fact

“the diet that gets you in the right direction without having to give up your life and everything you love to get there is the one you need to go with.

“the process might not get you there in  a week but ultimately neither will the one that you have had to jump in and out of for years because it was too hard to continue with”

How to reduce our daily intake of calories..

1. Low-fat options

2. Dry seasonings

3. Homemade

4. Serving sizes

5. Reducing quantities of carbohydrates

6. Condiment control

7. Fizz

1. Always try and go for the lower fat options where possible, there is a lot of controversy in terms of low-fat options and the chemical shit storm they tend to have in them when companies reduce the sugar and fat in these products but with weight loss, it is important to try and go for the better options in terms of calories so hence why these can be a better alternative if reducing the quantity of these foods are not an option.

2. Just because we eat well and a balanced diet doesn’t mean we need to eat tasteless foods, I would encourage you to experiment with seasonings to add flavour to your food and venture away from shop-bought jars, etc because 9/10 these are actually where most of your calories are going to making your own healthier alternatives can save a lot of calories.

3.I’m a firm believer in homemade is the best way, I know that this can not always be the way forward but I do try to use as many homemade options as possible. A lot of calories can be saved from making home made and and a lot of pennies too. Using homemade means we are able to reduce the extra salt and sugar in our foods, even things like cake. I know when I make a cake the exact ingredients I have bit when getting it from a shop theres a load of extras I have never heard before. As i said homemade can save calories if you do it right. 

4.Serving sizes something as simple as investing in a-slightly smaller plate, why because there is less space to to fill. I’m not sure about you but when my mum would make dinner for us she would fill the plate full and those plates are big. Some of these meals we are tucking into are 700-900 calories alone in one sitting with the quantities of rice she was giving us. Mum I love you dearly but your rice quantities are very 0-100. If you use two slices of bread for a sandwich use one and add some extra greens on the side to fill up the remaining. That 70 calorie slice of bread 7 days a week adds up. 

5. That brings me on to the next point, reducing carbohydrates, for every 100g of carbohydrates you consume your body take on up to 0.5kg of water. This is why when we reduce our carbohydrate intake when we go on our “diets” we see a big drop in weight within days which tends to be water weight. I am in no way suggesting don’t eat them because your body needs them as one of the most essential macronutrients to allow our bodies to function. But that being said it is important we are not over eating on the wrong ones. Changing from white grains to whole wheat as often as possible to help with digestion and keeping us feeling fuller for longer. You don’t need to weight out your quantities but using things like cups or your hands to measure all quantities can help to reduce the quantities to reduce the risk of over consuming them. Again like our sandwiches using one slice instead or two and filling up that plate with some veggies to help keeping us feeling full too. 

6. Sauce, mayo, tomato, syrups and natural sweeteners like honey  you name it these all have a-lot of hidden sugar we forget about these can be adding a-lot of calories into our meals using teaspoons to control how much we consume, to help reduce us over eating these sources. 

7. Fizz, I know how much a nice wee fizzy juice we don't need to cut them out but it might be an idea to change to other options  like flavoured  sparkling water these can have as little as 6 calories per 250ml giving you that little fizz without the sugar and calories.

These are supper simple steps to help you get the most out of your diet and ways to help achieve your weight loss goals without killing your soul every-time you eat something.

What is tracking? 

The term “tracking macros” simply means logging the foods you eat on a website, app, or food journal. The most convenient way to track macros may be through an app. This is something I do recommend for many of my clients but I would never recommend this for the long term. The reason why is because for someone who is not greatly aware of foods it’s a good way to have more of an understanding of your foods and quantities. But that being said I understand this method is not for everyone and here my tips and tricks to help you break away from tracking or to start making better choices to help with your new goals. 

• Eyeballing - use your head as the calculator I do this often for my protein intake, we talk about how important protein is for muscles check our the muscle mass for females we are humans and tend to be creatures of habit so you might not always have to your head calculator all the time but I will do this every now and again when I add up the protein content of what I have been having.

• eg. I know that my breakfast with two eggs on wholemeal toast and avocado typical PT I know this gave me roughly 17g of protein.

