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The 5 things you should do when you STOP a diet
It’s very easy to focus on your diet and just doing that however when you stop dieting or come off your diet what you do next is more important than the diet itself, as what you do next can have disastrous effects on all your effort and hard work you have just put in. Some people will lose a lot of weight, look and feel incredible but deep down believe they are still a fat person, that they don’t deserve the body they now have, that they’re lying to themselves and everyone else being this weight, I come across this feeling A LOT in my role, people believing that they just shouldn’t be happy, that they don’t deserve it for some reason. Knowing people have the chance to be truly happy and comfortable in there ‘new’ body but feel like they don’t deserve it makes me feel sad! If you have done the work, you have got the results and you love the way you look, you NEED to make sure you keep it, beat your mental demons and stay happy. So when you come off your diet what you do now is essential to keeping your ‘new’ body and newly found confidence. Here’s the top 5 things to do now:
Losing weight is SO easy that’s why so many people do it every year, but 95% of diets ‘fail’ that failure rate is that high because people lose weight and a week later put it all back on, people lose loads of weight feel like they aren’t them selves anymore, even there friends will say dumb stuff like I preferred you being fat, you were funnier, FUCK THOSE ‘FRIENDS’ any friend who stops liking you because you want to become healthier, leaner and aren’t the same as before isn’t a real friend, they are a selfish person who wants you to be the same old person so they feel good about themselves that they can’t change but you can, and it’s the exact same with office colleagues, who say things like ‘you don’t need to lose weight you look good now’, ‘you should enjoy yourself while you can and lose weight in the future’ or ‘you do you bother going to the gym, you aren’t a gym person, just be yourself’ FUCK THEM! YOUR PHYSICAL AND MENTAL HEALTH IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING, PUT YOURSELF FIRST - I’m sorry if you lose friends because of your weight loss I really am, but now you have the opportunity of better overall health, find new friends who put theirs and you health first but don’t take the world too seriously like vegans do. Fitness isn’t a cult, don’t be draw into one. Sorry for the rant! Good luck with your diets! Keep the weight off! Be Happy and Be Strong 💪 Dan
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This guide is written for winter but in truth it’s how to stay motivated all the time, the principles in this are principles, they aren’t quick tips that give you instant relief. These are like healing the illness rather than just keep taking paracetamol.
I know exactly how you feel at this time of the year, you feel tired, you feel burnt out, you feel like your stalling in the gym, you just want to go home be in the warm and unwind from another long week at work. The truth is although these might be all true, you feel like this year-round, however you used to have something to look forward to, you had a holiday, you had events, weddings, nights out! All these things keep you motivated and excited and at the risk of sounding sad, you now have nothing. GOOD NEWS THOUGH! Too fix this one little issue all you have to is find something to aim for, as it’s so cold and the cold wind is hard on your skin, why don’t you book yourself in for a spa day, get a facial, massage, get a new bikini, they will be in a clearance section so get a good one in the sale! Another problem with motivation is people want to focus on the biggest wins, because of female magazines and internet wonder transformation, the expectation is losing 10kg in 4 weeks, which for most women, just won’t happen, so instead of waiting for the biggest wins focus on the small wins, you lost 0.5kg this week? Well done, you’re losing! You did more weight on squats this week? Well done! You stuck to your diet and was consistent last week? Well done! Focus on the small wins, anything you can do to progress and any level of progression is progression so be happy! The last one to keep you motivated is to do 2 things! Either just accept that at this time you aren’t motivated but it’s something you have to do so keep going, keep turning up and wait for the motivation to come back or take a week off, a week off your diet and week off training, this one is tricky as you need to make sure you come back, so you need to know yourself when picking this last one, if you do take a week off and after the week the motivation might not be come back in that week, if it doesn’t, then it doesn’t matter get back to it and carry on, DO NOT take a 2nd week off otherwise you just won’t come back, take 1 week and then that’s it back to it, if you do take the week off and you feel motivated to go back then quality! Use that to get a bigger win when you go back to make sure that motivation doesn’t go again. I really hope this helps, like always if you need me to help you find a way to apply this then get in touch, email me and I’ll help! Healthy and Happy regards! Dan Sometimes you have to do something you don’t to want to do and be hungry, unfortunately lose weight most likely means some level of hunger.
