So, what can be done?

The journey to looking and feeling amazing always starts with the food we are eating.

Let’s first dispel a few popular “truths” that have contributed to this situation:

• The “calories-in, calories-out” theory suggests that all calories are equal, which makes no sense at all. If it were true, then a 200 calorie bag of potato chips would be equal to a large banana in nutritional terms. Not true.
• Don’t go on a “diet”. It involves willpower, which is not sustainable – that’s why 95% of restrictive diets don’t work – people tend to fail, then put on all of what they lost, and more. We therefore need to reframe the word ‘diet’. In our weight-conscious society, we tend to think of a diet as something we go on and come off of. Think again. In fact, consider a diet to be what you eat and drink all of the time to sustain optimum health, which would include weight loss, if your body needs it. It’s more a way of life.
• It’s not just about weight. Whilst weight and BMI are important metrics, percent of body fat is more important to track over time, and more important for your overall health
• Question the latest sensational claim you read in the newspaper. Next time you see something that is said to be good for you, delve a little deeper and look for the source of the research – chances are that the research was sponsored by the industry that will benefit from the additional sales! For example independent studies show the artificial sweetener Aspartame to be bad for you, but the manufacturers found the opposite perspective to be true. Now, who do you believe?

So, here are 10 healthy habits that will help you lose weight healthily, for the long term, building lean muscle, without excessive discipline, starvation, calorie counting or food weighing.   Once you get the system working for you, it’s all pretty easy.

1. Eat real food, only things your great-grandmother would eat. Man has been around for over 2 million years and our bodies have evolved to deal with certain types of foods and take issue with things like Diet Coke, Fruit Loops and Jammy Dodgers! Do your future self a favour and leave these types of ‘foods’ alone!
2. Focus on giving your body adequate nutrition. When your body is nourished, it will no longer crave food. You’ll be amazed how your body will respond (both in terms of weight loss and health).
3. Eat mainly plants – this generally makes for a healthier body. Track animal products and look to reduce them where possible.
4. Eat as many green vegetables as you can: broccoli, kale, spinach. Also aim to eat the rainbow. They are packed with micro- and phytonutrients that help to avert disease.
5. Eat organic food – reduce chemicals in your body that can mess with your internal regulation system and fool you into thinking that you’re hungry when you’re not.
6. Cut out processed food. The range of processed food has doubled over the past 30 years and is designed to be as tasty as possible, packed full of processed sugars and additives. Yes, they are convenient. Yes they are cheap, but how much are they costing you in terms of your health? Additives can also interrupt the ‘feeling full’ brain chemicals that signal you to stop eating.
7. Remove refined sugar and replace with high protein, good fats and loads of veg, Your body will become less attached to sweet things and will stop craving sugar after a while. This includes avoiding refined carbs such as white rice or pasta, which the body treats as sugar. Similarly, “low fat” products tend to contain high sugar. Find out more here (www.getrawenergy.co/sugarsicklyorsweet).
8. Introduce fermented foods into your diet, such as kefir, kombucha or sauerkraut. They nourish the body with amazing colonies of good bacteria and help reduce sweet cravings.
9. Stop eating after 6.30pm. Or have a weekly cleanse day. Evidence is growing that long periods of not eating gives the insulin mechanisms a rest, helping avoid Type 2 diabetes. Make sure you avoid the munchies after dinner, undoing a day of healthy eating!
10. Plan your meals and snacks in advance, especially for work. Keep healthy snacks in your bag at at all times, so you never feel desperate. Remove temptation. Keep it hidden.

If you are feeling a bit overwhelmed by this list, a helping hand is here. Alongside the above methods, I also incorporated Isagenix products into my diet. By substituting one or two meals a day with these highly nutritious, scientifically-balanced products, I was able to simply and easily incorporate the most natural, cold-pressed products that were the most beneficial for my body, sourced from studying the most healthy indigenous people from all over the world.

To be honest, to me it just felt like having a delicious chocolate breakfast shake, which took about 3 mins to prepare, but thanks to Isagenix, all the hard work was done for me. And the result? Steady weight loss, over a 9 month period. I’ve now lost a stone in weight (14lbs) and am now under my pre-baby weight, and still going!

Because:

– My diet comprised of real food (point 1)

– I gave my body all the nutrition it needed (point 2)

– I included a range of organic plant-based nutrition, sourced from the best places around the globe (3-5)

– And, while on the surface the products seems pretty ‘processed’, they are in effect cold-pressed and freeze-dried, just like many of the products we would eat as part of a highly nutritious eating plan, eg. maca or nutritional supplements (point 6)

– The products have a full balance of protein, good fats and carbs, whilst removing refined sugar (point 7)

– They also include live enzymes and good bacteria (point 8).

Isagenix also incorporates a weekly cleanse into your regime (point 9), which gives your body a well-earned rest and has been proven to be beneficial for general health, longevity as well as consistent weight loss.

And, being part of a system (point 10), it is much more likely to work, and for the weight to stay off long-term.

In a nutshell, adding Isagenix into my regime fitted perfectly into my lifestyle. As the weight fell off, my lifestyle naturally increased alongside it and with my newly–found energy, I now find myself running every day and sleeping better than I have in years!

If you are interested in trying these great products for yourself, Isagenix are offering the chance to try these products for 30 days – if you are not happy with anything about them, they offer a full 100% money-back guarantee – so you have the chance to try a month’s worth of these highly nutritious products for free! Just click here for more details.