• Keep it clean, trying to minimize the number of processed foods I consume and sauces, etc that I use.

• eg. back to the basic breakfast, the bread was wholemeal so a better option in regards to having a much slower release of energy for me to keep me feeling fuller for much longer, something green in there too so avocado this acted as much natural fat for this meal again to keep me feeling full as I want to try and have a small quantity of each macronutrient, the eggs I boiled try to keep away from adding extra oils, etc to your food a great way of keeping calories down too, 12g of protein from the eggs and 5g from the bread.

Be mindful of the plate you are creating, I try and do this for each meal…

• palm size of protein

• a handful of complex carbohydrates

• x2 handfuls of non-stratchy veggies * I have 2-3 portions of fruit as a snack but try to have more veggies

• thumb size of healthy fats

• dairy or dairy-free alternatives

I am mindful of these 5 points throughout all of my meals I might not achieve every single one each time but it makes me mindful about the plate I have in front of me as well as what I am looking for when I shop too. 

Potions, I great tip to help you consume fewer calories is portion control that might mean actually using your palm to get your pasta out its bag. Some times we forget what a portion really is and end up filling up on the pasta and the veggies head straight for the bin. 

Also, it might be silly but investing in a nice smaller plate too, that way you feel less inclined to fill the plate I know we can all feel that when we sit down to a meal the plate should be filled from edge to edge, reducing the size of these can help. 

Aesthetically pleasing, I love to think if I have to take a photo of this meal right now how would it look, fruit and vegetable help to add such an amazing colour to our dishes and sure would brighten up any pitcher so try to incorporate as many as possible. 

Becoming more aware of your eating habits are important when looking to achieve weight/ fat loss, sometimes I do recommend tracking because what gets measured gets changed ie portions or food choices. It also allows you to understand that we still have room forever some nice treats too. 

Even without using an app, I try to stick to 2-3 small snacks each day at under 100 calories each that way I know I have kept these snacks under 300 calories. 

Tracking and being able to track without and the app is another of the tools on your belt you don’t need to use every tool there but when you do need it, you can grab it. 

If you would like to track I would recommend using https://www.nutracheck.co.uk/Info/AppsAndDevices

the guys who have made this app really have made it super user friendly and easy to work even if you don’t want to use it every single day. 

Enjoy learning and cleaning up your everyday diet to still enjoy the thing you do.

WHAT IS TDEE…

This stands for total daily energy expenditure, energy again is just our calories so this is how many calories our body uses every single day. 

Your TDEE is created from another formula that looks like this…

TDEE= TEF + EAT + NEAT + BMR

Starting from the top, what is all this gibberish…

TEF/ stands for the thermic effect of food, so this is the energy the body needs to allow for digestion to take place so even when you consume calories (energy) your body will use energy (calories) to breakdown these foods. Some foods have a higher TEF than others these are protein sources, the body requires more energy to be able to digest these foods therefor using more calories to do so. 

EAT/ stands for exercise activity thermogenesis, this is the energy used by the body during our training sessions when we exercise, lift weights, run, dance or swim all exercise-related activities fall under this category. * So if I exercise loads it will make this number higher ? not necessarily because our bodies can only cope with so much exercise at one time so doing too much would mean our bodies are unable to optimally function and release higher levels of stress hormones which can be found to inhibit weight loss. 

NEAT/ stands for non-exercise activity thermogenesis, this is everything we do that is not exercise related like cleaning and doing the shopping, fidgeting the list is endless. If you are a really fidgety person you can be found to burn as much as 350 extra calories a day compared to someone who is very much more relaxed. 

BMR/ stands for basal metabolic rate this is the amount of energy (calories) your body would need to allow it to function at complete rest so for you to lie in bed all day and not move your body still would require calories to allow your organs to function for skin and hair cells to repair it’s self for your brain to work all these things our amazing bodies do without us having to think they need calories for this. 

In terms of how much of our maintenance calories we need for this equation here it is bellow…

BMR= 70% OF THE ENERGY 

NEAT= 15% OF THE ENERGY 

TEF= 10% OF THE ENERGY 

EAT= 5% OF THE ENERGY

Crazy to think exercise is one of the lowest in terms of how many calories are burnt by the body yet we are always told exercise is the only way to reach your goals. 

