Take a deep breath and relax. I want you to know that you’re finally about to embark on a diet plan that—unlike the fad diets I’ve shown you don’t work in the long term—you can use for the rest of your life. The only side effect of the 5-Factor Diet is a healthier, fitter body. The only danger is that you may stop traffic when you walk downtown. If you’re ready for those kinds of results, let’s get started.
Many celebrity trainers handle only the exercise portion of their clients’ fitness programs. I incorporate both exercise and nutritional information. In fact, that’s the core of my business as I work with thousands of people face-to-face, over the phone, and online. I work with people who live all over the world, from South America and Europe to North America, Asia, and Australia. That global perspective has shown me that people eat badly all over the world. I had to create a diet plan that would address the fitness and nutritional needs of anyone, no matter where he or she is from or what his or her nutrition habits and culture.
Most fad diets will base their entire eating plan on one study; other diets take one specific scientific finding and spin an entire eating plan around it. That’s not very balanced, is it? Those kinds of programs can never deliver the realistic, healthy diet you need.
The 5-Factor Diet is different. Its components are based on well-established science and on many sound, time-honored studies. These aren’t studies that will be refuted six months after this book is published. The 5-Factor Diet and 5-Factor Recipes are supported by unchallenged and rock-solid research that has existed for years—in some cases, the studies were done long before I worked with my first client. (See “5-Factor Golden Rules,” for more on the science behind this diet.) And the 5-Factor Diet is easy to follow: Anyone can use it and see results—no matter who you are or where you’re from.
The 5-Factor Diet starts and ends with the number 5. In fact, everything in the 5-Factor Diet revolves around the number 5. Here’s how my menu plan breaks down—in 5s, of course—to help you stay on track.
There is no skipping meals on the 5-Factor Diet—and with recipes as tasty as the ones I have developed for you, you won’t want to pass up a single bite. Each day, you’ll eat your typical three meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) plus two healthy snacks, one in midmorning and one in midafternoon.
To figure out when you should eat, start by adding up how many hours you’re awake during the day—from the time you get out of bed until you turn out the light at night—and divide that number by 5. The resulting number is roughly the number of hours I want you to wait between meals. For example, if you get up at 7 a.m. and go to bed at 11 p.m., you’re awake for 16 hours. Divide 16 by 5 and you get a little over three hours, so you should eat at 8 a.m., 11 a.m., 2 p.m., 5 p.m., and 8 p.m.
As you can already imagine, eating 5 meals a day ensures that you’ll never feel hungry or deprived. (In “5 Meals a Day Are Key,” I’ll get into more detail about the science behind why eating 5 meals is vital to seeing the best results.)
That may sound daunting, but it’s easier than it sounds. There are no particular foods I want you to eat. Rather, I want you to make sure every meal or snack you eat is a mix of five elements: protein, low- to moderate-glycemic carbohydrates, healthy fats, and fiber, along with a sugar-free beverage to wash it down. This is the heart of the 5-Factor Diet.
I’ll go into more detail soon, but for now just know that you get to decide what foods to eat from these five categories. All I ask is that you incorporate all five on your plate at every meal. To make it effortless, the recipes in this book (see “5-Factor Recipes,”) all meet the 5-Factor criteria. If you follow my menu, it’ll be easy to stick to the 5-Factor Diet.
I know one of the hardest things about dieting is learning how to prepare what’s healthy. With my 5-Factor Diet, I’ve removed that problem from the equation. Every one of my recipes uses 5 or fewer core ingredients, requires 5 steps or fewer to prepare, and takes only 5 minutes to prepare (not counting cook time). Now you’ll always have time to watch what you eat.
Ben Foster ACTOR, STAR IN THE MOVIE X-MEN: THE LAST STAND
“Harley Pasternak has developed an extraordinary program for health and fitness. No trends, no gimmicks. Only serious results. It’s user friendly, and it is the most effective way to ensure long-term health.”
Exercise is the important factor that most diets gloss over, yet it’s critical in the battle to lose weight and make your body healthy, strong, and more injury resistant. I said this in my first book, 5-Factor Fitness: Eating is 50 percent of the getting-fit equation, and exercise is the other 50 percent.
To get the full benefit of the 5-Factor Diet, you must exercise. That’s why I’ve included a “New 5-Factor Hollywood Workout” with the 5-Factor Diet. It makes it easy to exercise five days a week, so you will always feel great while maximizing your progress.
