Diet hacks and smart food swaps

This will be a quick guide to give you little hint and tips to be a diet ninja and be able to know if you are going to binge smarter swaps.

With out beating around the bush dieting in really bloody hard, its hard to stick to, it's hard to maintain and it's hard to choose which approach to go down, I would recommend 2 differerent approaches, which I'll explain in another post.

Now when you are on your diet you get mad cravings, everyone has had them, everyone will get them, so can foods can you swap/add/take away to give you the best reults you can get...

The first are biscuits and crisps, Biscuits... there really isn't a good food swap, you cant get healthy biscuits however, you can change for better biscuit, so if you count calories pick biscuits with added protein. crisps you really have no hope, there are low calorie crisps but they are like eating flavoured dust, so before you know it your 15 packs down and still hungry.

Next is chocolate - now this is managable, when you have a chocolate craving, change for dark chocolate or chocolate coated nuts, a little advisory warning though, dark chocolate tends to have higher calories so if you do have dark chocolate then stick to one or 2 bars of 75% +
and thats the same for the nuts, buy the little snack pots they are more expensive and you get a lot less, so over feeding on those is very costly!

Fizzy Drinks - This is easy - if you drink coke, change for coke Zero, coke pay millions to make there stuff taste the same and those millions arent wasted, Coke and coke Zero honestly now taste the exact same, if you drink Lucazade, you can get... lucazade zero - Monster zero, relentless zero. Changing drinks is the easiest way to get rid of a sweet tooth and most at 0ish calories you really cant go wrong.

Butters and spreads - This is a tricky one, as you can live your life calorie watching, so smarter spread anf butter swaps are crucial, instead of margerine get some olive oil spread, things like low fat phillidephia, or spreading cheeses are amssively helpful, it kills your cheese craving and gives you a tasty low calorie alternative.

Next is choices of meats - you need the lowest calorie ones, so reduced fat everything!!! appart from fish, pick the oiliest mofos you can get, not only do you get the saturated fat from salmon you get a massive hit of omega 3.

Sandwhiches and wraps - this is hard, people have compared wheat to Herion on the addiction scale, but its a mental thing, people believe they genuinely need bread to survive, you really don't. im against bread but its a crap food, it has nothing to it. You can now actually get low Calorie bread but it tastes liek cardboard, this is one of the things you are just going to have to say goodbye to and replace for nutrient dense foods, make a Jacket sweet potato (Sweet jacket potato? which one? lol)

You have heard me talk mostly about calories here, this is because you will not lose weight unless you are in a calorie deficit, you can do endless amounts of cardio, putting stress onto your joints, Have you ever looked at someone who runs alot and thought 'wow I want her bum' or 'Yo look at that dudes guns!'? I'm going to throw this out and say no.

So make some changes to your diet, lift some weights and go hit your weight goals!

I hope this guide will give you a better understanding of personal training and what to expect and ask when you see a PT for the first time.
 
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There are a lot of things to consider when you are looking for a PT – least of all is actually - Price, as this is the main thing people look at I’ll start with that.
 
The main reason price is almost irrelevant is because many very well educated, respected PT’s severely under-price and undervalue themselves, as a PT we are meant to go on a lot of further education courses, read and listen to new information and stay in the loop to what is going on in the industry. During my 6 months in the industry I spent at least £400 on reading material – which leads me onto my first tip always ask what continued learning you’re PT has done?
 
Another major consideration is their personality type, crack a few cheesy jokes, a lot of PT have confidence issues so if you can make a few small jokes it will help to open them up and will make you feel more at ease, if they don’t respond with even a smile or another cheesy, then they are probably always going to be serious and boring, I know personally I struggle to open up and become at ease straight away so a little joke always helps massively. If you just want a straight to the point PT with a personality of a cardboard box then absolutely fine, but if you want to have a bit of a conversation, but of banter and generally a nicer time then you now know what to do.
 
Experience – this one is a really annoying one - as a PT who really struggled when starting out, to write., you are definitely looking for a trainer for 2 reasons – weight loss or muscle gain, this is closely related to the first point however, if you find a PT who like me passed there qualification and then started reading and reading a lot on fat loss strategies, female strength training etc then I suggest you go with them with is contradictory to this tip but they will most likely be so excited about having a client to try stuff out on them that you will be put on the best most safe to get results plan ever, because you are one of the first clients, they need to get results, you want/Need results so it’s perfect, that’s the reason continued learning is top! However, let’s say they have just passed the course and haven’t done much in terms of related learning, then you will be put on a crap diet plan that was ‘scientifically’ correct in 19never and to top that off they don’t have great knowledge of how the body moves and considerations when Training women especially. So, to summarise – unless they are very well read don’t go for an inexperienced PT, they will be more interested in your money than results, which leads on to the next point.
 
Money – this isn’t the amount they charge this is the way they get your money, now we all have to make a living, I have to get paid, however there isn’t a single PT that I know who, if they genuinely care about the person and their results wants to ask for money, the amount of people I speak to with critical health but can’t afford PT is heart breaking, any good respectable PT wants to help and change as many people’s lives as they can but no PT wants to be broke and homeless doing so, if it’s one of the last things that come up and they seem a bit wishy washy about price and ways to charge then they are probably a safe bet, unless someone is very experienced and very well established, but you will easily be able to tell the people who are and those who are faking.
 
Ask about the PTs ambitions, the more ambitions the PT generally means the more likely they are to keep you happy and get you good results, I want to be the next big name in the industry with elite level gyms, I can’t have that/Be that if I have a history of scamming people, not getting results and not being knowledgeable. Find an ambitious PT and they will have a personally attachment to getting you results you want.
 
I really hope this post helps you pick a PT that is suited to you and gets you good results!
There are too many money grabbing PTs in this industry so if I can help you pick one of the good ones then this has achieved what I wanted it to!
 
Have fun training!
Dan Grimes