So loads of things need to be taken into account when finding your totally daily energy expenditure TDEE and even then it’s not 100% accurate, sorry for that bad news but we can get as close as we possibly can to the real thing. Because if we want 100% accuracy we would need to run hours worth of tests and a lot of money so as close as we can get is what we take. 

So yes training is important but not essential to burn energy ie burn calories, training should be essential to improve muscle mass and bone density, reduce likelihood of illnesses and build a strong immune system. Along with improving our mindset and mental health. 

But our NEAT is essential to weight loss/ fat loss because this where most of our calories can be utilised from doing house work to walking around your work to fidgeting at your desk. 

So putting your self through an absolutely brutal workout for 90min with over 200 burpees might not be the way to go, a lot of people use HIIT training because they have the idea that they will burn more calories within this time, yes your watch might say that but if you are someone who is on your feet all day long a different type of training might be more beneficial to someone who sits all day yes they might this burst of exercise to move more with a higher intensity. Your training sessions should not be based around how many calories you burn but rather if you enjoy them, if you hate what you do you will never continue to make it part of your everyday life. 

BALANCE IS BEING COMFORTABLE WITH PERIODS OF IMBALANCE. 

• fit into clothes better

• feel better in clothes

• reduce weight

All 3 points might be different some people may want to lose weight in the hopes that the clothes will fit better too when weight loss occurs yes these two should also happen. But the same factors flow through them all, you want to feel healthy and comfortable in your own skin. Right now you might now and that is what lead you to this post. 

Weight loss is achieved from one thing and one thing alone, it’s not from magic shakes or detox pills and drinks of soap bars that make you sweat more or apple cider vinegar. It’s calling being in an energy deficit don’t leave me just yet let me explain. 

When speaking about energy what I am really referring to is your calories, this is the (food) energy you give to your body to allow it to work properly. 

In terms of weight loss or fat loss I want you to realize two different things, I could cut off your arm in order for you to lose weight, you could go to the toilet and loss weight, what you are actually looking to achieve is fat loss and this is two different thing’s. 

When I ask clients ie you guys what you are looking to achieve many of you guys are looking down the wrong rabbit hole. So let be grab you by the shoulders you put you to the right one. 

In order to achieve fat loss, we need to go back to that energy balance equation, it looks like this…

The energy in vs energy out 

wow mind-blowing it’s so simple it doens’t make sense so lets clear it up a little more. 

Energy in…  this is in fact the amount of energy (the calories from the food) in which we consume on a daily basis, through food and drink. 

Energy out… this is in fact the number of calories we burn, so this ins how many calories our bodies use everyday to help us to function and do everything like exercise and housework * I go into better detail about the TDEE stuff and how this all works in another blog post so check that one out too. 

There are 3 different energy equations now …

1. Burning more calories than you consumer

2. Burning the same amount of calories you consume

3. Burning fewer calories than you consume

What happens to the calories during these …

1. Calorie deficit

2. Calorie balance

3. Calorie surplus

So what happens to our bodies when this happens..

1. Weight loss *not fat yet I will explain why

2. Weight maintenance

3. Weight gain

Why not fat? 

Fat loss is occurring but we want to make sure it’s fat loss and not muscle loss, see we can be in a calorie deficit but also lose muscle mass at the same time, this will happen slightly during this period because it’s inevitable. We want to ensure we are maintaining as much of our muscle as possible *I go into greater depth of this in the muscle mass post. For now, just know that muscle is what gives you the shape to your body when you say toned its the muscle that gives you that toned look and not a bulky look. Consuming enough protein during this calorie deficit will help to ensure we are maintaining as much of our muscle as possible so that we are in fact losing fat over muscle. 

Let’s look at our weight loss/ fat-loss equation…

Buring more calories than we consume = calorie deficit and resulting in weight/ fat loss 

To put this into a number let’s say we put our selves into a 500 calorie deficit this means each day we consume 500 fewer calories over the week that account to 3500 calories which will, in turn, result in us reducing or weight/ fat mass on our bodies. Again we go into more detail about your TDEE on that post but for now, let’s say you needed 2500 calories at your maintenance (to maintain your body as is right now) so by reducing those 500 caloires each day it will help to achieve weight loss. 

