Real talk, No BS.  Sustainable fat loss: yes please.

As a PT and online coach, I wanted to share some honest, practical advice about achieving your health goals this year. No gimmicks, no quick fixes, no hacks, no magic supplements… because [spoiler alert] there aren’t any.  It’s consistency with the basics which will get you results.  

Let’s Talk About Real Weight Loss

First things first: sustainable weight loss isn’t about crash diets / juice diets / detox diets or giving up everything you love. Also, those ‘miracle’ solutions promising quick results? They usually lead right back to where you started. Instead, aim for steady progress of 1-2 pounds per week. It’s not exciting, but it works!

The Truth About Calories (Yes, They Matter!)

Here’s the simple truth: weight loss comes down to calories in versus calories out. If you’re not losing weight while “being in a deficit,” you’re probably not actually in a deficit. Start by reducing your daily intake by 200-300 calories. And don’t forget about drinks! While water, zero-calorie drinks, and simple tea/coffee are ideal, if you absolutely need that fancy Starbucks latte, just track it and include it in your daily calories.

Your New Best Friends: Protein and Fibre

Want to feel satisfied and energized? Pack your meals with protein (aim for 30-40 grams per meal) and fibre-rich foods. Think lean meats, fish, legumes, vegetables, and whole grains. Not only will these keep you feeling full, but they’ll also help balance your hormones naturally. (Pro tip: increase fibre gradually unless you want some unexpected trumpingtons! 😉)

Exercise: Important, But Not The Whole Story

Let’s bust a common myth: you can’t out-exercise a poor diet. That spin class might feel like it burned 500 calories, but the reality is a bit different. Focus on creating your calorie deficit through food choices first. That said, exercise is incredibly important for overall health and fitness. Aim for strength training three times per week and some cardio once or twice weekly. No gym? No problem! There are plenty of excellent home workouts on YouTube.

Practical Tips for Success

1. Eat breakfast within an hour of waking – even if it’s just something small to start
2. Keep triggering snack foods out of the house (or portion them carefully)
3. Aim for 8 hours of sleep (yes, it really matters!)
4. Drink more water throughout the day
5. Increase your daily steps gradually
6. Be realistic with your time – if you spend hours scrolling, you can find 30 minutes for exercise!

The Most Important Part: Being Kind to Yourself

Remember, you’re human! You’ll have days when everything goes off track, and that’s completely normal. Don’t punish yourself with restriction the next day – just get back to your healthy habits. This isn’t a race; it’s about making sustainable changes that last.

You deserve to feel healthy, strong, and confident. Start with one small change, master it, then add another. Before you know it, these healthy habits will just be part of who you are.

A Final Note

As women, we often put everyone else’s needs before our own. But taking care of yourself isn’t selfish – it’s necessary. You deserve to be the healthiest, happiest version of yourself.

Ready to start your journey?  I’m here to help! Please drop me a message with any questions, and let’s support each other in creating lasting, healthy changes…  Remember – I want you to WIN!  

The post How can I lose weight FOR GOOD this year? appeared first on Kaye Louise Fitness.

Sounds simple!  Why don’t we all just massively restrict what we eat for a period of time and lose weight then?!  Because – LIFE! Events happen, special occasions occur, we are short on time, we opt for convenience, temptation is all around us and it’s bloody HARD to be hungry all the time!  

Tracking calories (i.e. logging what you eat in a food diary) is commonplace these days – everyone has heard about it but not everyone does it…  There are apps such as My Fitness Pal (MFP) which you can use to track your calories.  When you join MFP, it will ask how much weight you’d like to lose per week and if you are overweight, the temptation will be to plug in the highest number you can – that’s just human nature – but this will result in the app calculating your target calories to be ridiculously low.  

Technically, there’s nothing wrong with this as the science makes perfect sense.  Keep your calories low and your output moderate and you will start to lose body fat, that is true, but for the vast majority of people (who still want to have a quality of life) it is unsustainable in the long run.  

