I know New Year is all about changing your life, and making and sticking to resolutions, but I believe you can’t do everything at once. By making small changes every week, you have more chance of long-term, life changing success.

Here are my top tips for this week, focusing on what we drink:

1. Drink at least 2 litres of water per day. And on the days of your training sessions, you should drink at least an extra litre. Bottled water or filtered water is preferable to water straight from the tap. Tap water has been found to contain lots of ‘nasties’: pesticides; kitchen and bathroom cleaning products and oestrogen from birth control pills and HRT. It is cleaned using chemicals and then can travel through 100-year old water pipes, before reaching your taps.

2. No alcohol. Alcohol is also highly calorific and easy to over consume! Plus the way alcohol is handled by the body stops your body burning fat. When you drink alcohol, rather than store it, your body converts it to acetate. Acetate is a preferable source of energy for the body than fat – it’s easier to use and therefore any use of stored fat for energy gets stopped. Drinking alcohol also increases your appetite making food more appear tastier. You are more likely to fall off the ‘healthy, clean eating’ wagon, if you have a drink.

3. Avoid coffee and tea. You can drink as much green tea/herbal tea as you like. Or try hot water with lemon and a bit of fresh ginger in. Cutting back on tea and coffee can be difficult, so don’t be mean to yourself by not having your morning coffee! You’ll only end up miserable and be less motivated to continue with your healthier lifestyle.

4. No fizzy pop. These drinks are full of sugars and artificial sweeteners which send our blood sugar levels soaring, mess with our insulin levels and tell our body to store more fat. Be aware that fruit juice can contain lots of sugar too – try diluting it with water.