1. Your total calorie intake should equal 10-15 calories per pound of bodyweight.
Men below 10% body fat and women below 15% body fat should figure on ingesting 14-15 calories per pound of weight.
2. Focus on eating active carbohydrates.
Active carbohydrates equal total carbohydrate grams minus grams of fiber. Your active carbohydrates should not exceed 25 grams per meal or 75 grams per day.
3. Protein optimization.
Ingest 25-50 grams of protein per meal.
While protein is the best macro-nutrient to eat, there may be a point where excess may exceed elimination capacity. This can cause nitrogen to either be burned for energy instead of burning stored body fat; or simply stored as extra body fat. Most won’t need to consume more than 50 grams per meal, but don’t stress too much here – we rarely see someone get fat from eating a little extra lean protein.
4. Essential fatty acids can burn body fat.
Your diet must have a greater emphasis on Essential Fatty Acids and Mono Unsaturated fats such as flaxseed, safflower, fish oil and olive oil. These can also be found in almond butter and Beverly’s EFA Gold supplement.
5. Carbohydrate load every 3rd then 4th day.
A high carbohydrate meal every third and then fourth day:
- Refuels muscle and liver glycogen stores
- Prevents decline in metabolism (thyroid function remains optimal)
- Provides satiety – mental ease
- Facilitates muscle growth by increasing uptake of amino acids and insulin surge – drives IGF-1 production. Optimizes the “anabolic” effect of insulin, while minimizing its lipogenic (fat producing) effect.
- It’s important to have this meal as the final meal of the day to assure it’s being stored as glycogen and not being burned for energy.
6. Induce Thermogenesis.
Some foods may increase your metabolism and provide a thermogenic effect, causing your body to burn more fat.
- Fruits with an excellent thermogenic effect include apples, blueberries, grapefruit, peaches and strawberries.
- Thermogenic vegetables include asparagus, broccoli, cabbage, celery, lettuce, mushrooms, onions, radishes, spinach and tomatoes.
- Almost all proteins except: proteins that are very high in fat, lunch meats, and processed proteins including most single species proteins – whey concentrate, whey isolate, etc.
Single species protein is assimilated so quickly that it’s often burned as fuel, inhibiting the burning of your stored body fat. All Beverly proteins are multi species proteins.