10 EASY STEPS TO BECOMING A CLEAN EATING GURU!

Making your way in the fitness and nutrition industry is a tough task, especially if you’re a stickler for science and insist on giving evidence-based advice.

Luckily for you, you don’t have to. Here is my 10-step guide to becoming a clean eating guru, which if you’re lucky, may culminate in a book deal, a TV deal or even a chain of restaurants!

NOTE: This article is written with my tongue placed firmly in my cheek and I urge you not to follow this advice. However, if you do, unfortunately you’ll probably make a shed load more money than your average professor who dedicates their life to advancing our knowledge of nutrition!

Step 1: HAVE A SOB STORY

Now this isn’t a pre-requisite but it sure helps. Choose some sort of ailment to suffer from, this can range from the rather mild such as headaches or stomach cramps to the more extreme, such as a life limiting illness. You’re probably better off opting for the more severe here as this will add weight to your future claims (and profits).

Not keen on putting a personal slant on your story? No problem, simply claim that we are all collectively in the grips of an epidemic, or even better a pandemic!

Step 2: CHOOSE A GOODY OR BADDY

You’ve got your ailment, now you must choose option A or B: A, a SUPER BAD foodstuff for which you can pin all the blame on for causing your ailment. Or B, a SUPER GOOD foodstuff which will defeat your evil ailment.

You can opt for a combination of both A and B but I don’t advise this because this could all get a little too nuanced for your consumers. Remember you want to start a social media movement here and there isn’t space for areas of grey, it’s strictly black or white.

Step 3: SHOW A COMPLETE DISREGARD FOR THE SCIENCE

This is probably the most important of all the steps. You must show a complete disregard for what the overwhelming scientific consensus is telling you. You must disregard the experts almost as much as TOWIE star Gemma Collins disregards the need to use manners…well almost!

However, if you want to have the slightest whiff of credibility you can cherry pick the odd study which kind of substantiates your claims!

Step 4: FAUX SCEPTICISM

That’s right you must claim to be a sceptic. Whatever you opted for, option A or B you must at least claim to have been initially very sceptical about it. This is a must because it builds a rapport with your customers. Initially, when they hear about the claims you’ll be making, they will probably be very sceptical, but if you claim that you were as well way back in the beginning, it builds a certain affinity with them.

Step 5: AMAZING RESULTS

If you go for option A, you must claim that abstaining from eating that super bad food stuff has left you feeling AM-AZ-ING. Similarly, if you prefer option B you must also claim to feel AM-AZ-ING but not because you’ve cut something out of your diet but because you’ve added in some food item with mythical super powers!

Step 6: DISCOUNT OTHER (MORE RATIONAL) REASONS WHY YOU FEEL AMAZING

That’s right you must discount other reasons as to why you’re feeling better. Often when people begin to alter their diet they make other lifestyle changes too such as: they exercise more, sleep better, eat more appropriate portion sizes, drink more water etc. etc. and it’s the cumulative effects of these which combine to make someone feel better.

But you can’t let this possibility enter your thoughts. Don’t even entertain it for the most fleeting of moments. You must believe, or at least claim to believe that this improved feeling of self-worth is brought about purely because of the dietary changes you’ve made. Remember, soon you’ve got a restaurant to open and after all you do want to send your kids to private school, don’t you?

Step 7: POST YOUR STORY ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Join Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat or whatever and endlessly post about your ‘journey’. It’s a tough task here but you must post more pics of your grub, than the average parent posts of their new-born. This will be extraordinarily tough but you can do it. Oh, and always be sure to include the hashtags #cleaneating or #eatingclean

Step 8: KEEP POSTING ON SOCIAL MEDIA

That’s right post, post and post some more, oh and when you think you’ve posted too much, just like Postman Pat, keep posting. For particular kudos, you could also begin including hashtags #traindirty, #vegan or #glutenfree (but these are optional).

Step 9: INFORM PEOPLE THAT YOU HAVE NO QUALIFICATIONS WHATSOEVER IN SCIENCE OR NUTRITION

You must come clean at this point and inform your social media followers that you have no qualifications in the field you are incessantly talking about. But don’t worry, this won’t affect your chances of getting that future book deal whatsoever, after all social media ‘likes’ trump science any day of the week!

But as a slight word of warning don’t bang on about your lack of qualifications too much, we wouldn’t want any of your more free-thinking followers thinking you’re a complete fraud and charlatan would we!

Step 10: BE ATTRACTIVE

This isn’t written in stone anywhere (unlike Ed Milliband’s election pledges) but I must stress that the more attractive you are the more likely you are to achieve clean eating guru status.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at the gurus who’ve had books published, to say they’re easy on the eye is an understatement! Many of them look like they’ve just stepped off a catwalk.