However you can minimise the hunger by eating specific foods, quantities and other techniques. First we can go over to hunger and techniques of how to control it when you do get hungry. So when those hunger pains comes on, you can control it by first drinking water. I don’t mean a sip, I mean half a glass to a full glass of water, a lot of the hunger feelings are actually just first, think about when you last drank some water, if it was more than 1 hour ago definitely have a drink, if it was less than 30 minutes then maybe it is actually hunger, which we’ll go over later. Another thing to do when you get hungry is Nap! It sounds strange and you might not be able to do it however, research has shown that a lack of sleep can lead to 2 things! Firstly you’re more liking to pick ‘comfort’ foods, I.e chocolate, cookies, high calorie, poor food quality food, and secondly, your hormones ‘ghrelin’ and ‘leptin’ (appetite hormones) don’t balance each other out, so you’re more likely to still be hungry after a meal and not be able to be full or feel full. So if you had a really crap sleep the night before try and nap, try and catch up and it might help you with the deficit, it will also make you more productive. The third and last suggestion is to eat, however and it’s a big however, you can only eat very low calorie, high fibre fruit/veg, things like, celery sticks, apple, strawberries, if you make room in your calories for higher calorie fruit and veg that would be better do you can have a fruit salad or something like that but if you haven’t, stick to celery! Actually I’ll sneak another quick point, hey don’t say I don’t give you value! The last one is walking! Go for a walk, get some fresh air, do something, sometimes you get hungry through boredom, it isn’t true hunger, it’s just ‘I’m bored, I want some food’ this happens all the time at the weekend for most people. There’s only so much Netflix you can handle. Alright, now we have gone over what to do when hunger strikes now we can learn how to minimise getting it in a first place. The first thing to do is plan your food for the day, plan breakfasts, plan sacks, plan meals everything, that way when you can eat when you know when you get hungry, I don’t get the 3/4pm hunger, but I know a lot of people do so you would put a snack there. Learn your food habits and use the habits that’s already there, changing a habit is easy compared to creating a new habit, so if you get up the photocopier, the stock cupboard,the meeting room where ever, you put a habit on top of that, so you get a glass of water before the meeting, you get the lift 2 floors below and walk up the stairs to the meeting room. Whatever you can do to add a healthy habit on top of a existing habit do, it’s called habit stacking and it’s an incredible tool. The second thing you can do is eat high volumes of food, things like soup, you can eat a highly flavoured soup and 3 litres worth and still keep it under 100 calories. Soups with slow cooked meats can be a very easy and great way to add high volumes of food, same with low calories veg, things like mushrooms, spinach, can be a really easy way to add a lot of volume too food to keep you fuller for longer. The third thing is that magic pill again... water!!! Have a glass of water before, during and after a meal, and I can almost guarantee you will feel very full and will stay full for some time after! A study was done, with the same technique but with a segment of Apple, before and after the meal, and participants found they couldn’t eat as much, this is a great way to control your appetite before an evening meal, eat some fruit, veg before you go out you won’t eat as much and thus hopefully stay in your deficit. I hope these help you, please let me know if I can help you more, just send me an email at dangrimes@applied-fitness.co.uk Have a great week, Go get your goals! Dan  What to do with your calories now you have worked out how many you have everyday.
Hopefully you used my calorie calculator – it takes some work but once you have worked out what you should be on dieting/maintenance and weight gain is a bit easier. In this blog we’ll focus on what to now do with those calories. Let’s say example you ended up on 2000 calories for your maintenance it’s a nice round easy number – the only reason I picked it, Let say you weigh 65kg, exercise 4 times a week, first thing we have to do is work out your daily protein as a high protein diet makes Everything to do with weight loss, maintenance and gain easier, You have to have a range so you don’t get obsessed with figure, you have a tip top and bottom range. The range is between: 1.7g – 2.2g x 1kg bodyweight so 65 x 1.7 = 110.5grams of protein per day (minimum a day) Then 2.2 x 65 = 143grams of protein per day (maximum) So your daily range of protein will be 110 grams to 143 grams of protein which equates to 440 – 572 calories as its 4 calories per 1gram of protein. Which if we take that away from your daily calories (2000) we get left with 1560-1428 calories per day. These remaining calories can come from wherever you want, high carb, low carb, high fat, low fat! You need to make sure your health comes first, so make sure there is veg in there, either as smoothies, roasted, boiled it really doesn’t matter just make sure you get veg in there and fruit, same again, as smoothies, juices, fruit salads whatever, just eat fruit! Once the base of your diet is protein and health based, you can use your calories on your favourite things, burgers, sweets, chocolate whatever it. I love pick n mix! So when I diet I won’t have carbs in my meals, or will have very few carbs and will purposely make sure I pick lower carb fruit and veg in the meals so I can enjoy my pick n mix, which means my adherence to the deficit should be better, if adherence is better and more consistent the results will be better and quicker. Counting and tracking what you eat makes this process quite possibly 1 million times better and easier! Likewise having a diet plan or diet guide makes this process easier, I give clients a guideline with what a weekly diet will look like, as a base and they can then add in things they like. If you need to lose weight and have done all this maths and work to get ready but now don’t know what to do remember to comment and I can help you, if you’re Birmingham based and want personal training then comment below and I’ll get in touch! Have a great week! Dan How to calculate your own calories
