Why Counting Calories is Key to Successful Fat Loss: Insights from a Dublin-Based Personal Trainer24/10/2024 As a personal trainer in Dublin, I often encounter clients eager to shed unwanted fat and transform their bodies. One of the most effective strategies I recommend is counting calories. While some may view this as tedious, the benefits of tracking your caloric intake far outweigh the inconvenience. First and foremost, understanding the relationship between calories and fat loss is crucial. To lose weight, you must create a calorie deficit, meaning you consume fewer calories than you burn. By counting calories, you gain insight into your eating habits and can make informed choices about your meals. This awareness allows you to identify high-calorie foods that may hinder your progress and replace them with healthier options. Moreover, counting calories helps establish portion control. Many people underestimate their caloric intake, which can lead to unintentional overeating. By measuring portions and keeping track of what you eat, you can develop a clearer understanding of serving sizes and maintain control over your diet. This is especially important in a city like Dublin, where dining out can easily lead to consuming more calories than intended. Another advantage of calorie counting is its flexibility. Unlike restrictive diets, which can feel overwhelming, tracking calories allows you to enjoy a variety of foods while still reaching your goals. You can indulge in your favorite treats occasionally, as long as they fit within your daily caloric allowance. This balanced approach makes it easier to maintain a sustainable lifestyle and prevents feelings of deprivation. In conclusion, counting calories is a powerful tool for anyone serious about burning fat. By fostering awareness of your eating habits, promoting portion control, and allowing for flexibility, calorie counting sets the foundation for lasting success in your fitness journey. As a Dublin-based personal trainer, I encourage you to embrace this strategy for effective fat loss and overall health.
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"New year, new you". It's a phrase that helps make personal trainers January extremely busy, everyone is out to better themselves in January because they overindulged at Christmas on the mince pies and the booze and rightly so, why should you not indulge. But sadly, most people that say "New year, new you", are the same people that said it last year, and the year before that, and the year before. If you're one of these people are you not sick and tired of saying it and why does it have to be a new you? Why can it not be the same as you, just a little healthier, a little fitter and a little bit more toned? I don't think there is anything unhealthier than a person wanting to be someone different or being someone else. If it was your best friend or a brother/sister confiding in you saying they don't want to be themselves anymore, they want to be someone different, you would call them out for it, tell them to be themselves, they are the person you love etc, so why should the same not apply to you, be happy with yourself, how you look does not define who you are. Yes its important to be healthy, but be clear to yourself about what healthy is. So you are sick of wanting to make a healthy change to your lifestyle every year but failing and making the same false claim the next year, let's see how we can make these changed for you. Personal training; Obviously this is a major option, having a trainer to guide you and to also give you a person to be accountable to is a really helpful place to put yourself. Having someone to give you a plan to get where you want to be, rather than winging it every week. Make the most of experience with someone that has helped many other people reach their weight loss and heal goals. Fitness coaches know what is needed to make these changes and will give you the best possible guidance. Google personal trainer reviews and see what comes up, this will give you some quality information to see if that personal trainer will be a right fit for you. Be realistic; If you tell yourself "I want a body like..." Or "I want an ass like..." you are setting yourself straight up for failure and disappointment. You are not these people, nor will you ever be these people that you aspire to be. You might be taller, shorter, bigger hips, smaller waist etc, a completely different body composition. Focus on toning the areas that bother you or that you want to improve, the key word being you because this is all about you, not some celebrity that you will never be. Take your time; Coming back to being realistic, you cannot get results overnight, it doesn't matter how dedicated you are or how good your personal trainer is, you will not get instant results. It takes time, trusts me. I was overweight and I spent a few years when I started trying to get into the shape I wanted to be. I got frustrated, I got disheartened but I didn't take into account what was actually happening, the scales didn't move much, but I grew more muscle, I was fitter, I was getting stronger and stronger, I was looking more toned, but I obsessed over a single number on a scale. Like honestly, what a really good way to completely destroy your motivation and progress, when what is more important in centimetres lost and how good you actually feel about yourself, the scales numbers will change, but they might be the last thing, it DOES NOT mean you are not making progress. Value your efforts; So in January you go 100% out the gate, you're hitting classes, you're eating amazingly well, your calories are on point, you're absolutely killing it. Then February comes around, you might have a night out, hangover on a Sunday, you tell yourself you'll start it again on