Making a Realistic Food Plan

Often, the biggest motivator for me in terms of eating right is to make a food plan. For some, diets can often become restricting and they prefer to be spontaneous in their food choices, however, I find that having a concrete food plan to go to can really help you stay on track and also save money. With a food plan, you are allowed the best opportunity to really sit back and look at your meals afterwards to get the best out of your diet. With the fast-paced life we find ourselves in, often meals can be forgotten, certain food groups omitted and quick, unhealthy snacks can creep their way into our day and straight into our mouths. Planning on the go can often be dangerous – when we are hungry we will want more than we need, and this can lead to bad habits.

For anyone wondering where to even begin, I will show you a little bit of a food plan I used when losing weight, and how I go about putting it together.

• 1.       Firstly, think about exactly what you want to achieve with your diet and the types of food you should and shouldn’t be eating. I’m currently trying to bulk and tone up, so my food plan is full of proteins and good carbs. For those trying to lose weight, you might be restricting carbs at the moment, focusing more on vegetables. Whatever your goal is, have that in mind before you start writing, and every time you put a meal together, think of whether that meal sits well with what you are supposed to eat.
• 2.       Now, come up with a template. Are you going to plan your food for a month, fortnight or week? I personally prefer to plan weekly. This means that I can buy the majority of my shopping on the Monday and it will last until the next week.
• 3.       Think about the meals that you eat every day and split these into sections. For me, the main meals are the usual breakfast, lunch and dinner, so I split each day into 3 sections. Don’t forget a snack section as well – it is unrealistic to just eat set meals every day, a healthy snack is just as good for you and keeps your metabolism running throughout the day.

• 4.       Think a little bit about what you already have in your cupboards and fridge. Look at the kind of meals that you can make with these ingredients so that you can avoid stockpiling food. Look at the shelf-life. If something goes off on Wednesday then don’t plan it for after Wednesday. Insert these meals into your food plan.

• 5.       Now, choose a meal where you can treat yourself slightly. Think about an occasion where you might eat out, or you might be going on a night out. Plan for a cheat meal each week to feel less restricted by your diet. If the meal comes around and you fancy eating something healthy instead, well done! If not, you don’t have to feel bad about it as you have planned for it!

• 6.       Now for the main part, start to fill in the bulk of your meal plan. Again, think about your week and how it usually pans out. Having a heavy gym session on Thursday? Then eat a meal suitable for this! Working during the week, plan your lunches so that you can make them before work! Cooking for the family on Sunday? Plan your nicest meal for then!

• 7.       Stop when you cannot think of anything else. If there are gaps, take some inspiration from other websites. There are a host of healthy meal options out there that you might not have thought about. The BBC Good Food website offers so many different dishes for a range of different diets. The Picky Eater blog is also good for quick and easy recipes, and the Fat Bloke Thin blog is particularly good for low calorie treats.

• 8.       Finally, add your snacks in and you’re done. Think about snacks that are convenient and easy to make. I usually stick to fruit and vegetables in terms of snacks, but don’t be afraid to throw in a bag of crisps or a small bar of chocolate once a week. Once you’ve reached your goal you need your body to be ready to start eating these in moderation again. Don’t completely cut them out, it could be worse for you in the long run.

• 9.       Finally, write a shopping list of all of the items that you need to get for the week and get them all at once. Shopping intermittently throughout the week will leave you buying little extras that you don’t need. Doing it all at once ensures you are well prepared and stops you from ‘hunger buying’. The easiest way to make your list is to go through each individual meal and think about everything that you might need for that meal. If it is already in your cupboard, or if you have included it in the list already for an earlier meal, great. Add everything else and you should find that you can execute your food plan efficiently throughout the week without much leftover! The list below is what I would buy for the food plan that I created, assuming that my cupboards were completely empty. I have worked out that it would cost approximately £30 depending on any special offers, not bad for a week of food considering you would spend £10 at least on a meal out. It should also leave you with some leftovers for the following week!

I hope these little tips work, let me know via twitter if you have any questions or want to know some healthy recipes – I don’t really go by long winded recipes myself, I like to keep things simple in my food preparation, but I can give some advice on how to do this if you’re struggling! 

Getting Through the First Week of Weight Loss

As with many life endeavours, the first week of something will usually determine how the rest is going to pan out. This could not be truer than with weight loss. If you have a decent first week, chances are you will carry on and maintain your efforts further. Fall at the first hurdle, however, and you’ll be wondering why you even started.

When losing weight, I found that the first week was by far the hardest one in terms of staying motivated and on track. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, happens in that first week. We have all eaten healthy for a couple of days and felt disappointed when we check in the mirror to find no difference at all. That’s usually the point where most people give up. Thinking ‘nothing’s happening so why bother’ after two days is probably the number one reason why any sort of diet has ever failed.
 

