This year’s Dubai Fitness Challenge, which begins October 29, is a great opportunity to transform your diet and increase the amount of exercise you get.

Here are some simple tips to improve your diet, whether you want to lose weight or just improve your nutritional intake.

Keep it simple

The most common mistake people make when it comes to nutrition in my job is overcomplicating things. Nutrition isn’t as confusing as many claim – in fact, it can be broken down into six very simple steps. First, I tell my clients to eat the rainbow. What I mean by that is trying to get as many fruits and veggies, with as many varied colors as possible, to make sure you’re getting a wide array of nutrients. My second tip is to avoid processed foods. This means eating whole foods, which look (or come close to) how they are found in nature. It also means trying to make your diet as organic as possible, as well as free from hormones, additives, and preservatives. The third important factor is to eat a diet rich in plants. In our diet, 80 percent or more of our food should come from plant sources. I ask people to incorporate as many raw plants as possible into their diet. While this might turn some people off, it’s as easy as having fresh salads in your diet every day and making sure you eat fresh fruit as well. And the last – and probably one of the most important factors is tracking your calories. If you need to lose weight, create a calorie deficit, and if you need to gain weight, create extra calories in your diet.

Gluten, dairy, and other elimination diets

It’s often overestimated that “gluten is bad”, personally I’m not too hooked on this one. Of course, if someone has a diagnosed allergy or intolerance, they should avoid it. However, with gluten, when many people eliminate it from their diets, they also cut out many processed foods, which might be why they see the benefits. When it comes to dairy, a mistake many people make is to think of it as a healthy food. In my opinion, consuming dairy products is not healthy. If people like dairy, it boils down to the 80% or higher plant-based diet rule – they should consider dairy products as a “treat food” apart from the nutrition they get from. a herbal diet. It’s about trying to find the right balance between enjoying life and being good most of the time.

The great meat debate

The human body can process and digest meat and fish. But over-consumption of these proteins is not beneficial for the human body and that is why I recommend my clients to eat no more than 10-20% meat in their diet and to focus more on based meals. of plants. A little meat once a week, or once every two weeks shouldn’t be too much of a problem, but try to limit it to that.

Do I have to complete?

With supplements, it’s important to apply the same six rules you make to your overall diet. The way to know if a supplement is good is to check if it comes from natural food sources. For example, a vitamin C supplement that is 100% organic berry. Another thing people should keep in mind is that supplements shouldn’t be the primary way to incorporate nutrition into their diet – they should only be a booster, if needed.

How the Dubai Fitness Challenge can help you

I think the Dubai Fitness Challenge is a fantastic opportunity to get people moving more which is so important to our overall health. It is also unusual for people not to group good habits together because positive behaviors attract other healthy behaviors. For example, moving more and improving your diet at the same time. In this way, I think the Dubai Fitness Challenge is a great way for people to improve their daily exercise capacity and focus on better nutrition.

As the Dubai Fitness Challenge each year proves, there are easy ways to make exercise part of your lifestyle with so much happening across the city. It’s the same with nutrition too. Eating well is very easy, if you just follow the six golden rules: eat the rainbow, choose a diet rich in plants, avoid processed foods, eat raw and whole foods, and count calories. . It really is that simple.

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