The Lunch Box Diet: Eat all day, lose weight, feel great. Lose up to a stone in 4 weeks.. Simon Lovell
kept in the house with healthier alternatives.
Suggest a trip to the park after dinner instead of serving dessert.
For starters I urge everyone to join the Lunch Box Diet community (see page 224) at www.lunchboxdiet.co.uk – go and do it now. I will send you regular emails to keep you motivated and this is key to your success! I’m constantly coming up with new techniques, tips and tricks and I’ll share these with you. How about that for an added bonus?
Though looking good will be a big part of the end result of following this diet plan, what’s most important is how you will perceive yourself from the inside out once you begin the Lunch Box Diet. Eating healthily means feeling good. More energy, less illness, less chance of developing diseases related to obesity. You’ll be able to enjoy your life.
Whenever you’re feeling down, remember this word:
BELIEVE!
Believe in this diet. Believe in your efforts. Believe in me. Believe, above all, in you and your abilities!
We’ll get there! I promise!
Okay, enough pep talk. Can you feel the energy? If not, put the book down for a minute, get off your bum and jog around the couch ten times.
Ready? Let’s get to work. Turn the page.
You made it! We finally get to delve into this life-changing eating plan. You’re days away from feeling fantastic!
Hard to believe? Believe it, because in just seven days you’re going to feel the effects of optimum nutrition. Work independently for a month, following the lunch box system, or finish my 28-day plan and you’ll be on top of the world.
The Box
Okay, remember our little chat about healthy weight loss, grazing and metabolism (see page 25)? You’re now going to find out why you had to go back to school for a bit.
Here’s what you will be doing:
1 Eat a healthy breakfast (or your normal breakfast and build up to a healthier one).
2 Graze from your lunch box between breakfast and dinner.
3 Eat a healthy dinner (or your normal dinner and build up to a healthier one).
The lunch box concept is simply the most effective and easiest way to control most people’s nutrition because:
You know exactly what you’re eating.
You don’t have to plan and prepare meal after meal.
You will have a choice of foods that will enable you to enjoy eating from your plastic friend!
Lunch boxes are quick to put together, tasty and will give you bucketloads of energy! Not to mention the added health benefits that we’ll discuss later in Chapter 8.
When working with personal training clients, I always ask them to keep a record of their food intake (a food diary) for about a week to get an idea of what they like and how they eat. I often find that the pitfalls of their dieting behaviour have a lot to do with their busy lifestyles. I suggest you keep a food diary yourself and note down your own thoughts on your food consumption; you may get a bit of a shock, but that’s fine. Just write down everything you eat for a week, including any drinks, and the times you eat, plus the exercise you take.
Finding healthy options during a normal, busy day is extremely difficult. My clients would either go without because they didn’t have good choices, or they would opt for the fast-food or vending-machine items out of sheer necessity. We simply don’t make informed choices when we’re hungry, and that’s why the Lunch Box Diet is such a good way of eating. By grazing out of a box that you prepare ahead of time, you will be eliminating two major barriers to healthy weight loss.
You won’t end up choosing junk because your blood sugar levels will be more balanced.
You won’t devour the contents of the fridge as soon as you get a chance.
I’ll talk about breakfast and dinner in a bit (see chapter 6) but for now, let’s concentrate on the box itself.
The Method
Preparing Quick Boxes
Pick pre-cooked meats and mixed vegetable packs.
Cook extra meat at your evening meal to put in your box the next day.
Stock up on herbs and other dressing ingredients from Group C.
Buy frozen vegetables.
Bribe your partner to make your box at the same time as they’re making their own.
Remember: I don’t want you to have the hassle of measuring and weighing and counting calories. That’s why I keep it simple. If you can count, you can do this!
You’ll need a container with a lid that has a volume of between 2 and 5 litres. To find the volume of your box, simply pour water into it from a measuring jug. Mine is about the size of a shoebox and I’d class myself as an average-sized male. The size will become more apparent to you as you go along with the diet and adjustments can easily be made. The simple rule here is to pack more than you think you’ll need at first and then drop the box size (or simply the amount of food you put in it) once you’re used to the system. The main thing is not to pack too little and go hungry.
The idea is that you will eat a few mouthfuls from your box every hour or so – never to the point thatyou’re full, only until you’re satisfied. This is what grazing is. Your brain takes around 20 to 30 minutes to catch up with your stomach so take a few bites and if in 20 to 30 minutes you’re still hungry, take a few more bites. Yep, it’s as easy as that.
You’ll learn quickly that you can be easily satisfied on less when you graze because you’re constantly refuelling the body. Your stomach will adjust to less food just as it does the opposite when we overeat. When you pig out at a meal you stretch the stomach, making it more difficult to feel satisfied at the next meal, and you’re left on the sofa feeling tired and bloated. Yep, it’s that vicious cycle again, which you will now break!
Grazing does the exact opposite, super-fast, leaving you brimming with energy. What this means is that over time, you can reduce the size of your lunch box as you’ll need less to feel satisfied. I never want you to feel hungry – that’s the main thing; but if you are regularly having trouble finishing your box, just cut down the contents. It’s as easy as that!
What Do You Put in the Box?
There are three groups that you will be choosing from:
Group A: Vegetables – 45-60 per cent of your box by volume
Group B: Lean Protein – 15-30 per cent of your box by volume
Group C: Sauce – 10 per cent of your box by volume
And as an optional extra ONLY if you have high activity levels or diabetes:
Group D: Active Carbs System – 0-30 per cent quantity depends on energy requirements
As you can see, your