The Right Diet for You

I watched  a programme recently on the BBC called 'The Right Diet for You', supposedly the experts in diet and nutrition had come together to test and establish the best diets for individuals.

The majority of the programme was defined by putting people into 3 groups, 'constant cravers', 'feasters' and 'emotional eaters'. At this point I realised that they weren't actually doing individual diets for people. Yes they figured a pattern out for people, with regards to why they eat the way they do, but we don't all fit into one of these groups. Personally I think I fit into all of them at some point during year...!

Picking the right diet for you, is really really really tricky. Trust me I have tried most of the diets out there, most of them cookie cutter diets that people follow and think because it worked for some people it could work for me!

We can all agree, that we are all individual, we aren't all the same - if we all tried on the same t-shirt, we would not look the same and actually some wouldn't even bother trying on the t-shirt, because they know it wouldn't suit them. So in my head, why do we do that with diets....? In fact with diets, shouldn't it be even more individually than what we wear!?

How your body reacts to food is completely different from the person next to you. You need to have a diet that you follow, it may be similar to someone else's, but it can't and shouldn't be the same. I follow a flexible eating dieting, which is specifically programmed for me and what I am personally trying to do - if I gave you my diet and told you to follow it, I guarantee that you wouldn't see the same results that I do.

In the UK there are 11 million people on a diet, 80% of which fail........speaks for itself.

Often people say that they couldn't do what I do, they aren't me and there isn't any way they could do it. I agree it takes a lot to train as much as I do at the gym, 6 times a week is a struggle and I have to dig deep to get there. But and that is a big BUT, that doesn't mean that you can't do something similar to me diet wise. The way my diet is devised is worked out on the activities that I do, so if I wasn't do any training, then my diet would be changed/adjusted to reflect this.

I know that what I have achieved is immense, but I truly believe that if you put your mind to it, you can do it!!

This Week Results

So this week, results time - I have plugged this weeks figures into my table (below)...

	8th Jan	17th Jan	24th Jan
Weight	70.5	70.5	70
Body Fat %	23.85	23.62	21.94
Body Fat KG	16.8	16.6	15.35
Lean LG	53.7	53.8	54.7

I am really happy with this weeks results, when I weighed myself this morning I thought, 'only 0.5kg's, pitiful results and I was really struggling to get my head round it. More than likely it is to do with my water intake. Today I'm experimenting, drinking as much water today as I possibly can, I will weigh myself tomorrow and hopefully will reflect my body fat percentage result this week.

I've dropped 1.68% of body fat, so actually I'm very happy and it is helping me focus!!!

It has been a relatively easy week, no travelling for my job, my sisters birthday meant one day I struggled a tad, but all in all, it was a normal week. Next week will be tricky, I'm travelling a lot for work, got a lot of work to do and fitting in my training is going to take some doing. So right now I'm going to look at next week, what I'm going to eat each day and when & what I'm going to train and when :)

Thanks for reading, please share with your friends and families, any questions please let me know :)

Thanks

Holly

She Believed She Could and So She Did

It is 2015, most people are thinking about (or already decided), what they are going to try and achieve this year. Often goals aren't fully thought through, aren't measurable, unachievable and not with reliable timescales. 

People refer to SMART when setting their goals, I must admit I don't do that myself and mostly just look at what I want to achieve, when and how. But for me writing them down is the best thing to do, it somehow in my brain solidifies the goal, makes it more real.

Christmas Aftermath

It has been 3 weeks since Christmas Day as I write this (15th Jan), I weighed myself on Sat 3rd Jan to see what damage I had done over the Christmas period. I had relaxed over Christmas, been a bit more human (so to speak) and ate nearly constantly on high fats and high carb foods, I also replaced water with alcohol. I put on 3kg, which suffice to say I struggled to get my head round this, but I had to draw a line under it. I clearly needed it and I'm actually feeling more motivated now to achieve my next goals.

I decided the best thing to do, was to focus initially on the first week and getting a good start to the year, to prove that Christmas was a blip and not going to continue.

Getting back to this first week was tough, but I was so determined, I really wanted to get back to losing weight, as I was sure improving my water intake alone would get me back on track. So I really pushed myself, going back to the foods I know help me lose fat, but mainly drank so much water - which yes had the not so nice after effect of seeing my bathroom more often! Here are my first three weekly results since the New Year:

RESULTS

	3rd Jan	8th Jan	17th Jan
Weight	73	70.5	70.5
Body Fat %	24.3	23.85	23.62
Body Fat KG	17.7	16.8	16.6
Lean LG	55.3	53.7	53.8

So pleased with my results so far, I'm not so please with this weeks, but that is due to being away for work, restricting my ability to stick rigidly to my macros. Although doing flexible dieting certainly helped massively.

My personal trainer and I have agreed to put me on a 12 week cutting programme - we will reduce my macros for 12 week, adjusting it each week depending on my results. I will then have a 3 week 'break', where we bring my foods up, to maintain my metabolism. Along side this my training programme is harder than I've had in a long time, if not the hardest I have had to date. The two combined are and will push my body and brain to the limits!!

Because of this programme I have decided to enter myself in Body Power Transformation Challenge, to solidify my goals and enforce what I'm working towards :) It is not about winning the competition at all, for me it is literally the taking part and see how much I can push myself.
http://bodypowerexpo.co.uk/transformation-challenge

Getting Back to Work

I just wanted to talk briefly about the last 2 weeks. Safe to say I have struggled with my energy levels on the floor to say the least. I was worried, especially on Saturday last week when I slept hard and worked feeling even more tried. But I needed to get real, this is what I did in the last two weeks (all in one go), after 2 weeks of no work, reduced training and eating no foods which fuel my body correctly.

• Back to work at LBG, full time (and more hours to catch up following the holidays and project gaining speed).
• 16 hours working at the gym; as part of my Personal Trainer course
• Back to eating against my macros, and actually having a reduction in macros as start of the cut.
• 2 Personal Training sessions and 4 other days of training
• Week of anti-biotics to try and kill an infection

When I write it down like that, no wonder I was shattered. I still am, but my body needs time to adjust back and adjust to the harder training programme I am on. Plus being ill and needing anti-biotics is not helping. I considered having a day or two off sick, but refused, my body and head need to get used to this, my training is only going to get harder.

My brain needs to keep telling my body to keep going and push harder and harder, I'm very determined this year and I will commit to keeping my blog up dated with my progress each week.

This made me think about how, a lot of people will be rushing to the gym after Christmas, to shed the weight they put on, or to start a new years resolution. I've been training for over a year and I have struggled to get back into it, so I can remember back to starting a new years resolution, when I was big and wanted to lose weight.

Heading to the gym is fine, committing yourself to going every day or the week, will ultimately lead to failure (if you haven't done it before). Your body is not used to it and over Christmas has been made worse, by lack of movement and eating lots. Therefore, I can only recommend that you take it slow, I started my journey in July 2013, by doing one training session a week and wasn't focusing on my food.

One Step at a Time!! Let your body adjust and then increase your gym sessions or try and look at your eating. Don't do everything at once.

Hope you are having a great start to the year, get in touch if you have any questions, by commenting on here, tweet my @Berry1284 or Instagram: Gym_Berry.

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Thanks for Reading