​Cravings can throw a spanner in the works of the best planned fat loss diet. After all, whoever craves celery sticks?
 
It’s much more common to yearn for cookies, brownies, cupcakes, chips, pizza, and other not-so-nutritious food that packs a caloric punch.
 
So what can you do when you get the irresistible urge to reach for the cookie jar?
 
Let’s talk about not only one, but five potential solutions to your craving situation.

​Around this time last year, I released an article on how to manage your diet over the holidays, with options if you count calories and if you who don’t, so you can click on the link if you are looking for some tips on budgeting your calories or food portions.
 
Today, I want to delve into some mindset tips that will help you enjoy this time with less guilt and without having to give up on either your fitness goals or the holiday mood.
 
So I’m going to cover:

• How to stick to your goals and have fun without guilt
• How to get friends and family on board with your goals

 
Without further ado…

You know that you need a caloric deficit to lose fat and you have done the math to work out your starting calories.
 
Great stuff.
 
Fast forward a few weeks: You’ve been dieting hardcore and you’ve seen some losses… but now it looks like you’ve hit a plateau.
 
Well then, time to lower calories.
 
Wait a second! Is this really your best option?
 
It’s true: When fat loss plateaus, increasing the calories you burn or reducing the calories you eat will help you kickstart the process again.
 
However, opting to lower calories as soon as the weight on the scale stops moving might be overkill. So, in this article, I’m going to cover:
 

• What is a plateau?
• What tweaks can you make to get un-stuck before you lower calories? 

 
More often than not, these tweaks will help my clients see a change without touching their food.
 
So strap in and let’s get into it.

Regular readers of this blog will already know that fat loss requires a caloric deficit.
 
In most cases, if you are not seeing any fat loss, the reason is that you are not in a deficit. And yet, what if you have been dieting for some time and you have seen results, but they have just stopped coming?
 
Maybe the solution is not to diet harder, lower calories, and increase activity levels, even though this can sometimes be a viable strategy to get out of a plateau.
 
Maybe this time the solution is – gasp! – to take a break from the diet and enter a maintenance phase. Counterintuitive much? Hear me out.
 
In this article, I will do my best to cover:
 

• What maintenance is
• Why it is so important and when to do it
• Who can benefit the most from a maintenance phase

​A lot of us pursue fat loss at some point in our fitness journey.
 
But what is body fat and what is it for?
 
Where does it come from?
 
And how do we lose it?
 
This article is all about understanding the answers to these questions.