Fed Up

Fed Up

By: Chris Lytle
VP of Anger Management
Plan Z Diet





Zola, Jen and I shut the office at noon on the Friday before Memorial Day. Then, we headed for the theater to watch Fed Up.

The film follows some overweight kids who are trying to lose weight using the conventional wisdom of eating less and exercising more.

It is painful to watch as one very overweight young girl tries swimming and working out to no avail.

The problem: the food they are eating at home and during school lunch. They're eating the same food that we tell you to AVOID on the Plan Z Diet.

Fed Up speaks to the tremendous amount of misinformation in the market place today. The same misinformation that makes me angry and that we try to correct on the Plan Z Diet.

Parents of these overweight kids are buying healthy, low fat food for them. Of course, since fat doesn’t make you fat and carbohydrates do, these fat kids don’t keep gaining. These misinformed parents think that low fat cereal and skim milk will help their kids lose weight. Then, there’s one mom who switches to Lite Hot Pockets from regular Hot Pockets.

If you’ve already seen Gary Taubes’ lecture, Adiposity 101: Why We Get Fat and Robert Lustig’s You Tube sensation, Sugar, the Bitter Truth, yyou’re ahead of the learning curve.

One of the saddest things about Fed Up didn’t happen on screen. An obese young man sat down behind us, settled into his reclining seat and proceeded to sleep through the film and miss the valuable information he needed.

Fed Up vilifies sugar and we do to on the Plan Z Diet. It drives home the case that excess sugar in our blood stream is the reason for the “obesity crisis.” At the end of the film, audience members are urged to do the 10-Day Sugar Elimination Challenge and document their experience through social media.

That’s a start.

Of course, we’ve been telling our Plan Z Diet clients about the evils of sugar for years and also providing Zola’s ZR50 Reduction formula for making going cold turkey on sugar a much easier proposition.

Zola, Jen and I gave Fed Up “three thumbs up” with a couple of reservations: The documentary goes off the rails a bit when the producers take on the USDA for promoting cheese after warning us in the food pyramid to reduce our fat consumption.

One part of the department is urging us to reduce fat, while down the hall bureaucrats were working on a campaign to sell more “Cheese Glorious Cheese.”

While that’s true and proof that you don’t want government in your kitchen, the producers of the film are still fat phobic. The implication is that advertising cheese promotes obesity when nothing could be further from the truth. Remember, fat doesn’t make you fat. Carbohydrates do.

Whenever, I take a phone order for the Plan Z Diet by Zola, I tell the new client that at least 60% of the value of the diet comes from the education you receive in the manual and through the daily e-mails and links to various videos we have found for you.

Fed Up rounds up the usual suspects to do short snippets on the evils of sugar and the problems in our food supply. There’s Gary Taubes, Kelly Brownell, Robert Lustig, Mark Hyman, former FDA commissioner David Kessler, Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa and many more. As a client, we have already introduced you to most of these characters.

Still, if you want an entertaining, educational does of righteous indignation, then you may want to watchFed Up at a theater near you or download it from Netflix.

Over the weekend, Zola and I watched an even more compelling reason to get sugar and starch out of the cupboards and out of our bodies like we do on the Plan Z Diet.

Dr. David Perlmutter’s PBS special Brain Change makes the compelling case that elevated sugar levels not only increase your risk of diabetes, but also attacks your brain and slows down cognitive function and increases the risk of getting Alzheimer’s.

Perlmutter, a neurologist, is a great advocate of eating eggs, coconut oil, avocados and and other healthy fat to promote brain health.

You may want to learn more about Dr. Permutter’s work HERE. Then, when well-meaning family and friends say you’re eating the wrong things on ZReboot, pull out the good doctor’s video and put another grass fed steak on the grill.

Stay Angry My Friends,

To read more of Zola's blogs CLICK HERE or head over to https://www.planzdiet.com/blog/

That's Hockey Baby

That's Hockey Baby

By: Zola
Chief Dieter
Plan Z Diet




Saturday afternoons can be pretty boring for a young girl living in Wisconsin during a cold, long winter. That bored young girl was me.

