The Lunch Box Diet: Eat all day, lose weight, feel great. Lose up to a stone in 4 weeks.

Chapter 1 Why the Lunch Box Diet?

First of all, well done! Put a massive smile on your face and feel the energy flowing from this second onwards!

The Lunch Box Diet is going to change the way you think about food, you’ll learn to know your body better than you have ever done before and the benefits to you over the next days, weeks and years are going to be significant.

This diet won’t only help you to lose weight; it might also get you doing more exciting things in your life. Maybe you’ll change your job and dump that annoying boss? Before I expand on this I want to tell you more about me so we can start building our relationship, which is going to be very important to your success.

I’ve worked as a personal trainer for many clients in one of the largest health clubs in the UK, so I know how difficult it can be for busy people to eat a healthy diet. Day in, day out, I’ve coached everyone from stay-at-home mums and dads to busy office workers and sportsmen and -women and I’ve found that they all have different routines, which makes controlling food intake different for everyone.

‘The Lunch Box Diet is going to change the way you think about food’

I’ve learned that a lot of the diet plans out there only take into account the food on the plate, not the tough demands upon your time and mental energies that modern life can bring. Many diets involve preparing meals and adding ingredients you just wouldn’t normally pick up, let alone have the time to prepare. My aim is to teach you how to build the Lunch Box Diet into your working day and train your taste buds to get used to a healthier way of eating. We’ll work hard together and, with my support, you’ll be able to get in shape, look great and feel more energised. It’s not just good for losing weight; it can also help to sustain a healthy balance in your diet. If you’re already an active person looking for an eating plan that complements your gym time, this plan will be ideal for you. This is the diet where you control what you eat based on your energy levels. What’s more you’ll never be hungry – ever – and you’ll lose weight. Yep, keep smiling!

My Story

I think it’s very important that professionals who set out to teach other people should base their teaching on personal experience. I haven’t been lean, strong and confident all my life – in fact, the contrary is true.

I was overweight in my early twenties and was easily a few jean sizes over what is classed as ‘normal’ these days. My average daily diet consisted of fried food, pizzas and microwave meals. My snacks were chocolate bars, my energy levels low and my confidence almost non-existent. When you’re down there, it’s hard to see out. I never thought that one day I would be writing a book about eating properly and spending most of my days teaching people how fitness and health can change their world. Hell, no!

But everyone has a turning point in their lives and mine came when I was bullied at school. Enough was enough. I joined a kung-fu class. At the class I met a guy called Tim. He took me under his wing, threw me into the gym and got me lifting weights. My body shape started to change and I got the buzz. I started attracting more girls – fantastic! As a guy who used to be the butt of everyone’s jokes, I loved it. Who wouldn’t? To Tim, who took me through those important first steps – thank you. I wouldn’t be writing this now and helping others if you hadn’t paid special attention to me.

Some of this back story may resonate with you because of experiences in your own life. It might not. But a lot of people who have problems with their weight have a story to tell. If I can connect with some of you in this way then we have a better chance of moving forward and developing together.

The Birth of the Diet

What I have found most satisfying about this project is that I never sat down and said, ‘I’m going to write a diet plan.’ It just snowballed from a simple three-page document I gave to my personal training clients. Those who followed my advice soon began to reap the rewards, and the feedback was excellent. Though I had believed it was a workable plan, I was still floored by the response. Everyone who tried it loved it. They passed it along to friends and family and before I knew it, people were asking me about my ‘diet’. That’s when I knew I had hit on something big.

The Lunch Box Diet was initially launched on the internet as an ebook, where it got rave reviews from top women’s magazines. They were saying things like ‘a way of life’ and ‘the best diet I’ve ever done’ (Elle magazine, January 2008). I knew that the plan worked because I used it myself and my clients were telling me it worked for them, but it was an unbelievable feeling when top-rated women’s publications were shouting it out to hundreds of thousands of people. That’s what led us to where we are now – the printed book.

‘I don’t want to be remembered for helping people to lose weight by drinking liquid diets and eating only one type of food’

I don’t want to be remembered for helping people to lose weight by drinking liquid diets and eating only one type of food, leaving them with no energy or zest for life. Instead, I want to help people to gain increased energy, improved concentration, better skin, no hunger pangs at work and improved overall health – the list goes on.

