It is one of the few weight loss programs out there to place an equal emphasis on diet and exercise. When it comes to diet the rules are relatively straight forward:



* Eat small meals, six times per day.

* Each meal should include a portion of carbs and a portion of protein.

* A portion is defined as the size of your fist.

* Include a portion of vegetables with a couple of the meals.

* Drink plenty of water.

* Replace some meals with nutrition shakes when in a hurry.

* Plan ahead to be sure old habits don't fill the void.

* One day per week, your free day, eat whatever you want.

The concept of the free day, in particular, is brilliant. How could you consistently follow any weight loss program that said you could never again eat your Mom's apple pie?

The psychological lift you will get from the free day far outweighs any downside. The food you eat on this day may not do much to nourish your body, but it surely does nourish the soul. Besides, the "free day" food barely has a chance against your revved up metabolism from all that exercise the other 6 days!

Follow these rules and you will get the basic nutrients you need. Portion control is handled without complex calorie counting. Since the size of your fist is proportionate to your body, your portions will be appropriate for your body size.

As with any weight loss program, when starting out it's probably best to focus primarily on changing your eating habits. If you are coming off of years of bad habits then you need to focus on changing your patterns and attitudes towards food.

Food is there to nourish your body through the transformational changes you will experience on this program. In order to grow muscle you need to feed it the proper nutrients. Apple pie, as good as it is, will simply not contribute to weight loss!

This is what separates a program like Body-for-Life from other diets. You are not simply limiting your calorie intake. You are expending a lot of energy with the workouts, and you need to replenish that energy with muscle building nutrients.

Combining intense exercise with a proper diet is a potent combination. The exercise burns fat off your body and the high protein diet feeds your muscles. This makes the Body-for-Life program far more than your average weight loss program. You will experience fat loss at an impressive rate and replace that fat with muscle.

You are essentially working things from two sides, from the outside in (the fat loss), and from the inside out (the muscle growth). A great physique occurs when the two meet, when the muscles develop to a point where they break through the remaining fat layers to see the light of day!

But a great physique is merely the icing on the cake. This program has a dramatic effect on your metabolism, and you will find yourself making it through the day with more energy than before.

You will find that your metabolism is strong enough to withstand the once weekly free day without missing a beat from a weight loss point of view, although if you truly over-indulge on your free day you will still find you don't feel as good as the days when you are eating "clean".

This can be a revelation for some people, since the free day style of eating was simply business as usual before starting the program. The trick is realizing this, and not focusing on how bad you feel after an over-exuberant free day.

Stay focused instead on the fact that you are truly experiencing something special the other 6 days of the week. That "special something" is what some like to call a "healthy lifestyle".

It is in this moment that you can see clearly what these words really mean. Rejoice in the fact that your body is becoming healthy enough to distinguish between food that nourishes and food that simply taxes your system.

So by all means eat some of your Mom's apple pie on your free day, just don't eat the whole pie! If you are like most people, you will over-indulge your first few times. Then, as this revelation begins to sink in, you will progress naturally toward a more moderate approach.

Getting through the other six days eating "clean", which is to say eating according to the rules laid out above, takes some planning. Body-for-Life author Bill Phillips places a lot of emphasis on planning. This is especially important when it comes to your Body-for-Life Diet.

If weight loss is your goal, then you simply cannot wait until you are hungry to decide what to eat. Choosing not to eat that double cheese pepperoni pizza is far too much to ask of yourself if you are hungry and that's all that is available in that moment. Take it easy on yourself, spend some time on the weekend planning your meals for the following week, and give yourself a fighting chance to succeed!