Newbie Tips

Are you new to this diet and want wondering what to look out for? Here's a few tips that will help you lose weight faster!

FIRST:  Ditch the mindset of less food = loss of weight.  This diet is not your run of the mill diet, but is one where the MORE YOU EAT, the MORE YOU WILL LOSE.  Bare minimum for women is 1,200 calories a day and for men it is 1,500 calories per day net of exercise, meaning eat back what you burned off in exercise.

H O W E V E R ..... you will find on this diet that if you are a woman and eat at least 1,500 calories a day or are a man and eat at least 1,800 calories a day, your losses will be much better.  Eating every 2-3 hours helps a lot in order to get all the food in!  Yes you heard it here, EAT MORE!

YOGURT
Your yogurt does not have to be nonfat or fat free; it should be lowfat, tho with no sugar in any form listed in the list of ingredients.  It is to be NSA (no sugar added), not sugar free--there is no such thing as sugar free yogurt as all dairy products have naturally occurring milk sugars.

There really is no magic number on the sugar grams for yogurt, but we highly recommend keeping the grams of sugar to 10-12 grams of sugar or less per 6 ounce serving. If you eat Lowfat yogurt (which IS allowed), then your sugar grams from naturally-occurring milk sugars will be closer to the 12g mark, but definitely within limits. For yogurts that show 8 ounces as the serving size, that would mean that the 8 ounce serving should show 14 to 16 grams of sugar for that 8 ounce serving.

The yogurts with fruit in them are generally considerably higher in sugar than if you had bought a plain yogurt and added your own fruit PLUS the fruit added to yogurt is not counted as your fruit serving.  I'd recommend getting the plain and adding some Stevia sweetener and your own fruit to it.

Fruit flavored yogurts? Where do you think the sweetness comes from? Especially in Greek yogurts that are fruit flavored, that flavor comes from added sugar, so steer clear of these.

Lowfat/Nonfat yogurt can be used in place of sour cream!  If you want the sour cream flavor, just add some dill weed and fine tune it until you get the flavor just right for you.  It's great for dipping veggies in as well!

MENUS
If you use are using the menus from the book, please note that they do not contain enough calories by themselves to sustain weight loss.  You will need to add at least 300-400 calories a day to them to reach the minimum 1,200 calories (women) or 1,500 calories (men) to keep you out of Famine/Starvation mode. More is better!!!! Better yet, target 1,500 calories a day for women and 1,800 calories a day for men net of exercise.

What Famine/Starvation mode does is send a signal to your body and your body hoards both calories AND weight, plus long-term it can really mess up your metabolism.  Some have seen a complete stop in their weight loss due to this alone.

While you don't need to count calories all the time on this diet, I do recommend that when starting out, you keep a food log and track calories to make sure that you're getting your minimum caloric requirement in.  A good website for this is MyFitnessPal.com.  After you have a handle on what that looks like for you, then you can stop counting calories if you want.  It's a good idea to track them again periodically to make sure you're still on track, especially if your loss has slowed down substantially or stopped.  Remember in C2 that your loss will not be at the high rate it was in C1.

HUNGRY? WHY?
Are you hungry on this diet? Then you're not eating enough! This is an "Eat More, Lose More" diet and also one in which Dr. Mike has said "If you're hungry, EAT!".  Just supplement your menu plan with foods from the "Freebies" list (list of foods in the book of the lean proteins and cleansing vegetables).  To quickly look at the list, check out the grocery list here.

GREEN TEA
If you have low iron, do not drink the green tea -- it can make your iron deficiency worse. Also, if you have high blood pressure it can make it even higher, and if you are on blood thinners, please PLEASE talk to your doctor before using the Green Tea.  There are a number of medical conditions where green tea is not recommended.  Talk to your doctor before drinking green tea.

If you have some issues with constipation, it is most likely related to green tea; backing off on it or eliminating it will probably help the situation.

HOW LATE CAN I EAT.....?
The only food you are limited as to how late you can eat it is the fruit in C1 and the starches in C2.  For both of those, don't eat them past 2 p.m. OR closer to your bedtime than 8 hours prior to going to sleep.  The 2 p.m. deadline is based on an assumption that most people go to bed around 10 p.m.

FOR BEST LOSSES:
For the best losses, stick to only the Food Lists found in the book, at least for the first round of the 3 cycles.  Dr. Mike has made some modifications to the diet, but if you are in your first round of cycles, you will do a lot better if you keep it simple and follow the food lists in the book.  Basically: if it's not listed in the Food List for the cycle you are on, don't eat it.

This basically means: unsweetened almond milk is C3; nuts and seeds are C3 (including avocado and allowable peanut butter); no coconut oil or protein powder; hold off on agave for as long as you can (it is allowed, but it is still sugar!), and remember that any hot, spicy chiles or peppers such as jalapenos are C3, as is Cilantro.

This also means not using the Cultural Exceptions listed in the book under a different chapter. Dr. Mike told me in January 2013 that the Cultural Exceptions are for those who would completely walk away from this diet if they can't have those foods.  Be honest with yourself--limiting yourself to not eating a few foods is not going to make you give up on this diet.