5 Campers reveal 4-2-1 results

I figure it has been close to 10 weeks since Deanne unveiled the Forever Fit 2011 new eating plan that I have termed as "4-2-1". It's about time we find out just how this plan is working for all those campers that have been plugging along. 
[A bit of confession here from the author...I tried 4-2-1 for exactly one week. I am now back to the old Deanne plan--basically like the "2" days using the 90/10 rule, but I digress]

I want to thank Bev, Danielle, Janelle, Ann and Katy for their responses and great insights!! From here on out I will use their first letter initial to identify their response to the questions that I asked.


I conducted phone interviews and/or email questionnaires...here are the results of my interviews...

1) 0f course I had to put this first...it really is the ?? all of us want to know although we ALL KNOW this is not the only measurement of success. [whatev!] How much weight have you lost?
B: 11 pounds!
D: 12 pounds! (2 weeks ago)
J : 10 pounds!
A: 10 pounds (2 weeks ago)!
K:  9 pounds!
Most of the respondents expressed a love/hate with the scale. They all limit themselves to only once/week weighing and some of them have given up the scales all together since it only played with her head. (thus Ann' and Danielle's 2 weeks ago weigh-ins).

2) What meals and/or snacks work for you...have become your favorites?

B: Absolute favorite is fresh Lobster tail (caught right off of Torrey Pines beach by her husband...how nice is that ?!) and of course with asparagus or other veggies. Her new favorite for breakfast is to make hollandaise  sauce from the Knorrs packet and put it between a piece of Canadian bacon and a poached egg. (on her "2" days she adds half a whole grain English muffin). For snacks she likes canadian bacon wrapped around string cheese, dipped in Love Your Heart Ranch Dressing, Or Turkey wrapped around Asparagus and string cheese.

D: Her 3 dinner staples are: Turkey pasta over veggies, lettuce wraps with ground chicken and taco salad. For snacks: Greek yogurt with protein powder and cinnamon. (tastes like dessert to her:), also lovvves the protein shake with almond milk, protein powder and pumpkin spice and cinnamon.

J: Meals...Turkey marinara over broccoli and cauliflower, fajita salad and quiche. Snacks: Greek yogurt with lemon and cinnamon, bell peppers, cucumbers with lemon and salt, butternut squash with touch of balsamic vinegar. She also loves to try different soups.

A: For breakfast Ann has discovered buying mixed frozen veggies to which she adds onions, green chillies and enough eggs to hold it all together. She has discovered that the big mix for breakfast gives her energy and makes the rest of the day go so much better. She says fancy, yummy salad dressings and interesting cheese crumbles have made all the difference to her salads.

K: Egg white veggie scramble for breakfasts, salads for lunch and chicken stir fry for dinners. For snacks she likes the almond milk, coconut protein shake and the better than peanut butter, greek yogurt, protein powder mix.

3) Have you been strictly following the 4 days of protein, 2 days of part carb and then 1 free day?

B: When I am "in town" then yes I have been very strict. But in the past couple of months I have been on vacation 15 days. I do the best I can when out of town but I know I am not doing as well as I do at home.

D:  I did really well for the first several weeks but the last couple have been really hard for me. I have had a hard time once the scale stopped dropping...

J: Yes. I took an approach of discipline. I considered the diet an exercise of discipline and figured if I adhered to it strictly for 40 days I would be able to form the habit of eating better. I also focused on one area each week. For instance, 1 week I would focus on finding vegetables I liked to eat raw. Another week I would focus on snack foods that I liked. Another week, I focused on soups & meats that I could use all week. Another week I focused on daily drinking enough water and including fish oil/vitamin drink. You get the idea. The last thing that made a huge impact on my ability to stick to the plan was packing my foods from breakfast through the afternoon snack (+ a few free veggies just in case);- ) One of my biggest challenge is new ways of cooking, prepping in the kitchen and planning.

 A: yes


K: yes...but a bit altered. I have found that it is easier for me to eat the "4" days than to do the "2" days. So on my "2" days I only add carbs at dinner time.

4) Do you go "all out" on your free day?

B: More like just a "free meal" for me...I go out with my husband for dinner. The rest of the day is more like a "2" day.

D: I LOVE free days and usually have it planned at least 3 days before!  I do tend to go all out with exception of 1 meal but some of my cravings are pathetic...last week I was craving a "fruit smoothie" another time was in-n-out(I did go protein style but added the fries)...so yummy! 


