The idea: Lose as much body-fat as possible, as soon as possible, and replace that with muscle mass.

As our guru, Jason Hough, once told me, the more muscle mass you have, the higher your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR), enabling your body to burn more calories per day. Which makes a lot of sense, if you think about it: When I was a teen, I could eat pretty much anything I wanted because I was so active and had a much higher percentage of muscle mass. As you get older, and less active, your body-fat increases and muscle mass decreases. I really don’t want to eat less, rather, I want to get my body back into calorie-devouring shape. I want to boost my own metabolism.

The method: Stage 1) 3-day fast/detox. Stage 2) Muscle-time!

The 3-day fast/detox has two main benefits: 1) cleanse/flush my system from all the junk I’ve been consuming, and 2) *hopefully* accelerate initial weight-loss. Because true fasting can have a pretty radical effect on one’s body I’m trying to do it as sensibly as possible. For three days my diet will consist solely of: a single bowl of Kellogg’s All Bran Extra Fiber, 2 soft-boiled eggs, a LOT of water, green tea and cranberry juice. Thereafter, I simply plan on eating healthier foods, in smaller portions for the remaining 24 days. I’ll try to eat 6 smaller meals throughout the day, focusing on some of the renowned muscle building foods. My wife has always cooked healthy and delicious meals, so for dinner, I’ll eat the way we usually do, just earlier at night and, again, in smaller portions. Hopefully, this eating plan in conjunction with an intensified training program will help me achieve my goal.

Now, I’m off for a run!

Green Tea

There is a long list of excellent reasons to compliment your healthy diet with green tea; besides, it’s delicious! But how exactly does it promote weight-loss?

Well, green tea has been proven to activate the body’s thermogenic fat-burning activity. In simple terms, it stimulates the body to “heat up” and process fat cells. The active ingredient in green tea is catechin. Catechins help elevate the body’s primary fat-burning hormone, norepinephrine, which, in turn, speeds up weight loss! Awesome. Add to that the fact that green tea contains a respectable amount of caffeine – the last of the legal performance enhancers – and the result is one deadly weapon of mass reduction! And just when you think it couldn’t get any better than that, according to the British Journal of Nutrition, the interaction between the catechins (in particular EGCG) and the caffeine actually increases your resting metabolic rate. So the more green tea you drink, the more efficient your body will become at burning fat even when at rest.

I can recommend Twinings of London’s Pure & Natural Green Tea. Hint: if weight-loss is your goal, be sure to avoid the decaffeinated green tea or else you won’t get the full benefits of the reaction between the caffeine and the catechins! Method: bring water (almost) to boil, and pour over tea bag. Allow to steep for 1-2 minutes and enjoy!

Some people even take theirs cold… freaks!