(Photography by Simon Bradley)

On this page you will find some Nutritional Guidelines to help you either lose weight or gain weight depending on your personal goals.

It is possible to lose weight or gain weight simply by reducing or increasing your food intake and without doing any exercise. This requires a fairly large change in daily calorie intake (and also tends to reveal an "untrained" body underneath, and in my experience most people would prefer a "toned" and aesthetically pleasing body once a certain amount of weight loss or gain is achieved!)

It is also possible to lose weight through exercise alone, however, the effort required can be substantially reduced if the calorie deficit is split between exercise and nutrition.

The reality is - there has to be a nutrition plan to go alongside a training plan, in order to achieve optimum results.

This is perhaps one of the biggest factors and reasons why it is hard for us to lose weight. We dont like to be uncomfortable. Our bodies and our minds have a certain weight that we are used to and are comfortable with, and we will consciously or subconsciously do everything within our powers to maintain this weight and comfort level. If we exercise more, we will get hungrier than usual, in order to spur the body into taking in more fuel to make up for the exercise! In order to lose weight, as you will see below, we have to create a "deficit" in calories (fuel in / fuel out) - and that deficit will nearly always result in a certain level of hunger. It is not the hunger of starvation or extreme deprivation, but it is nonetheless hunger. And to conquer this, you will have to reconcile with this hunger. 

Similarly if your goal is to gain weight, you will have to eat more (more of particular types of food - but still more), and eating more is also accompanied by a certain level of discomfort and adaptation. (Its not as easy as you might think to increase food intake, any more than it is to decrease it!).

If there isn't already one in place, you will need a plan and structure for your meals and meal-times. It will require organisation, and the extra time required in your day to do the organising and planning. It will also involve measuring and weighing food quantities and portion sizes. You cannot get around this. You have to know how much food is going into the body and therefore there has to be a way of quantifying it, measuring it and planning it. 

[This is a common stumbling block for many people, and for this reason I have partnered with a bespoke meal planning and delivery service called Fresh Fitness Food, details of which can be found on the following page].

I have never met anyone who didn't know that a meal of cooked salmon with rice and vegetables is a better meal choice than a takeaway hamburger and fries. Nor anyone who doesn't know that a pot of yoghurt and some fruit is a better snack for the body than a bar of chocolate. We all know. Willpower plays a big part. You have to start making these choices now. Wherever you happen to be when making food choices, you have to develop the ability to physically leave alone / reject / leave behind in the cupboard or store - the "bad stuff". This is hard to do! Many trainers prefer that you "purge" your cupboards of all the bad stuff, but I believe that there is no getting around temptation. If not at home, it will present itself elsewhere. Take control, and know that you can take it or (better) leave it.

This is a tool that Personal Trainers, Coaches and Nutritionists often use to find out exactly what fuel you are putting into your body. But it can also be an incredibly useful tool and insight into your own eating habits. In my experience, most people, when they finally start recording what they eat and drink, are surprised by what they do in fact consume over the course of a day or a week! The process of recording everything you eat and drink reveals habits and quantities that you might not even realise unless you do actually go to the trouble of recording it!

In my Online Coaching Programme we use a Mobile Coaching App in which you have a Food Journal to record what you eat (you can even post images like you would on social media platforms!) The App also Integrates with other Nutrition Recording tools like MyFitnessPal, Cronometer, Apple Health and others too.

But the format you use doesn't matter, even pen and paper (I did this for many years before Apps were even invented!) - but you have to be precise and you have to record EVERYTHING! This is because sometimes the little things make a difference. Record whether you used skimmed milk or semi-skimmed milk; was it half a teaspoon of sugar or a "heaped" spoonful; did you cook using olive oil or vegetable oil... and don't forget the snacks that don't form part of the regular "meal" routine, like the bar of chocolate that you had on the go or the cappuccino in the afternoon... There are no judgements or criticisms involved in this process. It is just "data" to analyse, and the more accurate the data, the better the resulting plan and strategy for losing or gaining weight and achieving the body and state of health that you want.

A calorie is very simply a measurement. It is not a "component" of food in the way that protein, fat, carbohydrates, fibre, vitamins and minerals are. It is the way we measure all those aforementioned components. And a calorie is currently the ONLY way you can measure those components collectively . There is no way you can get around it! And there is no way you can "fool" it either. You may come across various theories about eating at certain times of the day, eating certain types of carbohydrates and a raft of other attempts to get around counting calories - but the point is that all of those factors are actually already built into the idea of a calorie! A calorie measures the amount of energy (or heat) that is released when the food that is eaten is used by the body in whatever way that particular food is needed. And yes, the number of calories varies between, for instance, wholegrain carbohydrates and faster acting carbohydrates - but you still have to account for, or actually count, the calories from whichever carbohydrate you are eating, and any weight change is still attributable not to the type of carb it is but to its calorie count and its energy / fuel measurement.

(The technical definition of a calorie is: "the amount of heat/energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by one degree Celsius". Non-food items can also be measured in calories if they can be used to generate energy in accordance with this definition).

Weight management is actually very simple in theory, but harder to apply in real life! Your body requires a certain number of calories to both survive and to function in the activities you normally go about in your everyday lives. In order to lose weight you have to create a "deficit" between the calories your body takes in, and the calories it "burns". You create this deficit by either reducing your calorie intake, or by burning more calories, or, ideally by doing both. Similarly in order to increase weight (and preferably muscle as opposed to fat) you must create a "surplus" of calories, by once again either exercising or by increasing food intake - or ideally by combining both.

There are various ways to establish your body's particular calorific needs, and I have included a link to one such Calorie Calculator here. Calories and Macro Nutrient Targets are also calculated within your Coaching App if you are part of my Online Coaching Group.

It's good to keep in mind that most methods are an estimate because it is very hard to account for the many variables and uniqueness of your own individual body type, and also to quantify the exact number of calories burned in certain types of activity.

In my experience as a Coach, I find the best approach is to first establish a calorie requirement, then test and observe, and modify according to results achieved...

As mentioned earlier in this guide, I have partnered with a bespoke meal planning and delivery service called Fresh Fitness Food, details of which can be found on the following page.

For those of you who prefer to plan and prepare your own meals, there are many books and websites that provide meal plans built around specific calorie intakes, and an actual meal and recipe plan is beyond the scope of this guide. I do however hope that I have at least provided the basic principles of weight management, and enough information for you to implement a strategy on your own. Beyond this, I invite you to contact me for more advice - or better yet, why not join my Online Coaching Plan, where we can put together a Nutrition Plan to reach your goals!

It is a good idea to check with a medical professional that medicines you are taking don't have an affect on appetite or nutrient uptake and it is always advisable to check with your doctor before undertaking any nutrition (or exercise) plan as well.

I hope I have provided you with a guide and framework, and some advice here that you can use to change your life and achieve your health and fitness goals. My final piece of advice - why not join my Coaching Programme! Lets go on this journey together...