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Here is the secret: Go to bed hungry. You’re not going to believe how awesome this trick works. But allow me to explain it:

Believe it or not, every single day and night, even while you sleep, your body is already, actually burning fat. During the day it does it faster, because you move around more, you’re more active and this requires more energy to be used up, thus it only makes sense to assume that during the day or whenever you’re active, your body is going to work more, and once again, this will require that it uses more calories and fat for fuel.

However, during night time, the body is in rest mode, but still burning fat, just in a much lesser level. It just doesn’t need to do as much when you’re relaxed, that should make sense too.

Given these 2 scenarios, one would think that they don’t need to do anything to burn fat while they sleep, but they would be wrong. Very wrong in fact, because most people make a terrible mistake which actually piles on the weight during this time.

What is this mistake? They eat before bedtime…

If you want to gain weight, there’s really no better way to do it than to eat before bedtime. But hold on Vitaliy, didn’t you just say that the body burns fat already, even while you’re sleeping?

Yes I did, but here’s what you need to understand:

Imagine that you ate a big meal right before bedtime. Now your body will be spending the majority of the night if not the whole night and even the following day burning off that food you ate, and most of the time, it won’t be able to finish ridding itself of that one meal before you’re already onto your next, which means you’re now going to have excess food in the body.

Here’s a quick numbers example:

• Let’s say the average person burns 300 calories a night.
• But before bed, they ate a big meal that amounted to 1,000 calories. 
• By the time you wake up, that’s still 700 calories worth of food in your body that hasn’t gone away. 
• Then before you wait for those 700 calories to get used up, you eat another meal, one that has another 1,000 calories.
• Now your body will have to burn off 1,700 calories altogether.
• And on and on this issue is going to pile up.

With this simple formula, it’s easy to see how excess weight piles on over a short period of time. Now let’s take that example, but exclude the bed time meal.

• Again, we will use the same person who burns 300 calories a night.
• Before bed, they don’t eat anything. Thus they will drop 300 calories and if they have excess weight in the body, those 300 calories will come off that existing weight, so you will be losing a part of that.
• Repeat that for about 12 days and you’re going to lose 3,600 calories, which equals 1 pound of fat, doing something as simple as sleeping.

See how differently that went? And all because you didn’t eat at night. It makes a huge difference, and a lot more quickly than you think…

How many calories do you burn when you sleep? You’d be surprised…

You’d have to determine your BMR for this, but it’s somewhere around several 100 calories per 7-8 hours during bedtime, and it’s also determined by your starting weight, so someone who weights 200 pounds or more will get rid of more calories during their sleep than someone who weights 150 pounds.

But in any case, it’s a serious parameter to consider if you’re already having trouble with weight and need to drop it. Also consider the fact that it’s hard enough to not eat, but when you sleep, you’re not going to care about it, so it’s a way of putting your body on autopilot, letting it work for you, and you don’t have to suffer from cravings.

But if cravings arise before bed, here’s what you can eat:

You need to eat small snacks that are basically neutral foods and won’t cause weight gain. Here’s some personal options I use when I have this problem:

• Walnuts with a cup of water.
• A tablespoon of flaxseeds and a cup of water.

It’s not exactly a fine dish by any means, but it doesn’t have any carbs, and it will only aid my body in burning fat because it has high fat to begin with. So if you suffer from having major cravings before bed, try these foods and see how you feel. It may take 15-20 minutes for you to feel their effect, but by that time, you should already be in bed, trying to get some shut eye. 

Believe me, the other option in eating what you want is only going to cause a problem that can easily get out of control if you use the above reference I did.

And in the worst case scenarios, if you succumb to your cravings (it happens to us all), eat what you want, then the only 2 options would be to sleep later and feel hungry again OR burn off the calories the next day through an exercise and/or skip a meal through something like intermittent fasting.

You have to try and avoid falling for that craving, because the alternative is just worse in every way imaginable. If you fall to it:

• You will fall for it more and more, and this will only cause weight gain to happen more quickly.
• You will lose extra sleep trying to wait until you get hungry again to go to sleep.
• You will skip a meal the next day and feel miserable doing so.

