Three Easy Nutrition Hacks to Boost your Eating

1, Use more Frozen Vegetables

Most people who I work with have large work pressures and lack of time is a factor. Frozen vegetables are a quick and easy way to add important fibre and micronutrients to your diet that take no pre-preparation. Additionally, they are often cheaper per kilo compared to their fresh equivalents.

Frozen vegetables offer several benefits that make them a convenient and nutritious option for anyone looking to maintain a healthy diet. One key advantage is their extended shelf life compared to fresh produce, allowing for less food waste and more flexibility in meal planning. With frozen vegetables, you can have a variety of options readily available in your freezer, making it easier to incorporate a range of nutrients into your meals without worrying about spoilage.

Another benefit of frozen vegetables is their retention of nutrients. Unlike many canned vegetables that may lose some of their vitamins and minerals during processing, frozen vegetables are typically frozen shortly after harvest, locking in their nutritional content. This means that you can still enjoy a high level of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants even when fresh options are not in season or readily available. Additionally, frozen vegetables can be just as versatile as fresh ones, suitable for steaming, sautéing, or adding to soups and stews, making them a practical choice for busy individuals or families looking to streamline meal preparation without sacrificing quality.

If you have a type of vegetable that you like but is not typically found in-store frozen, you can wash it, chop it up then freeze it in a ziplock bag for use later. I often do this with many types of kale, collards greens and cavelo nero.

2, One Pot Meals

As a busy person myself helping dozens of clients, I’m a regular user of one-pot meals. I literally will put everything into a saucepan and cook it up, typically into a noodle pho-type dish. This is a quick and easy way to prepare a highly nutritious meal in about 10–15 minutes. 

My go-to quantities of ingredients are some bone broth that I have frozen into large ice-cube trays, around 150 grams of a protein source (meat, fish or 4 eggs), 200–300 grams of vegetables and 50–75 grams of noodles. If the protein source is a lean one, then I may add some extra fat in the form of 10 grams of coconut or olive oil. Add these herbs and spices to taste, the regular ones of mine being ginger, garlic, three types of pepper, chili, fish sauce. There’s a whole multitude of ways to flavor it to your taste. If you want to make several portions, you could do the same in a larger pot and just multiply the ingredients. 

One pot meals offer a myriad of benefits that make them a popular choice for busy individuals and families. Here are some advantages of incorporating one pot meals into your cooking routine:

1. Time-Saving: One pot meals are a time-efficient option as they streamline the cooking process by allowing you to cook everything in a single pot or pan. With fewer dishes to wash and less time spent on preparation, one pot meals are ideal for those with hectic schedules.

2. Easy Cleanup: Since you're using just one pot to prepare the entire meal, cleanup becomes a breeze. This not only saves time but also reduces the amount of effort required for washing up afterward.

3. Flavor Infusion: Cooking everything together in one pot allows the flavors to meld and intensify, resulting in deliciously infused dishes. This cooking method enables the ingredients to enhance each other's tastes, creating a depth of flavor that is hard to achieve with separate cooking techniques.

4. Nutrient Retention: One pot meals often involve simmering or slow cooking ingredients together, which helps retain more nutrients compared to methods that involve draining or discarding liquid. This can lead to healthier and more flavorful dishes.

5. Versatility: One pot meals are incredibly versatile and can accommodate various dietary preferences and restrictions. Whether you're vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, or omnivorous, there are countless one pot meal recipes to suit your needs.

6. Cost-Effective: By using simple ingredients and cooking them together, one pot meals are often budget-friendly. You can create satisfying and nutritious meals without breaking the bank, making it a practical choice for many households.

7. Perfect for Meal Prep: One pot meals lend themselves well to meal prepping since they can easily be made in large batches and reheated throughout the week. This is especially useful for individuals looking to save time on daily meal preparation.

3, Eat more fermented foods

Fermented vegetables are a popular choice for those seeking to boost their health due to a variety of reasons. Fermentation is a process that involves the breakdown of sugars by bacteria and yeast, resulting in the creation of beneficial enzymes, omega-3 fatty acids, b-vitamins, and various strains of probiotics.

Consuming fermented vegetables can contribute to a healthy gut flora, aiding in digestion, enhancing nutrient absorption, and supporting the immune system. This is particularly important as a balanced gut microbiome is linked to overall health and well-being.

Moreover, fermented vegetables are often rich in antioxidants which help in reducing inflammation and oxidative stress in the body, potentially lowering the risk of chronic diseases. They are also a source of fiber, which supports gut health and promotes feelings of fullness.

