Latest news with #BenCarpenter
The Independent
17-05-2025
- Health
- The Independent
A personal trainer set out to learn everything he could about fat loss – this was his most important finding
The internet is awash with health and fitness information: some of it helpful, some of it not so helpful, and some of it downright dangerous. Ben Carpenter is one of those fighting the good fight against fitness misinformation. Like Gotham's infamous bat signal, social media users now tag him in any post making eye-raising health claims, and Carpenter comes running to confirm or debunk it with an armoury of scientific literature, experience and empathy. This all started when he became a personal trainer in 2006, and quickly found that fat loss was a common goal across his client base. 'Because of this, it became the thing I cared about the most,' he says. 'If somebody asked me a question about fat loss and I didn't know the answer, I'd go away and research it then try to come back with a really good reply. It's supply and demand really, and there's a lot of demand for fat loss advice.' Carpenter then began sharing informative videos on the topic online, and things soon spiralled – he now has more than 786,000 TikTok followers. Then in 2023, he wrote his book Everything Fat Loss: The Definitive No Bullsh*t Guide, aiming to distil decades of learning into a few hundred pages. And his top takeaway may surprise you. 'If I had to pick one to really drum home to people, it is that the majority of diets fail long-term,' Carpenter tells me. 'Diets don't work for the thing that most people want them to work for.' And what is that exactly? In Carpenter's eyes, what people really want from a diet is to improve their health and manage their weight for the rest of their life. 'The majority of people who go on a diet will stop following that diet within six to nine months – that's very well backed up by research,' he says. 'The majority of people who lose weight will regain a lot of that weight over the course of the first few months or years [after they stop following the diet]. 'People are embarking on temporary behaviours and hoping they will address long-term problems. But ultimately, if you're following a diet to improve your health or regulate your body weight, it doesn't make sense to only do it for two months before you get bored.' This behaviour leads to the phenomenon known as yo-yo dieting. People go on a diet, lose weight, come off it, regain weight, then restart the cycle. They may also ditch their diet because it's hard or unpleasant, but the common thread is that this behaviour is temporary. The solution To counter yo-yo dieting, Carpenter recommends adopting sustainable health-promoting behaviours you can maintain. 'If you want to improve your health and manage your weight, it makes sense to pick things that you can do for the rest of your life,' he says. For his second book, Fat Loss Habits, Carpenter once again buried himself in research before resurfacing with 13 science-backed habits for losing weight. Then, rather than using them to craft a strict diet plan for readers to stick to, he presented them as guidelines which his audience could experiment with. This way, people could find habits that chimed with their lifestyle, then weave them into move the fat loss needle in the desired direction. The habits are: Prioritise nutritious lower energy-density foods Eat more fruits and vegetables Be mindful of extra dietary fat Prioritise lower-calorie drinks Exercise more, at least to a point Increase lifestyle activity Exercise snacks Ensure adequate sleep quality Consume adequate protein Eat without distraction Slow down when you eat Engineer your immediate food environment Keep a regular eating pattern How do these habits work? A calorie deficit (or negative energy balance) is the fundamental principle behind weight loss, and simply means you are expending more calories than you are consuming. 'Rather than thinking, 'I need to do intermittent fasting or time-restricted feeding or keto because someone's selling it', understanding that all diets work on the principle of creating a negative energy balance is really important, because then it allows people to follow a diet plan that is more suitable for them,' says Carpenter. 'If someone goes from zero to 100 straight away, which is what diets are often like, within four weeks they'll realise they can't keep up with that pace and stop. I want people to prioritise consistency over perfection, so I'm trying to find ways to help them go from zero to 10, then 10 to 20. That's often a gradual process.' Each of Carpenter's selected habits can help you achieve a calorie deficit. Exercising more will obviously increase your overall energy expenditure, but some of them work in more surprising ways. 'A lot of diets focus on restriction and avoidance: you're not allowed to eat certain things, or you have to reduce your intake of xyz,' he says. 