Better fat loss through simplicity | Main rules

Rule #1: Avoid “white” carbohydrates (or anything that can be white).

Rule #2: Eat the same few meals over and over again.

Rule #3: Don’t drink calories.

Rule #4: Don’t eat fruit.

Rule #5: Take one day off per week and go nuts.

RULE #1: AVOID “WHITE” CARBOHYDRATES.

Avoid any carbohydrate that is, or can be, white. The following foods are prohibited, except for
within 30 minutes of ��nishing a resistance-training workout like those described in the “From
Geek to Freak” or “Occam’s Protocol” chapters: all bread, rice (including brown), cereal,
potatoes, pasta, tortillas, and fried food with breading. If you avoid eating the aforementioned
foods and anything else white, you’ll be safe.


Just for fun, another reason to avoid the whities: chlorine dioxide, one of the chemicals used
to bleach ��our (even if later made brown again, a common trick), combines with residual
protein in most of these foods to form alloxan. Researchers use alloxan in lab rats to induce
diabetes. That’s right—it’s used to produce diabetes. This is bad news if you eat anything white
or “enriched.”
Don’t eat white stuff unless you want to get fatter.

RULE #2: EAT THE SAME FEW MEALS OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

The most successful dieters, regardless of whether their goal is muscle gain or fat-loss, eat the
same few meals over and over again. There are 47,000 products in the average U.S. grocery
store, but only a handful of them won’t make you fat.
Mix and match from the following list, constructing each meal with one pick from each of the
three groups. I’ve starred the choices that produce the fastest fat-loss for me:
Proteins
*Egg whites with 1–2 whole eggs for flavor (or, if organic, 2–5 whole eggs, including yolks)
*Chicken breast or thigh
*Beef (preferably grass-fed)
*Fish
Pork
Legumes
*Lentils (also called “dal” or “daal”)
*Black beans
Pinto beans
Red beans
Soybeans
Vegetables
*Spinach
*Mixed vegetables (including broccoli, cauliflower, or any other cruciferous vegetables)
*Sauerkraut, kimchee (full explanation of these later in “Damage Control”)
*Sauerkraut, kimchee (full explanation of these later in “Damage Control”)
Asparagus
Peas
Broccoli
Green beans
Eat as much as you like of the above food items, but keep it simple.
Pick three or four meals and repeat them. Almost all restaurants can give you a salad or
vegetables in place of french fries, potatoes, or rice. Surprisingly, I have found Mexican food
(after swapping out rice for vegetables) to be one of the cuisines most conducive to the Slow-
Carb Diet. If you have to pay an extra $1–3 to substitute at a restaurant, consider it your sixpack
tax, the nominal fee you pay to be lean.
Most people who go on “low”-carbohydrate diets complain of low energy and quit because
they consume insu��cient calories. A half-cup of rice is 300 calories, whereas a half-cup of
spinach is 15 calories! Vegetables are not calorically dense, so it is critical that you add legumes
for caloric load.
Eating more frequently than four times per day might be helpful on higher-carb diets to
prevent gorging, but it’s not necessary with the ingredients we’re using. Eating more frequent
meals also appears to have no enhancing e��ect on resting metabolic rate, despite claims to the
contrary. Frequent meals can be used in some circumstances (see “The Last Mile”), but not for
this reason.
The following meal schedule is based on a late sleep schedule, as I’m a night owl who gives
up the ghost at 2:00 A.M. at the earliest, usually with wineglass or book still in hand, à la heroin
addict. Adjust your meals to ��t your schedule, but make sure to have your ��rst meal within an
hour of waking.
Meals are approximately four hours apart.
10:00 A.M.—Breakfast
2:00 P.M.—Lunch
6:30 P.M.—Smaller second lunch
8:00–9:00 P.M.—Recreation or sports training, if scheduled.
10:00 P.M.—Dinner
12:00 A.M.—Glass of red wine and Discovery Channel before bed
Here are some of my meals that recur again and again:
• Breakfast (home): Scrambled Eggology® pourable egg whites with one whole egg, black beans,
and mixed vegetables warmed up or cooked in a microwave using Pyrex® containers.
• Lunch (Mexican restaurant): Grass-fed organic beef, pinto beans, mixed vegetables, and extra
guacamole.
• Dinner (home): Grass-fed organic beef (from Trader Joe’s), lentils, and mixed vegetables.

To be continue....