Simple Changes, Faster Results

A big misconception about weight loss is that it requires total upheaval to your way of life but nothing could be further from the truth. As a Glasgow personal trainer getting clients to make a few minor adjustments to their diet can be all that is needed to make a noticeable impact on their waistline. A mistake people make is thinking that they can out train a bad diet but this is simply not possible. Around 80% of the success you get when losing weight comes from changes to your diet, not your exercise routine. Exercise is like a turbo but diet is like an engine. The turbo enhances the engine but isn't much use until it is attached to the engine. Little changes to your diet can really tune up your engine and get it running well so when you add the turbo your fat burning horsepower goes through the roof! If you train hard to lose weight but don't make any substantial changes to your diet your health will improve. You will become stronger and your cardiovascular capacity will increase as your heart bets stronger. You just won't look very different because your healthy new body will still be blanketed by an unhealthy old layer of excess body fat.

Simple changes to recipes that barely alter the way meals taste but can dramatically enhance the amount of weight you lose are what you need. Swapping low fat Greek yogurt for cream in recipes like curries and quiche slashes the calorie content and you won't be able to tell there is no cream in it so it's a win win situation. Changing turkey mince for beef mince in recipes like chilli and bolognaise sauce cuts lots of calories out of such meals and are just as tasty. Using honey as a sweetener instead of sugar is great because honey's glycemic index is half that of sugars which keep insulin levels low enough to keep your body burning fat.

Swapping lentils for rice and pasta is a great move as they both spike insulin levels, making you both fatter and hungrier. Lentils don't do this and provide more protein to help build muscle which enhances your metabolic rate and makes fat loss easier. Ditching potatoes for sweet potatoes or root vegetable rough mash (carrot, turnip and parsnip mashed together) not only eliminates another high insulin response food in potatoes it puts something on your plate that actually has flavour. Potatoes are incredibly bland and normally need something like butter to make them worth eating! Finally you should half the salt you use when cooking and don't add more on the plate. Salt forces the body to retain water and leaves you bloated, heavier and looking fat.

Iain Smith (MPhil/CSCS) owns Standout Gym, an independent warehouse gym in Glasgow, focusing on weight loss. He offers small group training as an affordable alternative to Glasgow personal training. Iain is a former international decathlete with 17 years coaching experience. www.standoutgym.com.