You have decided you are going to get rid of those extra few kgs (10k) that have been gathering on your belly and your love handles over the past 15+ years.

You hear that the low-carb approach combined with some weights and HIIT should do the trick.

In 2 months’ time, you should be fitter, leaner and healthier than you have in a long, long time.

You pick a start date. Next Monday! All of the above is pretty rationale and seems to me like a pretty solid plan.

Monday comes. You are all prepared. You jump on the scales. You are 100kg on the scale. Ouch! A little higher than you had thought but it was a pretty indulgent weekend.

You do your first training session in the morning prior to work and you have a delicious breakfast of Smoked Salmon with eggs and spinach from a nice place near your office.

You do repeat these steps for the next 3 days and when you step on the scale on day 4, you are already 2kg down. Get in!!! You think to yourself this seems easier than any other previous attempt and start to think you might be hitting your target weight (87kg) way ahead of target.

Your weight loss continues to go at this pace for 3 further days but on day 8 the scale hasn’t moved. WTF???? The following day is the same and but there is a tiny bit of progress on day 10. It is at this stage in the process people can start to lose faith and apply the “fuck it” approach. Please, don’t do this!

This is normal

The weight you have lost is predominantly water (and glycogen- the body’s stored sugar) loss. When you reduce your carbohydrate intake your body’s carb stores reduce and the water needed in them is also lost.

Have I lost any fat?

YES! You will have lost some fat in this process.

By reducing your carbs you will likely have reduced your kcal intake. This combined with an increase in exercise (more kcals burned and probably some new muscle built) is the perfect storm from fat burning. However, it is a slow process.

You have to be patient when you are dieting. I know, It sucks!!!!

What happens if/when I eat some carbohydrates?

You will gain some weight but it will not be fat unless you do this to excess. You will have to do this at some stage and the reintroduction of carbs should be part of any low-carb diet.

The ideal scenario is carbs from veggies only for 4 weeks (<100g). Then at week 5, you start to gradually increase your carb intake in accordance with your exercise schedule.

Consuming carbs on days when you do resistance and/or interval-style training. These fuel your workouts and ensure you maintain or even increase your muscle - great for making your metabolism higher.

On the days you don’t exercise you eat less/no carbs. Instead, you have meals made up of protein-rich food (meat, fish, beans etc) and vegetables- see anytime plate.

Weeks 1-4 and Week 5 onwards on days you do not exercise

It gets so much easier

The good news is that the more fat you lose, the more often your exercise, and the more carbs you can eat and still stay lean. In my 12 years of coaching clients have seen clients double their carb intake and still maintain a lean, athletic, toned body.

There will be day-to-day and hour-to-hour weight fluctuations during this process. This is how the body works. You are looking for a general downward trend over the course.

For fat loss clients I tend to use this strategy as a framework but personalise it around their life to ensure it can be followed. It doesn’t how good the programme is if it cannot be followed!

The fat loss process is a simple one but christ it is hard!

Too low Carb or Not too low carb?That is the question!

This is normal