Simple nutrition and weight loss

Hi guys! Today I just thought I would share an experience I had with my old diet and my struggle to maintain my body shape.

You can think that you're eating healthily and be completely off with it as I once found out. Before I became a Personal Trainer I found it a daily struggle to maintain my weight and body shape, especially because I was working away from home and found myself snacking on everything unhealthy.

I decided one day that enough was enough and tried a few popular diets. They worked for a small amount of time but I felt very sluggish and my body shape was not improving.

As I trained as a PT I kept a food diary for a week without making an effort to "eat healthily" to see if I could pin point the problem because at this time I thought my diet was pretty healthy. What a shock I got! As I read it back to myself I noticed that on a typical day I was eating 2 slices of toast with butter for breakfast, crisps for a snack, jacket potato with beans and cheese for lunch, a cereal bar for a snack and a tuna pasta bake for tea all with water to drink. I thought I was being sensible but as I now know I was going through way too many heavy carbohydrate foods in a day. It showed me that I was eating things without even thinking about it. Always try to plan ahead with your meals if you can, it is much easier to stay healthy and keep lots of variety on your plate.

Common misconceptions about food is that you need some form of carbohydrate to accompany whatever it is that you're eating for example, Steak with chips or fish and vegetables with potato.
I still eat potato, rice, cous cous, pasta ect but not as much as I used too. I use my vegetables to fill up my carbohydrate intake which in turn makes my ability to do the sports and fitness that I love much easier.

If you are trying to lose weight my best advice is to keep a food diary of a typical day and see exactly what you are eating. That might give you an idea of where you are going wrong.

A few food rules -

1) If a food label says "low fat" make sure you look at the sugar and salt content because they are usually higher to make the food have less fat.

2) Sugar helps you to gain weight rapidly - try to cut back on fizzy drinks!

3) Look out for the chemical "Aspartame". It is in a lot of sweet things which claim to be sugar free (diet drinks, chewing gum ect) and it is dangerous!

4) The fewer ingredients in your food the better! Buy fresh to avoid hidden chemicals. You don't know what you're eating if you don't eat fresh.

Thank you for taking time to read my blog, I hope this has been helpful to you :-)

If you want to get in touch about this blog then please feel free to comment on it.

If you want to get in touch about training and / or nutrition then visit my website - www.bx3t.moonfruit.com Find me on Facebook by searching Bx3 Personal Training or Follow me on Twitter @Bx3_PT for handy hints and advice.