Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Want To Know How I Fit 7 Servings of Fruit In Before Lunch?

Yesterday I told you about the importance of “baby steps” when it comes to anything having to do with nutrition or exercise.

My point was that you shouldn’t have the idea in your head that you can go from 0 to 100 just by flipping a switch. You need to take small steps over and over again in order to make big changes.

Today I’m going to give you a few more pointers dealing with the idea of baby steps.

Let’s say that your goal for the next couple weeks is to add more fruits and vegetables to your daily diet.

Here’s what I do that gets me 7 servings of fruit in before lunch.

Everyday for breakfast I have a smoothie. It’s part of my routine. I have a glass of green tea, then make my smoothie and head out the door. The smoothie contains blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, pomegranate juice, ground flax seeds, wheat germ, protein powder and a little skim milk.

When you have a breakfast like that, calorie counting isn’t really even a concern. I’ve heard trainers and other fitness/nutrition people tell their clients or readers not to eat bananas or other fruits because they’re too high in carbohydrates. That’s a bunch of bull. I’ve never known anyone to get fat because they eat too much fruit. Not only that, but most bananas are only around 100 calories.

Anyway, back to my 7 servings of fruit before lunch.

That breakfast nets me 4 servings of fruit right off the bat. A serving berries is ½ cup and I have ½ cup of each of those berries, plus the pomegranate juice adds another serving.

Then mid-morning I’ll have an apple and a banana. Most bananas actually count as 2 servings, an a medium sized apple counts as 1. So there’s my 7 servings all before lunch.

My energy levels are through the roof in the morning and it’s all because I get all that fruit with the vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, fiber and protein.

So if a healthy breakfast is your first “baby step”, follow my lead and have a healthy, fat fighting, immune system boosting smoothie everyday.

What if your “baby step” is that you want to start doing fat loss workouts 5 or 6 days per week, but you only regularly exercise 2 or 3 times? Then what?

Make an appointment with yourself. That’s the easiest way to ensure that you’ll find the time and stick to it.

You might have to get up 30 minutes earlier or miss your daily lunch with friends or co-workers, but so be it.

By setting a fat loss workout appointment with yourself, and sticking to it, you’ll be that much closer to setting that new habit in stone.

And healthy habits are no different than bad habits in one respect. They are hard to break.

Once you’ve changed a couple things for the better and you see and feel the results, you will actually feel guilty if you begin to break that habit for a couple days.

If you get used to exercising 4-6 days per week and have to miss a couple for whatever reason, it will eat at you because you know how much better you feel for it.

Or, if you begin to have a healthy smoothie every morning for breakfast and you forget one morning, or decide to do breakfast out with some friends and eat something unhealthy, you will feel guilty and might even get a stomach ache because you’re not used to the unhealthy meal.

Your body yearns to run at its peak. It wants to be healthy and fit, you just have to give it the means.

So, what are your baby steps? Figure them out and start today!

Have a good day!

Ed Scow

P.S. – If you want to try having a smoothie every morning for breakfast, one of the bonuses that comes with my Fat Loss To Go program includes over 100 different smoothie recipes. With that eBook, you really have no excuse on what to have for breakfast. Plus, smoothies make a great post-workout meal. Check it out at www.fatlosstogo.com

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