Keeping calories really low for a period of time results in hunger, low energy, tiredness, low mood and poor cognitive function.  It’s basically no fun for anyone!  And periods of low calorie consumption often lead to high calorie food binges.

Say, for example, you somehow managed to stick to 1200 calories per day all week, Monday – Friday.  By the time Friday night arrives, you are likely to want a break!  You’ve been ‘good’ and you’ve restricted yourself all week, so what’s the harm in a takeaway, or a few drinks, or some of that ‘treat’ (high calorie, high sugar) food over the weekend?  The harm is that too much is often consumed…  A weekend off is around 33% of your whole week – if you have over-restricted during the week, you are likely to over-eat at the weekend and that will essentially put you back at maintenance calories, meaning you are no longer in a weekly calorie deficit, meaning that you don’t lose any weight overtime because you’ve effectively ‘eaten back’ the calories you ‘saved’ during the week.  I wouldn’t recommend this approach to anyone – it creates a poor relationship with food and encourages a binge/restrict cycle, which may not necessarily result in weight gain, but it will affect an individual’s view of how they consume food.  

Instead, I encourage all of my clients to eat within a sensible calorie range ALL OF THE TIME.  I will set calorie targets based on my own calculations and those targets will ensure you are eating within a calorie deficit, but not to the extent that you feel completely restricted with what you can/can’t eat.  No food is off the table (literally).  You can eat whatever you like within that calorie range and you will lose weight over time.  Yes, the rate of weight loss will be slower, but it means clients can still have the flexibility and freedom to live an enjoyable life.  

The difficult part is learning to accurately track what you’re eating and understanding how to stick to calorie deficit effectively, over the longer term.  And it’s this part which I can help with.  There are a number of strategies we can employ to ensure a client’s diet is nutritionally balanced, without feeling restrictive and once this is nailed, it’s easier to stick to, leading to much more successful and sustainable weight loss over time.

The long game wins out here – and it’s much more effective than the binge / restrict cycle so many of us get caught up in.

I offer coaching to clients who struggle implementing this.  Thrive in 5 involves setting targets around calories, but also around movement, nutrition and workouts.  It provides a structure for you to follow and I do this based on your individual circumstances.  It’s a 5 week initial programme where we work on your mindset and make you more aware of your lifestyle choices… I will encourage you to make small, incremental changes which make you feel GREAT and over time, this focus becomes second nature.  

Please feel free to message me about coaching and how I can help you get started on your health and fitness journey.  

The post Calorie counting for weight loss; an approach which actually works appeared first on Kaye Louise Fitness.

And what we eat has the biggest impact on our body composition.

If you’re over weight, it’s usually as a result of a small over consumption of calories over a long period of time. If you consume excess calories, your body stores that energy as fat, and we get bigger as a result…

You do not have to over eat by a lot for the impact to compound over time. The general rule of thumb is that 3500 calories = 1lb of fat. So by that maths you’d only need to over eat by 500 calories every day to put on a pound of fat a week!

Likewise, you don’t need to eat a lot under your caloric requirement to lose body fat over time either. That will also compound too, meaning the larger the deficit, the quicker the fat reduction, but the deficit needs to be consistent. That’s it. Continued calorie deficit = fat loss. The bigger the deficit, the quicker the weight loss. Simple?! Yes. Easy?! Well no! It’s not! Not in the world we live in! It’s why we need to find the balance between enough of a deficit to lose fat, but also not being over restrictive at the same time. Because let’s face it, life is for bloody living.

And that’s where I come in.  There are many ways and principles I work through with my clients in order to make a sustained calorie deficit easier.  The science is still the science – that doesn’t change – but it doesn’t necessarily mean that changing our diet and eating healthier is an ‘easy’ thing to do – at least not at first!

In summary, let’s not be scared of the word ‘diet’ – it’s just what we eat!  And if you need any help understanding what kind of calorie deficit and diet will work for you, please don’t hesitate to contact me, I’d love to help.

The post Calorie deficit explained and why we shouldn’t be scared of the word ‘diet’ appeared first on Kaye Louise Fitness.