THE 4 MINUTE WORKOUT (AKA TABATAS):

You can get a workout in with only 4 minutes, perfect before a dip in the pool! Called Tabatas – 20 s sprint along the beach, 10 s walk / recover.  Repeat 8 times for a total of 4 minutes then dive in the wonderful cool water!  You will tone your legs, feel great, and boost fat burning for the rest of the day.  (As the best time to eat carbs is after a workout a great way to reduce the effect of the post-swim ice-cream too!)

FAT IS NOT THE ENEMY!

Load up on protein at the all you can eat buffets – don’t skimp on the fat though!  People think everythign needs to be low fat, but eating good fats keeps you full and happy! Yes, good fats improve your hormone levels, and satisfy you, but unlike carbs will not bloat you out.  Ditching the carbs but avoiding the fat too is a recipe for irritability, hunger, cravings, and a lowered metabolism.

COCONUTTY:

One of the best fats?  Coconut oil!  If you’re holidaying somewhere tropical get your hands on coconuts  – the water inside is brilliant for rehydration (a great inclusion in any cocktail and definitely for the morning after too many cocktails!) and you can scoop out the flesh afterwards – just ask them to open it up for you, they are usually delighted as tourists waste the good stuff!

HOLIDAYS ARE GOOD FOR YOU!

Exercise outside!  The vitamin D helps you burn fat, improves your bone healthy and more!  It feels better too, improving mood and wellbeing as well as your body.  You want to expose your skin for a short time every day before the sunscreen in order to get vitamin D – sunscreen blocks it.  If you are concerned then take a supplment – gel caps are the best and ideally take with food.  Find a local outdoor fitness bootcamp to get you in serious shape for your upcoming holiday – and be prepared to amaze yourself with how great you feel training outside – many start in the summer and realise they love it even more in the cold, dark wintery days when you otherwise don’t get outside much at all!

SEAFOOD & EAT IT!

Eat loads of fish on holiday – the Omega 3s help you burn fat, help your brain function better and improve skin, hair and nails!  Oily fish such as sardines and salmon are usually plentiful when on holiday so make the most of them!  On honeymoon we had smoked marlin at breakfast – a great thing to load up on before hitting the beach. At home, why stick with the same old BBQ burgers and chicken?  Oily fish like mackerel (also super cheap) are amazing on a BBQ, as is salmon.  Impress your guests and sneakily get them being even healthier!

GRILLIN’ IN THE NAME OF:

On the BBQ side of things, making it interesting and healthy are the same thing!  Make loads of fab salads, add beetroot, avocado, peppers, fresh basil etc to make the salads the centre piece.  Home-made houmous by whizzing up chickpeas and 0% Total Greek Yoghurt (an all year round lean-body treat for all sorts of things) and veg dippers – a whole lot more interesting than the usual fare.  Making sure your guests have loads of salad and sides means they won’t eat 10 peices of meat each either.

TAKE ME TO THE GREEK:

Total 0% Greek Yoghurt is a perfect cream alternative – if you’re holidaying in Greece you can get it anywhere (if not the 0% the full fat is great too, but you need to be a bit more mindful of quantity…).  Add fresh berries and a few chopped nuts for a breakfast / snack / dessert that will feel indulgent but keep you on track for looking great in that bikini on the beach!

BRING ON THE BUBBLY:

Soda Water – many people seem confused about soda water, its just fizzy water from the gun in a bar.  The perfect thing to drink instead of so much alcohol – spritzer your wine with it, add to vodka instead of sugary mixers (with a squeeze of lime) and drink a tall glass inbetween other drinks.  If you really don’t like plain water the fizz jazzes things up, if its still to plain a squeeze of lemon / lime, maybe a small lime cordial (don’t make it too strong as that just adds sugar).

SICKLY SWEET?

Sugar depresses your immune system and is aging!  To look great, and stay looking great, and also to be healthy and avoid the sniffles, ditch as much sugar as you can!  Holidays might seem a great time to indulge but focus on the protein / veg / salad / nuts first and keep the treats moderate to avoid feeling sluggish on your holidays – the last time you want to feel bad, so eat to feel great!

THE SEA, THE SEA!

Water walking is great exercises!  Get to thigh-deep water and stride out (watch out for spineys and other seabed spikiness!), try sprinting and walking slowly in the water – tones the legs, gets the heart pumping and potentially exfoliates and improves cellulite at the same time, due to the sea water.

CONNECT WITH THE EARTH / SAND:

Walk (or jog) barefoot on the sand as much as you can!  This is great for foot and lower limb health, keeping those over-shoed feet healthy by allowing them space and challenge. This also works your legs out harder and therefore tones your legs more.  Your glute (butt) muscles work harder too, so you get a better, perkier butt and a properly working butt reduces back pain (honestly!).  Find a cute guy to walk along with you (perhaps some cooling off in the sea too) for a win-win!  Oh, and connecting your feet to the ground has other benefits, as does being by the sea.  You can actually buy things to ‘earth’ you which improves a multitude of health markers – this is essentially simulating the goodness of just walking barefoot – a much cheaper alternative!  not near a beach – walk barefoot in your garden as much as you can in the milder months for maximum benefit.  Negative ions abound in nature and especially by the sea – these make you feel better (one of the reasons the beach is so alluring) and healthier too!

EGG ON YOUR FACE?

Before eating scrambled egg at the hotel buffet, find out if it is actually egg or if its made from powdered – the off white wierd looking stuff is usually made from powdered egg – not worth eating!  Ask for a omelette, or poached or even fried if this is the case!  Eggs are a great holiday breakfast, and most hotels will boil you them to order, or offer a range of omelettes, so do ask before hitting the bread basket!  A protein based breakfast really will keep you lean and reduce the holiday bloat factor – why ruin all your hard work before the holiday at this stage!?

MEAN AMINOS:

Tyrosine is an amino acid that helps give you a tan!  It is often in tan supplements, but you could just as well take some alone without all the dodgy rest of it.  It also gives you a pre-workout boost, so take it 30 mins before exercising.  Another win-win?

Comment if you have any of your own top tips!

When it comes to fat loss, we really need to find out what works for us, individually, and learn how to apply lifestyle changes to our lives, in a way we actually enjoy and can maintain for life. We also need to take full responsibility for making these changes, and doing all we can to make them work for us.

Incremental changes to our diets and lifestyles mean that our new habits have a chance to become second nature. If you follow the newest ‘fad’ approach you will have some success while your willpower is involved, but these approaches do not stand the test of time as the minute you stop focusing on the diet you will slip up, going back to old habits.