J: I have gone gang busters on a few of my free days. Other days, I am almost looking for bad things to eat. My cheat days are typically reserved for some wine, eating out for dinner (my family gets to chose), a piece of toast & OJ with breakfast and maybe some cheese and crackers, a sip of a Coke or fruit in the afternoon. Nothing earth shaking, but all foods that I would typically eat without thinking twice. Love the free day because it makes me feel like a) I earned it, b) I deserve it, c) I am motivated to start the process all over again.

A: No.  I have a fun breakfast (usually whole wheat pancakes or plain scrambled eggs and really good toast with orange juice) and I have whatever it is that I've craved all week for lunch.   Then I have whatever small "treat" I've been craving (a couple of weeks there wasn't one, yesterday I shared a piece of cheesecake) and by dinner I try to get back on track. 

K: My first "cheat day" I had scheduled for a Saturday and then I found having it on the weekend turned my 1 cheat day into a 3 day cheat weekend. So I have now bumped my cheat day into my midweek where I am able to get right back "on track" afterwards due to the fact that the whole week is more structured and planned.

5) Does your weight fluctuate during the week...or do you stick to the "only weigh once/week" rule?

B: I only weigh once/ week and only if I am in town.

D: I really only weigh once a week and find that hard to do! I find it hard and rather discouraging at times every week I REALLY try my hardest the 1st week I lost 5 lbs so easily the next 7lbs were a little tougher and now my scale weight has been at a hault and not moving like I would like??? It has encouraged me to work harder but seeing that scale weight drop is VERY motivating when it comes to a hault its harder to keep motivated!

J: I only weigh in once a week. A few weigh in surprises have been losing weight when on vacation & when I was sick (even though I craved carbs when sick).

A: I don't know.  I've gone as long as 3 weeks without weighing. 

K: I only weigh once/week.

6) Anything else you would like to add...

A: I think the biggest benefit I've noticed from 4/2/1 is a marked increase in my energy level.  I think my sugar craving (even from eating lots of fruit) was taking me up and down all the time and generally wearing me out.  Don't get me wrong, I'm always ready for those low carb days to come around, but I feel pretty good most of the time.

K: Before becoming successful on 4-2-1 I was experiencing nausea and headaches and I spoke with Deanne who asked me to keep track of everything I was eating. As it turned out, I was eating nearly 80% carbs! Now after making the adjustments this food plan suggests, all of my symptoms have gone away and I feel so much better! I even have weaned myself down to 1 Diet Coke/day and sometimes I even forget to drink that!!

So...know what I think after my interviews?...all of these people are successful because they really wanted to be. Know how I know that?? They made adjustments when "the plan" didn't work for them...they were willing to spot their own weaknesses and face them. For example, Katy switching up her cheat day...brilliant! (Me...I had the same thing and thought, "woot!!" free weekends!) Some have made the cheat day into a mere cheat meal (imagine!!) or choosing not to have carbs when really you can... If you really want something, you are willing to make the sacrifices to achieve it. So THANK YOU to Bev, Danielle, Janelle, Ann and Katy!! You 5 are an inspiration to me!! Anybody up to starting 4-2 -1 again??

Please add what has worked for you...we would LOVE your comments...

Dr. Oz vs. Gary Taubes

What's your take on the "debate" today? One thing I found interesting is that there was no distinctions made between lean meats and really fatty meats. I think until the research is conclusive (which Gary Taubes feels already is), I will continue to severely limit my starchy carbs, eat tons of vegetables and stick with healthy fats, mostly lean meats and fish.

Have You Really Hit a Plateau?

About this time (6-7 weeks into bootcamp), many people tell me they have hit a plateau. This happens to almost everyone eventually, as he or she gets close to their goal weight. I like to differentiate between two different types of plateaus, a physical one and a mental one. Let’s talk about the first:

