At this time of year lots of people are going on a new diet and trying a new fitness regime. There are so many to choose from, how do you know which one works and which are short term fixes?

Personally, I don’t like the term diet as it signifies something that you are going to do for a short period of time. If you are looking to improve your body and health long term then you have to embark on a lifestyle change.

Following a shake plan or a calorie-reduced diet will definitely help you lose weight short term but for the long term I can pretty much guarantee you won’t keep the weight off and will go back into your old eating habits. It’s more than likely that you will regain the weight – and probably more.

Don’t focus on weighing scales. I regularly state “scales are for fish” because, if you’re looking to make changes long term you need to focus on inch/fat loss.

This will show you that you’re losing body fat and not just weight. If you lose a lot of weight quickly it could be that you’re losing muscle mass. And losing muscle mass will actually make it harder to lose body fat as the less you have the slower your metabolic rate will be.

This means that whether you’re sedentary or active, you will burn less calories throughout the day.

Here are three tips you need to follow to make some serious long term changes to your body:

1. Cut out sugar for a minimum of 14 days. Sugar is known to be as addictive as cocaine. You’ll find sugar in nearly all processed foods, not just in the obvious cakes, biscuits or sweets but in ready meals, low fat products, sauces... the list is endless. It will be tough in the first few days but after about seven to 14 days your cravings will decrease and maybe even disappear completely depending on how much sugar is in your diet at the moment.

When you ditch sugar it will help level out your hormones which means you will not only lose body fat short term but long term as well, as long as you keep it limited.

2. Fat doesn’t make you fat. Going on a low-fat diet is one of the worse things you can do, you need fat to burn fat but it has to be the right type – monounsaturated fats, polyunsaturated fats, and omega 3s. You can get all these from “real” food (non processed.) Great sources are oily fish, avocados and olive oil – these fats are also essential for physical and emotional health. The fats to avoid are saturated fats and trans fats found in a lot of processed foods.

Eating low fat products often means they’ve been substituted with something to make them taste better. This something is more than likely sugar or a sugar equivalent (sweeteners etc) – both will mess with your hormones so won’t help in your fat loss/health mission.

3. Start exercising. Exercising is so important for you both physically and emotionally. But exercise alone won’t change your health and body. The correct combination, which many people don’t realise, is that it’s 70 to 80 per cent diet and 20 to 30 per cent exercise.

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