This highlights another problem with relying on willpower, especially while following some faddy or extreme approach. By definition you are thinking about your diet a lot more than you would otherwise – so you are essentially tormenting yourself with your deprivation! Being aware of ‘being on a diet’ all the time, which is needed if you are going to succeed with willpower, means that your chances of success are immediately lowered – it is much easier if you are not constantly focussed on what you can and can’t eat, and if you can just get on with your life and keep yourself busy.

So, how can you avoid this all-too-common pitfall?

Well, firstly, a long term approach is vital. You can force foods you dislike down you in the short-term in order to achieve a short-term goal, but where does this leave you in the long run? Still reaching for the old favourites, that’s where. Instead, think about finding foods you actually do like and incorporating these into your life – this takes a bit of trial and error to get right, but means that the healthy foods you are eating are ones you really enjoy. Then, who needs willpower? Over time you will proabably also find your tastes change and eventually the foods you used to eat or even crave no longer have the same appeal. Once you realise how good you feel when you eat healthier foods, junk really does lose its appeal.

We need to enjoy the changes we make to our lifestyle, although I would also add that change can be hard and uncomfortable. We need to persevere with certain things even if we aren’t that excited about them immediately, adapting our approach to find ways to make the changes as enjoyable as possible. For example, we all need to up our vegetable and fruit intake to 5 – 10 portions a day, but for many this is extremely hard. At first you may resist, insisting that this nutritional programme cannot work as you absolutely hate vegetables. But there are universal laws of good nutrition, of which vegetables are one!

The solution is, again, in the long term approach. So try out several different methods to find something that works for you. When it comes to eating your veggies you may realise that while you hate boiled broccoli you love it when it’s added to a stir-fry with herbs, spices and garlic, for example.

If you struggle with this side of things, you will need to begin experimenting with new foods and methods of preparation: you can try stir-fries, mashes or purees (mashed cauliflower and / or butternut squash is a fab alternative to regular white potato mash for example!), roast veggies (roasting sweet potato or celeriac ‘chips’ instead of regular chips!), various salads, exotic foods, new combinations, spices and herbs. You can always find healthier alternatives to your favourites and all these small replacements can add up to big improvements to your diet as a whole – which will be evident in both your energy levels and your waistline!

For any plan to succeed for you in the long term you need to have the freedom to make choices. It is freedom to choose that empowers you, and as you learn which choices are going to support your goals and which are going to take you further away from achieving them.

Rather than focusing on deprivation and willpower, focus instead on how you can make yourself feel great, while eating foods you enjoy and that take you a step closer to your achieving goals.

1. MINDSET.

A can-do attitude is so important. The foundation of this is a real desire to achieve. Think about what you want and why. Think about how highly you prioritise a healthy lifestyle and what you are prepared to change to achieve this.

2. GOAL SETTING & GETTING.

Be clear about what you want to achieve. Write it down. Write it where you can see it regularly. Be precise and aim high! Then break it down into manageable chunks and work on one piece at a time. Remind yourself of your goals regularly and don’t be afraid to update them. Keep an index card in your bag or by your computer (or on the fridge…) so you can keep your mind on the prize!

3. ACTIVITY.

Increase general activity any way you can. This is so important and can cover the effects of the odd missed workout! There are people who never ‘work out’ officially but are still fit as they are naturally active in their daily lives – walking or cycling around, using stairs not lifts, performing manual work etc. Look honestly into your life and seek out the pockets of activity you can exploit.

4. PLANNING AND PREPARATION.

Without planning, how can you expect to succeed? We don’t leave for a journey with no map, otherwise we would only end up getting lost, or back where we started if we are lucky!

This applies to planning your approach (what am I going to eat, how and when am I going to exercise etc.) as well as planning the details (e.g. menu plans for the week’s meals feeding into a shopping list that you stick to). Plan what you are going to choose when you go out, looking online for menus if you can so you can make healthy choices in advance. On the exercise side, you need to decide which activities you want to take part in and schedule them into your diary – if you wait for a free 30 mins you are never going to find it! Schedule it in and commit to your appointment.

5. NUTRITION.

Clean it up! Eat lots of veggies, plenty of fruit, lean proteins, good fats and plenty of water. Minimise anything packaged or that does not fall into the above categories. Experiment, play with your food! Focus on enjoying the good stuff rather than the foods you are minimising or avoiding. Improving the quality of the diet should automatically result in the weight dropping off, but you also need to pay attention to eating moderate portions and ensuring you don’t over-do the more calorie-dense foods, as ultimately calories do count.

6. EXERCISE.

Daily activity is one part of the equation, and the other is including periods of more structured intense activity. This should cover both resistance and cardio training and ideally you should aim to spend around 45 – 60 mins, 3 – 5 times a week on this element.

7. RECOVERY.

Yes, rest is encouraged! Ensure you have adequate rest between intense training sessions. A common error is going too hard at the outset and putting yourself off or causing injury. Plan your workout days in advance and stick to it, letting yourself recover but staying active. Active recovery is great and can include walking, cycling, swimming etc. to help keep the blood flowing through the muscles and actually ease out any soreness from a previous session.

Getting enough sleep is also crucial: 7-9 hours a night is optimal. Your training will suffer if you are not getting enough sleep, as will your mood and energy levels.

8. STRESS AND TIME MANAGEMENT.

You need to prioritise your health in order to effectively deal with all that life throws at you. Once you have acknowledged that you are going to make this a priority it is then time to look into how you can achieve this. Are there things cluttering up your life? Are they all really that important? Could you spend 30 mins less time on the internet or watching TV in the evenings and use that time to squeeze in a training session? Can you delegate certain tasks? We often feel that ‘to get a job done properly I might as well do it myself’ but sometimes we need to let it go, allow someone else to ‘learn’ to do it for us! It may not be perfect, but it will free you up some time!

9. CONSISTENCY.

No matter what nutrition or training plan you choose to follow, you will get success if you stick with it, so long as it is a quality approach and not some quick-fix fad. Any ‘magic bullet’ promise means you start out with the view that you will deprive yourself for a short period of time and then go back to ‘normal’. You will find that certain approaches work better for you than others, but you need to focus less on the detail and more on ensuring the changes are being implemented consistently and ongoing on a regular basis.

