How strict does my diet really have to be

A client of mine at My Fitness Studio asked me recently “How strict does my diet really need to be to reach my goals?” this was following her recently reading an article by a London personal trainer saying what to avoid eating at christmas.  Many personal trainers give their clients extremely strict diet advice both in person and to the general public when writing in a paper.  These strict diet measures certainly display a personal trainers in depth knowledge in fitness nutrition and to many people they may be happy with the extra advice feeling they are getting their moneys worth but is it really necessary?  I personally don’t think it is.  Most women when they come to us want to slim down to look good in a bikini, they don’t want to be a bikini model.  If you give people extreme diet measures they often won’t follow them, yet, if you give them diet measures that are less extreme but eases them gradually into a stricter diet they will most likely keep it up thus getting results.  Most people still can drink on the weekends, most people still can eat out once or twice a week but just need to pick the right drinks and food, this does not mean only having one drink on a night out and never eating a square of chocolate and this does not mean only eating turkey slices at lunch.  I often read articles in fitness and bodybuilding magazines that say you should never really eat protein bars because they are high in sugar and fat, I used to agree with this when I was trying to consume huge amounts of protein a day, but for people consuming one or two protein bars a week they are hardly going to notice much of a bodily difference by switching to protein powder.  Yes, protein powder is much lower in fat, but the convenience of unwrapping a protein bar vs blending a protein shake, its obvious the protein bar is far more time effective.  Strict diet measures are very easy for personal trainers to follow and professional athletes as this is what we do for a living and have time to do, but someone working from 7-7 each day with little time off needs a simpler diet to get results.  If they are trying to get down to very low body fat percentage then they will need to pre make most meals each day and keep to a very strict diet but the average client of ours should be able to find their diet in local shops and restaurants.

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