The 17 Day Diet (7 page)

5’ 3” = 109

5’ 4” = 114

5’ 5” = 119

5’ 6” = 124

5’ 7” = 129

5’ 8” = 134

5’ 9” = 139

5’ 10” = 145

5’ 11” = 150

6‘ = 155

6’ 1” = 160

6’ 2” = 165

6’ 3” = 170

6’ 4” = 175

6’ 5” = 180

6’ 6” = 185

Midpoint

5’ = 110

5’ 1” = 116

5’ 2” = 122

5’ 3” = 128

5’ 4” = 134

5’ 5” = 140

5’ 6” = 146

5’ 7” = 152

5’ 8” = 158

5’ 9” = 164

5’ 10” = 170

5’ 11” = 176

6‘ = 182

6’ 1” = 188

6’ 2” = 194

6’ 3” = 200

6’ 4” = 206

6’ 5” = 212

6’ 6” = 218

Large-Boned Frame

5’ = 127

5’ 1” = 133

5’ 2” = 140

5’ 3” = 147

5’ 4” = 154

5’ 5” = 161

5’ 6” = 168

5’ 7” = 175

5’ 8” = 182

5’ 9” = 189

5’ 10” = 196

5’ 11” = 202

6‘ = 209

6’ 1” = 216

6’ 2” = 223

6’ 3” = 230

6’ 4” = 237

6’ 5” = 244

6’ 6” = 251

SCIENCE SAYS: Use Your Brain to Get Buff

M
edical studies have shown that visualizing yourself in the shape you want to be in can help you attain a trim, toned physique. The brain thinks very much in pictures. If you can call up a picture in your mind, you have a powerful way of making it happen. So it’s important to get the image of your perfect body in your mind so you can create it.

Start imagining what your life will be like as a thin, healthy person. You’ll be able to play, be active, really live, and enjoy living for your family. You’ll be able to shop at normal stores, not own plus-sized clothes, and forget worrying about fitting into airplane seats. You’ll no longer be a target of jokes or have people judge you. And you won’t have to fear a future of diabetes, heart attack, stroke or other weight-related health issues. All of these images give your mind realistic goals to work toward.

Let’s talk about scales for a moment. Your bathroom scale can be a top tool for losing weight. I know, some people say throw it out. But those people are naturally thin or possibly teach aerobics classes. They don’t need a scale.

If you skirt the scale, your weight might start going up, and you won’t know it. Then, when the nurse forces you at pen point to ascend the scale at your next doctor’s appointment and 302 pops up, you might go into shock.

Tracking your weight is one of the most important things you can do to prevent that from happening. It’s also a habit that has helped people in the National Weight Control Registry—a group of several thousand “successful losers”—hold their weight steady. Registry participants have lost at least 30 pounds and kept it off for at least a year.

Yes, other things can tell you a lot about your weight: the way your clothes fit, how winded you feel going up a flight of stairs or how you look in the mirror. But weigh yourself too, every several days, or at least once a week, and definitely after each 17 day Cycle.

Just resist weighing yourself dozens of times a day in hopes of a better outcome.

So take that candy jar off your desk. It may make you less popular with your co-workers, but you’re on your way to a lighter life. And that’s exciting.

LEAN 17
: Facts about Fat

1.
The average adult has 40 billion fat cells.

2.
Fat is also one of the most abundant types of tissue in the body.

3.
Fat tissue is a dynamic, complex and necessary component of life.

4.
Girls are born with more fat cells than boys.

5.
By the time you’re a teenager, you will likely have all the fat cells you are ever going to have.

6.
Fat grows when existing cells enlarge and when new cells get created.

7.
The number of fat cells can go up, but not down.

8.
When you lose weight, existing fat cells shrink.

9.
Fat cells die, but your body quickly replenishes them with the same number.

10.
Fat cells are bigger in obese people.

11.
Fat cells come in two types: white and brown. White is the kind that makes your jeans too tight. Brown fat is found in babies and has the ability to burn energy.

