It’s the start of a brand New Year, so now is the time to start about reaching your fat loss goals for 2012. Here is my New Year Fat Loss Guide to set you on the right track to reaching your fat loss goals.

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Get rid of calorie dense foods.

I often work with people that tell me ‘I really don’t eat that much, I can’t understand why I don’t lose weight.’ Whilst portion size is obviously an important factor, it is not nearly as important as the TYPE of food you are eating. It’s all very well not eating much, but if what you are eating is calorie dense you are still going to have a high total calorie intake.

For example, a small chocolate can contain up to 100 calories. A small biscuit up to 200 calories. Think how easy it would be to go through a few chocolates and a few biscuits a day. You could be up at 1000 calories without even feeling like you have really eaten anything. And of course because they have no good nutritional value they will make your body crave more food rather than filling you up.

Chocolates and biscuits are just 2 examples. Cheese, crisps, cakes and of course alcohol are just a few other calories dense foods.

Compare these 2 sweet foods;

100 gram chocolate brownie; 400 calories

100 grams blueberries; 55 calories.

I know you may be thinking ‘yeah but I would rather have the brownie.’ Well that may be true, but the blueberries… Read more->

As much as I believe that December is just as good a time as any of get fit and burn fat I’m also realistic enough to know that for most people this month is about damage limitation. In my experience it’s not just the few days over Christmas where people overindulge, it’s the few weeks leading up to it as well! This is obviously a bit of a problem, because whilst there’s only so much damage you can do over the course of a few days, but A LOT of damage can be done over the course of a few weeks.

Here are my top 3 tips to avoid gaining weight this December;

1/ Avoid the nibbles. There a lots of parties, lunches, dinners, drinks etc. at this time of year. Of course you want to treat yourself a bit, but steer clear of the ‘nibbles’ as much as possible. By nibbles i mean stuff like crisps, dips, mice pies etc. For example most mince pies are 300/350 each! Add a bit of cream and you’re up at 500! That’s a main meal! So be aware of these high calorie, un-filling snacks and steer clear when possible.

2/ 2 drinks at a time. That sounds good doesn’t it! Well it’s not quite what you think I’m afraid. Whether you’re at home or out and have an alcoholic drink, make yourself drink a glass of water for every glass of booze you have. This will slow your drinking and help to stop you getting dehydrated and getting cravings.

3/ Work it off! Never is exercise more important that when your consuming more calories. If you’re taking in say… Read more->

What do I mean by ‘devils?’ I use the word devils due the negative, fat gaining/storing effect the substances I am going to talk about have on your body. Why do I call them ‘white’ devils? Quite simply because all the substances are white!

There are 4 main categories of white devils;

1/ White Flour

2/ White (table) salt

3/ White sugar

4/ White starches (i.e. bread, pasta, rice).

All the above foods are white for a reason, they have been stripped of all their natural goodness and have a load of nasty preservatives, e-numbers and other junk added to them. In their pure natural ‘brown’ form they are far better for you. (In the case of salt you obviously can’t get a ‘brown’ alternative,’ you should go for natural sea salt). 

This means that rather than the food being in its natural form and being of some nutritional value to your body, its totally refined and totally useless to your body. And because your body has no use for it, it will end up being stored as fat.

That’s not to say that brown sugar and brown flour are really good for you and you can eat as much as you like. That’s obviously not true as they are still calorie dense foods. But nevertheless they are FAR FAR better for you and your waistline than the horrible refined alternatives.

Today’s Takeaway -Avoid the white devils like the plague. Always go for the natural ‘brown’ option instead.

When you’ve been away on holiday the chances are you may have overindulged and gained a few pounds. So going on a post holiday detox is exactly what you need to get rid of all the toxins in your body and lose any excess fat you may have gained. I’m not talking about a cabbage soup diet or anything like that, just certain things that I cut out for a limited time. Here’s my post holiday detox plan;

1/ Cut all all sugars (except the natural sugars from fruit). So that means no sugar in your tea/coffee and no deserts amongst other things.

2/ Nothing processed – Very rarely do I eat anything processed anyway, but anything from from a can, jar or anything that has a ‘shelf life’ in the supermarket is totally off the menu.

3/ No red meat – When I am at home I usually have red meat once or twice a week. But on holiday its at least double that, so to balance things out I will cut it out completely for a week when I get back.

4/  No alcohol. I must admit that alocohol is the biggest difference between my home diet, and my holiday diet. I will keep off alcohol during this detox.

5/ No cheese. Again, not something I do not eat a lot of at home anyway, but I eat more of it on holiday, so a cut it out totally for the detox.

6/ No starchy carbs – that means absolutely no pasta, rice bread or potatoes.

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