Macronutrient is a term used to bucket three types of foods we eat. Our bodies require certain amounts to function properly, and this can vary per person. On the other hand, alcohol also provides calories (7 calories per gram) but is not considered a macronutrient because we don’t require alcohol to live, unlike fats, protein and carbohydrates. Macronutrients are filled with micronutrients, such as vitamins and minerals, to meet our nutritional needs.

Learn more about keeping on track with 4 Ways to Keep on Track With Your Nutrition

 

Where to Find Macros

Whether using macros to influence your food choices or just trying to follow a balanced diet, it’s good to know which foods contain what and how many macros.

  • High-carb, low-protein: fruits and vegetables
  • High-carb, low-fat: pasta, rice, cereal, bread, legumes, fruits, vegetables
  • High-fat, low-carb: nuts, seeds, olive oil, cheese
  • High-fat, low-protein: avocado, olive oil, coconut milk
  • High-protein, low-carb: eggs, meat, fish
  • High-protein, low-fat: non-fat Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, turkey or chicken breast, lean ground beef, whey protein powder

 

Fits Within Your Calories?

One way to eat better and also to lose weight is to use macros as well as calories. You get an allowance In grams for fat, protein and carbs, but how you spend that is up to you as long as it fits within your daily calorie intake for your weight loss goal.

For example, fat contains 9 calories per gram, protein and carbs 4 calories per gram. So if your daily calorie “allowance” is 2000 calories per day, then you can split your macros to make up 2000 calories per day for example.

 

Not All Calories Are Really Equal

While 100 grams of salmon and 100 grams of chicken wings may have the same macronutrient profile (both are about 60% protein and 40% fat), they are hardly equivalent in regard to nutrient value. Jelly beans and sweet potatoes are both around 100% carbohydrates, but again, there’s no comparison when it comes to nutritional value. Now can we lose weight eating nothing but wings and jelly beans – If they fit within your calories? Probably. But most people would realise quickly they feel and perform much better when they spend most of their macros on lean proteins, fruit, veg, healthy fats and other wholesome foods, which also tend to be more filling as well as nutritious.

While we know calories don’t always contain the same value and your food quality matters. After all, nutrition is not a one-size-fits-all. If you’re a healthy individual, it’s helpful to explore different options and find one that works for you – and importantly make it a sustainable habit.

 

Ways You Can Track Your Macros

If you’re new to tracking macros, the app we recommend to our clients is Myfitnesspal. Tracking calories and macros can be made easy with this tool and can be broken down into four steps:

1. Setting Your Calories

The first step is to find out your target calorie intake. This would depend on your goal, age, sex, height and activity levels. When you set up your Myfitnesspal app, logging or scanning your calories can be done on your homepage.

2. Setting Your Macros

Myfitnesspal automatically sets your macros at 50% carbs, 20% protein and 30% fat. You can tweak this as you like; the app translates the percentages into grams for each macronutrient. (Note: Premium app users have the option of setting goals in grams or percentages.)

Need some guidance? See this article on How To Balance Your Fitness Goals With Your Social Life

3. Plan and Track Your Diet

As you enter snacks and meals into your food diary, Myfitnesspal will total how many grams of macronutrients you eat, whether fat, protein or carbs. It’s helpful to plan your meals for the day, or you may find yourself at dinnertime with only 200 calories left!

4. Repeat and Refine

With time, both the planning and knowledge of understanding and planning macros and calories get easier. You can refine the exact percentages based on your results and find meals that work for you.

 

 

When you’re juggling a busy schedule, it’s easy to spend your downtime going out to eat rather than cooking, or relaxing while watching TV instead of working out. But implementing basic healthy habits into your lifestyle can boost your energy levels and well-being without wasting too much of your free time. Here’s how you can increase your activity levels, and step count, and get the hang of meal prepping.

