Serves: 5

Lean & Free is Not a Diet!
You Must Read This Carefully

Welcome to the Lean & Free Lifestyle and the freedom to eat and be lean for life! Awaiting you is a world of delicious and normal food that will work to keep you healthy and slim! You are embarking on a true adventure--the journey towards a new life filled with energy, confidence, and the long-sought freedom from excess body fat and restrictive diets.
Come with me as I introduce you to easy Grab 'n' Go Menus, tight Budget Menus, and the deliciously-detailed Complete Freedom Menus so flexible they can be adapted to any lifestyle. Whether you live alone or share your life with a family, you'll find simple ways to adapt the Lean & Free 2000 Plus Ultimate Wellness/Weight Control Lifestyle to your personal needs.
As you study my Lean & Free 2000 Plus book , audio tapes, "Where Do I Start" video tape, and "Dana, I Need To Know" Video Support Group Series, you'll develop an understanding of exactly how your body stores and burns fat and how it creates energy. And you'll become familiar with the eight powerful steps for attaining optimum health and leanness. We'll briefly review those steps now, so it will be even clearer to you why the principles in this delicious cookbook can pave your way to a much healthier, leaner you.
As you study the time-tested Lean & Free program you'll understand:

1. Knowledge of how your body stores and burns fat. You'll discover the twelve avoidable fat-storing "stressors" that can increase excess body fat, reduce your energy level, and promote premature aging and poor health.
As you've already learned, caloric or nutritional starvation (through dieting, skipping meals, and eating mainly junk foods) is the number one fat-storing stressor. It can slow your body's metabolism and cause muscle and water loss, along with resistance to fat loss. It can also make you appear old, lined, and tired. As you gradually begin to increase your high-quality food calories and decrease your junk-food calories, your energy level may markedly increase as your metabolism quickens. You may experience an increase in lean muscle tissue, fat-burning enzymes, and body hydration. You may begin to look and feel vibrant, healthy, and full of vitality.
Always remember: you're not concerned with calorie numbers. Instead, simply listen to your body and respond to its needs. These needs may fluctuate. Over the last twelve years, my own daily caloric demands average between 2,000 calories and 3,500 calories each day. Yet, there are days when I'm as high as 4,000 or as low as 1,600. Other people I've observed experience a range of about 1,500 to 2,500. Still others are in a 3,000 to 5,000 calorie range. But for people who start out with a low metabolism and significantly reduced muscle tissue, the range may be as low as 1,200 to 1,500 calories per day, or even lower if they've been chronically anorexic. This range gradually increases with their lean muscle tissue and their metabolic rates.
Your hunger and energy needs are as individual as you are. They'll be different from those of other people, and they'll vary from day to day. So it's important to follow this simple guideline: eat until you feel comfortably satisfied. That satisfaction should come from drinking water and eating vegetables, grains, protein, and fruit. The ideal balance of nutrients for health and fat loss is contained in every menu in this book. Be certain to avoid the following:

The Ten Worst Eating Habits
1. Skipping meals or going more than four or five hours in between meals!!! (Two or three hours if you are diabetic, hypoglycemic, or highly resistant to fat loss.)
2. Eating sweets on an empty stomach!
3. Eating the same foods over and over again with little variety or eating only fruit by itself.
4. Changing too rapidly from low-fiber foods to
high-fiber foods. (Example: white bread and very few
vegetables and fruits to 100% whole-wheat bread and
lots of "raw" vegetables and fruits--very bad!)
5. Eating too much or too little fat and protein.
6. Eating too many grains and too few vegetable-based
foods like vegetable soup, stew, casserole, stir-fry, etc.
7. Not including water, vegetables, grains, protein, and
fruit at each meal! (Exception: breakfast vegetable.)
8. Eating so lightly that you still feel quite hungry.
9. Eating too quickly until you are stuffed and sick to your
stomach and want to lie down.
10. Not following the delicious, quick, perfectly balanced Lean
& Free Menus and the Recipe Healthification guidelines.

