As I have transformed my own body I've tried a lot of different nutritional strategies out......I mean a LOT! Everything from eight meals a day to two meals per day.......only whole foods to only protein shakes.......from taking a cheat day every week to having a day of fasting every week.  Every time I try something new I learn something and have a few take aways from the experience.

Here are a five golden rules to help you in your own transformation:

#1: Use the nutritional plan that you can perform closest to 100% at. Many of you rotate through the four levels of our Meltdown diet year round. I always get asked "Which level should I be on?". Most of the time I reply "The level where you can be closest to 100%".  Our four levels are of increasing difficulty and the results SHOULD increase also if the performance from level to level is the same. The thing you need to analyze is that if you are at about 25% accuracy for Level Four but you can do Level One at 90% accuracy you need to stick with Level One because you will get better results.

#2: You must give something time to see if it works or not. When I experimented with different types of fasting I did it for over 12 months. I didn't just do it once and say "boy that sucked!".  If you are trying out a new exercise or nutritional regimen I say you need to give it four to eight weeks of CONSISTENT effort to see if it works for you or not. 

#3: Don't forget to change things up. Once you have sustained and consistent effort with a new program for four to eight weeks you will want to make small variable tweaks to keep your body from going into a holding pattern. This can be as simple as changing up your class regimen or doing a PT session and learning a new weight lifting routine.

#4: Recovery is important! It is important to take time to throttle back a bit and let your body recover both mentally and physically.

#5: Stay Positive! I can remember two of my nutritional experiments that really wrecked me mentally and put me in a terrible mood. When I did the all protein shake diet I just constantly craved food....anything that I could chew. My wife ate a salad in front of me and it set me off...haha. I gave that regimen a solid 6 week effort and then ditched it. I did discover a very nice fiber supplement during that process though! When I experimented with 24 hours of fasting each week pretty much the same thing happened but it was even worse......CRANKY!!! I only made it about a month with that process and I would have to say that the one thing I learned was that many of my cravings were mental. I would be craving food like crazy throughout the day and then I would wake up the next morning after the fast and my cravings would be gone completely and I wasn't really that hungry even. So that was interesting.  Since you guys aren't mad scientists like myself I suggest that you stick with a plan that keeps you feeling good physically and mentally. The first few days there will always be an adjustment period where your energy levels may drop and you may get a bit cranky but that should change up pretty quickly as your body adjusts. Being positive and being excited about your fitness regimen is very important to your transformation process.

The cool thing about these five Golden Rules is that our Meltdown Fat Loss system automatically incorporates these and you don't even have to think about it. 

-We have you try out our different levels of the nutritional system so that you can learn what works best for you.

-You have eight weeks of the program to allow the process to work.

-We incorporate small tweaks in your diet and exercise as you go through this process.

-Recovery is incorporated into the plan.

-The mentorship we provide will help you make sure you are staying positive and feeling good with the plan we are forming together.

Keep On Melting!

Adam