Oprah's Guru Gives Advice

 1.  Exercise....ok this is a no brainer, but bears mentioning to remind you that activity burns calories so you can shed pounds, increases metabolism, prevents disease and improves quality of life.

2.  Avoid these foods:  soft drinks, foods containing trans fats (Olive Garden restaurants also just announced plans to phase out this dangerous fat), fried foods, white bread, high fat dairy products and alcohol.

3.  Eat whole grains with lots of fiber to keep you fuller longer.  Oats, barley, quinoa, buckwheat, bulgur, millet, wild and brown rice are all great choices. 

4.  Greene encourages followers of the Best Life diet to eat 3 meals per day and 1 snack.  Try to average about 25-30% of total calories for each meal and use the remainder for your snack.  If you are following a 2,000 calorie per day diet, each meal should contain 600 calories and your snack should have 200 calories. 

5.  Have a glass of water at every meal.

6.  Take a mutli-vitamin, omega-3 supplement and Calcium supplement if you do not get enough from your diet alone. 

7.  Eat breakfast!  There has been some debate recently about the importance of breakfast.  I agree with Greene that it is imperative to have breakfast every day to maintain a healthy metabolism and prevent over-eating later in the day.  Make it easy...toast with peanut butter, yogurt with fresh fruit, cereal, etc.  Remember that breakfast actually indicates our time to break the fast from not eating.  

Greene has some great parting advice..."If you can become less concerned with achieving big results, you're going to get more satisfaction and enjoyment from the process of change".  Remeber that it is a process to change your habits in order for them to become a way of life. 

Bob Greene's website:
www.thebestlife.com