Stage Two: Adjustments

Now that you have successfully made it to stage two, you may have noticed some changes within your body, behavior, weight, and overall mental state of mind. You should be upbeat, looking forward to this challenge, and ready for further adjustments to your overall 3 prong approach. For example, if we have not done so, we should be ready for deeper reductions in the common consumables such as bread, soda, sugar, fried items, and so on. As with the first phase, you should not be completely cutting out any of those consumables yet; you were merely becoming familiar with what you consume as this stage will address the reduction of those items, and here’s how:

Make changes

We want to introduce the reality that the goal is NOT to completely eliminate bad choices; history has shown us that cutting out forever bad consumables will only result in cravings and compel us to return to those patterns and eventually lead to not only a return to those old habits, but consume negatively in much greater quantities resulting in becoming either a heavier person than when we started or worse less healthy.

The Boss: H20

In order to take self control, one must make light changes that don’t cause mental or physical chaos-meaning, a negative cycle that is irresistible or addicting is nearly impossible to break. So in order to combat that behavior we created the scenario that allows a person to replace a bad consumable with a healthy option. We will say that sodas are bad consumables and water is a healthy choice. If someone consumes religiously soda on a weekly basis, how do we get her to change? Well the goal is to reduce the amount of soda to merely one per week.

As an illustration, if you consume 7 normal size bottles of soda per week, replace one bottle of soda for a bottle of water, and every two weeks, you are substituting a bottle of soda with a bottle of water. If the two week spread is not working then go to a 3, 4, or even 5 week prolongation. So eventually, you end up with merely one bottle of soda a week and six bottles of water per week.

We want to trick the mind into thinking that water is the same as soda, so you’re replacing them in hopes that both the mind and body accept the subtle changes; we call this process The Substitution Principle. The lesson here is also that drastic changes of any type will NOT aid in achieving your health goals.

The above illustration can be applied to those of us who consume donuts; replace each donut with a bagel, and apply The Substitution Principle expressed above.

Sleep Solves

Examining the sleeping pattern in this phase- if you are not sleeping at least 7 hours, it’s time to create a situation where you are able to sleep within the 7-9 hour range. We have a complete section under the recovery model that will describe the importance of sleep and provides a complete list of natural sleep aids that may useful to your goals.

Cumbersome forces that challenge your progress

Sometimes it’s possible that we find ourselves not seeing any progress after the first section and in the middle of second; I’ve been in this predicament many times, but overcame them with mostly minor adjustments, but there has been times where greater modifications were required. Those changes were often made when the culprit causing these issues were discovered in the second stage. Some common causes of not seeing progress stem from not exercising enough, consuming too late, exercising too late, under mental pressure of some kind or something other than the subjects mentioned for which a specialist may be able to assist. However, we will know what the culprit is during or towards the end of second phase. In fact, phase two is where many of the challenges can be discovered and if not here, the third stage will certainly flush out the challenging dilemma!

Cardio Fit for Life!

Exercising on an empty stomach and in the morning or just as soon as you wake up is the best option for best results. As you complete your morning session, you will continue to burn fat throughout the day! Up your cardio session to 30 minutes for 3-5 times a week. Pick the days that are most convenient for you. If Friday through Sunday is the best option because the weekdays are to hectic, at least you have three days in a row to complete the sessions!

This cycle should be followed for a period of 4-8 weeks.