 

Stick to a Sleep Routine

 It’s all too easy to spend an extra hour scrolling on your phone when you should be trying to sleep. Instead of falling into this rut, try sticking to an evening routine that sets you up for eight hours of quality sleep. Bedstar recommends turning your lights off at the same time each night – including your devices – and setting your alarm for the same time every morning, even on the weekends. If you’ve been struggling with sleep problems for a while and quick fixes to your routine don’t seem to be helping, you may want to think about seeing a sleep specialist.

 

Balance Exercise With “Active Rest”

 You don’t need to work out every day to be healthy – and you might have the time for a daily fitness session, anyway. But you can always incorporate “active rest” into your life. Active rest refers to gentle forms of exercise and physical activity that don’t require you to exert yourself. Doing yoga, stretching and going for long walks both qualify!

 

Boost Your Step Count

If you spend most of your day working at a desk, you might be wondering how to increase your step count. After all, walking more throughout the day can help you stay in shape without feeling like you’re really working out! To achieve this, Active Goals recommends parking further away from your destinations, getting a treadmill for your home, hopping off the bus one stop early, or going for walks during phone meetings.

 

Try Meal Prepping

It’s tough to find time to cook during the workweek. Why not meal prep your favourite recipes on the weekends and store them in your fridge instead of trying to cook fresh meals every night? Choose recipes that will still taste great when frozen or refrigerated, and ensure you have plenty of storage containers!

 

Choose the Right Supplements

Sometimes, taking specific supplements can help you meet your nutritional needs or address mild health issues. However, it’s easy to think you need to take a large array of supplements to improve your quality of life. If you’re wondering which supplements are really worth it, you might want to check in with your doctor and order bloodwork.

You have the power to change your lifestyle and habits for the better. Furthermore, you don’t necessarily have to make major sacrifices along the way. By adopting some of these strategies, you can sleep soundly at night, get plenty of physical activity, and enjoy delicious, home-cooked meals any day of the week!

Photo via Pexels

Written by: Justin Bennett

 

 

Are you just starting out on your weight loss routine and have quite a lot of body fat to lose?

There are a number of articles we put out that relate to people who are fit, lean and looking to progress to the next level. However, this article is more for those who are just at the beginning of their journey or are coming back after a long time.

1. Start out very basic, by tidying up your diet

Eliminate processed food, dairy, gluten, wheat and any food that you know causes inflammation and bloating. Also, eliminate starchy foods high in sugar as well as white bread and minimise pasta, and replace them with gluten-free oats, sweet potato and wholemeal rice. There are no counting calories now, no weighing of food, just simply cleaning up your diet.

2. The next step is to set a protein target

Simply use your overall body weight and multiply this to start with by 1.5 grams per kilogram as a starting place. All you have to do is make sure you hit that total amount every day. So for someone who has a body weight of 100 kg, they will need 150 grams of protein spread out throughout the day.

READ MORE: Why Consuming Protein Helps You Lose Fat

3. Eat a portion of essential fats with every meal

This could simply be a drizzle of olive oil over salad or vegetables, a few nuts, seeds, or to cook with a teaspoon of coconut oil. The essential fats are not just vital for hormonal and cell health, they should make up at least 20% of your daily macro-nutrient intake. Low calorie eating is a major reason why people don’t and stop losing body fat.

4. Hit a water goal

I make sure everyone I work with drinks at least 2-3 litres per day.

These first tips along with training a minimum of 3 sessions a week, will help you see very good results. There will come a time when you start to plateau, this is where a consistent food diary will come in.

5. Daily make a record of your food intake

This will show how consistent you are really being. Inconsistency leads to poor results. So this next step is to make sure you are tracking and remaining consistent at all times.

6. If you have been exercising 3x a week, this is the time you could add in another session

This extra session will produce the next level of results.

So you see, you don’t have to be all that fancy about complicated things. You don’t have to count everything at the start, you just have to do the basics over a consistent period of time.

As you get leaner, and you lose weight, then you do have to become slightly more specific to see more results.

If you would like help doing this, or you think you would struggle to do this on your own contact us or follow our social media pages below for more tips.