'I like focussing on nutritious foods you can add in. They tend to have a habit of displacing other [more energy-dense] foods out of your diet because appetite is finite.' He identifies nutritious foods as those which tend to be 'slightly less processed', such as fruit, vegetables, lean proteins, beans, lentils and wholegrains. As far as lifestyle factors are concerned, Carpenter says the vast majority of people will burn far more energy via general lifestyle activity than they will while exercising. So, the effects of making small but consistent changes such as swapping escalators for stairs where possible and picking a parking spot slightly further away from the supermarket can add up significantly over time. Sleep is another key area to focus on, with studies showing that 'just a single night of sleep deprivation can skew appetite hormones to the point that people will eat more the next day'. 'The way it improves your diet is a downstream effect of a health-promoting habit, rather than consciously thinking 'I am trying to eat less food',' says Carpenter. Markers of success Encouraging general health-promoting behaviours is a central pillar of Carpenter's work. If he is going to help people lose weight, he is determined to do it the right way. 'A fundamental point for people to understand is that changing your body weight and improving your health are not the same thing,' he explains. 'The reason I make a big point about that is because a lot of people lose weight to improve their health, but then they embark on behaviours that are not health-promoting.' This might mean restricting their food to unhealthy levels, or embarking on a nutrient-poor diet, all in the name of cutting calories. Carpenter also wants to change how the success of a diet is measured; something historically gauged by the number on a scale or the way you look in a mirror. 'If someone's only motivation is weight loss, it can often deter them when that stops,' he says. 'If one of the things they are doing is eating more fruits and vegetables, then their weight loss plateaus and they go back to doing what they were doing before, they have severed their relationship with eating more fruits and vegetables because their motivation was the number on the scale. They have decreased their diet quality. 'Research has also shown that people who hit a weight loss plateau often stop exercising. That is a huge problem because exercise is independently health-promoting; it isn't only beneficial if you lose weight.' Instead, Carpenter urges people to adopt and maintain health-promoting behaviours, then measure the success of their diet and lifestyle on a wider range of parameters. 'Deeper motivations could be improvements in performance, stress, energy levels or quality of life,' he says. 'If someone is able to find a reward independent of their body weight that excites them enough to keep going, I think that's a really key thing.' The importance of compassion Food is a loaded topic for many, and while it's practical to reduce weight loss to a simple calories in versus calories out equation, it's also important to consider the wider genetic, contextual and emotional factors at play. 'I think the compassion side is really neglected,' says Carpenter. 'I did an event in London recently and one of the questions was: 'How do you balance talking about weight loss in a way that is compassionate and doesn't make people feel terrible?'.' A lot of dieting advice can place a 'lazy' label on those unable to lose weight, he says, and this can be compounded by language used by some fitness professionals. 'I wrote a Tweet a few years ago which went viral, and it said something like: 'Fitness professionals are hardcore exercise enthusiasts who often don't know how to empathise with people who are not also hardcore exercise enthusiasts'. 'There's a risk with a lot of fitness professionals that they accidentally alienate a lot of people because of the way they talk to them. I've had clients who've worked with personal trainers in the past and found they don't make them feel good.' Carpenter likens this to the experience of people who feel intimidated by a gym environment, and consequently avoid it. 'The gym is quite an elitist environment,' he says. 'For someone who is classed as overweight or obese, if you look at survey data, a primary reason for [them not going] is because they find the atmosphere and a lot of fitness professionals intimidating; there are a lot of buff dudes and lean women who are very strong.' This is a large part of the reason Carpenter took his advice online, and later made it available in book form. 'To me, if we can't reach the people who don't want to join a gym, who is going to reach them?' Carpenter asks. 'These are the people who fitness professionals should try to reach more, so for me it's really important that I can give fitness advice to anyone who wants it, even if they're petrified of going to the gym or talking to personal trainers because they've had bad experiences in the past.'