Once again: Eat until you are comfortable on water, vegetables, grain, protein, and fruit. If you omit even one of these elements, you may be full, but you won't be satisfied. You'll still be craving fats and sweets and hunting for something else to satisfy you (like chocolate cake). Your body will feel nutritionally dissatisfied and will therefore resist fat loss.
It is also very important to keep your fat intake between 10 and 20 percent of your total calories (10 and 15 percent if you're highly resistant to fat loss and 20 to 30 percent from "good" fats if you need to gain weight in a "healthy" manner). Keeping your fat intake below 10 percent on a regular basis can weaken your immune system and promote dry skin, brittle hair, and actual resistance to body fat loss, since you'll be deficient in essential nutrients--omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids.

To adjust your fat grams to between 10 and 20 percent, follow these simple steps:

How Many Fat Grams Should I Eat Each Day?
1. Add up your daily fat grams and calories at least one day a month (ideally once a week) on your Left-Brain Planner found at the back of the Lean & Free 2000 Plus book.
2. Then adjust your fat grams to equal 10 to 20 percent of your total daily calorie intake. Here's an example. Let's say you average 1,600 calories a day. There are nine calories in one gram of fat. (We can round that out to ten because we won't count fat traces). Remove the last 0 from 1,600 and you have the number of calories that equal 10 percent of 1,600: 160. Double 160 to 320 and you have the number of calories that equals 20 percent of 1,600. Now take the 0 off 160 and the 0 off 320 to equal 16 to 32 grams of fat. So 16 to 32 is the ideal number of fat grams to eat a day if you average 1,600 calories. Remember that your fat grams must be proportional to the number of calories you eat. Fat gram numbers alone are completely irrelevant because your body handles fats more efficiently when they are combined with high-fiber foods. Study the simple chart below and remember that every menu in this book already has the ideal-fat and nutrient balance figured into it so that you don't have to worry about it! True freedom to EAT and enjoy!

2. Commitment or motivation, and developing a passion to be Lean & Free, are critical. We just discussed step 1 of the 8 steps, which is knowledge, the knowledge of how our bodies store and burn fat. Commitment naturally follows this exciting understanding. Commitment is directly fueled by maintaining your Physical and Emotional Health Chart and your Body Measurement Chart (on pages 137 and 138 in your Lean & Free 2000 Plus book) every week. I used to complete my charts every six weeks, but I've learned that every week is a much more effective routine. You'll get so excited about regular, predictable inch loss, that the hot fudge sundae will suddenly lose all its appeal and exercise will become the "candy bar" of your day. During this process, never put any stock in the scales. Ten weeks ago, I tuned my habits up from a "B " to an "A+". The recorded changes were remarkable. Did I lose 27 overall inches with a 20-pound weight loss? No! A 15-pound loss? No! An eight-pound loss? No! No! No! I lost 27 inches with a four and one-half-pound weight loss! Really. I can't even believe it myself! With changes such as these it suddenly becomes a compliment to be considered dense--because that density comes from increases in muscle mass, bone mass, and body hydration. With such changes, you may also find that you're beginning to look much younger. Many people in their 60's tell me they're now often mistaken for being in their early 40's. I think these principles are as close as we'll come to a true fountain of youth. My 22-year-old stepson was recently married--and I, at 35, was mistaken as his "new bride" several times. Now, that's fun. And it creates real COMMITMENT!
Make certain to study my detailed measurement chart on page 154 in your Lean & Free 2000 Plus Book. It's amazing--even to me! Also study the Fat-Storing, Neutral, and Fat-Burning phases in your Lean & Free Book and the highly motivating success stories. If you are in a state of poor health brought on by years of caloric and nutritional starvation, your body will heal from the inside out. You'll get healthy while you gradually create a fat-burning body. So if you're in a fat-storing state right now, it may not yet be time to do your weekly Measurement Chart. But start today doing your Physical and Emotional Health Chart.