A Physical Plateau
This happens when you are doing “everything” you should be doing in regards to exercise and nutrition and the body simply stops responding with progress. The body’s job is to keep you from starving to death. And, even though the days of famine are long gone, the body is still hard wired to deal with this potential crisis. Believe me, it is much easier to get the first 50 pounds off than the last 5 for ANYONE! In many cases, we want to achieve a lower body fat % than what is considered normal to our bodies. Our ancestors didn’t care about how they looked in a bikini. They were concerned with surviving a hard life. In fact, our genetics may well be working against us. In the days of famine, the lean people with little fat stored in their bodies often didn’t make it through the hard times. The people who survived were the ones with slightly higher body fat percentages. For most of us, these “hardier” genes were passed on to later generations, that being us. Now I don’t believe genetics is a “life sentence” and it doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to achieve a desired outcome, it just means that we have to begin making even finer levels of distinctions in our exercise and nutrition choices. We have to have even more discipline. And in most cases, step our game up. So if you have truly hit a physical plateau and what was once working, is now not, here are some ideas to get the progress moving again:
1. Step up the game by making your workouts harder. You’ve probably noticed that during this 10 week bootcamp session, I have gradually made things harder each week. The body has an amazing adaptation curve, meaning it quickly adjusts to the stress you put it under. Which means, until you get to the point that you are content with, you have to put it under more stress in a consistent, gradual manner. If you have been doing bicep curls with 8lb dumbbells for 3 years, you are doing nothing but maintaining what you already have at this point.
2. Change it up – why do I insist on providing you with an entirely different workout every time you show up for bootcamp? Because I know that the body will find the path of least resistance when it is confronted with the same workout time after time. The path of least resistance means the body will find a more efficient way to get through it, stalling your progress and lowering your calories burned. We don’t side shuffle because I’m sick of jogging forward. We side shuffle because the body has to use more energy than it does to jog forward. You know you are getting a different workout at each bootcamp, but what are you doing on your other workout days to change it up? Try a new class. Take a new running path. Jump on a bike this week instead of the elliptical. Do 30 minutes of heart pounding hills sprints instead of that 60 minute walk with friends. Sometimes just switching up one more day a week will get the ball rolling again.
3. Try a few new foods and meals – I know I told you to keep things easy this time around and repeat the same meals over and over so that complexity doesn’t become an excuse for adherence. BUT, if things aren’t working any more, time to throw a couple new recipes in the mix and put a few others on the shelf for a little while. Switching your food a little will introduce new nutrients to the mix, different levels of fiber, resistance starch, sugar and salt content. Not to mention, if may take care of any “food boredom” issues that may have set in. I have included a couple of my favorite recipes for you to try this week in this week's email. They are all very easy and will add a little variety to your meals. Speaking of “food boredom”, that brings me to my next type of plateau, the Mental plateau.

A Mental Plateau
Just about every week someone I know tells me they have hit a plateau, but MOST of the time, it is not a physical plateau they have hit. It’s not that they are doing everything right and their body is not responding. It’s that they are having a hard time doing the right things and fighting off the wrong things. So before you jump to conclusions and convince yourself you have hit a physical plateau, go back to the basics and make sure you really are doing everything you can to continue your progress:
1. Have a plan for the week for both your workouts and ALL of your meals. Write that plan in your calendar or put it on your computer calendar.
2. After you create your weekly plan, go shopping and get organized. Look ahead at your week and make sure you plan how you will deal with meetings, sporting events, social occasions, etc.
3. Stop relying on will power. If you really want to achieve your goals, get the bad stuff out of your house! Do yourself a huge favor: Make it easy to do the right thing and very hard to do the wrong thing. If you are keeping unhealthy food in the house, you are giving yourself permission to fail.
4. Reach out to those people who have similar goals and spend more time with them this week, talking about how you can support each other. Limit time with people, temporarily, who are constantly creating challenges for you.
5. Treat your workouts like your hair appointments. There are few things in life that sit as high on the priority list for women as the hair salon. Those appointments are in permanent marker on the schedule. Your workouts should be too! Guys, what are those things that won’t get budged off your lists? Do you treat your workouts as sacredly?
6. Make your workouts efficient. They don’t have to be 60 minutes to count. Anything is better than nothing, and as I’ve shown you in bootcamp, sometimes 10-20 minutes is plenty (think Tabata Drills). If you want an idea for a great metabolic blasting body circuit that will take you 10-12 minutes, you can find it on the blog: http://foreverfitsandiego.blogspot.com/

So before you resign yourself to a plateau, ask yourself some tough questions. Because, you really do hold all the answers to your success.

12 Minute Metabolic Blasting Body Weight Circuit

Do the following 6 exercises for 30 seconds each with 5 seconds between each one. Repeat for a total of 3 rounds:

Squat – up downs or Jump Squats
Push-up with reach through or push up into side plank
Side skates
Close grip push-up
Jumping Jacks with star jump on 4th jack
Cross body mountain climbers

4 Strategies for Keeping Your Vacations Healthy

Hi everyone. I'm on Day 5 of our 8 day vacation in Mammoth. Our 8 day vacation will now be shortened by a day as my oldest son, Jacob, fractured his elbow snowboarding today. Well at least the first 4 days were great.

