3

Customizing Your Metabolic Intervention

Now that we know what kind of challenge we have ahead of us, it’s time to create a customized eating plan that will pull you right out of your metabolic dysfunction. To accomplish that goal, we will calculate your Metabolic Intervention Score (MIS), which will direct you to one of my three customized meal maps. Your meal map will advise you exactly what food categories to eat and in what amounts, and will also give you a customized exercise plan designed to burn fat most efficiently for your MIS. As I explained in the introduction, rapid weight loss is effective only when the plan is nutrient-based, targeted, and efficient.

Please remember that these are not plans you will have to follow for life. They will get you where you need to be, and then you can move on to the maintenance phase in Part 2. Also, my community is always there to provide even more support, delicious recipes, and motivation to help you stay there. My ultimate goal is to create a community so savvy in nutrition that each person’s success, glowing health, and on-fire metabolism will inspire and help others. The best teachers in the world are no longer needed by their students. That’s when love replaces need.

Because my weight loss methods are nutrient-driven, you will need to eat in a particular way and style, with targeted foods at different times of the day and throughout the week. There will be purposeful rhythm to your eating, based on the current condition of your metabolism. You will ingest those foods that contain the micronutrients and enzymes you need for fat burning. You will digest those foods fully, completely breaking them down to free up micronutrients and enzymes that convert stored fat to a usable form. Finally, you will absorb those micronutrients and convert fat into fuel for energy (rather than just breaking down the fat on your belly and redepositing it on your butt).

This is the process, but depending on the state of your metabolism, you will require different micronutrient combinations and timing, to customize fat burning and weight loss to your current condition. That’s what we’re going to find out right now.

The reason I personalize your MIS rather than giving one plan for everyone is that I know the best way to make sure my clients are not successful is to treat them like the person who came in before them, or the person who is coming in after them, rather than treating them like the person they are, sitting right in front of me at that moment in time. Your MIS determines how much and what kind of food is right for you over the next fourteen days.

Once we calculate the score, we will carry it throughout the rest of this chapter so you can understand exactly what’s coming. Grab your pencil and get ready to create a personalized plan to get up to 14 pounds off fast, while remaking your metabolism for keeping it off or preparing you to keep going to lose even more fat.

CALCULATING YOUR MIS SCORE

To calculate your MIS, divide 14 pounds, which is your maximum weight loss goal for the next fourteen days, by your current body weight in pounds, taken first thing in the morning. Multiply that number by 100 to get your MIS, like this:

Metabolic Intervention Score

(14 pounds ÷ current body weight, taken first thing in the morning) x 100 = MIS

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PERSONALIZED MEAL MAP:

Meal Map A: If your MIS is 10 or greater.

Meal Map B: If your MIS is between 7 and 9.

Meal Map C: If your MIS is 6 or lower.

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Let’s see how this would work with my client Jessica, who had lost a lot of weight, but had been holding steady for a while, getting used to her new 140-pound body. But Jessica is only 5 feet 2 inches tall, and her goal was 130 pounds. When she told me she was ready to get rid of that last 10 pounds, we divided 14 by 140 to get .10, and multiplied that number by 100 to get an MIS of 10. I gave her Meal Map A to use for the next fourteen days.

Another client, Chris, weighed 193 pounds first thing in the morning when he came to me seeking rapid weight loss. He divided 14 pounds by 193 to get .072, and multiplied that number by 100 to get an MIS of 7.2. I gave him Meal Map B to use for the next fourteen days.

Another of my clients, Melissa, once told me she has lost and regained 1,000 pounds over her lifetime. When we calculated her MIS, Melissa’s current body weight first thing in the morning was 260. She divided 14 by 260 to get .053, and multiplied that number by 100 to get an MIS of 5.3. I gave her Meal Map C to use for the next fourteen days.

THE RAPID WEIGHT LOSS MEAL MAPS

Your meal map is designed to address your exact level of need for metabolic intervention, so each meal map does this in several different ways, both with different proportions of protein and carbohydrates, and with a different rotational rhythm:

 

Meal Map A

If you are on Meal Map A, you aren’t far from your ideal weight, but those stubborn final pounds want to hang on because your body feels stable where it is. But don’t despair—the trick is to focus on higher carbs, especially in the form of fruit, and a little bit less protein. But that doesn’t mean you should eat no protein. You still need protein to build muscle and structure, but you need it in different amounts and in different ways than someone on another meal map.

If you are doing Meal Map A, your customized plan has:

  • More emphasis on carbohydrates, like whole grains, starchy vegetables, and especially fruit, with just enough high-quality protein to build muscle and structure.
  • A week divided by four carb-heavier days and three days with more protein.
  • Customized portion sizes, which are generally (but not always) a little smaller than for those who have a higher rate of metabolic dysfunction and more weight to lose.

