16 Ways To Lose Weight This Christmas

1. Train regularly – Aim for at least three high intensity session per week.
2. Make working out part of your lifestyle – Prioritise your health and fitness.
3. Train Consistently – Think long term not just this week and next.

4. Forget the “Fat Burning Zone” – Train as hard as you can without hurting yourself.
5. Use resistance to burn fat – Body weight, barbells, dumbells, kettlebells, sand bags, ropes, the options are endless.
6. Mix it up – Keep your body guessing and progressing.
7. Think “recovery” – 20-30 minute walks after dinner will speed up your recovery between harder sessions.
8. Set goals and make them happen – It may be as simple as following points 1 and 3 for six weeks.
9. Reset your goals once you achieve them – Keep raising the bar
10. Forget the foot pyramid – Fill up on non starchy vegetable, lean proteins and quality fats from nuts and oils.
11. Take your fish oil - Good for lots of things including fat loss.
12. Drink more water – Actively try to get 2-4 litres a day. Slowly increase from where you are now so you don’t spend all day and night running to the loo!

13. Keep your head up – Think positively and quickly refocus if you have a bad day.
14. Eat more smaller meal – Forget the three square meals. Go for a big breakfast, medium lunch, small dinner and a few snack in between.
15. Challenge yourself - See points 4 and 8
16. Reward yourself – When you achieve a goal treat yourself, you deserve it.

Cheat Meals Explained

Fantastic job!

You are eating well 80-90% of the time. You are getting all of the nutrients your body needs so that you can train hard, recover and train hard again.

The reward? A fit, strong, lean, sexy body!

But you want to let go. Every corner you turn there is an advertisement for some sort of processed junk food. Every page you turn in the newspaper, catalogue or magazine has a bright colored picture of the latest and greatest snack.

You want it, you’ve earned it and ……….the good news is that you can have it!

But before you have a free for all at the buffet and say ‘but James said it was alright!’ we gotta have some rules!

Call it what you will, a cheat meal (sounds negative), a structured re-feed (sounds too technical, and no fun) but the fact remains that there are some benefits from occasionally straying from the nutritional straight and narrow.

If you are restricting the amount of energy your body gets (ie dieting, calorie restriction, eating well) your body adapts to this decrease in energy by altering the levels of certain hormones resulting in an overall metabolic slowdown.

This would perhaps explain why when you start a ‘diet’ that it works for a week or two and then your progress stops.

The cheat meal or re-feed helps to reset these hormone levels back to their previous state so that your body will continue to burn more fat once you return to your proper eating plan.

What to eat. Well that’s pretty simple. Get the carbs moderate to high and keep your protein levels about the same as normal. You want to keep your fat intake under control here however.

So in real food terms you can have a go at those normally nasty starchy carbs, breads, pasta, rice, juice etc. Low fat pizzas and hamburgers will be alright here as well. Stay away from fried foods as they are going to be too high in carbs and fats together which is what we are trying to avoid.

If you are looking to keep the food choices as healthy as possible you can’t go past a heap of vegetables (grab the potatoes while you can), a heap of fruit and your berries as well.

Now that you know what to eat, you need to know how often. Somewhere between one meal and one day (all your meals for the day) per week will do the trick. You will find that this not only helps you to get that extra bit of fat off the body but will keep you focused in the days leading up to to the ‘cheating’.

Getting Portion Sizes Right

After doing some nutrition consultations lately, it has occurred to me that one of the missing links in any plan is portion control.

Once you are in a habit of eating good, healthy and tasty foods, portion control is the most important quality to master.

The good news is that there isn’t a whole lot too it, especially once you have the basics in your head (or as I do written down!)

I like to be able to quickly compare the content of foods by either reading labels or checking their numbers on the net. (http://www.nutritiondata.com is a great, free reference)

The system I use breaks carbs and proteins into 10 gram serves and fats into 5 gram serves. This way I can look at a bag of peas and see that 75 grams will give me half a serve of my carbs.

Easy. Just add another half serve and my portion is done.

You can find a list of plenty of foods in the Eating Made Simple section.

Now when it comes to something like carbs, it is terribly easy to overeat. Consider this in terms of portion control and in terms of your waistline next time you decide that a sandwich isn’t too bad for lunch.

1/2 a slice of most breads will give you one serve of carbs.

So will 1 cup of celery, 1 cup of mushrooms and 2 cups of lettuce. All of that has the same amount of energy/calories as your 1/2 slice of bread.

No feel free to correct me, but I don’t know anyone who lines up for a sandwich consisting of 1/2 a slice of bread! Its going to be at least one, if not two or four slices.

Take your typical sandwich starting with two slices of bread. You wouldn’t raise an eyebrow eating it. But would you sit down to eat 4 cups of celery, 4 cups of mushrooms and 8 cups of lettuce. I don’t think so.

These high density, over-processed carbs are one of the factors affecting the world’s health and weight.

It also goes to show that you don’s have to, and definitely shouldn’t, go hungry when you are trying to lose weight. You just need to chose a bit more wisely and master portion control.

Let me know if this has helped you in anyway, or if there’s another topic you might like covered.

Eating made Simple – Fats

Fats are like the ugly step sister of the food family. You know you should respect them and not overlook them but you do. They are misunderstood and not given credit for all they can do for you.

Fats are your friend though. Some fats are any way. As with the article I wrote on carbs, you want to stay away from processed foods. This is the same for fats. With this in mind you want to be avoiding anything that contains Trans Fats. Read your food labels, in fact, if the food you are buying has a label think twice about eating it. Chances are it is already too processed.

Read the list below, each food has a serving amount beside it. It might be handy to have a copy with you when you  are preparing your meals, so go ahead and print a copy.  With fats you want to be getting between 10 and 15 serves per day. That’s 2-3 serves per meal spread throughout the day.

WHAT? ‘Why so much’ I hear you ask, ‘won’t that make me fat? I’m trying to lose fat here’.

Here’s the thing. If you don’t give your body sufficient dietary fat, then your body will hold onto the fat it already has. If you are giving your body enough fat through the foods you eat, and you are eating the right carbs, your body will start to use fat as fuel. Pretty cool huh?

Whole Foods

• Almonds ~6 nuts
• Butter 1 Tsp
• Cashews ~7 nuts
• Cheddar Cheese 15 grams
• Coconut Milk 2 Tbsp
• Feta Cheese 2 Tbsp
• Flax Meal 2 Tbsp
• Macadamias ~3 nuts
• Parmesan Cheese 3 Tbsp
• Peanuts 1 Tbsp
• Peanut Butter 1 Tsp
• Pecans ~5 nuts
• Pistachios ~15 nuts
• Walnuts ~2 nuts
• Whole Egg

Oils – All are 1 Tsp per serve

• Avocado Oil
• Canola Oil
• Extra Virgin Coconut Oil
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Flaxseed/Linseed Oil
• Macadamia Oil
• Peanut Oil
• Sesame Seed Oil

If you look through the list above you will see lot of potential for wonderful, exciting flavours. In fact you can’t have any real flavour without some fat.

Main meals will be the easiest meals  to incorporate these good fats into. For instance you can have a salad with your favourite veggies, and then top it with a dash of salt, and some extra virgin olive oil. In the summer time you might want to add some lime juice, in the winter you might want to warm it lightly.

Snacks are a breeze. Simply grab some of your favourite nuts, an egg or two or try my (now famous) chocolate pudding.