Still, as a former model myself (mainly of gloves and balaclavas) there’s hope for me yet!

IN CONCLUSION…

If I need the electrics altered in my house I seek the expertise of an electrician not a window cleaner. Similarly, if you’re having trouble altering your health seek the expertise of just that, an expert in the form of a doctor or dietician not someone who is more interested in collecting likes and followers rather than collecting letters after their name.

Thanks for reading,

Matt

TO BOOK YOUR FREE PERSONAL TRAINING SESSION, OR TO BOOK A PLACE AT MY BOOT CAMP CLASS, PLEASE DON’T HESITATE TO GET IN TOUCH.

    matt@mlrpt.co.uk                 www.mlrpt.co.uk                          07939316401 www.twitter.com/mlrpt      www.facebook.com/mlrpt        www.twitter.com/mlrpt

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STRICTLY COME DANCING WEIGHT LOSS: DON'T BE FOOLED

As the weeks went by and the competition progressed, fans of Strictly Come Dancing quite rightly grew more impressed with the ever- improving dance skills of the sequin-clad, perma-happy celebrities. No doubt they were equally impressed by the celebrities ever-decreasing waist-lines too. None more so than that of the eventual winner Ore Oduba who posted this selfie just days after winning the much coveted glitter ball...

As the lifts, jumps and pirouettes got bigger, the celebrities got thinner so to speak.

And as a personal trainer, this is great news for me because it vindicates the idea that if you exercise loads you’ll shed a ton of weight.

However, can the same be true for us mere mortals?

The short and simple answer is YES'ish'. You see the theory behind weight loss is very simple. To lose weight you must create a calorie imbalance and this can be done in 3 ways: 1, by burning more calories than you eat through exercise or activity. 2, by consuming fewer calories through eating less or 3, a combination of 1 and 2.

In the case of the Strictly celebrities, their weight loss comes about largely due to option 1. Because they are training for upward of five hours per day, five to six days per week they are able to burn calories like a pyromaniac burns down schools.

But how realistic is this for us mere mortals?

Not very, after all how many of us can afford to give up work and train like a professional athlete to lose weight? Very few, if any of us. That’s why for most of us we’d be better off focusing more of your attention on option 2. That is, to lose weight, reduce the number of calories we consume.

Don’t believe me?

Well, think about this, according to the Readers Digest to burn off just one slice of a 210 calorie Dominos cheese pizza, it would take 22 minutes of cycling. That’s over 20 minutes for just one slice, and how many of us can stop at just the one slice? So, you can already see just how difficult and time consuming it would be to burn off at least 4 slices of pizza, and this is the case for many other calorie dense foods too.

At best, we simply do not have the time or motivation to out-run, out-cycle or out-swim a poor diet. At worst, we simply CAN’T out-train a bad diet because we aren’t fit enough to be able to train long enough or hard enough for it to happen. Our bodies simply can’t handle it (I've written more about this here in a previous post). Sadly, the irony is that the people most able to train for anywhere near long enough or hard enough to out-train your average poor diet are professional athletes, who by and large, need not worry about their weight in the first place!

So exercise isn’t important then?

No, as your average wannabe gangster rapper from leafy, suburban Essex would say ‘Don’t get this twisted’. Exercise is important, it’s important for a number of reasons, none more so (when it comes to weight loss) than the preservation of muscle mass. You see when people lose weight, they lose a hell of a lot of muscle mass in the process, which isn’t a good thing because muscle helps to burn calories which in turn helps to keep the fat off long term. Exercise, particularly resistance training and an increased protein intake can help prevent this from happening quite so drastically.

So although the average unconditioned person may not be able to burn a shed load of calories within a single session, they should regard exercises as an extremely important way of helping them maintain their weight once they get to be the size they'd like to be.

The take home message… 

When it comes to weight loss the most sensible and sustainable approach is to go for option 3 (a combination of exercising more and eating less calories) with (especially if you have a lot of weight to shift) a particular focus on eating less.

Thanks for reading.

Matt

TO BOOK YOUR FREE PERSONAL TRAINING SESSION, OR TO BOOK A PLACE AT MY BOOT CAMP CLASS, PLEASE DON’T HESITATE TO GET IN TOUCH.

    matt@mlrpt.co.uk                 www.mlrpt.co.uk                          07939316401 www.twitter.com/mlrpt      www.facebook.com/mlrpt        www.twitter.com/mlrpt

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THE MOST AMAZING DIET EVER!

Don’t you feel the term ‘A-MAZ-ING’ is just too overused? I certainly do.

It’s so commonly used that when I hear it uttered in a sentence I immediately switch off knowing full well that what I’m going to hear won’t be amazing at all. It may be mildly surprising, or even moderately amusing but almost certainly not A-MAZ-ING!

