As we now arrive into February, the “New Year, New Me” is likely to be in the rear-view mirror for most people who began their new year diets and fitness regime.
As i’ve said many times before, the vast majority of people set themselves up to fail right from the start by implementing short-term thinking for a long-term conundrum.
You don’t need to follow the in diet of the time to get results, but you do need a process or a system if you like.
The fundamentals of any successful programme include…
- CALORIE CONTROL
Whatever your goal, you will always have a certain number of calories to eat and/or drink.
Think of this as your budget if you like, similar to money in that respect.
You will burn a certain amount of calories and from there this will dictate your calorie budget, when taking into account your goal.
Be that weight loss, weight maintenance or weight gain.
It doesn’t matter if you are a corporate executive, a model or a professional athlete, we all have our own individual budgets.
- REGULAR MEALS
Please don’t confuse this with meal frequency.
If your calorie budget is around 2000 per day, whether you get that from 2, 3, 4 or more meals per day it doesn’t really matter.
Always go with what feels best for you in terms of energy and lifestyle.
What I mean with regular meals is having some kind of routine and block the time out of your day to eat, even if it’s only for 15 minutes.
Don’t just on the fly eat when it’s convenient, more often than not it won’t be so you need to get ahead of that.
- TRACK YOUR FOOD
To begin with don’t focus too much on the long-term with this, after a while you can decide if that’s a good plan for you.
What this is really good for though is your education, almost everyone i’ve ever worked with has learnt something they didn’t know beforehand just by tracking their food and drink intake.
It may be the content of certain foods and how they are made up in terms of macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates or fats).
Or it may just be about portion sizes, and if this is all you do learn from this that’s fine.
Like anything where we have a budget, getting to understand how we are allocating our resources is definitely a worthwhile exercise.
- MINDSET
This is arguably the most important point of all and quite possibly the reason why I get consistently solid results with my clients.
Your view of food, what your perceive to be good, bad or ugly.
How you react when you eat or drink something you ‘think’ is bad for you and will ruin your results is CRITICAL.
This process is way too long for perfection to be a viable long-term option.
So you better get comfortable with that because if you don’t you are in big trouble and will constantly be on or off your diet and going around in circles.
Thanks for reading, have a great day.
Craig
Do you need confidential help with your health, fitness or nutrition? I have a range of services available, with Personal Training in my Private Gym in Manchester, also at your home or workplace in the surrounding areas. For clients further afield, I provide Online Personal Training, Nutritional Consultancy & Private Fitness Holidays.
