DIET ESSENTIALS
The 3-Week Diet requires some essential supplements for maximum effectiveness and ultra-fast, significant fat loss. The following supplements are required during the 3-Week Diet. They will help your body run efficiently, help burn fat at maximum potential and will provide many healthy benefits.
Essential Fatty Acids (EFA’s)
Your health, good or bad, is driven in large part by the level of inflammation in your body and the amount of lean muscle mass you have. In fact, there are several diseases (including obesity) that are linked to inflammation and the lack of muscle mass.
When you control the inflammation in your body, you can effectively control the onset of numerous diseases, including type II diabetes, heart disease, depression, arthritis and obesity.
Muscle mass decreases over time, especially when we are not eating enough protein and not engaging in exercise. The less muscle mass we have, the more weight we will gain. Lean muscle mass is crucial to keeping body fat at bay.
A healthy body is one that has low levels of inflammation and higher levels of muscle mass. While many attribute high levels of inflammation and loss of muscle mass to aging, the fact is, we can keep our bodies young through proper nutrition and exercise. We get old from the inside out. So, it is important to keep inflammation down and exercise up.
Essential fatty acids are exactly that: essential. EFA’s are mainly polyunsaturated fats. Humans must ingest them because our bodies are unable to create them. Once broken down, EFA’s contribute to vital organ function. EFA’s regulate body functions and are essential to cardiac cells. Other functions impacted by EFA’s are heart rate, blood pressure, clotting, fertility and conception and immune system functions.
You may have heard EFA’s referred to as Omega-3’s or linolenic acid and Omega-6’s linoleic acid.
The American Heart Association recommends a diet that has EFA’s included at least two times weekly, and they say that you should eat oily fish to get the benefit. Fish oil capsules are a great way to get your essential fatty acid needs. To maximize your effectiveness on How to Lose Weight Fast, essential fatty acid intake is imperative.
The two major forms of omega-3 fats used by the body are (EPA) eicosapentaenoic acid and (DHA) docosahexaenoic acid.
Research has shown that a person who keeps a diet high in Omega-3’s is at low risk for cardiovascular diseases. Other research has also suggested that EFA’s may reduce depression and feelings of suicide.
You may be wondering, how will this help my diet? Well, the key to this fatty acid is that during the metabolism of these acids, energy is generated in the cells. During your diet, your energy sources from protein and essential fatty acids will help your metabolism to continue running and burning those extra carbohydrates (or stored fat) for fuel.
Fish oil also has other benefits, such as:
After 30-days taking EPA/DHA supplements, you will really see and feel these benefits.
EPA/DHA balance should be 2:1. Based on the research I’ve read, the appropriate amount is around 2g EPA to 1g DHA each day. For most “regular” strength fish oils on the market, this comes out to about 10 EPA/DHA capsules each day or 5 teaspoons of straight fish oil. This may sound like a lot but it will get your EPA/DHA levels up to where they need to be for optimum health and ease of fat burning.
Whey Protein
Whey protein is considered a “complete protein” in that it has all of the amino acids you need to sustain life. In the past, whey protein shakes were awful and gritty. Science has come a long way, however, in making these shakes a lot more tolerable.
Do they taste like your favorite milkshake topped with whipped cream and a cherry? Hardly…but depending on the brand and the flavor, there are some really good choices out there that are actually pretty good. And, by adding some sugar-free flavored syrups (like they use in coffee shops), you can incorporate some good variety and really make some very tasty shakes.
When choosing a Whey Protein to use in this diet, be sure to choose a brand that allows you to keep carbohydrates as low as possible (no more than 2 grams per scoop). Additionally, during this diet, you will want to keep fat as low as possible as well (no more than 2 grams per scoop). This will ensure the best possible conditions for your weight loss goals.
Depending on your weight, you may need more than one scoop. If you were to take two scoops, just be sure that you are not exceeding 4 grams of carbohydrates. 4 grams of carbohydrates will not have much of an impact on your blood sugar.
As you will see, whey protein will make up a large component of the 3-Week Diet. For some, purchasing whey protein powder to make up many of their meals for the over the next 21-days may seem expensive, but when you consider that you can get all your meals for the day for about $10, this is actually pretty cheap. Plus, you’ll find that a lot of time is freed up that is normally spent on cooking and eating meals, which gives you more time to take a walk or engage in other exercise.