The great thing about the Lunch Box Diet is that after just a few days, you start to learn more about your body and it all happens quite naturally. If you are too strict about dieting or healthy eating, you will rebel. Of course, we all need an element of willpower to succeed but because you’re reading this I assume you’re ready to give it a go – so again, well done!

What Lies Ahead?

‘Don’t run away! If you’re not a vegetable lover, I’m going to teach you how easy it is to retrain your taste buds so that you will no longer want to hide your veggies’

So what is this Lunch Box Diet? I’ll go into depth later but as a very quick summary, the Lunch Box Diet is a fantastic, easy way of eating that lets you eat a normal breakfast and dinner and shows you how to ‘graze’ your way through the rest of the day. ‘Grazing’ means nibbling small quantities of food all day long, whenever you’re hungry. The diet is based on some very simple principles, one of which you’ve known about since you were a child: eat your veggies. Don’t run away! If you’re not a vegetable lover, I’m going to teach you how easy it is to retrain your taste buds so that you will no longer want to hide your veggies in your napkin or feed them to the dog under the table.

I’ll explain the low-down on healthy, effective, lasting weight loss. I’ll guide you through the effect metabolism has on your ability to lose weight. I’ll show you why you are far better off eating little and often than starving yourself. All those girls who starve themselves down to size ‘negative-two’ thin are asking for a heap of trouble in the future. At the very least, they’ll simply gain the weight back (usually plus some) and find it more difficult to maintain an ideal body weight. In the worst case, they may end up with a serious, life-threatening eating disorder. I don’t want that for you. I want you to be healthy and vibrant…that’s what sexy is.

Speaking of which, we’re also going to look at the emotional aspects of eating. I’ve been in the personal training business long enough to know that issues surrounding weight gain go beyond what you put in your mouth. Sometimes it’s a lot about why.

Once we’re through all of the basics, I’m going to instruct you on how to follow the diet. I can’t wait to show you all of its wonderful components and start you on the path to looking and feeling fabulous. I’ll take you through the rainbow of vegetables and tell you all about the wonderful options when choosing lean protein (which go way beyond chicken). The Lunch Box Diet is easy to use if you don’t eat meat, because you’ll learn about other types of protein and how to incorporate them into your day.

I believe that ‘sauce’ should live up to its name by being ‘saucy’. I’ll show you how breaking up with those creamy dressings and heavy cheese sauces will be just as good for you as it was to dump that dreadful ex! Healthy sauce is anything but dull. My lunch boxes are delicious and yours will be too. I’ll give you plenty of fabulous recipes to get you started.

Many diets today are based on reducing your carbohydrate intake. We’ll talk about carbs and I’ll show you why the low-carb craze is neither completely wrong nor completely right.

You’ll be eating a normal breakfast and dinner in addition to the scrumptious contents of your lunch box – but what does ‘normal’ mean? I wish I could tell you that you can eat a monstrous stack of toast with bacon for breakfast and a 12-ounce T-bone steak, butter-stuffed baked potato and half a chocolate cake for dinner and still lose weight. Of course, I could say that – but then I’d be telling you a big fat lie! Don’t worry. Conversely, I’m not going to tell you that all you can have is a carrot stick and a cup of hot water. What I will do is talk a bit about portions and provide you with some healthy ideas so we can gradually build you up to a healthier new you, forever!

Unexpected Benefits

Don’t you just love it when you get an unexpected bonus on your salary? You may have bought this book because you want to lose weight, but there’s a hidden bonus because this diet goes way beyond weight loss. I didn’t even realise how much so until I did some research. I’d simply chosen what I believed to be a healthy way of losing weight. When I looked into the food choices more deeply, I found out all sorts of things about what they can do in terms of your general health and I’m going to share that knowledge with you in chapter 8.

As well as getting a beautiful new body, your skin will improve and your hair will be healthier. Even more importantly, your heart will be healthier and you will be reducing your risk of developing disease. That’s just a little bit of what goes on with your body when you eat the way I’m going to show you.

The best news of all is that you are going to feel better than you ever have in your life. You’ll soon discover that this isn’t merely a ‘diet’ – it’s a revolutionary way of eating well that you will want to follow for life. Just give it seven days.

So, what are you waiting for? Welcome to your Lunch Box Diet.

