6. Plan your Portions

Almost any food can contribute to weight gain if eaten in excess. Portion control is one of the most powerful weight loss tools. It is also something that most people really struggle with. Buy some smaller plates and bowls. Lots of research shows that the size of the plate we eat off of can increase the amount we eat by 50% or even more. If you’re serving yourself from a large bowl or pan, decide on a given portion of food before you sit down to eat. Spoon out that portion, and then get the rest of the food in the serving bowl off of the stove or table and put it away before you start eating. When you finish your portion, get up and take a ten minute walk; even if it’s cold outside. The walk will give your brain time to register that you are full, and will also help keep your metabolism up and help keep your body chemistry from switching into fat-storage mode.

7. Don’t be Afraid of Eating Fat

Not only fish oil (which gets a lot of hype as a healthy fat), but olive oil, coconut oil, and even butter (try to buy organic dairy products when possible) are good for you in moderation. So are Avocados, nuts and reasonably fatty meats (85%  lean is best). Early American settlers discovered that they had to have some fat on the meat they ate, or it actually made them sick. The so called “rabbit sickness” was prevalent among those who only ate lean rabbit. Modern hunter-gatherers will throw away a kill if it doesn’t have enough fat on it. They know it isn’t good to eat meat that is too lean. A bit of fat helps meat digest, carries vitamins and minerals into your body, and supplies necessary components for pretty much every cell in your body. When you don’t eat enough fat, your body freaks out and starts to hold on to every ounce of fat already on you. You can’t lose weight, and the health of your skin, brain, and internal organs suffer. We all need fat to be healthy, and, as crazy as it sounds, you need to eat fat to get thin.

8. Make Sure Each Meal Satisfies

Add a bit of butter to your oatmeal, some shredded raw milk cheese to your salad (freeze it first, then shred it to get smaller bits – it spreads out the flavor without adding as many calories), and chase the apple you have for a snack with an ounce or two of almonds. No one is overweight because they have an extra tablespoon of olive oil on their vegetables. We gain weight (or fail to lose it) because of the one meal in five or six or ten when our appetite goes crazy and we eat 2500 calories. Making sure that all of our meals have enough calories (especially fat calories) will prevent this from happening.

9. Stay Hydrated

Our bodies burn fat through a chemical reaction called “lipid hydrolysis”. “Lipid” is just another word for fat, and “hydrolysis” literally means “breaking with water”. The moral is that you need water to burn fat. Let yourself get dehydrated, and your body’s fat burning machinery grinds to a halt. Beyond this, the body easily confuses thirst for hunger since both drives are regulated by the same part of the brain. Much of the time that we're feeling hungry, we're actually thirsty. When we eat in response to fake hunger caused by thirst, the food we consume does nothing to satisfy us since the body is really craving water. As a result, we tend to overeat. Stay well hydrated, and you'll end up experiencing less hunger and eating less over the course of the day.

10. Baby Your Liver

All of the fat you burn has to be processed by your liver. Your liver is your major detox organ – it protects you from the harmful effects of toxins and eliminates toxins from your body. Your liver can only handle a limited number of toxins at any one time. If you overwhelm your liver with toxins from unhealthy food (artificial ingredients, dyes, hydrogenated oils, preservatives like sodium and potassium benzoate, pesticides, etc), you seriously reduce your liver’s ability to function. Since the liver is critical to the process of burning fat for energy, an overwhelmed toxic liver results in an inability to burn fat. To clean out your liver, avoid processed/artificial foods, drink plenty of pure water, and consider taking some milk thistle or dandelion (supplements that aid liver function). Even better, check out our ReEvolution One Week Detox program.