To truly achieve your desired fitness results and keep them for life you need to find a long term sustainable daily diet that is healthy, nutritious, convenient and full of foods and meals you look forward to eating. There is no magic pill or quick fix to weight loss and a healthier you. Crash diets, weight loss pills, meal replacement
shakes and ridiculous fitness products that claim amazing results with little or no effort are all lies.
THERE ARE REALLY ONLY A HANDFUL OF THINGS THAT WORK EVERY TIME:
• Make small changes each week to your diet to a healthier sustainable one until it works perfectly for you with your lifestyle and desired results.
• Get regular exercise in both Strength training (Weights) and Cardiovascular training (Running, cycling, swimming etc…) starting with 2-3 times per week.
• Keep the body as active as possible the rest of the time – cycle to work, walk a lot more and use stairs instead of elevators.
• Plan to keep the changes you make for life. If you return to your old diet and activity levels after achieving your results, there is only one thing that will happen. If it made you overweight, low in energy and feeling terrible before trust me it will do the exact same thing again.
Getting into a regular habit of exercise is the easy part but with your diet you need to make a conscious effort to cut out processed sugary fatty foods and find healthy
alternative options you enjoy eating for every meal and snack. You must enjoy the foods you eat otherwise the diet you choose will be unsustainable. 80% of achieving fitness results is dependent on the foods you are putting into your body. You exercise 4 hours per week at most, what do you do for the other 164 hours of the week? Eat, sleep, work and live life. Food is what fuels your body. Remember this! Food is your fuel! Don’t put low quality processed fuel into your body and expect it to run properly. Put the highest quality, natural, whole food fuel into your body and nothing else. Adjusting to this can be hard at first but there are literally hundreds of healthy alternatives, which are nutritious and delicious. Once you find healthy meals you enjoy and your taste buds adjust to fresh nutritious food you will never want to go back to processed food again.
THE FOODS THAT ARE MAKING US FAT
Your first step is to cut these foods almost entirely from your daily diet. Change nothing else in week one but cutting these foods from your daily diet. They are
fine on occasion as a treat but they cannot be part of your everyday diet.
N.B. – The below list of foods has become a daily part of societies diet but these are the foods causing obesity and other common medical conditions.
• Sugar
• Fizzy drinks (diet and full sugar)
• Alcohol
• Sugary milky coffees/frozen coffees
• Overly sugary smoothies (made with too much fruit and frozen yoghurt)
• Chocolate
• Biscuits
• Breakfast bars, shakes, biscuits and sugary cereals
• Crisps
• Crackers
• Cakes and pastries
• White breads
• Baguettes/Demi baguettes
• Mayonnaise
• Low fat food alternatives
(Weight-watchers style products etc… Full of sugar and salt)
• Frozen foods/ready meals
• Takeout foods – Pizza, Chinese, Indian, chipper etc.
• Fast food
• Overly indulgent restaurant food
• Breaded or processed meats
• Diet foods and shakes (Filled with sugar)
• Too much dairy (Okay in small amounts if they don’t irritate your digestion)
• Too much butter (Okay in small amounts)
• Too much oils (Olive oils, seed oils okay in small amounts)
WHAT YOUR MEALS SHOULD LOOK LIKE
Don’t make your nutrition too complicated. You want to eat 3 healthy meals per day containing the following:
LEAN PROTEIN: eat a moderate sized piece of lean meat at each meal (1/4 of your plate) like chicken, turkey, lean beef, lean pork, fish, eggs or a vegetarian source such as beans, lentils, chickpeas, tofu or pulses.
STARCH CARBOHYDRATE: eat a moderate amount of starch carbohydrate at each meal (1/4 of your plate) such as wholegrain rice, wholegrain pasta, quinoa, couscous, oats, potatoes, sweet potatoes, parsnips, corn or if eating bread limit to 2 slices of wholegrain bread or a wholegrain wrap. Limit bread intake to one meal per day.
VEGETABLES/SALAD: eat lots of vegetables and green leafy salad at each meal (1/2 of your plate) like broccoli, cauliflower, all types green vegetables, all types of green leafy salad, carrots etc…
SNACKING BETWEEN MEALS: As well as staying well hydrated make sure to snack on fresh fruit each day to load up on vitamins and minerals while also helping to fuel your body throughout the day. Snack on 2 pieces of fresh fruit per day like apple, banana, kiwi, grapes (150g), pineapples (150g), berries (150g) and all other types of fresh fruit.
SNACKING ON NUTS: Be very careful snacking on nuts. Although most nuts are full of good fats they are very high in calories, which can easily cause you to
overeat even with small amounts. Limit to 25g per day of either unsalted nuts or nut butters (almond butter, peanut butter etc…). This is a small handful at most. No
more!
I always recommend only keeping whole natural foods in your house. Small treats in moderation of the less healthy foods you love are fine however if they are easily
accessible in your home you will tend to overindulge and give in when tired and emotional. Throw out all unhealthy processed foods from your house and make a
habit of filling your kitchen with only healthy nutritious foods. If that is all you have in your house that is all you will eat.
THE BULLET POINTS :
LOOKING AT OVERALL CHANGE
You should eat 3 regular healthy meals each day with 2-3 healthy snacks:
• Eat breakfast, lunch and dinner at regular times along with 2-3 healthy snacks in between meals each day.
• Eat breakfast and drink a large glass of water with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice within 30 minutes of waking up.
• Try to eat every 3 – 4 hours.
• Never skip a main meal.
• Drink lots and lots and lots of water
– Try to have a glass of water every hour so not to get dehydrated.
• If you feel hungry shortly after eating you are not hungry but dehydrated so drink some water.
• Eat a good protein source at each meal.
• Sleep a minimum 7.5 – 9 hours per night.
• Take a good quality Omega 3/6 fish oil daily.
• Don’t deprive yourself too much – Once a week treat yourself to some of the food you love guilt free or enjoy some drinks but know when to stop. An overindulgent night of eating and drinking can cancel out an entire weeks work towards fat loss. Remember this if fat loss is your primary goal.
