The arrival of the New Year is a time to refocus and set some goals for the year ahead.

Whether these goals are to eat healthier, reduce your alcohol intake, exercise more, lose weight, or simply to improve your health and well-being, then good for you!

You’ve made a really positive step forward – you’ve identified the need for a change that is sure to benefit you. It’s a reality that some goals and targets (especially New Year resolutions) are often not maintained.

One of the reasons for this is that goals may not be specific enough. They may also be unrealistic. Initially, you are extremely enthusiastic and start off well, but you quickly realise that you may have bitten off more than you can chew.

So, what’s the answer to meeting your New Year goals?

When I work with clients, I find a great approach to supporting clients with setting goals is to set SMART goals. (For the SMART mnemonic read Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-related)

There are two key differences between setting conventional goals and setting SMART goals:

1. SMART goals are specific
2. SMART goals are achievable and realistic

Let’s look at two examples . . .

A goal: I want to reduce my alcohol intake.

SMART Goal: I want to reduce my alcohol intake – and I will do this by reducing my total alcohol units per week from 8 units to 4 units by avoiding drinking during the week.

A Goal:I want to exercise more.

SMART Goal: I want to exercise more – and I will do this by joining a running club and running with them on a Wednesday every week.

A Goal: I want to eat healthier.

SMART Goal: I want to eat healthier – and I will do this, firstly, by preparing breakfast (e.g. overnight oats) the night before to take into work on a Monday, Wednesday and Thursday.

How to become an achiever.

Once you have achieved your initial SMART goal, you will feel a fantastic sense of achievement.

Reward yourself with a treat you promised yourself at the start of the process – e.g. a new pair of trainers or a well-earned massage.

SMART goals may appear quite small initially, but once achieved you can go on and set more, gradually building upon your achievements with a very smug look on your face!

Have a very happy and healthy New year!

It’s so hard these days to find sensible evidence-based advice on how best to control your weight! The internet and social media are filled with articles on the next best celeb diet from the Ketogenic diet to the metabolic diet, the low carb diet, macrobiotic diet, liquid only diet and everything in between!

So, what is the key to successfully managing your weight when your training? Read on for some evidence-based Sports Dietitian Tips for long-term sustainable weight loss.

1.Fight the Fads

The first step to successful weight loss is to avoid faddy diets and restrictive eating. It’s true these diets will result in weight loss, but these effects can be short-lived. These diets also often eliminate whole foods groups which can result in nutritional deficiencies, affect your energy levels, increase the risk of injury and affect your health and immunity.

2. Be Sensible

The key is if we are sensible we can improve our body composition reduce body fat and manage our weight providing we get one principle right! To alter our body weight and body fat, we have to think about Energy Balance!

What’s this? In summary – if the amount of Energy or Calories you consume exceeds or is greater than the amount of energy you expend or burn on a daily basis, you are likely to gain weight. If the amount of energy you expend is greater than the amount of energy you consume you will lose body fat and body weight. If you consume roughly as much energy as you expend on a day-to-day basis, your weight is likely to remain stable

3. Introduce a sensible Calorie deficit

If you are trying to lose weight you need to be in Negative energy balance. Reduce your Total energy or calorie intake per day by 200-500kcal and no more than this. This should achieve a slow healthy and gradual weight loss of 1-2lb/ week. To do this you need to determine how much energy you are consuming on average from food and fluids on a daily basis.  Apps like My Fitness Pal are useful ways of tracking your intake or consult with a Registered Sports Dietitian who can analyse your dietary intake for you.

4.Maintain a Good Quality protein Intake.

If you are attempting to loose weight you need to preserve your lean muscle mass otherwise your body will use this as an energy source.  This is not the key to long-term weight loss or performance. To prevent this aim to include good sources of protein (e.g. fish, meat, eggs, yoghurt, milk, cheese, lentils or beans) at each meal. Recommended Protein guidelines for weight loss for the athlete population to preserve lean muscle mass are between 1.6-2.6g/kg per day.

