Sorry peeps, I haven't written a blog in three months...eek! I've been busy getting certified as a Healing Diets Practitioner. Now that's done, I can start inspiring you with the results my clients have been achieving recently!
I love it when clients really nail healthy changes! I educate and then get them to do the meal planning rather than giving them menus. Why? This is a plan for the rest of their life, not a quick fix diet and the sooner they get to grips with creating their own delicious meals the better.
Here is a great example of how you can change up your food, lose weight, sleep better and have more energy, all in one lovely swoop!
This client in question, Beth, wasn’t eating lots of takeaways or fast food, she is in fact an accomplished cook. It was just the combinations that weren’t giving her body the nutrients she needed and her food was often too calorie dense. We also reduced her alcohol consumption from about 20 units per week to now about 2-3 units. Most importantly her sleep has dramatically improved, her mental health is better, she has more energy and many aches and pains that she complained about initially have now disappeared. Importantly, she has lost 13.5 kg in 12 weeks and we are now planning to revisit her initial goal of losing 15 kg by Christmas, as we are well on the way of smashing it already. We combined twice weekly strength training with her own (now increasing) walking, jogging and hiking schedule.
Coffee was swapped out for green tea, eggs were swapped for berries. We reduced animal products down to 2-3 per week max, completely deleting dairy, and increased veggies, fruit and pulses. She now eats just gorgeous looking, healthy satisfying food.
Here is the food that Beth used to eat, next to the food that she eats now:
Breakfast Before
Breakfast After
Lunch Before
Lunch After
Dinner Before
Dinner After
Snacks Before
Snacks After
And here's what Beth had to say about her experience:
"I had known for quite some time that I needed to lose weight and focus on improving my overall health and fitness. However, I felt very self conscious and lacked the confidence to go to group classes or bootcamps with my friends, worrying that I wouldn't be able to keep up at all.
As a result I decided to try personal training with Ally and after the initial consultation felt reassured that this was something that could be achievable for me, yet was left in no doubt that I would be challenged and pushed well out of my comfort zone in regards to exercise as well as nutrition and consideration of my overall health!
Having previously been known for my use of the phrase "no meat, no meal" I was sceptical about a largely plant based diet but as a keen cook have actually thoroughly enjoyed the creativity involved in coming up with tasty meals to provide balanced nutrition and have appreciated Ally's support in helping to plan and understand this.
Although tough, I look forward to the strength training sessions and am appreciative of Ally pointing out progress to help with development of confidence, and the sense of humour that comes along too! I understand that improving my health and fitness is an ongoing project but I am delighted to be sleeping well after years of insomnia, am enjoying cooking even more than ever, have lost more weight than I thought I had it in me to and love that I can now start to keep up more with friends when hiking and taking part in other active pursuits.
Thanks Ally for your support!"
If you'd like to experience the life changes that Beth has, drop me a line.
Ally van de Pol is a SNM Certified Healing Diets Practitioner, Holistic Nutritionist and Health and Wellness Coach.