CLA
Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) has excited many researchers over the past few years. The fact is, numerous studies have shown CLA to provide a host of benefits including combating diabetes, building lean muscle mass, thwarting cancer, keeping fat cells from becoming larger and dramatically reducing body fat.
CLA helps to move the fat you eat into your muscle cells instead of being stored as body fat. It then activates certain enzymes in your body to force your muscles to burn that fat—especially during exercise.
As mentioned, CLA has also been shown to prevent fat cells from getting fatter, so even when you’ve finished the 3-Week Diet, CLA can help keep the fat from ever coming back.
When combined with the 3-Week Diet, CLA can nearly double your fat loss when taken in the range of 6-8 grams per day.
Leucine
As you may recall, Leucine is an essential amino acid that is found in dietary protein. While researchers have known about Leucine for decades, only recently have they determined the amazing benefits that Leucine has on the body.
Leucine is an extremely valuable BCAA (branched chain amino acid) due to its ability to switch on the body’s muscle building process as well as to preserve lean muscle mass when dieting. Leucine has been proven to be the most important amino acid to muscle building.
Researchers at the University of Illinois conducted studies that examined weight loss diets containing 10 grams of leucine per day with 125 grams total of protein per day with a minimum of 2.5 grams of leucine at each meal. In two separate studies, the groups consuming high leucine diets had greater weight loss, greater fat loss and better preservation of lean body mass.
Understand that whey protein is a complete protein which is a great source of Leucine. To ensure that we are getting enough Leucine, however, we will add additional Leucine to our diet every day.
Greens+
Greens+ is full of vitamins and minerals and it is loaded with free radical absorbing antioxidants. It contains electrolytes (magnesium, potassium, sodium) that are extremely important on a low-carb diet. Greens+ is also packed with base producing compounds that neutralize dietary acids and it is rich with healthy bacteria that will help to detoxify the body as we rapidly release toxins from the fat cells as they are used up for energy.
Greens+ is a brand name that gets rave reviews. You can definitely find something similar, but this product does get my personal recommendation.
Fat Burner (Optional)
Ok, fat burners are a controversial subject—especially with me. Most people who buy fat burners look to them as a “magic pill” that will cause weight loss without dieting and exercise. We all wish this was the case, but sadly, it is not. Most fat burners provide very little benefits in terms of weight loss, but with a proper diet and exercise program, they can add significant results. I’m going to share my “ultimate fat burning” combo with you in a minute.
As far as fat burners go, the most effective one to ever hit the market was Ephedra. Ephedra is both a thermogenic and a stimulant…and it worked extremely well. Unfortunately, Ephedra was used irresponsibly by a few, which resulted in untimely deaths that were linked to Ephedra. Because of this, over-the-counter Ephedra based diet pills were banned in 2006.
Since the Ephedra ban, many manufacturers began trying to find something to compare to Ephedra. Unfortunately, most of these fall short.
Fat Burners are definitely not required on the 3-Week Diet. The reason I have listed them as optional is because they do have advantages in keeping the metabolism high as your body starts to slow down when switching over from carbohydrate-burning to fat-burning and they provide some extra, focused energy that helps with your workouts.
Personally, I like the added effect that a good fat burner provides. The problem, again, is that most fat burners are worthless.
In all my trials, the very best, legal fat burner on the market is a ECY Stack: Ephedrine (not Ephedra), Caffeine, Yohimbe.
The great thing about this is that the ingredients are relatively cheap. The bad thing is that I haven’t found anything that combines everything into one, so you would need to purchase these separately and combine them yourself.
Here’s my suggestion for those new to this fat burning combo:
To start, I recommend this combo be taken about 30 minutes before a meal and/or 30-minutes prior to your workout. To start, I suggest taking this combo two times a day (once before your first meal and once before your workout). On non-workout days, you can take with any other meal, as long as there are 4-hours in between doses).
Depending on your tolerance level, you can increase to three doses per day and/or increase dosage amounts (no more than 100mg of Ehpedrine in 24 hours!).
Be aware of any changes in blood pressure, heart palpitations, increased body temperature, etc Again, while this is a very effective fat burner, it is not a “magic pill.” This is optional on the 3-Week Diet and caution should be taken. Listen to your body and listen to your doctor.
If you’re looking for a good quality all-in-one fat burning product (without combining three ingredients), the best one I have found is Lipo-6. This particular product is a favorite amongst body-builders who are seeking to lose fat.