This chart shows you exactly what and how much you will be eating for each meal during parts 1 and 2:

Meal Map A

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A blank version of your meal map, which you will fill out with the foods or recipes you choose to eat each day according to the food categories and portions in the above chart, along with your daily weight, water intake, and exercise choices, will look like this:

Meal Map A

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Meal Map B

If you are doing Meal Map B, your customized plan has:

  • A balance of protein and carbs, to help you lose and then stabilize your easily shifting weight.
  • A week divided by three carb-heavier days and four low-carb, higher-protein days.
  • Customized portion sizes, in a moderate range between what you would have in Meal Maps C or A.

This chart shows you exactly what and how much you will be eating for each meal during parts 1 and 2:

Meal Map B

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A blank version of your meal map, which you will fill out with the foods or recipes you choose to eat each day according to the food categories and portions in the above chart, along with your daily weight, water intake, and exercise choices, will look like this:

Meal Map B

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Meal Map C

If you are doing Meal Map C, your customized plan has:

  • A focus on protein. Of all the plans, you will be consuming the most protein. You still need carbs for their unique micronutrients, fiber, and energy. They nourish your adrenals, help to calm the stress response, and provide easily accessible energy, but for Meal Map C, carbs play a supporting role to protein.
  • A week divided by three carb-heavier days and four low-carb, higher-protein days.
  • Customized portion sizes. Because your metabolism needs the most intervention, your portion sizes are the largest. Food is your catalyst for change.

This chart shows you exactly what and how much you will be eating for each meal during parts 1 and 2:

Meal Map C

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A blank version of your meal map, which you will fill out with the foods or recipes you choose to eat each day according to the food categories and portions in the above chart, along with your daily weight, water intake, and exercise choices, will look like this:

Meal Map C

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THE METABOLISM REVOLUTION FOOD LIST

This list contains only those foods that I know from my clinical experience and education to be particularly good at burning fat rapidly. I don’t want you to deviate from this food list while doing the Metabolism Revolution, but you can deviate within the list, substituting any item in a particular group (like protein, complex carb, fruit, or vegetable) for any other in the recipes in chapter 6.

METABOLISM REVOLUTION FOOD LIST

FREE FOODS (UNLIMITED)

These can be incorporated into any meal at any time in unlimited quantities.

100% monk fruit/lo han

100% pure stevia

Birch xylitol

Celery

Dried or fresh herbs and spices

Egg whites

Garlic

Ginger

Horseradish

Lemons

Limes

Mustard, pure (no additives)

Onions

Pepper: black, red, red pepper flakes

Raw cacao

Sea salt

Vinegar, pure (no additives)

FRUITS: 1 CUP = 1 PORTION

These may be fresh or frozen and may be served in combination.

Apples

Berries, all

Cherries

Grapefruit

Mangoes

Melons, all

Nectarines

Oranges

Peaches

Pears

Pineapple

Plums

VEGETABLES: 2 CUPS RAW / 1 CUP COOKED = 1 PORTION

These may be fresh or frozen, served raw or cooked, and can be served in combination.

Asparagus

Beets, all

Broccoli/Broccolini

Cabbage

Carrots

Cauliflower

Cucumbers

Green beans, yellow beans, wax beans

Leafy greens and lettuces

Mushrooms, all

Onions, all

Peppers, all

Radishes

Squashes, all

NON-GRAIN-BASED COMPLEX CARBS: ½ CUP COOKED = 1 PORTION

Beans/legumes (except peanuts, green peas, and soy)

Quinoa

Sweet potatoes/yams

Wild rice

GRAINS: ½ CUP COOKED = 1 PORTION

Brown rice

Buckwheat

Kamut

Oats

Spelt

PROTEINS: 4 OUNCES (OR 2 EGGS) = 1 PORTION

Organic, free-range, and antibiotic-free is preferred. Select nitrite-free, with no additives, sugars, or preservatives.

Beef

Buffalo

Chicken

Eggs, whole

Fish, wild-caught

Lamb

Pork

Shrimp

Turkey

Wild game

VEGETABLE PROTEINS

Legumes (such as lentils, black beans, white beans, refried beans, etc.—no peanuts), ¾ cup

Mushrooms, any type, 3 cups raw

Tempeh, 4 ounces raw (the only allowed soy product)

HEALTHY FAT

These can be served in combination.

