Delicious Homemade Macro Friendly Pizza

People come and go, but pizza, pizza is for life. There is no better feeling than eating a slice of warm freshly cooked pizza, this can only be improved by the knowledge you made that pizza. You grafted in the kitchen, rolled the dough, laid on the toppings and furthermore, you know what went into your pizza.

By now you know I love pizza, I also love flexible dieting, and the two in combination make my day. Flexible dieting is about having the knowledge that no diet is perfect, but you can make daily food choices that progress you towards your goals, in the knowledge that these food choices can be driven by preference. One caveat being is that you must get sufficient micro and macro nutrition, otherwise you can pretty much eat as you like. For the vast majority of people a 80/20 rules applies and works, so 80% of the time you are eating wholesome, nutrient dense foods and then 20% of your diet can be as you like.

Where does pizza fit? Well just like any food, it meets my macro and micro nutrient needs. Homemade pizza is a cut above takeout, because you are choosing the ingredients, and if you follow my recipe it fits within that 80%. So you can continue to lose weight, gain muscle, build power, develop endurance whatever your goals may be, and eat pizza. Enough with the babble, here is what you have been waiting for…

Delicious, homemade, macro friendly Pizza

I am going to provide you the ingredients and method for the basic, but oh so delicious Margherita Pizza. This aint no tiny pizza, this is the real deal, 10inch, thin crust, cheesy pizza. You can make it smaller, you can make it bigger (I have) but this pizza is your billy bob, your essential, it gets the job done, bloody well.

What you need:

The Base:

•  ’00’ Grade Flour – 125g
• Yeast- 2g
• Salt- 1tspn
• 70g warm water

The Sauce:

• Tinned tomatoes- 150g
• Italian Seasonings

The Topping:

• Mozzarella – 40g

Macros: 28g Protein, 93g Carbohydrates, 13g Fat – 595 calories

Those are some sexy macros right? Hell yes they are, and it makes me love this pizza even more. Also check those ingredients, there is what 7 there, and of those 7 there are only 5 ‘real’ make or break ones, how good is that? It is darn good right. Plus how many of those would you consider crap? or junk? I hope none, because none are. On top of this, the method, it couldn’t be simpler. Trust me you will get why I make this almost everyday in no time.

How to make it:

Step 1

• Combine all the ingredients of the base.
• Do not knead this, combine and leave to sit for 1 hour.

Step 2

• Blend your tomatoes and Italian seasonings.
• Set your oven to the highest temperature it will go.

Step 3

• Flour your work surface and roll out your dough, this is the only slightly difficult bit.
• There are many methods for this, find what suits you best, personally I round the dough, then working from the inside out with my thumbs I flatten out the dough and rotate as I do, leaving a crust. Then flip and continue on the other side. From here I pick up the dough and holding the crust I rotate the dough like a steering wheel, letting it stretch out.
• Keep pressing/stretching out your dough till at desired size/thickness.

Step 4

• Place your rolled out dough onto your pizza stone or plate.
• Chuck on all your sauce and toppings.
• Cook in the oven for 4-6 minutes, depending on how well cooked you like it.

You got yourself some cracking pizza, with brilliant macros and that I can see fit within anyones diet. Sounds too good to be true? It isn’t, just try it, you will love it, and keep making it and become a pizza addict like me.

You love the sound of all this but do not know how many calories or macronutrients you need? Want to enjoy pizza like the above in the knowledge that you can still lose fat, gain muscle, stay lean and get strong but do not know where to start? Whether in contest prep for natural bodybuilding, physique, bikini or building towards a powerlifting meet or championship, we can all eat pizza and progress. All my clients eat to preference, I think everyone should, but not everyone knows how. Want to eat better and enjoy everything that goes in your mouth? You may want to look into getting a coach who can help you out. You can check out my services here.