 

At Lean Body Training, we don’t subscribe to any one diet, as the client’s individual needs will dictate the direction we guide them towards.

However, what we’ve found over years of coaching is that our advice is nearly always rooted in these five key eating habits.

How closely the client must follow the plan depends on the client’s starting point and goal.

For example, a client who wants to get from 30% to 20% body fat will have a much ‘looser’ plan than a client looking to get from 12% to 8%, where a much tighter and more detailed plan must be accounted for.

Following these five habits, regardless of the goal won’t see you go far wrong and will keep you staying toned and healthy forever.

 

1. Eat every 3-4 hours

Whilst exact eating times are not so important, the key here is making sure you’re eating regular meals every day. Every 3-4 hours will generally work out to be 3-5 meals and snacks a day.

This habit is important in maintaining blood sugar levels, whilst also helping reduce food cravings and hunger. Staying satiated is absolutely essential for fat loss.

Eating way too little with large gaps in between meal times is a recipe for disaster, and opens up an ‘accidental’ binge waiting to happen. This first habit will prevent this.

 

2. Make sure every meal consists of lean protein

One of the most uncompromising rules we have with our personal training clients in Finchley is that every meal must contain a source of protein.

For the majority of clients who come to see us, their protein consumption is almost always inadequate.

Read More: Why Consuming Protein Helps You Lose Fat

If body composition changes in your physique are what you’re after, you must follow this habit. A simple rule to follow: For men, aim for 25-35g per meal, which is around 150g of cooked chicken breast. For women, aim for 20-30g per meal.

 

3. Eating vegetables with every meal

Everyone knows that eating vegetables is important, but why?

Here are a few main reasons:

1. Packed with vitamins and minerals

No supplement can replace real food. Eating a range of different vegetables is still best for making sure your vitamin and mineral requirements are met. It will also help with detoxification and suppression of inflammation around the body. So eating more vegetables will help you look younger.

2. Improves digestion

Vegetables (especially green vegetables such as broccoli) are typically high in water and fibre, which will help you keep it ‘regular’. This is more important if somebody is following a low-carbohydrate or low-calorie diet.

3. It keeps you feeling satiated

Satiety is something we keep mentioning. A sustainable diet is something you can see yourself doing a year from now. Staying satiated is the easiest way to stick to this, as it keeps you feeling fuller, prevents cravings and prevents any ‘outbreak binges’.

Vegetables provide this through their natural fibre content and overall high water content.

A guide to follow with vegetables is to make sure it covers at least a third of a plate with meals. If you’re on a low carbohydrate diet, increase this to half a plate of veg.

 

4. Consume Healthy Fats Daily

When comparing all the macronutrients, fats in our diets have got the worst reputation. It’s been linked to growing numbers of obesity, high cholesterol and heart disease.

While dispelling these myths goes beyond the length of this article, numerous studies have shown us that fat isn’t the bad guy to avoid.

If you want to live a balanced, leaner lifestyle, fats are essential nutrients for the body.

And here’s why:

1. Healthy fat plays an essential role in absorbing fat-soluble vitamins through the intestines. If you want the goodness from those veggies, you need fat in your diet.

2. Fat is needed to maintain cell membrane health. These surround every cell in the body, and their health of them is critically important in managing inflammation and metabolism.

3. Fat is essential in balancing hormones.

4. Fat is a great source of energy, especially on low-carb diets.

So What Are ‘Healthy Fats’?

It’s important to include a range of fats in your diet. Mono fats can be olive oil, avocado, and nuts as well as polyunsaturated fats; fish oil, and seeds, as these fats each, have their own role to play in the body. To make things simpler, add a source of these healthy fats a couple of times a day into your diet.

What we advise you to avoid are trans-fats in your diet, which are manufactured fats which we recommend avoiding as are strongly associated with a number of health complications.