The Independent
08-04-2025
- Health
- The Independent
A fat loss expert recommends swapping strict diets for these five simple habits to see long-term results
'Diets don't work' is a strong claim; one that might raise a few eyebrows. But the more I talk to author and fat loss expert Ben Carpenter, the more I understand where he's coming from. 'I'm not arguing that diets don't work while you're on them,' he explains. 'But people are not on them for a long period of time, so diets don't work for the thing most people want i.e. managing weight and improving health in the long run.' A systematic review published in the Obesity Reviews journal reports that 'excess weight can be lost but is likely regained over time'. To combat this, Carpenter recommends replacing restrictive diets with sustainable health-promoting behaviours – hence the name for his new book, Fat Loss Habits (£9, This approach is designed to deliver lasting benefits, rather than a stopgap drop in weight. 'People are embarking on temporary behaviours and hoping they will address long-term problems,' he says. 'But if what you're doing is healthy, you're not supposed to stop. If you want to improve your health and manage your weight, it makes sense to pick things that you can do for the rest of your life.' But what sort of things exactly? Rather than overhauling your life and diet, Carpenter suggests developing a few simple habits that can help you stay in shape for decades to come. You can find his top five below. Exercise snacking The more you move, the more energy you use, and this can contribute to a negative energy balance – AKA, a calorie deficit. This is the foundational principle behind weight loss, and simply means burning more calories than you consume. 'If I could get everyone who reads my book and follows me on social media just to do some aerobic exercise and some resistance training, I know I could significantly improve the health of the population, even if they did nothing else,' Carpenter says. But there are a couple of common misconceptions you need to understand before you lace up your gym trainers. One: the benefits of exercise extend far beyond boosting your fat loss efforts. Both building muscle and improving heart and lung health are linked to living longer, as well as lowering your risk of many chronic diseases. Two: exercise doesn't have to mean a 60-minute trip to the gym or lengthy run. This is why, if you're looking to introduce more movement into your routine, Carpenter prescribes something called ' exercise snacking '. 'You can improve your health with very small bursts of exercise. Doing an exercise for one to five minutes, two or three times per day, can help people who struggle for time,' he explains. 'It's like trying to get people to dip their toes into a metaphorical swimming pool of exercise, rather than thinking they need to jump in the deep end or it's not worth it.' 'Exercise snacking is also very good for behaviour change – building a habit,' Carpenter adds. 'You enjoy exercise more because you do it in small enough doses that you can complete it, rather than doing an hour-long workout and thinking, 'That was hard, I won't be doing that again'.' 'Appetite is finite', so focus on eating nutritious foods A lot of diets tell you what you can't eat. Carpenter says he would rather see people focus on what they can eat, and prioritise consuming nutritious foods – building a new habit rather than breaking an old one. 'I like focusing on adding in nutritious foods because they have a habit of displacing other foods out of your diet,' he explains. 'For example, there is research showing that if you tell children to eat more fruit, weirdly, they often lose a little bit of body weight. 'A nutritious food like fruit is usually added at the expense of something else because appetite is finite. So if you tell people to eat more fruit, they will often slightly reduce their calorie intake without even trying because it tends to displace other things in their diet.' Carpenter argues that most people have a good idea what nutritious foods are, but provides a whistle-stop tour below for anyone in need of some extra guidance. 'When I say focus on more nutritious foods, these are often foods which tend to be slightly less processed,' he says. 'For example, fruits and vegetables, lean proteins [white fish, white meat, soy, tofu], beans, lentils and wholegrains. Even things like rice and oats as opposed to donuts, pancakes and waffles.' Don't go from zero to 100 – lay solid foundations instead Following the average diet requires major changes to your eating habits; having to adjust what you eat, when you eat, how you shop and more. This disruptive approach is unlikely to last. 'Being consistently good for 12 months will be a lot better for your health than being perfect for one month, then stopping because you can't maintain that level of perfection,' says Carpenter. 'Rather than going from zero to 100, I'm trying to find ways to help people go from zero to 10, then 10 to 20. It's often a gradual process.' Instead of counting calories or sticking to hard and fast rules, he recommends picking one or two 'solid nutritional foundations' to focus on. 'Rather than saying, 'here is your diet plan', can you find ways to eat more fruits and vegetables, protein or fibre? Can you find ways to bring in more nutritious foods into your diet so they displace things that are very high in added sugar or fat, like deep fried foods? 