Ask any Personal Trainer, Dietician (but of course), Athlete or mother what the most important thing is to a healthier lifestyle, Food is your answer. But it's about the right food. Nonnas, look away now, because the right fuel for your body isn't copious amounts of cheese and pasta bake, followed up with a heaped serve of famous apple pie, with an accompanying cool, crisp cerveza or delightfully fruity Shiraz.

It's about having a balanced diet of carbohydrates, protein's and good essential fats.

Ok, ok, too complicated, just serve me another slice of decadent tiramisu.

But that's where the mind needs to overcome the cravings for the not so good stuff. Or so I've been told and I'd be guessing they'd be right. I mean I think we all know when our diet is off kilter. It can affect your mood, concentration and can lead to inflammation of the gut over time and just generally make you feel flat. You do that long enough, it becomes a habit that's hard to break and the food is too hard to give up as your body craves it. It's an addiction.

This is where I bring in a pretty switched on guy by the name of Stuart Dods from Primal Food here in sunny Melbourne. Stuart is also on board with this journey and he's going to ensure I'm eating right. Mind you, there is nothing super special that Stuart will be preparing for me, all the meals can be made at home easily by anyone. But his guidance on what to eat and when to eat it based on my training will be crucial and he knows his shit, which was evident by having my first dietary consultation. Down to the point of being able to pick on my ancestoral origin purely based on how my body reacts to the foods I take in now. I do tend to eat a lot of carbs and put weight mostly on my stomach for that fetching "beer gut" look.

Stu claims I will hate him as early as Day 4. But to be honest, I'm motivated to crush these 8 weeks, so I say bring it on. I'll probably still hate him though. I hope that I can learn to love him before the 8 weeks is through.

He wants to see my Body Fat % come down to at least 12% by the end of 8 weeks. In conjunction with building what is termed Lean Mass. I currently have 63kg of Lean Mass and am looking to increase this through diet and training. The rule being the more lean mass you have, the less Fat Mass you have. They both are intertwined and dance a delightful dance.

The below is a bit of a look at my menu to start off with. In conjunction with the following list of sumptuous delights, Stu's made it pretty clear the importance of:

• Drinking at least 800ml of water as soon as I wake up, in fact, don't get out of bed till that's done. Yes, I'm going to bed with a very large glass of water (my wife is not jealous).
• Must drink at least 3l of water daily and obviously more when I'm training.
• I need to get my hands on and take in Coconut Oil (Organic Unrefined), Nut Butter (been told that the Almond Brazil Cashew flavour takes the win here) and any type of nuts (Macadamia, Brazil, Almond, Cashew, etc.). This is what I will use to get through the day between meals. Nom.

[mks_highlight color="#7f7f7f"]   WEEK 1 MENU   [/mks_highlight]