The 8-Week Transition Diet
By Steve Edwards, Beachbody Fitness & Nutrition

I found this article on the Beachbody website years ago and have been using it with my clients and challengers ever since.  Traditional diets are like a bait & switch.  Sure, you’ll lose weight. But you’ll likely gain it all back, because diets don’t teach you how to eat healthy and make better food choices. 

This transition plan is an excellent blueprint for learning how to eat healthy without diving in head first.  It’s a lot of reading but it’s going to teach you why your body functions better when you eat natural, whole foods. It’ll also give you a better understanding of how food affects your body, both good and bad. 

~ Coach MaShelle

____________

8-Week Transition Diet

This 8-week transition plan is for those of you who are less detail oriented. Conceptually-based diets like this can be easier to follow because they focus on providing you with a short list of “no-no’s,” leaving you with a wide array of foods that you are allowed to eat.  Any diet will take some willpower if you want to see results.  Your long-term goal should be to eat well, period. If you can accomplish this, your physical transformation will become a natural extension of your lifestyle, instead of something you need to pursue.

As healthy eating becomes a habit, you will find the other intangibles (such as weight loss, increased energy, etc.) falling into place. By making this transition gradually, you’ll find that it isn’t as difficult as you expected.

Week 1

Eliminate junk food from your diet. That’s it, just junk. Other than this, you can eat whatever and whenever you like.  By junk I mean stuff like potato chips, candy, ice cream, cake, etc. You may be stricter if you’d like, but for Week 1, don’t be too hard on yourself. For many of you, this step alone will reap huge benefits.

Cheat Days: 2

Since no one’s perfect, you get 2 days to cheat. 2 days where you can eat anything you want.  A trick on these days is to listen to your body. At first, it’ll probably tell you it wants whatever you’ve been denying it. However, over time, it’ll start to crave nutrients you’re deficient in. Learn to read what your body is telling you. If you’re craving ice cream, you may be short on essential fatty acids. If you crave a hamburger, your diet may lack protein. This way, you can make better food substitutions. It’s a way of getting in tune with yourself that will benefit you for your entire lifetime.

Weekly focus: Water.  You should drink at least 6 to 8 glasses of water per day. Diet sodas are no substitute because they contain a number of ingredients that live right at the bottom of the junk heap. Drinking a glass of water when you feel hunger pangs coming on will not only keep you hydrated, but will help stave off your hunger to some degree.

Drinks like juices and sugary sodas also fall into the junk category. And alcohol should be kept to a minimum. We tend to forget that alcohol has a lot of empty calories. Mixers can be even worse—not only can they add calories, but sugary calories influence the way alcohol reacts with your body. When you do drink, red wine is the alcohol of choice, with natural beer running second.

Week 2

Each week’s rules are cumulative, so the “no junk” rule from Week 1 will apply until the end, as will each subsequent week’s rule. Remember that this is a learning and conditioning process. It’s like you’re in a school and the subject is your own body.

Eat small, eat often. Eat four to six small meals a day, and don’t eat anything about 3 hours before you go to sleep.

Following these rules will keep your blood sugar levels more static and your energy level will stay consistent. Try to keep each snack or meal balanced. Keep a 30 percent protein, 40 percent carbohydrate, and 30 percent fat scale in mind, though you don’t need to worry too much about it. Just realize that you need a bit from each macronutrient group.

Eat based on what you’ll be doing for the next few hours (if you’re working out, eat a little more; sitting at a desk, eat a little less). The 3-hour-before-bed rule is important, especially for fats and carbohydrates. By allowing time for all the carbs you eat to get into your bloodstream, your body will sleep in fat-burning mode, rather than in calorie-storing mode. This is important because undigested carbs in your stomach at night are stored in adipose tissue (fat).

Cheat Days: 2

Weekly focus: Carbs are not the enemy. Your body needs them just like it needs proteins and fats. The trick is to choose the right carbs. As a society, we eat too much refined sugar. Complex carbs, like whole-grain breads, whole-grain rice, sweet potatoes, and legumes are outstanding foods. Even fruits, which have simple carbohydrates wrapped in fiber, are very good for you and hard to over consume.