So, I thought I would offer a few small tips to anyone that is constantly facing this problem. Hopefully they will help you get through that first week and onto better things.

Firstly, prepare. If you’re thinking of going on any sort of diet or fitness programme, give yourself a couple of days to plan for it. Make a meal plan, do a healthy food shop, join your local gym, get your exercise clothes ready, make a running playlist, create some sort of chart to track your progress – do everything you possibly can to be ready to begin the diet, but do it before you actually begin. If you don’t prepare, you’ll immediately start at a disadvantage. Starting a diet on a Monday, but realising that you can’t be inducted into your local gym until Thursday will more than likely throw the whole week off and put you at square one again. Make sure you’re ready to go straight into the weight loss rather than getting caught up with these unnecessary problems at the beginning.

A lot of people might not agree with this, or feel comfortable with it, but I always say you should tell EVERYONE what you’re doing. Put it up on Facebook, tweet it, Instagram that before photo, call your parents, just let people know that you are planning on losing weight in the coming months. It might seem personal, but telling everybody what you are doing will make you more likely to go through with it. Giving up halfway through the first week will give all of these people a reason to doubt you and will probably make you feel rather embarrassed, so it acts as a perfect motivator for keeping it up.

Water and gum will be your best friend in your first week of weight loss, particularly if you are a food lover like myself. As you start to cut down on portion sizes, your stomach will undoubtedly not be happy and you will be feeling the hungriest during this first week as it starts to get used to your new routine of eating. For me, gum was really helpful in counteracting this. I think that just having the flavour in your mouth can sometimes curb a craving and keep you satisfied until your next meal. Water is also essential in terms of feeling full. More often than not, thirst can become disguised by hunger, and you will find that drinking water throughout the day will generally make you feel a lot less hungry as your stomach gets used to the changes. As well as this, water is generally great anyway at keeping your metabolism going strong and giving you the vital nutrients and hydration that you need to lose weight more effectively.

This tip might sound a bit strange, but I would say that you should not weigh yourself after your first week. Usually in the first week your weight will drop dramatically as your body begins to get used to your new lifestyle. This can be a great motivator for carrying on past the first week, but poses problems in terms of week two. We have all heard of the second week wall – your weight loss usually stops in this week as your body recovers from the dramatic loss of the week before. More often than not, this can be demotivating in itself and will often lead you straight back to square one as you wonder what the point of it all was. I would suggest weighing yourself monthly. This way, any weekly anomalies will usually not matter and, as long as you are keeping with your weight loss plan, you should generally see a more consistent downwards trend.

If you are going to the gym for the first time, the first week of weight loss can usually be quite daunting. There is a lot of machinery in a gym, a lot of commotion and a lot of people who have quite obviously never left the gym in their lives and look like walking billboard adverts. But don’t worry about it, you are all there for the same reason – to improve yourself. It might seem that everyone in the gym is staring at you as you attempt your first run on the treadmill, but this is not the case. Rule number one of the gym is that, unless you’re the loud groaning guy lifting weights far too big for him, NOBODY CARES what you are doing. Don’t feel put off by the crowds. If you still feel daunted, take a friend with you so you can go through it together, or find a large, busy gym with lots of people so you don’t feel like you stand out quite as much. After the first week you’ll soon realise that the gym is actually a really friendly and supportive place and 99% of people in there will have the same sort of worries as yourself.

Personally, I recommend chain gyms, such as FitSpace. In your first week of weight loss you might find that the gym life is not for you and you would rather exercise at home. FitSpace offers a no contract membership, so you don’t have to get tied down into long and costly contracts from the very beginning. They also have gyms across the country and your membership card gives you access to all of these, perfect if you’re a student travelling between cities.

Hopefully this post can offer some assistance to anyone going through that first week of weight loss. I don’t claim to be an expert in health and fitness by any stretch, that’s for the personal trainers to work out, but having gone through it I am happy to answer any questions about what it is really like in terms of staying motivated and on track – just give me a shout on twitter, my link is in my bio!

Good luck!

Losing the Flab - My Top 5 Tips

In 2012 I was tipping the scales at just under 20 stone. 

Me in 2012

Throughout my teenage years I always was a bit bigger, always the child that would need their wedding clothes altered to fit. I spent most of my days wearing baggy jeans and loose jumpers to hide my flab, spending most of my evenings sat inside on the internet or watching TV - the idea of exercise was a foreign concept to me. I was under the illusion that one day the weight would just drop off, perhaps it was all just puppy fat. Deep down I knew that this would never happen. I was just tricking myself into thinking it would so that I could carry on with my lazy lifestyle in peace. 

