When aiming to be fitter and healthier, exercising is less than half the story. It plays a big part in losing weight and body fat, toning and building up muscle and increasing fitness levels.

But if you get your diet wrong, you won’t see the benefits, however hard you train.

In a successful fitness programme, the part diet plays is between 70 and 80 per cent.

Exercise accounts for only 20 to 30 per cent. Surprised? Have you heard the saying ‘Abs are made in the kitchen’?

Doing 50 to 100 crunches a day will make no difference to the fat around your middle. But changing your diet will. Short-term dieting doesn’t work.

Change your lifestyle to gain long-term benefits. My advice is to live the fat-loss lifestyle. Eat fresh food, locally sourced meats and fish, and cook from scratch.

Let’s begin by looking at breakfast, a meal which is such a crucial element to wellbeing, fitness, weight loss and fat loss.

If you start the day with the correct meal you are more likely to continue eating well for the rest of the day.

The most popular breakfast is cereal. But it’s not the healthiest. Many of the popular cereals tempt you with messages of “low fat”, “low sugar”, “low in salt” and “no additives”.

Actually, they are anything but healthy. Cereals lead to weight gain and the hidden sugars will have your blood sugar levels soaring then crashing down, bringing down you, your mood and your energy levels with them.

This will result in the body releasing fat-storing hormones, insulin and cortisol, and lead to fat gain around the mid-section and a craving for more cereals and sugar. It’s a vicious circle.

Instead, try to eat lunch-style breakfast. This is a challenge for the great British public more used to the traditional cereal, tea and toast.

Switching to a lunch-style breakfast of eggs, omelettes, frittatas, stir fries, meat and vegetables can take a little getting used to. But once you make the switch you are setting yourself up to regulate your blood sugar levels with no energy or mood crashes and are well on the way to dropping body fat.

Try it for a few weeks and you won’t look back.

With a lunch-style breakfast you can really ring the changes.

It’s just a shift in mindset. Some great examples of a lunch-style breakfast are: Scrambled eggs, smoked salmon and spinach

Boiled eggs with asparagus as soldiers

Vegetable frittatas

Omelette.

Make time in the morning to have a protein-rich breakfast and you will have started your journey to a cleaner, leaner and healthier you.