The key to your level of success ultimately comes down to making smarter choices with your food intake and understanding that exercise contributes only a small percentage towards your level of success when compared to your diet. Exercise does burn calories yes, and certain exercises do build muscle on different areas of the body, but no matter how much hard work you do in the gym to burn that stubborn layer of body fat around your middle exercise cannot make a significant difference by itself without a focus on your food. A more nutrient dense diet will change and influence your hormone levels and ‘flick the switch’ turning your body into a fat-burning machine compared to being a fat-storing machine. The human body is very good at storing energy but it doesn’t do so well with burning energy – and this is definitely not helped by the typical diet of today that contains way too much sugar from heavily processed foods.

Not all calories are equal and the simple formula of losing body fat equals burning more calories compared to what we consume is a very simplified approach. Food is information to our body and the different types of food we eat can have dramatically different results. Is 500 calories of broccoli going to have a different effect on your body when compared to eating a Big Mac? Of course it will. Nutrient dense foods contain more fibre which helps to suppress our appetite and promote healthy digestion, contains more vitamins and more cancer fighting enzymes to protect the body from disease. When we eat processed food chemical reactions occur in our body, and not good ones. Probably the most influential hormone our body produces is insulin. Insulin gets released by the pancreas as soon as sugar hits our lips and enters our gut and it doesn’t need much processing to be converted and stored as energy in our cells – all to the detriment of our waistline. Ultimately the main goal of insulin is to keep us alive, it’s a fat-storage hormone, and once we eat sugar our body thinks we are starving and it begins by storing this sugar as energy (as fat). Because our body is in this fat-storing mode it then also switches off using fat as a source of energy. It’s an ancient old mechanism that was very useful in the hunter-gatherer days when wild food sources became scarce and we had to make-do and survive for a while until the next kill of wild animal. Typically our ancestors ate wild berries or honey as a source of energy to provide an emergency fuel source. Unfortunately though this hasn’t worked so well for us the last 40 years with the exponential rise of fast food, flour milling and artificial sweeteners found in soft drinks and convenience food

The main focus of my approach to nutrition is to encourage you to have a sensible and balanced intake from all the main food groups: protein, good fats and some good choices of carbohydrate in order to exercise effectively. I don’t believe in crash-dieting or to completely omit entire food groups for short or long periods of time, this isn’t sustainable and will promote long term metabolic damage

All carbohydrate we eat falls on a spectrum (Glycemic Index) depending on the sugar content and how much the food influences our insulin levels (low GI vs high GI). In order to have more of a longer-lasting source of energy to exercise we need to eat carbohydrates that fall at the low GI end of the scale. Whole grain products, vegetables, beans or a little kumara or potato are great sources of lower GI carbohydrates that won’t spike insulin and provides many other beneficial properties like vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients. Refined carbohydrate (corn chips, biscuits, soft drinks, white breads) all provide only a short-term supply of energy and promote inflammation, promote fat storage, leaky gut, and create cancers. We need to minimise these as much as possible in our diet

By reducing and making better choices with our carbohydrate intake we can restore our body’s insulin sensitivity (our body’s ability to process the simple sugars that we do eat), reduce the storage of body fat around our belly and will increase our willpower to say no to sweet treats. I also recommend taking in sufficient protein from fish, chicken, lean beef and plant based sources. Protein is an essential requirement of a balanced diet, it’s important for muscle repair and helps to form the building blocks to which muscle is built. Without enough protein your body’s ability to become stronger, add muscle and recover between workouts will be reduced. Good omega 3 and omega 6 fats sourced from fish, nuts, seeds and avocado is also essential to our diet in order to improve our hormonal fat-burning potential, reduce inflammation, provide clearer skin and help to improve cell and brain function. Nuts and seeds contain a great balance of omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids that are loaded with vitamins, minerals, fibre, protein and antioxidants. Walnuts, flaxseeds and chia seeds are some of the richest sources of plant-based omega 3 fats. However the omega 6 fats that are man made we want to steer clear of, this being the liters of refined vegetable oils we consume every year in processed and fried foods

​Whether you’ve got 10kg or 50kg excess body fat to lose you should find that starting a new exercise journey will make you more aware of the fuel you are putting into your body and make it easier to make better food choices once you’re exercising regularly. It does take a little bit of initial sacrifice and willpower to make a healthy food switch, but with a bit of awareness and a little daily organisation it can be done. It usually takes about 10 days to detox away from a high sugar diet and once you lose that dependence on sugar and all the nasty chemicals swirling around your body you will definitely feel more energised, more focused and begin to start dropping body fat

​A ‘better diet’ shouldn’t feel like you’re on a ‘special diet’ and that you’re only following it for a period of time before you go back to your old ways. It’s no surprise that long term habits always prove much more successful than short term habits, and if you can adapt to a healthier longer term approach then I’m sure greater things will come of it. A little re-education and awareness will help you reset your approach to food so you can feel and reap the benefits of eating more nutrient dense foods that have a positive influence on every aspect of your health

​Unfortuntely I don’t promote a secret weight loss pill or a magical line of supplements that will transform your body overnight. Supplements can benefit a healthy diet but they cannot mask a poor one.