Including a variety of fermented vegetables like kimchi, sauerkraut, and pickles in your diet can be a flavorful and nutritious way to enhance your overall health.

Additionally, dairy sources of fermented foods are kefir, yogurt and ayran are valuable sources of probiotics. If you have an intolerance to typical dairy, kefir can be made with either goat's milk, Jersey cow milk (A2) or water. 

When you start adding these to your diet, it's essential to start small. When you start adding lots more ‘good bacteria’ to your guts there will be a bit of a war going on as the flora rebalances and this might promote some extra gas.  People who have conditions like histamine intolerance or have sensitivities to certain ingredients used in the fermentation process should give extra caution. 

How to get better sleep - 5 tips part 1

The importance of good quality and sufficient duration sleep is highly underestimated in today’s busy society. 

Research clearly shows the vast majority of the population function optimally on 7-8 hours sleep per night.

There are a very small percentage of people who can thrive on less and it is often the case a person can become accustomed to having inadequate sleep and that becomes their baseline normal.

This issue with this state is that your performance will be decreased and you are potentially setting yourself up for future health problems.

Sleep is a crucial recovery period for the body where tissues are regenerated and especially in the case of cancer malfunctioning cells are broken down by the body. Alzheimer’s disease is also increasingly being recognised as a side effect of poor sleep. Poor sleep duration can also be correlated to a shorter lifespan.

Here are 5 tips on optimising your sleep-

1. Create a regular sleep schedule.

Aim to go to bed and wake up at the same time each day. Your circadian rhythm has a hard time adjusting to changes in sleep patterns hence the feeing of jet leg when crossing time zones. 

Sleeping later on weekends won't fully make up for a lack of sleep during the week  however you may claw back some recovery. If you do lay in aim to go to bed at the same time as a week night though on Sunday to ensure you get back to your routine.

2. Avoid alcohol too close to bedtime

Having a "nightcap" or alcoholic beverage before sleep may seem like a good idea to help you relax. It's sedating at first, so it can help you fall asleep, but can interfere with staying asleep. It will rob you of deep sleep and REM sleep, keeping you in the lighter stages of sleep.

Heavy alcohol ingestion may also contribute to impairment in breathing at night. 

It’s best to avoid alcohol 3-4 hours before bed.

3. Avoid caffeine and nicotine 8 hours before bed 

Coffee, colas, certain teas, and chocolate contain the stimulant caffeine, and its effects can take as long as 8 hours clear your system. Therefore, a cup of coffee in the late afternoon can make it harder for you to fall asleep at night.

Nicotine is also a stimulant, often causing smokers to sleep only very lightly in addition to the effects on breathing. In addition, smokers often wake up too early in the morning because of nicotine withdrawal.

4. Dim the lights and avoid electronic devices. 

Bright light can promote a feeling of wakefulness, as too can the light from computers, tablets and mobile phones.

Switch off from your electronic devices as much as possible 1-2 hours before bed.

Using candlelight or other softer sources of lighting can also to help create better environment to prepare us for sleep.

5. Take Magnesium before bed

One of the most consistently successful ‘bio hacks’ I’ve used with my clients is for them to introduce magnesium supplementation 45 minutes before bed.

The modern stressors of living and overall poorer food quality tends to leave people depleted in magnesium.

Insomnia is a common symptom of Magnesium deficiency. Magnesium plays a role in supporting deep, restorative sleep by maintaining healthy levels of GABA, a neurotransmitter that promotes sleep. Low GABA levels in the body can make it difficult to relax. 

Magnesium is a cofactor in more than 300 enzyme systems that regulate diverse biochemical reactions in the body, including protein synthesis, muscle and nerve function, blood glucose control, and blood pressure regulation [ 1-3 ]. Magnesium is required for energy production, oxidative phosphorylation, and glycolysis.

Magnesium can also help insomnia that’s linked to the sleep disorder restless-leg syndrome and cramps.

I recommend taking 500-600 mg of a either a magnesium gycinate or taurate 45 min’s before bed on an empty stomach. I will post a more detailed article on the importance of magnesium in future.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC3703169/

Further Reading

If you are interested in learning more about sleep I’d highly recommend the book ‘Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker’.

Exercise Is Not About Suffering

A certain mentality of suffering is promoted in many gyms these days. Both personal trainers, motivational speakers and certain types of group training environments there is a ‘hardcore’ attitude if you aren’t suffering lots when training or dieting then you aren’t doing it right.

This unfortunately puts off many average people from even trying to start exercising. They see it a a mountain not even worth attempting to scale.