Catherine Nelson – ‘I was so impressed with the realistic and sustainable approach in helping me to achieve my goals’

Committed and consistent, two words that describe Cath. Without these two traits the results we have achieved together would have been far inferior, and I commend Cath for her hard work. She came to me with the goal of fat loss, while remaining strong and fit. Initially we had a set back, due to having previously dieted quite severely we needed to bring her calories back up, before bringing them down to achieve her desired goal of fat loss. I was so glad Cath trusted me with this, as you can imagine for someone who wants to lose fat, the idea of raising calories and reducing exercise sounds scary. In two weeks Cath was back up to eating 2000 calories and doing no cardio and maintaining weight. We then had two months to drop fat before her photoshoot. Even with a diet break for Christmas Cath managed some great results and looked incredible for her photoshoot, I am sure you will agree.

I have just completed a 3 month coaching block with Stephen Hall “Revive” and I couldn’t be happier. I am finally seeing the results I have not been able to achieve previously. I am feeling great in myself and I really feel I have my eating and mindset under control. I was so impressed with Stephen’s realistic and sustainable approach in helping me to achieve my goals, that I have signed on for another 3 months of coaching. I have always found Stephen to be approachable and answered any questions promptly. My program was so well suited to me that I was able to remain committed and never missed a session. I’m really excited to see what I can achieve during my next block with Stephen.

Cath is a perfect example of what can be achieved in a short period of time. In three months Cath managed to do the following:

• Brought her metabolism up
• Strength up over 15% (bench press up almost 40%)
• Body fat down 4%
• 4cm loss from both Hips and Waist

This was while enjoying a wide and varied diet, with NO food restrictions. Plus this was over the Christmas Holidays, and Cath was able to still enjoy this time and some extra food. That is because Cath followed a sustainable diet and training programme, that she incorporated to make up her lifestyle. Cath is now moving onwards and upwards, looking to slowly lean down further, while trying to gain strength & fitness. I know Cath will achieve her goals. Interested in online coaching? you can check out what I have to offer here.

Your ‘Macro’ Budget

What’s your discretionary spend?

IIFYM ‘if it fits your macros’ or if you prefer Flexible Dieting gets a bad name because people wrongly believe it means all you eat is junk, because it fits your macros. However, this is totally false and is frustrating to hear. This weeks newsletter is inspired by Layne Norton, who recently did a podcast looking at clean eating vs. IIFYM which can be found here.

Essentially what IIFYM is founded upon is the fact if micro nutrition needs are met then no matter what foods you eat, so long as the total macronutrients are identical the resulting impact on your physique will be the same (all other things being equal of course). This means you eat your veggies, your healthy fats and fibrous foods but can do this while enjoying things like ice cream and pizza.This is where I would like to introduce the concept of the macro budget, just like a financial budget; you have a currency (your macros) and can spend it on products (food intake). The more you currency you earn the more things you can buy and enjoy.

So for example, you’re a banker who earns a six figure salary, you can afford to go on some lavish holidays, however if you’re a student you can barely afford to go on nights out. Much in the same way as you can earn more money to spend on luxuries, people earn different macronutrient budgets that they can spend on food intake.  For example, a small male office worker who exercises once a week earns a very small budget, and therefore cannot afford to eat an entire pizza to himself. Whereas a large male who is a personal trainer and works out five times a week, earns a much larger macro budget, and therefore can afford to have pizza and ice cream if he wants.Just like the banker who can pay off all his bills, puts food on the table and clothes on his back while still having enough money to go on holiday, the highly active male has a large enough macro spend to get in all his essential micronutrients and eat ice cream. Whereas this is not the case for the non earning student and inactive small male, who cannot afford to spend their earnings frivolously.

If the student or inactive male did decide to buy what they just cannot afford they would see negative consequences. The inactive male would start to gain unwanted fat and the student would go into debt. You see everyone has a budget that they must work within, not everyone can afford to do the same. If the student wanted to go on holiday they would have to get a job on the side and save, just as the inactive male if he wanted to eat pizza, he would have to get more active.