'If people are aware of those fundamentals, hopefully they can come up with ways to implement them sustainably over a long period of time.' Make tweaks to improve your sleep A good night's sleep is rarer than a blue moon for most of us. But a quality kip does more for your health than elevating energy levels. 'I like recommending sleep because it's a health-promoting habit; people know that sleep is good for your health,' Carpenter says. 'It's also something that can help with weight management. For example, just a single night of sleep deprivation can skew appetite hormones to the point that people will eat more the next day.' 'Sleep can significantly impact your hunger hormones, and your desire to eat food. It can also impede the amount of body fat you lose in response to dieting,' he adds. 'Say if two identical twins go on a diet, and they both eat the same number of calories but one of them sleeps better than the other, the twin who sleeps better will lose more body fat and hold onto more muscle tissue.' This is backed up by the results of a randomised control trial published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. At this point, Carpenter could dole out the age-old eight hours per night prescription. But he doesn't think that's particularly helpful. Instead, he prefers to share science-backed tips that have been shown to improve slumber. 'Things like avoiding caffeine six hours before bedtime, or not watching TV, looking at bright lights or playing on your phone within a couple of hours of bedtime; people might see these tips and think, 'I do that, but I should think about changing it'. 'I like giving tips more than just saying, 'get better sleep', which is obviously a bit vague,' Carpenter says. Move more outside of exercise You might be familiar with the acronym NEAT, short for non-exercise activity thermogenesis. This clunky term encompasses any activity you do outside of formal exercise, whether that's cleaning the house or popping to the shops. Upping your NEAT levels is particularly useful for weight loss because, when you drill into the figures, even ardent gym-goers don't spent all that much time exercising – five hourly gym sessions still only represents less than three per cent of your week. 'Someone who has an active lifestyle but doesn't go to the gym is likely to burn more energy than someone who has a sedentary lifestyle but does go to the gym,' says Carpenter. 'Lifestyle activity is also often easier to implement because you're looking for small changes that can accumulate rather than trying to find an hour to go to the gym.' These small changes come in the form of conscious decisions that increase your activity levels. For example, taking breaks from your desk at work, opting for the stairs rather than a lift or escalator, or picking a parking spot slightly further away from the supermarket. In isolation, these changes might seem negligible, but it all adds up. 'These are incremental ways that you can increase your physical activity without having to try and find an elusive hour to go to the gym,' Carpenter says.
The Independent
17-03-2025
- Health
- The Independent
As a fitness expert, here are the seven habits that make the biggest difference in the gym
Fitness information is everywhere nowadays, and not all of it is good. There are scare tactics on social media trying to persuade you that certain food groups should be on the ban list, and exercise and training plans promising the world in an attempt to make a quick buck. As a fitness writer, I've been exercising for as long as I can remember, and I've been a regular in the gym since I was a teen. During that time, I made plenty of mistakes and learned from each one. Below, you can find the expert-approved pearls of wisdom I wish I had at my disposal when I first started strength training. 'In health and fitness, the things that we know work aren't revolutionary,' trainer and Fat Loss Habits author Ben Carpenter tells me. This is one of my favourite quotes from any interview I've done. While it won't set the world alight, I've found the proven cocktail of good sleep, regular exercise, lifting weights and eating a nutrient-rich diet invariably delivers health benefits if done consistently. However, the human brain loves a shortcut, so people are always on the lookout for a magic exercise or diet that will deliver untold progress at a rapid rate. 'People will often make something sound shinier than it is to sell you something,' says Carpenter. 'If something really was revolutionary, like one specific diet, tip or exercise programme, you would be hearing about it from more than one person.' Progressive overload As a gangly teen taking their first tentative steps inside the gym, I did the same exact workout for months – a bit of time on the treadmill, a few biceps curls with 10kg dumbbells, several sets on the pec deck, some sit-ups and then out the door. And while I strongly recommend against this, I initially noticed some impressive changes. 'This is because any type of resistance training is a new stimulus to the body, and a previously unstimulated neuromuscular and musculoskeletal system will respond quite dramatically to lower total training volumes and less intense stimuli, compared to the more advanced lifter,' explains Amanda Capritto, a certified personal trainer and sports nutrition coach at Smarter Sweat. In other words, because you've never lifted weights before, your body is taken by surprise and adapts quickly at first. However, I soon saw my progress plateau, and no matter how often I went to the gym nothing seemed to change. So I turned to textbooks to find the solution, and discovered progressive overload; the theory that your training should change over time in line with your increasing strength and fitness levels. And the simplest way to do this in the gym is to increase the weight you're lifting. Rob Thurston, a professional bodybuilder and the trainer behind actor Stephen Graham's impressive transformation for Disney+ drama A Thousand Blows, outlines what this might look like. 