My diet + what i eat

Hello lovely bloggers,

Earlier i made a post about my exercise and weightloss, posting my before and after:

and some of you asked whether i could do a post on the kind of food that i eat.

So here it is!


I am in no way a nutritionist/health expert, but these are just the rules i follow for a healthy life style.
Now this is not in anyway a diet, its more of a lifestyle change.
Diets are unhealthy, and often restrictive, making you feel like if you go off track you need to punish yourself.

You should never ever feel guilty for eating! Your body needs fuel, so fill it up with delicious whole foods and it'll be extremely happy :) Once you learn that you NEED to eat, and not restrict, weightloss and eating clean will become a lot easier.

Its important to remember, as girls, you should never eat less than 1300 calories.
A lot of people think losing weight is about completely cutting down calorie intake to the point where they're barely eating.  It does not work.  Its counter productive as it sends your body into starvation mode. That means once you do eat, whatever your body receives, it stores as fat straight away. It also means that whatever weight you do lose from restriction, is not sustainable, and you will most likely gain whatever you lost right back.
It's all about getting a healthy balance of meals, cutting out processed foods and exercise.

Weightloss is 80% diet and 20% exercise.

I know it can be daunting, and it's quite hard to eat healthily, especially considering you can buy an oven pizza in most supermarkets for £1, whilst healthy fresh foods can set your budget back! But there are ways to budget it, i have done a post before on how i eat healthy on a budget.

How much should you be eating?
If you want to know how many calories you need to be eating in order lose weight, you need to figure out your BMR (basal metabolic rate, the number of calories your body needs just to function) which can be done here: BMR calculator. Once you've calculated this, you can see how many calories you can eat in order to MAINTAIN your weight here: Daily calorie intake calculator. For example, for my BMR i am 23, 130 pounds and am 5ft7. This means my body needs 1427.3 calories just to function. Then using the daily calorie intake calculator, i can see that i need 2212 calories to MAINTAIN my weight. As a guideline, you usually have to minus 500 calories for that in order to be losing fat. So in order for me to lose weight, i need to eat 1712 calories a day. If this seems at all confusing to you, its all mentioned on the links i provided!

Now, for how i actually eat:

I eat a diet that is high in healthy proteins, low in saturated fat, and low in carbs. 

It's what is known as a 'clean diet'.  These are the rules i stick to:

Rule 1: drink A LOT of water.  It helps to keep your body running, flush out toxins as well as flush out any water weight! Cold water is even better as your body needs to work to heat it up in your body. If your body doesn't get enough water, it stores it within the cells, meaning you hold onto to excess water weight. Your skin will also thank you for this! I would also definitely recommend drinking 1-2 cups of green tea a day.

Rule 2: Try to cut out as many processed foods as possible. This means sugar/salt/saturated fat loaded  and 'empty' foods like crisps (they have little to no nutritional value!). I know it might be easier after a long day of work to whack a frozen pizza in the oven, or even some pot noodles (absolutely awful for you), but you're not doing your body and favours.

Rule 3: Change your carb intake. This is similar to the rule about processed foods. White bread and pasta go through more process when being made than whole grains do. The 'white' carbs are refined, and are stored as fat much easier unless they are burnt through exercise or energy. Change your white bread up for brown/whole grain, your white pasta up for wholegrain pasta, and your white rice for brown rice, these are complex carbs, and take longer to digest, add fibre, and make your body work a little harder to digest them. You also don't need to be eating carbs with all your means, try to replace them with vegetables! Where you would normally have a portion of rice, try a huge portion of broccoli or any other vegetables you love.  You'll see results!

Rule 4: Eat smaller meals, and more often! I tend to eat quite a lot during the day, but with small portion sizes.  Snacking on food like almonds is not only filling, but they're also great for you! In every meal try to include to healthy vegetables, some lean protein, and if needed some carbs (but don't overload, try to fill up with vegetables instead).

Rule 5: Introduce more protein into your diet! High protein foods are the ones responsible for building your muscles. As you gain more muscle (through exercise and training), your body is able to burn more calories, so its important to build muscle and not just lose fat. It also takes a lot longer to digest than carbs or fats, and your body is able to use a higher percentage of it to turn into energy. Examples of lean proteins that i eat are turkey, chicken breast and salmon.