Monday, then Monday you're feeling tired after your first day back in work after the weekend, you choose to chill on the couch. You're already allowing yourself to slip back into old destructive habits that will allow you to gain weight. You just de-valued all the efforts you have put in, why would you do that? It's like building your own house from scratch then deciding to stop once the ground floor has been made, you have put so much effort in but quit before it is done. You have invested so much at this stage, keep your focus on the end goal. You didn't start to build a house only to have a bottom floor, you don't start a weight loss program or personal training to only get a minor result. As always, im a personal trainer first, my whole goal is to help people. There is nothing more upsetting to a good personal trainer than seeing someone not reaching their potential with what the would like to achieve. If you need help, advice or a kick in the bum reach out to Bodycoach at www.bodycoach.ie or email [email protected] In this day and age, people are raving about how much weight they can lose in such a short period of time, fantastic right! Of course, it's fantastic, we have these driven people posting they lost 10 kilos in 4 weeks all down to their personal trainer's diet plan, and that's great, good on them, but they don't tell you is the fucking misery they went through to get that weight off so quickly. Lets be honest, Diets are depressing!I've had so many people come to me saying they lost this and that with this coach etc, and I'm like, of course you did, you ate fuck all. Every single person on the planet can lose a ton of weight living off chicken and broccoli but there are two problems... ONE: Its unrealistic for everyone! I don't have the willpower to stick to something like that as would most people unless they have an extremely determined personality and they don't mind hating life for weeks on end because they can eat fuck all. TWO: Its not sustainable, most peope trying to lose weight will start off on a diet like this, see some weightloss, be delighted with life, then two weeks in, bam, they are in centra with a chicken fillet roll crying into their pack of tayto aboout how they have blown it all because its too damn hard to keep up. It doesn't have to be that way, as i say to all my clients, to get achievable, consistent weight loss, watch your calorie input vs your calorie output, if you keep your calories in deficit, you can eat what you want, be happy, lose weight over time easily and not have to suffer because all you have on your plate is chicken and broccoli, there is no point to this for the average person. So don't kill yourself with your fitness goal, enjoy life, that's the whole point of it, and if you need to lose weight, look at the right ways of doing it and not the hard ways... Pizza tastes good, we all enjoy a glass of wine or a beer out on the town in Dublin, ice cream is nice cream. Enjoy it and enjoy life, it's not all about a number on a fucking weighing scale. Want to know more, visit www.bodycoach.ie and let us help you get a healthier happier life. So you're sitting around on a Saturday night stuffing your face with garbage, are you enjoying it? Fucking good on you, I hope you are! You're not? Too much food, making you feel sick? Making yourself cry because you're going to look like a beached whale in Ibiza next year? You need to sit down and have a word with yourself, basically just tell yourself to shut the fuck up! Now I'm going to give a list of shit that won't make you fat so you can happily sit there and enjoy whatever other stuff you're into! Then I'll explain why it won't make you fat, then you can fuck off and enjoy a big mac! Shit that won't make you fat...
There's all the list that I'm bothered to create right now... So it sounds pretty shit right like you might be a little chubby, and you eat these foods and I'm here telling you it doesn't make you fat, like what kind of dickhead personal trainer am I? The best kind, the kind of personal trainer that won't sell you pointless supplements to make money or give you unnecessary advice to try to make myself look better. So here's why that food doesn't make you fat... You ever see a sports person eating junk food, even if its player off your local GAA team or whatever, skinny as hell and probably eats junk food every day. You think to yourself, "I eat the same food, im fat, they are skinny,whats the fucking dealio?" Food has nothing to do with your bodyfat... Calories are everything.The reason the guy or girl eats garbage all day and looks as lean is that they are burning the right amount of calories for the amount of food they are eating, they are out doing sports for 2 or 3 hours, probably burning 3 or 4 thousand calories a day on exercise... Then you come along, eat the same foods, drive home, watch tv all day, then burn two calories walking to the fridge. Let's call a spade a spade here, you put the weight on because you do fuck all movement, never mind exercise if you're sitting on your arse all day long, probably looking at a screen and burning fuck all calories. I'm going to give you some science! A pound of fat is roughly 3500 calories. So if you need 2000 calories a day, and you eat 3000 and you do fuck all exercise, you will put on a pound of body fat in 3.5 days... If you need 2000 calories and you eat 2000 calories you will stay the same... If you need 2000 calories and you eat 2000 but you go for a jog and burn 500 calories you will lose a pound of fat in 7 days. My point is, a calorie is a calorie, it doesn't matter where it comes from, you cant overeat lettuce and put on weight. Fat is just stored, unused energy, so you need to make your body use that stored energy. So the food you eat does not matter, its how many calories are in