ABC Recipe

This is a 3 step formula to help you successfully build the daily practices to form habits to help you move towards your goals.

This follows the habit loop principle of:

Cue, Routine and Reward.

Anchor is a Cue.

Behaviour is the Routine.

Celebration is a Reward.

Try to use this each week and every time you want to form a new habit. 

A - Anchor

Find an Anchor Moment. 

An anchor moment is an existing routine or event that happens. The anchor moment is a cue or reminder to practice your new behaviour/practice. Eg. Brushing your teeth, Phone Vibrating, Walking in the Door

B - Behaviour 

Ideally, we want to break this behaviour down to make it small and simple to practice. The behaviour is done immediately after the Anchor moment.

C - Celebrate

Immediately after practising the behaviour, celebrate your success to reinforce the habit. Tick it off your list, give yourself a high five, or tell yourself how awesome you are. Make sure the celebration works for you and it helps you feel happy and successful.

Attach the new behaviour onto a current behaviour (the anchor) and use it as a reminder or trigger to practice the new habit.

The celebration reinforces the behaviour and form the habit loop.

Habit Stacking

In line with the ABC Recipe (Anchor, Behaviour, Celebration), we have the strategy of Habit Stacking.

One of the best ways to build a new habit is to identify a current habit you already do each day and then stack your new behaviour on top. This is called habit stacking.

You pair a NEW HABIT with a CURRENT HABIT.

The habit stacking formula is:

After/Before [Current Habit], I will [New Habit]

Again, the reason habit stacking works so well is that your current habits are already built into your brain. You have patterns and behaviours that have been strengthened over the years. By linking your new habits to a cycle that is already built into your brain, you make it more likely that you'll stick to the new behaviour.

Once you have mastered this basic structure, you can begin to create larger stacks by chaining small habits together. This allows you to take advantage of the natural momentum that comes from one behaviour leading into the next.

You can also insert new behaviours into the middle of your current routines. For example, you may already have a morning routine that looks like this: 

Wake up > Make my bed > Take a shower. 

Let’s say you want to develop the habit of reading more each night. 

You can expand your habit stack and try something like: 

Wake up > Make my bed > Place a book on my pillow > Take a shower. 

Now, when you climb into bed each night, a book will be sitting there waiting for you to enjoy.

Overall, habit stacking allows you to create a set of simple rules that guide your future behaviour. It’s like you always have a game plan for which action should come next. 

Consider when you are most likely to be successful. Don’t ask yourself to do a habit when you’re likely to be occupied with something else.

Be specific and clear. The specificity is important. The more tightly bound your new habit is to a specific cue, the better the odds are that you will notice when the time comes to act.

For me personally, I’ve implemented habit stacking the following ways:

Brushing teeth at night in the shower

Making the bed when the kettle is on for my morning coffee

I put the dishes away before I wash the next set of dishes up

I write in my journal when I have my morning coffee

I have my Vitamin D and Fish Oil when I have my morning water

I read when I drink my tea before bed

Nutrition Habit Stacking - add Protein or Plants to your meals

Eg. if your current breaky is oats add a scoop of protein powder to my oats

Love avo on toast, add a side of ham or smoked salmon

Protein bar/shake snack add a piece of fruit

If you want to build a new habit, see if you can stack it onto a current habit as a trigger to prompt you to start it.

Have a Plan for Buying Meals

Meal prep isn’t for everyone and even if you do enjoy it, there will still be times when you need to buy a meal.

Sometimes you might not realise that your bought meals, even your quick grab and go options are actually quite calorie dense and don’t actually keep you full for long.

Buying meals can often be where a huge amount of calories are added to the week. Buying meals from restaurant and cafes will nearly always be significantly higher calorie meals compared to home cooked food. The chef doesn’t care about your goal, they care about making food delicious so people come back!  

Sometimes the purpose of a bought meal will be complete enjoyment and/or social health, so it might be more of an indulgent meal. That’s totally fine, we shouldn’t lose enjoyment of these situations, our point here is that if you buy meals regularly as part of your routine, there are plenty of options that can be aligned with your goals.

Remember that the food court is not the only option when you step out of the office to grab lunch and Uber Eats isn’t the only way to have a quick, effortless meal at home. There are so many 'zero cook' options available at supermarkets and options which you can store away in the cupboard, provided you're informed about them and have them on your go-to list.

Do you consider going without food when you are without a plan or a prepared meal? Don’t eat anything, just skip the meal/feeding all together, leaving a 6+ hour time frame before your next meal/snack?

Extended periods without food can leave you irritable, ravenous, and unable to make mindful food decisions. You’re more likely to snack mindlessly, grab without thought, and go for Calorie dense, indulgent options because they’re within reach.

Sudden changes in schedule, unforeseen busy days, happen. Having a list of foods that you can buy, from a range of places, that suit you and your enjoy can help you in the long term.

It’s an IF-THEN strategy.
IF my plan changes, THEN my grab-N-go option is ………...

IF I need to buy a meal when at work, THEN my options are………..

Hot chips are bloody delicious and one of those amazing combos of carb, fat and salt that make them hard to keep to a small portion. Can you eat a few and throw the rest away? No, we neither.

Chicken shop salads are possible, however be cautious. They can be loaded with Calories from flavour additions and sauces, as we said before they make the food as tasty as possible. Making your own side salad is quick and can help you have a bit of BBQ bird whilst still moving towards your fat loss goal.

This is an example of creating some awareness around a regular choice and thinking of your plan. You might not be a regular at the chicken shop but can you relate this IF-THEN planning to places that you regularly buy meals from?

We had a look into some fast food options which serves as a possible plan if we end up there and are hungry. Road trips, unexpected stops with family and friends, can mean that we end up at a fast food restaurant for a meal. How is your mindset when this happens? All or nothing? I’m at McDonalds therefore I’m off the plan? It doesn’t have to be that way when you have an IF-THEN plan and a flexible mindset.

Here are a few simple guides for ordering meals when out:

Implementation Intentions: If-Then. Have a Plan B

Things are easy when life runs to a plan or schedule. We can plan our day, plan our meals, plan our training, even plan our sleep.

But how often in this life we live do plans get turned on their head and chaos happens. 

When chaos happens, our intentions and rhythm are thrown out of order. Chaos creates a barrier, and with barriers come excuses. 

So how can we stay on track or at least do our best when we experience chaos?

Forming if-then plans can improve your rate of achieving your goal. 

An if-then plan is essentially a Plan B.

This strategy can prevent you from straying off course, by giving you a plan of action on how to stay on track if you do sway slightly from the plan.

“If-then” planning acts as a safeguard in case you need to use the “break glass procedure.” It requires a realistic view of the future, by assessing potential critical situations. By thinking ahead and devising a Plan B you are prepared to react right away, minimising the possible damage.

The “If-Then” technique forces you to create a strategy for when chaos strikes. It gives you a plan of attack before a barrier arises so you are prepared and can then stick to your schedule.

All you need to do is complete this phrase:
“If [something unexpected], then [your response].”

If I don’t wake up in time to go to the gym before work, then I’ll go after work.

If I eat a large indulgence meal tonight, then I’ll scale back my carbs and fats tomorrow.

If I forget my lunch at home, then I’ll get a bbq chicken and salad from the shops.

If I have a drink during the week, then I’ll have one less on the weekend.

Planning for chaos and using the “If-Then” technique can help find ways to stay on track even when life is pulling you off course. 

The “if–then” strategy gives you a clear plan for overcoming the unexpected stuff. You can't control when little emergencies happen to you, but you don't have to be a victim of them either.

Set Process Goals

Goals are about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the processes that lead to those results.

Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress.

Commonly, when someone sets their health and fitness goals they start with the outcome they want:

I want to lose 5-10 kgs

I want 6 pack abs

I want to snatch 100kgs

There are outcome goals.

Outcome goals describe how we want things to be at the end of the process. There’s nothing wrong with wanting things. Or talking about what you want. Or starting with the end in mind.

But we can’t stop there ...

Wanting things isn’t enough. Even if you really, really, really want them. However, we often can’t control outcomes. Outcomes are affected by environmental things. Like:

Your job gets crazy busy

Your kid gets sick

Your gym closes for renovations

You have exams or assessments to do

They’re also influenced by physical things:

Your hormones.

You have a chronic illness. (Or even just a cold or flu.)

You’re stressed.

You’re travelling a lot.

You’re getting older.

You’re having problems sleeping.

You tripped over your dog and sprained your knee.