10. LOG AND REVIEW.

In order to find out if things are working, you need to take measurements at the start and then re-measure on a regular basis. Logging what you are doing is also very important. Logging food intake is one of the most important things you can do to ensure success as it provides you with some accountability, as well as an historical record so you can look back on things that worked well and things that didn’t.

To Sum Up:

So, to conclude, you are in the driving seat and it is up to you to take control! No plan or advice is worth anything if the plan or advice is not implemented, and only you can do that. So you need to decide to make changes and to visualise success, acknowledging the fact that there will be obstacles to overcome.

The important thing is to take action – moving, no matter how slowly, in the right direction!

I’m a Personal Trainer and my job is to get people fit and help them to lose body fat. So you may be surprised that I am making such a bold statement! Should this not mean that my entire existence is pointless? Well, as it is my job to ensure that my clients get results, I need to make sure I am up on all the latest research, and when research tells me exercise doesn’t work, I need to take notice – as do you.

A study by researchers at the University of Texas came up with this conclusion, after studying 100 previously sedentary participants – half of whom stayed sedentary and half began exercising. The exercisers followed a programme of 5.5 – 6 hours of activity per week, including weight training and interval training for a total of 12 weeks. The rest did nothing. The subjects were between 35% and 40% body fat to begin with. All the training was designed by Dr John Berardi, a highly respected trainer and nutritionist, although significantly there was no dietary intervention.

The shocking result was that the exercisers didn’t do much better than the non-exercisers. Yep, without changing their nutrition, 12 weeks of high intensity training resulted in a loss of only 1 pound of fat with 2lb gain in lean muscle (weight gain!). Another recent study published in April 2008 issue of Nutrition and Metabolism showed a very similar result – 10 weeks of intense training showed hardly any change in body composition – there was some fat loss, but nothing exciting. Not when you consider that most of us really want to ‘burn fat fast’ and are desperate to get results, this is not encouraging. Most of us would be so discouraged that we would give up on the exercise altogether – which is absolutely not what we should be doing.

So what is the ‘take-home’ point I’m making here? Well, that you cannot out-train a bad diet for one! And you definitely cannot exercise and then ‘reward yourself’ with a larger portion at dinner or a dessert! It is absolutely critical that you look at making changes to your diet as well as increasing your exercise levels, otherwise all your efforts could be a waste of time.

So, where to start?

• Eat 5-10 portions of vegetables EVERY DAY!
• Eat a portion of lean protein with every meal (and ideally some protein in each snack)
• Limit intake of white, starchy carbs (wheat-based products, sugar, pastries, cakes, cookies, white rice, white potatoes, white pasta etc.) and replace with vegetables, adding small portions of wholegrain carbs (sweet potatoes, oats, quinoa, brown rice, wholegrain pasta, wholegrain – ideally sourdough – breads) unless you are especially carb sensitive in which case these will have to go too.
• Include good fats: cook with coconut oil, drizzle a little extra virgin olive oil on veggies or salads (with apple cider vinegar for extra fat burning and health promotion), have small portions of nuts (almonds / walnuts) with fruit as a snack or in your salads, try avocado instead of mayo…
• Drink plenty of water, eliminating sodas altogether, even the diet ones! Tea and coffee in moderation and without sugar or excessive cream (a little organic cream in coffee can be OK)
• Keep an overall check on calories – to reduce without counting calories just reduce your current intake by 10%. If you see no results after a couple of weeks, reduce by another 10%.
• Think 90:10% – let yourself off the hook occasionally, but make sure it is only 10% of your weekly total, so as not to obliterate all your results.
• Experiment! Try a new whole food every week and make it your mission to find healthy foods that you positively love to eat – I certainly love my food, eat plenty of it and feel great, as it is nourishing me, not sapping me.

Exercise is definitely a vital part of the fat loss equation – as well as having a hugely important impact improving health, wellbeing, energy and performance. Dieting to lose weight results in muscle loss and a reduced metabolism, propagating the ‘yo-yo’ weight loss / gain cycle most people are well aware of. But exercise alone is not enough!Exercise and nutrition, along with sufficient rest and recovery, are the keys to losing fat and maintaining your new physique for life.

Drastic action is often what we feel like we need but drastic changes all in one go can be very hard to take. We might be successful in the short term but soon return back to the old habits that got us out of shape in the first place.

The best, and most painless, approach is to take one step at a time. And where better to start than breakfast?  Breakfast is one of the hardest things to get right due to all the ‘pseudo foods in boxes’ (otherwise known as breakfast cereals) that we have become so accustomed to eating and our perceptions of what we are ‘supposed’ to eat in the morning.

Ideally we would all be eating some form of lean protein, such as eggs, with some green veggies and maybe fruit at breakfast (I just had an omelette with spinach and broccoli with apple cider vinegar and olive oil). But we are conditioned into seeing toast and cereal as our only breakfast food options.

The first step to lifelong change is to make sure we choose the best options – so replacing sugary cereals (read the label, even the supposedly healthy ones usually have added sugar) with steel-cut oats (not the sweetened / quick cook versions) is a great idea.   You can prepare the oats into a bowl of porridge (even consider making with water and stirring an egg through at the end for added protein – honestly, just try it!) served with fruit and chopped nuts and maybe a dollop of plain, live yoghurt.

Or you can hunt out a really good muesli – but check for the sugar content, even ones packaged to look healthy and organic are frequently sweetened with too much sugar-laden dried fruit, and often the tropical dried fruits and cranberries have further added sugar.

Even better, make your own muesli with oats plus other whole grains of your choice if you like, plus chopped nuts, seeds and chopped fruit. Apple and cinnamon is a great combination (works with porridge too).

Toast-wise you can choose the wholegrain breads – but this is not just ‘brown’ bread! The ‘brown’ options are often not much better than white. Instead try the German-style rye breads or the more ‘bread-like’ sourdough ryes that are absolutely delicious toasted. For maximum results serve with a poached egg! You can also get protein in by smearing with some nut butter – get the no salt / no sugar peanut butter or even try almond butter for a delicious alternative.

If you are prepared to leave out cereals and toast then plain, live yoghurt with berries or other fruits, plus a small handful of chopped walnuts is a great option.  You could add a sprinkle of your home-made muesli into the yoghurt too.

The key point is to keep an open mind about what breakfast ‘should’ consist of. Then try things out!  The idea of eggs for breakfast might sound strange to someone still hooked on starchy carbs, but once you get into the habit, it becomes second nature and quite normal! Try things for a while and see what works for you.

