My FIERCE Diet: Everything You Need To Know

Healthy eating is the key to stepping up your results and to complement your hard work, which is why I am providing you with some tips to help you focus on the best FIERCE diet for YOU — one that will help to give you fuel for your workouts and feel your healthiest self.

Being a fitness trainer, I often find that the biggest challenge for my clients is the struggle they face when it comes to healthy eating. In particular, I find the most common reason why people can’t stick to a healthy change or don’t even bother starting is due to a lack of knowledge — this can then result in them feeling overwhelmed and not being able to successfully adapt to healthier habits. 

That is why I’ve come up with these FIERCE diet tips. If you are following my FIERCE training program, these diet tips will help you to make the best choices to help fuel your workouts and be well-informed about the food you should be consuming.

Although it can be hard to get through those tough first few weeks, once you do begin to stick to more positive habits, you will hopefully find that your mind is clearer, your sleep is better, your mood and energy improves and overall you feel great! 

What is a FIERCE Diet?

I want you to know that when I talk about a FIERCE diet in this blog, I am using the word ‘diet’ loosely — I DON’T mean following a strict and regimented food plan, I am talking about an overall approach to healthy eating. Above all, I want my FIERCE diet tips to help set you up for life and to help educate you to make the best decisions for YOUR health and YOUR goals.

Meal routine

It’s important to recognise that each person is different and has different needs. It’s incredibly hard to know what would work for you specifically, without performing a pre-screening to determine your needs and goals. That means I can only provide general guidelines — be aware that you may require something more for your individual needs. 

Generally, I would recommend eating a minimum of four meals per day and seeing how you go from there. 

An example of a FIERCE diet plan would include the following meals:

• Breakfast
• Morning tea
• Lunch
• Dinner

Within these meals, try to ensure that:

• You are including a good source of protein, healthy fats, fibre, veggies and a small number of starchy carbohydrates. 
• Be mindful of your portion sizes.
• I always ensure I choose good, wholesome products where I can and I love replacing certain ingredients with healthier alternatives to improve the meal’s health benefits overall. Try making some of these changes to your eating habits and you will feel a difference!

My FIERCE diet tips

My FIERCE program is all about combination training and involves high-intensity workouts. This means that a FIERCE diet involves eating well to ensure you have the energy to get through each workout to the best of your ability, while still meeting your nutritional needs. 

Try to keep these FIERCE diet tips in mind to help you make the most of your training:

1. Develop healthy behaviours

Healthy habits will determine your success. I enjoy myself whenever I can but I also have strong healthy behaviours in place — this has come from working hard over many years to put these strong habits in place. For example, every morning I start my day with warm lemon water. I love that this is a set habit for me that I do as it helps me to get in the right mindset and set my day up right.

A FIERCE diet should involve you finding a routine that is sustainable for you, has variety and suits your life and your health needs. So if you are looking at changing up your nutrition or even your training, think to yourself — is it sustainable, does it provide variety and is it healthy?

2. Let food be your fuel 

My biggest FIERCE diet tip is this — let good, wholesome food be your fuel! 

Most diets will work if you stick to them 100%. However, this doesn’t mean all of them are 100% safe, healthy and maintainable. If you fuel your body with poor nutrition, it won’t work effectively and you will struggle to gain results regardless of how hard you train. 

This means your body won’t be able to burn fat and build muscle at a good rate, compared to how it could if it was fuelled correctly. Think of your body like a car — if you fill it with nasty, cheap fuel and don’t look after it properly, it won’t perform at its best and could potentially stop working.

A FIERCE diet means eating food that fuels your body to get through your workouts and train as hard as you can — you should never feel weak or lacking in energy to get through your workout. For example, I don’t currently measure my food but I probably consume around 2000 calories a day — I NEVER undereat. Usually, I go off how my body feels. I also have a good understanding of portion sizes, which means I can estimate portions for my meals with that knowledge. 

I recommend trying this approach for yourself. If you are lacking the energy to get through your workouts or are feeling really hungry regularly, it might be that you’re not consuming enough wholesome foods. 

3. Live a balanced lifestyle

I live an 80/20 lifestyle — 80% of the time I eat clean, nourishing foods and 20% of the time I usually have a more relaxed approach and eat more indulgent foods. Some weeks I may not indulge as much and others I may indulge a lot more, like during celebration periods or holidays. This is what I believe works for me!

To me, following a FIERCE diet is all about developing a healthy mindset towards food. By taking an approach like this, you won’t feel like you are restricting yourself and you are more likely to maintain a healthy relationship with food.

4. Don’t restrict yourself of foods

I never indulge when I’m starving. I manage cravings for unhealthier food options by leaving those sorts of foods to the weekends to enjoy with friends and family. 

Before I indulge, I always make sure I’ve eaten a healthy meal first so I’m not overeating in the foods I want to indulge in. For example, if I feel like a chocolate I’ll always go eat my proper healthy meal, drink plenty of water and then have the chocolate or whatever it is that I am craving. I still get to satisfy the craving but I have also fuelled my body with nutrients too. 

5. Pay attention to your body

Another area I do highly recommend checking out is your intolerances, hormonal imbalances and blood work to see if you are lacking in any of these areas. If you are regularly feeling a bit ‘off’, it might be a good idea to speak with a healthcare professional to determine if there are any underlying conditions that may be impacting your health and energy levels. 

On top of this though, get to know what feels right for your body. Listening to my body is really important and helps me fuel it with the right foods for the day. Food should be enjoyed and when you find out what works for you and what makes you feel good, it’s so much easier to love what you’re eating.  

6. Meal prepping is key 

I am all about meal prepping and I highly recommend doing this when adapting to a FIERCE diet! I really believe that this is a huge way to succeed, especially in those early days of changing your health habits. I have a freezer in my garage where I store a lot of pre-made meals for myself and my family. If I don’t have food prepped I struggle to stay on track as my life is quite hectic and therefore I end up buying food which is never as good for me — so I always keep a stash of ‘fierce meals’ handy.

In my freezer I always keep frozen bags of veggies that can be steamed, pre-made meals that I have cooked, bread, crumpets, salmon fillets, fruit and other wholesome foods. In my pantry is microwavable rice packs, my favourite wholegrain cereals and other easy-to-make, nutritious food. 

If you meal prep a few times a week, or simply make sure you have healthy snacks on standby, you can easily avoid just grabbing anything when you’re feeling really hungry. 

Find what works best for you

Every woman is different and what works for ME won’t necessarily work for YOU. A FIERCE diet is about developing positive habits and finding an approach that suits you, your lifestyle and your body. It’s about finding nourishing foods that make you feel energised, fit, feel lean and strong — and able to smash your FIERCE training, whether it’s an AMRAP session, or a strength-based one!

For more health and fitness tips, be sure to follow me on Instagram at @chontelduncan.