Ready to lose your first 5kg in just 6 weeks?

⁠https://www.coachianwood.com/startwith6⁠

Episode Summary

In this episode of The Forever Athletic Podcast, I'm covering two things that go hand in hand once you've got your calories and protein sorted. First, why eating the exact same amount every single day doesn't actually make sense, and what to do instead. Second, what to eat before a workout so your sessions don't feel like a slog.

I'll walk you through the High/Low method, which is a simple way of matching your food to what your day's actually asking of you. Training day or big social plans, a bit more room. Quiet day at home, a bit less. Same weekly average, none of the stress of eating identically every day.

Then I'm getting specific on what to eat before a workout, particularly for longer or harder sessions, because I still see people either turning up not having eaten anything, or eating a full meal far too close to training and feeling awful for it. Simple, practical, nothing that needs a food scale.

In This Episode

• Why eating the same amount every day doesn't actually reflect what your body needs
• The High/Low method explained, and how to use it around training days and social plans
• Why planning for a big event in advance beats reacting to it afterwards
• What to eat before a workout, and why timing matters as much as what you choose
• The exact type of carbs that digest quickly enough to actually fuel a session
• Why fat is the one thing you want to avoid right before you train
• The line I want you to remember next time you're deciding what to eat before a workout

Why This Matters

A lot of people treat every day as identical when it comes to food, which sounds disciplined but doesn't actually match how your body's being used. A hard training day and a quiet day at home aren't the same, so there's no real reason your intake should be either. The High/Low method just builds that difference in on purpose, rather than either overeating on quiet days or under fuelling on the days you're working hardest.

This connects directly to what to eat before a workout, because turning up under fuelled is one of the quickest ways to make a session feel far harder than it needs to. For anything longer or more demanding, getting some simple, easy to digest carbs in roughly an hour before training makes a genuinely noticeable difference to how the session goes.

The detail people usually get wrong is reaching for something with a lot of fat in it, thinking it'll sustain them longer. Fat slows digestion, which means it's often still sitting in your stomach when you start moving. What to eat before a workout doesn't need to be complicated. Something simple, something quick to digest, eaten with enough time to actually settle.

Resources & Links

🌐 Coaching
https://www.coachianwood.com

📸 Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/coachianwood

About The Forever Athletic Podcast

The Forever Athletic Podcast is for busy adults who are tired of starting over every Monday. If you want practical advice on fat loss, strength training, nutrition and building sustainable habits without fad diets, fitness misinformation or all-or-nothing thinking, you're in the right place.

New episodes are released regularly to help you build a healthier, stronger body that fits around real life.

Ready to build a fitness plan you can actually stick to?
Ready to lose your first 5kg in just 6 weeks?

https://www.coachianwood.com/startwith6

🚀 Ready to stop starting again every Monday?
Join the Start With 6 Challenge: https://www.coachianwood.com/startwith6

Episode Summary

In this episode of The Forever Athletic Podcast, I'm tackling two things that tend to show up together around week 2 of any fat loss plan. First, the scale doing something weird. Stalling, jumping up, going the wrong way for no obvious reason. Second, this is usually about the point people start looking for the next lever to pull, and the one most people underuse is protein.

I'll explain why the scale misbehaves in week 2 and why it's got nothing to do with the plan not working. Then I'm getting into how much protein for weight loss you actually need, because this is the one change that does more for hunger and results than almost anything else on your plate. I'll give you a practical range, how to hit it without turning every meal into a calculation, and why this matters just as much for a busy parent as it does for someone in a gym five days a week.

If you've ever been "good all week" and still felt starving by mid afternoon, this one's for you.

In This Episode

• Why the scale can stall, jump or move the wrong way in week 2, and why none of it means the plan isn't working
• The difference between a single reading and a trend, and why only one of them actually matters
• How much protein for weight loss you genuinely need, in real terms not just a formula
• Why protein does more for fullness and appetite than any other macro
• Why protein protects muscle while you're eating less, so more of what you lose is fat
• A simple way to hit your protein target without weighing every meal
• The real reason a lot of "mindless" eating later in the day comes down to protein, not willpower

Why This Matters

Week 2 is where a lot of people quietly start doubting the plan, usually because the scale hasn't behaved the way they expected it to. Water retention, sodium, hormones, harder training sessions than usual, all of it can move the number on the scale without any of it meaning fat loss has stopped. Reacting to one reading instead of the trend is one of the easiest ways to talk yourself out of something that's actually working fine.