3. Nurturing and loving yourself and your body becomes so much easier when you're feeding your mind and body nourishing, balanced foods--and you'll feel absolutely free of guilt. Finally, you'll be working with your body, not against it! And, when the caloric and nutrient starvation are gone, so much of the emotional starvation is gone as well because your brain is a physical organ.

4. Nourishment and 5. Motion are two subjects that involve extensive amounts of breakthrough research and explanation. It's best to simply read your Lean & Free 2000 Plus book, listen to your audio tapes and watch your video tapes--especially do the maximum-fat-loss, very gently exercise tapes. People tell me continually how many new things they learn and absorb each time through the books and tapes. Repetition and practice are the keys to success with these two steps--Nourishment and Motion can provide you with a beautiful body along with happiness and vitality.

6. Service is the ultimate focus of Lean & Free because service to others is the only source of real and lasting happiness. But remember, the "grit your teeth and do it" attitude that applied to dieting DOESN'T WORK here! It has to be service that is reflected in the face and comes from the heart as well as the hands. Only then does it bring real fulfillment, peace, and joy. When you use your new-found energy and health to help others, you actually lose yourself, and in the process, paradoxically, you find yourself. Life has a purpose, a higher purpose, that instills you with even more energy. Steadily, your love for life becomes more and more complete and rewarding--and that is the whole purpose of your new Lean & Free Lifestyle.

7. Planning is described in detail in the planning chapter of your Lean & Free 2000 Plus book and on the Lecture Series tapes. There are extra Right- and Left-Brain Success Planners in the back of the Lean & Free 2000 Plus book for your personal use.
Remember to complete the Left-Brain Success Planner once a week. It looks rather like an IRS form, but don't let that intimidate you. It takes only about 15 minutes to complete. This planner will give you an invaluable wellness/weight-control education. Your Right-Brain Success Planner takes less than one minute to complete! Fill it out every day without fail (except on the days you complete your Left-Brain Planner) if you genuinely desire optimal health, energy, and permanent leanness.

8. Action is the step in which you really take flight. You learn how to develop the eating and exercise behaviors that will empower your life. And you'll learn to adapt Lean & Free to your individual needs and lifestyle. I've included four pages from my Lean & Free 2000 Plus book that will remind you just how to adapt these menus, recipes, and detailed shopping lists to your personal needs and preferences.
So read on. Have fun! Take it one day at a time. Go for it and do it NOW! Keep your eye on that Lean & Free beautiful body ahead and on a life free from diets, avoidable health problems, guilt, fatigue, and depression. Best of all, it's a life free from the worry of ever becoming fat again. Happy Day! I'm so glad you're on board.

Lean & Free Is Not a Diet!
My definition of a diet is any eating program that directs you to eat less than your own personal comfortable-satisfaction requirements and reduces your fat, carbohydrate, or protein intake below a healthy level. These unhealthy, fat-storing pseudo-approaches are always tasteless, bland, and boring. Lean & Free, on the other hand, offers you and your entire family vast arrays of normal, delicious foods that will keep you healthy and fit, and it's so easy to select and prepare them! Just use the Five Fingers of Ideal Nutrient Balance, illustrated on the following page, as your guideline:

Within each of the following delicious, easy menus is a little gold mine of nutrients that will lead you to optimal health and leanness. Each menu contains the Five Fingers of Ideal Nutrient Balance and all the essential elements discussed in the Nourishment chapter on pages 54 through 81 of your Lean & Free 2000 Plus book. For complete success, these menus and their companion shopping lists must be adapted to your personal needs. Carefully study the sample menu on the next page.

Personalize These Delicious Menus
The following Grab 'n' Go menu can easily be adapted to meet personal needs such as
1. Time schedule.
2. Budget needs.
3. Special health needs (allergies, diabetes, etc.).
4. Family needs and tastes (whether you live alone or cook for a family).
5. Calorie and fiber needs (increase fiber and calories very gradually).

