Cynthia Sass - Cinch!: Conquer Cravings, Drop Pounds, and Lose Inches

For Jack Bremen and Diane Salvagno, my two lifelines
and lifesavers!

Contents

O ver the years Ive helped countless people, especially women, experience what I call Yes! moments. Maybe youve been longing for one yourself: The zipper on your skinny jeans slides up effortlessly; you discover that you can wear a clingy dress or skirt without Spanx; you walk down the beach or slide into the pool free from a cover-up or oversize tee; you dont panic and reach for a towel when your husband walks in on you getting out of the shower.

Every time one of my clients recounts a Yes! event with me, I get goose bumps, because the confidence and bliss people radiate when theyve achieved weight-loss success is electric. A moment like that can keep you on an emotional high for days, and helping someone bask in that glow of self-confidence is one of the reasons I love my job.

This book is going to help you achieve more than one Yes! moment. The first will come after just five days, when you have completed my 5-Food Fast Forward program. The second will come twenty-five days later, when youve graduated from Cinch! core, a plan that includes four delicious, perfectly proportioned quick-fix meals per dayhow does Peanut Butter Blackberry Toast sound for breakfast? And there is a mandatory daily dark-chocolate escape. Thats rightchocolate every day. But even more important, this book will prime you for countless future moments of body satisfaction because the weight-loss method youll uncover in these pages holds the power to transform your life. At the end of these thirty days, youll feel as if a switch has been flipped that can never be shut off. Youll relate to food and your body in an entirely new way, one that wont allow you to return to the eating chaos that led you to pick up this book.

The ginger sauce in the Salmon Ginger Rice Bowl is so good! I felt like I was cheatinga too-good-to-be-true lunch.

JESSICA ,AGE 32

Okay, so youre probably wondering, What exactly am I going to be eating? Heres how my plan works: During the Fast Forward stage, youll eat just five foods in various combinations: spinach, almonds, raspberries, eggs, and yogurt, or vegan-friendly alternatives. These foods represent the purest form of a clean-eating plan. Each food was carefully chosen because of its natural detoxifying nutrients as well as emerging evidence of its weight-loss power. These first five days will give your body, mind, and taste buds a clean slate and help you lose weight healthfully while providing energy and nourishment. And, youll lose weight fast. The exactness of the 5-Day Fast Forward provides its power. The Fast Forward allows you to lose up to eight pounds in just five days, and its challenge empowers you to easily transition to the twenty-five-day Cinch! core plan that will keep you losing! Once you learn how easy it is to lose on Cinch!, youll have all the tools you need to keep losing, or if youve reached your goal weight, to embrace a lifelong pattern of healthful eating.

Losing weight is now a cinch! All you need to do each day to achieve your weight-loss goal is:

1. Look through the meal lists.

2. Choose any breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack meal you like.

3. Make the meals exactly as stated.

4. Eat your first meal within one hour of waking up and enjoy the remaining meals three to five hours apart.

At no point will you count calories. The emphasis during both the Fast Forward and throughout Cinch! core is on meal timing, portions, combinations of foods, and food quality. This plan is specifically designed to help you lose body fat from head to toe, optimize your health, transform your emotional relationship with food and your body, and give you the tools to successfully take the weight off!

According to a Johns Hopkins study, by the year 2015, 75 percent of adults in the United States will be overweight, and 41 percent will qualify as obese. By comparison, in 1996, 34 percent of U.S. adults were overweight and 17 percent were obese. The plain truth is, weve been programmed to eat when food is available and use food as a tool to cope with our emotional needs. It is easy to live a lifestyle where you overeat, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year.

But when you change your relationship with food, as this book will show you how, you can change the way you eat and, as a result, change your body.

wait, what about flat belly diet! ?

If youre a fan of Flat Belly Diet! , for which I created the eating plan in 2007, you may wonder, Why am I promoting a new plan, and how is this one different?

The field of nutrition is ever changing. Since Flat Belly Diet! was published, my philosophies have been enhanced by a wealth of new research. Ive attended scientific conferences, counseled many more people, and traveled to other parts of the world to study nutrition and public health. In this book, I combine some of the research I used to develop the Flat Belly Diet! eating plan with new studies, fresh insights, added wisdom, and exciting emerging information about how to lose weight and keep it off.

Whats Similar? Cinch! Also

Emphasizes a Mediterranean-style eating plan with produce, whole grains, lean protein, and healthy fats, including MUFAs (monounsaturated fats)

Provides lists of quick and easy meals you can make as described

Provides interchangeable meals: in Flat Belly Diet!, all of the meals were interchangeable; in this plan, breakfasts and snacks are interchangeable and lunch and dinner meals are interchangeable

Whats Different? Cinch!

Emphasizes portions and balance instead of calorie counts

Places a much stronger emphasis on whole foods and local and organic foods

Ensures that you get a specific number of servings from each food group each day, including two fruit and four veggie servings

Lets you customize the size of your meals to your bodys needs

Actually insists on a daily dark-chocolate indulgence!

Offers coconut oil as a good-for-you fat option with yummy recipes featuring this tasty oil

Is vegetarian- and vegan-friendly and recommends more plant-based meals

Includes specific guidelines for water and other beverages

Incorporates powerful SASS, Slimming And Satiating Seasonings, at every meal

Offers a meal-building puzzle that teaches you to create your own Cinch!-friendly meals at home or away from home

Overall, this plan features fresh, whole, natural, unprocessed, and organic foods to help you quickly and efficiently achieve the body of your dreams. I designed the meals to provide the very best nutrients for your body with the perfect balance of carbohydrates, protein, and good fatto keep you fuller longer, better control your blood sugar and insulin levels, and delay the return of hunger.

Youll also learn to take charge of your eating so that you dont need to rely on me. Within one month, instead of feeling overwhelmed when you walk down the bread aisle at the supermarket, perhaps wondering if you should even eat bread, youll feel completely confident about which bread to buy and why, how to eat it, what to eat it with, how much to have, and how often. Youll be able to visualize precisely how to put meals together, whether at home or at a restaurantmeals that are satisfying, nourishing, and delicious and make you feel amazing inside and out. Meals that will help you reach your goal weight and then easily stay there!

In a nutshell, if you follow the plan I provide in the pages to come, heres what youll achieve:

Weight lossup to pounds in the first days

Increased self-confidence

Mastery of the tactics proven to keep weight off

An understanding of the powerful emotions that drive you to eat when youre not hungry

Better health, including a surge in energy; enhanced disease protection; antiaging benefits; better immunity, digestion, and sleep; better-looking skin and hair; and fewer mood swings