As part of the 5-Factor Diet, I have determined the 5 types of foods—proteins, carbohydrates, condiments, snacks, and beverages—that you should always have on hand. I’ve further broken this down into the 5-Factor Must-Have Foods, comprising are five of the best nutritional picks from each category, for 25 essential foods you’ll always want to have on hand. (For details, see “5-Factor Must-Have Foods,”.) There’s no guesswork with my eating plan.
I call my plan the 5-Factor Diet, but truth be told, it’s not as much a diet as a lifestyle. It works for a number of reasons, all of which should resonate with you, especially if you’ve ever failed at dieting in the past. It works because I can make the following five important promises to you.
Have you ever been on a diet that gives you a feeling of emptiness in your stomach, as if you haven’t eaten for weeks? That sensation simply doesn’t exist on my 5-Factor Diet for several reasons. One of the main principles behind the 5-Factor Diet is eating 5 times a day. It’s hard to be hungry with 5 meals a day!
Eating 5 meals spaced evenly throughout the day also keeps your blood sugar (also called blood glucose) stable, which naturally keeps your appetite in check. I’ve found that eating frequent meals has an important effect on eating habits. My clients tell me that they always feel as if they’re either just about to eat, eating, or just finishing a meal. That’s good because it means they never feel desperate for food.
Another reason you won’t feel hungry is that you’ll combine five very important things—protein, low- or moderate-glycemic carbs, fiber, healthy fats, and a sugar-free beverage—in every meal. (See “The Ideal 5-Factor Meal,”, for more details.) These five foods work with one another not just to improve your health and help you lose weight but also to leave you feeling fuller.
MY 5-FACTOR DIET PROMISES
Never feeling hungry or deprived is exactly the condition I want for you, because that will keep you from eating more than you should. In studies, critical hospital patients who were given the option to administer their own morphine for pain actually chose to use less than what their doctors would have given them. Similarly, you may find you eat less on the 5-Factor Diet simply because it puts you in control—instead of dictating exactly what you can and can’t have.
The 5-Factor Diet isn’t based on restrictions. You won’t be cutting carbs or eliminating sugar or any entire food group. In fact, half of this book is filled with recipes for delicious pizza, spaghetti, pancakes, burritos, and many other dishes that most people crave. And it’s easy to fit the foods you like into the 5-Factor Diet even if you don’t follow my recipes all the time.
On the 5-Factor Diet, you’re rewarded each week with the chance to eat whatever you want—guilt free. Why would any diet allow you to do such a thing?
You must remember this: Living healthfully should not come at the expense of living well. I think it’s awfully sad when somebody refuses to eat her own birthday cake. Or when someone visits the most delicious French restaurant in New York City but orders only a green salad because he’s dieting. I would ask those people, “Why are you alive? What good is your health if you aren’t enjoying life?” The 5-Factor program never forgets
that.
Common GRAMMY NOMINATED MUSICIAN, ACTOR
“Being trained by Harley has made me realize that physical fitness is part of the spirit, body, and mind connection. His insight and energy toward training and health have been a blessing toward improving my life.”
Everyone needs a mini meal vacation, if you will. Taking off one day a week is a catharsis. It’s a mental relief. It re-empowers you, so you never feel like you’re in a diet prison. In fact, an occasional high-calorie day may be just what your body needs to lose weight. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health discovered that subjects who for one day ate twice as many calories as they do normally increased their metabolism by 9 percent in the 24 hours that followed. So cheating one day can help you burn calories—as long as you return to the plan the next day.
If you’re worried that cheating may make you want to stray the next day as well, don’t fret. Most likely, the cheat day is exactly what you need to prove how well the 5-Factor Diet is working.
It’s a lot like using premium fuel in your car. You don’t realize how well your car runs on it until the day you decide to save a dime and pour in a few gallons of cheap fuel instead. Suddenly your car sputters and the motor doesn’t seem to respond as well. It’ll be the same for you when you put away the premium 5-Factor Recipes and fill up on junk.
That’s one of the advantages to a cheat day. I want you to cheat so you can see how sluggish you feel when you slip back into old habits. I guarantee that after a few cheats, you’ll begin to ask yourself afterward, “Was that really worth it?” You may find yourself craving pizza all week and then, after you have it, realize the main reason you craved it was because you weren’t allowed to have it. I can tell you that after my cheat day, I feel mentally and physically different in a way that reminds me how much healthier my body feels when I follow the 5-Factor Diet.
You can pick any one day of the week to splurge, but I suggest you try to make it the same day each week so you always have something to look forward to. Of course, if you know there’s a day in the week that’s going to be more of a challenge foodwise—perhaps you’ve been invited to a party or you have a work dinner—then feel free to switch days.