Good nutrition is an evolution: making small but significant changes on a regular basis means that you gradually build better habits over time. These changes are then embedded into your lifestyle so they are no longer a challenge, just a way of life. You will be seeing results with relatively little effort! If something doesn’t work straight away, just keep trying until you find something that does. So long as you don’t give up and revert back to old habits you can guarantee you will see the results you are after.

Resistance training is all too often overlooked by people trying to get fit or lose weight, in favour of long cardio sessions, but resistance really is the key to creating a fit and healthy body.

1lb of muscle burns 30-50 calories per day, while 1lb of fat only burns about 9 calories per day. The more muscle your body contains the more calories you burn each day. This is one of the reasons that resistance training is such a vital part of any successful fat-loss programme – it supercharges your metabolism both in the short term (by making the muscles you already have burn even more calories) and in the long term (by increasing the amount of muscle you have).

Long duration cardio, on the other hand, can actually reduce your muscle mass! And it only burns calories while you are doing it, whereas resistance training causes you to burn calories for hours after the session has finished.

Resistance training, correctly applied, will ensure you have a balanced, strong and functional body. Repetitive cardio activities can actually worsen or create imbalances, so if you are a regular runner / cyclist etc. you need resistance training to balance everything out!

Resistance training has been called ‘the fountain of youth’ – and it really is. A recent study showed that when subjects engaged in resistance training their strength increased by over 20% and their genes literally ‘reverted back’ to the same markers as ‘younger’ genes after only six months! Also, when the older folks in the study began, they were almost 60% weaker than the younger members of the study. In just six months, they were only 38% weaker.

For maximum effect, perform compound exercises that use the largest muscles and more than one muscle group at a time (squats, deadlifts, lunges, rows, press ups and pull ups). This works your body as a unit which is more functional than isolating specific muscles, and also means you burn more calories in less time!

Resistance can be your bodyweight – in fact most women in the gym will use dumbbells that are FAR too light to get a result, and doing bodyweight versions can provide more resistance!  Single leg versions of things like squats and deadlifts up the load significantly.

You can’t ‘spot reduce’ fat – no amount of crunches will show the 6 pack beneath the flab – so the more of your body you work, the more fat you burn all over: the real secret to revealing those abs!

Exercise gets quite a bit of bad press, in my view! Of course we are all told we need to do it, and plenty of it, but rather than seeing it as something we want to fit into our lives for pleasure, this can often make us feel like it’s an arduous task that we really don’t want to do, but have to. Maybe it’s the word ‘exercise’ and its association with school work?

Really, what we all need to be doing is getting more active. This doesn’t mean driving to the gym and jumping on a cross trainer to plod away for endless minutes, but means moving more on a regular basis, throughout the day and building movement into the fabric of life. Don’t beat yourself up if family commitments mean you can’t get to the gym – instead go for a long brisk walk or a bike ride as a family, or play games in the garden.

Perhaps you could take up an active sport: surfing, windsurfing, kitesurfing, kayaking, football, martial arts, stand-up paddle surfing – there are so many things out there to get involved in and it’s never too late! If you find yourself saying ‘yes, but…’ to ideas, finding reasons not to get involved in anything, try to re-phrase your thinking to ‘yes, and (that sounds fun, I wonder where we can do it)’. There are so many activities out there and it’s a great way to spend quality time with other people while getting fit at the same time.

As for sneaking activity into your daily life, you have certainly heard it all before, but you really must put it into action – have a policy that you never get in a lift but always take the stairs, for example.

I used to do this when I worked with a guy who had the opposite policy of never taking the stairs. Instead of sit-down meetings, we would grab a coffee and go for a walk around (while he smoked a cigarette, but I least I got him walking!). When we got back into the building, however, he would refuse to get the stairs, so we’d meet back upstairs instead – and of course I invariably got there first.

It also used to drive me mad when I heard people in the office going on about ‘going to the gym 3 times a week’ but then seeing them get in the lift every time! They would be the ones who had also used that gym visit to justify an extra-large lunch or an afternoon snack.

‘Going to the gym’ is not necessarily equivalent to actually doing anything useful when you get there and it can be a great excuse to ‘take it easy’ for the rest of the day. Most people will get more of a fitness benefit from going up the stairs a few times a day than ‘cruising’ on a machine at the gym, while watching TV or reading a magazine then slobbing out or eating more because they have ‘earned it’.

Don’t let yourself believe exercise is something hateful you have to do. Look for all the reasons why getting active will make you feel good and then choose to exercise because you want to. Make sure you choose things that are worthwhile and fun – if you can combine a walk with a meeting or spending time with family you are getting more out of your time than if you do that at a gym, staring mindlessly at a TV screen. Keep the focus on activity and movement and use your exercise sessions at the gym for quality exercise, not just passing the time!

Most of us experience this with every major holiday or even long weekend. Despite being ‘good’ most of the time, the cumulative effect of these indulgent periods will really make a huge impact on the waistline if some action is not taken to immediately get back on track. This is one of the big reasons why people gain weight each year – without getting back to where you were previously you can easily keep gaining and gaining weight without even realising it.

It’s a good idea to develop healthier holiday habits: a holiday is a treat in itself but all too often we think we need to eat loads of the wrong things in order to enjoy ourselves! But if you can make the healthier choices while on holiday you can actually enjoy the treats all the more. How many times have you looked through your holiday snaps to see photographic evidence of the weight gain?

Some tips:

• Drink plenty of water: You will dehydrate much quicker in the heat and we often mistake thirst for hunger.
• Avoid liquid calories: That ‘virgin’ cocktail is still choc-full of sugar! Juices may seem tempting but you are better off having a glass of water and a piece of fruit.
• Set yourself a ‘beer o’clock’ time: Alcohol does massively impact weight loss and will cause weight gain very quickly. If you skip lunchtime drinking you can save a load of calories, plus you will feel much better for it. Keep the alcohol to a pre-dinner drink and then while you are eating.
• Alternate water with alcoholic drinks: You will thank me for it when you wake up feeling fresh and able to enjoy your precious vacation! Plus you will halve the calories you take in.

And we haven’t even got to the food!

