Tuesday Tip: Maintain to lose 🤔

Believe it or not weight loss isn’t actually about dieting – it’s about maintenance. People wrongly assume that maintenance is something you do once you’ve reached your goal weight, when in reality maintenance begins on day one of your ‘diet’

Quick fixes and fad diets are really appealing and everyone wants to feel better about themselves as quickly as possible – I get that. But what then? You start a new ‘diet’ and do it religiously for weeks or months, then the diet ends and you go right back to ‘normal’ eating again and your old behaviours and you gain the weight back.

Think about it – your ‘normal’ behaviour and eating hasn’t helped so far has it? Otherwise you wouldn’t be wanting to diet to lose weight. So a quick fix fad diet and then returning to it isn’t the answer to life long weight loss. That’s the issue with these diet clubs / shakes/ cleanses / trendy diets – none of them actually address the root cause of why you’re overweight or the behaviours and habits that have got you there.

The reality is the habits and behaviours that help you lose weight are the ones that will help you maintain it as well. You can’t expect to keep the weight off if nothing has changed. I often tell my clients they need to behave like the ‘slimmer’ / ‘fitter’ / ‘stronger’ (whatever THEIR goal is) version of themselves . What would that person do? That person probably can’t get away with 3 takeaways a week, or boozy lunches at the weekend etc. It’s about finding things you enjoy (both food and exercise) that fit into your goal lifestyle. Swapping behaviours and habits for new ones. For example – not restricting foods you enjoy, but learning to include them as part of your eating plan, trying to be as physically active as possible for you generally and doing exercise you enjoy etc

Don’t waste your money on fads and quick fixes. Instead look at how you’re approaching your fitness and diet goals and ask yourself – is this something I can maintain for the long term? Because if it isn’t, you’re going to struggle to make (and later maintain) progress.

Happy Tuesday 🤗

Xx

Tuesday Tip: Simple food for busy days 🥫

When you’re busy and stressed trying to decide what to eat can be a bit much, on top of that if you’re trying to lose weight/fat then trying to find something that’s lower calorie or fits your calories can be even harder. That’s when it’s easy to just grab a take away or a high calorie snack/meal – which then doesn’t align with your weight loss goals.

Many people are under the impression that you MUST plan and prep your meals ahead and they MUST all be home cooked masterpieces if you want to lose weight. The reality is they don’t need to be.

Make your life easier and take the pressure off. There are loads of super simple, convenient options you can keep in your cupboards/freezer for days like that. You don’t need complicated, organic, home made meals for weight loss. What you do need are things you can easily put together into a meal when you’re busy and tired. If having these things means you can stick to your calories and get nutrients in then that’s perfect!

There’s lots of options but some of the basics include:

⁃ frozen veggies

⁃ Pre-Cooked meat

⁃ Eggs

⁃ Jacket potatoes

⁃ Tinned fish (tuna, mackerel etc)

⁃ Bread (beans on toast or eggs on toast – perfect quick meal)

⁃ Canned veg (baked beans, sweetcorn etc etc)

⁃ Microwave rice

⁃ Tinned fruit

⁃ Tinned soup

⁃ Frozen veggie protein products

So stock up on some of these essentials and then next time you’re too tired to cook you’ve got some easy options on hand

Happy Tuesday 🤗xx