Avocado, ¼

Hummus, ¼ cup

Nut and seed butters, from raw nuts and seeds only, 2 tablespoons

Nuts and seeds, raw only, ¼ cup

Oils (avocado, coconut, grapeseed, olive, safflower, sunflower, walnut oil), 2 tablespoons

Olives, 8 to 10 olives

Raw coconut meat, ¼ cup

Safflower mayonnaise, 2 tablespoons

 

Mix and Match

As you begin this plan, you may notice that the amount of protein and vegetables in your plan is pretty large, especially for Meal Map C, where protein is crucial for metabolic repair and vegetables are important for providing enzymes to digest all that protein. But I get that it can feel like too much. When your meal map lists two servings of protein or vegetables at a meal, you don’t have to eat two servings of the same thing. You can mix and match, choosing two different proteins and/or two different vegetables. For example, you can have 2 eggs and turkey sausage instead of 4 eggs, or 4 ounces chicken breast and ¾ cup black beans instead of 8 ounces chicken breast. With vegetables, you can get even more creative. If your meal map says 4 cups vegetables, you can choose 2 cups each of two kinds, or 1 cup each of four different vegetables. The more variety, the more micronutrients.

 

The Elephant in the Room

You might have already noticed that my list contains no wheat, no dairy, no sugar, no soy (except tempeh), no corn, and no alcohol. I have selected the foods on this food list to zero in on weight loss, and any additions will dilute the effect and slow down your progress. I’ll say more about additional foods in the second half of this book, especially in chapter 9, which is all about metabolic disruptors. For now, just know that for the next fourteen days, your choices are limited for a good reason. I want you to focus on what you are doing, not what you aren’t doing. That is the mind-set that will lead to success.

But now I’m going to address the elephant in the room. I’m going to talk about coffee. And not just coffee, but caffeine in general. I’m going to talk about coffee because many people’s knee-jerk reaction is “No coffee? No way!” Hear me out.

American runs on coffee, or so they say. Some of you may run on a cup of strong black tea, or even a cola, to get you through the morning or that afternoon slump. But it’s important for you to know that caffeine is a potent adrenal gland stressor. Your adrenal glands are instrumental in keeping your stress hormones under control and also in regulating your blood sugar. Rapid weight loss is much more difficult with stress hormones like cortisol pumping through your system, and it is nearly impossible when you are having big blood sugar spikes followed by surges of insulin. Your body is designed to provide you with the energy you need to get through your day without stimulants. When you give it the nutrients it needs for energy metabolism instead of “fake” energy from caffeine, your energy will be steadier, last longer, and feel better, with no jitters, shaky hands, or nervousness, and no afternoon crashes, either.

A lot of people try to argue with me by defending coffee and other caffeinated beverages. They say things like “But coffee kills my appetite so I eat less” or “But coffee helps makes me sharper and smarter.” Coffee is an appetite suppressant only for low-carb, low-calorie dieters, and that is the kind of diet I do not condone, because if you ever go off it, you will be prone to rapid weight gain. And as for sharper thinking, that comes from flooding your brain with micronutrients it needs to grow more neurons, and from regular exercise, which washes your brain with brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a protein that nurtures and stimulates your brain cells. Coffee has nothing to do with it.

I would love nothing more than for you to tell me, “Haylie, I finally quit coffee, and I’ve never felt better or more energetic in my life.” You would not be the first person to tell me that, and you won’t be the last, but I hope you will join the growing legion of people who have freed themselves from the tyranny of caffeine. And after just three or four days, when the headache clears (which is the proof of your addiction), you’ll see the light. And you won’t regret it.

YOUR MEAL MAP EXERCISE PLAN

Each meal map also comes with an exercise plan customized to best take advantage of the meal map’s particular protein-carb balance, as well as your particular need for metabolic repair. Your meal map will specify how much cardio to do and whether or not weight lifting is beneficial for you right now, and will also have specific guidance for Metabolic Intervention Exercises (MIEs). Here are some guidelines for cardio, weight lifting, and MIE—options, frequency, and intensity.

Cardio Guidelines

Cardio doesn’t just burn fat. It also releases endorphins and catecholamines that make you feel calm and good, so your body can stop panicking and hoarding stored fat. Choose any activity from this list for your cardio:

Your goal is to raise your heart rate to between 120 and 140 beats per minute for 20 to 35 minutes, but not to go over 145 beats per minute. The level of intensity will depend on your level of fitness. For some of my clients, climbing a short flight of stairs will raise their heart rate that much. For others, it takes running a 6-minute mile to get their heart rates up high enough. You can track your heart rate on most newer fitness watches, or with a heart rate monitor strap around your chest or wrist. Some workout equipment also tracks your heart rate for you if you hold your finger over the sensor while exercising.

