Fit Tip 1 - Why all diets can fail and all diets can succeed....

If you look around there are a huge range of range diets available, all claiming one is better than the other. It doesn't matter whether you are vegetarian, vegan, paleo, calorie counting, carb cycling, ketogenic, 3 meals a day, 5 small meals a day or whatever. All the diets have one thing in common to be effective. They all involve preparing meals from scratch with whole foods: fresh fruit, veg and lean meats. They all discourage refined ready meals, junk food, refined grains, refined sugar and refined fats. They also make the diets part of their long term lifestyle and not something they do just because they feel guilty about eating too much at Christmas or because they want to rip up for summer. They do it all year round and they put in the effort all year round and thus stay in shape all year round. At the same time all those diets above can be cheated. Vegetarians can eat too many carbohydrates, paleos could eat too much healthy fat or fructose: too many nuts, fruits or paleo snack bars, people calorie counting could make the worst possible food choices and still stay within the calorie limit. If you do not want to eat healthy meals, whole foods or cook from scratch, you are always going to be looking for those ways to cheat your diet and when you do, you will probably turn around and say this is crap, this diet doesn't work. It isn't the diet that doesn't work. You can get thin from all of those diets as long as you follow these basic rules:

• Eat whole foods (fresh veg, fruits, lean meats if not vegetarian)

• Control your portion sizes to feel satisfied with what you have eaten for several hours

• Be in calorie deficit

• Be consistent: Don't follow it for a short time

The moment you break those rules, your long term approach moves further away and then it becomes the classic case of yo-yo dieting. As for me I go for the healthy approach I eat very healthy 5 days a week and allow myself 2 cheats at the weekend. I eat starchy carbohydrates and always make sure I have enough carbs & protein to match how much I exert myself in the gym. The only times I slightly deviate from this is in December and when I am on holiday but even then there is still some element of control involved. If I don't train at all, I can manage on 3 meals a day no problem. If you are new to the gym and have suddenly starting training hell for leather, the chances are you will need to eat more! Happy New Year

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