There are a couple of other Forever Fitters up here this week, Trish Wood and Sharon Fornaciari. We have had amazing snow and beautiful weather.

Vacationing is probably one of the toughest tests we can go through when trying to live a fit and healthy lifestyle. And, the longer our vacation, the weaker our resolve becomes, later in the week. That's because we have a limited amount of will power at any one time and if it is exercised frequently, we eventually don't have enough to make the right choices. There are some things you can do to make things easier on yourself. Here's what I've found that works:

1. Vacation with "like minded" people. If you are spending most of your time with people who also want to eat healthy and stay active, it really isn't too hard to stay on track. It's tough when everyone around you is eating pizza and fries and you're eating a salad. We vacation a lot with my parents and it's great because we all like to eat healthy meals, get lots of exercise (my parents insist we walk a mile to and from the ski slopes each day) and we keep the snacks to a minimum.

2. It's great to be on an active vacation with the family. If I had to sit around the cabin for 7 days, I would surely begin to make less than optimal nutrition choices, simply out of boredom. Being on the ski slopes for 4 to 6 hours a day, keeps me out of the kitchen and spending quality time with my family. Oh yeah, and I'm burning lots of calories. Whether you are in the mountains, New York city or a beach destination, find as many physically active things you can do as possible. It makes vacation fun for all! These are the things that you are going to remember years after the vacation is over, not what you ate while you were there.

3. Whenever possible, stay in a house, condo or apartment where you have access to a kitchen. Go to the grocery store and load up on many of the same foods you would eat at home. Keep eating out to one or two meals of the vacation. This is key! Remember, most restaurants just don't care that their food is too high in calories, fat, sugar and sodium. They want you to love your food so much that you come back. Take back the control and soon restaurants will show a little more responsibility in what they offer on their menus.

4. When you do have to eat out, survey all of your options first before making a decision, and make special requests when you can. Vacation is about enjoying everything, and that includes a couple of your meals. Instead of splurging on every meal, decide each day how you will organize your meals to meet the 90/10 rule. 90% of the time eating the foods you SHOULD eat, that are high in nutrients, and 10% of the time eating something that you WANT to eat just because you love it. If you are having an active vacation, you can have a little splurge every day, just keep the 90/10 rule in mind and make sure that your choices are WTC (worth the calories).

OK, have to go help my mom make the salad for dinner tonight. Hope you are all doing well and have found some fun workouts to do this week. I look forward to seeing everyone next week at bootcamp.

If you want to see definition in your abs, keep reading...

I just got this email from fitness guru Mike Boyle and wanted to share it with you. You can bet we will be doing some HIIT tomorrow at Friday's cardio bootcamp! Hope to see you there.

"I can’t even tell you how often I hear someone at the end of the workout say something like “I need to do more abs, I want to get a six-pack.”

The truth is that passing on a six-pack of beer is a better way to get a six-pack than six hundred sit-ups. The key to abdominal definition is the visibility of the abdominal musculature, not the strength of the muscles.

You can do one million sit-ups, crunches or whatever exercise you want and it will have no effect on abdominal definition.

When people ask me the best exercise for abs I tell them table push-aways.

It usually takes a few minutes for them to get it. It’s not a joke, it’s the truth. If you want better abs, eat less and train more but, don’t just train your abs.

The idea of working abs to get abs is one of the oldest misconceptions in training. This goes back to the old idea of spot reduction. Spot reduction has never and will never work. The research has been done over and over and the answer is always the same.

You can’t decrease the fat layer on a particular area by working that area. That means that the guys doing sit-ups to lose abdominal fat and the lady sitting on the adductor (inner thigh) machine are both wasting their time.

Good total body work is, was, and always will be the key to fat loss.

Want better abdominal definition?

Finish every workout with some hard interval training instead of extra sit-ups or crunches. Interval training or what is currently called High Intensity Interval Training (abbreviated HIIT) is the real key to fat loss and the resulting definition.

Interval training burns more calories than steady state aerobic training and because it is a sprint program you get a sprinter's body.

Abdominal training may potentially reduce the diameter of the waistline but, will do very little to reduce body fat.

The truth is there are lots of good reasons to do abdominal work or core training as we now like to call it. A strong core (strong abs) is one of the keys in the prevention of back pain.