those foods against how much you move that determines how fat you are. Weight loss is not some mystical unattainable thing you cant achieve, you just have to start putting a plan together of how you are going to do it. basically eat less and get up off your fucking arse! Want to know more, or get help sorting your shit out... www.bodycoach.ie Ok, I'm probably going to get a lot of backlash over this, and to be honest I welcome it. I want to give you a bit of background on this first before I delve into my opinion on the matter. This is not me having a go at over-weight people, I was an overweight person and mentally I still am. I struggle with food ALL THE TIME! I over-eat on occasion, then I beat myself up for doing it than force myself to work twice as hard as punishment. It's not the healthiest thing in the world to do, but so much do I value the weight-loss I have achieved, that I never want to go back to that overweight, unhappy, unhealthy person I was before. I internally criticise myself for the choices i make. Am I internally fat shaming?Maybe, but it keeps me on track, and keeps me healthy. When I was a lot younger than I am now, I was a chunky kid, so chunky in fact, the other kids called me Chunk, and it bothered the shit out of me. I was really unhappy about it but had no idea why I was fat, I would play all day, but I would be a machine with food, constantly overeating and getting fatter as I got older. The bullying was horrible, I was constantly laughed at or had comments thrown at me. "Shut up fatty", or look there's "Chunk". It was not a good time for me, looking back on my time in secondary school, I don't have the fondest memories of it, something kids should have. When I hit college, I discovered nights on the booze, smoking, and kebabs on the way home. I piled on the weight, became even more ashamed of myself for how I was and seeing other guys out, looking lean, having girls want to talk to them. Then my dad got sick, he was not overweight, but he was extremely unhealthy. Very bad high sugar diet, smoked over 40 cigarettes a day, did little exercise. Pretty much me except I was overweight. That initially made me spiral out of control, I ate to deal with the hard times, I smoked and drank more to escape, all the time, beating myself up for making myself worse and worse. But eventually, I had the realisation that this way of life can't go on, or ill get sick too and with a lot of trial and error, I eventually got the determination to make a change to myself. I trained like a man possessed, I was up every morning early, cycled into Dublin city, went to the gym, trained for 90 mins, went to work, cycled home, then some evenings id go for a walk. The problem was again, my food wasn't in check, I didn't know how to eat properly. I considered a healthy meal to be a large bowl of pasta.After more time though, the weight did slowly shift as I learned more and more, I got to a healthy weight and life was good. So good I decided I wanted to help people that were overweight, lose the weight properly, so I sold my bike and a few other things, saved money, and got my qualification as a personal trainer. I worked my bollox off, going to work all day, then coming straight home to train people in the evening, it was exhausting but I loved it because I could see people getting really healthy, losing weight and feeling great about themselves. Personal training was the job I was born to do! So what has all this got to do with fat shaming? Well I wanted to give you some background about myself, so you know I was fat, so you know that I care, and so you know I'm not saying this to bully, or make people feel small or ashamed. I'm saying this because with this snowflake generation we will put a label of discrimination on anything just because we can. Let me define what fat shaming is. "the action or practice of humiliating someone judged to be fat or overweight by making mocking or critical comments about their size." - This is the Google definition. So essentially this definition is bullying someone for being overweight, and rightly so, any form of bullying is wrong and should not be tolerated. Unfortunately, we cannot criticise anyone for being overweight these days without being labelled a bully. Which I believe is completely wrong. Being overweight is extremely unhealthy and leads to all kinds of diseases that are preventable. I looked at urban dictionaries definition... fat shaming is the act of poking fun of someone for being overweight or telling someone they are worthless, useless, lazy, or disgusting because they are overweight. Like most terms, this has been adoptwisted by Radical Neofeminists to mean something very different. Under the RNF definition, it means " to make an overweight female feel in any way uncomfortable, usually by telling her anything is wrong with her weight." This, unfortunately, includes Doctors telling them to lose weight for their health and suggesting diets or friends saying that their clothes are too tight, even men very politely refusing dates because they just don't find them attractive. So we have changed the definition from bullying to any kind of criticism, even when it's from a position of respect and concern about their personal health. Does commenting on someone's weight make them feel ashamed, even when it's from a perspective of concern and love? Yeah of course in most cases it probably does make them feel ashamed. Say if we made a comparison to the smoker. We could openly tell a smoker, they smell bad from smoking, it's disgusting, it makes them look unhealthy, I wouldn't date a smoker, their breath smells, they will get sick, do you know what you're doing to your body etc. So, peoples, personal opinion is that smoking is wrong, and they have no problem telling smokers about it, but its a smokers