The key is to trick your body and keep it guessing. One of greatest, and most fun I might add, tricks used by bodybuilders is to add a cheat meal to their diet. For one meal a week you can go hog wild and eat whatever your heart desires, whether it be pizza, ice-cream or a meal full of Snickers. Now I understand there are those that would prefer to eat a cleaner diet so for them I recommend that they just double their carbohydrate intake one to two full days out of week (this is what I actually did when preparing for bodybuilding contest)

The real asset of cheat meal is that it keeps you honest with your diet. If your cheat meal is on Saturday and Wednesday your getting a really bad pizza craving, you can simply convince yourself to stay on track by reminding yourself that in three more days you can have whatever you want. Pushing your cravings off to your cheat meal date becomes a little goal for you to achieve while allowing you to maintain your sanity.

Step 4: Change diet later in day

As your day progresses you will want to shift your diet from more complex carbohydrates such as rice, potatoes and bread to more fibrous carbohydrates such as broccoli and other vegetables. The fibrous carbohydrates take longer to burn and you will not have to worry about spiking your insulin levels before you go to bed. Once exception to this rule is if you are working out in evenings. In this case you will need to take an adequate amount of carbohydrates for your workout.

*Note: A good diet program should be designed for each individual. I would recommend consulting with a good nutritionist to be put on a diet program that works for you.

Step 5: Cardio in morning

A successful weight loss routine involves both diet and exercise. If you are looking for long-term results, one does not go without other. If you avoid doing either one or other, you may experience some short-term success followed by long-term frustration. A great example of this is to watch people who are always doing yo-yo diets. They lose weight one week only to gain it back plus some a few weeks later. Hey, we have all done this so keep in mind that both exercise and diet is key to long-term success.

One trick that I have found works is to do your cardio workouts in morning. Ideally I would walk on treadmill or stair stepper at a moderate pace for 45 minutes in morning (moderate pace meaning that I was breaking a good sweat but could maintain a conversation if necessary (Too fast of a pace and you will burn carbohydrates instead of fat). The benefits to this are that you not only increase your metabolism for day you also will feel better too.

Even though I appear to have been stressing benefits of a good cardio program, it would be irresponsible of me to not also point out benefits of weight training. Simply put, more lean muscle mass you have more calories your body will burn. I highly recommend you consider adding a weight resistant workout to your body fat reduction arsenal.

Step 6: Supplements

I would like to stress that diet supplements are a tool to help you reach your goal. Supplements alone are not a magic pill that will give you instant results. However, that being said, a good diet supplement added to a solid diet and workout program will help accelerate your results.

Tying it all together

I have personally used these six weight-losing principles to help me reduce unwanted body fat to win several bodybuilding contests. For example, I applied these exact principles to reduce my body fat from 28 percent to less than five percent in a six and a half month period. Although some of diet practices applied for a bodybuilding show may be extreme, these six principles can be applied and adjusted for everyone looking to reduce body fat. In conclusion and to recap, six basic steps to weight loss success is to drink a gallon of ice cold water a day, eat six small meals a day verses traditional large three, add a cheat meal to your diet program, adjust your carbohydrate intake towards end of day, do cardio workouts in morning and finally add supplements as a tool to your diet and workout program.