Spiker Ted - The Abs Diet Eat Right Every Time Guide

Acknowledgments

SEEING THE ABS DIET come to fruition has been one of the great pleasures of my life. Seeing it make a real impact on the lives of tens of thousands of Americans has been one of the great rewards. For all of it, I have to thank a number of extraordinarily talented, hard-working, and dedicated people who continue to support, encourage and inspire me. In particular:

Steve Murphy, whose courage and commitment to editorial quality has made Rodale Inc. the best publishing company in the world to work for.

The Rodale family, without whom none of this would be possible.

Jeremy Katz, executive editor of Mens Health Books, whose wisdom and guidance has made The Abs Diet into an extraordinary success.

Ben Roter, whom I want to be when I grow up.

Steve Perrine, who can make a silk purse out of just about anything.

The entire Mens Health editorial staff, the smartest and hardest-working group of writers, editors, researchers, designers, and photo directors in the industry. Most important, a big shout out to Chris Krogermeier, Marilyn Hauptly, Jennifer Giandomenico, Erin Hobday, Phillip Rhodes, Brenda Miller, and everyone else who worked so hard and so fast to publish this book in record time.

My brother, Eric, whose relentless teasing shamed me into taking better care of myself. (Dude, you are sooo dead....)

My mother, Janice, who raised two of us nearly single-handedly. Your strength and kindness guide my every action.

My dad, Bohdan, who left this world way to early. I wish you were still here.

Elaine Kaufman, who still lets me order off the menu.

And special thanks also to: Mary Ann Bekkedahl, Michael Bruno, Jeff Csatari, Aimee Geller, Karen Mazzotta, Jon Hammond, Cathy Gruhn, Joe Heroun, Samantha Irwin, George Karabotsos, Charlene Lutz, Patrick McMullan, Peter Moore, Jeff Morgan, Myatt Murphy, Megan Phillips, Scott Quill, Cindy Ratzlaff, Leslie Schneider, Joyce Shirer, Bill Stump, Sara Vigneri, Bug and Fester, and my stepmother, Mickey.

And to Rose. On the rollercoaster of life, youve taught me to let go of the safety bar and reach my hands into the air.

D IET IS A FOUR-LETTER word.

That may sound like a strange sentence with which to start a diet book. But then again, this is no ordinary diet book.

We think of a diet as something we go on. A high school reunion looms, or a family vacation to beach territory is planned, or some other event that tells us its time to bear down and get rid of that extra layer of flab comes up. And so we dowe go on a diet. Then, once weve lost the desired weight, we go off the diet and go back to our habits of eating cold macaroni and cheese while standing over the kitchen sink. Soon enough, another important event looms, and were back on another diet again. Up and down, up and down goes our weight, but mostly, over time, it goes up. Thats because deprivation diets and fads like eating low-fat, eating low-carb, or eating nothing but grapefruit just dont work in the long run. In fact, they stress your body so much that your body responds by trying even harder to store fat, especially in the midsection.

A recent study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that about 60 percent of Americans who try to lose weight do so by restricting their calorie intakes, with roughly one in 10 skipping meals in a desperate attempt to strip off the pounds. But study after study has shown that yo-yo dieting is one of the best ways to ensure your belly will get bigger and flabbier in the months and years ahead.

Well, those days are over!

The Abs Diet is a revolutionary new way of eating, one thats swept America in the last year and helped tens of thousands of people lose hundreds of thousands of pounds. In fact, with the Abs Dieta simple, six-times-a-day eating plan that will never let you get hungryyou can lose 10, 15, even 20 pounds, from your belly first, in 6 weeks or less.

The Abs Diet isnt a traditional diet, because youll eat so much delicious foodfrom steak to strawberries, bread to bacon, soup to nutsthat youll never want or need to stray from it. In fact, if youre ever hungry on the Abs Dietwell, then, youre not on the Abs Diet.

See, I know how hard it is to lose weight using traditional methods. As a boy growing up in small-town Pennsylvania, I too struggled with a weight problem. I made bad choiceschoosing fast food over smart food, then trying to starve myself to get my body in the shape I wanted it. Sure enough, Id get hungry, and there Id be, barking my lunch order into a clowns mouth once again. My brother, Eric, used to invite his friends over to watch my dietary indiscretions: Dont disturb the big animal, hed tell his buddies. Its feeding.

But all thats changed. As the editor-in-chief of Mens Health, Ive spent the past 10 years poring over cutting-edge research in nutrition, fitness, weight loss, and exercise. And what Ive learned, Ive distilled into the Abs Dieta program thats been proven time and time again to strip away belly fat and leave you looking and feeling better than ever.

THE ABS DIET REVOLVES around a dozen delicious, convenient foods I call the ABS DIET POWER 12. All you need to do is eat the acronym: Almonds and other nuts, Beans and other legumes, Spinach and other green vegetables, Dairy (low-fat), Instant oatmeal, Eggs, Turkey and other lean meats, Peanut butter, Olive oil, Whole-grain breads and cereals, Extra-protein (whey) powder, Raspberries and other berries.

Yup, you read that right: You get to eat healthy protein, healthy fats, healthy carbstheres hardly anything you need to give up on this program. Ice cream? Sure. Grilled cheese sandwiches? Yup. Uncle Franks famous chili? You bet. All I want you to do is eat more good food, more often, and to toy with the ingredients of your favorites to make them just as deliciousand twice as nutritious. And as for the few foods I do want you to say goodbye toanything that stains your fingers orange, for examplewell, Ive come up with some great, tasty, healthful alternatives.

The Abs Diet is so easy even Jessica Simpson could handle it. (And shed get to eat Chicken of the Sea even if it really was chicken!) Theres no measuring, no counting calories, no complicated equations, no hours-in-the-kitchen recipes. Just simple, smart, delicious food youll enjoy all day long.

But even though the Abs Diet is simple, modern life is complicated. The grocery stores and chain restaurants are filled with foods that look healthy but really arent; foods that are packed with high-calorie sweeteners that actually increase your appetite; foods that are greased up with unhealthy, chemically altered fats that clog up your plumbing; and foods that have had all their nutritional value stripped from them before theyre wrapped in cellophane and set on the supermarket shelf. And even family life comes fraught with its own perils: In a survey of 274 single and married women by Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, researchers found that almost 60 percent of married women were obese, compared to just 43 percent of singles. Women in larger households have four times the odds of being obese in comparison to women who live alone, says study author James E. Rohrer, Ph.D. He suggests that more people in the household translates into more food in the fridge and a risk of obesity that is four times greater than that of women who live solo.