I get it – you’re a busy b*stard and rarely have time to bless yourself! That is why it’s more important for you to have some structure and plan in place compared to someone with more free time on their hands.

Otherwise – we all know what happens next. You have nothing prepared in advance. You wait until you’re absolutely starving to eat. When you do eat, you choose the quickest, most convenient foods (which are often high in sugar and refined) - often eating on the and you might even grab a quick coffee to tie you over until you do it all again in a few hours’ time.

Instead of spinning your wheels using this approach, you need to add some structure to your day – starting out with aiming to eat at the same or similar time of day.

Secondly, the only way to lose fat consistently is to create a sustainable calorie deficit. By consistently eating less than your body needs to maintain its current weight, you will lose fat.

This might sound simple in theory but it can be difficult in practice.

So how do you create a sustainable calorie deficit?

1. A simple starting point is to multiply your bodyweight in pounds by 12.

2. Decrease/increase calories accordingly based off hunger levels and progress.

3. So if you weight 150lbs x12 = approx. 1,800 calories a day.
   

On top of this, I always say, when eating in a calorie deficit, you should have two goals in mind:

1. Maintain as much (if not all) of your muscle mass as possible

2. Eat as much food as possible while staying within your calorie limit

This is where the benefits of setting a high protein target comes in. It’s not uncommon for people to lose weight but they just because a smaller version of themselves. While I’m not trying to be critical or to sound like an a*shole, the common term used to describe this is “skinny fat.” You’ve lost weight on the scale yet you still don’t have that toned and trim physique which you had hoped for. If this has happened, chances are your protein intake wasn’t adequate and/or you didn’t strength train (future point).

So how much protein should you eat? I recommend 1g of protein per lb of bodyweight. If you weigh 150lbs, this would be about 150g of protein per day.

If you don’t want to count calories but still want to see results and start to look and feel better, here are some principles you can implement:

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1. Focus on eating 3-4 square meals a day (reduce snacking if possible).

2. All of your food must fit on one plate.

3. ½ of your plate is veggies.

4. ¼ of your plate is lean protein

5. ¼ of your plate is clean carbs and healthy fats (e.g. potatoes, rice, oats, nuts, seeds, avocado etc).

6. Drink a glass of water before every meal.

This is not a law set in stone – rather see it as a guide because one size fits nobody. Use this as a starting point to track your progress and make adjustments where necessary.

And remember when it comes to weight loss, don’t buy into the juice or “cleanse/detox” diets – they don’t work long term.

Unsustainable methods yield unsustainable results.