You can’t always make your body do what you want it to. But you can control what YOU do.

That’s why SYSTEMS are so important —They focus on the things we do have control over.

SYSTEMS represent our habits and behaviours. Our daily practices

SYSTEMS represent your commitment to practicing a particular set of actions or tasks every day, as consistently as possible.

Here is how:

Write down the outcome you want.

Think about all the small steps you can take to move you toward that outcome, and which ones should come first.

Here are a few other examples of how we can turn outcome goals into systems.

Outcome: Lose 5 kilos

System: Eat Protein and Nutrient Dense Foods at every meal. Walk 10K Steps per day

Outcome: Lower blood sugar

System: Eat low calorie fruit for dessert, instead of sweets

Outcome: Squat more weight

System: Squat 3 times a week at various intensities

Outcome: Sleep 8 hours per night

System: Create a calming pre-sleep routine and start it 30-60 minutes before bedtime

Outcome: Have a better relationship with partner

System: Have a date night once a week.

Notice how both goals and systems are trackable. However, systems are usually more effective because they give you something to do (and track) each day.

Creating powerful systems

Write down one outcome you want. Name the thing you want most right now.

Write down some of the systems you need to put in place to move towards that goal

Notice if there are any current systems in your life that are hindering you from achieving your goals

Practice your new system and tomorrow, and the next day. Keep in mind, if you don’t practice that system on a particular day, don’t let it derail you. Each day is a clean slate. Start again the next day.

Pick 1 Thing

Building new habits requires energy. 

We have a limited amount of resources and energy that we can allocate throughout the day to work, study, exercise, family, friends, etc.

In order to give ourselves the best chance of success in building habits, we recommend working on 1 thing at a time.

Research has shown that when people try to change a single behaviour at a time, the likelihood that they’ll retain that habit for a year or more is better than 80 percent. When they try to tackle two behaviors at once, their chances of success are less than 35 percent.  When they try for three behaviors or more, their success rate plummets to less than 5 percent.

Don’t bite off more than you can chew.

Research has shown that when people try to change a single behavior at a time, the likelihood that they’ll retain that habit for a year or more is better than 80 percent. When they try to tackle two behaviours at once, their chances of success are less than 35 percent.  When they try for three behaviours or more, their success rate plummets to less than 5 percent.

It can be hard to slow down and just pick 1 thing when we are motivated, we want to make the most of it and try lots of things at once.

Let’s try to focus on 1 thing at a time and give ourselves the best chance of success in building long term habits.

If you’re looking to change your nutrition, for example you ate 3 meals a day 7 days a week, that’s 21 meals. Now imagine trying to change all of those, seems pretty daunting. 

Instead just say: I’m going to work on my breakfast this week OR work on increasing protein at 1 meal per day. 

Working on 1 thing every week for 8 weeks and being successful is going to be more effective than trying 5 things at once and burning out in 5 weeks.

Build a Support Network

A sense of relatedness and belonging is a huge component of behaviour change and motivation. 

This is the need for relationships, for connectedness, and for interaction with like-minded people. People are more likely to adopt values and behaviours promoted by those to whom they feel connected and in whom they trust.

In the book “Join The Club” by Tina Rosenberg, it suggests that “our personal identity is in part defined by identification with a group or separation from other groups”. Probably why keto, fasting, Crossfit and any other “health-cults” are so powerfully ingrained in peoples behaviour. Their sense of belonging to a group reinforces their behaviours. Peer pressure can be a wonderful tool when used for good rather than evil. 

We want you to share your experience with others on a similar journey and be supported by the coaches and community.

We love the quote: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

Name any successful person in any field and I bet they didn’t do it alone. They had any number of supporting people place a significant role in their life. Whether it be teammates, coaches, partners, parents, etc. 

Having a support crew is going to be crucial for your success.

It’s actually aligned with one of the values of FNC under Community.

When it comes to health and fitness goals in particular healthy eating, a common perceived barrier that showed up was a lack of support. 

This included family, friends, and colleagues.

Not only were they unsupportive, but sometimes even going as far as discouraging.

4 Tips for Creating a Support Network:

1. Be clear on your goals. Your own goals. Remind yourself of those during times of temptation or when people are trying to sway you to the darkside.

2. Find your why. 

3. Communicate your goals and your why to those you truly care about and those who are your so called support environment

4. Ignore the comments and actions of those who don’t support you and understand why you want to follow a healthy lifestyle.

Be true to yourself.

Communicate with others.

Support others and surround yourself with people who support you.

Plan diet / fat loss phases and breaks

Make a plan for your goal.

Don’t just set a never ending diet.

Plan diet phases and breaks. It’s called “periodising” your nutrition.

Think about a ‘road trip’ analogy. Imagine you’re driving from Melbourne to Brisbane (for our international readers, that’s about a 2000km drive). Ask yourself “what would happen, if I didn’t stop at all”. The answer could be any of the following; micro sleep, fuel runs out, severe hunger, mechanical issues, etc. All of these answers ultimately mean the road trip won’t be completed. Stopping for fuel, food, a service and sleep is clearly a requirement of a road trip. The same idea can be applied to a long term fat loss goal. You need to ‘stop, revive, survive’ if you actually wish to reach the end goal.

How long should each phase be?

We’d recommend that diet phases are 6-8 weeks long

Then take a 1-2 week diet break at your new maintenance.

If tracking your calories, use the same method to work out your maintenance calories again, however now your current weight will be less than at the start of the diet phase, so your maintenance calories will be less.

Our suggest for an 8 week period

Week 1 - maintenance

Weeks 2-7 - diet phase

Week 8 - maintenance

Long term

If you do more diet phases, we’d suggest taking slightly longer breaks as you progress.

The first diet break might be 1 week.

Next time 2 weeks.

Then 3 weeks.

Dieting takes effort, control and discipline. Taking some breaks along the way, taking it slow, may be what you need to hold onto your results long term.

Respect Maintenance

When you reach your goal, it’s not over. Maintaining your weight long term is the real goal and maintenance takes effort.

When you reach your goal, try to maintain the habits that helped you progress, just with slightly bigger portions.

Particularly in the first weeks after ending a diet, your appetite might be up and exposing yourself to a lot of new foods, flavours and having more social meals and bought meals might make it hard not to over-eat. Give yourself a few weeks to settle into maintenance, keep foods familiar, just with slightly bigger portions and the longer you learn to live at your new weight, the easier you might find the long term.

Also consider that you will be burning less energy with your movement, which is another reason why as a smaller person, your calorie needs are less.

Read more about the why, when, when and how of diet breaks and times at maintenance here:

Maintenance Phases Blog

Periodising your nutrition using the FNC Diet Builder Video

Plan for a Muscle Gain Goal

Firstly, be clear that resistance training is the most important factor for muscle gain, not nutrition.

Basic guidelines for muscle gain are:

• Muscle stimulating training - weights

• Effective protein, 3-5 serves each day, roughly every 3-5 hours, with 20-40 grams of protein each time

• Enough Calories so that your body weight is increasing at a rate of 1-2% each month

That’s muscle building simplified.

Here is a video explaining how to set calorie and macronutrient targets for muscle gain using the FNC Diet Builder.

So check back with the PROTEIN article to ensure your meals are effective.

Check the PLANTS article to ensure you are hitting those minimums for health.

Keep a base of nutrition that reflects protein and plants, mostly whole foods and build 3-5 meals as a lifestyle which you can nail each day.

Your appetite will likely be a limiting factor for your goal and you may need to track your intake and over-ride your fullness signals at some times. Maintain that base of great nutrition but after that you may need to add some calorie-dense foods, some liquid calories and add on regular desserts to allow you to consume enough calories to grow.

Some fat gain is a reality of a muscle gain goal, however aiming to maintain that rate of 1-2% growth in body weight per month, whilst maintaining your training and noticing increases in strength are boxes to tick so that the majority of weight gain is likely to be muscle.

Along with scale weight and your training progress, you could also monitor your waist measurements and take progress photos to keep an eye on your body composition and compare those to the progress on the scales.

Not too many filling foods

Feeling full can be a limiting factor and eating too much food volume may actually negatively impact your progress. Imagine trying to increase your calories for your goal when all you are eating is lean protein and plants. People you know with a fat loss goal will be aiming to reduce the foods that you should look to add on top of your base nutrition. It’s basically the opposite, when appetite is limiting, look to add calories through sauces, liquids and calorie dense foods.