'If your training stimulus, rest, recovery and nutrition are all sufficient, your muscles will gradually become larger and stronger, allowing more reps to be performed with the same weight. 'You could start off aiming for three sets of six to 10 reps on an exercise. Once you can surpass the top end of the recommended rep range – eg perform 11 reps – with good form, you should increase the weight you're lifting by about five per cent during your next workout. 'It is important to only make small incremental increases rather than large jumps, both to avoid injury and stay within the lower limit of the recommended rep range [simply: using this template, you shouldn't lift a weight so heavy you can't complete six reps with it].' Intensity matters As Red Bull athlete and Olympic silver medallist Kieran Reilly puts it: 'If you do hard things, hard things become easier.' The body adheres to the Said principle, which stands for 'specific adaptations to imposed demand'. In layman's terms: if you consistently ask your body to do something difficult, it will adapt so it can do it better, as long as you're fuelling and recovering aptly. If you're resistance training at an intensity that tests your body, your muscles will become stronger, along with other tissues like bones, ligaments and tendons. Something that's often overlooked is that you'll also get better at lifting weights – it's a skill, after all. To reap these rewards, bodybuilder Thurston recommends working to 'muscular failure'. 'A really good sign to look out for is, in the final few reps of the set, you will feel an involuntary slowing down of the concentric or lifting phase,' he explains. For example, if you were squatting, it would take you longer to stand up after a few reps because the muscles in your legs had accumulated fatigue. 'These are the final few tough reps you need to grind through in order to create enough mechanical tension within the muscle fibres – that's the stimulus needed for muscle growth,' Thurston adds. 'But without pushing through those hard reps, you don't cause the required signal for your muscles to adapt and become bigger and stronger.' Of course, you should also maintain good form throughout these tricky final reps. This, I've found, is where the magic lies. Follow a plan and track your progress Stepping into a gym can be intimidating at first. I found having a plan bypassed these jitters by giving me a clear idea of what I was going to do, and how I was going to do it. Happily, having a plan is also a far more effective approach if you want to see long-term results. A progressive multi-week programme will provide direction in your training. Scheduling regular workouts holds you accountable, while also helping you keep tabs on your performance – the number of sets and reps you perform for each exercise, and the weight you lift. Through this, you can apply the progressive overload principle discussed above. This isn't to say you can't go off-piste on occasion and try a random workout you bookmarked on Instagram. But some structure and tracking will help you see improved results in the long run – trust me, this is coming from someone who still has a pen and paper stashed in their gym bag. Prioritise fun over optimal There's something of an obsession with 'optimal' and 'evidence-based' lifting online at the moment. This is all well and good – it makes sense that people would want maximum ROI from their time in the gym. However, having enjoyment as the common denominator in your exercise plans is the best way to ensure you turn up for your next workout. If Hyrox gets your engine revving, have at it, if at-home HIIT classes give you the mood boost you're after, crack on, and if old-school bodybuilding is your bag, that should form the cornerstone of your training. The bottom line is that regular movement is very good for you, as is resistance training. If you can find a fun way to incorporate it into your life, stick with it. Consistency is king Of all the things I've done over the years to increase my health and fitness – and believe me, there have been many – the most impactful one is the fact that I just kept turning up. 'Being consistently good for 12 months will be a lot better for your health than being perfect for one month and then stopping because you can't maintain that level of perfection,' Carpenter explains. 'If someone goes from zero to 100 straight away, which is what diets and exercise plans are often like, within four weeks they'll often realise they can't keep up with that pace and stop. Instead, try to prioritise consistency over perfection. 