While cardio is important, please observe the upper limit as well. When you are using food for weight loss and strategically stimulating muscle development, preserving and building muscle is crucial for success. When your heart rate elevates too high and exercise becomes strenuous, muscle mass can be broken down. Your current muscle mass is sacred to us over the next fourteen days. It is going to help you achieve rapid weight loss, so you cannot afford to lose any muscle during this time. If you are in the habit of strenuous cardio, you will be able to get back to it, but right now, keep your heart rate under 145 bpm, so you aren’t undermining your efforts to repair your metabolism.

Weight-Lifting Exercise Guidelines

If you are using Meal Maps B or C, you will also be lifting weights once or twice every week. Choose a different day to lift weights than the day you do cardio. Use free weights, weight machines, resistance bands or balls, or your own body weight to work these muscles. To stimulate aggressive fat burn, work with stacked reps in sets of 3. Start with 8 reps, then 6 reps, then 4 reps. The weight should be heavy enough that you can just complete the reps to muscle exhaustion. If you can do a lot more reps, then you need to increase your weight. Always keep your body in a stable, supported position to avoid injury, and if you have an injury already (like a rotator cuff tear or knee ligament tear), don’t stress that area with weights. Focus on other areas instead. You will still get the benefits. For our purposes over the next fourteen days, the best way to use weights to your advantage is to focus on your choice of any three large muscle groups on any given weight day. On subsequent days, change the muscle groups, rotating through the following list:

If you aren’t sure what exercises to do for your chosen muscle group, ask a trainer at your gym for help, or check out the exercises on hay liepomroy.com organized by weight group. You can also look up exercises for each of these muscle groups in books or on fitness websites.

Metabolic Intervention Exercises (MIEs)

MIEs are supported or passive activities like massage, infrared sauna, and Epsom salt baths that are critical for rapid weight loss success. You will be making changes to your diet and exercise routine, and the calming, stress-reversing action of MIEs will minimize stress hormone production so your body can more easily get into fat-burning mode. Remember that when your body experiences chronic stress, it hoards fat. MIEs reverse that response. MIEs also stimulate your circulation, increase blood flow and lymphatic flow, and facilitate waste removal. On top of all that, they feel great, so don’t skip them.

Somebody has to take out the trash, and these exercises are superheroes in that department. Don’t underestimate them.

If you can, do these exercises on days when you are not doing any other exercises. Here are my favorite MIEs:

MIEs are also an excellent option for those who have mobility issues. If you cannot do regular cardio and/or weight lifting, you could incorporate an MIE four or five times per week instead of traditional exercise. I talk more about this in the FAQs in chapter 5.

Here are your customized exercise prescriptions, per meal map.

Meal Map A

Cardio is your friend. You don’t need the aggressive historical fat scavenging actions of weight lifting over the next fourteen days. Rather than build structure right now, you want to focus on getting rid of those stubborn remaining pounds that haven’t responded to your previous efforts. When someone doesn’t have a large amount of body fat mass to lose, there is typically less visceral fat, and the fat you want to get rid of is more integrated into your muscles and fascia. When that happens, we need to focus on a lot of vasodilation and increased blood flow, which is what cardio accomplishes for you. But don’t sweat it—if you love lifting weights, you can go back to it. Just take a break for these fourteen days.

Meal Map B

You fall right in between the weight-training-centric needs of those on Meal Map A. You need a balanced combination of both the stress-relieving, fat-burning, vasodilating effects of cardio, and the potent fat-releasing and muscle-building effects of weight training—the best of both worlds.

Meal Map C

If you are using Meal Map C, weights are your friend. You will be doing some cardio because cardio dilates your blood vessels for more efficient circulation and also reduces the stress response, but weight lifting is critical for people experiencing weight loss resistance who have accumulated a significant amount of visceral fat. Weight lifting causes microtears to the muscle, which prompts your body to excrete an enzyme called creatine kinase. This enzyme scavenges the resistant outer “shell” around visceral fat so it can be more easily released into the bloodstream. This is a powerful way to break up and release fat stores you may have been holding on to for decades.

THE RAPID WEIGHT LOSS RULES

No matter what meal map you are following, these are general healthy guidelines to follow that are conducive to rapid weight loss in any situation. I recommend practicing these habits even when you aren’t working to lose weight quickly. They are rules 4 life that will always benefit your efforts at both weight loss and weight maintenance. For the next fourteen days, while you are on the Metabolism Revolution program, they are nonnegotiable. Here are the rules:

Eat 35 Times Per Week

Eat five times per day (a total of thirty-five meals and snacks per week). To stoke your metabolic fire and burn away fat at the rapid pace we are going for during the next fourteen days, it is essential to eat often. You must keep kindling that fire. Do not skip any meals or snacks.

