Mark: Can you help with dietary recommendations?

Hi Iain,

Because you play football and your goal is to excel at that in addition to losing weight, I am going to give my usual recommendation for weight loss but warn you that you may find that if you cut your carbs too much, you'll run out of steam during games. So when you manipulate your carb intake, be sure to eat more carbs in the 24-hours before games but restrict the carbs outside of that 24-hour window. This will allow you to fill your glycogen (carbohydrate fuel storage levels) stores enough for games but to allow glycogen levels to become somewhat depleted when you are training for fat loss and/or performance enhancement.

One other thing, the minimum amount of carbs a person needs to avoid a loss of performance is different for different people and also depends upon if you are accustomed to training with low glycogen levels, so you have to experiment to find the perfect intake that allows you to perform but also lose maximum fat. Also, you'll likely find that the amount of carbs needed gets lower as you become accustomed to a lower carb intake.

So my basic recommendation that works best for most people is to cut down on all sugars in your diet and decrease your intake of starchy carbohydrates (so eat less bread, pastries, potatoes, rice, pasta, corn, etc). Also, eat lean proteins at each meal and snack (like fish, lean meat, chicken, eggs and protein supplements). Keep adjusting your sugar and starchy carbohydrates downward until you are consistently losing weight.

To further decrease hunger and for general health and gut function, eat plenty of green and other non-starchy vegetables.