Even if most days you can go outside and play in the snow, there are just some days when going outside just doesn’t work.

My mother, on the other hand, was rarely bored. She was raising 7 children. She barely got a moment to relax.

On the rare occasion she did get to sit and watch TV she picked some interesting things to watch.

I can remember one time going into the den on one of those Saturday afternoons and she invited me to watch TV with her. I looked at the TV screen and just wrinkled up my nose. She was watching hockey. I never had a clue she was a Detroit Red Wings fan.

I tried to watch the game. I could barely follow the puck! I had no idea what the rules were. I could see they were skating pretty fast and they had sticks. I was used to seeing boys at the ice rink in the neighborhood who skated around with hockey sticks and flipping a puck back and forth but I had never seen grown men slamming into each other in order to get the puck. The whole thing looked violent and disorganized to me. I preferred figure skating. I could watch that for hours.

So it was a bit out of character for me last night to curl up alone and watch the Blackhawks final game of the season. I sat through the whole thing; even into the overtime period. I am mesmerized by hockey now. It’s much more fun to watch than some other sports; especially baseball. Baseball is slow. Hockey is FAST.

I still don’t know all the rules. I’m catching on to the icing penalty, but some of the other nuances still escape me. Maybe next year I’ll go see a game at the United Center where they play in Chicago. I love it when they score and the horn blows and every one dances to the celebration song. I could get into that. And as they say… “That’s Hockey Baby!”

Cheers,

To read more of Zola's blogs CLICK HERE or head over to https://www.planzdiet.com/blog/

The Diet You Enjoy Rather Than Endure

The Diet You Enjoy Rather Than Endure

By: Chris Lytle
VP of Anger Management
Plan Z Diet




I have been married to Zola for almost 30 years. I have seen her endure a variety of diets; even extreme ones. The Plan Z Diet is a diet you can enjoy rather than endure.

I have the privilege of taste-testing all of the dishes Zola creates for each phase of the diet. Since there are more than 800 recipes on the Plan Z Works site, I enjoy a much wider variety of foods than the average dieter.

I also get to interview successful dieters for our 2nd Tuesday call. The most successful dieters always have several favorite go-to recipes from ZReduction and they continue enjoying an occasional ZReduction meal even as they “graduate” into ZLife.

On the other hand, we occasionally hear about a client who doesn’t like to eat vegetables and won’t eat fish. These kinds of dieters “endure” the Plan Z Diet until they can get back to their old favorite foods—and sometimes they gain weight back. It’s inevitable if that is to be their approach.

These are the folks who go through the whole 50 days eating a few of the foods on the list and never enjoy the amazing variety available to them. One lawyer ate lunch at Subway every day and had a chicken breast on top of Subway vegetable.

It worked. He lost weight.

But there is a larger point.


The Plan Z Diet can actually expand your eating horizons rather than limit them.

The way it works at our house on the Plan Z Diet is Zola asks me, “What kind of style of food would you like for dinner?”

One day, I might say Tex-Mex. Another day I might have a hankering for French Bistro. The next night it could be Indian food. Then Zola creates a meal from there.

I have always enjoyed being her sous chef. In that role, I prep vegetables or work on the side dishes while Zola prepares the more elaborate main course.

Cooking is Zola’s “thing.” She enjoys the process of throwing a dinner party. She enjoys “Zolafying” or making our clients’ favorite recipes Plan Z Diet ready so they can enjoy them on ZReduction or ZReboot.

If you look at cooking as a chore or another thing to get done so you can do all of your other work, it will make the diet more difficult to enjoy.

Maybe you can enlist your family members in the project of putting a meal together instead of doing it for them and hoping they like it.

Eating simple-to-prepare, delicious meals every meal makes the Plan Z Diet by Zola, an enjoyable adventure instead of another diet endurance test.
Stay Angry My Friend,

To read more of Zola's blogs CLICK HERE or head over to https://www.planzdiet.com/blog/

Just Go Nuts

Just Go Nuts

By: Zola
Chief Dieter
Plan Z Diet





I don’t know where they get the grant monies to do some of the studies they do, but this one caught my eye.