This blog post will be quite unusual and if there is anything you want to know or need my explanation on please write a question the comments box below. So, first thing you need to do is work out how many calories you need everyday to maintain your life the calculation for this is; Adults male: 66 + (6.3 x body weight in Lbs) + (12.9 x heights in inches) -(6.8 x age in years) = BMR Adult Female 655 + (4.3 x weight in Lbs) + (4.7 x height in inches) – (4.7 age in years) = BMR So that roughly calculates what you need to keep you alive, then from that number you can work out your maintenance calories If you are;
Once you work this out you need to know how much weight you want to lose if you want 10kgs, you need to know the Lbs version for 10 its 22 Lbs. (1kg x 2.2lbs) There are roughly 3500 calories in one pound of fat, so then it’s 22 x 3500 = 77,000 Your holiday is in 15 weeks – it’s then 77,000 / 15 = 5,133 5,133 / 7(days) = 733 that’s a 733-calorie deficit per day which is seems like quite a lot however, That’s 1.46 Lbs loss a week (5133 / 3500 = 1.46) which is a pretty decent rate of weight loss. From there you need to work out your protein per days which is your body weight in Kg x 1.8-2.2 if you're try to lose weight I prefer the higher end, so 2.2g per kg. So, for example 70kg x 2.2 = 154g per day of protein which is (154 x 4(calories per gram) = 616 calories per day of protein Now you have your daily calories, you know how many of them are taken from protein it’s now completely up to you where your other calories come from, whether it’s high fat/low carb, low fat high carb, moderate fat/moderate carb whatever mix, make sure it makes you feel good, in a calorie deficit there is only so good you can feel and also you can stick to it through the duration of your diet. Once you have all this information you need to implement it, you need to work out where to gets those calories from and build your own plan, it can change week to week but if you know what to eat and have a proper plan, that you have created, you’re less likely to buy random things in the store.  Okay – so what we have here is a food label so first thing to look at is the amount of calories this food/drink has – which is outlined in blue – you can see that per serving is 118ml, which is an absolutely stupid amount, how you are meant to measure that precisely is insane so ignore than and look at the Per 100ml – this carton has 4 servings at 118ml so its roughly 500ml which is 5 x 100ml – easy to work it now! So you just multiply the amount of calories per each 100ml so 68kcal x5 is 340 calories per bottle, which seems very high. Next you look at the protein, which is outlined in orange the higher protein isn’t necessary better as the protein they use might be crap quality however, try and go for the most protein as you can, this means the food will keep you fuller for longer, will help with gains and a higher protein diets trumps every diet in the science tests for weight loss and health etc. so it’s generally a good thing to go by! Next have a look at Fibre, which is outlined in the green this can sometimes be categorised under carbohydrates but where ever it is on the label look at it, the higher fibre the better for your digestive health (more research needs to be done, but this is what it seems like) to a limit, obviously you don’t want to eat so much fibre you don’t poo for a month! A good way to see how much you need is – 14 grams of fibre per 1000 calories or 30 to 38 grams a day for men and 25 grams a day for women between 18 and 50 years old – personally I would go a bit more just because the days you get more, then great but the day you don’t hit your target you might still actually be getting enough. Next is Fats and Carbs, the reason these are last are because the priority for you is completely different to the other people reading this, you choose which levels you want, are you Keto, high carb, low carb, high or low fat, high or low polyols, high or low sugar, high or low saturated, trans fats?  I don’t know – unless your my client, but most of you won’t be and most of you reading this are probably reading other and listen to other advice and have then probably made up your minds of which level are best for you, not only health wise but consistency wise. So read these and make up your decision.
If it doesn’t might your macros (Protein, fats and carbs) or even your calories I can almost bet there is a high/low protein, fats and carbs version and a lower calorie version somewhere so if you really want the food then go and find it somewhere! Then salt you don’t really need to pay attention to for years now food salt levels haven’t been too bad because of the health scares of salt which are vastly exaggerated – if the food is highly salted then just drink more water and it will balance that out, unless you have a medical reason then it should go without saying, be careful with salt levels. So just the quickly recap – in priority order:
I really hope this helps you and I hope that with this you can shop with better food choices – I will do a part 2 to this where we go through ingredients labels and how to understand what all the chemical sounding names are, because some of them are just the chemical names for vitamins/minerals. Thank you for reading! Dan Don’t you’re there to relax...
