I wasn’t going to write about diet and nutrition today but as is customary around this time of year there was so much nonsense being posted on the internet about weight loss, detox etc. that honestly it drives me crazy!
I’m going to try not to make this into a rant but I fear it may be a little ranty so if you can’t deal with that look away now.
Firstly, Detox…………….There is absolutely no need whatsoever, no matter how much you ate drank in December to need to drink green juices or take special supplements in order to rid your body of toxins. You have a liver and kidneys doing that right now just fine. If they aren’t doing that effectively then you need a hospital not a green smoothie! Of course you can make their lives a little easier by minimising your alcohol intake and making your diet up mainly of fresh, whole foods but other than that, trust me your liver and kidneys are just “detoxing” away 24/7.
Second up-Weight Loss.
It is of course completely fine to want to drop a few pounds you may have added over Christmas or indeed if you would like to lose some weight to become a lighter, more athletic load for your horse, that’s great and I completely support that. However, dieting, quick fixes, shakes, pills, body wraps and whatever other nonsense the internet has told you is the answer is really NOT the answer. The diet industry is worth billions and the reason it is worth billions is because people don’t just buy into it once, they buy into it, fail, blame themselves, buy into again……rinse and repeat. The problem with diets is that unless you can live on that diet for life then eventually you are going to eat differently and if that “differently” isn’t conducive to weight loss or maintenance then you are going to put the weight back on.
Don’t be disheartened by this, I’m not saying you can’t lose weight, but what I am saying is you need to make permanent lifestyle changes that in short put you into a calorie deficit to enable you to burn the fat you’re trying to lose. Then when you hit goal weight you just keep eating as you have been the entire time which is now your normal way of eating.
Take this advice from someone who has lost around 2 Stone and it did come off slowly, but it has also stayed off without it feeling like at any point that I was hugely depriving myself. I still ate chocolate every day, I still had meals out, and I still spent lots of time drinking Lattes in Starbucks and I didn’t spend every day in the gym running miles on a treadmill.
No matter what the internet, the celebrities and the people trying to sell you shakes and supplements tell you, the Science still stands up that weight loss is based on Calories in vs Calories out = Simples.
If you would like more nutrition focused emails let me know what you want to know and I will do my best to cater.