Yes you have to work hard, achieving anything worthwhile in life takes hard work but its its not about machoism for the sake of it and it needs to be scaled appropriately according to the level you are at.

Below I discuss a better approach-

1, Training

Feeling like sh*t afterwards isn’t a measure of a good gym session.

It’s common these days to be bombarded by certain types of gyms and magazines promoting the attitude that working harder when exercising is always better. That you should always be crawling out of the gym after every workout in a sweaty puddle of destruction with nothing left in the tank.

This in my opinion is an idiotic and dangerous attitude.

Not only is approaching exercise like this is a sure fire way to quickly grow a hatred for it but I believe your chance of injury is also a lot higher.

This is especially applicable for beginners who’s fitness levels will be at a low baseline and haven’t yet built a better body awareness.

Sure you definitely need to train hard but you do not need to push every set to failure nor want to throw up after every workout, in fact I strongly discourage this as you’ll quickly plateau.

Steady Progression is the key

Your training needs to be focused on the key principles of getting stronger on primarily compound exercises whilst using good form. When combined with patience and persistence these are the ingredients for progress.

Now there are certainly limitations on how strong you can get otherwise everyone would be working up to a 300KG bench press. In order to truly maximise your strength you will at some point have to specialise your training (powerlifting as an example) but for the average person who goes to the gym this isn’t applicable and they are in most cases far away from their potential.


Like most things in life lifting weights will not always have a linear progression. There will be up’s & down’s and It’s natural to reach plateaus from time to time. This will require you to back off the weight you are using before ramping it back up again. The more advanced a lifter you become, the smaller the progress will be. What’s going on in your life; life stressors, quality of sleep and nutritional intake will also have an impact on your progress.

So there are many strategies to drive progress. Four key ways are:

1. increasing the weight you are lifting

2. performing more reps

3. adding more sets

4. reducing the rest period between sets.

I find its best to choose one of two of these methods per training cycle. Keep it simple.

Rep's & Weight Progression Example-

Flat Bench Press- 4 sets of 6-8 reps, 180 seconds rest

Week 1- 80KG x 8, 80KG x 8, 80KG x 7, 80KG x 6 = 29 reps total @ 80KG = 2,320KG total lifted

Week 2- 80KG x 8, 80KG x 8, 80KG x 8, 80kg x 7 = 31 reps total @ 80KG = 2,480KG total lifted

Week 3- 82.5KG x 7, 82.5KG x 7, 82.5KG x 6, 82.5KG x 6 = 26 reps total @ 82.5KG = 2,145KG total lifted

Week 4- 82.5KG x 8, 82.5KG x 8 82.5KG x 7, 82.5KG x 6 = 29 reps total @ 82.5KG = 2392.5KG total lifted

Squeeze out those small victories a rep and set at a time!

If you really want to get strong you have to look at this as a ‘long game’ and anyone who has increased their strength and transformed their body dramatically will have invested a number of years into the process.

2, Dieting

In a nutshell I feel that dieting shouldn’t be a sprint.

How many times have you already possibly tried crash dieting to then put the weight back on soon after possibly with a bit extra?

Yes creating a large calorie deficit for short periods of time certainly can work for a quick assault on your body fat but for most people this ends up being a yo-yo cycle.

During an aggressive diet you’ll likely be pretty miserable as you’ll be very hungry and possibly in a bad mood.

Whatever your time period is, one of the key important factors is maintaining muscle mass whilst dieting.

When in a calorie deficit you should ensure your protein intake is adequate. This for dieters is generally much higher than the RDA and for most people I set it at 2-3 grams per kilogram of bodyweight. The additional benefit of high protein is it helps with the feeling of satiety.

Adding strength training to this mix will further help you fight breaking down muscle and also help you to ‘shape’ your body that will look better at a lower body fat level.

You should aim at no more than 0.5KG weight loss per week and you should aim to do this over the course of at least 12 weeks ideally. If say you have more than 6 kilo’s to loose then you should aim to make this a longer time period to take this into account.

Again just like weight lifting dieting isn’t always a linear progression however you have to trust the process you are following reminding yourself whats most important.

Bodyweight will fluctuate lots depending on you hydration status, sodium intake, bowel content, hormonal cycle (for both men & women) and how much you have slept.

Track your weight without getting obsessed about it and look at the trend over the weeks and the month rather than from day to day. It’s much more likely to look something like this-

Wrap Up

Extremes whether they are with exercise or dieting are rarely sustainable.

Crafting a lifestyle that has good balance of exercise and sensible eating must incorporate patience and persistence.

In addition to this your fitness regime should complement your other interests in life, it should not be the sole focus.