5.Think Quality

It’s Important to consider the quality of the food you are eating if you are attempting to loose weight. Choose fibre rich or whole grain carbohydrates e.g. wholegrain bread, brown rice and pasta instead of refined carbohydrates e.g white bread, pasta and rice and  choose high quality protein e.g. white fish, lean meat, yoghurt, eggs and cheese and choose healthy fats e.g. monounsaturated fats such as rapeseed oil or olive oil instead of saturated or unsaturated fats.

6.Periodise your Intake

The key to successful weight loss for recreational up to elite level athletes is to recognise that energy intake needs to be balanced against training. There is no one size fits all approach, every sport is different, every athlete is different, and an individualised approach is important. Athletes need to recognise that on some training days where the intensity and volume of training is greater the need for energy and particularly carbohydrate will be higher whereas on low volume training days or rest days requirements will be lower. Periodising energy intake against training enables an athlete to manage their weight successfully.

For help and Support, Dietary analysis, individualised and tailored recommendations to support health, well-being and weight loss please get in touch.

Reflecting on a recent trip to Spain, I thought I would share an idea based around the Tapas or ‘small plate’ concept’. This idea could help you to include some key essential nutrients into your diet to optimise health and performance and also support you with healthy weight loss as discussed in one of my earlier blogs Healthy Weight loss Goals.

Tapas or Small Dishes

In Spain they serve many tapas dishes but a favourite of mine is the roasted vegetable platter, this often includes vegetables such as mange tout, baby corn, asparagus spears and roasted peppers all of which combine to create a fantastic array of beautiful colour, fantastic flavour but more importantly some essential nutrients including Vitamins B and C, Folate and Dietary Fibre.

Build in the concept!

• Having a vegetable dish as a starter or before a meal is a great way to take the edge off your hunger, get essential nutrients and even get the kids interested in vegetables!
• Another alternative would be a small bowl of crudités such as carrot sticks and cucumber sticks and red peppers. Pop them in the middle of the table with a simple mint and low-fat greek yoghurt dip – yum!
• Roast vegetables in the oven using a small amount of olive oil/ rapeseed oil. Olive and Rapeseed oil are considered better for heart health but even so they are still a dense source of calories and every tablespoon is approximately 100kcal! Better still use a spray oil!
• Go shopping for the ingredients today, prep tonight and have on hand ready for tomorrow nights after work hunger pangs or tea time mealtime rush!

Stay Hydrated!

Another good tip taken from the Spanish is to ensure you are drinking with your meal, water is served with food in Spain as a matter of course and often enough we confuse hunger with thirst therefore drinking with meals and staying well hydrated Is extremely important. Alcohol also dehydrates us and weakens glycogen (carbohydrate) stores. Limit your intake of alcoholic drinks and if having the occasional drink try to aim to drink a glass of water with every alcoholic drink to stay hydrated.

I hope these tips are useful!

x Victoria

I’d like to set you a challenge for this year – Ditch the scales!

Why?

There are many reasons why athletic performance can’t be measured by the numbers on a scale. I avoid weighing athletes in my day to day work as a Sports Dietitian and these are the reasons why.

1. By weighing yourself your confusing weight loss with fat loss. The key for many athletes is to preserve lean muscle mass and reduce fat mass. This can only be measured accurately by taking body composition measurements.
2. Weight can fluctuate by 3-6lbs each day due to things like water retention, hormonal changes, constipation. Athletes are prone to weight fluctuations due to changes in hydration status as well as sweat losses.
3. Scales also cause irrational behaviour. The number on the scales can affect your mood and outlook for the rest of the day. I see many athletes weighing themselves daily and becoming almost obsessed with the numbers rather than focusing on how they feel.
4. Weight is also about acceptance – just because you weighed a certain weight in your 20’s or 30’s doesn’t mean that this was a healthy weight or that it is now a suitable weight for your age, metabolic health and performance goals. Accept that that was then, this is now and the key is health, well being  and performance.

So if you ditch the scales, how can you track your weight?

Simple – go by how you feel, look and perform  – a strong, healthy lean body is the goal and this can be achieved regardless of the number on the scales.

Alternatively ask your Sports Dietitian / coach or physical trainer to undertake baseline body composition measures and have these re-done every 6-8 weeks to track changes in your lean muscle mass, fat mass and bone density.

Go on take up the challenge!