Comment with any questions and I’ll answer them the best I can!

Firstly, what do I mean by liquid calories?

Any calories that’s are in fizzy drinks, coffees, any liquid drink that has calories.
 
I think they should be minimised, what’s the point in wasting your daily/weekly limit on drinks?
 
If you have 3 teas a day that’s 198 ish calories per day but then you have a coke at lunch, and you have a special Caramel latte for lunch – this could very easily get to over 600 calories, from what?
 
You would have drunk all that and not feel any more hydrated, for 400 calories, you could have 2 large cookies and still have your tea.

When your dieting, especially if your dieting on lower calories ever calorie has to be used to maximize not only satiety but also your cravings for your favourite foods, its essential to a sustained deficit that you have something that you like in your diet, and if you’re wasting calories on a caramel latte, it’s just a stupid idea.

For some people by just cutting out or minimize liquid calories you can get into quite a large deficit, take the above for example, if someone has the 3 teas, 2 special coffees, and 3 cokes throughout the day that can reach over 1000 calories,

Now you can keep the teas as that would be habitual so stacking another habit on to the tea making process would be a good idea.

But swap the cokes for coke zero, diet coke, pepsi max etc so zero calorie versions of them, and completely cut the coffees or again swap them for lower calories options.

Eventually you want to try and minimize the fizzy drinks, just think about your teeth!

So, this week take a few days to log everything you drink, workout the calories, comment below with what you drink and the calories and lets try and workout what alternatives you could have.

I will write another blog about habit stacking next week, it’s an absolutely incredible tool for weight loss, muscle gain, health and general life success to be honest!

Overcoming emotional eating and having that ‘oh shit – I need to change moment’
 
Do you eat and then think, ‘fuck it I’m fat and ugly might as well just eat another cake’.
I hope not but you might do, it’s surprisingly common which is why 55% of the UK is obese, which is a very scary stat.
 
This ‘fuck it effect’ has been studied by psychologists, it’s a powerful effect and it becomes more powerful with low self esteem, low confidence and low self-worth, it’s a vicious downward cycle.
 
The chances are you know you do this, but you feel so terrible about yourself that you think ‘stuff it’, which is obviously very dangerous, especially in terms of weight gain or negative health activities, it can quite easily be that you end up putting on 20 kgs or more and not even really noticing – side Note : You’ll be very surprised that most overweight/obese clients I have had, just didn’t realise the extent of their size, they knew were carrying a bit more fat than before but just didn’t realise they were obese, it’s like the brain switches off the power to realise, and then when you do notice, guess what happens? ‘fuck it I’m fat now anyway so what’s the point in changing?’ and the vicious cycle gets a little bit more vicious and hurtful.
 
Once you get into this vicious cycle there is very little you can do until 2 things happen; One, you have that moment where you pull out that old dress you like, the old suit you would wear, you see yourself in an old photo, a shop window that you haven’t been in a while, you read a blog like this, something happens where your brain suddenly clicks and ‘wow I need to change’ comes to mind, without that moment it’s very difficult to find the necessity to change, I know several people who are/were obese and tried to force the diet, tried to start something and have fallen off it even harder and ended more overweight than before.
Two; Someone gets you help and you ACCEPT it – people really don’t like accepting help, it hurts their pride, it makes them feel like they’re doing something wrong, EVERYONE needs help, EVERYONE needs accountability, I don’t care who you are or what you do, you need a coach/mentor, every single person on this planet needs help from someone. It isn’t a bad thing help if you accept it, believe it or not is helpful!
 
That ‘I need to change’ moment can be subtle but once you feel it once you need to pounce then! If you say it to a friend/family member then they have to take responsibility and make you realise what you just said, get you to seek help, help you as much as possible, make them or you see the potential damage you are doing to your body, so you can get the professional help, if you can’t afford it, then support you with finding a sustainable, diet that doesn’t tell you to limit your Sins or doesn’t give food points and makes you feel guilty for eating something, something you enjoy and something that makes you feel better.
 
There has to be a level of bluntness to the conversation, you can’t beat around the bush and try to make it as cuddly and warm as possible, there has to be a level of ‘you’re obese, you need help, I will help you as much as possible, you just said you want to change so let’s do this, what can I do to help?’ whether that’s you saying it, your friend, family.
 
It isn’t nice to say or hear but you or they will hear and listen to it, what won’t help is if they/you say ‘I think you're slightly overweight, I love you the way you are I just want the best for you, why don’t you do something, your still beautiful to me’ – All your brain hears is ‘you love me, I’m beautiful, okay cool so I’m obese but I’m still loved and I still ‘belong’ so no need to change’
 
If you are going through this now, continue to speak to people, have open and free conversations about your journey, if anyone is negative about it then leave them behind, unfriend them, stay in contact with as many positive and supportive people as you can, DO NOT isolate yourself, no matter how crap you feel inside you need to keep and stay around people, they will honestly be the foundations for you to grow from.
 