In the pursuit of looking good make sure you aren’t missing out on health and living life!

Three Principles Of Fat Loss

In this article I cover three fundamental principles for creating fat loss- 

1, Regulate Total Calories

In order to loose fat you have to create a calorie deficit. 

So how many calories do you need in order to lose weight? 

I’ve experimented with numerous different formula’s but over time I’ve found the best one is simple your bodyweight in pounds (kilos x 2.2) generally multiplied by either 12-14 as your starting point to establish a baseline. 

Now this is always going to be a best guess and factors such as your individual metabolism and activity levels will have an impact on what multiplier you use. Some people might have to even go down to 10 in order to get them into a deficit if their activity levels are low. 

Select a number and see how things progress. Adjust the number up or down as appropriate to align with you loosing body fat at the right speed. Generally I recommend trainees to aim to lose at most 0.5kg per week. Your total calories over time will also gradually need to be adjusted down as the diet progresses in order to continue to support fat loss. 

Example – Bodyweight 75 KG x 2.2 = 165 lbs x 14 = 2,310 KCAL

This part is absolutely critical, If you have no idea accurately how much you are eating its akin to shooting a shotgun into a dark room and hoping you hit something.

Tracking macros & calories indefinitely isn’t essential for fat loss or maintaining a healthy weight.

However a time period of tracking your food is a useful tool to educate yourself on the nutritional composition of different foods so that you are then able to make better decisions when not tracking. 

Practice this skill, learn to eye ball portions of food and initially measure it to see how accurate you can get. Make it a game. 

Your mindset and how your approach this is important. Remind yourself this is a good thing you are doing for yourself, you will be building a lifelong skill that can help promote better health for the rest of your life.

2, Adequate Protein Intake

You have your calories, now you calculate total protein. This needs to be high enough to support essential body needs and for recovery from training. Protein requirement is increased during a diet and in the absence of adequate dietary intake your body will break down more muscle tissue.

For periods of dieting I like to set it at 2 grams of protein per kilo of bodyweight. For advanced athletes who are already low in body fat it may have to be increased even further as the diet progresses. 

Example – 75 kg x 2 = 150 grams of protein daily

Protein has 4 kcal per gram so 150 grams of protein is 600 kcal

Your total calorie and protein intake in my experience are by far the two most important numbers to concentrate on. 

3, Carbohydrates & Fats

So with 2,310 KCAL minus 600 KCAL for the protein the remaining 1,710 KCAL can be divided evenly between fats & carbs.

Carbohydrate 855 kcal / 4 calories = 213.75 (214) grams

Fat 855 kcal / 9 calories = 95 grams

Totals

2310 KCAL

150 g Protein

214 g Carbohydrate

95 g Fat

From there it’s entirely up to you on personal preference how your split this up during the day. In general I guide my trainees to divide this up over 3-4 daily meals. Some people like an even spread of nutrients over each meal, others like to eat a bit lighter in earlier meals to create more ‘allowance’ to have a larger meal in the evening which they maybe are sharing with loved ones.

Example 1 - Even spread over 4 meals 

578 KCAL

38 g Protein

53 g Carbohydrate

23 g Fat

Example 2 - 4 meals but with a larger evening allowance

Meals 1-3

472 KCAL

38 g Protein

35 g Carbohydrate

20 g Fat

Meal 4 

895 KCAL

45 g Protein

100 g Carbohydrate

35 g Fat

My only preference here to help optimise protein synthesis over the whole day is to ensure you get 3-4 servings of 25-50 grams of a high quality protein source.

From personal exerience 4 is the best so that each meal is not too large and you get the body protein synthesis.

The distribution of the other nutrients is much less important in the grand scheme of things. 

Wrap up

Nutrition is literally a magic bullet in regards to regulating your body composition.

Certainly the more active you are overall your overall daily calorie requirements are which will allow you to “get away with more” but overall its very very hard to out train a poor diet.

Now there are certainly additional strategies to help further optimise your diet which I will cover in future articles, however without first creating the strong foundation these are somewhat redundant.

Fat Loss Explained

In this article I address some key principles to focus on when your goal is fat loss-

1, You must create a calorie deficit

In order lose body fat you must create a deficit to your energy intake.

This can be achieved through changes to your eating or increases in your activity levels. I find changes to your eating the most efficient as it’s a lot easier to consume calories than it is to burn them. 

As a diet progresses and you lose fat you will have to gradually keep reducing the amount of calories you consume in order to continue to lose fat.

A lighter body expends less energy to move around in everyday activities and so your body as part of its survival mechanisms will attempt to balance this out by reducing your metabolic rate.