Planning Muscle Gain phases

Nutrition for muscle gain is about being in a calorie surplus that results in the weight gain rates we’ve described for as long as you are comfortable. Some body fat gain is a reality of a muscle gain goal and that’s fine, you’ll likely find the fat loss part of the goal much easier. However don’t plan too many mini-cuts.

Our suggestion is to plan a muscle gain period for at least 12-16 weeks before planning a possible mini-cut after that time, lasting about 4 weeks. We say possible, as you should only do them if you want to reduce body fat a little. If you are increasing in size and love that way you look, you may not need to think about a mini cut until later down the line.

When it is time for a mini cut, 4-8 weeks is a good aim, with a calorie deficit of about 10-20%. During that time keep up protein up, maybe even increasing protein just a touch and keep your training consistent. When it comes to maintaining muscle in a diet, it’s all about training, then protein.

Non-Tracking for Muscle Gain

Ideally, for muscle gain, learning to track your calories/macros can help to ensure you are ticking all the right boxes and are hitting a high enough calorie aim to be driving your body weight up. However if you don't want to track your Calories & protein, try this approach.

Set a regular base of protein, plants, whole-food carbs & fats which fill you up at each meal. If you aren't growing - add some more Calorie dense carbs & fats until you start seeing that scale number creep up.

Include Plants with Meals

We want to aim for a source of PROTEIN at each meal, then we want to build upon that foundation with some plants.

Plants are NUTRIENT DENSE FOODS (NDFs) 

Vegetables, salads, berries, fruit. These foods are typically lower calorie, high in volume, and provide a wide range of health benefits.

Benefits

• We get a lot of our vitamins,  minerals, antioxidants and fibre from plants. They are low calorie and add volume to our meals.

Portion sizes

• Aim to eat at least 5 fists of veggies and salads sized serves per day as a minimum - the 5 Fists of Fortitude.

• Aim for at least 300 grams (2 medium sized pieces / handfuls of berries) per day as a minimum - the Fortitude 300

Ideal sources

• Vegetables, salads, berries and fruit.

• Aim to eat the rainbow, a variety of different plants and see if you can add to your favourites list over time.

When

• Each meal, though if you do miss plants in one meal just aim to make it up with a bigger portion at another. You might notice the meals without plants aren’t as filling as that’s why having them at each meal is our recommendation.

How to prepare it

• Roast trays of vegetables in the oven and portion them out, make big salads, don’t be afraid to eat them whole. In colder weather, soups and stews are great.

How to shop, keep prices down

• Buy seasonally as they are usually the cheapest options at the time and freshest. Usually what’s on sale is in season. Try not to have a set idea in your head when you go shopping of what you need, buy what’s on sale to cut costs and get variety over time.

EAT THE RAINBOW
Each coloured group of plants are associated with a list of health benefits. Hence why it is important to consume a range of different colours or EAT THE RAINBOW.

Here are a few tips when it comes to adding plants to your meals:

• Start with the ones your enjoy

• You can add flavour to them, eg. Roasting with herbs and spices

• Frozen options are also great

• Tinned options are great backups

• Add them to your smoothies if you don't really like the taste

• Make big veggies sauces with passata (tomato puree) and grated veggies

• Prepare them in a way you enjoy. Don't like boiled broccoli? Try pan frying or roasting it with garlic and some butter or oil.

Only about 7% of Australian adults eat the recommended 5 serves of veggies each day and only about 50% eat the recommended serves of fruit per day.

Plants are the perfect tool to help add to the size of your meals.

Bulk your meals with plants to satisfy your hunger signals and keep you feeling fuller for longer!

Tracking plants

If you are tracking your calories, make it easy and track averages, rather than individual plants.

If using the FNC Diet Builder, you will already be selecting “mixed / averaged” for fruit, berries and veggies.

If using MFP - we’ve added these averages to the food options. Search “teamfnc” when entering your plants to find those options.

Frozen and tinned are great options as well as fresh. Having some 'emergency' frozen veggies and berries, along with some 'emergency' tins of fruit and vegetables is a great idea.

Adding some flavour, despite some Calories and added sugar in sauce, is almost definitely going to be a positive.

There are plenty of low-calorie / low-sugar flavour sauce options. Over time you might even find that you develop a taste for veggies and need less sauce.

Have you heard that fruit makes you fat?

Fat gain occurs when you consume more calories than you burn. It's not gained by the consumption of a single food or food type.

Fruit is very low calorie per bite and quite filling due to it's fibre and water content. It is extremely unlikely that fruit would be the cause of anyone's fat gain. 

Please stop fearing fruit.

Please stop listening to people who tell you to stop eating fruit.

Understand Flavours and Sauces

Flavours and sauces can help make your meals more enjoyable, can help make plants more tasty and there are heaps of lower calorie options available.

Just be aware of sauces, if not controlling portions we can be adding hundreds of calories to our day, even with small amounts of some sauces:

Just be aware that there is a spectrum, from meals that are too bland and boring, which will be hard to stick to all the way through to foods that are super delicious and hard not to overeat.

Herbs, spices, salt and pepper are all basically zero calorie flavour options. Some spice mixtures do have sugar added so just be aware of the calorie content. Try to build your skills in reading labels, notice how many calories per serve and what a serving size actually is.

You might find that your taco spice mix is actually 20 suggested servings and without awareness, might be something that you add a whole packet when cooking.

Build Meals and Days of Eating

How to build a meal:

• Step 1: Choose a protein source

• Step 2: Choose plants

Steps 1 & 2 can be in any order but our point is that when building meals, we want a foundation of protein and plants.

You may go no further and call it a small meal or a snack.

You may look at your protein options and notice that it’s got some fats, like with many meat choices, salmon, eggs. Maybe it’s got some carbs if you’ve chosen beans, legumes or tofu.

If part of your plant choices are potatoes you have more carbs and avo you have more fats.

So you see your base of protein and plants might already be a mixed meal.

However, you might start adding more carbs and/or more fats and here are a couple of graphics to show firstly a portion guide depending on goal and then a fat loss example.

Similar foods can be made into meals for differing goals, which is great when sharing meals. Couples and families sharing meals will likely have very similar foods for each meal, however the portions should differ to reflect our different sizes, differing activity levels, appetites and needs.

Building a day of eating which is going to suit you as an individual takes a bit of thought.

How many meals do you enjoy eating per day?

What does your lifestyle allow?

What is a target for you to aim for consistently so that you are satisfied from meals and across the day?

There is no perfect amount of meals that we should all be eating. The “eat 6 meals to boost your metabolism” thing is a myth.

3-5 meals with protein and plants at each is a great general guideline and a range in which most people will naturally fall when thinking about matching a plan to their lifestyle.

Separating Carbs and Fats

For those who are not tracking and are looking for a method to balance carbs and fats each day, you could consider separating carbs and fats.

Have meals with protein, plants and carbs around training.

Have meals with protein, plants and fats away from training.

This is not a magic formula and there is nothing wrong with eating carbs and fats together. In fact many people find it very satisfying.

A consideration is that carbs and fats together often enhance the taste of a meal quite a bit. This can certainly be a positive in some situations, however it can make portion control harder.

Think about boiled potato - how much can you eat?

Then mash the same potato and add butter and milk - with that combination of carbs and fats, you might find that you end up eating more.

The main takeaway point is that when building meals and building days, focus on protein and plants. It is the foundation of nutrition, no matter your goal. Everything is built on top of the foundation.

Planning and Preparation

This is key. It doesn’t have to be an exact plan but knowing when, where and what you plan to eat each day can help to make most of your food decisions in just a couple of minutes, at a time when you are most mentally focussed.

Making food decisions when tired and hungry is difficult.

So try to think in advance, it might be a quick note in your phone in the morning or evening - depending on when you have time and when you are not hungry.

Even if this includes buying meals, have some advanced thought of what you might buy and where can certainly help.

Over time, you’ll start to build a list of meals you enjoy that you can default to when needed and you might even have some convenience meals and grab and go options that can support you when time is short.

Understand Satiety - Feel full and stay full

Satiety is feeling full and satisfied from our meals and is a huge consideration for any goal. For a fat loss goal, if we can stay full and satisfied from our meals whilst reducing calories, it makes the process a lot easier.

At some point in the fat loss phase, hunger is often a reality, however we can make this a much smaller issue when we focus on what can increase our satiety, what can increase our feelings of fullness and satisfaction.

Food volume:

Eating less calories for fat loss doesn’t have to mean eating less food. The actual amount, the volume of food we eat can play a huge role in how full and satisfied we feel. When aiming for fat loss, choosing plenty of higher volume, lower calorie foods is a great idea.