A strong core will help you look better and improve performance in a host of sports but, sit-ups or any other abdominal exercise will not reduce body fat. The fact of the matter is that crunches will lead to back pain long before they lead to visual abs.

Another good tip.

Don’t do crunches. A good abdominal or core program is a lot more than crunches. Most of your core work should be isometric exercises like front planks and side planks or carries like Suitcase carries.

One of the major functions of the core musculature is the prevention of motion.

What does that mean? It means that the abdominals are great stabilizers. Work on the stability function, not on flexion and extension.

Regards,

Mike Boyle

Week 6 - Valentine's Day and All!

PART 1 - VALENTINE'S DAY
Well I think I over did it a bit on Valentine's Day. I started out the day with chocolate chip pancakes for the kids and had two myself. Both my kids and my husband gave me boxes of dark chocolate. And, to top it off, I had ordered a dark chocolate cake from Keely. There was some Indian food and Filet Mignon mixed in there too. Wow I feel ill just typing this. It was a fun day with the family and hubby, but I have to tell you, I don't want to see chocolate for a while. Sure wish that feeling would last but I know it won't. I'm not sure yesterday was a good example of a Cheat Day. Looking back, it was more of a chocolate binge day. You would think all those extra calories would have fueled my workouts today but I just feel tired and sluggish. It's never been more evident to me how sugar negatively affects my system.

The good news is that I was so ready to start my morning with my fish oil and tall glass of water. I had 2 eggs in a hole, vegetable style. I had a tuna salad with my Super Soup for lunch and I am starting to feel good again.

PART 2 - A DIFFERENT SPIN ON EGGS AND SUPER SOUP!
If you are looking for something different to do with your eggs, cut 2 3/4 inch rings from a red bell pepper. Heat them for a couple minutes in a nonstick pan and then pour an egg into the middle of each one. Sprinkle some black pepper on both and after about a minute or 2, flip them over. Some of the egg runs out of the pepper but most of it is contained. Then serve the hot eggs and pepper on a bed of spinach. The heat from the eggs will slightly wilt the spinach. You could sprinkle a little parmesan on top if you need more flavor.

It occurred to me last week that my broth based vegetable soups have a lot of flavor because of the chicken broth, thyme, leeks and yellow onions. This got me thinking. Instead of making soup with just one vegetable like broccoli, asparagus or zucchini, why not use the opportunity to get in as many vegetables (and hence nutrients) as possible. So this past Sunday when I made my vegetable soup for the week, here's what I did. I'm going to call this SUPER SOUP!
1. 2 leeks, white parts chopped
2. 1/2 yellow onion chopped
3. 4 cloves of garlic chopped
4. Tons of dried Thyme (can use fresh too)
5. Sautee all of the above in about 3-4 TBSP olive oil
6. Then add your chopped veggies. Here are the veggies I threw in this week: 5
cups of broccoli, 1 bunch of asparagus, 2 zucchini, 1 large head of bok choy, 1
large head of swiss chard, 5 cups of spinach
7. Then I poured about 4-5 cups of low sodium chicken broth over the top of the
vegetables and let them cook for a while (about 15 minutes) to get them nice and
soft.

Then I took my Cuisinart Smart Stick hand blender. STOP! - if you don't own one
of these, you have to get one!!!! I use it almost daily and it is both faster
and cleaner than a regular blender or mixer. If you come to one of Keely's
cooking classes, you'll probably see her using it. I would not have the patience to make soup every week without this!!!!! It is by far my favorite kitchen utensil. In the near future, we'll do an entire blog post about setting up an efficient kitchen. This can have such a huge impact on the time it takes you to make home cooked meals.

PART 3 - HOW TO ENJOY YOUR TIME IN THE KITCHEN
Do you dread spending time in the kitchen? Let me give you one easy piece of advice to try this week. Put your ipod and some speakers in the kitchen. Listen to one of your favorite playlists while you cook. Light a scented candle and make yourself a nice warm cup of tea. Preparing meals can be very relaxing if you set up the right atmosphere. I used to hate cooking but now I actually look forward to it. It has become somewhat therapeutic for me. Now grocery shopping...that's another story!

I have so much to share since my last post but we'll stick with that for now. I have realized that I just feel so much better without all of the processed carbs. I'm hitting it hard for this 10 week session but I will continue to follow a modified version of this forever!

I would love to hear from you. I am leaving Friday afternoon for a week in Mammoth. I plan to blog while I am there. You can probably figure out the topic of my blogs next week...how to vacation and not gain weight!