At Harvard they did a study on nuts as snacks. Having studied 120,000 men and women, the study indicated the more nuts people ate, the lower their risk of premature death.

Indeed, those who munched nuts daily were 20% less likely to have died during 30 years of follow-up than non-nut-nibblers.

More good news: Frequent nut eaters were also less likely to have gained weight.

Now, I read this in a women’s magazine. So I went on line to check it out. I found all kinds of write ups that reference the study. It was actually completed in 2004. Seems it took time to get traction. 10 years.

I’ve been suggesting nuts as a snack on the Plan Z Die for years. They satisfy your crunch craving. They fill you up. And they are good for you.

One ounce of nuts is a nice portion. Here’s an idea of how many that is: 20 almonds, 18 cashews or 30 peanuts. That seems like a reasonable snack, doesn’t it?

My Plan Z Diet Yogurt with Fruit and Nuts makes a great, easy way to add nuts to one of your snacks. 

Plan Z Diet Yogurt with Fruit and Nuts

I also suggest people eat unsweetened peanut butter; especially at breakfast. People complain they don’t have time to make a breakfast, when in fact, you can have a healthy breakfast ready in a flash. Grab an apple. Slice it up. Spread peanut butter on the slices. Eat. Kids will love this as a breakfast option. They get their sweet along with their peanut butter. This will keep them full and focused too; unlike breakfast cereal.

Most nut experts will tell you it really doesn’t matter which nuts you choose for your snack. They are all good for you in one way or another. Just as an example, Brazil nuts are supposed to help men prevent prostate cancer. The nuts and their benefits vary widely. When a friend of mine had cancer I used to make him nut snacks out of walnuts and pecans. Those were both supposed to be cancer fighters.

Just don’t see this as an excuse to eat all the snacky nut options you find in the store that are covered in candy or coated with sugar. If you go that direction you’re negating the benefits of nuts. Most of the time I don’t even buy nuts with commercialized salt on them. Much better to start with raw nuts and roast them yourself with a variety of flavorings. I have probably six different nut combo recipes for Plan Z snacking. I offer one up to you here today My Plan Z Diet Cinnamon Nut Granola for to try.

Plan Z Diet Cinnamon Nut Granola

Cheers,

To read more of Zola's blogs CLICK HERE or head over to https://www.planzdiet.com/blog/

Chives

Chives

By: Zola
Chief Dieter
Plan Z Diet




My chives were the first thing to come up in my herb garden every year. As soon as the snow melted I could see their little heads popping up through the soil. By the time it was warm enough to actually get out in my garden and clean with a rake, the chives would be high enough that I had to work around them. They’d be three inches tall already.

My patch of chives was about two square feet. That’s enough to service an entire restaurant! I sort of let my patch of chives grow beyond my eating ability to keep up. There are only so many things you can garnish with chives, or bake chives into. And since I don’t eat a lot of baked potatoes, I don’t have an excuse to sprinkle them on top of those either.

I still love my chives though. I think they are beautiful in any garden.

In early May (in the Midwest), the chives will bloom. They get little purple pom-pom flowers. They will remind you of the big purple alliums, and in fact, they are part of the same family — the onion family and garlic too. I love to use the flowers in little floral arrangements on the table. I also chop the little flowers, or pluck them apart to use them in spring salads. I garnish a lot of dishes all summer long with just a few stems of chives. They have an Asian look to them so it’s a graceful garnish.

When my chives get overgrown and start to droop and get unruly, I get out a sheers. For a small patch it might just be a scissors. For my big patch I used to get out a long bush-trimming sheers. I chop the tops off and take them down to about three to four inches high and just let them grow up again. I call it giving them a haircut. The scent they send off into the garden feels herbal to me, but not like an overpowering onion scent. It just feels like garden to me and I love that smell that lingers for a few days.