It’s called “low calorie per bite”

For each bite of food, is it lower or higher calorie?

We generally consume a similar weight of food each day, rather than a constant amount of energy. Eg - consistently consuming 2000 grams of food rather than 2000 calories. This means that the lower the energy content of the foods eaten (lower calorie per bite), the lower overall energy intake may be and vice versa.

Example:

• If someone usually eats a meal of 500g in weight for a meal, it could be 300 calories or it could be 3000 calories depending on how dense the meal is.

If you’re wanting to feel fuller on less calories, look at adding higher volume lower calorie foods such as fruits and vegetables. 

Examples: 

• Fruit has a lower energy density than chocolate.

• Vegetables have a lower energy density than pasta. 

• Honey has a higher energy density than strawberries. 

• Olive oil has a higher energy density than avocado. 

• Potatoes have a lower energy density than rice. 

• White fish has a lower energy density than salmon. 

The main factors of energy density are water and fat. Foods with the lowest calories per bite are those with the most water and least fat. Foods with the highest calories per bite are typically high in fat and low in water. Fibre can also help reduce calorie density, another tick for fruit and vegetables!  

If we can eat more foods that are lower calorie per bite, we can increase our satiety. 

That’s why we like to promote the idea that you don’t have to eat less food volume to lose weight, just less calories.

Note: For those with a muscle gain or performance goal, feeling full can actually be a limiting factor and eating too much food volume may actually negatively impact your progress. Imagine trying to increase your calories for these goals when all you are eating is lean protein and plants.

Protein and Satiety:

Most studies show that protein has a stronger effect on satiety than the same quantities of energy from carbohydrates or fats.

It increases satiety in one meal and over 24 hours. It was also shown to spontaneously lower energy intake, which can be important if you don’t weigh, measure and record your food intake.

20g protein seems to be enough to maximise satiety.

Fibre and Satiety:

Most studies show dietary fibre has a positive effect on feelings of fullness between meals and reducing energy intake as a result.

The amount of fibre was important, and larger doses were more effective at promoting satiety and reducing energy intake.

Fibre Sources:

Fruits, Vegetables, Potatoes, Oats, Whole-grains, Beans and Legumes

Here are some simple swaps for more protein and plants, more fullness, for the same calories:

Meal Speed and Satiety

If you find that you’re a fast eater and it leaves you feeling hungry, try to slow your rate of eating down.

Can you stretch it out to 15-20 minutes by putting your cutlery down in between bites, swapping hands, using chopsticks, etc.

Do you notice yourself loading up your fork or spoon with the next mouthful before you’ve even finished what’s in your mouth? Try putting your cutlery down in between bites and concentrate on chewing, how the food tastes and really enjoying the meal.

Chewing your food more can also significantly reduce hunger and promote satiety.

Listening to up-beat / fast music may actually make it difficult to eat slowly, try something a little slower. Who knows, maybe some yoga chill sounds will be your secret to eating slowly.

Noticing the flavours and textures of our meals can help us slow down. Food journaling can really help here.

Being mindful and present when eating can also help us slow down, so try turning the TV off until after your meal.

Breaking Habits

In order to break bad, undesirable, or non-goal aligned habits we can do a number of things. All of these follow what we’ve previously learnt about habits, often just reversing the ideas that are used to build new habits.

We can break the habit loop at 2 points. Either at the cue/trigger or the routine/behaviour.

Cue/Trigger

Remove as many triggers as possible to the behaviour. I’ll say it again: control your environment. Try not to keep these trigger foods in the house or at least keep them out of sight. Create an effort barrier between you and these foods. Change your environment, change the outcome. 

Routine/Behaviour

This is probably going to come into play if you don’t have control over your environment for example at work. Probably the more difficult approach, but we grow through the struggles we choose. Practice urge surfing. Just like ocean waves urges start small, grow in size then break up and dissipate. Ride out the cravings until they go away. Remember urges pass by themselves, we normally give in before the urge passes which reinforces the craving/behaviour. If struggling to let it pass naturally, ask yourself if giving into the craving is aligned with your goals? Is it helping you cast a vote for your desired identity, your future self or it is just reinforcing a behaviour that is perhaps holding you back?

Without the behaviour, there is no reward.

Without the trigger, there is no behaviour, therefore no reward.

If you break the loop, you take one step towards breaking the habit. 

We can also find a substitute for our habits. Often keeping the cue and the routine the same. 

Refer to the previous email of Replacing Ryan who solves his boredom/stress/emotional habits by replacing his eating/drinking with positive behaviours when the cues/triggers arose. 

Ultimately we want to break the habit loop, make the habits less desirable and reduce the frequency in which we currently practice them. 

We are halting the momentum and getting less reps in. 

Less repetition, less reward, less of a habit.

Here are ways we can break the habit loop using the inverse of our habit building strategies.

Make It Difficult

 When we looked at building habits we focused on making it easy, obvious, attractive and rewarding.

Let’s use the opposite when we are trying to break old habits and habit loops.

Create and implement an effort barrier.

Increase the number of steps required to

practice the habit you want to break.

Have less pre-prepared indulgences in the house.
Don’t keep cold beer in the fridge.

Unplug your playstation after using it.

The best way to break a bad habit is to make it impractical to do.

Add more steps that seem a little bit ridiculous to implement to get the small reward.

Eg if you want chocolate you’ll have to walk to the shop and get it.

To order pizza you can’t order it off your phone you’ll have to drive there and get it.

To drink a beer you have to put it in the fridge and wait for it to get cold (by then the craving might pass)

To play playstation you’ll have to set it up.

If snacking is an issue, don’t get ready made easy to consume snacks in the house. 

Make It Invisible

Our of sight, out of mind

Remove the cues from your environment.

Reduce your exposure to the habit.

Eg. Try not to keep tempting foods in your house.

Once a habit has been formed, the urge to act follows whenever the environmental cues reappear. 

Stop expecting yourself to rely on willpower or self control.

Bad habits are autocatalytic. They feed themselves

It’s known as “cue-induced wanting”: an external trigger causes a compulsive craving to repeat a bad habit. Once you notice something, you begin to want it.

The best strategy to eliminate bad habits is to cut off at the source. Reduce exposure to the cue that causes it.

Rather than make it obvious, make it invisible. Remove a single cue and the entire habit often fades away. Self-control is a short-term strategy, not a long-term one.

People with high self-control tend to spend less time in tempting situations. It’s easier to avoid temptation than to resist it.

Make It Unattractive

 Reframe your mindset. Highlight the benefits of avoiding the habit you're trying to break.

Eg. you'll move towards your goal quicker.

Every behaviour has a surface level craving and a deeper underlying motive.

Our habits are modern-day solutions to ancient desires. Some reduce stress by smoking a cigarette while others go for a run.

Once you associate a solution with the problem you need to solve, you keep coming back to it. 

Habits are attractive when we associate them with positive feelings and unattractive when we associate them with negative feelings.

To reprogram your brain to enjoy hard habits, make them more attractive by learning to associate them with a positive experience. Highlight the benefits of avoiding a bad habit to make it seem unattractive.

By saying no to this habit I’m saying yes to my goals and my future self.

Make It Unsatisfying

Remove the reward and add a consequence

 Behaviour is avoided when the experience is painful or unsatisfying. Pain is an effective teacher. The more immediate the pain, the less likely the behaviour.

For some people removing a reward and adding a consequence can help.

To prevent bad habits and eliminate unhealthy behaviours, add an instant cost to the action to reduce their odds. There can’t be a gap between the action and the consequences. As soon as actions incur an immediate consequence, behaviour begins to change.

Add in a consequence for practising your behaviour. Create a contract.

Eg. Snoozing alarm = eating your most hated food.

Complaining = 100 burpees
 

Get an accountability partner. Ask someone to watch your behaviour.

Create a habit contract. Make the costs of your bad habits public and painful. 

Remember to break a habit, think about where you can break the habit loop.

The cue, the routine or the reward.

Reduce Caffeine & Coffee Calories

You may not need to reduce caffeine. About 2/3 of humans tolerate caffeine really well, it can help us focus, work efficiently and is one of the few effective sports supplements available. There are just a few things we need to be aware of and always consider with coffee, are you in control, is is a “want” or a “need”. Do you feel like you “need” a coffee or can’t start the day without one? It might be time to test yourself and regain control.

Caffeine stays in our system a really long time.

It has a half-life of about 6 hours, meaning that 6 hours after a coffee, we’ll still have half the caffeine in our system affecting us.