This is also usually the point where protein becomes worth a proper conversation. Getting protein right isn't about turning into someone who lives at the gym. It's the difference between feeling satisfied after a meal and feeling starving by mid afternoon, reaching for whatever's easiest, or finishing food off someone else's plate because you genuinely needed it.

How much protein for weight loss you need isn't complicated once you know the rough range for your size. What actually changes things is building it into meals consistently, not just after a workout, so you're not relying on willpower to get through the rest of the day.

Resources & Links

🌐 Coaching
https://www.coachianwood.com

📸 Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/coachianwood

About The Forever Athletic Podcast

The Forever Athletic Podcast is for busy adults who are tired of starting over every Monday. If you want practical advice on fat loss, strength training, nutrition and building sustainable habits without fad diets, fitness misinformation or all-or-nothing thinking, you're in the right place.

New episodes are released regularly to help you build a healthier, stronger body that fits around real life.

Ready to build a fitness plan you can actually stick to?
Read to start you fat loss journey with 6 weeks of focussed coaching? https://www.coachianwood.com⁠/startwith6

🚀 Ready to stop starting again every Monday?
Join the Start With 6 Challenge: https://www.coachianwood.com⁠/startwith6

Episode Summary

In this episode of The Forever Athletic Podcast, I'm talking about why most meal planning advice sets you up to fail before you've even started. It tells you to plan every meal, every day, down to the last detail, and most people burn out trying to do that by Wednesday.

So instead I want to walk you through something simpler, which is what I call the 3-1 method. It's genuinely one of the most useful bits of simple meal planning for weight loss I teach, and the idea is this. You keep three meals a day fairly consistent, usually breakfast, a snack and lunch, and you leave one meal open, usually dinner. That's it. No spreadsheets, no meal prep Sundays, no trying to control every bite.

I'll explain why this actually works better than a full meal plan, what to do with that one flexible meal so it doesn't turn into a free-for-all, and why this only works if your training and your food are treated as one thing, not two separate plans running against each other.

In This Episode

• Why trying to plan every single meal is exactly what makes most people give up by midweek
• The 3-1 method explained, and why it only asks you to be consistent where consistency is actually realistic
• Why mornings are the easiest part of your day to control, and evenings almost never are
• What to actually do with your one flexible meal so it stays flexible, not chaotic
• The hand portioning method, and why it beats weighing everything for that flexible meal
• Why nutrition and training need to be built as one system, not two separate plans
• The one line I want you to remember next time one meal doesn't go to plan

Why This Matters

Most meal planning advice assumes you've got an empty, predictable week to work with. Nobody has that. You've got work, you've got other people to feed, you've got days that go sideways with zero warning. A meal plan that demands total control over every meal was never built to survive contact with an actual Tuesday.

That's the whole point of simple meal planning for weight loss done properly. It doesn't ask you to be perfect everywhere. It asks you to be consistent where it's genuinely easy, which for most people is breakfast, a snack and lunch, and it leaves the hardest part of the day, dinner, deliberately flexible.

This matters because the all or nothing trap usually starts with one meal going differently to plan. If your whole day was meant to be rigid, that one meal feels like a failure and the rest of the day often goes with it. If only one meal was ever meant to flex, it's just Tuesday, and you carry on exactly as planned.

Resources & Links

🌐 Coaching
https://www.coachianwood.com

📸 Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/coachianwood

About The Forever Athletic Podcast

The Forever Athletic Podcast is for busy adults who are tired of starting over every Monday. If you want practical advice on fat loss, strength training, nutrition and building sustainable habits without fad diets, fitness misinformation or all-or-nothing thinking, you're in the right place.

New episodes are released regularly to help you build a healthier, stronger body that fits around real life.

Ready to build a nutrition plan you can actually stick to?
Join the Start With 6 Challenge: https://www.coachianwood.com/startwith6