To lose weight, is tough. It’s even tougher to lose weight and keep it off. It’s EVEN tougher to also watch your diet and eat smaller portions at the same time. If you have a busy life it gets monumentally hard as you snack more, and have less time to exercise. When you get home from work worn out, the last thing you feel like doing is getting a workout in right?

So I’m going to help you out if you’re struggling…

What I’ll do today is give you a great workout to burn calories, and tips on planning your day if your in a 9-5 job.

From what I’ve seen in almost 10 years of personal training, it’s organising your day so you give yourself the best chance to lose weight and keep it off! I’ve seen it so many times it’s not even funny. Clients who work long hours will sign up, train online with me and see some results. Then as they fail to plan their day AROUND their fitness goals, they get fatigued from trying to balance everything and let things slip again. Just to be clear, unless you plan your busy day around your fitness goals, it will become almost impossible to achieve life long results and healthy habits.

Let’s work backwards first, planning your day is the most important thing, fitting everything in so it works around your daily life is crucial.

Plan your day (week) properly

Your going to need to get yourself set up for success. Even if you don’t work long hours you’ll need to plan your day (or rather, your training week) properly. Unless your a super determined and seasoned athlete, most people fail to lose weight and keep it off because they try really hard short term, then fatigue and basically….give up.

How to plan your training week

I’m taking it for granted that at the moment your day is super busy, you get up, go to work then arrive home at 6 or even 7. The last thing you feel like doing is working out, right? We will get to that, first let’s look at looking after your diet as stress free as possible.

The first step is making sure you eat right WHILST your at work. That’s half the plan! Start your day with a healthy breakfast, then eat a measured out lunch with veggies, salad and protein you prepared the night before. It needs to contain measured whole grain carbohydrate. Whole grain means slow burning energy, and it’ll help you stay full. Like I said, you prepare your healthy measured lunch the night before, it’ll stop you buying processed sandwiches or similar when your at work.

Mid-afternoon, have a piece of fruit and get used to the feeling of being NOURISHED rather than picking at snacks and buying processed food. Once your home, dinner is measured portions of whole grain carbohydrate, lots of veggies and protein. For more info on portion sizes and balancing your meals go to http://www.nhs.uk and search for The Eatwell Guide.

Be nourished for one week

For one week do the above, get used to the feeling of nourishment, this feels different to feeling bloated. Feeling nourished means you’ll feel full of ‘clean’ energy, whereas eating processed food means you feel full of ‘bloated’ energy. (If that makes sense!) you probably get what I mean. Eating a really good diet gives you that feeling of boundless energy, eating a higher calorie diet crammed with fatty saturated foods give you that slow and lethargic feel. Once you’ve got that nourished feeling and are seeing progress, you’ll be far less inclined to head for the snacks and processed garbage.

All I want you to do for one week is focus on this, don’t worry about any exercise at all. It will be enough to focus on your diet, trust me! After week one, assuming your injury free, just do this one great workout on Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays. Over the weekend you’ll also need to get yourself out for a nice walk to stretch the legs too…

The quick HIIT workout

1 Min – Jog On Spot with backstroke

20 Sec – Mountain climbers

10 Squat Jumps

6 TIMES THROUGH NO REST

As the workout goes, you’ll get tired, use the jog on spot as your recovery to breathe and try to calm down as your moving! It’ll take around 15 Mins total, hang on and get it done. It’s a HIIT workout so you’ll feel it get tougher during the Squat Jumps and then easier again. This raising and lowering of your heart rate will really help stoke your metabolism, when combined with your new nourished diet, it’s a win win for weight loss!

Clear your mind

One thing that I have found really helps me stay clear is meditating. In this busy world of constant information it becomes very easy to over analyse your performance against others. Combat this by just going into a quiet room once a day, sitting down, closing your eyes and focusing on your breathing. Try it for just five minutes today. Then five minutes tomorrow. You’ll start to garner a better sense of clarity and in turn, more self-confidence. Stick at meditating every day and I can promise you, it will only help.

Small changes equal big gains

Hopefully you’ve read this blog and thought to yourself; “that doesn’t look too bad.” And it isn’t, the key is keeping things simple. Just focus on your nourished diet and this really simple workout three days a week. It will be enough as you will also have to fight temptation. Your old ways won’t simply die straight away, they will put up a fight! Don’t try to do too many things at once, be content knowing that it’ll take time to get used to even these simple changes.

Stick to this method for 4 weeks, then see if you’ve lost weight. Don’t assess things before then, you’ll just overanalyse it. I promise you that if you’ve led a busy stressful life with a bad diet, you’re going to lose weight and feel healthier.

Plan your day and stick to one workout. Keep it stress free by keeping it simple. The health gains are there for the taking! One final point, If doing this all on your own does seem too much and you need a bit of back up, don’t forget to get in touch. Some people just need a coach for that extra push, and that’s why I’m here.

Now get out there and apply it.