Don’t worry, you’re not the first person who’s asked this question. Healthy eating is the first step in your weight loss journey. You’ll be able to see improvements in your body composition right from the beginning as your blood sugar level becomes more balanced and you feel less bloated and more energized.

Ok, but how do I achieve these results?

Space out your meals. Leave a 3-5 hour window between meals as your digestive system needs time and to metabolize your food. After we eat, the enzymes in our digestive system break proteins down into amino acids, fats into fatty acids and carbohydrates into simple sugars that can be used as energy by the body. Energy not consumed by the body is stored in body tissues, especially liver, muscles or stored as body fat. This energy is measured in calories. How our body uses those calories depends on our metabolism, physical training and eating habits.

I’m sure you’ve heard lots of conflicting weight loss myths, so many in fact, that you now don’t know what to believe in. For me, the most important thing is the quantity and the modality of cooking. Even what’s healthy becomes unhealthy in big quantities.

How can you regulate your intake of calories?

If you want to know exactly how much you’ve eaten during the day, you can count your daily caloric intake. But with such a busy lifestyle, not everyone has the time to count calories every day.

The best way to start is to pay attention to your meal size.

Let’s take for example my lunch box.

I have here a mixture of chicken breast and pork (my local food market ran out of chicken after the lunch run!!)  with salad leaves and tomatoes, few mushrooms and a handful of bulgur.

Is this unhealthy? Will this jeopardize my weight loss journey?

Maybe if I had added the mashed potatoes, lentils, fried onion, the homemade sauce made with olive oil and cream, ketchup or the barbecue sauce on offer, but I said no to all these extra options. To play it safe, I also asked for just half of the portion of bulgur.

I noticed that all the ingredients in my lunchbox were a little bit oily. That means my meal was certainly high in fat and high in calories. I’m sure my client Vicky will tell me how many calories this meal has!! So, for my next meal, I’ll choose something lighter, some fish and a veggie salad (cucumber and a big tomato from my favourite Turkish shop) to even out my calorie intake.

Consistency is the key

One of my biggest pieces of advice is to try and stay consistent. You’re not doing this for a week or a month, you’re not doing this for anyone else, except you, because you love yourself and because you want to stay healthy for a lifetime! Sustainability is going to be your biggest friend when trying to lose weight, but remember you want to keep it off too!

As someone with qualifications in nutrition, my advice would be to follow these steps and add a few training sessions a week to your healthy meals and I’m sure you’ll get the results you want. Don’t forget I’m here to offer you the support you’re looking for from professional adviser!