So as you can see, we all have different macro budgets. This is dictated by how much we earn, essentially this is our metabolism. The greater our metabolism the greater our potential discretionary spend, which means more goodies can be enjoyed. The less energy we burn, the lower our metabolism and therefore the less macros we have to spend, meaning fewer goodies.Our earnings can change, if we get more active, lose weight, or build muscle. Again just like if you get a promotion or get fired and earn more or less money, you can earn more or less macros. For example, at the start of my contest prep I was consuming over 3500 calories. I was eating all sorts of goodies. However, now I am down to under 2000 calories, and most days eat mainly vegetables, lean meats, eggs and protein powder, very few goodies. This is because my earnings went down, as my weight fell my metabolism dropped (in very simple terms).

IIFYM or flexible dieting is not about fitting in as much processed rubbish as you can into your diet. It is about ensuring micro and macro nutritional needs are met. It is about being inclusive of foods not exclusive. It teaches us that we are all different and some of us can afford to eat more goodies than others. However, empowers us to know we can change our macro budget. So next time you’re sitting down to eat a big bowl of ice cream covered in chocolate sauce, think ‘does my macro budget allow for this’ and likewise, if you’re struggling to get in enough carbs to maintain your weight, think ‘do I need another bowl of oats or will a poptart make me less bloated and serve my macro goals?’. It isn’t about what’s better or worse, it is about whether or not it suits the individual in question.

Lyndsey Palmer- ‘I don’t have any food restrictions and the feeling I get from that freedom is amazing’

Lyndsey has been incredibly enjoyable to work with and continues to be a pleasure. I have seen her confidence grow with time and we have successfully brought up her calories, reduced her cardio, increased her food flexibility and developed a healthier mindset, whilst maintaining body composition. In lay mans terms; Lyndsey can eat anything within reason and can now enjoy more food then ever, so she can literally now eat cake and look great.

Don’t just take my word, here is what Lyndsey had to say:

In 2013 I prepped for and competed in three bikini competitions over the course of six months. Each of these competitions, despite being very well coached and obtaining great outcomes during the shows, were all done using a traditional prep in which I ate “clean” foods and was only allowed to have certain types of foods. This required a great amount of discipline in the beginning, but was still manageable. After the first show, it became more and more difficult to stick to this type of eating and I found myself wanting to stray from the plan more frequently. My peak weeks were extreme in terms of amount of carbs I had to cut, water I had to drink, sodium I could consume, and I had even more food restrictions than normal. After my last show, I was on my own without any help from a coach. I ate anything and everything I wanted for the next week and soon my cravings spiralled out of control. I told myself if I was ever going to do another show, I would never follow that type of plan again. This is when I began learning about IIFYM and that a lot of these people had been down the same path as I had. I decided at this point I wanted to find a coach who believed in this principle and would honor my wishes to follow IIFYM in an attempt to find a healthy balance with food and not have it consume my life. My boyfriend actually discovered Stephen, via Instagram, and recommended I work with him as he followed IIFYM and seemed to be very knowledgeable about the science behind nutrition.

Since starting with Stephen, approximately four months ago, I have been extremely pleased with many aspects of his coaching. He tailored my workouts to meet my specific goals and has been great about making changes to my program to accommodate an ongoing hip injury and any other minor problems I’ve had during my workouts. Stephen does a great job of communicating with me via email. He responds in a timely manner and answers all my questions in a detailed fashion. As far as nutrition, I’m so very thankful for Stephen’s knowledge and patience.

I started out at a lower level of calories, as that was what my body was used to and all that my metabolism could handle at the time. After about a month, I began reverse dieting and have been doing so ever since. Stephen has managed to increase my total caloric intake by almost 600 calories and increased my carbs by 100 grams, yet my weight has remained stable. (start Left, current Right)

My initial goal with Stephen had nothing to do with cutting fat or prepping for a show and everything to do with having a healthier mindset. If one were to look at my progress pictures, it would not appear as if I have much to be excited about. I have not had a crazy physical transformation, but I believe I have not only met, but surpassed my initial goal of a more healthy relationship with food and I have Stephen to thank for that. Each time I’ve “fallen off” or went over my macros for the day, he has been there to assure me that I will be just fine and to get right back on track. I don’t have any food restrictions and the feeling I get from that freedom is amazing. I still love food and sometimes eat more than I should, but I finally feel like I’m in control again.