'Doing exercise is one of the lowest hanging fruits for improving your health, but most people are doing very little. So, rather than trying to go from zero to 100, I try to find ways to help people go from zero to 10, then 10 to 20. That's often a gradual process.' For most people, walking is the form of exercise with the lowest point of entry. Some movement is always better than none, so whatever workouts I do (or don't do) in a day, I always like to squeeze a few steps in where possible. Nail the fundamentals A few years ago, I shortened my regular morning training sessions and gave myself an extra half an hour in bed. In the weeks that followed, my fitness and performance went through the roof. Why? Because workouts are designed to provide the stimulus your body needs to trigger changes, but the actual adaptations happen while you're recovering. I was also able to train far more effectively after a good night's sleep. Sleep is one of the fundamental pillars that supports a successful exercise routine, alongside diet, hydration and recovery. In my experience, it pays to fine-tune these before even considering pricey recovery tools or demanding workout plans. 'It's like a pyramid,' says Jonathan Robinson, an applied sport scientist at the University of Bath. 'The bottom of that pyramid is rest, recovery, sleep, hydration and nutrition – if all of those basics are right, you can then start to put everything else on top of it. 'Whereas if your nutrition isn't great, you're sleeping badly and you're not recovering, then no matter how fancy your shoes are or what sports drink you have, [when it comes to performing] it's not going to be hugely beneficial because you're trying to build on shaky foundations.' To improve your recovery, these five sleep tips from The Sleep Scientist founder Dr Sophie Bostock can help you boost the quality of your slumber. And if you're looking for a few nutritional rules of thumb to follow, Carpenter has this to say: 'I like focussing on nutritious foods you can add in because they tend to have a habit of displacing other foods out of your diet. For example, there is research showing that if you tell children to eat more fruit, weirdly, they often lose a little bit of body weight. 'Appetite is finite, so if you tell people to eat more fruit, for example, they will often slightly reduce their calorie intake without even trying because it tends to displace other things out of their diet. He defines 'nutritious foods' as 'foods that tend to be slightly less processed'. 'For example, fruits and vegetables, lean proteins, beans, lentils and whole grains, even if it's things like rice and oats as opposed to doughnuts, pancakes and waffles – more processed versions of the equivalent grains,' Carpenter says. 'I also like the idea of focusing on more fruits and vegetables, and lean sources of protein, because that can be good for fat loss and supporting muscle tissue, specifically if people are resistance training.'
The Independent
18-02-2025
- Health
- The Independent
A fat loss expert says ‘diets don't work' - he recommends doing these five things instead for long-term results
'Diets don't work' is a strong claim; one that might raise a few eyebrows. But the more I talk to author and fat loss expert Ben Carpenter, the more I understand where he's coming from. 'I'm not arguing that diets don't work while you're on them,' he explains. 'But people are not on them for a long period of time, so diets don't work for the thing most people want i.e. managing weight and improving health in the long run.' A systematic review published in the Obesity Reviews journal reports that 'excess weight can be lost but is likely regained over time'. To combat this, Carpenter recommends replacing restrictive diets with sustainable health-promoting behaviours – hence the name for his new book, Fat Loss Habits (£9, This approach is designed to deliver lasting benefits, rather than a stopgap drop in weight. 'People are embarking on temporary behaviours and hoping they will address long-term problems,' he says. 'But if what you're doing is healthy, you're not supposed to stop. If you want to improve your health and manage your weight, it makes sense to pick things that you can do for the rest of your life.' But what sort of things exactly? Rather than overhauling your life and diet, Carpenter suggests developing a few simple habits that can help you stay in shape for decades to come. You can find his top five below. Exercise snacking The more you move, the more energy you use, and this can contribute to a negative energy balance – AKA, a calorie deficit. This is the foundational principle behind weight loss, and simply means burning more calories than you consume. 'If I could get everyone who reads my book and follows me on social media just to do some aerobic exercise and some resistance training, I know I could significantly improve the health of the population, even if they did nothing else,' Carpenter says. But there are a couple of common misconceptions you need to understand before you lace up your gym trainers. One: the benefits of exercise extend far beyond boosting your fat loss efforts. Both building muscle and improving heart and lung health are linked to living longer, as well as lowering your risk of many chronic diseases. Two: exercise doesn't have to mean a 60-minute trip to the gym or lengthy run. This is why, if you're looking to introduce more movement into your routine, Carpenter prescribes something called ' exercise snacking '. 'You can improve your health with very small bursts of exercise. Doing an exercise for one to five minutes, two or three times per day, can help people who struggle for time,' he explains. 'It's like trying to get people to dip their toes into a metaphorical swimming pool of exercise, rather than thinking they need to jump in the deep end or it's not worth it.' 'Exercise snacking is also very good for behaviour change – building a habit,' Carpenter adds. 