Celebrate Freedom and Fitting Jeans With This Fast 4 Day Diet

Will Smith will save you from some alien flab.

 Maybe the backyard barbecues, graduation parties, and open bars at weddings have gotten to your pouch.  Use these next 4 days to shop for a bloat beating (OK, maybe you'll drop a pound) jump start to your beach vacation or Independence Day plans.

Here are the rules:

• Clean eating only, if it has a commercial, it's probably not great for your backside. 
• 7 servings of vegetables daily, no to the following: beans (unless they don't bloat you up or you're vegan), diet or regular pop, sugar, and booze.
• No artificial sweeteners.  They're crap.  
• Skip eating out, there's a crap load of salt even in the lowest Calorie items, we want to get rid of salt, crappy carbohydrates (i.e. white refined, sugars, etc).
• Juice is not a health elixir.  I don't care if you own a juicer, you're just bumping up your insulin levels and fat storage.  No bueno.
• Use the below diet as some guidelines, it's not meat to treat, diagnose, or be used for any medical problem.  As always, run it by your doctor to make sure you're alright.
• This is a kinda cheap meal plan.  We all love to save a few $$$.
• Drink: a lot of water, your urine (sorry to be graphic) should be a pale yellow, no more than two 8 oz cups of coffee since we don't want to send your adrenal glands to hell), you can flavor your water with whole fruit cut up or cucumbers like fancy spas do.  Green Tea is a freebie too.  

Breakfast:
1-2 eggs or 1/2 cup egg whites

1 cup of sauteed vegetables in non-stick spray (peppers, onions, tomatoes, whatever)

1 TBS low fat mozzarella

1/2 cup of 1% milk in coffee if you need a jolt

OR

protein shake consisting of 1 cup of milk or  non dairy substitute (no chocolate soy or almond milk, you're already trying to cheat at breakfast) with 1/2 cup frozen fruit (bananas, raspberries, whatever)

1 scoop of protein powder (whey, casein, soy, I don't care).

1 cup of kale or spinach, swear you won't taste it, if you're not ready to trust me, use frozen mangoes in this

Lunch/Dinner:

2 cups of romaine lettuce or spinach

1-2 TBS walnuts

The flag is fine, the pie is not. 

1 TBS any trans-fat free dressing (yes, you are allowed regular Ranch)

1/2 cup protein (chicken, turkey, lean beef, tempeh, whatever makes you happy)

1/4 avocado

OR

2 cups romaine lettuce or spinach (any greens will do)

1 TBS dressing

1 cup whole grains (brown rice, whole wheat pasta, or 2 slices of whole wheat bread)

Choice of lean protein

Snacks:

Clif Bar, Luna Bar, any whole foods type of protein/whole grain bar around 200 Calories, there are too many for me to name here)

OR

1 piece of fruit and 1 oz of cheese or 1-2 TBS of peanut butter.  

Choose one of the above snacks and have a glass of milk (or non-dairy beverage, make sure it has at least 25% of your daily value of calcium, yogurt is cool too).

OK, now you are a little low on Calcium so if you're taking a multi-vitamin, (may I suggest the Hum Nutrition icon on the left? Sorry just a shout out).  Any reduced Calorie diet is going to be low in some mineral, even well planned diets are going to be lacking in a bit of something...Selenium?  Omega 3s?), run that by your doctor too.