 

5. Make sure the majority of carbohydrates are consumed around exercise.

Just like fats don’t make you fat, carbs aren’t evil either. While not an essential nutrient in the body, there are some clear metabolic benefits to eating carbs:

1. Fuels your workouts

Keeping some carbohydrates around your training times can boost performance, recovery and strength.

2. Increased muscle

After exercise, protein breakdown is at its highest level. Providing carbohydrates at this stage provides glycogen replenishment when you’re most sensitive. While some dismiss the window of opportunity that training provides, our experience with thousands of clients has been evident to us that consuming some carbohydrates post-workout can really help with building muscle tissue and losing fat.

3. There are two times in the day when we prefer to add carbohydrates to our meals or snacks: after training and some before bed. Put simply, carbs at night can help relax the body and improve the quality of sleep.

Good carbohydrate choices can include 1-2 cups of basmati rice, sweet potatoes, new potatoes or oats.

Meal plans, macronutrient targets and strict diet can have their time and place. When you really need to dial things are useful tools in creating radical body transformations.

However, to be able to keep your physique long-term, and make eating sustainable, we need to ingrain good and sustainable habits.

The five habits we’ve written in this article are what we find to mainly focus on habits to master in staying lean and healthy forever.

If you want to get expert training with nutrition planning to get you in the best shape of your life, enquire below and see how Lean Body Training can help achieve more learn more

 

 

Maintaining a busy social life can be tough when you’re trying to get on track with your health and fitness plan.

There are tempting treats, alcohol and tasty desserts, which can sometimes throw us off track and keep us from regularly going to the gym. This can be a very conflicting situation to be caught in, we know because we’ve been there too! So how can you enjoy your social life and at the same time still reach your fitness goals?

So here are our favourite ways to help those get a balance with their health, fitness and social life.

 

1. Double up on the weeks when you can

There will be weeks when everything works out and it becomes easier to remain consistent with nutrition and training. It could be weeks where your friends are busy, kids are occupied, or work is quiet, therefore distractions are low and can be a time to focus more on yourself. Double down on weeks like this.

Other weeks, it’s a family member’s wedding and your boss has left a load of work for you to complete by Monday. Some weeks just maintenance and keeping things going is better than unrealistically trying to achieve something and failing. Maintenance is not a step backwards!

 

2. Environment always trumps will-power

We have a limited time and amount of willpower. Sometimes you can have more, sometimes you can have less.

Regardless, at some point, your willpower and motivation will run out, therefore it’s important to put yourself in surroundings which are most helpful with your goals. This way your willpower isn’t being highly tested the whole day.

Don’t be afraid to ask your family and friends for support in your dietary choices. The people surrounding us greatly impact our decisions and thought processes, whether we like it or not. If you try to isolate yourself in your journey, it’s more likely that you will fail to sustain that training regime long-term.

 

3. Make sure the journey is not too pressurising

This is probably one of the most valuable things to go into a dieting phase with.

A lot of people head into a new fitness journey with the false impression that they have to continuously progress. The reality is that you probably don’t need to put that much demand on yourself. Have an idea of phases when you’re going to push yourself through with realistic timelines and others when you’re going to maintain.

For example, we know how important daily movement is going to help change our body shape. Is it going to be easier to get higher daily steps when the days are longer and warmer compared to the winter? Absolutely! Trying to achieve the same in winter is going to be a tougher target to reach.

It sounds easy but the reality of these little things adding up either ensures success or a struggle for many.

So coming into this Spring ask yourself these things:

  1. What would a good week look like to be able to push hard?
  2. Who have I got around me to support me in my journey?
  3. What times a year will I just focus on maintenance?

If you feel you need a little bit more guidance to achieve your health and fitness goals in 2023, then book your FREE personal training consultation with an expert Lean Body Training coach today.

 

 

Some people get to a stage or a ‘wake-up call’ where their health is the reason they’ve decided they need to make a change.
 
Others may have lost control over time and put on more body fat than they are comfortable with.
 
They’ve gone past the point where a month of full-on training will pull them back.
 