'You enjoy exercise more because you do it in small enough doses that you can complete it, rather than doing an hour-long workout and thinking, 'That was hard, I won't be doing that again'.' 'Appetite is finite', so focus on eating nutritious foods A lot of diets tell you what you can't eat. Carpenter says he would rather see people focus on what they can eat, and prioritise consuming nutritious foods – building a new habit rather than breaking an old one. 'I like focusing on adding in nutritious foods because they have a habit of displacing other foods out of your diet,' he explains. 'For example, there is research showing that if you tell children to eat more fruit, weirdly, they often lose a little bit of body weight. 'A nutritious food like fruit is usually added at the expense of something else because appetite is finite. So if you tell people to eat more fruit, they will often slightly reduce their calorie intake without even trying because it tends to displace other things in their diet.' Carpenter argues that most people have a good idea what nutritious foods are, but provides a whistle-stop tour below for anyone in need of some extra guidance. 'When I say focus on more nutritious foods, these are often foods which tend to be slightly less processed,' he says. 'For example, fruits and vegetables, lean proteins [white fish, white meat, soy, tofu], beans, lentils and wholegrains. Even things like rice and oats as opposed to donuts, pancakes and waffles.' Don't go from zero to 100 – lay solid foundations instead Following the average diet requires major changes to your eating habits; having to adjust what you eat, when you eat, how you shop and more. This disruptive approach is unlikely to last. 'Being consistently good for 12 months will be a lot better for your health than being perfect for one month, then stopping because you can't maintain that level of perfection,' says Carpenter. 'Rather than going from zero to 100, I'm trying to find ways to help people go from zero to 10, then 10 to 20. It's often a gradual process.' Instead of counting calories or sticking to hard and fast rules, he recommends picking one or two 'solid nutritional foundations' to focus on. 'Rather than saying, 'here is your diet plan', can you find ways to eat more fruits and vegetables, protein or fibre? Can you find ways to bring in more nutritious foods into your diet so they displace things that are very high in added sugar or fat, like deep fried foods? 'If people are aware of those fundamentals, hopefully they can come up with ways to implement them sustainably over a long period of time.' Make tweaks to improve your sleep A good night's sleep is rarer than a blue moon for most of us. But a quality kip does more for your health than elevating energy levels. 'I like recommending sleep because it's a health-promoting habit; people know that sleep is good for your health,' Carpenter says. 'It's also something that can help with weight management. For example, just a single night of sleep deprivation can skew appetite hormones to the point that people will eat more the next day.' 'Sleep can significantly impact your hunger hormones, and your desire to eat food. It can also impede the amount of body fat you lose in response to dieting,' he adds. 'Say if two identical twins go on a diet, and they both eat the same number of calories but one of them sleeps better than the other, the twin who sleeps better will lose more body fat and hold onto more muscle tissue.' This is backed up by the results of a randomised control trial published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. At this point, Carpenter could dole out the age-old eight hours per night prescription. But he doesn't think that's particularly helpful. Instead, he prefers to share science-backed tips that have been shown to improve slumber. 'Things like avoiding caffeine six hours before bedtime, or not watching TV, looking at bright lights or playing on your phone within a couple of hours of bedtime; people might see these tips and think, 'I do that, but I should think about changing it'. 'I like giving tips more than just saying, 'get better sleep', which is obviously a bit vague,' Carpenter says. Move more outside of exercise You might be familiar with the acronym NEAT, short for non-exercise activity thermogenesis. This clunky term encompasses any activity you do outside of formal exercise, whether that's cleaning the house or popping to the shops. Upping your NEAT levels is particularly useful for weight loss because, when you drill into the figures, even ardent gym-goers don't spent all that much time exercising – five hourly gym sessions still only represents less than three per cent of your week. 'Someone who has an active lifestyle but doesn't go to the gym is likely to burn more energy than someone who has a sedentary lifestyle but does go to the gym,' says Carpenter. 'Lifestyle activity is also often easier to implement because you're looking for small changes that can accumulate rather than trying to find an hour to go to the gym.' These small changes come in the form of conscious decisions that increase your activity levels. For example, taking breaks from your desk at work, opting for the stairs rather than a lift or escalator, or picking a parking spot slightly further away from the supermarket. In isolation, these changes might seem negligible, but it all adds up. 'These are incremental ways that you can increase your physical activity without having to try and find an elusive hour to go to the gym,' Carpenter says.
