Author Mark MacDonald Explains His Weight Loss Plan
LEMON: Listen up. You want to know about this. How about this for holiday cheer? You can really eat foods that you love over the holidays and stay in shape. You can eat more --</s>MARK MACDONALD, CEO, VENICE NUTRITION & AUTHOR: You can.</s>LEMON: -- and lose weight. That's what Mark MacDonald says. He's the CEO of Venice Nutrition and the author of a "New York Times" best seller, "Body of Confidence." He's here to explain. Here's the book. Right? I saw you on Chelsea (ph) lately. Chelsea Handler (ph). You do Chelsea (ph) saying, all right, let's see if this works. I started working with you. It actually worked. I'm eating more and I'm losing weight. How is that happening?</s>MACDONALD: You were so upset, initially. You're in my office. You said, it's not working.</s>LEMON: It's not going to happen.</s>MACDONALD: There's no way. The only way you can lose weight is to suffer. Starve yourself. Cut your calories. It doesn't have to be that way. The way the body works the more your feed it the right food, it loses body fat and actually makes you drop weight. So three simple things. You have to eat every three to four hours. You have to eat the right amount of protein, fat, and carbohydrates. And you have eaten a certain amount of calories per meal.</s>LEMON: We'll get to that. You have to eat every three to four hours. When we were babies --</s>MACDONALD: Think of a baby. A baby feeds on breast milk, which is protein, fat and carbohydrates. They eat every three to four hours. They stop when they're satisfied. They eat again when they're hungry. The first year of life, that's how our body is meant to be fed. We abandoned that because of society. We start moving to eating three meals a day. Every time you miss a meal -- and this is the most important thing. Every time you miss a meal, your body burns muscle, which slows down your metabolism. Makes you hungry is going into that next meal, and that's when you at the doughnuts and fried chicken and things like that that spike your blood sugar and make you store fat.</s>LEMON: Because you're body in starvation, which basically -- because I would go all day without eating. I would eat sometimes in the morning and wouldn't eat until 8:00 at night, I'm starving, because I'm busy and working. Most people do that. What you're doing is putting your body in starvation mode when you try to restrict -- some people try to restrict calories.</s>MACDONALD: What you were doing, you were starving yourself and using exercise to counter it. Then once you got too busy, and you couldn't exercise as much, your nutrition was bad. That made you start gaining weight. That's what happens to people.</s>LEMON: What about calorie restriction? Most people go on diets and are like, I'm just going to eat 1,200, 1300 calorie as day. You say it doesn't work. You'll lose weight.</s>MACDONALD: Anything can help you lose weight. The big question is this. Can it take you to that next level? Can it reprogram your metabolism and prevent you from gaining the weight back. Everybody knows how to lose weight. Most people gain it back. The way you stop that is rather than using food to lose weight, you use it to create balance in your body by stabilizing your blood sugar. That creates internal hormonal balance, releases stored fat. With the right exercise, you burn up that fat.</s>LEMON: I couldn't believe you.</s>MACDONALD: I know. I know.</s>LEMON: The first week, it was like five pound. You're like, you're going to lose and you won believe it, because you're constantly fueling your body. My energy is off the charts now. Like during the day, I'm not like aah because --</s>MACDONALD: Our nervous system lives off of fuel. Feed it, your body will work for you.</s>LEMON: OK. But every meal you have to have a consistent balance. Last night, I went to the Christmas party. I said I'll have a couple of vodkas. And you said to do, what?</s>MACDONALD: If you're going to drink -- and that's why Chelsea Handler (ph) wrote the forward to the book because Chelsea (ph) likes vodka. Have your protein, have your fat, salmon, have some veggie, cut out your starchy carbohydrates. Take out the rice, potatoes. Use the vodka or alcohol instead. It's not an even exchange, but it helps minimize the damage and prevents your body from storing excess body fight.</s>LEMON: He told me, four hours later, after you drink at that party, you said, go home and eat fat.</s>MACDONALD: Eat protein and fat, not carbohydrates because that gets your metabolism going again. The biggest mistake people make during the holidays is they don't eat all day. They will have this big holiday meal. They don't eat all day that makes their body burn muscle. Then they over-eat food. Have this huge meal because they're starving. Then they go to bed on a full stomach and store all that body fat.</s>LEMON: So you say -- I have it here because I've got my little --</s>MACDONALD: I love it.</s>LEMON: You say you have this little pack. What I do, if you're out shopping all day, what people should do have a shake or a bar.</s>MACDONALD: A protein bar. That's a great protein bar.</s>LEMON: Just have a protein bar.</s>MACDONALD: Have a protein bar. Make sure the protein and carbs are equal, not a protein bar that has a lot of carbs and a little bit of protein.</s>LEMON: Then why do people preach that always, because that's -- we don't know any better then -- why do we do that?</s>MACDONALD: We're slowly moving but, right now, we're broken. Think about it. By 2020, 70 percent of the American population will be overweight or obese. We're regressing as a society because we think eating less is better. It's never been that way from our first breathe. We have to eat more. The leaner you get, the more food you need to consume. You need to eat the right amount of food, not just a bunch of carbs.</s>LEMON: It's interesting because I'm thinking this is never going to work. You tell me I'm going to eat this much. I can eat this much. I don't -- because I'm used to eating one big meal a day at night and then a small breakfast and that's it. It's amazing. I eat six times a day.</s>MACDONALD: You're enjoying your food, right?</s>MACDONALD: I get to eat whatever food I want as long as I keep in balance, as you say, and losing weight. And not that much exercise. Exercise is great, but.</s>LEMON: And you can have your off-plan meals too, Don. It's just understanding how to balance all of it. That's what we talk about with the holidays. You can enjoy your food. Just be great with everything else.</s>LEMON: Mark MacDonald. It's called "Body Confidence." It's a great book. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.</s>MACDONALD: Thanks, Don.</s>LEMON: I can have my cake and eat it for the holidays and so can you. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.</s>MACDONALD: Appreciate it.</s>LEMON: Up next here on CNN, our Shannon Cook goes one on one with legendary Peter Gabriel.