Burn The Fat Guide To Flexible Meal Planning For Fat Loss
From the desk of Tom Venuto,
Hoboken, New Jersey
I’ve spent over 35 years studying fat loss – first as a natural bodybuilder, then coaching thousands of people – many over 40 and 50 – and I can tell you something with absolute certainty:
The reason people can’t stick with restrictive diets has nothing to do with lack of willpower.
It’s because of a biological and psychological mechanism that researchers at Harvard and Brown stumbled onto by accident – one that explains why trying NOT to eat certain foods actually makes you crave them even more.
Once I understood this research, everything clicked. And I’ve spent the past two decades proving it works in the real world.
Back in 2003, researchers at Brown University made a discovery they weren’t even looking for.
Their original goal was simple: to see what happens when people on a diet “cheat” and go off it temporarily.
Their hypothesis was that people who ate “forbidden foods” not allowed on the regular diet would get completely derailed.
They were hoping to learn something about helping people get back on track and achieve long-term maintenance.
So halfway through the study, they told one group of dieters:
“You can take a short break from your strict plan. Eat burgers, cheese, pastries… even cake.”
They expected this group to regain weight like crazy and fail.
But what actually happened marked the start of an entirely new field of diet research, and sparked the epiphany that changed the direction of my life and career…
In that landmark study, the “diet breakers”:
- Jumped back on plan effortlessly
- Regained no fat, or just a little, which they easily dropped back off
- Lost just as much fat as the rigid group by the end of the study
- And were happier, less stressed, and less obsessed with food
The counterintuitive conclusion?
A little flexibility didn’t ruin their fat loss or maintenance efforts – it was the key to achieving it.