decision to keep smoking or quit. Does the same process not apply to overweight people or are they exempt of criticism because it's more visual to other people because an overweight person can feel offended by criticism. I think there is a big difference between criticism and bullying, especially when criticism is from a concerned person trying to help someone on a path to self-destruction. My biggest pride as a personal trainer is helping someone that feels a lack of self-worth and confidence in themselves, lose weight and feel good about themselves. Then you have the argument from overweight people that they are not ashamed of their body, they have so much confidence and self-worth that they don't feel they need to lose weight. And I have no problem with that, good on you, but... What about the health implications, if nothing else, isn't that the most important thing? That this unhealthy lifestyle will catch up with you and eventually lead to health problems. You could make the argument that you are fit, you exercise regularly so you have nothing to worry about, but that is definitely not the right way to view the situation. There are plenty of people that exercise and still abuse their bodies in various ways. Rich Piana, the bodybuilder, worked out nearly every day, pumped his body full of steroids, energy drink and other processed garbage, and he died of heart disease. There are plenty of cases of sudden death syndrome in athletes probably consuming caffeine products or other products that create problems internally even though they are extremely fit. You may, or someday you may have children, and as important, as it is to teach them confidence and self-worth, its also a parents responsibility to teach them how to live a healthy lifestyle. So you shouldn't overshadow what you claim to be a personal insult as something it's not when in a lot of cases its simply a show of concern, especially when it's from a person that cares about your own wellbeing. So maybe we should try and remove the word fat shaming from language and break it down into two categories. Fat bullying and fat criticism. Fat bullying is just wrong, making fun of someone for being overweight is childish and immature. Fat criticism, commenting constructively about their weight to induce a change in someone's behaviour or attitude is something I think needs to be accepted in society, as long as the intentions are from a good place, this I believe should be common practice. The leading cause of death in the world today is coronory artery disease, which is basically fat deposits on the walls of the artery which comes from the lifestyles we lead, consuming too many bad foods, no exercise, smoking and drinking. If this is not a reason to criticise someone's weight to push them towards making changes, I don't know what is. If you want or need help with your own weight, struggle to get the motivation, or just need guidance, contact me at www.bodycoach.ie No one that ever loses weight, regrets it! Never in the history of mankind has it been easier to lose weight, or has it been easier to gain weight. We're constantly bombarded with fast food advertisements, adds selling sweets, chocolate, fizzy sugary drinks that sucker us in to consume garbage high in calories and low in anything else. I wasn't always a personal trainer, I used to spend my days sitting at home watching tv and eating rubbish, the weekends would be takeaways, nights out in Dublin, downing as many pints as possible, smoking and generally being an overweight slob, but I decided to make a few changes, get fit, get healthy, lose the weight, start a personal training course and help others get these changes for themselves. I know from my own personal experience (trying and failing on many attempts) of losing weight, what works and what doesn't, so to avoid all the rubbish advice out there like meal replacements and fad diets these are my top 5 tips that will get you over the line to reach the weight loss you want, and maintain it for the future. 1. Track your calories You have probably heard it a thousand times, calories are bad, you need to avoid them blah blah blah. This is rubbish, we need calories to put weight on... Yes, but we also need calories to lose weight, it's just about finding the right amount of calories to keep you going and stay under a deficit to allow your body to utilise your body fat as energy because thats what body fat, is stored energy. Lets be honest, you didn't put the weight on by eating low-calorie salads and running a marathon every second day. You put the weight on because you sat on your arse and shoved too many calories in your mouth. If you know how many calories you are consuming, then you will know what is required of you to lose weight. Apps like my fitness pal are amazing free tools that let you track exactly what you are eating and show you how many calories you have left in the day to lose the weight! 2. Get moving As a personal trainer, I get asked by my clients all the time, 'Should I do more squats, or sit-up's to lose the weight here and there'. My answer is simple, 'you're missing the fucking point'. You didn't get fat because you stopped squatting or missed doing sit up's for five years. You're not going to lose it by doing a few squats. You need to burn more calories. I climbed Kilimanjaro in 2009, I was moving so much I was burning around 4500 calories a day and consuming 2000, after 9 days I got home, weighed myself, I was down 5 kilos on the scales. I brought my daily calorie deficit up, the weight fell off. So get fucking moving, go for a walk, a run, a cycle, a fitness class, jump on a rowing machine. Do whatever you like but get moving and burn calories. 