They know that they will have to fully change their lifestyle if they want what’s best for themselves and those closest to them.
 
Many of those reading this article may be way off and ready to make any sort of change.
 
You say you want to start exercising and eating right, but you never really commit to making changes.
 
There’s also the type of person who makes one change in their lifestyle, like taking out a gym membership, joining a Bootcamp, signing up for a faddy diet, some even finding a personal trainer who will provide them with workouts, but not really change them or get results!
 
These routes are easier, they just involve turning up, doing the work and going home.
 
They’re also the routes that after some slight changes initially, leave people wondering why they have hardly anything to show for 2 months down the line and eventually slide back into their old ways.
 
People who change long term like many of our clients follow their tailored food plan without having to over-restrict their food choices which allows them to stay in shape, live a healthy life, enjoy certain treats and train hard with plan and structure.
 
Those who go on a ‘diet’ realize it comes to an end at some point, if you don’t put any habits in place, you’ll just drop straight back into your old eating patterns.
 
Why am I telling you this?
 
With well over 10 years of experience, I can safely say that I’ve consulted with nearly every type of person you can imagine. I know the difference between someone that says they want to change and those who actually make it part of their lifestyle and actually get the job done!
 
I wanted to write some points below as to why many struggles to make the change and what you can start doing about it:

1. The emotional or physical pain

that people are experiencing from being overweight and out of shape, just isn’t enough for them at that point in time to do anything about it.
 
What I mean is that most people have not reached a point where being out of shape or unhealthy is affecting their life.

2. The reward isn’t really enough for you. 

By this I mean the connection between being in shape, feeling great and the health benefits it brings.
 
If you start a training programme just because someone else pushed you to, or it’s something you think you should just do, you’ll soon see yourself falling off the wagon.
 
The reward for some people may be completing an event, simply achieving a specific weight goal, or sculpting a physique they haven’t had in years.

3. There is no space made in your life to change.

​​Most people say they want to get started and sound like a good idea but there’s no time for them to add in the work that’s needed to change.
 
Part of change involves moving things around if necessary and making space. Remember, the clocks ticking you have one body – look after it.

4. The people you spend most of your time with are in the same shape as you, this puts you in a comfort zone.

Try challenging yourself by spending time with more people who are in shape and placing their health up high on their list of priorities. “Success breeds success” is a great saying, passed around in sports and other areas.
 
If you surround yourself with others who are doing well or striving for something, it rubs off on you and massively increases your chances of achieving your goals.
 
By doing this do you think you’ll be more likely to achieve your fitness goals?
 
Now just before I wrap up, have a read through some of these questions and see what you come up with.
 
1. Do you look in the mirror with your top off and are disappointed with the way your body looks?
 
2. If you are unhappy with how it looks, do you acknowledge that the way you look is a result of poor eating choices and an unhealthy lifestyle?
 
3. Would you be prepared to start changing the food that’s in your kitchen in order to get a result?
 
4. Are you prepared to prepare your meals ahead of time or then plan ahead of time to encourage better food choices?
 
5. Are you prepared to train at least 2-3 times per week consistently at a level of intensity?
 
6. Are you prepared to make an effort to get 7 hours of restful sleep each night?
 
Whilst these are six very simple questions, you can asses where you are in relation to being ready to change.
 
You may be thinking that some of the questions are quite harsh, but those that don’t follow even the basics are the ones always on a hamster wheel in search of results.
 
See how that goes for over a week, I bet you feel better by the end of it.
 
 
Coach Paul

 

Afraid there is no such thing as ‘fattening foods’

However, there are not any truly ‘fattening’ foods either.

There are however foods that are more nutritionally dense and support our body’s recovery and health better than others. Some foods keep us feeling fuller than others, but no one food alone will make us fat – unless we eat too much of them.

For example, carbohydrates do not directly make you fat. Fats do not make you fat, and sugar alone does not make you fat, within a calorie surplus.