Chapter 2 Weight Loss: the Easy Way

You’ve tried and failed and tried and failed again. I’m sure you’ve blamed yourself

I don’t want to eat flavourless foods. I don’t want to give up my favourites. I don’t want to starve myself. I don’t want to measure things or count calories or anything of the sort. And I’m sure you don’t either.

Why? Because all of that is extremely stressful, as if life weren’t stressful enough all on its own.

And guess what? All that stress could actually be making you heavier. We all react to stress differently. Since I began exercising, I tend to take out my frustrations in the gym. It wasn’t always that way, though.

I used to let the pressures in my life affect me negatively. A long day in the office then a trip to the pub after work led to a sore head in the morning, followed by cravings for stodgy foods that would slow me down yet again, causing a snowball effect that left me with the movement and motivation of a sloth. Not a nice feeling.

Mind and Body

Reducing Stress

Learn a relaxation technique. Practising relaxation isn’t difficult. All you need is five minutes in a quiet setting. Close your eyes, breathe in deeply through your nose and feel your belly fill up. Exhale through your nose feeling your belly empty. If thoughts come to mind, just let them go with the breath. Concentrate on the breath – that’s it!

Listen to music. Keep music in the car, in the kitchen, in your bedroom, in the study, at the treadmill, in your gym bag…everywhere! Choose the background music to your life. Music can relax us, it can fire us up, and it can touch on every emotion in between. It’s also a great way of relieving stress.

We’ve heard for years about stress affecting our hearts. But it affects more, so much more. It affects nearly every part of our physical selves.

When we have very stressful lives, there are many physical symptoms. Joints ache, muscles feel weak, our hormones are out of whack, our immune systems are weakened, and these physical problems just add to the psychological pressure we’re under. And guess what? As if the plate of brownies you consumed the other night after losing that promotion to your idiot colleague wasn’t enough, the physical way in which your body responded to all that stress you’ve been under might have added a few extra pounds as well.

We produce the hormone cortisol when we are under stress and the kicker is that Cortisol can cause you to produce more abdominal fat. Abdominal fat is undesirable aesthetically, and it also contains the most dangerous type of body fat. This is called ‘visceral fat’, and it has been linked to increased rates of cardiovascular disease and type II diabetes as well as breast cancer in women.

So, should you just give up and let yourself go? I mean, after all, it’s not as if we can stop stressful things from happening, right? What do we do? First of all, you stop putting undue stress on yourself. Maybe it’s inadvisable to tell the boss what you really think about his or her latest idiotic idea, but you can reduce personal stress by choosing not to follow ridiculously restrictive diets. Stop starving yourself or following plans that are clearly unhealthy. Stop denying yourself the foods you love. Stop eating flavourless foods because you’ve been told you’ll lose weight if you follow a particular meal plan. It makes me so angry that people are adding to their life stresses because of their constant quest to be thin and perfect. It really doesn’t need to be that way.

Free Yourself from Stress

Reducing Stress

Learn to let go of anger. Anger can help us if it produces the drive we need to overcome problems in our lives. However, when anger becomes resentment it only holds us back. Sometimes, we just have to let it go. Trust me, it takes a lot more energy to hold on to anger than it does to be happy. It’s a choice you can make.

I know you want to lose weight, but healthy weight loss doesn’t have to be stressful. My clients are busy people who find that working out relieves stress from the daily grind. The last thing I want to do is add more stress to their lives. The Lunch Box Diet is convenient and versatile. People enjoy making and eating their own creations and coming up with new secret recipes. Colleagues, clients and friends are always trying to get a peek in my box, and I love to share ideas. If people didn’t share then we would never learn.

Here’s another piece of advice: ‘Surround yourself with people you aspire to be like and you will end up being like them. Surround yourself with stressed people and you’ll end up being stressed yourself.’ The same can be said if you surround yourself with people who eat bad, junky foods. Have a think about who you are and how much of that is influenced by the people you surround yourself with. You may want to make a few changes in your life to help you on a more positive path, and this in turn will assist with your weight loss.

I’ve found that my clients like losing weight without the stress of traditional dieting. That’s why I allow occasional indulgences while helping you to retrain your taste buds to enjoy healthy foods.