This will be quite a quick blog post about what you can do exercise wise on holiday. The easiest way to exercise on holiday is walk - stop hiring a moped or buggy or getting a taxi to go 10 minutes down the road, walk everywhere, I always carry a pouch for valuables - with sun cream, coin change and notes, make sure you have as much water as you can carry and just bloody walk, it’s amazing when you just go exploring in a new city or place as long as it’s safe to do so, just go for a wonder, you find some amazing things too. The second one is Swim! Chances are you are you getting to the sun because England doesn’t have it, let’s face it 5 days of summer doesn’t count as Sunny England, so you’ll stay somewhere with a pool or near beach or both - so take the opportunity to swim or learn to swim! I have retaught myself to swim and getting better and better each holiday and now look forward to getting away to swim! It’s a great all over workout that’s bloody hard on your cardio health too - if you have poor mobility it’s amazing at loosening you up and allowing you to move more freely. Thirdly - Find a gym - this doesn’t need any explanation just do your own workout in a gym! Finally - Do a ghetto workout in your room, this takes a bit of dismantling of beds, overfilling of suitcases and the like but once ready can be a gruelling task, you can do dips on the side of the bed, into press ups into weighted burpees in bent-over suitcase rows, into Kettlebell swings but with your bag, jumping lunges with a backpack, shoulder press with your suit case, squat and press with your bag, single leg Glute Bridges loads of stuff! Do it to a time rather than rep range and just go for it! Personally I don’t like the idea of training while you’re on holiday apart from relaxing exercises like swimming and walking, for me I’m there to get away from everything I normally do and everyone I’m normally with - I’m there to completely shut down, restart and reload my whole mindset, state of being and purpose and to just explore somewhere new and exciting! Now as it's coming up to holiday session and people are well on there way to either booking or going on holiday I thought I’d right this little guide that means you can eat well on holiday and not come back like I have done a few times a few Kilos heavier.
One of the main things to do isn’t to do with eating but a tip that means you can be habit more lenient with your food, HIRE A BIKE! Most cities now offer a Boris bike style system, so what better way to explore a new city than by cycling, you can’t ride a bike walk, My girlfriend probably hates me for it but I love just walking, and figuring it out as we go getting google maps when you need to, if you aim for at least 15k steps you should be able to do this very easily on a city break, if your on a beach chilling holiday then going down and swimming for 10 minutes every hour or 2, or if your by the beach just getting up walking, one of the things I do is get smaller bottles of water, so i have to get up and go and get another bottle of refill the one I have, it's a little thing but can help a lot with raising your NEAT(non exercise activity thermogenesis) Don’t have the mentality of ‘fuck this I’m on holiday give me ALL the food’ think ‘fuck this I’m on holiday give me all the dinner’ - having this mentality and waking up having a glass of OJ or apple juice with your coffee, having a freshly made 4 egg omelette with leafy greens, some fresh fruit and maybe a few rashers of bacon - you A) have a good hit of protein to start your day, have a good amount of energy from carbs for when you go walking and a pretty decent amount of fats to keep you healthy and again give you energy for exploring the city or the sun loungers. not to meant all the vitamins and minerals from the eggs and leafy greens. So, stick with that sort of breakfast, sort your protein source first! and then find something with a good balance of fats and carbs and don’t eat as much as you can! Next up is lunch - if you’re on a city break, the chances are you’re too busy to get a proper lunch, grab a local style lunch, in Spain there's loads of little bars that serving chicken Paella, Budapest get a cinnamon chimney cake with and some kind of local meat based meal to be honest I normally stick with a chicken burger or something like that again don’t eat as much as you can, I sometimes just have a black coffee on a city break and wait to dinner but there's a castle to see or a secret building somewhere who knows! on a sun break I get starving from sitting in the sun an I’m normally all inclusive for the sun holidays, I’m not big time(yet) its just sooooo much better and less stressful (which is the whole point of going to the sun) so for lunch I’d normally grab an omelette if I didn’t have one for breakfast or if even if I did to be honest, or a burger or whatever you can get with the all inclusive, normally its something pretty ‘english’ we seem to get anywhere in the world and there is a ‘english fish and chips’ shop, And then for dinner and drinks - YOU’RE on holiday do whatever you want! be controlled on breakfast and lunch, don’t snack and then do whatever you want for dinner, keep your activity as high as you can, swim, walk or cycle, don’t spend a penny on taxi’s! A final word - RELAX! turn all my emails off, i mute all my work related Facebook/WhatsApp groups, this year I’m going to get a very basic Holiday phone and a little camera with social media upload ability, and leave my iPhone at home, so everyone can see what I’m doing but i get none of notifications if there's an emergency I’m still reachable! I implore you to do the same! |
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