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You have been dieting hard for the last few weeks to shed off a few of those unwanted kilograms. But you have got a few social events planned over the coming weeks that you are worried will side track all of your hard work and put you back where you started or worse.

You have agreed to go to these social events, but have no clue how you’re going to track the food you are eating out. You don’t know what type of cheese is being used, how much oil the chef has added to your steak, or what extra flavours have been thrown into your main meal to really accurately track your calories. So now you are unsure how to address the setting, do you just sit there with your diet drinks or water and not eat anything or do you tell yourself, YOLO diet starts tomorrow?

Here is a guide to help you address these social settings and minimise the impacts of eating out can have on your fat loss phase. Before any social event I always say, know what you’re getting yourself into and plan...

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, unless you’re on a fitness journey in which case this is a time fraught with temptation! Many a promising fitness routine has been disrupted over the holiday season, don’t let yourself be another! 

1.       Set realistic expectations

The first step to preventing a full blown blow out over the holidays is to set realistic expectations for yourself during this period. This is key for routine especially. You know yourself, and you know what the holiday season usually looks like for you, let’s start there.

The biggest mistake people make, is to set a plan that is dependant on everything running in a perfect world (6 gym sessions a week, meal prepping every day and no drinking) and more times than not, this never happens. Worst of all, once you set a strict plan and then break it, you’re much more likely to give up entirely and be another ‘next year’ person!

So, let’s start by...

‘Not today fatty!’

Gaining weight, getting fluffy, bulking or cultivating thickness, however you wish to phrase it, getting bigger has always been a fascination to myself and I guarantee to the majority of people clicking into this article!

The quest to be big enough to scare babies and old people, or for the ladies to look like Marge off the Simpsons episode where she is jacked beyond belief will always be something linked to the culture of strength sports.

But why is this! Well, from the outside looking in it is not hard to see that the bigger someone is the more weight they can move, there will always be some exceptions to this, but at a glance most top end strength athletes are not normal sized people. For many years this seeming link between bigger and better has perpetuated a quest for mass by ANY means (although usually by the means of excess cheesecake).

Over the last few years however, there seems to be an emerging shift to this attitude, which has followed a...