The Meadow Gym owner Danny Kane continues his series of articles on health and fitness for the Manx Independent .

This week I want to talk to you about the importance of nutrition and how much your diet affects your health, your fitness and your life in general.

We’ve probably got one of the worst months coming up for people in regards to over indulging. I will be myself so don’t worry, but we don’t have to write off the whole month - and progress can still be made in December.

Let’s go through some of my top things to nail down when wanting to get in shape:

l Calories Whether you count them on MyFitnesspal or not - the understanding of calories, what they are and how many you’re roughly consuming a day is what’s going to set you up for nailing your dream body.

If you’re consuming more calories than you need for a period of time, you’ll gain weight.

If you consume less calories than you need for a period of time, you’ll lose weight.

Both of these might be desirable depending on your goal, but it’s knowing that energy balance (calories in vs calories out) that defines your weight loss or weight gain.

To finish this one, the quality of food has really no relevance to quantity. You can eat purely ’healthy’ food and still gain weight. You’ve just eaten too much of it.

l Protein. Yeah I’m banging on about protein again.

I will again in future articles because after calories, in my opinion, protein is and should be the focus of everyone’s diet.

Protein has three main functions like I explained the other week. These are: Repair and growth of muscles, keeping you feeling full (satiety) and a third bonus function if you like is that protein has a high thermic effect - meaning that it’s really hard to break down in the body, using more calories in the process.

If you’re looking to build muscle, get lean, or just stay in shape - nail your protein. And how much? I’d aim for 1.5 - 2g per kilogram of bodyweight. So me at 80kg should be looking at 160g of protein per day

l Fruit and veg. Anyone over the age of eight should have absolutely no problem eating fruit and veg.

Anyone who still ’doesn’t like’ vegetables after they’ve left school really needs to sort themselves out.

If you’re reading this thinking ’hang on that’s me’ - then feel free to message me and receive some rant style pep talk in the form of a voice-note.

Fruit and veg are amazing and very necessary for the body. They provide us with all the goodness in the form of vitamins, minerals, nutrients and the more colour you can consume generally means the more goodness you’ll consume. Also as rule they’re very low calorie, so piling lots of beautifully colour veg into your plate at dinner time is only going to benefit you. Five a day, every day.

l Enjoyment. An often unspoken about topic but if you don’t enjoy your food, how long do you think you’re going to keep it up for?

If your trainer has assigned you a diet of chicken rice and broccoli, in a Tupperware container that you have to microwave in the office, do you really think you’re going to enjoy that and regularly keep that up?

Picture the sweaty lid and the foul smell of microwaved broccoli clearing out the office. If you pick foods you like, that also benefit your goals then you’re going to have a much better chance of carrying on those behaviours and forming healthy habits for life.

As it is Christmas coming up, by no means ditch your favourite foods. Eat the sweets.

Have two roast dinners on Christmas Day and absolutely have Prosecco with your breakfast (the dash of orange juice makes it acceptable). Just remember, moderation is key.