​Are you spending hours on MyFitnessPal, painstakingly adding in each meal ingredient by ingredient, fighting the database to find the right entries in a sea of green ticks?
 
Is this driving you insane?
 
Then you absolutely need to read this article.
 
It’s based on a presentation I recently created for my clients’ Education Library, and it covers five easy hacks to complete your food log in five to ten minutes per day. Yes, it’s possible.
 
Ready to stop wasting time that could be better spent making gains?
 
Then smash that “Read More” button.

​Worried about ruining your fat loss progress during the summer holidays?
 
This is the article for you.
 
First of all, being nervous is a good thing:

1. It shows that you really care about the hard work you’ve done so far.
2. It also means that said hard work was actually worth your time, because you got good enough results that you’re committed to keeping them.

 
Second of all, being nervous is completely normal.
 
You’re going away from home, maybe somewhere you’ve never been before.
 
Your routine is going to be all over the place.
 
The healthy habits you’ve carefully crafted for months will need a radical change.
 
It’s OK to feel a little overwhelmed.
 
Fortunately, maintaining your fitness habits is far from impossible… if you treasure the five steps I’ll cover in this article.
 
This approach is based on my recommendations to my own clients, who end up not only maintaining their results like pros, but also having a smashing time. 
 
Let’s get right into Step 1.

​If you’re struggling to balance your diet with your social life, you need to read this.
 
I’m going to cover the five steps I coach my clients through in order to navigate fat loss and social events effectively.
 
The reason why a lot of people fail and give up on their diet is that they try to be unrealistically strict, avoiding all social events and eating out of Tupperware forever. This isn’t my approach.
 
Whilst you need discipline, you also need a certain degree of flexibility.
 
This article is going to teach you the appropriate balance between the two.
 
Let’s get stuck in.

All the diets that work, have one characteristic in common: a calorie deficit.
 
By definition, a calorie deficit is a state in which you’re eating fewer calories than you’re expending to keep your body alive, go about your daily activities, and exercise. This is how you can lose body fat over time.
 
Once you achieve your fat loss goal and want to maintain your weight, then you don’t need to stay in a deficit. You now need to achieve calorie balance, or a state in which your calorie intake (food) matches your output (survival, daily activities, and exercise).
 
To accomplish this, you need to increase the amount of calories you’re eating. Hurray!
 
However, if you increase them too much, you can accidentally get into a calorie surplus, which is the opposite of a deficit and will cause fat gain.
 
So by how much should you increase your calories without regaining weight?
 
In this article, I’m going to teach you a three-step method to calculate your maintenance calories for when you’re done with your diet, or when you want to take a temporary break from it.
 
I take this approach with myself and all my clients to ensure they not only drop fat, but also maintain those hard-earned results.

As a teenager with a restrictive eating disorder, I used to love and hate the winter holidays: I enjoyed the joyful atmosphere and – most of all – the gifts, but I was also terrified of eating too much and not exercising enough. Sound familiar?
 
In my years of coaching, I’ve helped my clients overcome their own holiday anxiety. With this article, I’m going to give you three methods that can help you do the same:
 

• The “Fucking Relax” Method
• The Non-Negotiables Method 
• The Calorie-Tracking Method

 
Each method is devised to suit one of three of the more common scenarios I’ve come across so far:
 
1. You work super hard on your fitness goals for months and swear to yourself you won’t stray even once over the winter holidays.

However, if you happen to eat a single unplanned mince pie, all hell breaks loose: you panic, think, “Fuck it,” and find yourself losing control over food more often than you’d like to until January.

2. On the other hand, maybe you’re too afraid to eat anything “unplanned”.

As a result, you maintain your physique… but you’re also watching your friends and family drinking wine and eating dessert, wondering why you can’t sit back and relax like everybody else.

3. Maybe you don’t quite experience either of the extremes I’ve just described, but you’ve never had a holiday where you felt confident that you were doing your best to both enjoy the celebrations and continue making progress towards your fitness goals. 
​
I lived Scenario 2 for at least six winters before I realised that it doesn’t have to be this way.
 
You can eat a mince pie or two without overdoing it every single day.
 
You can maintain your physique without restricting your diet to three “healthy” foods all the time.
 
Finally, you can strike the balance between staying on track and enjoying a slice of Panettone.
 
Read on to find the method that can work best for you.