People think because they’re eating Greek yoghurt with chia seeds, or avocado on wholegrain toast, they will AUTOMATICALLY become healthy.

Yep those foods are ‘healthy’.

But do you know what’s even healthier?

Being lean!

If you’re struggling with your weight, your first priority for health should be to lose weight.

Yep, you can probably guess what’s coming next – this means eating LESS calories than you’re burning (AKA creating a deficit of calories).

Your body needs to get the calories from somewhere, so when you create a calorie deficit, it’s going to burn your body fat to get the remaining calories.

Remember, calories come from all foods, even ‘healthy’ foods.

So if you’re not losing weight and think you’re eating well, you need to think whether you’re actually creating a caloric deficit.

Article Written by Tomfit Trainer Toby Johnson

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The truth is, the journey may indeed take a while, as the saying goes “Rome wasn’t built in a day” and if you are being honest with yourself you will realise that you didn’t put on the extra weight in a day either… However, every great journey starts with a single step. A successful fat loss journey is achieved by consistent action towards to your goal. You will have days that aren’t perfect, you may even have entire weeks that aren’t great but as long as you reset yourself mentally and keep at it you are sure as hell going to be better off than if you had of kept doing what you were doing to get overweight in the first place.

By breaking your big goals into smaller monthly, weekly and daily goals you create a pathway to success and by ticking off these goals you gain momentum and confidence in yourself. Daily goals also allow you to build healthy habits that will stick with you long after the weight is lost so you will never have to be overweight again. 

We have put together a small booklet that consists of 7 days of healthy habits you can apply to help you on your fat loss journey. Small steps taken every day compound into some pretty damn incredible changes.

Remember Consistency > Perfection.

You can download the booklet here:

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We’ve all been faced with the decision of going to the gym or spending the night in watching Netflix and scrolling social media. And unless you’re a better person than I am, you’ve caved to the second option once or twice.

So let’s address the elephant in the room here. What if we always want to stay in and watch Netflix? Can we get to our weight loss goals without exercising?

Right before we answer this question, a few caveats…

When talking about if you should try lose weight without exercising, I’m going to look past the fact that if you’re trying to lose weight, you’re probably doing it to feel better (which exercise will also do).

I’ll also look past the fact that if you’re trying to lose weight, you’re probably doing it to be healthier (which exercise will also do).

And lastly, I’ll look past the fact that if you’re trying to lose weight, you’re probably doing it to look better, which, yep you guessed it, exercise will also do.

Okay. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get to the meat of the question. Is it physically possible to lose weight without exercising?

Short answer – yes absolutely. In order to burn body fat, you have to either eat less calories, or spend more calories. Nutrition helps with the former, exercise helps with the latter. So in theory you could simply perfect your nutrition so that you eat less calories until you begin to burn fat.

Before you throw out your running shoes, it’s important to understand that exercise does FAR more than just burn calories. We already touched on how it changes how you feel, how healthy you are, and how you look. But it also does something incredibly important for your weight loss results. Once you begin exercising regularly, it becomes what is called a keystone habit.

Keystone habits are beneficial behaviours performed regularly that encourage other beneficial habits to form. For example, when you have just smashed out a crazy-difficult workout and you’re feeling on top of the world that day, you’re likely to want your efforts to cause some sort of result correct?

Think of what this might mean in terms of behaviour and lifestyle…

·      When offered another slice of pizza when you’ve already had your share, you’ll remember how hard you trained that day and politely decline.

·      The night before a hard workout you’ll be more likely to get a solid 8-hours of sleep because you know how gruelling a workout can be when you’re sleep deprived.

·      You’ll meet people in the gym with the same goals as you for their health, and form new social circles that help you stay accountable to a healthier lifestyle.

·     Instead of stress-eating throughout your hectic schedule, you’ll be in a better mood and have reduced stress levels due to the positive effects on the brain of exercise. You’ll find it much easier to hold back from the tasty treats someone left after a shared lunch at work.

See how ONE habit causes a domino-effect to make a healthy lifestyle fall into place?

