In my last article, I talked about how I managed to transition to an ideal forecast in order to eventually lose 10 pounds in only 6 weeks while on the EET Fitness Plan. In fact, I've continued to lose weight since then, and am currently at 202 lbs! The transition wasn't smooth sailing, though, as I mentioned that I did have some trouble adapting to some of the things I needed to do.
STOP PIGGING OUT
The first trial I had to overcome was to not pig out every time I had a treat meal. Members just starting out on the plan aren't supposed to gorge on their chosen treats, as their metabolisms haven't adjusted yet. Treats are allowed, yes, but in a certain moderation outlined by EET's Golden Rule: only eat what you need and nothing more.
So, no pigging out. No eating past the point of satiety just because you like the taste of the treats you're eating. Jon tells me that those who have been on EET for a relatively long period of time (such as himself) can be very lenient with this rule, but that's not yet allowed for newer members like me.
So, on to the meal structure. Each meal on EET is supposed to have
a) Protein
b) Vegetables
c) Fiber
d) Water
So, during treat meals, the first strategy I employed was to simply consume enough of the above 4 so that, by the time I reached dessert, I would already be close to full so I wouldn't overeat. Unfortunately, pigging out is more evil than our biological signals can handle, so, when faced with options for sweets, I just ate and ate and ate and ate, regardless of whether I was already full or not. Yes, I have a sweet tooth, and a really terrible one, at that. I stuffed my face full of food regardless of whether I needed it or not.
Before EET, I was on a Paleo diet with 1 cheat meal a week. Because of this, I had to condition my mind to stay away from cheat meals at least 6 times a week. My conditioning wasn't perfect, but I tried my best.
So, when I first started on EET, my mind was still in the "cheat day" sort of phase, where I would make the most out of the snacks I craved by eating as much of them as I wanted when I knew I was allowed. This sort of thinking is a definite hurdle when cheat meals are allowed literally every day.
What EET recommended was something extremely simple:
Just portion out everything you want to consume and pack away the rest.
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| This is some of the actual ice cream I ate during my first few weeks on EET |
What stopped me from just getting up and putting more on my plate? Something called a closer. A closer is basically a signal to your mind that eating time's over. It can be different for everyone, but for me it's putting all the dishes away and brushing my teeth. Once I do that, my mind becomes completely free from food.
LOWER THE NOTCH A BIT
Before I began EET, I developed the habit of always going all out with my work outs. I was already working out every day, but I had various splits implemented, plus martial arts workouts in between my weight lifting days, so I was pretty much working out different things almost every day.
While splits can be implemented on EET, they're not really recommended, which left my workouts for the week much less varied. This meant that I had to ease off on my workouts a bit, in order for my body to be fully recovered for the next session that had the same exercises.
The workouts shouldn't be too easy, but, at the same time, shouldn't leave you wanting to puke every time. I always just aimed for the latter, so it took a bit of time for me to find that sweet spot that EET very much recommends. Jon took away a lot of the guesswork during our consultations, and that was a big help indeed.
It's also interesting to note that, despite working less harder than I was before in my workouts, I seem to be experiencing faster results.
BREAKFAST IS AN ILLUSION
The last ordeal I faced was also the most difficult one, and it was skipping breakfast. EET recommends one consume only green tea during the first few hours of the day, after which the workout of the day would possibly commence. This featured not one, but two problems for me to adapt to:
a) Not eating after waking
b) Working out in the morning
The first time I worked out after skipping breakfast, I had extreme headaches at the beginning of the workout, during which I felt weak and sickly. I definitely didn't want to go through that again.
I consulted with Jon immediately after and he recommended that I take small protein snacks every hour before the workout. I chose egg whites, so my morning adaptation schedule looked something like this:
7:30 - Wake up, green tea
8:30 - 2-3 egg whites
9:30 - 2-3 egg whites
10:30 - Workout
I also increased my water intake during these times. I had already developed the habit of constantly drinking water, to the point where I was consuming nearly 2 gallons a day, but increasing it by about a gallon more greatly helped in my adapting to not eating full meals at the very beginning of the day.
It took about 2-3 weeks, but I eventually managed to get used to not eating breakfast, which is actually one of the things I'm most proud of during my time on EET. I would previously be extremely religious about breakfast, such that I would need to have a full and filling meal at the start of the day, no matter what! Given that I behaved this way for many, many years and that my body seemed to react so violently to my wanting to change my habits, I honestly thought I could never do it, especially in that short amount of time.
The process also felt far easier than I thought it ever would. Just by consuming some egg whites and water, I gradually managed to convince my body that I didn't have to eat breakfast. At all. I did feel a bit uneasy at times, when the hunger would creep in unexpectedly, but it was nothing that couldn't be easily brushed off mentally.
These days, I can go for hours on end in the morning consuming nothing but green tea and water, and still have plenty of energy to work out! Pretty amazing, as far as I'm concerned.
EET's shown me a lot of interesting things over the past few months and, so far, they've been working out perfectly.
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