Personally, I prefer Sunday for my cheat day because it’s usually a day that’s more social, and a day when I’m more likely to be around the sinful foods I’ve been dodging diligently all week. For me, Sunday also feels like the official end of the week. By making their cheat day Sunday, many of my clients feel as if they are building up to something that they earn through sticking to the plan.
It strikes me as odd that so many people are willing to shell out large amounts of money for flavorless pill and powder supplements to add nutrients to their diets—nutrients they could be getting simply by eating the right combination of foods. Those foods would also fill them up so they wouldn’t binge on the nutritionless fare that was causing them to be nutrient deprived in the first place.
While writing this book, I looked up the word supplement in the dictionary. By definition, it’s “something added to make up for a deficiency.” If you’re eating the right foods according to the 5-Factor Diet, you never have to worry about being deficient in any nutritional area, and you never have to spend a dime on supplements. The 5-Factor Diet is based on the inherent nutritional value of real foods. It is designed to give you the right amount of macro- and micronutrients that your body needs—nutrients you may not be getting from your diet right now. (If you have an allergy or a religious obligation that prevents you from eating a particular food—such as eggs, milk, or shellfish—the 5-Factor Diet offers plenty of other options that are equally abundant in nutrients. That way, you can tailor the diet to accommodate your needs without missing out on nutrition.)
Is it OK to take a multivitamin while on the 5-Factor Diet? Of course it is. In fact, I encourage you to take multivitamins, but not because the 5-Factor Diet is deficient. Certain foods—especially fruits, vegetables, and meats—can lose a percentage of their vitamins and minerals, depending on how they’re prepared or when they’re picked. A multivitamin serves as backup insurance for your body, just in case some of your foods have reduced levels of micro- and macronutrients.
Most people can choose a regular over-the-counter multivitamin from the drugstore. However, women who are no longer menstruating, as well as men, should choose types that don’t contain iron.
There are a few supplements that can make life easier because of their convenience. For example, if you simply can’t get your hands on another protein source to include in a meal, I encourage you to use protein powders and high-protein RTD (Ready to Drink) meal replacement drinks. In fact, I put RTDs on my list of “5-Factor Must-Have Foods”.
“I’m a baseball player with the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the 5-Factor program has changed my life. I ended up losing 40 pounds before spring training, and the level of fitness that I have achieved has helped me have the best season of my career. 5-Factor has become my off-season and in-season training program. Thanks, Harley!”
Casey Hoorelbeke WEIGHT LOST SO FAR: 40 lbs.
Who has time to bake a casserole? I don’t, my clients don’t, and I’m sure you don’t either. Whether you’re the head of a corporation or the head of your household, time is tight for everyone. Lack of time is a big reason why a lot of us eat badly to begin with. It often seems far easier and faster to swing by a drive-through or grab a packaged snack than it is to prepare a healthy dish from scratch.
It’s a myth that cooking healthy has to take lots of time. To prove that fact, I designed all the 5-Factor Recipes in this book to be prepared in five minutes or less. How is that possible? Every recipe has a maximum of 5 key ingredients. Each recipe has 5 or fewer steps to follow. With the 5-Factor Diet, you can stop watching the clock and start watching your shrinking waistline.
Even if you decide to create your own tasty dishes in addition to mine, you’ll see how every food I’ve recommended for you to eat is easy to prepare. And because you don’t count calories or portion sizes with the 5-Factor Diet, you don’t waste time worrying about anything but enjoying your food.
Some of my clients are musicians, and when they’re on tour they can be in a different city every night. So I needed to create a nutritional plan that they could stick to no matter where they landed the next day. That’s perhaps the greatest gift the 5-Factor Diet offers anyone who wants to lose weight: It makes it easy to take your healthy habits with you outside your home and wherever you go.
The 5-Factor Diet doesn’t require that you eat certain foods or certain portions. There are no strange supplements to order, no meetings to attend, no refrigerators filled with packaged meals. All you have to do in order to stick to this plan is eat five meals a day, with each meal containing a protein, a low- or moderate-glycemic carbohydrate, fiber, a healthy fat, and a sugar-free beverage.
With so few guidelines, you can see that it’s easy to do the 5-Factor Diet anywhere. You can go to Jamaica and have jerk chicken with rice and peas and be eating the 5-Factor Diet. You can head to Spain and have brown rice with seafood. You can take the 5-Factor Diet with you as your own personal travel partner—anywhere in the world—and get results!