12.
Fat cells, like cancer cells, and other cells in the body, feed themselves oxygen with new blood vessels in a process known as angiogenesis. Fat can’t expand without expanding its blood vessels, just like a city can’t expand without expanding its roads. Researchers are studying whether certain cancer drugs can starve fat cells to stop fat expansion the same way they starve tumors.

13.
When you exercise, cells produce an enzyme that tells fatty tissue to release its stores for muscles to burn.

14.
The liver stores glucose from food as glycogen and releases it into the bloodstream when energy is needed. Once glucose runs out, the body starts to burn fat.

15.
Fat cells secrete estrogen, which is linked to certain types of cancer, chiefly breast cancer in postmenopausal women.

16.
Body fat accumulates from head to toe and comes off the same way.

17.
Body fat is like a ski suit: it provides insulation against the cold. A downside of getting thin is that you might shiver more often.

Review:

•
On the 17 Day Diet, you eat healthy foods: lean proteins, vegetables, low-sugar fruits, natural carbs, probiotics and friendly fats. These foods work together to improve your digestion and metabolism.

•
The 17 Day Diet supplies the nutrients you need for good health.

•
The 17 Day Diet limits carbs somewhat, because many people are carbohydrate sensitive, a condition that interferes with weight loss.

•
Drinking water is vital for weight loss; so is drinking green tea.

3
Cycle 1: Accelerate

D
ropping up to
10 or 12 pounds over the next 17 days is possible, and you can see impressive results quickly if you follow to the letter Cycle 1: Accelerate.

The trouble with most diets (besides the boring food lists and the inevitable hunger pangs) is that it’s tricky to find one that helps you shed pounds quickly without compromising the nutritional quality of your meals—and ultimately your health and vitality. This Cycle gets you on the road to lean quickly, plus keeps you full, energetic and motivated.

On this Cycle you can eat unlimited protein—including meat, poultry, eggs and fish, as well as many vegetables. But you limit your carbohydrate intake by initially cutting out white bread, potatoes, pasta, rice, chocolate, biscuits and sugary desserts and sweets. Fruit and fats are not banned, and that’s good because both will add sweetness and flavor to your diet.

Cycle 1 is called Accelerate because its purpose is to trigger rapid weight loss in a healthy manner by mobilizing fat stores and flushing water and toxins from your system. The following are the things the Accelerate Cycle will be doing for you:

•
Reducing carbohydrate intake slightly so that your body taps into its storage fat.

•
Increasing protein intake so that your body goes into a fat-burning mode.

•
Correcting improper digestion—a situation that can hold you back from fat-burning.

•
Providing rapid weight loss at the start, so that you have the incentive to keep going.

•
Getting out sugar, sweets, refined carbohydrates and other substances that cause those dreaded spikes and dips in blood sugar. Once you’ve broken the Cycle, your body will simply not crave them anymore. In this Cycle, you’re removing foods that don’t work well for your body.

•
Clearing your body of possible toxins. Pollutants in the body interfere with both the thyroid gland, which helps regulate the body’s metabolism, and individual cells’ energy factories (mitochondria), which convert fuel into energy.

If you reach your goal the first 17 days, you can go right on to Cycle 4, maintenance. If you still have more weight to lose move on to Cycle 2: Activate—and enjoy even more foods for another 17 days. And then it’s on to Cycle 3 for the next 17 days, a more liberal version of the first two Cycles. And if you’re waiting for the day when I declare that cupcakes are part of your diet, that day arrives with Cycle 4, designed to keep your weight off with the reintroduction of your favorite foods back into your life.

SCIENCE SAYS: Toxins and Metabolic Rate

I
wouldn’t be surprised if our livers went around saying: “I don’t get no respect!” Day in and day out, we’re exposed to toxins through drinking water, some foods and other sources. The liver, the primary organ of metabolism, has to work overtime to detoxify these things out of the body. Also, these particular toxins are stored in your fat cells—so as you start to shed pounds, they’re released into your bloodstream.