Supplements are massive in the fitness industry. From Whey Protein to CLA, creatine to ZMA, supplements that are designed to help along with a good diet.
However, you'll be forgiven for thinking they create the results you crave. That is probably why you are reading this. We look to supplements as they are advertised, as the way forward to our goals. Sadly, lots of supplements don't work the way they are sold or don’t even work at all.
Like I said supplements are design to help. So we have come up with 3 'supplements', that actually can help. Just they aren't what you are thinking...
1. Scales
Food scales are fantastic! Want to know exactly how many calories you are consuming? Weigh your food. Often food packets will give a recommended serving, but have you ever measured that serving out? You’d be surprised at the difference to what you think is a good, healthy portion to what the recommended serving actually is. Just having a small food scale in your kitchen can really help when cooking/planning your meals.
2. Tupperware/Food Storage Containers
Food storage containers (or Tupperware for the brand name) are amazing! In my house, we live off them!! You may have heard of 'Meal Prep' before, but basically this is making your meals up together ready for a following number of days. There are many reasons we do this, however ultimately it ensures we have our good nutritious food ready for us, so we have no excuses to say I rather go out a buy food and go off track.
Another great reason is that we can cook in batch and save money as our meals for later in the week are ready and done!
Also it can feel awesome just popping a meal in the microwave at work to heat up in 2 minutes, having a good full meal and avoiding going out to the shop for a mediocre sandwich.
Decent containers are always worth the investment. Also it means you can have pretty much any meal you like for lunch! Soups, stir-frys, chilli, spag-bol, chicken and rice, fish, etc. All these fresh meals ready for your sat at your desk!
3. Food Diary
Tracking your food intake is really the ONLY way to guarantee your results. Most importantly it keeps you accountable for what you eat. Often we may think we have a good diet but that occasional snacking that we didn't plan for can add up! Here’s a classic, someone brings in cake or biscuits into the office and we treat ourselves as its only 'a biscuit' or 'a cupcake'. However, it’s food you haven't planned into our day so often it's forgotten about later on and if this happens 2-3 times a week the calories add up!
So over everything, we fully advise tracking your food intake. Give it 2 weeks and it may show up some truths about your diet.
For any of our clients looking to make changes, we always get them to track their entire food intake for 2 weeks before any changes are made. This ensures a true picture of their lifestyle and allows us to advises minor changes that will work in the long-run, rather than making major changes blind and not realising why the results never came.
Do you find anything else that will help with your diet? What have we missed?