I’m close to being able to prepare for my second goal, competing again, but this time, using IIFYM. Stephen’s style, compassion, and dedication is exactly why I would choose him as my coach for future competitions and I would recommend his services to everyone!

I am so incredibly proud of Lyndsey, her success is terrific and very much down to her patience, consistency and determination. I have seen her grow as a person during the process, gaining a better understanding of nutrition, training and the impact each has on her body.

Interested in coaching check out my services HERE.

Losing Fat is Hard – Part 2

How to get past the hurdles

Last time we touched on why losing fat is hard, and now we are going to delve into each of these hurdles. I am going to give you some tips and tricks on how I approached these and got over them. Fat loss is hard, getting into single digit body fat is even harder, but the same principles apply, just I have had to find every trick in the book.

So what’s so hard?

Making sure you’re in a calorie deficit.

How do you know you’re in a calorie deficit? You first have to estimate how many calories you burn, there are various calculations that can be performed for this one you might want to try can be found here. Once there you need to create a deficit by moving more and eating less. Now you should be in a deficit you need to track your progress to make sure you actually are. This means taking weight measurements, I recommend you take these at least 4 times a week first thing, and take the average for the week. A loss of 1% of total bodyweight is a healthy and quite sustainable rate for most. If your losing much more or less, you need to adjust your calorie intake or output. For women you might also need to take weekly photos and focus on monthly weight changes instead of daily or weekly, due to the hormonal differences between the sexes.

When fat loss stalls, what to do?

So you will come to a point where the fat just won’t budge anymore, this is when you need to either reduce the amount you’re eating again or increase your output. What you decide to do is very much individual, and down to many aspects. Yet the key is to get into a deficit again. I will note however that dropping 25g of carbs each day would account to 100kcal a day and 700kcal a week. Think how long it would take to do 700kcal vs. dropping a slice of bread out of your diet a day, one seems much easier. However, when food intake gets low the idea of doing 700kcal of cardio gets more appealing. There is a careful balance to be made.

When are refeeds/diet breaks appropriate?

The only people who should be having a refeed are those who are lean. If you are pushing above 15% body fat as a male or 25% as a female you don’t really have a need for a refeed. However, diet breaks may be necessary for anyone, because these have many purposes over and above reducing the negative impacts on your metabolism. A general rule is for every 12 weeks of dieting you take a break. A catch all approach would be to eat at maintenance for a period of 2 weeks. This can vary depending on body fat levels, hormonal responsiveness and psychological factors.

When social occasions arise, what to do?

Plan plan plan. This is my main tip. Diets should be permissive, not restrictive. However, this means you need to plan occasions in. So if you know you are going out later for a meal with family, put it in your food diary early and adjust round it earlier in the day. If you find it hard to avoid treats available at work, make sure you have your own snacks on hand, that fit within your diet. Whatever you do, don’t stress out, if you do slip up, just make sure to get back on track.

Keeping motivated for training.

Getting weaker is no fun, feeling tired is no fun. I know what this is like and training gets tough. What you must do is focus on the process, know you are lifting at your best, and take you eye off the number of kgs pressed and focus on doing your best. The key is to get the work done, performance losses are inevitable and stressing about them doesn’t help the situation.

Find foods that keep you satiated.

This was an interesting one for me, high volume foods seemed to do the trick for a very long time. Such as going for veggies, slow cooking your oats and eating things such as puffed wheat. Great choices are butternut squash, mushrooms, cucumber, leafy vegetables, puffed wheat, beans, lentils, salsa, american mustard, egg whites, courgettes and many more. Yet the point will come where nothing fills the hole. I also found I was bloated a lot of the time, but still hungry, and this wasn’t good for my training and wasn’t comfortable. So I made a switch to starchier carbs, and focussed on making meals and enjoying my foods. Tricking yourself into thinking your eating more is also useful, using smaller bowls, plates, and cutlery. I like to stuff my smaller bowls and eat with a tea spoon, this makes it look like more food and it takes me longer to eat.

Cravings, making you want to break your diet.

