Hello and welcome to the Centre for Sport blog. Every week I will be posting volumes of my Healthy Eating Guide, to help you develop a new approach to eating and food selection. This will be known as your ‘eating strategy’.

The first thing to make clear is that this is not about ‘going on a diet’. Diets almost always fail because they either:

• Cut out major food groups which is difficult to maintain
• Make us feel bad about snacking
• Are difficult to sustain

My approach to healthier eating is to acknowledge that we all have times when we need to snack but that this is fine as long as the choices are appropriate. In fact, most people would fare much better if they ate smaller amounts of food frequently rather than sticking to the conventional idea of breakfast, lunch and dinner with nothing in between.

You will also find recipes, food swap ideas and other tips to help you make more appropriate food choices.

Jacqueline Bretherton (BSc, MSc, R.Nutr) and Nutritionist at the Centre for Sport