My biggest problem was with food. A lot of people say that they turn to food to mask their emotions and deal with their problems. That wasn't the case for me, I just simply loved eating. I would always want the biggest meals, the most potatoes, more layers of cheese - everything was about quantity and my next meal was always in the back of my mind, no matter how full I was. For a long time I would secret eat, mostly late at night when there was nobody around. I would take myself downstairs and make myself up a midnight snack. This usually consisted of a sandwich, a couple of packets of crisps, a chocolate bar, a bowl of cereal with added sugar, ice cream, biscuits, sponge cake - pretty much anything that I could find in the cupboard that even slightly interested me. I would eat it in one sitting, hiding the evidence at the bottom of the bin. I got bigger and bigger, always in denial and under the illusion that it was fine because I would lose the weigh one day. Thinking back, I'd classify it as an addiction. I just couldn't stop.

The turning point started with my mum. She took me to the gym one day and signed us both up. I hadn't stepped on a scale in years, mainly because I was worried about the number that would come up. We decided to weigh ourselves and that would be our starting point. I hadn't even got on the scales and I was already embarrassed. I got on the scales and the ticket printed out of the side. I knew the number would be big and I had accepted in my head that I would probably be around 16 stone.

I was wrong. 19 stone 13 pounds. Looking at that ticket was probably one of the worst moments of my life, it made everything feel real and I could no longer deny that I had a problem to overcome.

But I overcame it.

After my first half marathon last month

I am now 11 stone 12 pounds and have been pretty much the same for the past couple of years. It took me a year to lose the weight and, although it was hard work, it was the best year of my life. Lots of people ask me how I did it, how I managed to do it so quick and how I managed to keep the flab off. Losing weight is different for everyone so it is hard to say that what I did will work for everyone. There are numerous websites that explain the biology of losing weight, but ignore the psychological problems that come with it. So, as someone who has been through the process, I thought I would share my top 5 tips for how I lost weight. I don't want to talk too much about calories and the right amount of exercise to do because there are numerous other sources for this. My tips are for the problems that people don't talk about so much...

1. Don't be afraid of the first weigh in.

Stepping on the scales for the first time is a scary moment, but one that needs to happen for you to even begin the journey. It was the turning point for me, and without the shock of that number I don't think I would be where I am today. Try not to think of it as a bad thing, look at it as the starting point. You will never be bigger than that number ever again. If you can firmly tell yourself this and believe it, then you are already half way there.

2. Control the food urges, but don't starve.

As a foodie, this was one of my biggest challenges. I worked in a coffee shop so there was never a lack of cake to get my teeth in to. But just tell yourself, NO! The feeling of guilt after eating something bad is always a lot stronger than the pleasure of eating it in the first place. Think about this guilt and try to imagine yourself in bed that night, having not eaten the bit of cake you were offered. It feels good. When you go shopping, don't buy the packet of biscuits that you tell yourself will be eaten throughout the week in moderation. It rarely happens like this. Try and avoid bringing bad foods into your house at all, then the temptation isn't there. Fill your cupboards with vegetables - sugarsnap peas, peppers, carrots, cucumber, lettuce. Graze on this. Cookery books and websites always go on about how much fun you can have with eating healthy, but the reality isn't that ideal. Truthfully, it is boring and it won't give you the same satisfaction as a cream tart, but stick with it and when you start to notice the change in your body you'll be more satisfied than any sugary snack could ever make you.

3. Find a friend for motivation.

This is particularly prominent in terms of exercise. Whether you go to the gym or are doing your own exercise, having someone there to do it with you has so many advantages that it is so helpful in the long run. Firstly, arrange your exercise schedule beforehand. I made a gym partner out of my best friend, Jenna. Actually finding the motivation to go to the gym is the hardest part, once you are in there it is easy. I would arrange to pick Jenna up to combat this. If I decided not to go, then I would be letting her down. This was a big driver in terms of me actually getting off my arse and going, and more importantly, if I was having a down day and wanted to leave early, there was no option for this because I would have to wait around. If you're waiting around in the gym you might as well exercise. Secondly, think of it as a competition. There's nothing more motivating than trying to beat a friend. If she was still running on that treadmill, there was no way that I was stopping before her. Finally, even if you're not the competitive type, it is just generally helpful to have someone to talk to when you're in the gym. When you're sweating from places you never knew you could sweat from, looking like you've just been dragged through a hedge backwards and sprayed with a water cannon at the other side, chances are your friend is too so it is far less embarrassing.