*Medical science has totally refuted the notion that a fruit and a vegetable eaten at the same meal ferment in your stomach. And NEVER eat only fruit until noon because this will create substantial rises and drops in blood sugar and energy levels, thus encouraging fat storage.


How to Personalize This Menu for You

1. Time Schedule: If you hate to cook or simply never have time, the Grab 'n' Go menu is adapted to your needs. What could be quicker to prepare than cold cereal, pre-cut (at the grocery store) vegetables and leafy tossed salads, fast-food sandwiches, fruits, and canned stew and vegetables? This menu is deliciously fast and easy the Lean & Free way!
To avoid being overwhelmed by the multitude of delicious Lean & Free choices in this book, simply choose seven meals that meet your tastes, budget, and time schedule. Then, when you're in the mood for new variety, pick seven more. I even eat breakfast choices at dinner sometimes, with an added veggie, of course.

2. Budget Needs: Oatmeal or cracked wheat with honey and bananas make very inexpensive breakfasts. A homemade sandwich for lunch and homemade stew for dinner are also very frugal choices. To save additional money (and time) on this menu, make extra stew and freeze it. Remember, it's most economical to buy fruits and vegetables in season. You may also make your own bread or purchase it from a discount bread store in quantity and freeze some of it.

3. Special Health Needs: (allergies, diabetes, etc.) A small amount of diluted non-dairy coffee creamer (that does not contain palm or coconut oil) on cereal will suffice when milk isn't tolerated well, or try soy-milk products if you like them. When preparing your sandwiches, simply omit the cheese. If you're allergic to wheat, try wheat-free breads, cereals, muffins, and pasta. Use corn tortillas for sandwiches.
If you suffer from diabetes, an additional change in this menu would be to select a cold cereal with three grams of sugar or less per serving. Try mixing cornflakes, shredded wheat, and Grape-nuts. Enjoy sliced bananas, strawberries, or peaches for added sweetness. All Fruit Jam makes an excellent sweetener for hot cereal.

4. Family Needs and Tastes: Adjust your shopping lists to fit the size of your family. Include a lot of your family's favorites while you gradually introduce new delicious foods. Don't force your family members to change. Make certain that changes are their decision and don't talk their ears off about it!

5. Calorie and Fiber Needs: Never focus on calories or fat gram numbers. Focus instead on eating until you are comfortably satisfied on correct balance and keeping fat grams in the 10 to 20 percent range as we've already discussed . Eat at least three times a day. There's evidence that people who eat six times a day may lose body fat twice as fast because of thermogenesis (increased heat production and metabolism that occur during digestion) and more even energy and blood- sugar levels. Start out by eating six little meals and very gradually increase as your hunger increases. This will happen as your metabolism and muscle tissue increase. (It's normal for hunger to fluctuate from day to day.)
Remember that leftovers from your meal make great snacks, especially those that focus mainly on vegetables like soups, stews, salads, stir-frys, casseroles, and sandwiches with lots of veggies inside. Also, remember to mix and match the breakfasts, lunches, and dinners that best meet your individual needs. Circle your favorites with a yellow high-lighter pen.
You'll be excited to know that as you live your new Lean & Free Lifestyle, your entire body chemistry will change, including your taste buds. Many people who used to absolutely relish junk food and hate veggies, experience a gradual and complete reversal of these preferences.
When starting out, choose more canned and steamed vegetables and fruits rather than fresh vegetables and fruits. These choices are easier on your digestive system. Also, use some white and some whole-wheat flour until your system has had time to adjust--which may take a year or more for some individuals. The sudden addition of more fiber and greater calories can stress your body and make you sick. It also encourages excess body fat gain.

More Recipes from the Cook'n Lite & Healthy Cookbook:
1. Knowledge is Power
2. Lose Inches
3. Support Group
4. You Can Change
5. Where Do I Start?
Lean & Free is Not a Diet!