You’ll find that when you eat a diet full of highly nutritious foods, you will be more energetic, stronger and healthier overall. When you are less susceptible to illness and feeling your best, stress is much easier to handle. In addition, you’ll discover that there’s no better stress-buster than a good session in the gym or other energetic pursuits. You don’t have to exercise on the Lunch Box Diet but you’ll probably be more inclined to get up and be active after only a short while on this diet.

Ultimately, my goal is to help you lose weight, learn to eat healthily for life, get you working out and do it all without stress. Leave those fad starvation diets behind and let’s delve into a little science.

We tend to beat ourselves up for being overweight. We feel as though it’s all about what we did or didn’t do. Guess what? It’s not all up to you. You weren’t necessarily the one who failed. There’s a better than zero chance that the diet failed you!

There are reasons why diets fail us. To understand this, you need to know a few basic nutritional principles. Don’t worry, I’ll make it fun! Keep reading.

The first is a simple maths equation.

weight maintenance: what goes in = what goes out

What goes in is obviously the food you consume measured in calories, which is the measurement term used for energy. Your energy intake must be equivalent to what your body burns in order to simply maintain your weight. What doesn’t get burned is stored as fat.

Burn, Baby, Burn

Reducing Stress

Stop driving yourself crazy with guilt. Guilt is a wasted emotion. There are days when you get it all done and days when you don’t. Accomplish the big things, the imperative things, but if you let a few little things slide to free up time for more important things like exercise or family time, that’s okay!

We burn energy day and night to perform the basic necessities of life: breathing, digestion, brain function and so forth. The amount of energy burned for these basic functions varies according to a person’s size, age and sex. The larger the person, the harder the body has to work, so the more energy is burned. As we get older, we burn less energy – which may very well be why some of you bought this book in the first place. For the first time in your life, you might be experiencing weight gain.

Most of us do more during the day than simply breathing and digesting food (I hope!). How much more varies. Some of us have physically active jobs. Others spend the day sitting behind a desk. But we all have choices about what we do with our free time. For some, relaxing means lying on the sofa and for others it means going on a bracing hike.

I don’t want you to count every calorie, nor to become a slave to the ‘calories burned’ function on your treadmill. However, you must adjust your eating to accommodate your activity level. It’s just common sense.

Setting a Budget

Energy intake can be seen as a budget. When you wake up, you get a basic allowance according to your energy needs for the day that you can spend without paying the price of weight gain. All day long you spend this energy budget whenever you eat. If you take some form of exercise, you earn more energy so your budget for food is larger. You can eat more without gaining weight than others who are less active. We’ll talk more about food budget and food choices when we get into the Lunch Box Diet itself, so grab a highlighter and mark up the page here.

For now, let’s go back to our equation. I’m assuming you care less about weight maintenance and a lot more about weight loss. So, in looking at our equation, you can easily see that in order to lose weight, you need to do one of two things – or both.

Reduce what goes in (lower energy intake)

Increase what goes out (burn more energy)

Eat less and burn more energy (preferred)

Seems simple, right? For the most part, it is. But how much should you cut out of your diet in order to lose weight at an optimum rate? Again I don’t want you to count but for the sake of understanding, I’ll tell you a bit more. One pound of body weight is more or less equivalent to 3,500 calories. Rather convenient considering there are seven days in a week. You can quickly see that if you reduce your energy intake by 500 calories a day or burn an additional 500 calories (about a 40-minute jog/run on the treadmill), you should theoretically lose about a pound a week.

You might be tempted to adjust this even more severely to lose weight more quickly. The fact is, in order to lose weight effectively – in other words keep the weight off – slow and steady is the key. There are guidelines to what people say is safe, but we need to remember that, depending on your current weight and the changes to your diet and exercise, weight will drop off at different rates per individual – usually the heavier you are the more initially and then less as your weight comes down closer to maintenance level. What we want to steer away from is a ridiculous calorie chop where you’re taking in a stupidly low amount of calories per day, but don’t worry, that’s not going to happen here! You won’t be able to continue a very low-calorie diet forever and once you resume eating more than carrot sticks and hot water, you’ll gain it back. It also mucks up your metabolism, which we’ll discuss later (see page 25). Fortunately with the Lunch Box Diet, it’s a sustainable plan that you can see working long term as part of your new, happy lifestyle!