So consider the timing of your last coffee in relation to your planned bedtime and also consider other sources of caffeine:

• Tea

• Cola drinks

• Dark Chocolate

• Cough Medicine

• Energy Drinks

• Pre-Workouts

Pre-workouts can have the equivalent caffeine of 2-4 coffees. Sure, you might feel like you have a boost for your workout but if you are exercising in the evening and the pre-workout affects your sleep, then it might not be worth it. Feel a boost for training but then impact sleep leading to less energy and reduced recovery.

Also consider that caffeine is an appetite suppressant. This may seem like a great thing when in a diet phase and it can be when used well.

If you are aware of your hunger signals, have planned meals and use caffeine strategically to manage hunger during a diet - that can work.

However if unplanned, you might find that you aren’t hungry during the morning but then can’t eat enough to stay satisfied in the afternoons and evenings. In this case, caffeine may be masking your true hunger in the morning, leading you to under-eat and causing your appetite to peak later in the day.

Reducing Caffeine

We can experience withdrawal symptoms if going cold-turkey with coffee. For most, this probably isn’t necessary - just making a reduction or shifting caffeine earlier in the day is probably enough.

However if you do stop drinking caffeine for any reason, just be aware you may experience headaches and fatigue for a few days.

It might be better just to make a reduction, switch some of your later coffees for non-caffeinated teas like peppermint, or try a decaf for your latest coffee of the day.

Caffeine and Calories

Caffeine itself doesn’t have calories and black coffee is basically calorie free. So if you are a long black fan, you don’t need to track or consider calories from your coffees. Just be aware of the point above.

If you add milk, sugar, syrups etc then your coffees do have calories and they can add up if you are having multiple each day.

Just think of the frequency and purpose of your choices.

Enjoy Social Meals and Weekends

Social Health is important and shared meals are great experiences. These can be situations where a greater amount of calories are consumed, with more food available, wider food choices and alcohol.

Try to maintain the protein and plants focus first which is going to help fill you up.

Be aware of the calorie dense foods and liquid calories.

Approach the meal with a moderate dose mindset, enjoy it thoroughly but more doesn’t always bring more enjoyment.

Slow down your eating and decision making. Try to wait a few minutes before deciding on a second drink, a second serving.

Social meals are often on weekends and it’s common for people to maintain great habits on weekdays before adding huge amounts of calories over the weekend.

If weight loss is a goal, we want to be sitting in a caloric deficit. If for example you are in a 200 calorie deficit each day Monday to Thursday then Friday night splurge on a pizza with a couple of drinks, Saturday go out for a big breakfast, even more drinks, some ice cream, then Sunday you struggle to meal prep and order Uber Eats and polish off a block of chocolate - that could lead to potentially large caloric surplus over 2 and half days. That weekend surplus of for example 1200 calories could lead you into an overall weekly maintenance or surplus and could be the reason you aren't seeing any changes.

Here are some tips on being mindful of your weekend habits:

• Plan ahead, read the menu in advance, don’t skip meals before events leading you to be exposed to buffet type situations when really hungry.

• If you are going to indulge over the weekend, aim for 1-2 indulgence meals. Try to maintain 4 out of a potential 6 meals over the weekend to be aligned with your goals.

• If you're going large on the beverages, be prepared with good food choices the next day. Try not to add to the calories of alcohol with more calories of hangover foods.

• You can still enjoy yourself socially but be mindful of how many calories you are consuming through beverages.

Plus some tips on being mindful when dining out:

• Eating protein and nutrient dense meals doesn’t need to be restrictive or only practiced at home. We can still make choices aligned with our goals most of the time, even when dining out.

• If you know the place you’re going to ahead of time, look up their menu online. Most places will have a full menu for your viewing. Try to read the menu when you are satiated, not when you’re hungry.

• Aim to pick foods that are high in protein and nutrient dense foods but ensure you choose something you will really enjoy! Remember, the purpose of meals out is enjoyment.

• You can always ask for extra veggies or salads on the side.

• Ask for sauces on the side so you can control portions.

• Allow for extra fats to be used in the cooking process (chef’s don’t care about your caloric intake, they care about flavour).

• Eat your veg and protein first.

• Eat slowly.

• Eat until you’re 80% full, not completely stuffed

• If having more than a main, aim for either entree OR desserts (maybe not both).

• Be cautious of caloric beverages.

• If you do happen to over indulge, that is fine, we all do to from time to time. Move one, don’t dwell, your next meal is a chance to go straight back to your plan. No guilt, no punishment.

Cheese Boards / Grazing Plates / Buffets

These are usually a collection of calorie dense, delicious foods which we enjoy in the company of friends and family with a drink in our other hand. Awesome for social health but being exposed to these situations regularly whilst aiming for fat loss can be difficult.

The graphic shows how quickly the calories can add up.

To break it down:

• 200 Cals from salami

• 100 Cals from the cheese

• 100 Cals from the hommus

• 85 Cals from the crackers

• 77 Cals from the olives

So what can you do?

• First option is going all in and just accepting that you've delayed your goal a little.

• Try to reduce your exposure to these situations by communicating these challenges to those who you socialise with and try to encourage social interactions which don't always involve temptations like a double cream truffle brie.

• Plate yourself a portion and enjoy it slowly.

• Make sure you are not hungry going to these social situations, maintain your regular meals before being exposed to these foods.

• Position yourself away from the food and so the food is out of sight

Tracking social meals

Even if you are using Calorie/Macro tracking to help with your goals, you don't need to track every meal. It's okay to track 3 out of your 4 meals per day. Often with social meals, it's not feasible nor a good idea for your social health and happiness to even attempt to track. Does this mean the meal becomes an 'all in-cheat'... No...You can hide calories from My Fitness Pal but not from your body. 

Here's what you do instead:

"I just had my afternoon snack, I have 750 Calories, and about 20g of protein left for dinner tonight". 

You head out for dinner, base your order off what you think might roughly fall within your calorie budget. Obviously it takes a bit of experience to be able to just "eyeball" and order based on the calories you have left in your day. But if you are developing your nutritional skills, why not test yourself? You can further modify the potential calories of your meal by doing things such as asking for the sauce on the side.

In the grand scheme of things, it might be one meal in a week, and the social benefits might actually increase the longevity of your diet. So being a little sub-optimal might be worth it. At the very least if you approach this in an informed manner there is no reason why your goals will be derailed. 

Reduce your "forbidden foods" List

Do you have a list of foods that you fear, cause anxiety, that are forbidden?

Do you feel like 1 particular food is going to make you fat, stop you making progress, reverse your progress?

Having strict food rules rather than general guidelines, dieting with too much restriction, living without flexibility are risk factors for Binge Eating Disorder.

Try to remember that no food in isolation will cause you to gain weight, the same way that no food in isolation will cause you to lose weight.

Step back and look at the whole puzzle, not just 1 piece.

If this post hits home, please head over to

https://breakbingeeating.com/stop-binge-eating/

This page is a blog - 5 Proven Steps to that will help you stop binge eating - by Dr Jake Linardon, who specialises in eating disorders.

The blog includes comments, questions and his answers at the bottom, as well as a free ebook download.

Even if you don't consider yourself at risk, I would encourage you to read the blog and the ebook as there are also sections on journaling, identifying stress and planning non-food actions and planning joyful activities.

Both the blog and ebook are short reads and will probably take less than 30 minutes out of your week.

We would love it if you are open to adding comments about things that have helped you, might help others and foods which you have successfully shifted off your forbidden list.

Control Your Food Environment

Your Food Environment is like your ‘Nutritional Subconscious’.

Managing your food environment has the potential to make eating for your goals easier and takes willpower out of the equation. With some proper planning and minimal upkeep, you can manipulate your environment in such a way to cause you to think about food a little less, reduce the number of temptations you face, and make it easier for you to make better choices.

Food Environment Guidelines For Success:
If it’s not immediately in your environment, you’re probably not going to eat it. In some cases, the best decision might be to not purchase something in the first place.
Keep the calorie-dense, low-satiety food (chips, cakes, lollies, chocolates, ice-cream etc.) in less visible and less convenient locations.

If you want a nutrient-dense food to be prevalent in your diet, make it prevalent in your environment.

For example, keep a fruit bowl in plain sight in your kitchen so you can easily see AND access it.

Keep refrigerated vegetables on the front and middle shelves of your refrigerator, and keep more calorie-dense refrigerated items near the back and on top or bottom shelves
 

Generally speaking, food variety may increase food consumption.  Keep a wide variety of foods you want to eat more of (like fruits, vegetables, and lean protein sources), and keep a narrow variety of indulgence foods.

