6 top tips when starting your diet

Emma Storey-Gordon
2 min readJul 14, 2021

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I have been a personal trainer for 10 years and I’ve worked with 1,000’s of people to help them lose weight and keep it off.

Here are my top tips when starting out:

  • Track your intake- this gives you a starting point, an awareness of calories in food and makes you realise how much mind less snacking you do. You’ll also end up eating less purely by tracking without even consciously doing it. If you don’t want to track after that then don’t — I personally have never enjoyed that way of dieting so don’t do it and I get on just fine..
  • Don’t add ‘calories burned’: Chances are it will add on too many calories and you won’t lose any weight despite sticking to the plan and then you’ll feel lost and like giving up. Giving up is the surest way not to get results.
  • Your body knows: Remember that your body is a better representation of your energy balance over time than what my fitness pal , your Apple Watch or your Fitbit. If you’re not seeing progress despite being consistent then you need to change what you are doing.
  • Lift weights.. If you’re dieting you want to preserve as much lean muscle as possible and stimulating that muscle by lifting weights is like telling the body we are using this muscle tissue.. don’t break it down for energy, thanks.
    You will not get bulky.. even if you try your hardest you’ll struggle to build too much muscle.. trust me I have been trying for years.
  • Don’t set unrealistic goals.. Most of us don’t need to exercise more than 3x a week. You can, of course, do more if you enjoy it. Overwhelming yourself with over restrictive dieting and a ridiculous exercise regime won’t make progress any faster because you are unlikely to stick to it long enough to get results. Your impatience is (ironically) making the process take longer. Create a routine that is realistic long term if you want long term results.
  • Do not underestimate the importance of activity (aka NEAT). You can estimate this by tracking your steps.. 10k steps is a good initial aim for you. Change your lifestyle where you can to add extra activity to your daily life.

    A lot of people leave this side of the energy equation out- they only focus on energy in ie diet and don’t measure energy expenditure ie steps. Utilise both for optimal fat loss

Finally if you need any help shoot me a message. I am exceptionally friendly.

Message me here

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Emma Storey-Gordon

I am a business owner, exercise & nutrition geek, personal trainer and life long learner. I write to think and I hope it sparks your brain too