Eat Within 30 Minutes of Waking

Eat within 30 minutes of waking. This is no time to skip breakfast, or you douse the fire at the beginning of your day. Even if you must swap a snack with breakfast in order to get out the door in time, eat something right away. After 30 minutes, you have already depressed your metabolic fire and you will have a harder time getting it going again.

Eat Every 2 to 4 Hours

Eat every 2 to 4 hours (except, obviously, when you are sleeping). In some of my other books, I say not to go longer than 3 to 4 hours, but eating every 2 hours is just fine and a good way to keep your metabolism burning. Never go longer than 4 hours without a meal or snack when you are awake, or your metabolic fire will begin to die down. This is extremely important.

Make the 14-Day Commitment

Stay on the plan for fourteen days. If you see big results after one week, don’t get satisfied and quit. You need to do the entire fourteen days for the weight to get off and stay off. When you lose weight quickly at the beginning, you need to solidify those results. If your weight is stubborn, you may also find that you lose most of it in the second half. No matter what your Metabolic Intervention Score is today, you need fourteen solid days of repair to get the job done, and get it done right.

Stick to Your Split

Your assigned meal map has a 4/3 or 3/4 split, with one style of eating for the first part of the week, and a different style of eating for the second half. This split is specifically for the purpose of fueling rapid weight loss, so don’t stray from it.

Drink Half Your Body Weight in Ounces of Water Every Day

When you lose weight quickly, your body is shedding fat, fluid, and the waste products of metabolism. Help that process along and stay hydrated by getting in the habit of drinking half your body weight in ounces of clean spring water per day. For example, if you weigh 180 pounds, you would drink 90 ounces of water every day. I like to fill up a jug with my water for the day and pour glasses from that until it’s gone so I don’t have to keep track of my ounces, but whatever way works for you is great.

Eat Organic Whenever Possible

I understand that organic food isn’t always available or affordable, so I don’t absolutely require it. However, whenever you can, keep the pesticides and pharmaceuticals out of your food by eating organic, especially when it comes to meat, and vegetables and fruits that you eat without peeling. These agricultural chemicals are metabolic disruptors (see chapter 9). When your liver must focus on processing toxins (not just food chemicals but also environmental pollution, alcohol, and pharmaceuticals), it can’t focus on processing fat. Organic food and a clean environment make your liver’s job easier, and weight loss faster.

Don’t Eat Off-Plan

The foods I’ve chosen for you are specifically designed to get the weight off fast, so stick to your food list. If you are tempted to ask me, “But, Haylie, can I have X, Y, or Z?,” just assume the answer is “Not for the next fourteen days.” You can, however, swap like items with other items on the list—fruit for fruit, vegetable for vegetable, protein for protein, etc. For instance, if you don’t like asparagus but you love cucumber, you can swap those in equal portions. But don’t swap for something that isn’t on the list, like tomatoes or jicama. Those are off the list for the next fourteen days for good reason, even though they are on some of the food lists in some of my other plans. Each plan has specific goals, so don’t eat off-plan.

Choose Your 14 Days Wisely

Before you jump into the plan, you’ll need to pull out your calendar and find a fourteen-day period where you don’t have a lot of super-stressful things going on. Don’t do it when you are moving, or sending your last child off to college, or starting a new job. Don’t do it when you are going to be on vacation, or you have a lot of high-intensity work stuff happening.

But don’t put it off, either. Life is full of stressful times, and you can’t ever avoid them completely. Just do your best to find a fourteen-day period when you can exercise control over what you eat and when you exercise. That’s the most important thing. It’s not that you can’t do the Metabolism Revolution when you are traveling or going to a restaurant. In fact, in the next chapter, I’ll show you how my client Cathy managed to eat out a few times during her fourteen-day plan, and also how my client Jeanine was able to take her whole family out to eat for their traditional Friday-night family dinner. But it’s easier to do it when you make your food at home, so I encourage you to do that most of the time over the next fourteen days. Choosing a fourteen-day period when this is at least mostly possible will help everything sail along with less effort.

Choose a Start Date

Also consider your starting day carefully. Many of my clients like to start on a Monday, just because it makes sense to them to start at the beginning of the week. Then you will end on a Sunday, and in two weeks from this Monday, you’ll feel like a whole new you. But starting on a Monday isn’t required. You can start on any day of the week. Planning is everything.

Now let’s take a look at the process that will propel you straight through those fourteen days so you come out the other side feeling like you’ve experienced a Metabolism Revolution.