• Choose lean protein and fruit and veg first: If you have access to a buffet breakfast you are onto a winner – fill up on the good stuff first then if you must add the starchy carbs keep them to a small treat afterwards. You will still enjoy the taste but won’t need as much. If you don’t have time to make omelette and veggies at home you can ‘treat’ yourself to this when someone else is cooking!
• Enjoy new foods: Try a new fruit and vegetable each day!
• Have healthy snacks to hand: Buy fruit and unsalted, unroasted nuts to have as snacks throughout the day. If you are unprepared you will be more tempted to eat the treats that are everywhere.
• Enjoy the treats: Savour every last mouthful of the things you wouldn’t normally have – there’s no need to eat ice cream all day but make sure you fully appreciate it when you do!

Think of it as ‘damage limitation’ so you can enjoy yourself without feeling deprived whilst also coming back from your holiday looking even better than when you left.

Make sure you get straight back on track as soon as you get home, too. Consider a few weeks of extra-focussed nutrition and training to reverse any weight gain, or even to boost your results even further. You often find that after a week off, or a period of ‘maintenance’ (holidays are usually a little over maintenance) you actually lose at a faster rate, so make the most of this turbo-charged window of opportunity!

Goal setting is vital for increasing your chances of success. The people who don’t take this step are the ones who will get stuck into an exercise programme or a new diet, will give it all their attention for a short period of time, then let it fall by the wayside before it’s had a chance to work.

Goals help steer you through the rough patches: when you wake up feeling a bit tired and think ‘I can’t be bothered to train’, it is all to easy to hit the snooze button. However, if you have set yourself short, medium and long term goals, today’s behaviour becomes part of a bigger picture, and the consequences of not getting up are harder to ignore. If you have a short term goal, such as ‘I will train 3 times this week’ that is linked to an outcome that you truly want, such as ‘losing 5lb of body fat’ or a longer term goal, such as ‘I will run the Race for Life in 3 months time’ then the single training session is no longer an isolated event that can be missed out. It becomes part of a chain of events that will take you, step-by-step, to your ultimate goals.

You should set yourself compelling goals, that you actually want to achieve. A lot has been said on keeping your goals SMART:

Specific:

‘I will lose 6lb’ rather than ‘I want to lose a bit of weight’. A word of caution here, however. We should focus on our ‘sphere of influence’ – the things we have direct control over. We have control over the actions we take – so training regularly and eating right – but the actual amount of weight / fat we lose is actually not within our direct control. It is an outcome of our behaviour, so we should focus the goals on the behaviours that are required, in order to achieve the desired outcome. So a goal of: ‘exercising with my trainer 3 times per week, walking for 30 minutes 3 times per week and eating according to my diet plan for the next 6 weeks’ is a goal we have direct control over.

Take measurements (and photos!) on day one and remeasure regularly to track progress. If you’re not moving in the right direction then you need to change your methods – looking at your exercise and nutrition more closely. If you are building up your running then ensure you know the distances you are running and the time it is taking – I have a GPS that I take with me when training clients so we know exactly how far and how fast!

Measurable:

Aiming too high can be demotivating: if you have never run before, then a marathon in 3 months time is not the best idea, but a 5km might be! Aim for 1lb a week fat loss, rather than 10lb in a fortnight – you may lose quicker, in which case you can always revise the goals later. But on the other hand, do aim high enough. It can be hard to imagine that losing a stone is possible, but it is, and in theory should take no more than 14 weeks on the 1lb a week timescale – if you ensure goals are broken down into shorter term goals you can see how it can be achievable.

Achievable:

Setting unrealistic goals can be counter-productive – some people do this as it offers them an excuse to fail with a bit of dignity intact, whereas if you fail to achieve a more realistic goal you will feel more of a failure. Counter-productive, of course, and if you follow good goal-getting methods and take action on your goals you don’t need to worry about failing as it won’t happen!

Realistic:

However, sometimes you truly have to ‘dare to dream’ and keep a long term goal in mind that might seem totally unrealistic at the moment. So long as you are achieving short term goals and taking things step by step you will be getting closer to this ‘crazy dream’ and you just might well make it a reality.

Visualisation is important too – regularly imagining yourself having achieved your goals is a very powerful tool indeed! How does it feel in your new body? How much do you now love ‘bikini-time’? A daily day-dream of how life will be when you achieve your goals tricks your mind into thinking it has already happened, and makes getting there much easier!

But remember also to appreciate yourself as you are – focus on your good points and let your visualisation include these: for example how great it is that your thighs are more toned because you can finally show off your tiny waist in a bikini. Your nutrition and exercise plan is all part of truly making the best of yourself: adding lean muscle and shedding excess body fat, improving your posture and increasing your energy. There is no need to compare yourself against unrealistic (and probably airbrushed) targets as it’s all within you, waiting to come out!

Time-Bound:

Give yourself a deadline and stick to it! If you want to improve your running, pick an event and get signed up! Project manage your goals like you would any other important task. Bear in mind that weight and size is an outcome, so make sure that you are focusing on the behaviours first. Log your success in a journal to show you are sticking to your plan.

If goals are clear, SMART and compelling, broken down into short, medium and long term goals, they are much easier to achieve. It can be hard to reconcile today’s behaviour with achieving a goal that is too distant or too vague so keep it real and close to you by visualising and reflecting upon your goals daily.

Obviously the element we haven’t discussed is the behaviours needed to succeed – thinking about goals is only going to work when matched with the appropriate action! Taking goal-setting into goal-getting requires action – so whatever you do, make sure you are taking steps every day to get closer to your goals. When your goals are vivid and clear then you will know that each and every action you take will either take you a step closer, or a step further away. Remind yourself of the ‘why’ and make sure that each decision is taking you a step closer to your dreams.

Every training session you do, every time you eat according to your healthy plan or prepare a healthy meal, every bit of general activity you do each day is putting money in your own personal ‘body bank account’.

Deposits are when you stick to your eating plan or exercise programme.  When you eat something that isn’t ideal or when you miss a training session, you are making a withdrawal.

The aim is to treat our bodies as a savings account (with no overdraft allowed…) not a credit card that is maxed to the limit!

It is easy to keep spending when we have credit cards at our disposal, but now is the time to metaphorically cut them up. You will not lose weight if you are constantly withdrawing from an account with non-existent funds.

If you have enough funds ‘saved up’, or if you have been eating well and exercising consistently, you can justify having earned a ‘withdrawal’. You don’t have to stop having treats altogether by any means, but you do need to make sure that the balance tipped in the right direction if you expect to get the results you are after – and think of the satisfaction you will feel when you do get those results!

Thinking like this can really help you get your head around the concept that it is the little things that make all the difference, when applied regularly and consistently.  It can help you see how something that might seem so small as to be insignificant, such as taking the stairs every day, can, over time, add up to big savings!  It can also help you realise just how damaging that daily cookie and sugary coffee-based drink can be to your fat loss goals.