If you do a little internet search you’ll find out about all the amazing properties of chives. Things like: they are a powerful anti-oxidant so eating them will help you prevent cancer. They are good for bone health and improved circulation. They are an anti-inflammatory, will help you prevent bruising and help heal wounds faster. All these things from eating chives. Eating chives will help you improve your skin so it’s more radiant and they will help you clear up acne. If you puree chives you can use them as a face mask. Just smear them on your face in the pureed form, let set for 30 minutes, wash and then put on moisturizer.

I might do that this summer when my chives grow too tall and I have to give them a haircut. I’ll have plenty of the cuttings, so I can make my mask.

When cooking with chives it’s best to put them into the dish toward the end of cooking. They are delicate in stature but their flavor will disperse through the dish quickly. So if you are adding them to soup or stews add them at the end.

Chives are not only sculpturally beautiful in the garden, their usefulness abounds.

Cheers,

To read more of Zola's blogs CLICK HERE or head over to https://www.planzdiet.com/blog/

The Critical Difference Between Successful and Unsuccessful Dieters (and People)

The Critical Difference Between Successful and Unsuccessful Dieters (and People)

By: Chris Lytle
VP of Anger Management
Plan Z Diet





I have two jobs.

You know me as VP of Anger Management for The Plan Z Diet by Zola.

And at the same time, I’m also a professional speaker and author. My book, The Accidental Salesperson: How to Take Control of Your Sales Career and Earn the Respect and Income You Deserve, is a business best seller. Over the years, I have conducted more than 2200 seminars on three continents.

I was working on a project for my “other job” and ran across an article I want to share with you:

“How to Make Yourself Work When You Just Don’t Want to” is by Heidi Grant Halvorson. It was posted on the Harvard Business Review website on February 14, 2014.

Halvorson describes how this applies to the commitments we make to ourselves at work. As you read the next two paragraphs, just think about your commitment to weight loss instead of work.

“In his excellent book The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking, Oliver Burkeman points out that much of the time, when we say things like “I just can’t get out of bed early in the morning, “ or “I just can’t get myself to exercise,” what we really mean is that we can’t get ourselves to feel like doing these things. After all, no one is tying you to your bed every morning. Intimidating bouncers aren’t blocking the entrance to your gym. Physically, nothing is stopping you – you just don’t feel like it. But as Burkeman asks, “Who says you need to wait until you ‘feel like’ doing something in order to start doing it?’”

“Think about that for a minute, because it’s really important. Somewhere along the way, we’ve all bought into the idea – without consciously realizing it – that to be motivated and effective we need to feel like we want to take action. We need to be eager to do so. I really don’t know why we believe this, because it is 100% nonsense. Yes, on some level you need to be committed to what you are doing – you need to want to see the project finished, or get healthier, or get an earlier start to your day. But you don’t need to feel like doing it.”

“In fact, as Burkeman points out, many of the most prolific artists, writers, and innovators have become so in part because of their reliance on work routines that forced them to put in a certain number of hours a day, no matter how uninspired (or, in many instances, hung over) they might have felt. Burkeman reminds us of renowned artist Chuck Close’s observation that “Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work.”

So if you are sitting there, putting something off because you don’t feel like it, remember that you don’t actually need to feel like it. There is nothing stopping you.” (End of excerpt)

See what I mean? This is a powerful concept.

You don’t feel like eating the burger without the bun? You don’t feel like skipping the bagel a co-worker left in the break room? You don’t feel like going back on Z-Reduction and losing the last 30 pounds?

That’s okay. Feeling like doing something has nothing to do with whether or not you do it.

There is nothing stopping you.

I have been doing an exercise routine called Super Slow for the past nine years. Every Thursday at 10 AM, I have a standing appointment. I pay $57 for the privilege of doing 7 exercises agonizingly slowly—each exercise to the point of failure meaning I can no longer move the weight.

I never “feel” like doing it. I do not enjoy it. It is not fun. It is very hard work. I do it anyway because I want to maintain muscle mass and bone density into my old age. (I’ll be 80 in 17 years.) I don’t have to like it or feel like doing it. All I have to do is show up and get the work in.

