As a Nutritional Therapist and Personal Trainer, I speak to numerous people on a daily basis about their weight and health, I then formulate dietary and lifestyle action plans which assist clients achieve their personal goals. During these consultations clients are often surprised to discover that they can still enjoy a Sunday morning fry up and a Friday night Thai whilst still improving their health and losing weight. This is only possible when clients follow what I’ve come to call the 19:21 diet and don’t deviate beyond it!
The 19:21 diet is very simple, each day you should eat three meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner and you should do this seven days per week, so in total you eat 21 meals each week. Out of those 21 meals you are allowed to eat three which can be a naughty as you like, possibly fish and chips, a Chinese takeaway or TV dinner, the choice is entirely yours and it doesn’t matter. The three main important factors in the 19:21 diet are:
1.Ensure that you never exceed the three treat meals in one week.
2.Ensure that there are absolutely no other treats in your weekly diet such as bags of crisps, bars of chocolate or fizzy soda drinks etc, all naughty snacks are banned!
3. Ensure that the other 19 meals you eat each week fall in line with the 19:21 eating plan, which means that they are healthy and mostly prepared and/or cooked by you at home.
By following this very simply dietary ratio, the majority of clients I speak with will end up eating considerably better than they’ve done in years. The treat meals are absolutely crucial as they give you flexibility and prevent dietary denial which is when you deny yourself all treats and create a very strict and unrealistic eating plan. Diets like this generally only last two or three weeks before participants find them unsustainable and resort back to their old and unhealthy way of eating.
As a percentage 19 meals out of a total 21 each week is almost 92% and that’s more than enough to achieve almost any health or weight loss goal as long as you’re honest with yourself and don’t cheat or deviate away from the guidelines. Diets with no room for a break or an occasional cheat meal are in my experience doomed from the start. It’s much better to eat healthy meals 92% of the time forever than to eat healthy meals 100% of the time for three weeks before you crash and burn!
The majority of people who start a New Year Diet/slimming routine, often abandon it within weeks as it was too strict and completely unrealistic over a prolonged period. As already mentioned, the 19 healthy meals eaten each week must fall in line with the eating plan. Most client’s I speak with believe that they know what to eat but just aren’t doing it. Almost everyone leaves their consultation realizing that many of the foods and meal combinations they thought were healthy are contributing to their weight gain. Weight loss isn’t about starving yourself, it’s about turning your body into a calorie burning machine, that only happens when you get it working properly and thats much easier to do when you get advice from an experienced expert in weight loss and nutrition!
Get in touch if you would like more information on the next nutritional workshop which uses the 19:21 principle or a private consultation.
By Zak Harbison
(Nut Dip m.BANT)
E: zak@my-body.co.uk

Source:- http://www.my-body.co.uk/my-articles/1921-diet