If you are serving food out of large bowls/containers, do not keep the serving bowls at the table. Leave them on a counter or in the kitchen so you have to portion your food on your plate and bring the plate to the table. This makes it less likely that you’ll keep adding more food to your plate.

This same strategy applies to snack foods. If you tend to graze, stop hanging out in the kitchen!

Likewise, if you’re at a social event, creating physical distance from certain foods can be quite helpful.

Make building new nutritional habits easier and make continuing old habits more difficult.

What This All Comes Down To:
Foods that you should be eating MORE of need to be more visible, more convenient, more prevalent, and of greater variety in your environment.

Foods that you need to eat LESS of should be less visible, less convenient, less prevalent, and of lower variety (in some cases nonexistent!) in your environment

What you purchase determines what ends up in your food environment. Make sure you purchase a variety of the foods you want to eat more of, and make sure you limit the foods you want to eat less of. When you bring those foods home, take the time to display or position them accordingly in your food environment.

A way we can create a goal aligned environment is by trying the traffic light system.

TRAFFIC LIGHT SYSTEM

Arguably the most influential in a person's decision making is the environment someone is in day to day. It can be the foods they see or have available, advertising, triggers, cues and even the people they spend their time with or are influenced by.

People blame themselves or their personal traits and they underestimate the external factors that influence their behaviour.
People expect themselves to be strong-willed in tempting situations whilst also trying to do their jobs and complete other personal tasks that require energy. Willpower requires energy too, so the less energy you have from practising willpower or completing tasks during the day, the tougher it is going to be to say no to temptation and to make a healthy eating choice when presented with an easier, less goal aligned options.

This activity helps to take willpower out of the equation and make goal aligned choices easier.

Try to keep tempting foods that aren’t goal aligned out of your environment. Create an effort barrier between you and the indulgence items. You can’t eat what isn’t there. On the flip side, create a food environment that is aligned with your goals. Lean proteins, plenty of plants (fresh and/or frozen), fibrous carbs, healthy fats - the ones you enjoy in a wide variety, highly visible and easy to consume. Keep the more tempting foods in less variety, less visible and more difficult to consume.

Green foods mean good to consume regularly - these foods are goal aligned, you enjoy them, they are good for your body and mind.

Yellows are sometimes ok, sometimes not - can be an occasional treat without going too overboard or have you craving them as soon as you see them.

Red foods are probably not a good idea to have in your environment because they are trigger foods, have you feel unwell or aren’t aligned with your goals (not to say they can’t ever be eaten, probably just not a good idea to be regularly visible or attainable especially when trying to build new healthy eating habits).

Important note:
Not to say red lights can never be in the environment, the temptation level can change over time as habits are built.

Ultimately we want to try to make your lives easier when it comes to making nutritious food choices that are aligned with your goals.

Reduce Alcohol

At FNC, we are all about balance and enjoying yourself. This is merely about awareness when it comes to drinking yourself into a calorie surplus and potentially undoing your progress from eating well and training hard.

This also isn't an approval to not eat if you plan on drinking, just be mindful that it is easy to put yourself into a caloric surplus through alcoholic beverages and the typical associated behaviours (greasy foods, hangover cures, inhibition, sympathy food, etc)

• Here is a rough guide of the caloric value of some popular alcoholic beverages.
  Vodka Lime and Soda - 65 Calories
  Gin and Tonic - 74 Calories
  Glass of Rose (120mL) - 83 Calories
  Glass of Sav Blanc - 119 Calories
  Glass of Shiraz - 122 Calories
  Stone and Wood Pacific Ale - 132 Calories
  James Squire 150 Lashes - 140 Calories
  Guinness - 125 Calories
  Spiced Rum and coke - 122 Calories
  Whisky - 76 Calories
  Espresso Martini - 285 Calories
  Tequila - 64 Calories
  Pina Colada - 378 Calories
  Long Island Iced Tea - 789 Calories

If you are eating in a calorie deficit throughout the week and consuming 10 alcoholic beverages over the weekend, that may equal 1000+ calories and put you in a weekly surplus. That isn't even taking into account the food choices on the weekend.

Simply be mindful and drink responsibly, aiming for the minimum amount that you enjoy.

Alcohol and Sleep

We feel like we have to bring this bad news to you - having a ‘nightcap’ drink might actually prevent you sleeping well.

Alcohol can help us lose consciousness but can reduce the quality of our sleep.

Alcohol can fragment sleep, meaning that without realising it we might be waking many times during the night which can lead to fatigue the following day. Alcohol can also block rapid eye movement (REM) sleep which helps us consolidate memories. If we are trying to learn and commit new things to our memory, an interruption of REM sleep can slow down or stop this process. 

It’s easy for us all to get into the mindset of ‘needing’ things. “I need a coffee to start the day” or “I need a drink to get me to sleep”. These needs are actually habits and a change of mindset and gradual behaviour change might be more beneficial than the quick fix.

Slow down your decision making

Do you find that you are already ordering or pouring yourself a new drink before you’ve even finished your last? Try to slow down your decision making. Alcohol reduces or inhibitions, it makes decision making harder. Aim to pause between drinks and notice how you feel. Do you need another drink right away? Maybe you’ll enjoy yourself more by stretching the drinks out a little?

What about hangovers?

If you are being real with yourself and know you’re going to celebrate a special occasion leading to overconsumption, at least be prepared with these tips.

Read more about alcohol

Check out our blog for more alcohol information:

Alcohol: How it affects your body

Measuring Progress

You can't make a judgement on a diet based on a single meal. Nothing in isolation is good or bad. You need the piece to complete the puzzle, but you can’t see a meaningful picture without more pieces.

The more pieces we see, the more we have an understanding of what the puzzle may start to look like.

The end goal of the puzzle is to look at the picture all the pieces together have made.

This is exactly the same when it comes to measuring progress.

The scale weight is just one piece of the puzzle which can also include:

• Hip & waist measurements

• Progress photos

• How your clothes are fitting

• Your training performance

• Your energy levels

• Your mood

• How happy you are within yourself and with your nutrition

• Your habits

The blank dots are left intentionally to make you think if there are other aspects which you would like to measure yourself as markers of progress.

When thinking of how to measure progress, first consider your goal and what has motivated that goal.

For example, if you have a fat loss goal because you tried on an item of clothing and noticed that it is tighter than you remember, then how your clothes are fitting is a measure of progress which directly relates to your goal and motivation.

If your goal is fat loss to help you improve your training, then your training performance is a measure of progress which directly relates to your goal and motivation.

If your goal is to develop healthy eating habits, then using a habit checklist and how often you tick off the habits you are working on fits perfectly.

So then start thinking, especially if stepping on the scales doesn’t make you feel good, or if you notice that your mood is dictated by the scale in the morning - are the scales a necessary measure of progress for you?

We are not defined by our scale weight, it is only information. If you are comfortable with that, by all means weigh yourself and use it as one piece of the puzzle. Just make sure that you have more than one measure so that you can step back and put things into perspective.

Scale weight

The best time of the day to weigh yourself is second thing in the morning after using the bathroom. As much consistency as possible is important.

You could weigh daily or weekly, however for some people, regular weighing, can have negative psychological impacts with obsession and stress. If you experience any psychological issues like this, stop weighing and use different methods of measuring progress.

The benefit of daily weighing, or multiple times per week, is you can average the weights out over the week and use a weekly average.

There are a couple of great apps which can do this for you:

• Happy Scale - for Apple

• Libra - for Android

Our daily weight can fluctuate 1-2% (more during menstruation) based on stress, digestion and fluid, which is totally normal. So if you weigh daily you will notice some days a little higher, some a little lower but the weekly average over time will show progress.

 If you weigh yourself less frequently, just be aware that you could weigh yourself on a ‘heavier’ or ‘lighter’ day and numbers over time should be focussed on rather than one particular day.

Females will notice significant fluctuations around their monthly cycle which again is totally normal, especially with fluid retention. So it's important to keep that in mind when comparing weight, comparing to stage of the cycle each month and not worrying that the weight may increase for a few days.

Remember that the scales will show total mass, you might be losing some fat and gaining some muscle which would improve your body composition but keep the scales at a similar number. Before you step on the scale, check in with yourself and your overall progress picture - are you happy with how things are going, do you notice progress in other areas - then just try and take the scale weight as a piece of information, rather than be all and end all.

