The Secret Diet Plan

Firstly thank you for reading my article. The reason I’ve decided to write this is after almost seven years of achieving drug free bodybuilding success and an additional two years helping others achieve amazing results along with just helping friends, family and random people who have asked me for help, I’ve decided to share my secrets.
This article will simply explained in clear and understandable english how easy it can be to reach the targets and goals you have set out for yourself regarding your appearance. Along with this it is important to add that by reading this book you have made the first steps towards changing your appearance and you may have already begun to believe that this may just be possible.

In the first stages of this article we are going to get your mind ready, then we are going to help you understand the very simple basics of food, “good and bad” and then we will set you on plan full of positive hope toward achieving the new you. Now I can’t do it all for you....... But we can do it together and we will do it together.

This first section is incredibly important. To achieve any goals in life you first need to have believe and you must think positively towards the outcome or its not even worth starting. I suggest that before we even attempt to change your diet and educate you on the basics of food you must focus on how you want to look in the
mirror. Easier said than done you say! Go and stand in front of a mirror with know one around. Now look at your self up and down, then turn around and look back at your self, then think hard about how you see the current you. You may like parts of you and you may not not like parts of you but remember no matter how attractive someone is or no matter how amazing there body is know one person is one hundred percent happy and that makes you just like everyone else. The next stage is to imagine how you want to look. This means imagine how you want to look and be realistic. Don't imagine your favourite music star or actress/actor, remember this is about you. You may recall how you looked ten years ago or how you have never looked before but imagine what you want the end result to be. Then think about this diet in stages. The stages are how you want to look in five weeks, then ten week, then six months, then a year. Remember what you imagined. No athlete trains hard or gives everything up if they didn't believe winning possible, does a entrepreneur takes risks and setup a new business with no backing if they don't believe it is possible and if they fail why do they try again. Man started to build a plane many years ago because we one day dreamed of flying. What I’m trying
to say is that to achieve the final outcome you need to believe it, see it and think about it over and over. If I didn't believe this book could help you, why would I bother to start writing.

The first secret about dieting to improve your appearance is to see what you want to look like and believe that YOU can achieve it. Before we talk about food, before we workout a plan and before we give you hope, you must focus your mind on how you want to look at the end of this and believe that now is the time for you and
now you can make it happen. If you struggle with getting this part of the plan on track then don't read on until you master positive thinking. Speak to your self in
positive words only. When you notice the negative thinking start, replace it with positive thinking. Say the words out loud, “I can achieve this” I can make things different, I will make things different, the great things are never easy that is why achieving them makes me special.”

Now read this section again and set your mind on the mission you now have set out for you. This mission must give you hope and believe that we can achieve anything we set our minds on regardless of how easy or how difficult, it can be achieved. I know this because I have done it and this is how I started. I have helped other people do it and this is how they started.

So this is how you must start.

You made it to this section which must means you believe that what you want is now possible and with the right mind set helping you along this journey the final outcome will be amazing and it’s good for you to start to get excited about the future which should now be full of hope and positive thoughts towards improving your appearance.

Know I can’t just write out a diet and give it to you to follow because you might not like it. You may have allergies towards some foods or major taste dislikes towards other foods. So each one of you will need to have your own individual diet. Don’t
panic! I will show you my diet later and explain what I do but this is not about me, its about you and we must find you an enjoyable lifestyle diet that is easy to follow, not complicated and one you understand.

You need to put food into these categories. Protein, carbohydrates, good fats, bad fats, vitamins and junk. Now you have to thinkabout the food god supplied man to survive on. He didn't create biscuits, cakes, crisps, donuts. So you need to focus your mind on the natural foods that we have. If your food once walk and breathed air it will probably be a source of good protein, if your food once grew from the ground or on branches it will probably be a great source of carbs and vitamins. These things are good to think about when eating. When eating things that are bad and in the junk category think about the long processes in which it has been made and how many different ingredients have been put in to it. Think about and imagine lots of different hands touching it and that it may have even fallen onto the ground and been pick up more than once during this process. Now if you imagine the good
food being clean and looking fresh and healthy it starts to become more appealing than what we know as bad and unhealthy food. If you do this every time you get hungry your mind will start making the good food look more appealing than the bad food which is a good step to take in changing your mind set towards a
healthy diet.

In this section I’m going to help you think about the categories in more details so you can understand the foods.

Protein

You've probably heard that protein is the most important source that help you build muscles. But they are much more than that. Proteins are worker molecules that are necessary for virtually every activity in your body. Which means you never want to run your body low on protein and it should be the first thing you need to look at when eating. It also keeps you feeling fuller for longer and can stop you craven by satisfying your appetite. Protein foods are in most meats or living things such as, Chicken, Turkey, Beef, Pork, cod, salmon, haddock, prawns, most beans and peas like, black beans, kidney beans, black eyed peas, soy beans and lentils. Nuts can also be a good source of protein and a hand full of raw nuts with dried fruit make a good snack.

Carbohydrates

Explaining carbohydrate is easy as carbohydrates are the energy your body uses to perform basic functions such as walking and thinking. If your feeling tied you may be running low on carbs. Good Carbohydrate foods are fruit, oats, brown pasta, brown rice, potatoes, sweet potatoes. Bad carbohydrates are cakes, biscuits, sweets and most processed foods.