You need to rediscover your food, stop doing yo yo or fad diets, stop looking for quick fixes and magic pills, you need to get in the gym, change 1 thing with your diet this week, that’s all just 1 thing. Then week 2 change something and week 3 change another, and keep going until your day-to-day diet is full of fruit and veg, high protein still has some foods you like so you don’t lose your mind and you are in a calorie deficit, that’s the most important thing.
 
Then you have to set yourself weekly, monthly, quarterly, bi-yearly and yearly goals, very specific with the reason why you want to achieve then, it has to the be something that means something to YOU, for example ‘I want to look good for the ‘Gram’ isn’t a goal,

‘I want to be able to walk down the beach when I go to Egypt in a year’s time in a bikini. I want to do and feel confident, sexy and strong’ - now that is a goal!
 
It is time specific, it has your emotions.
 
There will be a time when the ‘Fuck it effect’ will come and kick you in arse but you need to accept that that day was ‘bad’ the sun has got up the next day so do you, it’s a new day and that requires new effort, you make today better than yesterday, and tomorrow better than today, and you just keep going.
 
One massive thing you can do is fail at something – go and find something you are terrible at! I’ve just started to try to learn the harmonica! I sound terrible, but I keep going, I learn new lifts, I fail I keep going and learning, embrace failing, look at why you failed and go again, and again and again, just keep learning and failing and once you succeed hold on to that feeling or pride, of confidence and use it to again make tomorrow better than today!!
 
I really hope this helps you or your friend, I know this is a paid blog but please if you think this would help someone, then please just ask and I’ll be more than happy to send it to them, just ask!

Also please comment, if you like this or you want to ask something, please drop a comment!
 
Have a great today and better tomorrow!
Dan

I am lucky enough to be able to train a lot of professions and it’s also who I target to train, every one of my office based clients all suffer with the dreaded ‘fat Friday’, ‘cake Wednesday’, ‘treat Tuesday’, birthdays, post holidays, basically any day where people can bring in cakes, chocolates, biscuits and any other crap foods.

Now, there are negative consequences for your waist line but also your productivity, but you know that, and you know they are easy to snack on and quickly eat way too much without really thinking about it, you’re typing away and you don’t even notice your hand reach over, grab a little chocolate and carry on typing, absolutely no clue that you actually had 3 not one, you done this 3 times before but only noticed the last grab.

Before you know it you have eaten 500 calories of whatever food someone brought in throughout the day, when you have probably 1500-2000 calories per day to play with (for fat loss) this leaves you struggling for filling, nutritious food so you go over your calories without really knowing you have, you think you’re in a calorie deficit but the teas, the little snack chocolates you don’t realise you are massively over eating, all knocks your calories over your daily/weekly limits and thus stops you losing weight.

To limit this and hopefully to stop it, is actually really simple, as long as you want too stop, and this is without moving desks, if the chocolate treats happen to land on or by your desk then move them, move them to another part of the office, if anyone wants to complain you moved the chocolate away from your desk then who cares, you can explain you’re on a diet or can you can just put them somewhere else and ignore what the other person says and most probably no one will actually pay attention or care they have moved. (Side note: if someone does moan you moved the chocolate then the other person is an idiot and just ignore them, as the common phase goes ‘don’t give a fuck’)

If this isn’t possible, you can put a picture of your goal on desk, like a sunny beach if you are losing weight for a holiday, a picture of your wedding dress, a picture of your kids, whatever reason find a picture that represents that put it there and every time you think ‘oh fuck it, I’ll have one’ look at that picture, remind yourself why you’re on this journey and carry on typing and clicking away.

You can also practise mindful eating(you should anyway!), this is where you weigh up the options, you see the chocolates and think, ‘yeah go on, it’s only one’ –no think to yourself if I have one will that lead to 2,3 or 4, if I try ‘A’ what are the consequences, where will it lead to, what am I likely to do after? Etc.

And my final suggestion is a corker – when you want a chocolate, get up and walk to the floor below/above or a few below/above, use their water fountain to get a class of water drink one there fill up the glass again and walk back to your office, and plan what you will do when you get back to your desk and see the chocolates, ‘I will sit down, have a sip of water and get to work, if I get tempted by the chocolate, I will remind myself of my goal but also the reason/s why I want to achieve my goal.’

This way you increase your NEAT (extra energy used through the day not exercising) which means you should hopefully reach your goals a bit quicker and also become a bit healthier.

I hope this helps with your self control!

Be confident in yourself! You are better than you think!