When I started the program I used to dread it. I would think how hard it was going to be or how sore I would be the next day. Now, I don’t think about it until I’m at the gym. I just go, do it and leave.

I’m always glad it’s over. And I’m always glad I did it.

I don’t have to feel like it or enjoy it to do it and benefit from it.

What a liberating idea!

Think about the implications and the power of this idea in taking charge of your own weight and health.

You don’t have to wait until you feel like taking control to take control. – of anything.

Stay Angry My Friends,

To read more of Zola's blogs CLICK HERE or head over to https://www.planzdiet.com/blog/

My Entertainment Life

My Entertainment Life

By: Zola
Chief Dieter
Plan Z Diet



My entertainment life has had a lot of variety lately. In the last week I have been to an opera, a play, a wrestling match and to Second City. May I just say, I love living in Chicago?

First up, the opera. We saw La Comenza di Tito. This was the last opera Mozart wrote before he died.

We saw a play called Into the Woods. Stephen Sondheim collaborated on all of the music and lyrics. He’s like Mr. Broadway when it comes to musicals.

Then, a client of ours owns a wrestling network called Ring of Honor. The production came to Chicago and they were taping a live broadcast of the event. We were asked to attend and took some guests.

Lastly we took one guest and saw a matinee performance on Sunday of Second City’s, Incomplete Guide to Everything.

Talk about variety.


The funny thing was when one of the guests asked me which of those productions I liked best.

I told him I could not answer.

Why?

They are all so different.

When you go to the opera you go for more than the story. The fact that this story included everyone alive at the end of the opera is unique. Most operas are usually so full of intrigue, betrayal, and sex, someone usually dies. But you also go for the grandeur of the architecture that is the Civic Opera House. You go for the staging, the lighting the amazing music and of course the vocal performances. The whole dressing up and being fancy is all part of the experience.

Compare that to going to a wrestling match on a Saturday night and there is really no comparison. The wrestling makes you laugh and cheer. We all know it’s staged. Some of the punches are so far off it has to be nothing but laughable. But those guys really do prep. They are in fine shape; their physiques chiseled. Their costumes are over the top and the audience who’s there as loyalists really get into cheering on their guy.

A Sondheim play you can recognize as soon as the first performer opens up their mouth to sing. The rhyming in those productions is so creative. And the lyrics advance the plot like no other play style. This particular play is a ‘mashup’ of lots of fairy tales we all read as kids. There was a Broadway production run, this one is in Chicago for a time, but there is also a movie in the works staring Meryl Streep. The odds of the movie producing an Academy-worthy performance are doubtful in my prospective opinion. The creativity in pulling parts from several fairy tales (that have nothing to do with each other) and then melding them into a wholly other, creative production was delightful. As an aside it was also a treat to watch the faces of the youngsters in the crowd. The play was 3 hours long with one intermission. The little girl who sat in front of me was about six years old. She had a bright pink outfit on and little red glasses. She reminded me of myself. (I got my first pair of glasses when I was just 18 months old). She curled her feet up into her seat and sat mesmerized for three hours. That’s an amazing feat for a six year old and a tribute to the playwright and the performers.

And lastly, who can go through life without seeing at least one performance at Second City. It was not my first time, but it was the inaugural visit for our guest. By the end I was laughing tears. I walked out needing a new makeup job. I think it was funnier than anything I’ve seen on Saturday Night Live and I started watching that show when it first came on air. We all know so many famous Saturday Night Alums that got their start at Second City. Gilda Radner, John Belushi, George Wendt, OMG… Mike Meyers, Dan Aykroyd, John Candy, Martin Short, Tina Fey and Steve Carell. And more. I could go on for another paragraph!

Sinatra declared Chicago his “kind of town”. I have to say I agree with him. It’s my kind of town too, for the variety of entertainment, as well as so many other reasons.

Cheers,

To read more of Zola's blogs CLICK HERE or head over to https://www.planzdiet.com/blog/