This is where flexible dieting really helped me. No foods were off limits, but the amounts were, I have to account for everything. However, so long as I account for what I eat and adjust my other choices round it, I could pretty much eat anything I wanted. That was a major plus. However, sometimes there are things we just cannot fit into our diets. So good ways round it is to make homemade varieties, such as using low calorie wraps for pizza bases, and switching to low fat cheeses. You can also make great tasting protein pancakes and cakes themselves. Something else that helped me was chewing gum, coffee and diet sodas, these gave me a sweet kick and curbed hunger for a period of time.

Low energy levels.

This is almost unavoidable, you have to accept it. However, small things can go a long way. Such as caffeine, energy drinks and coffee have been very handy indeed. However, don’t abuse these as we do get de-sensitized to caffeines effects. I personally restrict myself to 3 larger caffeine servings a day. This is normally 3 Americano’s, I could easily drink more but I know more would lead to more, so having a limit is a good idea. Another thing that helped me in times of low energy was sugar free gum, the flavour it provided kinda hyped up my brain, sounds odd but there is some research showing that flavours can actually help with energy levels. Furthermore, having some good music can really help.

When it comes to getting through long cardio sessions, having a distraction is great. I could get through 500kcal of low intensity cardio easily if I had someone to talk to. If there isn’t anyone around, and for the most part there wasn’t for me, then podcasts are a good alternative.I hope some of my experiences and tips help you in your fat loss pursuits!

Do this before making your New Years Resolutions

So the new year is on its way, and with it comes new goals, dreams and aims. That is good thing, and I encourage everyone to have something they are working towards, whether that be to get a promotion, lose weight or get stronger. However, before you decide on your new years resolution, look back and review your old goals, dreams and aims. Have you achieved them? And if not, why not? Because, what I do not like to see is people make New Years Resolutions and not actually achieve them. If you did what you set out to do, then well done 🙂 keep up the good work.

• Did you lack motivation?
• Maybe you didn’t have the knowledge required to get where you wanted?
• Possibly it was just bad luck?
• Or deep down you knew you just didn’t work hard enough?

Whatever the reason you didn’t do what you set out to do, learn from your mistakes. If you can do that you are back in my good books and you will be much better off and more likely to achieve your future resolutions.

Be Real Man

Something that might be holding you back is setting a target that is actually not even attainable. Personally I want to eventually move out and have a house of my own. However, I just do not have the resources to do that right now, or next year. So better is to say I will be moved out and renting next year. That is far more realistic. If I set myself the aim of owning property next year, I might not even move out! If your dreaming too big then you will be at risk of stagnating. 

Set Mini Goals

By setting yourself mini hurdles along the way not only do you know the process for achieving your overall resolution but it also gives you short term targets, and you can reward yourself for hitting them. For example, you want to lose 2 stone by the end of the year, set smaller stepping stone goals such as by March you will have lost a minimum of 10 pounds. By making this mini realistic goal and hitting it, you’ll be spurred on to continue.

Be Accountable

Tell people your resolutions, friends, family, your twitter followers the more the better. Everyone will then ask how you are getting on and progressing. This will put pressure on you to actively be pursuing your aim, because you don’t want to look stupid right? Something I personally found keeps me on point is having a training and nutrition coach. You be thinking, why would a coach need a coach? Not so much for their knowledge, but for the accountability they provide, it is priceless.

I’m going to do this one now, by sharing with you some of my goals for this year:

• Compete in a Powerlifting Meet & get a 520kg+ total.
• Move out from home.
• Remain respectively lean.
• Grow my business enough to be fully self employed.
• Continue to learn, be open minded, experience new things and show my appreciation to others.

Make this year your year by being real, setting mini goals and making sure to be accountable, to yourself and others! If you have personal health and fitness goals, and are thinking about getting a coach to help, then be sure to check out my services HERE and remember #REVIVESTRONGER

Steve Tagg- ‘what pleasantly surprised me is how sustainable it is’

Steve was an avid runner, but wanted to switch it up. He approached me and I introduced him to the main compound lifts; deadlifts, squats, bench press. We worked one on one for a number of weeks before Steve felt confident enough to do everything online.

