Step 3

Live It! – Now that your stomach has shrunk you just need to keep making small improvements.  If you hit a plateau kick it up a notch with your walk/running.  You can choose to go back to 4 or 3 meals a day and you will feel content with your new, smaller stomach.  The weight reduction at first was huge but now is 1-2 lbs./wk.  Don’t worry, just keep living your new slmaller stomach and keep increasing your fitness level and you will see over time you will be at the perfect weight and you can work to sculpt your body into a perfect body. 

Chances are you have noticed a lot of things changing with the size of your stomach.  Now you are getting full faster and notice you don’t even want to finish one of your meals.  Stop eating, this is just what happens as your stomach shrinks.  It was probably one of the smaller meals, or maybe you feel like you could skip a meal or forget to eat it.  Don’t do that as one of the elements of this method is that your body never goes into starvation mode because it is always being fed.  Just cut down the volume of the previous meal.  It is at a time of the day when you don’t need more energy.   But the size of your stomach is dependent on the volume of the food you eat.  So if you are eating 2 4oz. breakfasts and then 2 8 oz. lunches and 2 12 oz. dinners then the smallest your stomach is 12 ozs.  In order for it to get smaller you must turn those lunch and dinner meals into smaller volume meals. 

In step 1 you measured your meals.  I also asked you to measure the volume of hour hand/fist from tip to wrist.  This is the proper size of your stomach and you should never eat/drink more than this amount.  So let’s say that your stomach is the same size as mine 16 oz.  And you are eating 2 10 oz. dinners.  In step 3 you will be eating only 4 meals a day.  One may be less than 16 oz. but right now to satisfy your daily nutritional balance you would need to eat 1 20 oz meal, but at 16 oz. that would be too much.  So you need to decrease the size of this meal to no more than 8 oz. 

Also pay attention to what your body is telling you.  If you feel hungry after a meal then your body may be telling you that you need more food at that time of the day or even that your previous meal may have not been enough.  Feel free to adjust how big your meal is as long as you don’t go over half of your maximum.  I find that my body needs protein the first thing in the morning and then energy at lunch part 2.  Everyone is different so just pay attention to the clues your body is giving you.

So now your stomach in the above example is no larger than 8 fl. oz. and your stomach is shrinking.  You still have the energy and feel as you did, full, after each meal.  Be careful of drinking water with your meals as this adds to the overall fluid ounces of the meal.  Sip water in 2-4 oz. tastes and preferably before and after you eat by a half hour.  You still need your 8 glasses a day.

 Fire up your metabolism.  You are going to work out more than you have previously to get your metabolism higher and thus you will need more food.  Time to switch to 4 meals a day.  Eat a regular breakfast, lunch and then add a healthy snack and a late dinner.  Keep portions under your fist/hand size and keep drinking your 8 glasses of water.  Start Phase 4 of your exercises which is meant to get your metabolism to a point where you can eat anything you like and not have to worry about your weight. 

You can then move into sculpting your body and targeting your problem areas.  The way your body works is like a crowded elevator.  Your body stores fat in a certain areas first, your problem areas.  Well, these areas are the ones that the body uses first like the first people to get onto an elevator.  When you reduce your fat the first fat it stored is the last to be reduced, just like an elevator.  The first people on the elevator are the last ones off when you get on the ground floor.  In this step you are on your ground floor but may not look like the models in magazines.  But you will. 

Once your metabolism is fired up and you aren’t gaining weight you can focus on the exercises that will reduce the areas that give you the most problems.  You do this by working them harder than the other areas.  I know you have heard that spot training doesn’t work but that is not true.  Figure skaters have great lower bodies.  Golfers have more back strength than is proportioned for the rest of their bodies.  Any area you work more at will surpass the other areas as long as the other muscles are engaged. 

Focus your exercises on getting the body you want and keep sculpting until you have it.  Then it is easy to maintain by doing Phase 2 or Phase 3 depending on the amount of exercise you get in doing the normal activities of your new life.  Maybe now you don’t play soccer but now that you have your new body you will.  Then you are probably getting the necessary cardio for your life and don’t need to go on the walks.  Keep track of your eating and your weight and you won’t have an issue. 

Spread the word on your results and send before and after photos.  When things are this easy and fast people’s natural response is to not believe it is true.  Seeing your results will allow them to have the courage to take the necessary steps to take control of their eating and fitness and their lives.  Thanks and God Bless.