For a type of food to be fattening, it would have to be enough to cause our body to store fat. This is not to say that food choices are irrelevant, it simply highlights that our calorie ratio is the most important factor for fat loss success.

With that in mind, we recommend our clients choose foods and mealtime schedules that support their goals and help them stay adherent over the long term.

This means focusing on eating a whole variety of whole foods, ensuring plenty of lean protein, healthy fats and a range of vegetables.

These types of foods will make sure your body is getting all the nutrients it needs to operate efficiently and support internal health and fat loss goals.

So instead of worrying about ‘fat loss foods” make sure you tick all the important boxes to achieve your fitness goal:

1. Finding your calorie deficit and sticking to it over a sustained period of time

2. Nutrient-dense natural foods

3. Increasing daily movement

4. Resistance training

5. Manage stress and aim for quality sleep

For more health and fitness-related myths, click here.

 

Coach Paul,

 

Do you ever experience hunger cravings? We can assure you that food cravings are not out of the ordinary! In fact, we’d say the majority of our clients and even us coaches have our vices! Whether it’s sweets, chocolate or greasy fast food, we believe the key to tackling cravings is to acknowledge, accept and manage them.

We hope to give you some answers and actionable measures in this article to what we believe is key to tackling food cravings throughout the day.

1. Keep on top of the crave

This can be surprising, but rather than just saying fight the craving, usually we suggest first accepting it. If you rely on willpower alone to get you through, then you may fall short and ultimately feel bad for not keeping to it.

Instead, we recommend resisting the craving for just 30 minutes. Don’t immediately give in to your craving, but agree that you will have it for a small amount of time.

Regardless, you’ve removed the sense of failure that would come from giving in. Plus 50% of the time, the feeling will pass and you can carry on!

2. Understand your hunger

Once accepting that hunger and cravings are something of the norm, it’s then worth recognising whether it is really genuine hunger in the first place. Here’s what it could also be:

  • Dehydration will cause signals to the brain that – including false hunger – something to ask yourself, are you drinking enough?
  • Poor functioning and lack of quality sleep will influence blood sugar regulation – are you getting enough quality sleep?
  • Good quality nutrition with lean protein intake is ideal when it comes to feeling satiated – are you eating enough lean proteins?

Why Consuming Protein Helps You Lose Fat

3. Feelings of restriction in your diet

A common mistake we see people make when trying to lose weight is removing their favourite foods from their diet. There’s a perception that these more desirable foods “will make you fat”.

This couldn’t be further from the truth! Anything that helps you remain consistent with your new eating habits is a keeper, not a drawback.

For most people, we see greater success when there is daily/ weekly food included in their programmed eating plan. For some, this could just be 2 squares of chocolate daily, for others it’s a weekly pizza.

If you implement some of the steps in this article, you should see huge improvements in the management of your cravings thus helping you to reach your physique goals, but making it all a little easier to manage.

Do you feel you need extra guidance with your nutrition to help you reach your goals? Why not consider group coaching with our personal training team? Click HERE to apply for small group coaching and to book your FREE consultation

 

‘Why am I exercising but still not losing weight?’

When you’ve joined a gym, lost a couple of kgs at first, but now your weight won’t budge. This can be incredibly frustrating.

While this might sound counter-intuitive, exercise doesn’t always equal weight loss.

Here are three things you need to ask yourself…

Are you really in a calorie deficit?

 To lose weight, you need to create a calorie deficit consistently over some time. Ultimately, burn more calories than you’re consuming over a long enough time, and you will lose weight.

Burning calories when you exercise must automatically lead to losing weight, right? Not necessarily! Unless you are maintaining that all-important deficit in your food intake. This is why tracking your meals in a food tracking system or diary and monitoring your daily activity levels (whether that be your step count or other daily movement activities) can be useful tools to highlight any areas which might be holding you back.

Are you moving very little outside of the gym?

The main driver of weight loss is NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis). It is the energy used in any activity that does not include formal exercise – walking the dog, cleaning the house, dancing.