These aren’t just my own observations either. One study looked at women who had lost weight and found that those who had kept more than 10% of their bodyweight off for 2 years reported much higher levels of physical activity. The authors concluded that if you want to lose more than 10% of your bodyweight, an exercise habit can help you keep that weight off for good.

Now, the ladies in this study who sustained their weight loss had exercised for an average of 40 minutes a day, which is a lot if you’re starting out. Does this mean you have to be in the gym for 40 minutes every single day if you want to have a chance of keeping the weight off? No, of course not. You can start with less and still reap all the fantastic benefits of exercise that I’ve mentioned.

So, let’s put it bluntly: do you have to exercise to lose weight? No. But if you want the best results for your body, I’ll see you in the gym.

Tobias Johnson (BSc, CPT)

Study cited:

24-Month Effect of Exercise on Weight Loss in Overweight Women https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2829743/

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You’ve had a big week at work whilst also pursuing your goal of getting rid of that beautiful beer belly by training hard at the gym and eating well. Saturday comes around and the sun is out, the BBQ is on and you can practically hear the the coronas in the fridge saying “pick me, pick me!”  Sound familiar? 

It’s a situation the majority of us men who are looking to lose weight come across and its one that can lead to regret or the feeling of “missing out”. The issue is there a lack of education as to the effect alcohol has on weight loss and building muscle so here’s our take drinking alcohol and still getting in great shape- because life’s about living right?

Let’s start with the fundamentals. Alcohol will not negate the law of thermodynamics which means that providing your energy balance leaves you in a caloric deficit you will still lose weight even if you have had alcohol! By tracking your food intake for the day or just simply reducing your usual portion sizes you can effectively still lose weight while drinking alcohol. This ideal approach can be more difficult than it seems as alcohol is shown  to stimulate appetite once an intoxicated individual starts eating  “yea go on, il have the last snag!”

Now let’s say you have successfully done it, you have had some Saturday night drinks and still ended up in a calorie deficit for the day. It’s Sunday morning and you are craving something a bit “naughty” but remember, you still want that beer belly gone… this is where alcohol can set you back. While this  probably isn’t breaking news to you, it’s important to note that alcohol consumption reduces inhibition which means you are more likely to overeat following a night of drinking. As alcohol is treated like a poison by the body it will get preferentially used as your go to energy source so the carbs and fats you eat while you still have alcohol in your system will get more easily stored. To add to that, people tend not to overcompensate for an increase of a caloric intake through alcohol like they would from an increased caloric intake from food. HOWEVER, this obviously comes down to the individual and their will power,

Now we know we can drink alcohol and still lose weight, but what about losing FAT and building muscle? Well this is where it starts to not look so good for alcohol.  A study done on men who had taken part in a “heavy” night of drinking (8-9 drinks)  showed an average of a 45% decrease in testosterone levels and whilst this might not mean you cant build muscle it does mean that consistent heavy alcohol usage can significantly slow down the rate of muscle growth over the long term. On top of that heavy alcohol use has been shown to greatly decrease performance in the gym and just generally weaken will power.  Could it get any worse? Well unfortunately yes, alcohol has also been shown to the least satiating energy source.

You are probably thinking “WHERE IS THE GOOD NEWS?!” Well, in reality consistent heavy alcohol usage really isn’t going to help you on your journey getting the body you have always wanted (or used to have). However after looking at the research its fair to say a couple drinks on a Saturday afternoon isn’t going to set you back a mile and shouldn’t be viewed as a “sin” nor should succumbing to a “couple cold ones” leave you feeling like a failure. What you do day in and day out is what is going to really dictate your progress with your health and fitness goals, think consistency > perfection. 

We know its probably unrealistic for everyone to abide by these the aforementioned “5 tips” every time they drink however doing it just 50% of the time will have a great impact and could potentially stop you feeling like all the hard work from the week is undone in one day. As a worst case, should you not abide by these tips at all and just jump in and drink all the beers and eat all the food then at least you know WHY you aren’t getting the results you are after instead of just blaming “the drinks”. 

Alcoholic Drinks and there Caloric value 

Good luck with your new found knowledge and welcome a balanced approach to health and fitness.

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