Being a personal trainer in Llanelli, offering nutritional advice to my clients is a big part of my service.

Did you know that your diet can influence between 70-80% of your results? So it is vital that you put as much effort into eating healthy as you do in training.

You only have to train for 4-5 hours a week but you need to commit to eating healthily for 25-35 meals a week.

I think the two best bits of advice to follow regarding eating well is to put more time into planning and preparing meals and not to overcomplicate things.

I’m sure you’ve all heard people say, ‘Oh, I’ve tried everything but I just can’t lose weight’, I’m sure if I analysed the diet of these people it is clear to see that they have not tried everything!

Time is a big factor as to why so many people don’t eat well. We live in a fast paced world where to a lot of people every minute is crucial, if they have just 30minutes to make a meal most people would just chuck something in the microwave that’s ready in 5 minutes and then they can sit down for 25.

Many people struggle to eat well when they are at work.

This is where the planning comes in, one of the hardest routines to get into probably. You need to plan what you are going to be eating the next day when you are in work (or do it early in the morning) and prepare everything in advance. This will help you to avoid the trip to McDonalds at lunch time!

You just need to really prepare 3 meals/snacks, one for the morning, one for lunch and one in the afternoon; you will then be in total control of everything you eat at work. You will have breakfast and dinner at home so you are in total control of that, these are probably the two most important meals of the day so it is good you will have a bit more time to prepare for them.

Once you get used to it it’ll be easy and you will probably be able to prepare your days food in about 20 minutes. An easy structure to follow to start off with is salad for lunch and then fruit, vegetable crudités and nuts for snacks and you’ll be fine.

So I’ve spoken about planning, I would like to talk to you about not overcomplicating things now and show you that just by following five easy steps you can lose fat easily:

1. Cut Out Bad Carbohydrates – The bad carbohydrates I’m talking about here are refined carbs, these have had their fiber stripped away from them, they are digested in the body quickly, this causes a spike in blood sugar levels followed by a crash. This can be the toughest thing to cut out for most people, you want to avoid carbs white in colour in most instances and stick to healthier wholegrain versions. So swap your white bread for rye bread, spelt bread, or wholegrain bread. Swap white rice for wild rice, brown rice or basmati rice. Try to avoid using much white flour as well. You can also swap your usual pasta and noodles for rice pasta and rice noodles, they still taste great! Obviously avoid foods like chocolate, sweets and crisps. If you have got a sweet tooth then try eating a couple of squares of 70-80% organic dark chocolate a few times a week, it’s great for curbing your appetite.
2. Cut Out Anything Fried – This is pretty self explanatory, anything fried brings the bad fat content right up and is very unhealthy. So avoid fast food places like McDonalds and KFC if you want to lose fat and be healthy.
3. Avoid ‘Diet’ Foods – I am not a fan of low fat/low calorie versions of bad foods. I firmly believe that there is never going to be a healthy fizzy drink or pack of crisps, often the diet versions are even worse for you than the originals. They may cut out the fat content but in order to keep the flavour they have to add tonnes of sugar and different unnatural substances to it. Food is big business and the big food producers cash in on people’s attempts to eating healthy.
4. Say No To Processed Foods – This can be a tough one but once you get used to planning and preparing your food you will not need to eat fast convenience foods. The ingredients contained in some processed foods, especially meat is quite disgusting. If you look at the back of a tin of hot dogs you will see in the ingredient list mechanically removed chicken. The stuff placed in cheap burgers, tinned meat and some packets of ham and chicken is not nice. All of the animal is used, and the bad stuff, using not very nice methods end up being eaten by us in cheap meat.
5. Get Your 5 A Day – This is an easy one but most people don’t manage it. There are so many varieties of different fruit and vegetable nobody can say they are boring. If you can get 5 portions in you are getting so much more vital goodness and nutrients compared to someone who isn’t.

So there are my 5 easy to follow steps to ensure that you get off to the best start with healthy eating. Obviously there is a lot more to do to ensure a healthy diet but at the start it is vital not to do too many things at once. Make one change a week and see how you get on.

A perfect meal would involve a healthy portion of quality meat, tonnes of vegetables (green ones are the best) and a good portion of good carbs. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil to ensure you get some good fats into your diet, which is important.

That’s all for now!

Let me know how you get on,

Jamie

PS I have an eBook which you could buy called 21 Days To Healthy Eating, this ebook gives you all the information you need about successfully sticking to a nutrition programme and gives you a meal and exercise plan to follow for 21 days. Please click here to get your copy.

PPS To check out my nutritional packages which you can do from anywhere in the world click here.