Why 500?

My self and many other coaches recommend this number as it’s something that is manageable for our clients to maintain going too low into a deficit can cause a lot more problems and damage to your body like hair loss, hormonal imbalances as well as a number of health-related issues which may never come back to full health. 

I don’t always start as high as 500 calories for my clients either, some times this needs to be a gradual reduction because this needs to be sustainable for you and eating a salad with no dressing and a back coffee each day is not how you will continue to live your life. It’s important to understand your body needs energy (calories) to even be at a resting state never mind all the other things we make it do. 

Food choices, yes you could have a takeaway 7 days a well as long as it fits the calories you are aiming to consume but the food has no calorie density to it, it gives us very little nutritional benefit for what we need our food for. I believe in everything in moderation yes and enjoying my life but I want to enjoy it for a long time and not just a good time. When we eat well we feel well, when we feel good we train great and more and so on it’s a domino affect. But when we eat dominos often we want to curl into a little ball and have some ice cream and rub our tummies. 

Health food choices should always be your main focus even when being in a calories deficit because these foods help to maintain a healthy balanced life, keep us feeling fuller for longer, give us the best quality of energy we can get and provide us with essential vitamins and minerals to help us live a healthier life essential for growing. You would never feed a newborn takeaways every single day or ever, just because you are an adult doesn't mean you should’d be doing the same. 

But what if I don’t want to track my calories, I got you covered it’s just in another post LOL 

*I don’t do that to be a pain in the arse it’s just because I feel each topic needs to have its own place to be found because if I gave you this in a one you would have never gone past the first sentence. 

The key point for fat loss…

Consume fewer calories than your body uses every day then you will lose weight. 

Eat 2000cals/ Burn 2500cals = Calories deficit= Weight/ fat loss= Level achieved 

it’s gradual it takes time be patient  the outcomes will soon we there. 

FRESH- TINNED- DRIED AND FROZEN HOW DO I KNOW I AM REACHING THE PORTIONS OF EACH OF MY FRUIT AND VEG?

Fresh/ canned and frozen each should be 80g of per items to achieve the portion of fruit of veg to allow it to count as one of your 5 a day, if you are opting for tinned try to use things in natural fruit juices over thought is syrups as these have added sugars along with canned vegetables make sure to look out for those with no added salt either to help ensure you are getting the most from each food.

Drying fruit just means we have taken all the water from the fruit, in some fruits this can also mean increasing the energy content of the food i.e. the calories and sugar content too, we see this happen in apricots as their sugar levels rise from 9.5% to 54.2% after drying, although still a natural sugar its important we limit the sugars we intake even with fruit and don’t over consume especially if you are looking to lose weight. The NHS suggest 30g of dried fruit as this would be the equivalent of 80g of fresh.

5 OF THE SAME OR DIFFERENT ?

Well just like we are all different so are fruit and veg they all contain different nutrients and have a different benefit to our bodies, so that why it’s important we get such a variety in out diet to really be able to get as much vitamins and minerals into our bodies through loads of bright and colourful foods.

WHY EVERYDAY ?

Well as your food is being digested and broken down these vitamins and minerals are used by the body and lost during urine and as we perspire hence them being known as water soluble because they are removed from the body through excretion of water (urine and sweat) it’s essential we replenish this as often as possible so yes daily is important.

FRUIT JUICE ?

150ml of fruit juice, vegetable juice or smoothies are suggested by the NHS, due to the processes of crushing the fruit to make these juices and smoothies which means the sugar in which are in these foods are released before they are digested so normally as we digest whole foods etc the fibrous skin means that the skin helps to protect our teeth against the sugars as well as helping the slow release of these sugars contained in the foods. The NHS also suggest that you should consume these at mealtimes rather than as snacks to reduce the risk of tooth decay or brushing after too.

PULSES AND BEANS ARE THEY ONE OF MY 5 A DAY TOO ?