Your NEAT can account for anything up to 50% of your daily energy expenditure if you’re active throughout the day.

Studies show that when people start an exercise programme, their NEAT can reduce, lower energy expenditure and eliminate their calorie deficit.

This is why we advise all clients to aim for 10,000 steps per day consistently to keep their NEAT high. You can track this simply with a pedometer, fitness watch or smartphone app to track your step count each day. Don’t worry if you don’t get anywhere near 10,000 to begin with, for example, aim for 7,000, or 8,000 and move up to 10,000.

6 Bad Habits That Kill Your Metabolism

Are you eating more without knowing?

Most people will overestimate the number of calories they burn from exercise while underestimating the number of calories they’re consuming day to day.

It’s common for people to think ‘I am exercising, so I should be able to eat more or treat myself. But the extra calories can often outstrip the calories burned from the gym.

Sometimes it can be imperceptible. Slight increases in hunger may mean an extra biscuit here and there or snacking after dinner. Again extra calories add up and can impact your weight loss attempts.

This is why we advise clients to track their food intake. Whether it’s logging their calories or monitoring portion sizes, having an honest and objective view can prevent unconscious overeating.

Key Takeaway:

Exercise is an important component of weight loss. Progressive weight training and increasing your daily energy expenditure is a big part of what we do at Lean Body Training to help people achieve transformation results.

But exercise isn’t the magic bullet for weight loss on its own.

Combining effective diet and training strategies is going to be the most effective and sustainable way of losing the weight you want and keeping it off.

 

Bad habits ingrained over time can often prove tough to break and when quitting outright doesn’t work, it might be necessary to bring in a new strategy. Replacing bad habits with positive ones can help to rewire your thinking and escape negative loops so as to develop healthy routines instead – here are some examples of this method in practice.

Diet

Cutting out junk food from your diet can be a tough challenge, especially if you’re in the habit of snacking. One method for overcoming poor eating is to simply outweigh the bad with the good – two items of fruit for every sugary snack, for example, will help you to develop the taste for nutrition you need to eradicate bingeables entirely. Great examples of ‘good snacks’ are seeds, nuts, fruit, edamame beans and snap peas.

Career

For many of us, the draining thing about our professional lives isn’t the quantity of work but the quality of it. You can utilize replacement strategies within your career by offsetting every task you don’t enjoy with a task spent on something you’re passionate about (or getting closer to doing something you love for a living). For example, in the breaks between tasks, you could try using an online PDF editor to spruce up your resume – simply upload the file online to make changes, then download and share.

Exercise

If you’re out of shape, exercise can feel doubly difficult but the important rule to bear in mind is that every little helps. If you’ve spent an hour sitting down, try to counterbalance this inactivity with brief, effectual exercises – you could carry out five quick pushups every time you stand up from a seated position, for example, or try jumping jacks during advert breaks. Eventually, these small workouts can evolve into more ambitious goals.

Clutter

When you’re working from home or spending extended periods of time indoors, it’s important to cultivate a positive, stress-free environment – after all, a clean, decluttered home leads to a clean, decluttered mind. If you’re in the habit of leaving things out, take gradual action by tidying an item away every time you stand up – this bit-by-bit process will help you to establish a healing and healthy atmosphere at home.

Posture

We rarely think about the way we sit or stand but, considering so much of our lives are spent in sedentary positions, it’s important to address posture in an attentive manner. Simply replacing your chair with one that is more conducive to spinal health is a great start or you could try standing as you work with an adjustable desk.

 

When it comes to breaking bad habits, often quitting simply isn’t enough. By using replacement tactics, you’ll not only fill the hole left by leaving your old routine, but you’ll also begin to progress towards a healthier new lifestyle entirely.

 

Lean Body is a progressive fat loss plan that is focused on dropping your body fat whilst increasing your overall strength. Training up to three sessions per week following a comprehensive training system, whilst allowing you to work at the level that’s right for you. Learn more at: www.leanbodyuk.com