​Spoiler alert: Yes, it’s possible! (Gasp.)
 
Humans were changing their body size long before calories and calorie-tracking apps existed.
 
Tracking calories and macros can be a very successful approach to losing fat, gaining muscle, or maintaining your weight. In fact, it’s the method I’ve had the greatest success with in my own bodybuilding journey, and I employ it with many clients.
 
However, it isn’t for everyone.
 
You can never track calories or macros, and still get great results. So, if you’ve tried it and it just isn’t for you, why not have a crack at one of the three fat loss methods in this article?
 
Fair warning: Not a single one of them involves cutting out entire food groups, your favourite treats, or any joy from your life!

​What does healthy eating mean to you?
 
Since the first time I can remember having thoughts about food until after I became a training and nutrition coach, healthy eating to me meant losing weight.
 
In my head, if someone had weight to lose, they’d do that by eating healthier. If someone was already slim, it was because they already ate healthy.
 
However, you can be at a relatively low weight without eating healthy, and you can also be at a relatively higher weight whilst having a very healthy diet.
 
What’s more – and most importantly – health isn’t limited to weight, and healthy eating influences far more aspects of wellness than just your body size.
 
So, how can you improve your diet if you don’t want to change your weight? I’ve got you!
 
Each of the nine tips in this article poses a challenge to help you form a new eating habit.
 
These aren’t meant to be hard and fast rules, but rather starting points to give you a specific target to shoot for. Goal specificity is key to tracking your progress, and progress is key to success.
 
Without further ado, let’s dig in (pun obviously intended).

When you’re trying to diet, your period can be a bitch. Am I right?
 
You start the diet, you do really well for a couple of weeks and lose a pound or two, then that time of the month comes… and, all of a sudden, you find yourself half-way through your cookie jar in ten minutes.
 
Maybe you’ve even read my tips on how to control your food cravings, but the allure of that chocolate box is simply irresistible during your period.
 
Are you doomed to never get into shape?
 
Hell no.
 
In fact, you can literally have your cake and eat it: By understanding more about your menstrual cycle, you can lose fat and have chocolate, too.
 
Want to learn how? Keep reading.

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