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Information about the body's physiology and how to get the most out of it.

Reward Days - You’ve Earned It!

In a lifestyle, we need flexibility.  We need to know we can have the foods we crave.  But I do have to lay down some ground rules:

1. Reward days can only happen on High Days - after a healthy meal first.
2. Keep it out of your house. Go to a restaurant or a convenience store. I repeat: Keep it out of the house.  For your own sake, please keep it out of the house.
3. You must reward yourself at least once per week, and up to every other day. But if you choose not to… awesome!

For our mind, reward days satisfy the emotional need for comfort foods.  For our body, reward days boost the heck out of our metabolism!  And with rewards up to every other day, doesn’t it make you feel good to know that if you can’t have it today you can always have it tomorrow?  Yeah… feels pretty good

Chris Powell Secret: If reward foods can lead to a ‘slippery slope’ of binging for you, you may be the type who needs to go the “cold turkey” route.  Or you may want to try switching the delivery of your reward foods.  I call it the “Chris Cross” method.

Chris Powell Trick: This is a fun trick. If you go one week without rewarding yourself, when you finally do it doesn’t taste the same anymore! 

• Sugar is too sweet
• Salt is overwhelming
• Fats taste greasy.

What’s a Metabolism?

The scientific definition of metabolism is the “set of chemical reactions that occur in living organisms in order to maintain life.”

But I’m gonna make this easy… metabolism to most of us is “the amount of calories our bodies burns every day.”

Here’s a super-simple explanation for the process:

1. We eat food,
2. Our body burns food through:
   1. 10 - 15% - eating and digestion
   2. 20 – 35% Activity (muscle movement)
   3. 65 – 75% Resting Metabolic Rate

Woah!  What’s that last one?  It is called your resting metabolic rate (RMR), and it actually accounts for the MAJORITY of calories your body burns every day. 

So what is it?  It is your muscles, your breathing, and your heartbeat.  Even at rest, they are all working diligently to keep you alive! 

Wanna know how to maximize your Resting Metabolic Rate to burn even more calories at rest?  It is one of my secrets for weight loss. It’s called a ‘Metaboost’. Check it out.

 

Setting the Metabolic Clock – Spinning the Wheel

We can’t create an incredible transformation until we set your metabolic clock.  It’s the single most important thing you can do to prepare for your transformation.

To set your Metabolic Clock, we need to start “spinning the wheel”.  Think of your body as a lump of clay on a potter’s wheel. When we eat, we spin the wheel.  The faster the wheel spins, the easier it is to mold the clay. We spin the wheel by eating every three hours. In three to five days, your metabolic clock will be set.

Pros: Eating every three hours boosts metabolism for maximum weight loss.

Cons: If you’ve been consuming just one or two meals daily, when you begin setting your metabolic clock it feels like a TON of food. The biggest complaint I hear when people start boosting metabolism is that they can barely eat all of the real food!  Real food = lots of bulk, little calories. 

Solution: Don’t worry, the fullness you’re feeling will pass.  In three to five days your new metabolic clock will be set.  After this, you’ll find yourself HUNGRY every two hours, which is your body’s way of telling you’re your clock is set!

Adaptation: When The Weight Loss Stops

Have you ever been on a diet where everything was going great, and then the weight loss just stopped?  You’re doing the exact same thing that worked so well before, and your body wont budge, so what’s wrong? What changed?  Believe it or not, your body did exactly what it’s supposed to do.

Our body has its own built-in autopilot and will always try to adjust its metabolism (energy out) to accommodate and match your food intake (energy in.) 

Qusetion: So what does this mean?

Answer: Most of us will adapt to any given nutrition and exercise program and our weight loss will slow or even stop over time.

Solution: Constantly change your calorie intake, food intake and workouts, so your body never has the opportunity to adapt and stop!

Sluggish Metabolism? Let’s Unslug It!

“I have a sluggish metabolism.” I hear that complaint all of the time.  You might even be right, but here’s my secret: we can do something about it!  Nowadays we are led to believe that we are stuck with a sluggish metabolism, but did you know you can actually raise your metabolism in just a couple of days? In fact, the word metabolism actually means ‘changing energy’!

Here are three pointers for boosting your metabolism in just a couple days:

1. Eat every 2-3 hours.
2. Eat more carbohydrates.
3. Move.  Metaboost and Accelerate!

Don’t Gain It Back… We Won’t Let You!

Ever hear a horror story about a friend falling off her diet program and gaining unbelievable amounts of weight within a a couple months? Maybe this has even happened to you? Typically, such rapid weight gain follows some kind of rapid weight loss, and you’ve probably heard the experts say the human body isn’t made to lose weight extremely fast. Those experts are right!

I’ve made it my goal to find a solution to prevent that rapid weight gain after weight loss because I want to anchor in your success! The problem, I’ve discovered, is that following a normal lifestyle means we need to be able to indulge and take a week-long vacation without worrying about gaining the weight back.

In my years of research, I’ve come up with what I believe is the only real solution:

Sometimes, eat a lot of calories; and sometimes, eat less calories.

This might not make much sense at first, but let me try to briefly explain. There are numerous benefits to the process of carb cycling (we all know I’m a big fan). When the body experiences high carbohydrate/high calorie days patterned into the lifestyle, it will continuously raise your metabolism and keep it revved up for any breaks in the future. As a result, you can jump off the pattern for one, two or, in some cases, three weeks and not experience the rapid (and frustrating) weight rebound. Your weight loss is already anchored in, and all you have to do is pick up where you left off. Remember, this is real life. This is a weight loss journey. We have vacations, holidays, business trips and family dinners… we need to have a lifestyle pattern that allows us to truly live!

Fat Loss 101

Did you know you ALREADY have the beautiful body of muscle that you desire? It just happens to be underneath a blanket of energy we call “bodyfat.”  Grab that blanket and hang onto it while you read the following statement out loud:
 


“This is the blanket of energy covering my muscles. I will break down the blanket with nutrition and burn it with exercise.”
 


Your bodyfat (blanket of energy) is going to be mobilized (broken down) with your food plan and oxidized (burned) in your muscle during and after Reshape the Nation ‘Metaboosts’ and ‘Accelerators’ – that’s how the machine works.
 


CP’s Bonus Tip: Your weight loss will be most noticeable from the top-down, It is very common for you to notice it first in your face, shoulders, and upper body, then it travels down the body to the stomach, butt, and thighs. So be patient and be careful not to make the common mistake of judging your early success solely by the stomach.