I have to disagree that this is the only way, because it's just not human.
Is this kind of eating normal or even pleasurable? Is it something you could keep up every single day?!?!?! I couldn't!
I read these magazines too and I admire these women for their grit and determination. They look fabulous, but I also know that that is their entire life. MOst of the rest of us have ambitions that are a little more wide-ranging and which challenge and stretch bits of us other than our pecs and hamstrings. Are we not more than the physical perfection that can be scuplted from our bodies?
To do such a thing is a 100% time commitment and requires a lot of sacrifice of pleasures I think. I know I could never do it. I really like cheese and crackers sometimes, I love chocolate nearly every day. There's nothing better than a soft boiled egg with all the yolk, which by the way, is where the vitamins are!!! I love real salad dressing, real bread with lots of different grains, and they can never eat any of these things!. For me life is about more than denying myself pleasurable foods because they will prevent me from sculpting the body fantastic. And nobody loves you for your sculpted physique, certainly not your children whose love is for the fabulousness of you as a person, not a body.
We have to remember that we are more than how we "look" aesthetically. And the body needs more than egg whites and oatmeal. If you have any other things going on in your life, like work, family, writing a doctoral dissertation, doing an MA or LAw degree, holding down 2 or more jobs, training for a marathon, learning sign language, whatever, then it becomes so frustrating to keep siphoning off a large chunk of your brain and attention and energies to keep thinking about how many more reps you have to do in the gym, how many boxes of eggs to buy so you can have 6 egg whites for breakfast, etc, etc. Let it go!!!!!!!
All you have to do is exercise a normal amount, feed your body a variety of good, nutritious food and it will pay you back by being energetic, disease-free, and it will let you do all the other things in your life that you want to do to a ripe old age. The way these fitness professionals eat is not healthy, in my opinion: if you scrutinize their daily food lists they OD on protein in a really non-pleasurable way, and there are usually only token fruits and vegetables in there. So yes, they may look fabulous now: but do they get eough fibre to protect against Colon cancer? Are there enough vitamins and minerals to prevent against cancer and other diseases later in life?
I am sorry, I absolutely do not mean to preach at all: I just get heart-felt exasperated with these magazines because they ony give one way/one possible lifestyle for being fit and in good shape, and to me, 99.9% of women with real lives, with real jobs, with real family commitments, with desires to expand themselves as human beings in all their faculties and possibilites of character, could never keep this up without going insane! At least, I know I never could.
Cardio and weight training and a healthy diet = fat loss.
As Honeybunch says, calories in....calories out.
Live your life, you don't have to lose your sanity worrying about counting egg whites!
Clare