No matter what exercise or nutrition changes you are making, the key to success is consistency.  Most diet approaches will work if regularly and consistently applied.

Thinking about your ‘Body Bank Account’ can also help you to get rid of an ‘all or nothing’ approach to nutrition and exercise.  We all want to give it our all when we start, but then a minor deviation can make us feel like we’ve blown it all.   But that is like saying ‘oh no, I’ve just spent £100 on a pair of shoes, I’ve ruined it now so I must go and blow the rest on a new car’!  You can suddenly see how illogical that thought process is, can’t you?

Your new ‘Body Bank Account’ response to over-indulging would be to make sure you start re-paying straight away, to offset the indulgence.  This is how many ‘naturally’ thin people behave – we often look at people who seem to be able to eat ‘anything they want’ but if you were to look more closely at their habits you would see that they allow themselves the odd treat, usually don’t go overboard as they aren’t stressing about eating in the first place, but then naturally cut back for the rest of the day, or a few days.

It’s a classic scenario – you stick your diet perfectly all week but then the temptation of the weekend kills or even reverses all the gains (or losses) you’ve made over the week! This is especially the case over the summer – all the BBQs and the ever-tempting refreshing glasses of beer or wine to cool you down in the sunshine!

If you are feeling a bit ‘worse for wear’ after a weekend that was heavy on the calories and light on the exercise then make sure you remember this feeling – and try to invoke the memory next weekend! You don’t need to deprive yourself to enjoy a weekend – you just need to improve your choices. Use this feeling to refocus and make sure you get straight back on track with clean eating and good quality exercise.

But this is of course another classic scenario – why are gyms so busy on Monday and Tuesday? 5 days of hard work and good nutrition will likely mean you feel great again by Friday, or at the very least you feel like you have ‘earned’ some let up. But do you really want to start the whole cycle again? Or do you want to actually get the results you deserve due to all the hard work you are putting in all week? A ‘treat’ meal is usually a good idea, but a ‘cheat weekend’ will just destroy your results.

It is far better to have strategies and habits that come into action regardless of the situation – if you have given up wheat then don’t make an exception for the weekend. You’ll feel great for sticking to your goal behaviour and can still indulge on other things – but ones that won’t take you off the plan. It is a good idea to focus on a few small changes at a time, so give yourself a 6 week time frame and write down a few goals – specific behaviours you will stick to for 6 weeks no matter what, even at the weekend or at parties! Ultimately you will get quickest results by changing more but the really important thing is to build habits that you will stick to for good, and when you have done something regularly for 6 weeks it has had a good chance to embed itself in your life and become second nature.

I like to encourage people to use these 6 week chunks of time and keep the goals rolling – some 6 week chunks will be really strict to get through a plateau or boost results for a specific event and others will be more relaxed, but still ‘no excuses’. The little things really do add up – in whichever direction. So make the savings where you can and watch the results follow!

Muscle doesn’t weigh any more than fat pound for pound, of course, but by volume it certainly does as it is about 17% DENSER – a kilo of fat is therefore much bigger than a kilo of muscle.

‘I want to lose weight’ is a common phrase, but the reality is, we need to lose body fat and preserve our precious lean body mass (LBM – consisting of muscle, bone, blood etc.). Muscle burns calories for a start – the more muscle we have the more calories we require to do nothing! If you add muscle and lose body fat, the scales may not budge quite as much as you might have expected, but you will look thinner, as well as more fit and toned!

Many ‘weight loss’ plans do result in significant muscle loss – if you severely restrict calories, consume insufficient protein and do a lot of steady cardio you may lose weight on the scales, but you will also be losing muscle. This is a major factor in regaining lost weight after a ‘diet’ – you have lowered your daily calorie requirements quite significantly, so what was once seen as a maintenance intake will now cause weight gain. The ‘yo-yo’ effect can be explained by this happening on a regular basis – every time you diet you lose more and more of the muscle that you need to keep your weight off in the long run! This is exacerbated by the fact that we lose muscle mass throughout adulthood unless we take action (especially resistance training) to keep it!

There are several methods to find out your body fat percentage, including skin fold tests with calipers, electrical impedance tests and the highly accurate, but highly impractical, hydrostatic (underwater) weighing method.

A quick and easy method is to use a software programme, where you take body measurements and plug them in to a form that calculates your body fat – you can find links to these by searching Google or through the links page of my website. They are usually accurate to between 1-3% and are a very simple way of testing.

Using this information, you can set yourself realistic fat loss targets based on the amount of fat you have to lose (rather than a random number you think might be nice to see on the scales!), and you can monitor your progress over time.

Before we can get stuck into achieving our health and fitness goals, we need to stop making excuses. We need to accept that we are in control of our actions: everything we do (or don’t do) will either take us a step closer to our goals, or a step further away.

We need to be realistic about where we are now, and why.  If you are overweight, it is because the calorie balance has been going the wrong way for an extended period of time and you need to change things to get it going the other way.  If you blame your genes or lack of time or any other ‘reason’ you are more likely to let action pass you by – whereas in fact if you have these factors working against you it means you just have to put extra effort in!

Everyone has different challenges, but they make success all the sweeter!  Cultivating a ‘can-do’ attitude is the first step to lasting success.  Nothing worth achieving is ever easy and there are usually sacrifices or compromises to be made.

Next time you are trying to justify that piece of cake, or not taking some exercise, listen to what you are saying to yourself.  The idea that ‘I deserve it’ can be very destructive – we really deserve to treat ourselves well and be healthy!   Ask yourself if you are giving a valid reason or if it is just an excuse – you can usually tell because excuses tend to sound feeble when you listen to them properly!  Imagine there is another person in the conversation (such as a Personal Trainer) and that you are explaining yourself to them.

Every time you hear an excuse forming in your mind, stop it in its tracks and even take the mickey out of it – as if you are listening to someone moaning about something you have no time or sympathy for (even pull a face as you do so – it helps!).  This will help you see your ‘excuses’ as feeble and immediately cause you to shift your mindset and approach to life to a more positive ‘I can do it’ attitude!

It won’t just be your fitness and fat loss results that improve, but your whole quality of life!