This is temporary and after a period of dieting this will gradually return to normal, you are not creating any long term damage. 

Keep these adjustments downwards small, no more than 5-10% at any given time.

You want to lose fat on as many calories as possible as this helps to maintain you energy levels for exercise and everyday life and combat levels of hunger.

You want to avoid you getting too ‘hangry’ as this is going to make you and probably others around you feel miserable and more likely to lead you to falling off of the wagon and binging. 

2, Strength training

You lose fat by creating a calorie deficit. Now in order to get your body to loose body fat rather than lean body mass (muscle) you have to give it a reason to retain that lean body mass. Strength training provides this stimulus and will help you ultimately achieve that ‘toned’ look once your body fat is low enough.

Creating a deficit to lose fat without this concurrent strength training means that a greater proportion of the weight you lose will come from lean body mass and whilst you will certainly over time still lose fat you’ll also lose lean body mass which will likely leave you with a less than aesthetically pleasing ‘skinny fat’ look.

Now this doesn’t mean that you have to go all in and start training like a bodybuilder, far from it. This is a common misperception that puts many people off of lifting weights. Bodybuilding is a very specialised pursuit and it takes years of consistent focused training to achieve that ‘look’.

For the average person weight lifting in addition to preserving lean mass when dieting will make your body firmer and you’ll look & feel better naked.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28507015/

3, Keep your overall daily activity levels high (NEAT)

Creating a calorie deficit is in nutshell subjecting your body to a small famine and body has some very clever in-built survival mechanisms to try to fight this.

One tactic it uses it to subconsciously encourage you to reduce what’s called your NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis). NEAT can account for quite a number of calories burned during a day on top of your BMR (Basel Metabolic Rate, the amount of calories you burn just to survive doing nothing).

Say you create a calorie deficit through food of 250 calories but at the same time subconsciously you start walking less, taking the elevator, lying down more etc. you’ll find that you can start to quickly make inroads on that calorie deficit and mint end up unconsciously sabotaging your results.

One easy way to counteract your levels of NEAT dropping is to monitor your daily step count. Say your average is 5,000 then aim to keep that constant throughout the ‘diet’, You may actually find upping this to 7,500 or even 10,000 steps per day as your bodyweight reduces will continue to help you lose body fat. A lighter body burns less calorie in every day activities.

• Get off a stop early or walk to work

• Use the stairs

• Get a stand up desk

• Manually clean things rather than using ‘labour saving’ devices.

• Plan a long walk at the weekend

• Find activities outside of the gym that get you active - Martial arts, dancing, climbing, swimming etc.

4, Optimise your Sleep Quality & Duration

Tigger knew the secrets to staying lean

A study highlighted to me in the book ‘Why We Sleep’ by Matthew Walker showed the amount of sleep you have directly impacts what weight is lost when on a diet. 

In a study, 2 group of people were put on a calorie deficit. One group in addition to this had restricted sleep.

Both groups on average lost a similar amount of weight.

However, for the participants who got only 5 1/2 hours sleep the amount of fat mass relative to lean body mass was significantly reduced- 1.3 pounds of fat and 5.3 pounds of fat-free mass compared to the group who got 8 1/2 hours sleep- 3.1 pounds of fat and 3.3 pounds of fat-free body mass.

In addition to this the sleep restricted group had increased levels of hunger as their Ghrelin levels (‘hunger hormone’) increased.

This very starkly illustrates the importance of getting good sleep. This should be an areas in addition to neutron that you should invest time in.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101004211637.htm

Here’s an article I wrote on improving your sleep - 15 Tips to Better Sleep

5, Set realistic goals and be patient

You don’t get out of or into shape overnight

Fat loss in order to make it sustainable and create a healthy relationship & lifestyle shouldn’t be a sprint.

Yes certainly you can have brief periods of dieting with a large calorie deficit but these should only be used for short periods of time and are unsustainable. From my experience of helping hundreds of clients, a slower more consistent timeframe for fat loss wins the day.

Adherence is ultimately the key. It’s all well & good creating a deficit for 5 days of the week but then at the weekend if you fill your boots on high calorific food and especially liquid calories (alcohol, with an added effect of reducing sleep quality) it’s very possible to sabotage the very deficit that you’ve created over the week. 

A useful strategy is to set your calories slightly lower during the week to allow for more of a ‘buffer’ of calories at the weekend which will enable you to be social when eating out or cooking with your friends & family without ruining your deficit. This doesn’t mean you give yourself permission to eat in a gluttonous fashion.