Master your metabolism

On the Master Your Metabolism diet, you'll eat three meals and one snack: breakfast, lunch, mid-afternoon snack, dinner. Every day. No excuses.

I know everyone has a different way of scheduling their meals. And I want you to go with that—you know your body better than I ever will. That said, I have three iron-clad rules about meal timing that you must adhere to:

1. You must eat breakfast.

2. You must eat every four hours.

3. You must not eat after nine P.M.—and especially never eat carbs before bed. Period.

These three rules will help you tap in to your body's natural hormonal rhythms and instinctive calorie-burning patterns. Using these techniques will guarantee weight loss.

Rule 1: Belly up to the breakfast table
I know how some of you feel about this one, but I'm sorry, I don't want to hear it. "Jillian, I don't have time to eat in the morning. Jillian, anything more than coffee makes me want to puke." Get over it! Less than half of us eat breakfast every day, but studies have shown that breakfast is one of the most reliable ways to achieve a healthy weight and keep your glucose and insulin steady. In fact, women who don't eat breakfast are four and a half times more likely to be obese than women who do. People who never eat breakfast are also the most likely to develop type 2 diabetes.

One study, published in the journal Pediatrics, tracked more than two thousand adolescents for five years, from the time they were fifteen until they turned twenty. Researchers found that the more often boys and girls ate breakfast, the lower their BMI. This result was independent of all other factors—age, sex, race, socioeconomic status, smoking—even whether they were concerned about their weight (and their diet). The most striking thing about this study? The kids who ate breakfast daily actually ate more calories than those who ate breakfast less often—but they still weighed less.

Breaking your fast jump-starts your metabolism and prevents energy sags later in the day. If you're a guy, your testosterone levels peak at about eight a.m. and reach their lowest point during the early evening. By timing your biggest meal in the morning, you'll be able to capitalize on that surge of metabolic power. One Dutch study found that people who ate a big breakfast rich in complex carbs (such as you'd get from oatmeal, high-fiber cereal, or a veggie omelette with whole grain toast) felt satisfied and full for a longer time, in part because breakfast reduced their ghrelin levels by 33 percent.

Are you running on empty?
If nothing else, promise me you will always eat something before you work out in the morning. During the night, about 80 percent of your glycogen stores—the digested carbs waiting to be tapped as energy— have been used up. If you work out on an empty stomach, you'll go through the last 20 percent almost immediately and then quickly begin to gobble up your lean-muscle mass—definitely not what you're trying to do here.

Page 1 of 3 -- A diet that encourages eating? Find out how having something to eat every four hours will boost your metabolism on page 2.

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Excerpted from Master Your Metabolism, copyright 2009 by Jillian Michaels and Mariska van Aalst. Used by permission of Random House. All Rights Reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced except with permission in writing from the publisher.