Good fats and bad fats

Good fats are important as you need fat in you diet but you must remember you need good fats, not bad fats. Fats are essential are within the human body. Though you've probably often heard the word "fats" and associated it with bad health, there are some essential fatty acids that are necessary for your survival. Without
them, you could cause serious damage to different systems within the body. However, essential fatty acids are also not usually produced naturally within the body. This means that you have to obtain essential fatty acids by adding them to your diet. The good fats are Avocado, Sunflower seeds, Pumpkin seeds, fish
such as Salmon, tuna, trout, mackerel, sardines, Natural peanut butter, nuts, Olives and olive oil, Sunflower oil, Flax seed oil, cottage cheese. The bad fats to stay clear from are butter, ice cream, lard, margarine, fried food such as fried chicken, chicken nuggets, french fries, candy bars, cakes, donuts, pastries and most food that are similar.

Vitamins

Vitamins are organic compounds which your body needs in small quantities to work. We get vitamins from food, because the human body either does not produce enough, or none at all. Vitamins fall into two categories that are fat soluble and water soluble. The fatsoluble vitamins A, D, E, and K dissolve in fat and can be stored in your body. The water-soluble vitamins C and the B-complex vitamins such as vitamins B6, B12, niacin, riboflavin, and folate need to dissolve in water before your body can absorb them. A fresh supply of vitamins is needed almost everyday. Most good foods especially fruit, salads and vegetable include lost
of vitamins so keeping a healthy supply of these in your diet every day is something you must try to achieve.

Now that you are slightly educated on what foods are and what they can do we can move on but remember you don't need to be a scientist to work out the best diet plan for your self and keeping things simply is the best way to achieve the end result. The more we complicate this the harder it becomes. So from this day forward think about adding a good level of protein to your diet as your body needs it for growth and muscle recovery. Add some good carbohydrates for a good source of energy so your body can think and function correctly. Add in some healthy fats to make sure your joints are protected and able to move freely and then supply your self with salad, vegetables and fruit for the vitamins your health
desires.

Designing a Diet

Designing a diet that fits into your lifestyle is the key to making it work. There is no point us trying to design a diet that does not work for your lifestyle or one you will not enjoy. Simply we need to look at the categories of food again and make sure we include healthy amounts of everything you need to function for the type of life you lead. You must take into consideration your day to day routine. Are you in a job that means your mind is active all day? Does your job involve lots of physical activity? Do you work long hours? These points are very important as if your in a physical job you made need more protein to help your muscle recover. If your mind needs to stay active you may need more carbohydrates for energy to keep your
mind focused. The one thing you will need is you vitamins no matter what your daily lifestyle.

Breakfast

For breakfast we need a good source of energy and vitamins. I normally go with something like oats and berries. The oats give me energy and the berries are good for digestion and have a great level of vitamins. Another breakfast I have is scrambled eggs and salmon with a slice of wholemeal toast. I also add some tomato sauce with this to take away the dryness. Now tomato sauce isn't the healthiest product but adding a small amount will never hurt you and it is important
that these meals are enjoyable. Another breakfast we can have is Weetabix with semi skinned milk. Try not to go with full fat milk if you can help it. My last option is a fruit smoothie with a scoop of a protein supplementation.

Lunch

When thinking about lunch we need to consider what plans our afternoon has for us. I normally like to help myself recover from themorning and reenergise for the afternoon. I normally go with a good amount of protein and carbs. These are my lunch option that I use on a regular bases. A jacket potato with low fat cottage cheese and a little black better for taste. Boiled eggs slice on flavoured rice cakes with some light salad cream and black pepper. A tuna or chicken salad with light salad cream. Any meat and salad sandwich on wholemeal bread is a good option and easy to carry around.

Dinner

Your dinner should always consist of most essential foods for recovery after along day. In my diet I like a good source of protein for dinner such as cod, chicken and steak to help my muscle rebuild. I also like to get my vitamins from my vegetable and salad. I don't add lot of carbohydrates towards the end of the day when I get closer to sleeping as the additional carbohydrates will just be wasted and my
body will store them as it can not use them, hence they will help build unwanted fat.

Snacks

I normal add snacks in around mid morning, mid afternoon and an hour before sleeping. These snacks are small sources of energy that also give me the added health benefits I may not get from my other meals. My snack options are as follows. A small handful of raw almonds and cashew nuts. Peanut butter on a plain rice cake, a handful of dried mix fruit, any fruit such as a banana or apple is a great snack option and you can even mix some of these together.

If you follow this diet or similar around your every day living you should eat at least six times per day and you will not feel like you are on diet. This should just feel like you have improved your lifestyle and have started on a positive path towards reaching your planned targets.

Cheating

Cheating is just something that happens but what you need to do is when your put into the situation such as a party or celebration eat what you like and as much as you like and enjoy yourself. Life is too short and you don’t want to become paranoid about your eating habits. All you need to do is remember to get back on a good diet plan once you've finished enjoying yourself. A lot of people turn a unhealthy breakfast into an unhealthy day or even two days, then the two days becomes a week and before you know it you've given up. You must remember to refocus. The most important thing of all is to keep the unhealthy eating to the times when its worth it, so you don't regret it and most all make sure you one hundred percent enjoy it when you do it.

I like to do this almost every third day. It’s great to eat food that your children or partner might want, so your new diet plan docent affect your life or relationships and it will not hurt, as long as its that one meal and dessert you have been craving all week but you must make sure you get straight back onto your plan after you are done enjoying yourself.

This will help you to feel like your not on a strict diet that's punishing, after all its all about having a healthy life style not a miserable life.

Lastly I would just like to thank you for taking the time to read my article.

Simon Stevens
Founder EQ Nutrition