And this brings me to the actual point of my article, recently a new client told me she had begun the most AMAZING diet ever and had literally lost 4lbs overnight. Obviously, I was intrigued, so just like a determined metal detectorist I dug a little deeper. It turns out she had literally cut out all carbohydrates from her diet. And as you’ve probably guessed from the tenant of my article so far, this initial weight loss was not AMAZING at all; and let me explain why...

LOSE FAT, NOT WATER

When trying to lose weight, ideally, what you really want to do is change the composition of your body. You want to lose body fat, and the way you do this is by creating a calorie deficit. This can be done by eating less (consuming less calories) or by burning more calories (increasing your activity levels) or ideally, by a combination of the two. (As I've written about in more depth here The Strictly Come Dancing Approach To Weight Loss).

TIME FOR ME TO GET ALL RACHEL RILEY ON YOU...   

And by that I don't mean that I'm going on Strictly, leaving my spouse and shacking up with an attractive Russian dance partner, I mean it's time for some maths... 

If we accept the commonly held notion that 1lb of fat is the equivalent to 3500 calories, 4lbs of fat would equal 14000 calories (4 x 3500 = 14000).

Now in the case of my client, for her to have lost 4lbs of FAT overnight it would have meant her somehow creating a deficit of 14000 calories. Which is near impossible when you consider that 14000 calories is the equivalent of 1 weeks’ worth of calories for the average women (the NHS recommends the average women should consume 2000 calories per day).

I’m sure you’ll agree this isn’t likely to happen.

SO WHERE IS THE WEIGHT LOSS COMING FROM IF IT’S NOT FROM FAT?

The likely answer is water. When you eat carbohydrate, it is stored in your body with water (1 gram of carbohydrate can store 3-4grams of water). Once you stop eating carbohydrates and your body uses all of the carbohydrate that it has stored, the water which was stored with it simply gets excreted from the body, thus giving dramatic weight loss results!

To keep things simple, think of water's relationship with carbohydrate in the same way as a 'hangers on' relationship is with a famous person: When a person is famous there are plenty of 'hangers on' around clinging to that fame. When there is carbohydrate in the body there is plenty water hanging around clinging onto to that too. When the carbs get used up and go, so does the water. When the famous person has a fall from grace and the fame goes, so do the hangers on! 

So, although this initial weight loss looks A-MAZ-ING on the scales, it does nothing for your fat loss. You are simply LOSING WATER, NOT FAT!

HEY PRESTO THE WEIGHT RETURNS!

In my experience, most people find it difficult to stick to a no, or very low carbohydrate diet for long. So, once they eat carbs again the water comes back and hey presto so does the weight!

LOW OR NO CARBOHYDRATE DIETS ARE A CON THEN?

No, low or no carbohydrate diets can, and do work for people who can sustain them beyond the initial few days of water loss and into the phase where the body uses fat and even protein to provide energy. 

However, whether the weight loss comes about because the diet controls the body's insulin levels better, or simply because it's restrictive nature limits the types of foods which most people generally overeat is open to debate. 

What is not open to debate is that, for many people, a low or no carbohydrate diet proves very difficult to sustain; and that the dramatic, initial weight loss is due to water loss not fat loss!

IN CONCLUSION...

Low or no carb diets can work for some people (as do many other types of diet) provided they can stick with it. However, such diets do not come without their pro's and con's and I urge you to do further research as to what these are and how they could possibly effect you.

But if you do opt to go for such a diet please don't fall into the trap that many ill-informed people fall into:

In a bid to lose weight, they cut their carbs drastically. For the first few days they are really impressed with their weight loss (believing it to be fat loss, not water loss). As the days progress and the weight loss slows (as a result of the final remnants of carbohydrate and its associated water leaving the body) their compulsion to chomp on some carbs is higher than the wage demands of your average Premier League footballer. They give in, and wolf down lots of bread, pasta, potatoes, in fact they eat more or less anything beige (watch out Essex boys, you'd better hide those beige, tailored chino shorts that your so fond of or they'll have them too!). At this point, as the carbs are reintroduced to the diet, the water comes back and so does the weight.

Depressed at this, they revert to their old eating habits (pre, the low carb diet) until eventually, some point in the future, they decide to lose some weight again. Surprise, surprise they opt to go on a low or no carb diet again (which they are unable to stick to) and so the cycle continues!

Thanks for reading,

Matt

TO BOOK YOUR FREE PERSONAL TRAINING SESSION, OR TO BOOK A PLACE AT MY BOOT CAMP CLASS, PLEASE DON’T HESITATE TO GET IN TOUCH.

    matt@mlrpt.co.uk                 www.mlrpt.co.uk                          07939316401 www.twitter.com/mlrpt      www.facebook.com/mlrpt        www.twitter.com/mlrpt

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