And that’s because you couldn’t hold on. It’s just not worth it. Do your best to go to bed hungry and make it a discipline. On just that alone, you’re going to see some remarkable weight loss results and in a much faster time frame than you think.

The ONLY time you can get away with this is if you have medical conditions or health issues that require that you go to sleep with a full stomach. If that’s the case, then you have to follow through with that, but I would highly recommend you speak with your doctor and try to change your diet around with their supervision.

So really, the whole key to this article and question is just to go to bed hungry, that’s it and just let the body do the rest. I have a whole eBook on these types of tricks to help you lose weight and you can find it here.

And the next day, when you wake up, I promise you, that craving is going to be gone and you’ll be proud of yourself for sticking to it!

Additional tip…

If you’re NOT allergic to it, take a teaspoon or tablespoon of coconut oil OR flaxseed oil. This is something I learned from this awesome dieting book.

These oils contain healthy fats that raise metabolism, so while it won’t add to your calorie count before bed, it will help speed up metabolism while you sleep, thereby helping you lose even more weight during that period.

As someone who mainly used cardio to lose weight for a long time, I found myself lacking in the strength department, and thus decided to add more lifting into the mix.

Through my experiences, I learned some valuable things I want to share with you today.

The biggest question someone who is considering lifting may be asking is if it really helps you drop the pounds, and quickly. The answer is actually not that simple and here’s why:

The weight loss “paradox” of weight lifting:

On one hand, this kind of training helps your body burn more fat. How?

Well your muscles grow when you do various exercises of this nature. It only makes sense since the body has to adjust to the workout you’re doing to make it possible to do it in the first place. 

Muscle growth is “fed” by either the food that you eat prior and/or after a workout OR if you don’t eat before a workout, it will burn the fat in your body to compensate that. In this matter, you are actually getting rid of excess fat through these exercises so the answer here is YES, you will lose weight.

However, there is an opposite side of this in that these exercises, which cause muscle growth actually also causes weight gain to happen, due to the same muscles growing and thus weighing more than fat. 

So in short, on one hand, you’re burning fat which is great, but on the other, you’re gaining muscle. 

But is that such a bad thing? It depends…

Everything has a limit. If through lifting exercises, you wish to get jacked like Arnold Schwarzenegger, then I suppose this can be good for you, but speaking for myself and a bunch of other people who do these types of exercises, most of us don’t want that, we just want to burn away our fat and look great.

So the question then becomes, how should we structure our lifting regiment to find that right balance of losing weight and not looking TOO jacked? There’s a couple of answers to this:

1) Don’t over lift. 

While you should absolutely start with small weights and work your way up in whatever strength exercises you’re doing, you shouldn’t go beyond your body’s natural limit. My personal position on this is that you should reach a certain point in your regiment where you stay at a certain level and maintain it without going further.

This will make sure your muscles don’t grow beyond their natural limit (everyone has this) and that you’ll keep burning away any fat you pile up from bad eating.

2) Make sure to supplement the workout with proper foods before and after.

If you have a lot of fat to lose, you may want to consider having a VERY small meal that will leave you hungry, because during your workout, the body will burn away the excess fat anyway to supply the muscle growth. It won’t feel too good, but one way around this is to eat something with carbs and then workout about an hour after. This will keep you in a fed state and not feeling hungry until the workout is done.

Then post workout, eat anything that has large quantities of protein in it (this aids in muscle recovery). I don’t like supplements or powders for that matter, so my go to thing post workout is something healthy like salmon, eggs, walnuts, all of which contain high amounts of protein. Don’t overeat though. 

3) Consider doing calisthenic exercises. 

In my personal opinion, nothing beats calisthenic exercises, that is if you’re aiming to look your best in a natural state and drop a lot of pounds in the process. They help your muscles grow, you can supplement them with cardio workouts, skip lifting and still lose a lot.

Besides that, as I said before, everyone has a natural limit to how much they can do with their body and in all of the exercises I’ve experimented with, calisthenics tend to be the ones which maximize your body’s potential, without having it go over any limits it shouldn’t take.

