Get Healthy

Get Clean and Lean

Start a love-centered diet.

By Brad Lamm

How to honor the body you’re in.

Too often, we take our physical bodies for granted. We fill them with wholly unsuitable foods in wholly unsuitable amounts. We punish our bodies by neglecting their needs, usually until it’s too late and we’re forced into a different way of life because of poor health, rickety self-esteem, or yet another set of clothes we’ve outgrown.

Once I got “clean and lean,” I started to see the human body for what it really is: an amazing and intelligent creation that we need to love and respect. I had this wonderful, capable body, but I was wasting it in a gradual decline at a young age! I wanted to feel more alive and more energetic. I wanted a healthier heart, thicker hair, and stronger muscles. I wanted stamina in life and the bedroom. I knew the only way to achieve those things on the outside depended almost entirely on what I put in the inside. I knew I had to give my body more love.

One of the best ways to do this is through food—natural, wholesome foods, not artery-clogging junk or sugary foods that pack on weight. Why is this important? Because your body uses pure, natural food much more efficiently than it uses processed, chemical-laden food, such as refined cereals, commercially baked goods, or fat-, sugar-, and additive-loaded snacks—or even the unhealthy fat-free foods that have jacked up sugar content. Pure food is bursting with quality nutrition, put to use in building and healing the body.

And so, Step 1 is about taking care of, and loving your body, with nutritious food—which is why I call my food plan the Love-Centered Diet in my book Just 10 Lbs.

There are actually two parts to the Love-Centered Diet:

First, learn how to eat according to your personal style. Many of us are inclined to eat in a great rush, or in response to negative emotions, cravings, or deeply ingrained bad habits. Those are ruts we’ve got to get out of to get our weight under control. This part gets your head in the game by giving you strategies that match your personal style of eating.

Second, follow the Love-Centered food plan. It helps you transition from eating the typical American meat-heavy, sugar-laden, low-fiber fare to consuming naturally delicious, slimming, body-honoring foods. This is a sensible diet that gets results. Expect to lose weight right away, and up to two pounds for each additional week that you stay with the plan. My brother Scott lost 16 pounds the first month on this plan, and I’ve had clients lose that and more. The point is, you eat differently and fall into the plan we’ll work on together, and the weight will fall off. Stick with it thirty days and you’ll be 10 pounds lighter or more.

Also, on the Love-Centered Diet, you’ll feel better, and you’ll be more at peace with yourself. As you follow this plan, try to remember to love yourself—body and mind—for the whole, multifaceted person you are. You’re not just a body, but when you love your body for what it is, rather than hate it for what it’s not, you’ll take care of it—and the pounds will come off effortlessly.