Steve is a family man, who runs his own business and therefore is fairly time poor. I made sure to give him an exercise programme that worked towards his goals but also fit his lifestyle. He has been on a full body split, training 3 times week while with me, each time he enters the gym he is starting with the Big Three. Each week he practices Power, Hypertrophy and Strength for each of these lifts, a Conjugated type of periodisation. Steve has seen great results, dropping fat and getting stronger. His physique speaks for itself:

I have been working with Steve since June. Initially I worked with him on weight training but, as I learned about his interest in nutrition and natural bodybuilding, I decided to give Revive a go. In 3 months I have hit a weight last seen nearly 14 years ago – when I got married. Further, I am more toned than I have ever been (according to my wife), and have more energy.

The other aspect of Revive that has pleasantly surprised me is how sustainable it is – I have a real weakness for wine, and a bit of a sweet tooth, but can honestly say that I have had to make very few sacrifices.  I have been amazed by my progress and would recommend Revive to everyone.

I have thoroughly enjoyed working with Steve, and he is a great example of how easy it can be to get results if you put the work in consistently. We are now going to enter a Strength focussed Meso-Cyle and progress this linearly. Currently Steve is enjoyed a much deserved and needed diet break, before going onto drop a few more pounds of fat!

Part 3: Moving back to maintenance – ‘Reverse Dieting’

The ‘reverse’ diet – what, why, how?

So far in this series we have learnt about what our metabolism is and how it adapts to what we ‘feed’ it, we have learnt the importance of slow progressive dieting and how to incorporate ‘refeeds’ to help blunt the unwanted side effects of dieting. So we have the tools to best get down to our desired body fat %, now it is time to move out of the deficit, allowing our body again to reach homeostasis. However, this is the point at which can make or break your entire diet, this is where if you are not careful you can put back on all the fat if not more than you started with. Avoid the yoyo diet, and please continue to read about the ‘reverse’ diet.

The reverse diet is just as it sounds, when we diet changes are slow and progressive, the reverse diet is much the same, apart from the fact we slowly increase not decrease our calorie intake.

Essentially the aim is to bring our metabolism back up to what it should be, the easiest way to do that is to just eat more. However, if we just scoff a load more food you’ll put on a load of fat in a hurry, especially because our body wants to get back to its old self. To avoid this you have to increase your calorie intake slowly, allowing your metabolism to adjust upwards gradually. That is if you want to avoid as much fat gain as possible, there are cases in which a faster approach may be more suitable, but I am principally talking about people who have followed a successful and healthy diet.

Everyones metabolism is a little different, some are very responsive and others less so. Responsive metabolisms do very well off an increase in calories, and you can give them quite sizeable and frequent increases. However, others are not, and therefore you must take a slower approach.

I have a few approaches I like to put in place for my clients, but one that seems to work quite well is to increase carb and fat intake by 10-20% initially, getting them to maintenance. At this point you may want to lower protein in place for more carbs, because carbohydrates are the real ignitors for our metabolism and are protein sparring, plus you’ll be coming out of a deficit so the need for high protein intakes drops.

From this initial increase you’ll want to take visual and body weight measurements to then pick how next to act. Each week from here I would increase fat and or carbs by 5-10% depending on how they looked and how their weight responded. I have seen people drop weight and look better week to week while reverse dieting, but I have also seen others need very slow increases. Again like anything it is very much dependent on the individual. Also while doing the above you would be making sure to try and reduce the amount of cardio taking place. You would keep progressively doing this until the person was eating back up to a reasonable number of calories.

The above steps could be continued for a long time, especially if the person wanted to transition into a muscle building phase. I also want to note that some people actually find the reverse diet harder than the diet itself. This is because the changes are quite small, making it almost feel like you are still dieting. This can be very tough, especially when you do not have a particular goal in mind. I’d happily allow some people to speed up the reverse diet if they really couldn’t hack it. I personally feel that very small adjustments are silly, that is the best way I can say it. No one wants to continually feel like they are dieting, so an by increasing macronutrients by less than 10g really seems quite, well silly.