4. Do what suits you.

There are hundreds of diets out there that you can pay to follow. If meeting a group every week and following a strict diet plan is more helpful for you, then that's fine. But I found it much more satisfying doing it on my own and with my own judgement. We all know what is healthy and what isn't. Eating an apple is a much better option than eating a piece of cake and that is just common sense, you don't need someone telling you that. I went through lots of different eating phases during the year but I wouldn't call any of them 'diets' as such. For a while I cut out carbohydrates completely, which I found made me lose weight very quickly at first but then I struggled for a few weeks after, so I changed it up again. Don't be afraid of trying different things. Like I said, you know what is not good for you, so ideally cut this out completely, but everything else you can experiment with to find what suits you. By not following a diet you will feel far less restricted.

5. Track your progress.

Take photos, keep scale readings, write down measurements, even write about it on Facebook - let your friends know how you're doing. Okay, you get those that moan about you showing off the fact you can lose weight, but if you've worked hard for it then you have every right. Don't throw away your old clothes, it is always nice to get back into them and see what you were once wearing. I'm a size 32 waist but I have a few pairs of size 44 waist I would wear when I was at my biggest. If I ever felt down about the whole experience or staring at the chocolate cake in the fridge, I'd get out the jeans and look at my progress. It helps so much to see it visually because it makes it all seem worth it.

The biggest tip of all is just to work damn hard. It really isn't easy but once you've gotten through the first couple of weeks it becomes natural to watch what you eat and make sure you are exercising. Getting over the first hurdle is the hardest part but it really is about perseverance and self belief that you can do it. Visualise yourself at your ideal weight, visualise your friends complimenting you on how well you have done and visualise all of the bragging posts that you are more than entitled to put up on social media, showing off your new self. It really does help you get through the tough moments to think about the future.

Losing weight was the best experience of my life and sometimes I think about getting big again just so I can redo the experience, once you get into the swing of things it really is that much fun.

I hope this post is helpful in some way!

Breaking up with My Degree

I've never been one for commitment. I like to leave my options open and know that there is always something else I can do without having to worry about the consequences. Even something like a phone contract, where I'm tied down for 2 years to a product that I might not want after a few months. It upsets me. It's not that I'm not a loyal person. In my personal life I'm as loyal as you can get. I've been employed since turning a teenager, and in those 8 years I've only changed jobs once, and that was because of starting university. There's definitely a difference between commitment and loyalty, and commitment is what I struggle with.

I don't know if this trait is necessarily bad - it's sometimes nice to know that I can drop whatever I'm doing if something better comes along. However, it is a problem that was particularly prominent when I was choosing my degree. I thought hard about what I wanted to do - long gone were the days where I could choose an array of subjects to cater to all of the things that I enjoyed. I had to settle for one thing. I didn't mind the studying aspect, and was more than excited for having the 'student experience', it was more a case of being scared about deciding my whole life path without having really started life yet. I didn't know what I wanted, so I left my options open and decided upon English. I love writing, reading and the media, and was particularly sold on the fact that English left my options very broad in terms of where I could go after finishing the course.

Well, English, I think it's time we broke up.

It's a strange feeling when you don't enjoy your degree. One half of me doesn't want the course to finish. I love being independent, living amongst so many great friends and obviously the general student life of 8 hour Netflix binging. But then there's the other half that can't wait to finish this final year so that I can start something new. I work hard to get what I want out of life, but it is difficult to put my all into assignments when I'm not passionate about what I am getting out of them.

I started my degree with the idea that I would become a journalist, something I have slowly fallen out of love with. It's a hard industry to get in to, and I don't think I want it enough to actually go through that fight.

Through my experience at my work placement, my job and just the general things that make me tick, I've decided what I want to do with my life. I know what I need to do to get there and the first part of that journey is finishing this degree with the best possible grade that I can.

So I am going to work hard. I'm going to  push away all of my doubts and reservations about carrying on with my course. I'm going to do the best I can. Where my degree has taught me what I don't want to do with life, it's also taught me the importance of making the most of things. Nothing is a waste of time if you make the most of the experience. If I could turn back time to choose another subject, would I? Probably. But had I not made that mistake, would I be in the position I'm in now - confident and excited about what the future holds? Probably not.

So I'm starting this blog back up so that rather than feeling down because I have to write about things I don't particularly enjoy, I can carry on writing about what I do enjoy. My love for writing will never change, even though it isn't what I want to do any more, but I hope that I can carry on with that passion rather than abandoning it when I finish my degree. I want to write about the things I enjoy - Music, TV, Films, Books, Media, Fitness, Food and Life. You will find all of that on here.

And don't worry, not everything I post will be this depressing.

Lewis T