While you don’t want a diet based on nothing but carbs, making the right carb choices will maximize your body’s potential. Try to avoid white rice and flours. Read labels and try to avoid ones that use the word “enriched,” because this means these products have been stripped of their natural nutrients and then fortified with a few random nutrients.

Week 3

Eat some colorful, low-density food at every meal. These are foods that take up a lot of space without a lot of calories. Veggies are the most obvious example. You can eat a salad bowl overflowing with lettuce and veggies and you most likely won’t exceed 100 calories. By eating low-density foods like veggies and fruits, you’ll keep your portions under control naturally, because they have very few calories for their size.

Conversely, high-density foods, like chocolate and butter, are loaded with calories in even the smallest amounts. So beware of salad dressings and other things you add to salads and veggies. Only add enough for flavor; don’t fill up on them. When it comes to fruits and veggies, the richer the colors, the fresher the products tend to be. Try to eat a variety of colors in your diet. This simple and somewhat random act will help ensure that you’re covering your bases, nutrient-wise.

Cheat Days: 1

Weekly focus: Protein at every meal. This becomes even more important as you eat more low-density food, because protein tends to be high-density. Many veggies have a lot of protein, but the quantity you must consume becomes prohibitive. Try to get some protein—meat, dairy products, nuts, seeds, or legumes—each time you eat, especially when you’re working out hard, because you need to repair broken-down muscle tissue.

Frequency of protein consumption is even more vital for women, who aren’t able to digest as much protein at one time as men are. It’s almost impossible to get all your necessary protein at one or two meals, so try to get 10 to 20 grams of protein each time you eat. Reading labels is a simple way to learn how to estimate your protein intake. But if you eat natural foods, most of which don’t have labels, you can look at online nutritional information guides (like My Fitness Pal) to determine the amount of protein each serving contains.

Week 4

Cook at home. One of the best ways to control your eating is to prepare all your meals yourself. Eliminate all fast food (which should have been gone in Week 1) and most restaurant food. You may still eat food from certain restaurants where you can be sure of the ingredients. But avoid all fast food chains, even ones that claim to be “healthy.” Restaurants need their food to taste good, so they’ll often use compromised ingredients, even when they list low numbers on fats and/or calories.

Fast food can contain many hidden ingredients in addition to calories. For example, next time you see one of those nutrition charts, check the sodium levels; most fast foods use ridiculously high amounts of salt. Avoiding fast food alone will often bring your body closer to homeostasis; its desired state of balance.

Cheat Days: 1

Weekly focus: Healthy fat is essential. Remember that fat is a vital part of your diet. What is not vital is a lot of saturated or trans fats. Trans fats are mainly those that are artificial, and hopefully they’ve been eliminated from your diet by this point, since they’re generally only found in junk.

Saturated fats are found in dairy products and meats, and you don’t need too much. For cooking, try to use olive oil when possible. Also, the addition of either flaxseed or hempseed can have a pronounced effect on your health. These seeds are loaded with essential fatty acids, omegas 3 and 6. Be careful about that amount of fat. It is dense and has 9 calories per gram, opposed to 4 for both carbs and protein. A tablespoon goes a long way!

 

Week 5

Reduce starchy carbohydrates. Starches include rice, bread, potatoes, corn, beans, and other legumes. While many of these are in no way bad foods, most people tend to consume far too many of them. So what you want to do this week is cut way down on them, if not cutting them out completely. Then add them back in when your body feels like it needs energy, which it will at some point if you’re exercising (and why wouldn’t you be?). But don’t add a huge plate or bowl of pasta; instead, add a small single serving. Starches are great energy food, but if you eat too many, they turn the tables and make you sluggish!

Cheat Days: 1

Weekly focus: Sugar is only beneficial after a hard workout. Your body doesn’t need processed sugar. But if you really enjoy it and can’t avoid letting it go completely, the 1-hour period after you exercise is the best time to indulge.