Calisthenics involve doing strength workouts where your body is the maximum weight you’re lifting and you’re going to find that this is more than enough to challenge you, especially at first. Try doing pull ups, chin ups, push ups, burpees and other exercise which define calisthenic workouts and you’re going to see some remarkable things happening to your body:

First, you’re going to be losing fat, a lot of it in fact because of the increase in cardio, and the effort of your body to manage the exercises. Muscle growth is going to be happening, but the muscle growth will be represented by more dense muscle mass, which is actually less bulky and much better looking.

And second, you won’t go overboard with it as you’ll know when you’re doing too much. You really can’t over do it on calisthenics in terms of lifting, because in the end, you are the maximum weight potential and your body is built to withstand that. 

Now obviously, you have to practice proper form with each calisthenic exercise you do to maximize results and decrease injury possibilities, but I am telling you, these are the best types of strength training workouts you should aim for.

But again, if you’re looking to get jacked like the Hulk, that is another story. 

Don’t let the scale trick you…

Despite weight increasing through strength workouts, it does not mean you’re going to look super bulky or thick. 

Let’s say you are 220 pounds and you should naturally be around 190. That’s 30 pounds of fat you need to drop.

There’s a few options to do this:

First, you can go on starvation diets, burn away that fat and look like very skinny. Cardio workouts would also help speed this up, but again, you will look pretty skinny afterwards. 

You can lift seriously, eat well, drop those 30 pounds of fat but in doing so, you’ll probably gain 20 pounds in muscle growth. So now you’re walking around at 210. But you’ll look a lot better.

Then there’s calisthenics. You can drop 30 pounds doing them and via eating right, but only gain about 10 pounds in muscle mass and look like a beach model. 

That’s why I love the last option most of all, because in my opinion, it helps bring out the natural potential of how you should look in an ideal shape and its why my personal preference is that.

Fat burning diets help a lot in this regard…

One major thing I have learned and this is something MOST good personal trainers will admit is that if you’re trying to lose fat (doesn’t matter which area) and you’re relying on exercise to do it, don’t. Rely on the DIET.

Here is a great diet recommendation I would advise for this. It teaches you how to burn fat through proper eating that raises metabolism. If you add this type of dieting into your workouts, the results will be greatly enhanced.

The master cleanse, also known as the lemon diet is a very popular and controversial approach to weight loss, mainly due to people wondering if it does work and if it’s safe.

As someone who has done it twice, I’d like to share with you if it’s worth trying and if there’s better alternatives.

• The first time I did this cleanse, I lost about 5+ pounds in 3-4 days.
• The second time around, I lost about 14 pounds.

I’ll be giving you my experiences with this method of dieting, if it’s really something you should do and if there’s dangers to it (sometimes there can be).

How does the Master Cleanse work?

For about 10 days, you go through a cleanse where you can’t eat anything and must drink the following:

1) Lemon juice which is prepared manually by you. It combines water, lemons, maple B syrup and cayenne pepper. You just drink about 2 liters of this every single day.

2) Warm water with sea salt (or cleansing tea) every morning and the tea can be taken at night.

The lemon juice helps break down undigested foods in your small/large intestines and the warm water + sea salt helps flush it out of your body.

Does it get results?

Yes. When I did it the first time like I said above, in the first 3 days of doing this cleanse, I lost about 5 pounds, and after doing it for 5 days, I went down even more (my master cleanse experience). People who fully complete this cleanse can lose about a pound a day, sometimes more. If you do the cleanse, you will lose weight, no doubt about it.

My second time doing it, I didn’t get the same kinds of results, but I did lose about 10 pounds in 5 days but here are my documented details when I was on it.

Overall, most people who do this cleanse lose about 5-10 pounds in that time. It also varies on how much undigested food/fat you have to lose.

How long should it be?

Usually 10 days, but I’ve known people who go beyond that. If you’re a first timer, I would say no more than 10 days, but even then the main question that arises is…

Is it safe?

This is a tricky question because it varies based on who you are and what your condition/s is. If you are totally healthy and don’t have any medical conditions or aren’t taking any sort of prescriptions, then the cleanse will most likely be safe for you to do. 

If you are taking any sort of medication, you should definitely consult with your doctor before trying this cleanse out.

