Are you a Personal Trainer? Can I eat Acai?!

Having coached fitness for a long time, 15 years at this point I'm regularly asked for advice on nutrition, even on the streets.

Yesterday, whilst enjoying an Acai in the sun, I had a personal training t-shirt on and somebody stopped me on the street and asked me, hey, are you a personal trainer?And I said yes. He then asked... are they good for you? I knew by his demeanour and tone that his question was less about micronutrients / food quality and more around the impact of Acai bowls body composition.

Well, sorry to give you the standard answer, but... it depends.

And it does depend. His partner interjected to inform me that she had weight loss struggles and they only turned into success when she stopped eating Acai.

So this already looks like we need a full consultation where you just need everybody's information, their goals. It's one of those times where it becomes a little bit of a struggle to have a snapshot conversation about an overall picture such as what is your weekly calorie intake? Are you hitting your protein targets? Do you move daily? Are you anywhere near your goal? Where do you get the Acai? Is it a high calorie bowl of honey (sugar) and peanut butter (fat) with minimal fruit or the opposite? There's so many questions. So unfortunately, at times nutrition brings more questions than answers.

But I generally simplify the information as much as I can by advising to get an idea of your calorie count required for your specific goals. Do you need to cut, maintain or add weight and can you agree on hitting something that looks like your protein amount every day?

That general information usually gets us close enough to something that looks like a structured day. Then you're into veggies, water, macros etc. It's general, but most of the time, if people are hitting in and around at their required calories, in and around the right protein, the rest can fall into place.

During our 1-1 consultation, we'll talk through all of this in more detail.

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