During this window, your blood sugar is low, because you’ve used it up to finish your workout (assuming you pushed yourself), and sugar during this time will help you recover faster because it speeds into your system and initiates the recovery process. Adding a little protein, but not too much, will enhance your recovery even further. You should avoid fats during this 1-hour post-workout period, because they slow absorption—a good thing most of the time, just not during and immediately after working out.

Week 6

If man makes it, don’t eat it. This is likely to be the hardest week of your diet. You want to eat only whole foods and eliminate all processed foods, even good ones, for the week. This includes breads, most salad dressings, all cereal, lunch meats, cheese, dried fruits, anything with preservatives, and alcoholic beverages.

What you can eat are whole foods such as fruit, raw or steamed vegetables, meat (without any sauce), natural whole-grain rice, poached eggs, etc. Since your eating habits have been slowly changing, this shouldn’t be that big a shock to your system. Keeping in mind that you only have to do this for 7 days will make it easier. Although each week’s rules are cumulative in the plan, Week 6 is more of a “cleanse” or “reset” week where you avoid all processed food; after Week 6, you can go back to the occasional processed food, but chances are you’ll take what you learned this week and tend to make healthier, smarter choices.

Cheat Days: 1

The “cheat day” mentality isn’t a bad one. Rewards like decadent desserts, a night at the buffet, or drinking with friends are good for you as long as you keep them in perspective. These are rewards for a life well lived and you should be able to feel good about doing them. Plus, you still tend to crave nutrients you lack. So, if you’re cutting down on calories to lose weight, allowing yourself a cheat day will give your body a chance to take in what it needs to avoid being malnourished.

Weekly focus: Nuts make great snacks. A handful of raw almonds or cashews is a quick and easy snack that goes a long way. Don’t be put off by the high fat count of nuts, because this means it takes fewer of them to satiate you. Nuts are loaded with important phytonutrients, as well as good fats, proteins, and fiber.

Week 7

Be yourself. No rules—just try and eat as healthy as you can. Trusting yourself might seem risky, but by now you’ll be up to it. Learning to eat by listening to what your body needs is an important step in your transformation.

Consider the way you’ve been eating over the last 6 weeks, but don’t worry about what you should and shouldn’t do. Just fuel yourself. The point is to take a mental break. Relax and allow yourself to eat in a way that feels normal. You may be surprised to find yourself craving something healthy instead of a candy bar or soda. You’ll be better at listening to your body because it’ll tell you what it needs as opposed to what you’re used to eating. Your body should feel somewhat transformed. Does it?

“Reward for a Life Well Lived” Days: 1

Weekly focus: Protein before bed. If you’re so hungry at night that you can’t sleep, try a protein shake before bed. When it’s real, and not habitual, hunger means you lack nutrients your body needs to repair itself as you sleep. You want nothing but protein powder and water. No carbs or high calories. Protein at night, especially whey, will help the body repair damaged tissue and enhance the natural growth-hormone spike that you get while you sleep.

Week 8

Eat a perfect diet. Now it’s time for a real challenge—are you ready? The perfect diet is strictly individual, as there’s no one diet that suits everybody. So who better to choose the perfect diet for you than you?

Our bodies are all different, and the key to your own perfect diet is learning how your body reacts to different foods under different circumstances. Your journey over the last seven weeks should have brought you to a new understanding of how food affects your body, both for good and for bad. Now it’s up to you to put it to the test. See how well you can eat for a week. In fact, see how well you can eat for the rest of your life.

Reward Days: 1

Weekly Focus: Don’t bonk. Bonking is a state where your body runs out of stored blood sugar for energy. If you feel like your workouts are going backwards instead of forwards, this is a likely culprit. Use your energy level as your gauge. As soon as it starts to drop, start adding carbs back into your diet until you feel energized all day long.

When you feel energized during your workouts and not sluggish throughout the rest of the day, you’ll know you’ve found the right balance between carbs and other nutrients. Also, remember that as you body puts on more muscle, you will need to eat more. Muscle is a higher density than fat and as you gain muscle and lose fat you will shrink at the same weight. You will also require more calories in order to maintain your muscle. So, when you’re working out hard, don’t be afraid to eat more carbs than you do otherwise.