The other things I noticed after doing the cleanse:

I only did this cleanse for 5 days the first time around but I felt it was more than enough as I only did it for experiment’s sake.

The first 3 days were VERY difficult. You are basically not eating anything whatsoever and the hunger does set in very quickly. After day 3 however, it became surprisingly easy.

Apparently there is a 3 day period for which you have to go through a detox. After the detox, you will feel much better and the cleanse will become much easier to handle. In my case, this is exactly what happened. Additionally:

Here were the benefits I noticed:

• My skin became clearer.
• I lost more than 5 pounds.
• My cravings for unhealthy foods pretty much vanished. In fact even thinking about them made me feel sick.
• I had a lot more energy than before.
• My cravings for healthy foods lasted for a few months.

Typically results do vary, but for the most part the same things I experienced is what most people who do the master cleanse see. It works, but I would again urge you to be careful and consult a doctor before trying it out.

What I also did was use a specific guide to help me get through it. The guide is good for beginners to the master cleanse because it’ll help you cheat the diet (somewhat) by providing you with tips and even some foods that you’ll be able to eat without damaging your results.

Pros:

• Very fast weight loss results.
• Long term weight loss results.
• Gets rid of cravings for unhealthy foods.
• Helps you get clearer skin.
• More energy.
• Cleanses/detoxes the body of unhealthy substances.

Cons:

• Not easy to complete.
• Not flexible.
• May not be suitable for everyone. Consult with a doctor if you have doubts.

The Master Cleanse Score:

3.5 stars out of 5. It definitely works and can provide a ton of major health/weight loss benefits. But it’s not easy or for everyone. This guide will help.

Conclusions on the Master Cleanse: 

Out of all the diets I’ve seen, the master cleanse is probably the one which works the fastest and deliver the biggest health benefits. But it doesn’t come easy as it’s difficult (at first) to deal with the process. It’s basically fasting and the detox period can be difficult to deal with for many people. 

A personal journey through the master cleanse!

There are ways to “cheat” the cleanse. I would recommend a guide such as this one. It’s what I personally used and it made the process easier to handle.

If you have no health issues, but want to get your health under control as well as lose weight, the master cleanse is definitely going to work. If you are uncertain about any kind of conditions you may have or are taking any prescriptions, you should definitely consult with a doctor before trying this out. 

I was personally very happy with my results. It is recommended to do this cleanse at least 4 times a year for most people to maintain results. This will keep flushing out the bad substances in your body which accumulate over time like undigested foods/fat and allow your body to function better. A better functioning body = a better you. 

If you decide not to try the master cleanse and are looking for alternatives, you can also try one of the highest rated diets on this website as it is much more convenient for just about everyone, provides as much weight loss results as the master cleanse, but is very flexible. It is up to you though. 

What do you think of the Master cleanse? Please share your opinions below!

A few years back, the Metabolism Miracle diet plan became very popular because of it’s unorthodox approach to weight loss. Recently it has risen back into the public eye.

Created by Diane Kress, the way this plan works is very different than traditional calorie in vs calorie out concepts. And though it’s truly unique, it does have it’s pros/cons.

What exactly is the Metabolism Miracle diet?

This plan lasts for 16 weeks. 8 weeks on 1 phase and 8 weeks on another. The rest is a lifetime plan. It’s aimed for people who have what Diane calls “Metabolism B”, a condition which she says affects about 45% of the population.

For people with metabolism B, traditional weight loss approaches simply do not work (and some unusual ones too like this), and can yield the opposite results. In additional most notably, people with the B condition tend to have a leaning towards sweets.

And unfortunately since most of those sweets are unhealthy, the pounds add up fast.

This would certainly explain why most people go through Yo-Yo dieting, or it’s a great sale’s pitch. What both sides of the aisle can agree on is that yo-yo dieting is an epidemic among dieters. But if metabolism B does exists, how can one tell?

Enter the metabolism B symptoms:

• Irritability.
• Fat deposits around the waist area.
• Fatigue.
• Depression.
• Concentration/focus difficulties.
• Easy weight gain.
• Regaining of weight after dieting.
• History of obesity in family.
• High cholesterol.
• Diabetes.

