What if you don't want to lose weight?

A lot of my posts have been focused on losing weight and more specifically about losing body fat. I know that there are lots of you out there who don't want or need to lose body weight but are also honest enough to admit to yourselves that your diet is poor and you want ot eat more healhily whilst maintaining or even gaining body weight. There is a very big difference between a maintenance eating plan and a dietary regime that is designed to improve bulk.

I need to be really clear here, just because someone is as skinny as a rake and has clear skin and long shiny hair does not make them necessarily healthy. They may have high blood pressure and high cholesterol to mention just a couple and someones outside appearance does not tell you this. As a nation I think we all need to look closely at our diets, myself included.

We all know the government guidelines for 5 fruit and vegetable portions a day but how many of us actually do it? How many of us actually know what a portion equates to? Do you always think in terms of good or bad foods and does this carry forward to your meals so you actually end up having a good or bad day food wise?

Making the choice to eat healhily is a great choice to make but you need to recognise that if your diet has been poor for some time then it may well be a struggle to begin with. If you eat a lot of processed foods and chocolate, cakes and crisps then your body will have become accustomed to those flavours, the added sugars, salts and numerous e numbers. If you then decide that you are going to cut all those out you WILL miss them and this is only natural and to be expected.

Your taste buds will change and adapt and it will take around 6 weeks for this change to occur. This will not completely stop the cravings as a lot of our cravings are psychological so if you see other people eating chocolate you may well feel left out in some way. You need to remind yourself why you are choosing not to eat that food. Now, in this case it isn't because you want to lose weight, you want to improve your health - what better reason is there than that?

Maing the choice to eat healthily is one of the best things that you can do for your body, closely followed by introducing exercise, as if you didn't know! However, these are not easy choices and you must recognise that if your diet has been poor for most of your life then it may well seem like an uphill battle to begin with but if you persevere the results will speak for themselves.

When you want something sweet make sure you always have some berries in the fridge, they are easy to eat and give you that satisfying extra sugar lift but as an additional free bonus they are packed full of antioxidants that the body just loves! If you love savoury snacks and pastries then have breadsticks or flavoured rye cripsbreads in your cupboards to snack on. I personally LOVE the tomato and basil ryvita, spread a little red pepper huumus and sliced red pepper on top - yum!

Maybe you are sat there reading this and thinking 'yeah well that is fine for her to say, she is a trainer but what about us?'. Well, I am no different to you. I know what I should be eating but that doesn't mean that I always do it and lately but diet has been seriously off kilter for one reason and another. The only advantage that I have on you guys is that I have nutritional qualifications that help me to understand about food and the effect it has on my body. However, if this is something that interests you I am more than happy to do consulatations for individuals or small groups or perhaps you just want to a little of your own research, there are hundreds of execellent nutrition books out there, just do a little research before buying to make sure that is it right for you. Some are very much geared towards the nutrition student and can get very technical!

Have a fantastic week and stay healthy and fit!