Every now and again as a personal trainer I like to test my own fat loss methods. I’ve been fairly relaxed with my food over the last couple of months (and had a lot of chocolate to get through after Easter) so am currently slightly heavier and ‘softer round the edges’ than I consider ideal. Over the weekend I was away with my mum in Belgium, and of course being in Belgium, you have to sample the chocolate. Being of generous spirit, I also allowed myself to sample the waffles, as some of you may have seen on my facebook page (it was amazing). People always wonder how I can eat this sort of stuff and stay slim, and think I must be blessed with a turbo fast metabolism. I’m not, I just know a few ‘tricks of the trade’. I know enough about nutrition to balance out the high calorie sweet treats with lower calorie foods before and after. I know how to use weights training to rev up my metabolic rate. And I know how to feed my body good nutrition the rest of the time so it has all the tools it needs to deal with the occasional indulgent treat and not put it straight on around my middle. All things that I teach my clients too. Anyhoo, despite all that I am not immune to putting on a few pounds. Just like anyone, if I eat more calories than I burn off, I gain weight. I let myself fully indulge at the weekend, partly because I was on holiday and I wanted to, and partly because it meant I could then test out my weight loss methods on myself. It’s my birthday in just over 3 weeks and I’d like to be noticeably slimmer and more toned by that point. It’s a very short time frame, and with clients I always advocate the slow and steady approach, because this always wins out when it comes to losing a lot of weight and permanently changing your body. But I am fully aware that people often want to see fast changes for upcoming events or just for a real kick start. So it’s good to be able to test my methods for this and see how far they can get me, and therefore any clients who may need to use them too. I believe that by recording my food, keeping my calories in check and structuring my intake of protein, carbs and fat, I will see and feel a very noticeable difference in 3 weeks time. I will also be carrying on my weights training sessions 3 times a week. Although I’m looking for fast weight loss, my calories will not be dropping below 1750 per day, because I’d like to prove that quick changes can come from having quality food, not just hardly any food. I also aim to come out of this with a new set of structured meal plans, using tasty and nutritious foods in optimal amounts for healthy weight loss. These can then be used to help and guide my clients to get the best results from their nutrition too. I took my weight, photos and measurements yesterday, and will update them in a week to check progress, so watch this space. Any questions or feedback, just give me a shout 🙂
May 23