While this is a huge list, it’s actually quite broad. And it’s important to understand 1 very important thing: Metabolism B is NOT some kind of disease, dysfunction or issue. It’s basically how your body prefers to eat and it’s just not suited for traditional methods of eating, that’s all.

It is because metabolism B people eat in a different way (A’s which is traditional), problems can occur. It’s actually been proven to be true. It’s just called metabolic type and there are 3 of them.

How the Metabolism Miracle Diet works:

Step 1: Carb rehab.

For 8 weeks, you will be going through a low carb plan which will involve eating things like lean meat, eggs, low-fat cheese and vegetables for the most part. Here, carb consumption is very limited.

The purpose of this phase is to provide your liver and pancreas with a break from all the insulin production it’s had to go through due to most people with metabolism B consuming too many carbs. This 8 week “break” isn’t exactly going to be easy for most people, but it is going to help your organs recover.

You will also lose weight during this period because of 2 reasons:

1. Low carb approaches to weight loss do yield weight loss results.

2. Because you won’t be eating any major amounts of carbs and absolutely no fat, this will also help with weight loss.

Results do vary in this case so if you’ve been through this diet, particularly this phase, please let me know in the comments section below how much you lost during the 8 weeks.

Step 2: Transition back to carbs.

It’s strange to think a diet would actually have you coming back to carbs after you’ve tried to stop eating them. But in this case it works and the reason being is that metabolism B’s will eventually crave them. That’s just who they are and this is how it should be.

The only difference is that once you adopt the meal plans in this phase, it’ll involve consuming healthy carbs such as brown rice so while your cravings for sweets will be satisfied, you will also maintain and even continue to experience weight loss results.

Few diets endorse the idea of eating carbs, but in addition to this one, one you may also find to your liking is the Lose Your Belly Diet which has some foods with carbs to be eaten that are also healthy.

Anyway, from this point on, eating the old unhealthy carbs is a no-no. As long as you maintain a healthy consumption of healthy carbs, you’ll be fine and weight loss results will remain.

Step 3: Lifetime weight maintenance.

Believe it or not, but in this phase, you’ll actually be eating more carbs daily than before in combination with the foods you ate in phase 1. Emphasis is placed on eating fewer portioned meals, but in more frequent amounts everyday which is actually something I personally agree with. 

Again metabolism B’s crave sweets and in this lifetime phase you’ll certainly be doing that, for the rest of your life basically. As for comfort?

There should certainly be tons of that here since you’ll basically be eating according to your metabolism type. This isn’t one of those diets that forces you to maintain a lifestyle you just can’t do.

Pros:

• Does have a good approach to weight loss.
• Unconventional, yet practical way to experience short/long term results.
• Encourages healthy eating.
• Has been said to work very well for many metabolism B people.

Cons:

• Not that effective for other metabolic types. If you’re not a metabolic B person, this diet isn’t really for you.
• Long diet. Lasts initially for 16 weeks.
• The first phase maybe very difficult due to the low carb approach.

Metabolism Miracle Diet Score:

3 stars out of 5. Good diet plan, but not for everyone. It’s lengthy and if you have metabolism B symptoms, it may be worth trying. See #1 rated diet (If you are not a metabolism B person and need something a little bit more traditional but effective for losing weight).        

 Is the Metabolism Miracle Diet worth trying?

This diet isn’t ideal for everyone, but if you are indeed a metabolic B person, it will likely work very well for you. Though it’s always recommended to consult a doctor before trying.

The idea of metabolic types has been around for a number of decades. And there are 3. This diet specifically focuses on 1 of those types which is good. Though we are all individuals, we all have different genes and different preferences on certain things.

To take 1 type of diet and run it through all categories of people is likely going to lead to a lot of unhappy results, so with that said the Miracle Metabolism diet is good for sticking to it’s audience. Certainly there will be people who will argue that there aren’t any metabolic types and that losing weight is about “insert dieting talk here”.

But this diet is founded on solid evidence and is good, but the specific audience. If you’re not one of these people, a better recommendation would be the #1 rated diet on this website, a plan that works for most if not all categories of dieters.