SUCCESS STRATEGY 1: Think ‘activity’ and be as active as possible in general. Also set aside 2-3 hours per week for more structured and intense training, to include resistance training.
SUCCESS STRATEGY 2: Eat lots of lovely fresh things: veggies, fruits, proteins, nuts… Drink plenty of water. Bear in mind it’s a marathon, not a sprint when it comes to nutrition so you don’t need to dwell on the odd slip up or focus on what you shouldn’t have, instead, focus on fitting all the goodness in!
SUCCESS STRATEGY 3: Look after yourself – those who you look after will thank you for it.
SUCCESS STRATEGY 4: Be nice to yourself – positive self-talk is so powerful because you become what you think about!
SUCCESS STRATEGY 5: Set goals – long, medium and short term – and think about ways to measure success. Aim high – dare to dream! But do break goals down into manageable short-term goals that are achievable, focusing on the behaviours and habits not the outcome – we can’t necessarily control the precise outcome, but we can control what we do to get there.
SUCCESS STRATEGY 6: Get out of the ‘excuses’ mentality! A multitude of less-than-perfect choices led you to losing fitness / gaining weight. Only you have control over changing these choices and resetting the direction you are going in. You have control – accept that and start succeeding!
SUCCESS STRATEGY 7: Enlist a support team – your family, colleagues, or online communities and mailing lists. If you still feel you need more support (often those closest to us are the worst for inadvertently obstructing our goals) then consider investing in a Trainer – one session a week can keep you on track and give you someone to be accountable to.

Finally, remember that consistency is key – whatever you do, whatever changes you make, keep it up! It is the regular application of these principles over time that will get you to your goals and let you keep the results for good.

For more fat loss, fitness, health and nutrition secrets make sure you sign up to the mailing list using the form on the page!

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You can sign up at the registration page: http://www.fitbodyfix.com/nutrition-weight-loss-your-health-seminar/

Find out all this and more!

* What you MUST eat every day to GUARANTEE you lose body fat.
* How to protect your precious metabolism – so you don’t yo-yo ever again!
* The top tricks of the trade Personal Trainers use to get their clients in ROCKSTAR shape!
* The surprising foods you MUST cut down drastically if you want to spot reduce fat: Love Handles, Beer Bellies & Chunky Thighs are lost in the kitchen, not by localised exercises!
* The BEST way to exercise to bust through a plateau or kick start your body transformation. And it’s not hours of jogging…
* The most effective ways to get your MIND on your side – no more self sabotage!
* Why you MUST be aware of clever marketing and advertising in order to lose fat and get healthy – they want to line their pockets and it’s your body that WILL pay the price!

Register online for more info:

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The more the merrier – spread the love and share the invite.

Special deals for attendees only & loads of prizes to be won – including places on the ALL NEW Bitterne & Totton bootcamps starting Jan 30th 2012!

Ditch carbs, drink green tea, only eat at 3 minutes past any hour, only eat things that begin with the letter ‘C’….

OK, so there are some wierd and wonderful things out there, but have you ever thought about the fact that HOW you eat trumps WHAT you eat in many ways?

This is not to say I advocate eating a load of junk, not at all, I am a definite proponent of eating fresh, unprocessed, natural foods – basing your diet on loads of veggies, meat, fish, eggs, nuts & seeds…

BUT, if you are eating the perfect diet but ramming it down your throat at hyper speed, especially when hyper stresssed, you will not be digesting and absorbing all the nutrients in the food anyway.  Cortisol, the stress hormone, and digestion don’t mix, so there is an argument to support the fact that a less perfect food eaten calmly is better for you than a manically eaten food that is otherwise ‘perfect’ (ever noticed that you can eat bread on holiday but it makes you bloated in ‘normal’ life?  That would be the stress factor in action…).

So, the simple magic step to take, is to SLOW IT DOWN!!!!  This is a brilliant thing to use ESPECIALLY at hectic times, or times when food is too plentiful – hence me writing this in the run up to Christmas!  If you can make sure that what you do eat you savour, enjoying every mouthful, you will enjoy more and naturally eat less.  You will notice when you are full before you have over-stuffed yourself, so you will truly be able to enjoy the food and not have the awful consequences that invariably lead to guilt and a cycle of denial.

Which is the other part of the equation – feeling guilty about your eating then promising to be super strict, or punish yourself on Monday, in the New Year, when you get back from holiday or whatever, is another counter productive mindset.  There are situations where you will eat more and times you will naturally eat less.  Those who stay slim seeminly effortlessly usually have a more natural and less ‘willpower’ based approach to this.  They don’t beat themselves up about the times when they eat more, they just naturally cut back a bit afterwards.  And mostly they eat much more slowly than those of us who struggle…

I say those of us, as I have always been a fast eater!  I have focussed on it at times, but default back to eating too fast very easily.  So it is my personal challenge too.

The added benefit is, that when you eat slower and savour foods, you can begin to actually taste that junk is often not very tasty!  The chemicals and the fat / salt / sugar drug-like effect keep us eating, and wanting more, but the actual taste becomes more noticeable when you slow it down.

Ever noticed that overweight people claim to ‘love food’ but then barely even let it hit the taste buds before wolfing it down and wanting more (as you don’t feel satisfied if you eat it so fast your body can’t register it has taken energy on board).

It seems hard at the start, but use the next few weeks to focus on this, and this alone.  Eat, chew, placing fork (or food if finger food) down, finish mouthful then start on the next one, taking a small sip of water if need be to help with the feeling that your hands need something to be doing!

If you don’t have time to eat then eat less!  And work on carving time to savour food.  Avoiding distractions is good too (although I do find eating slow easier when I am reading at the same time, and it helps if you really are busy as you can justify the time spent eating better.)

Time how long meals take you and work on gradually extending that – you may end up exactly the same if you are currently eating fast, then having seconds, anyway…

The best thing is you can start right now, no special tools or foods or anything needed – just the intention!  So whatever you are eating next, whatever you deem it on the scale of ‘good’ to ‘bad’ it doesn’t matter – slow down, savour and enjoy (and if you’re not enjoying it, get rid!).

Comments appreciated below!

XCaroline

Check out the new vid to see a bit more (thanks to Ross at Skysoclear for his handywork and forcing me in front of the camera, of which I have a bit of a phobia) and there is also the previous video below – all my handiwork which I am very proud of, especially as I managed to hide from view and let the bootcampers do the talking (for once, ha ha…)

Instead of reaching for the usual bowl of porridge, try this alternative that is low in starchy carbs, super high in Omega 3 and good fats, super high in fibre and also boosted with a good dose of appetite suppressing, metabolism boosting protein, an essential yet mostly overlooked part of our daily morning meals…

This is soooo ridiculously easy, it is quicker than regular porridge, yet is so much better for you – I do love a good ‘win-win’ and this truly is one!

