Without question, one of the best ways to make fast progress towards your fat loss goals is to keep a diet journal. Using the method I’m going to outline in this months’ challenge, you’ll make guaranteed progress if you follow it to a ‘T’ …

April 2011 Nutrition Challenge

1. Start this month’s nutrition challenge by keeping a food long for three days.

2. The next step is to go through your food log and give yourself a grade.

You’ll go by the following standard:

‘Eat vegetables, lean protein, nuts and seeds, little starch, some fruit and no sugar.’

Let’s say, for example, you end up eating 12 meals over the course of three days’ time. (That would be three larger meals and one snack each day on average).

You if you ‘eat right’ and follow the guidelines outlined above for all but one of those 12 meals, you would get a 92%. That’s an ‘A’ – and enough to make some great progress.

Now conversely, let’s say you end up with an 8 out of 12. You’d get a 67% – a ‘D’ – which is not enough to make progress.

An ‘A’ grade is what you’re shooting for to make fast progress towards your goals. You can make okay, but slower progress with a ‘B’, and anything ‘C’ or less isn’t enough to get you where you want to go.

The idea with this month’s challenge is to get a holistic view of your eating habits. It’s to teach you to eat properly and sustainably in your efforts to reach your ultimate fitness goals. And it’s also one of the best methods I know to reach your fitness goals fast. So get started now and good luck!

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It’s time for the monthly nutrition challenge … here’s the concept, in case it’s your first one:

For a week out of every month, we’ll announce a nutrition ‘challenge’. Over the next six months, we’ll touch on a ‘pilar’ of good eating for a week out of every month … and if you take every challenge, after six months, you’ll have build a foundation of healthy eating.

Here are the last two month’s challenges in case you missed them:

January 2011 Nutrition Challenge

February 2011 Nutrition Challenge

And for this month:

Limit your intake of refined carbohydrate to one serving per day

Notes:

• The definition of refined carbohydrate, from about.com: “Refined carbohydrates are produced when whole plants which are high in carbohydrates are processed in a way to strip out everything but the highly digestible carbohydrate (starch or sugar).”

• Refined carbohydrates include: Anything we call “sugar” including granulated sugar and high fructose corn syrup; grains that have been made “white” by stripping the germ and/or bran from the grain, including white flour, white rice, white pasta, and couscous; anything called “starch” – corn starch, modified food starch, etc.’; grains that have been turned into flakes, puffs, shreds, etc.

Good luck!

Forest

P.S. Looking to get started with one of our Sacramento, CA personal training or fitness boot camp programs (or know someone else who is)? We’re still offering a FREE trial session to prospective clients who want to come in and ‘test out’ our services … call (916) 273 9366 or contact us here … we’ll chat for a few minutes over the phone, get an idea of what your fitness goals are, figure out if our program is a good fit for what you’re looking for and schedule your free trial session … contact us today!