Firstly, let’s clarify what I mean by ‘dieting’.
Everyone has a diet. A diet is basically what you’re eating each day. Whether it’s loads of crap, take away and processed rubbish in massive quantities. Or whether it’s lettuce leaves and carrots, it’ still your ‘diet’.
So what should your diet look like if you want to be lean and healthy?
TIP 1
WATCH WHAT YOU DRINK
There are a few drinks I recommend and pretty much stay away from anything else:
- Water – obvious. Drink 2-3 litres every day. Search my previous blog posts for ‘whys’ if you don’t know this by now
- Tea – black tea has many health benefits. Herbal teas are great as well. Drink either without milk or sugar or honey or any other sweetener no matter how good the marketer made it sound.
- Coffee – drink black if you can too. A spoonful of full cream milk won’t kill you however. A couple of cups of coffee per day also has health benefits. It’s when you’re downing 4,5 or more per day that you run into problems. Yes, that’s you if you guzzle coffee, especially espresso several times per day.
TIP 2
EAT MORE REAL FOOD
You have to stop eating out of wrappers, boxes, packets and jars all the time. Get back into your kitchen and start making food from scratch. It really, really doesn’t take much effort or time, not nearly as much as you think.
Choose your meals from fruits, vegetables, any meats (not processed), chicken, fish, eggs, nuts, seeds and natural or greek yoghurts.
Services such as HelloFresh can really help here – but make choices that include fruits, vegetables and meats at least most of the time.
Eat other foods occasionally.
TIP 3
MOVE YOUR BUTT MORE OFTEN – AT LEAST DAILY
Yep, exercise daily!! It’s absolutely vital if you want a healthy body. Not exactly anything to do with your diet, but necessary nonetheless. Walking, group classes, gym, yoga, pilates etc are all great options. Make sure some of it is high intensity and include lower intensity as well
TIP 4
EAT ENOUGH
How often you eat is not as important as what you eat. I usually eat 3 larger meals per day and sometimes have a snack morning or afternoon. I prefer it this way but most of my clients, especially those making huge changes to their diets, have better success with 3 main meals and 2 snacks each day.
However often you eat, make sure you eat enough. Yep, if you’re eating real food you should be eating quite a lot. Probably much more than you are now even.
TIP 5
STOP DRINKING ALCOHOL
Gee, I hope I didn’t lose you with this one. Stop drinking alcohol. That’s a big ask for many I know. But, it is making you fat and it is putting you at risk of so many diseases and conditions I just don’t know where to start.
It is also ageing you – yep, making you look and feel old!!
Limit your alcohol consumption to once per week maximum and even then, limit the number of drinks you are consuming to 1 or 2. Also, be mindful of mixers and additives in drinks. See Tip 1.
A note here: New studies (2022) show there is no safe alcohol limit for men or women when it comes to health. We used to say 1 per day or 3 per week or similar. New research shows that ANY alcohol increases risk of obesity, many cancers and more.
TIP 6
SUPPLEMENT WISELY
To be honest, there’s really only one supplement that I would say is vital for most people. Omega 3 supplements.
Fish oils are the cheapest and easiest way to improve your Omega 6 to Omega 3 fatty acid ratio.
You’re probably consuming more than enough Omega 6 fatty acids. The problem lies in the ratio of Omega 6 – Omega 3. For lots of people it’s something in the vicinity of 20 – 1 or even worse. We want to aim for a ratio of more like 3 – 1.
The more Omega 6 you consume, the more it drives away the Omega 3 as well, so you really, really need to do more than consume fish a couple of times per week.
Take fish oils every day AND eat oily, wild caught (not farmed) fish as well as eat foods like quinoa, chia and flaxseeds to help boost your Omega 3 levels by providing the building blocks of them.
Doing so will improve your health and help you to shed unwanted body fat as well.
To get a full list of foods you CAN eat, fill out the form below
If you’d like to train with me and find out how to combine all of this in real life, check out my coaching packages HERE