You can get chia seeds from various places, try the wonderful Raw Living where you can also get the Sunwarrior protein powder that gives this fab recipe its protein boost.  They also sell all sorts of wonderful superfoods you could add in to this or your smoothies, such as maca and ashwagandha, and they do fantastic raw choclate bars and even raw cakes that make a fab alternative to a regular birthday, or even Christmas, cake!

So, once you have your chia, you can either use them whole or grind them in a grinder to make a smoother version.

Add 2 tablespoons of chia to about 250ml water, or use Kara coconut milk alternative (from all major supermarkets and health food shops).

Stir it well, and leave for 10 – 15 mins, the seeds absorb 10 – 15 times their size in fluid!  Best if you stir a couple of times during, if not you will need to stir well after the time.  You may need to add more fluid as you stir.  At this point, you can actually store the chia ‘gel’ for up to 2 weeks in the fridge (depending on what you have used in it) so you can do this the night before for an even speedier breakfast.

You could use warmed milk, or you could soak in a pan then heat the mixture (my preferred method), heating gently to your preferred temperature.  No need to actually cook it at all, this is simply to heat it for warming you up purposes!

Then add 2 level scoops of Sunwarrior – I prefer to use the chocolate, or vanilla if you prefer.  This is all natural raw brown rice protein sweetened only with the natural herb sweetener, stevia, so is the only protein powder I recommend.  Hemp is a great protein but not very tasty for this kind of recipe, but you could alternative try that or go half and half (or add ground hemp seeds for a different taste).  Soy protein (and milk) is a no-no…

Stir it all up and add some berries, or grated apple and cinnamon, or whatever you like! You could sprinkle a few chopped nuts on top for added crunch.  Add a teaspoon of coconut oil if you want, which can help boost metabolism and has lots of immune boosting properties, as well as increasing the satiety factor further.

Seriously simple – took me way longer to write this than to prepare a bowl, quite simply a brilliant way to start your day.

For more information about chia, as well as loads of great ideas on what to do with it – including turning it into a fruity gel for a kids (or adults’!) dessert, or topping, check out 40 Ways To Use Chia Seeds.  I am going to be trying several of these ideas and recipes, and this will be a fantastic way to prevent weight gain over the festive period – filling up with a fibre and protein rich breakfast like this (or having as a snack or dessert, hot or cold) and using chia in many recipes to boost the Omega 3s and fibre.

Let me know your favourite recipes below!

Cauliflower is a wonderful vegetable with a clever knack of being able to replace potatoes in pretty much everything, mashed (well you need to puree it with a hand blender to mash it) it goes well with stews & casseroles, sausages and onion gravy, as a healthy alternative to potato (perhaps along with some butternut squash) as a topping on a cottage / shepherds or fish pie, and the flavour goes soooo well as an alternative to rice with any home-made (or takeaway) curry – while doing some serious damage limtation at the same time!  Win-wins are what I’m all about, and so is the mighty cauliflower!

To make mash you just steam the cauliflower in chunks, for 10 or so minutes till soft but not mush, then puree with a hand blender, adding some celtic sea salt & black pepper, maybe a little butter or olive oil, or some coconut milk if serving with curry.  Cumin seeds or mustard also go really well, and you can mix it up with other veg such as squash, carrots or broccoli…

Anyway, that is one of cauliflower’s side dish roles, in this she is the main contender (in my view).  Again, as with most of my ‘recipes’ they are really invitations to get experimenting with whatever you have to hand, there are so many variations I can only begin to suggest a few.  Here’s the basic method, then it’s up to you!

INGREDIENTS:

Up to 1 small cauliflower or half a larger one per person.

2-3 eggs per person

Some other veg if you want to spice things up – I added some kale.

Butter and coconut oil.

Celtic sea salt & black pepper (feel free to try other herbs and spices, and garlic if you want!)

A very strong hard cheese, parmesan is great as you can get more flavour with less cheese…

METHOD:

If you want the cauliflower al dente then you don’t have to steam it, but if you prefer it softer then lightly steam cauliflower chunks for a few minutes to soften.  Cut the cauliflower into fairly small chunks.  I did this without steaming first and like the extra bite.

Heat the butter & coconut oil (I like a bit of both for this, nice buttery taste but also gets in the fabulous coconut benefits) then add the cauliflower.  Saute until the cauliflower is nicely browned and softened. You could add garlic here, or some chopped bacon. Add any extra veg after cooking the cauliflower for a few minutes, if you add spinach add it very near the end as it doesn’t take long.  Add seasoning to taste.

When the veg are done to your desired level, crack in the eggs.  Jiggle it all about, for a few moments on the heat to begin to cook the eggs, then take off the heat to finish – this is better if the egg doesn’t get too hard.  If you wanted extra creaminess you could add a dollop of Total 0% Greek Yoghurt at this point too, but the egg alone is great.

Transfer to a plate, you could have this alone or as a side dish (fewer eggs per person if a side dish than if that is the main protein) and then grate the cheese over the top – using a really strong cheese means you don’t need much, but you get all the flavour.

Enjoy!

Inspired by the wonderful Val Waters, creator of the Valslide and trainer to the stars we would all love to look like, this is one of their secret weapons!

INGREDIENTS:

2-3 eggs per person

Veg that you want to use!  I used red onion, mushrooms, kale and courgettes the other day,  adding kale or cavolo nero shredded makes it really nice and super nutritious too.  Basically a great way to use up random veg…

Coconut oil or butter to cook.

METHOD:

If you are using onions, saute those in the coconut oil till they are soft, then add the other veg, cooking so they are getting a bit browned (a matter of preference there though).

Add spices, herbs, celtic sea salt and black pepper to taste.  Garlic if you don’t have too many meetings!  This is a fab, quick supper so in that case I’d use more garlic than if its a breakfast!

Then add the eggs, 2-3 per person, you could also just add one and make this a side dish to a protein portion.

Cook until the eggs set, you don’t want them too hard as it keeps it nice & creamy.

As a real treat you could grate come parmesan over, you could add some chopped bacon (same time as the onion) and you can sprinkle chia seeds or other seeds on the dish at the end to add some extra crunch.

Another limitless set of options!  Enjoy – let me know your fave combos in the comments below!