Our weight also fluctuations depending on how much we are eating. If we have increased our food intake as we are aiming for maintenance or athletic performance, the scale weight will increase as we are digesting more food. If we have increased our fruit, vegetable and fibre intake, this can increase scale weight a little as these foods take time to digest and may add to our total mass.

When we increase our carbs, we store carbs as energy in our muscles (called glycogen). For each gram of this stored energy, we also store 3 grams of water. This is not body fat gain but it will increase our total mass and impact the scale reading.

If we start taking creatine as a supplement, we will hold onto more water in our cells. Not a negative thing at all but again, just increases our total mass and will show up on the scale.

Expectations and Progress with Scale Weight

Fat loss:

0.5 to 1% per week on average is great progress.

For a 70kg person, that’s an average of 350-700 grams per week.

If you are aiming for weight loss but you’ve just started training with weight, just re-started training after a break or your strength is improving, your progress might not show up on the scales for quite some time, up to months. This will be due to increases in muscle mass keeping scale weight consistent whilst you drop body fat. In this case, keep a closer eye on waist measurements and progress photos.

Muscle Gain:

Average increases of 1-2% per month is your aim.

That’s 0.25-0.5% per week.

For a 70kg person that’s an average increase of 175-350 grams per week.

Measurements

If you have a tape measure, take regular measurements of your waist (belly button height) and then hips (at the point where your butt sticks out the furthest). Aim to measure once a week or fortnightly and compare over time.

A sewing measuring tape can be bought cheaply online or from Kmart, variety store, supermarket, etc.

Hips: measure around the point where your butt sticks out the most and keep your feet together. Having a different stance each time you measure can affect the consistency of measurements.

Waist: Measure around your belly button and pull so that the tape is flat across your skin but not pulling your stomach in.

Try to keep things consistent; take these measurements at the same part of the day each time, in the morning, after using the bathroom, before eating.

Progress Photos

Roughly every 4 weeks.

Take weekly progress photos. It's hard to notice body changes ourselves day to day but comparing weekly photos can show progress. Try to take the photos at the same time, aiming for the same lighting conditions, same clothing and same angles. You can take them yourself in the mirror, front on and on the side. If you have someone to take them for you, front, side and back is great.

For a fat loss goal, obvious visual progress may not show up after 4 weeks, be patient, looks for small signs like skin creases around straps and waist bands. Have a look at one of our clients progress below - after 4 weeks there are subtle signs of progress but when we compare week 1 to week 8 it’s obvious how much we changed.

Unrealistic expectations of body transformations are common, mostly due to before and after photos which are unrealistic. We might see a transformation like the one below and think it was an 8 week challenge. In reality, it was multiple fat loss phases, with times at maintenance, time building long term habits so that this “after” photo is long term.

Clothing

If a specific piece of clothing was your catalyst to make a change, keep that item of clothing as your measure. Try it on each week or each fortnight, make some notes about how it really feels. “Tight around here, zipper hard to do up, can’t do the button up”. Having recorded comments about the fit of clothing to compare to can make all the difference when piecing together our progress.

Training

Set a particular lift or challenge, like a 2km run or a 10 minute EMOM. Something that reflects your goals but it easy to keep consistent. Then aim to do it every 4 weeks to test your times, test your strength, how you feel and make notes!

Scores and ratings

Each week, complete a simple progress scorecard and rate some specific areas out of 10.

• Sleep quality

• Fatigue

• Energy

• Mood

• Stress

• Satiety (fullness)

• Happiness

Compare your scores week by week to notice if you are making progress in how you feel, your lifestyle and make these measures specific to your goal.

If progress is going really well in terms of body weight, measurements etc but you notice that your energy is dropping, fatigue is increasing, stress is increasing, those are signs that you might be dieting too aggressively and need to increase your food intake or it could be time to take a maintenance break from your fat loss phase and let these measures return to a happy place before starting your next fat loss phase.

If you are an athlete and your ratings are low, that can be a real indicator that you don’t have enough energy available and need to increase your calorie intake!

Highlight the Positives

If you were to do an exam and you got 75/100 I'm sure most of us would think, "Nice I passed!!"

It’s not very often you’ll think “I didn't get 100%, I failed!”

For some reason when it comes to nutrition we tend to focus on the negatives, the slip-ups, the things that didn’t go so well. We think that one slip up, one day off plan means we've failed.

If we hit protein and plants for 3 out of 4 meals, we feel like a failure because we missed once? But it’s 75%!

If we nail our nutrition every weekday but overindulge on a Saturday and then nail it again on Sunday, we only focus on the Saturday? But that’s 6/7 - 86%!

We pay more attention to negative events than positive ones. [1]

It is a fairly common human trait to focus on the negatives. 9 things go well in a day but you’ll probably notice the 1 that goes wrong. It’s known as negative bias.

Let’s shift it to a positive bias!

There is research that suggests that when humans take time to look for the good things that happen to them every day, after one month our brains start scanning the world for positives rather than negatives. Other research shows that when people practise gratitude and positivity it can result in improved sleep quality, greater life satisfaction, and well-being.

But why is this important for nutrition?

Highlighting what went well can help you feel more positive about your nutritional habits.

You may feel less stressed about your diet, you may improve your sleep quality whilst having overall greater health and happiness as a result.

And if you’re feeling good about it, you may be more likely to stick to it.

The next step is to reflect on WHY certain parts went well.

If you nail your breakfasts every day, reflect on why. Is it because you’re prepared?

If you nail your weekdays, reflect on why. Is it because you have a plan?

If you do really well-buying food at a restaurant, reflect on why. Is it because you know how to scan the menu for protein and plants?

See if you can use the common traits that lead to your success in the areas of your nutrition that need a bit of work.

Using the FNC Templates to Log your Progress

Here are 2 videos explaining how to log your progress and compare weeks of information using the FNC Progress Log. This is available in each of the templates - Diet Builder, Habit Tracker & Food Journal.

Goals Setting & Finding your why

Reading Time

When we have a goal in mind, it is important to identify the skills and habits we need to implement to achieve that goal. From there we need to think of how we are going to put that habit into practice.

We need to focus on the process to achieve an outcome.

We can’t expect to move towards a weight loss, muscle gain, sports performance, health, business, or personal goal without first understanding what steps we need to take to get there. Much like searching for directions before going on a journey. 

This activity is going to help you map out your directions for your journey to help you move towards your goals.

Once you’ve identified your goal, we need to break it down into the habits you’re going to build.

Once you’ve identified the habits, you’re going to break it down into regular or daily practices you will incorporate to successfully build the habits and make them engrained behaviours. 

From there our formula is:

Practice regularly to build habits.

Build habits to achieve goals. 

If we can do this successfully, we can achieve our goals and maintain our results. Plus, once the habits are ingrained, they’ll require less effort. 

Examples of Habits no matter what your goal is:

Protein and Plants at every meal

Hydration

Manage Stress

Sleep 7-9 hours a night

Specific goals for weight loss:

Manage Hunger

Eat Slowly and Mindfully

High Volume, Low Calorie per bite foods

Be Mindful of Indulgence frequencies/portions

Muscle Gain: 

Protein Spaced evenly across the day

Muscle Building Exercises

Sports Performance:

Athlete Comfort

Energy Availability

Sports Specific Fuelling

Pre Training Nutrition

From there we can break each habit into a daily/regular practice. 

Using Protein as an example, a daily practice to start with could be:

Have a source of Protein at Breakfast (or any meal you currently have that is lacking in Protein).

For Sleep, it could be:

Develop a sleep routine or reduce caffeine intake after 12 pm or avoid screens in the last hour before bed. 

The Practices should follow a formula of the 5 S’s.

Simple: You should be 9-10/10 confident to regularly practice the behaviour. 

Segmental: Break the practice down like it’s a new skill.

Sequential: Try to practice them in the right order where possible.

Strategic: Focus on only one practice at a time.

Supported: You’re supported and kept accountable by a coach and the community. 

Over the next few days, your homework is to:

Identify your goal.

Break your goal into 4-8 Habits you’d like to build that are related to your goal.

Break your habits into daily practices you’ll implement to build the habits successfully and sustainably.

Below are 2 examples for Fat Loss and Overall Health

We’ve got the What and the How. Next is the WHY.

The 5 Whys

Finding your WHY is like finding your PURPOSE.
Finding your CAUSE, your MOTIVATION.

It is about finding the real REASON you want to achieve your goals.
Finding your WHY will give your actions and behaviours over the next 8 weeks (and beyond) more meaning and value.