Rule 6: Stay away from saturated fats but try to keep healthy fats in your diet. Healthy fats come from foods such as almonds, avocados, and peanuts (peanut butter is a godsend when eating clean!). Cut out the sugary, saturated fats and stick to healthy.

Rule 7: Lower your sodium intake. As i mentioned earlier, if your body has too much salt and not enough water, it will store excess water in your cells, which means you will hold more water weight!



Here are some examples of meals i've prepared eating clean:

turkey mince lettuce wraps with cucumber, red peppers, corn, and onion. I swapped out using a wrap for the healthier option of lettuce.

Grilled chicken with spinach, tomato and whole grain rice. Dash of low salt soy sauce for taste.

Baked salmon fillet (using garlic, white pepper and dill) with grilled asparagus.

If you ever want to see what kind of meals i'm eating on a regular basis, follow my instagram. I tend to post on there a lot in terms of my intake.

Link to my instagram 

An example of a day of meals for me:

Breakfast: Egg white omelette with peppers, mushrooms, onions, spinach and feta cheese, with a cup of green tea.

Snack: Banana and a handful of almonds.

Lunch: Greek salad made of cucumbers, olives, tomatoes, lettuce, onion and feta cheese, with slices of grilled chicken.

Snack: Chocolate chip low fat rice cake and a green tea.

Dinner:  Baked salmon fillet with a side of broccoli, asparagus and sprouts.


In the next couple of days, i will be providing some recipes that i like to follow :)
I hope this post helped!

How i lost weight and toned up in 2 weeks

I am aware that everyone's bodies react differently and lose and gain weight differently, but this is how i managed it.  I started off at 59 kg (130 pounds) and ended at 61kg (134 pounds), and i am 5ft7. I found that the way to tell if i was losing weight was through pictures and measurements as opposed to weight. This is due to the muscle you build weighing more than fat.  Ladies, don't always judge your journey by your weight!

Here is a before and after photo between the 8th of july and the 22nd of july.

I was so proud of this progress, and this was down to two simple things.  A clean diet and daily cardio/strength training.
Now i know this doesn't happen over night, but it just goes to show how much a change of what you eat and how you exercise can affect your body.

This is how i did it:
On the 8th of July i joined a gym in Cardiff, and committed to go there at least 6 times a week in order to see any change.  If you can't join a gym, start running! its just as effective but costs nothing!
I began with cardio training on the cross trainer and bike, slowly working my way up to 45 minutes of cardio everyday.  As well as this, i started strength training for abs and arms mainly as i felt they were my problem areas, especially as i have scoliosis, i have to build up my abs in order to alleviate back pain.  Funnily enough, i did no butt or leg training but the cross trainer toned those for me!


Diet wise i ate completely clean. This meant NO soft drinks, sugary sweets or anything along those lines. It was ok for me as i'm not particularly a fan of those anyway. Hardest thing for me to cut out were the more savoury snacks like crisps. It was a  high protein diet, mainly turkey or chicken, a lot of vegetables and a few carbs (all either whole meal or whole grain if i do) and the occasional fruit! a diet low in bad fats and sugar.   I also tried to eat good fats like almonds or avocado. I also tried to eat a MINIMUM of 1300 calories a day.  anything under that will send you body into starvation mode, and it'll store any fat you eat. Its counter productive to barely eat!

A massive help was drinking two cups of green tea every day as well, 1 in the morning and 1 in the afternoon.  It helps boost your metabolism and burn fat!

I drank A LOT of water, i could not stop peeing most of the day but my skin was so much better. i think a lot of my weight was water weight as well, so upping your water helps to flush out water retention! If you want to help eliminate water weight, i suggest cranberry juice (the ones without any added sugar or flavouring as they tend to be packed with sugar) and it helps flush excess water from your kidneys!

i cut down sodium/salty foods.  If your body has too much salt and not enough water, it will store excess water in your cells, which means you will hold more water weight!

If you want some ideas for abs, arms and other parts of the body training, check out blogilates youtube, most of the toning exercises i use are from there.
it was a lifestyle change rather than a diet!