The No Carbs after 5pm Diet: With the new step counter plan

12 Questions and Answers (#litres_trial_promo)

By the same author (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Introduction (#ulink_23e8b0a1-d6a1-5685-b29b-9c465612696d)

Twenty-eight days is exactly four weeks. Just imagine: in four weeks you could have lost inches off your midriff. It is not impossible and you can do it. Twentyeight days is just long enough for you to get great results. In less than a month you can change your body, lose inches off your waist, feel your fitness levels soar and fit into clothes that look great. Your health will improve and you’ll enjoy so much more energy. In just 28 days …

I’m sure you’ve heard the Beatles’ song I Want to Hold Your Hand. Life is full of hurdles and sometimes we need someone to hold our hand to give us extra strength. Losing weight and keeping it off is a hurdle. In this book I want to hold your hand as you follow my diet and exercise plan, giving you my advice and guidance every step of the way.

My No Carbs After 5pm Diet works! It is based on my 28-day Carb Curfew Plan, which I run in London. You can feel confident that you are following a programme that works and delivers results. It’s been tried and tested in GP practices on men and women just like you. It has worked for them and I know it can work for you too. All you need to do is have some faith in me and in what I’m asking you to do, and give me a bit of commitment over the next 28 days.

The plan gives you clear information about what to do and why you are doing it. You’ll find lots of tips from my successful clients along the way, as well as my advice and experience from running weight-management programmes. Your success will involve a little planning ahead, being prepared and becoming empowered. So if you want to follow a plan that works, drop inches off your tummy, lose pounds on the scales and feel fantastic in just 28 days – come on – let’s get going!

Be active!

1 How the Diet Works (#ulink_8165c41e-c89c-51ad-910c-7366e55d46a0)

1 Setting the Scene (#ulink_a01d5e42-4fa1-5224-9d26-1c08d7473eb8)

I am not going to wave a magic wand so you can experience the benefits of my 28-day diet without the effort. Putting in a little effort is very important for three reasons:

1 Making an effort means you value yourself. Achieving something with little or no effort often has no value and we don’t really appreciate it.

2 The diet is simple to follow. You’ll feel the benefits almost as soon as you start. What you may perceive as a little effort at the start of the plan will become part of a healthier lifestyle habit by the time you reach the finish line, without you even realizing it.

3 Your efforts will reap you major health improvements over the 28 days. As well as losing significant inches and weight, participants have recorded decreased blood pressure, improved cholesterol levels, improved moods, better sleeping patterns, better sex and greater energy.

“You’ll notice the difference in a week. The programme is so worth pursuing. My advice would be to get the first seven days done, and after that you’ll find it quite easy to follow. ”

At the start of every weight-management programme I run, the participants are always impatient to see their body change – they have heard about the fantastic results people have experienced and want to see and feel the benefits straight away. But we need to get one thing straight – and this is where the straight talking begins.

We may all have the desire to lose weight, to have that fabulous feeling of inches falling off, but the crux of the matter is how willing you are to fulfil that desire. Having the desire to lose weight and follow the programme will not get you anywhere without the willingness to put in a bit of effort. This means you will need to plan ahead a little, but I have taken all the hard work out and tried to make it easy for you.

WHAT WILL THE DIET DO FOR ME?

Many men and women have had fantastic success with the diet and I know you can too!

You will lose weight.

You will lose inches.

You will feel more energetic.

You may benefit from lowering elevated cholesterol levels.

You will be fitter.

You will feel back in control.

You may enjoy better sleep.

Many people have reported having better sex!

Everyone who has completed this programme with me has lost inches and felt fantastic.

“Lots of people have noticed the change in my body shape – I feel so much more sexy!”

HOW THE DIET WORKS

This diet is about getting results and making it work for you and the life you lead. It is a focused eating and walking plan designed to help you lose weight and inches, especially around your middle and waistline.

I am also concerned about you keeping the weight off long term. The National Registry of Weight Loss in Denver has compiled the details of people who have lost over 60 pounds in weight and kept it off for five years. And what is it that has helped these people succeed?

They eat fewer than 2,000 calories a day.

They average an hour of moderate-intensity physical activity each day.

They don’t follow fad diets or high-protein diets.

The principles of the diet and exercise plan are simple to put into practice. You’ll soon see how they work and how easily they can be slotted into your life. The menu plans in Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo) put all the diet principles into practice for you, but are flexible enough to adapt to your own preferences.

“I loved the flexibility and the fact that the plan is not a rigid regime where you have to eat this food at 11am and that food at 4pm.”

The exercise plan is based on walking and five tummy exercises. That’s all – you don’t need a gym membership, expensive exercise kit or flashy trainers, just a pair of comfortable walking shoes and enough space on the floor to do your exercises. And absolutely anyone can do it – I promise you.

The diet runs over 28 days. You can follow the 28-day plan strictly or take a more relaxed weekly approach, depending on what suits you. Throughout the book there are tips from me and many people who have followed the diet successfully, so you need not feel you are alone. The question and answer section in Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo) addresses frequently asked queries. You’ll also find lots of advice in the question and answer section of my website, www.joannahall.com (http://www.joannahall.com/)

“The most important thing for me has been the fact that it isn’t really a diet but more of a lifestyle change.”

Building a Template of Success

Being successful does require a little prior preparation. In the following chapters I’ll outline how the plan works and how you can prepare for it. The easy-to-follow five-day countdown in Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo) not only helps you get organized before you commence your 28 days to success but also gets you into the right mindset. This is vitally important and, in my experience, can be a deciding factor to you achieving your goals.

You deserve the best opportunity to have a fitter, healthier and slimmer body, but many individuals don’t give themselves the right starting platform for success. They doubt their ability, feel guilty for taking the time out to feel better about themselves, or base their programme on previous diets that have been too rigid and impossible to fit in with their life. My whole programme is geared towards helping you achieve success whatever may be occurring in your life. Navigating the challenges life throws our way are all part of the programme. How you handle these and still achieve success is part of you feeling confident about the diet and about yourself. I call this building a Template of Success.

These little challenges can so often throw us off course, despite our good intentions. We can give up, thinking the time is not quite right, promising to start again soon. But the right time never seems to come, leading to feelings of frustration and building a Template of Failure, feeling you will never succeed. If this sounds like you, don’t panic. ‘Stop a Lapse Becoming a Collapse’ in Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo) will keep you on track. You may also want to look at my book Drop a Size for Life, as this contains my seven-step approach to getting you in the right ‘head space’.

DOING IT TOGETHER

I have written this book exactly as I run the programme, with tips and advice from me and my clients along the way. This should help you stay the course and feel the benefits my clients have experienced, and also make you feel you are not doing the diet alone. However, doing the diet with a friend or partner can be a real bonus, helping you get over the little hurdles and keeping you on track.

You can set up a little system with your buddy – why not text or e-mail each other your daily step totals, or set up a standard text message such as ‘Carb Curfew successfully completed’ when you have had your supper.

Choosing the Right Diet Buddy