Yes these count as one part of your 5 a day, until like fruit and veg no matter how many of these you have they will only account to 1/5 for the day, a goof source in fibres but they don’t have the same nutrients that the other fruit and veg have.

POTATOES ? 

sorry folks they are not part of your 5 a day – these would be classed in the starchy food groups along with pumpkin and squash which also contain a great source of energy along with fibre and vitamins too.

Protein ideas /

recommendations via NHS Scotland

Red meat- 2 days per week max

Fish -3-4 portions per week as snacks or meal

Chicken - 3-4 days per week

Eggs - every day to every other day, these are binders and sometimes causes us issues when going to the loo

Dairy- consumed daily within moderation ie a little cheese daily and yoghurt

Carbohydrate sources

• potatoes hand full of potatoes baby potatoes are a good option too

• Vegetables 3 portions or more each day

• fruits 2 portions each day

• pasta 1 cup of 2/3 times per week

• rice 1/2 cup of 2/3 times per week

• Cereal *lower sugar options like weetabix can be daily

• crackers 3/4 per every other day

• bread 2 slices per day

Carbohydrates are still important to our bodies and should be consumed daily but within moderation if within each meal, like the bread with out eggs at breakfast and soup at lunch have potatoes/ pasta or rice (whole-grain) for dinner and vary them from day to day to get as much nutrients as possible from these foods.

Carbohydrates are found in a wide array of both healthy and unhealthy foods—bread, beans, milk, popcorn, potatoes, cookies, spaghetti, soft drinks, corn, and pie. They also come in a variety of forms. The most common and abundant forms are sugars, fibers, and starches.

Volume dense foods

Choose lean protein foods such as legumes, egg whites,

fish, dairy products and skinless chicken. Legumes are high in fiber and

digested at a slower rate, leaving you full for longer periods. Lentils,

chickpeas, pinto beans and black beans can be added to salads, soups and

casseroles for additional protein this is a great way of getting more nutrients

from your meals as well. Other snacks such as smoothies or homemade

soups these pack allow of vitamins and minerals from the fruits and veg with

very little calories.

Fresh fruits have a high water and fiber content that help you feel full for

longer periods. Water-dense produce, such as apples and melons, are lowcalorie

and hydrate you as well. Staying hydrated helps you feel full longer

as at some points your body can become confused between needing water

and needing food. 9/10 we give our bodies food first when in fact we

needed water and therefore still feel “hungry” when need more fluids.

Vegetables are a low-calorie, high-volume food that also have a high fiber

and water content. Foods with a high-water content are also low in energy

density. Low-energy-density foods give you more food for less calories. High

volume, low-energy-density

calories

Vegetables

Celery 6cal a stalk

Radish 17cal per cup

Zucchini 31cal per 30g

Fruit

Cucumber 22cal per 30g

Grapefruit 37cal per half

Strawberries 49cal per half a cup

Honey dew melon 61 cal per cup

Black berries 62cal per cup

Grains

Soba noodles 113cal per cup

Wheat bran 61cal per 30g

Pop corn 31cal per cup

Rice cakes 35cal per cup

Sandwich thins 100cal for 2 slices

Meats

Turkey breast 72cal per 3 slices/ per 100g 29g Protein

Cod 70cal per 85g/ per 100g 18g Protein

Muscles 73cal per 85g / per 100g 29g Protein

Turkey legs 91cal per 85g/ per 100g 29g Protein

Chicken breast 92cal per 85g/ per 85g 27g Protein

Chicken legs 97cal per 85g/ per 100g 27g Protein

Pork chop 92cal per 85g/ per 1 chop 52g Protein

Steak 100cal per 85g/ per steak 62g Protein

Legumes

Tofu 31cal per 85g

beans 91cal per 30g

Kidney beans 108cal per cup

Lentils 115cal per cup

Dairy

Liquid egg whites 63cal per cup

Mozzarella 71cal per 28g

Skim milk 83cal per cup

Plain non fat yoghurt 137cal per cup

Nuts/ seeds

Almond milk 30cal per cup

Powder peanut butter 45cal per tbsp