 
Part of being ready, willing, and able to create change is knowing WHY you're doing something in the first place.


"Where the mind goes, the body flows"

Do your actions match your values? The 5 Whys.

The 5 why’s is very simple and really cuts to the core of why we want something. When you want to accomplish something, you ask one why.

Why do I want to accomplish this?  Then, with whatever answer you come up with, you ask why to that first answer. And so on, five times.

Here's an example:

That’s a lot of insight for a few little questions. For this person, getting in shape really meant being in charge of his life. That’s a crucial insight. He's not just looking for more definition, better arms, or a different weight on the scale. He also wants to feel a certain way at the end of the process. More confident. More assertive. More in control. And that's what's really important to him. The other stuff is just a way to get there.

Your 5 Whys.
Now it’s your turn to play.

Click below to complete today's activity 

*This activity is for you to find deeper meaning for your goals, it won’t be shared by FNC, it’s purely for yourself.

The Habit Loop

Habits follow a 3 step loop.

1. Cue

2. Routine

3. Reward

The cue is the trigger for your behaviour.

It acts as a reminder and the instigator of the sequence. It could be triggered by sight, sound, smell, sensation, emotion, environmental. It can even be the people we are with or the time of day.

Eg. It’s 7 am.

See a chocolate bar

Smell fresh bread from the baker

Stressed from work or seeing the inlaws

The routine is the behaviour we practice immediately after the cue. 

Following the examples above. 

7 am - coffee time

See Chocolate Bar - feel the urge to eat it.

Smell Fresh Bread - start to feel hungry.

Stress/In-Laws- feel the need for a drink.

Finally, we have a reward. This is how our habits are reinforced. Rewards are increases/decreases in pleasant/unpleasant sensations, emotions or thoughts.

As a result, we practice the response until it becomes a reliable and automatic habit.

It locks the habit loop in place and the more it’s reinforced with the reward, the strong the link. The stronger the link, the harder the habit becomes to change.

Examples of rewards from above: 

Amazing tasting coffee

Craving satisfied with chocolate

Hunger fulled after eating bred

Stress relief after a drink

Repetition triggers long-term changes to the brain’s structure. These then become learned behaviours.

With time, the brain begins to expect and crave the reward as soon as the cue arises.

Every time we smell the fresh bakery bread we feel hungry. When we anticipate stress we crave that drink. When it’s 6:59 am we have a yearning for that rich aromatic blend of coffee.

Whether intentionally or by accident, whether good or bad, the habits we’ve formed follow this sequence.

Now that we know the anatomy and structure of habits and how they are formed, we can use this to build new habits and break old ones.

Find The Cue

The cue is the trigger for your behaviour. It acts as a reminder and the instigator of the sequence

The cue is what triggers you to do the habit, for example sitting at the kitchen table and grinding salt and pepper onto your meal before you start. The cue is sitting down with the plate in front of you.

How do we figure out what actually triggers us to do a certain behaviour? (Especially if we want to try and break or replace a habit)

We need to Find the Cue

Most habit cues fall into one of 5 categories:

- location

- time

- emotional state

- other people

- immediately preceding action

To change a habit:

To find out what your cue is for a certain behaviour, answer these questions every time you practice that behaviour for 1-2 weeks. (or however long it takes to identify the cue).

The one (or more) that remain consistent are likely to point to the cue.

Where were you?

What time was it?

How were you feeling?

Who were you with?

What happened beforehand?

Examples:

Time: If you tend to crave a sweet treat at 3pm every day

Location: If you pull into Maccas because you drive past it on your way home

Emotion: If you drink too much when you’re stressed

Preceding event: If you head to the fridge every day when you walk into the house

People: If you tend to overeat or indulge with a certain person/group

Once we have the cue, we can work on the plan. The plan is simply to then think ahead and figure out what your choices are when the cue occurs to rewire the habit loop.

What are your cues for a habit you're currently trying to change?

To build a habit, we can use cues as triggers.

Select one of the following cues:

Time: At 7am I will..

Location: When I drive past “x” I will

Emotion: When I feel stressed I will

Preceding event: When I walk in the front door I will

Other people: When I am with Dave, next time I will

The cues are our anchors that we attach our routines to. 

We’ve identified or created the cue.

The next step in the sequence is the routine.

The routine is the behaviour we practice immediately after the cue. 

This is the habit we are trying to build or change. 

It’s the drinking the coffee, the stress eating, the eating protein at breakfast, the stretching, the journalling, the sleep routine, etc.

If we want to change a habit, we can follow the principle of “Replacing Ryan”.

Sometimes it is difficult to change our cue, so our next best option is to replace the routine.

Take Replacing Ryan for example. 

Everyday at 3 pm (his cue), he craves a piece of chocolate. Since Ryan struggles to control his portions of chocolate, he wants to replace his behaviour. He is also trying to build a habit of having more protein in his diet so Ryan decides to replace his chocolate with a Protein Mousse his coach Josh told him about. 

Examples:

Time: If you tend to crave a sweet treat at 3pm every day, can you be prepared with a piece of fruit?

Location: If you pull into Maccas because you drive past it on your way home, can you drive an alternate way home?

Emotion: If you drink too much when you’re stressed, can you find a replacement behaviour when stress is triggered?

Preceding event: If you head to the fridge every day when you walk into the house, can you leave a note near the door reminding you to do something else?

People: If you tend to overeat or indulge with a certain person/group can you communicate with them and find an alternative activity that doesn’t involve food?

When trying to build a new habit: 

Time: At 7am I will write in my journal

Location: When I drive past Maccas I will get in the furthest lane to prevent drinking in.

Emotion: When I feel stressed I will call a friend

Preceding event: When I walk in the front door I will get changed straight into my gym clothes

Other people: When I am with Dave, next time I will meet him at a cafe instead of a pub.

When we have a new routine or a replacement in mind, try to plan it out and mentally rehearse yourself practicing it. You can also write down the steps of the sequence to help reinforce the chain events.

That’s Cue and Routine, next is the reward. 

Reward is the reinforcer.

This is what locks in the habit loop and makes it a continuous circle likely to be repeated.

What gets rewarded gets repeated. 

The reward is how habits are built and the stronger this link gets, the harder it becomes to change them. 

Our rewards are the taste, the satisfaction, the stress relief, the filling of a void, the enjoyment, the happiness, the dopamine rush, etc. 

Rewards are increases or decreases in pleasant or unpleasant sensations, emotions or thoughts.

Consequences can also be used as the opposite of the reward in order to try and break a habit.

If we consciously or subconsciously enjoy a reward, we naturally want to experience the reward again. A message is sent to the brain saying “that is good, give me more of that”. So it reinforces the habit loop including the Cue and the Routine. It remembers all the parts of the sequence.

If the opposite occurs and we don’t enjoy a consequence, the brain will send a message saying “nope, I do not like that, let’s not do that again” and it will also remember the Cues and Routines in order to avoid them in the future. 

The rewards/consequences can occur naturally or we can create them.

In the habit building or breaking process we want these to be immediate as they will have a greater impact on the habit loop. Long term rewards such as weight loss, improved health, improved sleep or long term consequences such as weight gain, poor health, poor sleep, etc don’t seem to be as effective because they are delayed. 

We want to bring the rewards forward, make them more instant.

Think of the carrot and the stick.

The carrot is the treat, the reward:

Treat yourself in a way that is aligned with your goals and reinforces the habit. It might be ticking it off your list, giving yourself some points or a high five. 

Be thoughtful about what new habits this reward itself might create.

Publicly show that you’re proud of your action.

If you have a great support network, tell them about it and check in with them to keep you motivated.

Visualise your desired outcome and remind yourself of it often. Tell yourself you’re moving towards your goal every time you practice the habit.

Track progress and celebrate all your wins.

Small wins reinforce the behaviour and increase your self confidence.

Set up some sticks

What will happen if you practice your undesired behaviour? 100 burpees? Write and read a poem on Instagram? 

Create a contract with yourself. The threat of breaking it can be a simple yet powerful motivator. 

Make a public commitment to people whose opinion you care about but who are not so close they won’t judge you if you fail.

You can either create a reward to build a new habit or add a consequence to break an old one.

This is how the habit loop is created or broken.

The 3 steps are now complete.

You have your cue.

You have your routine.

You have your reward.

Now we need repetition. 

Repetition triggers long-term changes in the brain’s structure (learning).

The structural changes that lay the foundation of our habits are triggered only by extended, consistent practice.