Joe Wicks, Healthy eating advice: The Body Coach reveals the one health mistake we all make in winter | Exclusive Interview

In the cold of winter, we humans crave stodgy, warming foods and like to keep cosy under a blanket on the sofa.

Then, come spring, we’re rushing to feel ready for the warmer weather.

But The Body Coach, Joe Wicks, tells 9honey there’s one mistake we’re making through the winter that makes achieving that “summer body” much harder.

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“The wait until summer is leaving it too late, it’s just an accumulation, isn’t it?” Wicks tells 9honey before stepping onto the stage at SXSW London.

“As humans, when it’s cold and wet, you just want to hibernate. It’s happening to billions of people around the world on a cycle, and those that survive it and actually navigate through it are the ones that predominantly cook home-cooked food and also are keeping active.

“So don’t just hibernate, resist that urge to want to just cuddle up and watch movies and eat popcorn and chocolate. Actually, can you do a workout in the morning and cook healthy food in the evening? Because that’s going to change your life, isn’t it?

“The body you want actually takes work all year ’round, it’s not like a two-week thing before you go away, you have to work at it all the time.”

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The Body Coach founder believes, contrary to popular belief, diet versus exercise isn’t really a 50/50 split in terms of importance. He says it’s all down to diet.

“The more I train, the more I realise it’s all diet,” he says.

“Because even if you’re doing a 20-minute workout or an hour in the gym, if your diet doesn’t match your training and your stress levels are high, you’re not sleeping, you’re just going to be consuming so much more food than usually would.

“So if you want to transform your body, you have to focus on the diet.”

However, Wicks insists diets don’t need to be restrictive (yes, you can still have sweet treats!) and there’s no “one size fits all” perfect diet.

“It’s about living a diet that makes you feel good,” Wicks tells 9honey.

“If you’re someone who loves eating loads of carbs and your pasta and rice and noodles, do that, but for me, for example, if I eat like that, I feel really sluggish and bloated and I don’t feel good.

“So ultimately, you’ve got to just find out what works for you.

“Forget about what I’m saying or what any ‘guru’ is trying to say, and just try different things, try a little bit of each and you’ll start to realise how you naturally feel your best and then that should that’s the answer for you.”

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