers to eat low-fat foods until they felt full. The doctors then asked another group to eat high-fat foods until they felt full. On the high-fat diet, the volunteers usually started feeling full after having about 3,000 calories per day. On the low-fat diet, the volunteers started feeling full after eating just 1,570 calories per day.
I was once on a national talk show, and without my knowledge the producers had prepared five meals that fit the 21-Day Slimdown. They rolled all the meals out on a table in front of me.
The hosts stared at the food and then looked at me dubiously. "You mean to tell us you can eat all this food in one day and actually lose weight?" one of the hosts asked.
"Easily," I said. "I can do it because all the food you're looking at is composed of starchy carbs and lean protein. That kind of food doesn't get stored as fat. Do you realize that one hamburger, a large order of fries and a chocolate shake have more calories than four grilled chicken breasts, two baked potatoes, 2 cups of rice and 6 cups of fibrous vegetables?"
The hosts' jaws dropped.
"And do you know that your 12-ounce soda and candy bar are equivalent in calories to the 10 egg whites, 1 cup of oatmeal and toast that I eat in the mornings? And here's the kicker...
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YOUR DAY 3 EATING GUIDE
As I said earlier, we're going to take it slow as we move into our eating plan. Today, all I want you to do is try to make Meal 4 perfectly balanced. As for the other meals, I want you to find ways to cut back your normal intake of fat or at least substitute slightly better foods for the ones you normally eat.
Below is a list of sample meals. But please take note: You do not have to eat those foods if you don't like them. If you hate turkey sandwiches, for example, then come up with a different protein to eat. Forcing yourself to eat foods you hate is a guarantee you will quit this program before the week is over.
| MEAL |
EATING GUIDE |
| Breakfast |
Cereal with skim milk, two slices of toast with jam. |
| Lunch |
A turkey sandwich with mustard (never mayonnaise) and chips. |
| Snack |
For your afternoon snack, try crunchy vegetables (such as a bag of baby carrots from the grocery store) instead of a candy bar. |
| Dinner |
Here is your perfectly balanced meal. One chicken filled grilled with no oil or butter, a baked potato with fat-free cheese, fat-free sour cream, chives, and a salad with fat-free dressing. |
| Snack |
For your evening snack, try a bowl of oatmeal (using little or no sugar) instead of something like ice cream. |
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