So now you have learnt how to get really lean in a healthy manner and then how to build yourself back up out of the deficit. Key is to remember everything our body does is to try and remain in homeostasis, our bodies don’t want to get really lean. So to get their we need to take it slow, and then once their we slowly need to build up our metabolism. Our metabolic rate doesn’t get damaged or break, we don’t enter some weird starve mode in which we can no longer burn fat. Our metabolisms are wonderful things that adjust to what we give them, treat them with respect and you can manipulate it to get the results you want in a healthy and sustainable manner!

If you enjoyed this or any of my newsletter content please like and share my newsletter, any support or feedback is much appreciated!

Sami Chamoun- ‘I decided to give Steve a go and couldn’t be happier’

Sami has got a great balance between life, exercise and his goals. We started building him up out of a fat loss phase, slowly increasing and tweaking his macronutrients to successfully reverse diet. With this Sami has got stronger, healthier and has remained lean in the process. During this time Sami has been training just three times a week and has weekly social events, enjoying alcohol and delicious food. The key to his success is consistently getting the big stuff right, that means getting in the main compound movements and being mindful of his macros.

Here is what he had to say:

I’ve trained for a number of years, but for a large part of that have rejected diet. I first discovered Steve on YouTube and found his commentaries entertaining. It was not long after this that I began to follow a macro-based diet. I trained under some more well-known coaches for a while but wasn’t really happy with the quality of service I was receiving. I decided to give Steve a go and couldn’t be happier.

His responses are very prompt and seems willing to answer any questions/concerns I have. I am enjoying my training more since joining and he’s helped me build my metabolism right up as I lead into a lean bulk. Good bloke, great coach, highly recommend.

I am so glad Sami came to me, I feel like we have a great understanding of one another, which is very important, because the relationship between a client and coach often dictates the success of the person involved. The below clearly shows how successful his reverse diet has been:

3 Month Progression
Starting Weight	169	Starting Calories	2200
Current Weight	171	Current Calories	2600
% Change	1.2%	% Change	18.2%

As you can see he is enjoying 400 more calories and has gained little weight, and from looking at his strength gains and monthly photos, me and Sami are happy that the majority of this is muscle.

I look forward to seeing Sami continue to eat more and get stronger. If you are interested in online coaching, check out my packages here.

Garlic Tuna with Mediterranean Vegetables

This is a brilliant recipe because it is very simple, easy to make in bulk, really tasty and gets in a lot of micronutrition. I also really enjoy eating this cold or warm, I might just be odd but I have been eating this from the fridge at work and it hits the spot.

 

What you will need:

• 3 tins of tuna
• 2 tins of chopped tomatoes
• 2 celery heads
• 3 peppers
• 2 large red onions
• 2 boxes of mushrooms
• 3 close of garlic
• 2 tspn coconut oil
• 1 stock cube

I don’t want to list out the exact grams of each of the above items, because I know it varies each time I make this. That is because packets provide estimated weights, also things like onions and peppers vary in size. However, the above is enough to go from to make this recipe work.

What you need to do:

1. Chop up the garlic, onions, celery and peppers and add them to the pan with the coconut oil. Fry these until slightly soft.
2. Add in the tins; so tomatoes and tuna, once mixed in drop your stock cube in and allow it to cook for a little while.
3. Now you can chuck in your mushrooms, these will cook down fast so you could turn off the heat once these are mixed in if you desire a harder mushroom!

That’s it, simple as three steps, told you it was easy! You can then add a side of your choice, you could have this over a baked potato, make it into a pasta dish or do as I did and have it with basmati rice.

 

Macronutrition per 1/4 (without sides):

40g Protein, 24g Carbohydrates, 4g Fat (6g Fibre) – 300kcal 

Additional benefits of this meal:

• Contains roughly 3 of your 5 a day
• Can be used as a great meal for those losing fat or gaining size.
• Highly satiating due to the high protein and fibre content.

And there we have it Garlic tuna with Mediterranean vegetables, let me know if you try it and how you liked it.