3. Be consistent You are not going to lose 5 kilos in week one, shit you probably won't lose it in week two either. You didn't get fat in a few weeks so you certainly won't lose the weight in a few weeks either, it takes time, but it also takes consistency. Giving yourself a pat on the back for changing to a salad dinner every Wednesday is great, but if you go crazy at the weekend and gorge on junk foods and alcohol is going to outdo any calorie deficit you achieved from swapping to a salad. I'm not saying eat a salad every day, I'm saying if you stay under your calorie goals Monday to Thursday, then you go way over Friday to Sunday, you can't expect to lose weight because for the entire week you have not stayed under a deficit. So work on tracking your calories 7 days a week, do this for a month, you will be shocked by how much you can achieve. 4. Be patient When you see some idiot on social media, recommending a product that has helped them she 10 kilos in 4 weeks, I'm going to tell you right now, that person is talking out of their arse! There is no product on this plant that burns fat, its not real. Weight loss/meal replacement shakes, skinny teas, fat burners are all rubbish. At best they are simply a low-calorie option, nothing more, and you don't need them. Why would anyone replace a meal with a shake??? Just make a low-calorie meal, your life will be so much better! Real fat loss takes time! Most people that get extreme results over a short period put all the weight back on within a year. I've seen it many times. Most of what they lose is not fat, but fluid and that affects the scale. As soon as they start eating normally again, the pounds start going back on and before they know it they are back to the start. With a consistent real fat loss, its harder to put back on because you are actually losing body fat, and not fluid, its harder to put back on because you need to massively increase your calorie deficit over time for your body to start storing the extra calories, and because of the work you put in to losing it, its much harder for you to let yourself slip back into old habits, because you value the work you put in. 5. Get help from a good personal trainer Affordable personal training is out there, (bodycoach.ie for example) but not all personal trainers are good personal trainers. Just like any industry, there are true professionals and there are the rip-off merchants, so some research is required. You might get trainers that work in gyms that have simply lost the joy for their work and just do the bare minimum because they are paid anyway. Then there are the true heroes, the fitness coaches that care, they want nothing more than to see their clients succeed in the goals and money is just a necessity of life. One of the best ways to find this out is to look at their reviews, check social media, website, google business pages and see what you can find on them. As a personal trainer myself that has clients all over Dublin, I pride myself on the personal training reviews my clients give me, because I know that they have gotten what they wanted from working with me. My advice, google "personal trainer near me" and check the Google business pages that come up. Look at their reviews, and that should help you make the right choice. You can also check out my reviews from bodycoach at www.bodycoach.ie/reviews I'm going to give you one of my biggest weight loss tips for free, right now because, well I'm the best! So many online trainers out there try and charge for this shit because they want to dupe you, but well I'm the best out there and I want you to succeed!
Yesterday I read a post by the strongest man in the world, Mr Eddie Hall on Instagram, claiming that orange juice from a carton is a better option for anyone trying to lose weight over coffee as a breakfast drink. Then on top of that this guy, who hats off to him has done a lot more training than me in his life, fucking says he's working with some UK DNA company (which has absolutely nothing to do with nutrition) to provide us with this useless, false information. His claim was, caffeine in your coffee breaks down an enzyme in your mouth and gut called amylase which manages the breakdown of starchy carbs... Talk about missing the fucking point of weight loss, sorry he didn't miss it, he's fucking going around it because the basic principles of weight loss go against what he is selling! What a wanker! A Coffee in the morning with breakfast = 5 calories A small glass of orange juice = 90 calories To lose weight, consume fewer calories, done be worrying about enzymes! This is just another fine example of how someone in the fitness industry is easily turned by the promise of a few quid, to sell out the truth and provide their followers with absolute bollox to sell them something. This DNA company is just jumping on the exploitation bandwagon that is the weight loss/fitness industry. Using peoples ignorance and/or desperation to convince them their product or service will be their answer for the weight loss they have wanted since they went one big mac too far! Fuck and I really liked Eddie Hall for what he has achieved, but fuck him, now he's just another sellout dickhead! Want to know more about Bodycoach? Visit www.bodycoach.ie Read More... I could be one of those dickheads that starts off a blog with, “Hi, my names Michael and I have been in the fitness industry for 10 years and I amazing blah blah blah… Fuck that! I’m going to get straight down to telling you what the fuck is wrong with this bloated bullshit industry, and if you don’t like it, I don’t give Sunday worth of shits! Let’s start with the word, “CUNTS!” There are many of them out there, but yet no two are alike. Well actually they are, they are all after one thing, and one thing only, your hard-earned moolah, and they give ZERO shits how they will get it. Read more... |
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