Priit Palujoe is a recognised personal trainer, who moved to Marbella from Los Angeles about three years ago. Priit has highly valued PROPTA(www.propta.com) professional private trainers and nutrition consultants diploma  and plenty of practice working with professional athletes and clients who want to lose weight. He answers some readers' questions

1. Does having one-day water fast a week do any harm or is it ok? Or would it be better to have one "fruit day" once a week?

Fasting one day in a week by just drinking water is not too good for long term health. If you like to give your body some rest and cleansing, it’s better to eat only fruits and vegetables or drink freshly pressed juices for one day. I'll explain why. During the water fast day you empty the stores of sugar in your muscles and liver, and you start breaking down your muscles. So in this first day you do more harm to yourself then good. Only on second and third day your body starts cleaning itself from toxins. 

With the juice or fruit fast you can supply your body with necessary nutrients so you don’t have to empty the sugar stores in your muscles and liver or break down any muscle tissue. And the nutrients in fruits and in juices are very easy to digest and it’s a good period for resting the digestive organs! And some special advice to Costa del Sol and Marbella people. Drinking “tinto de verano” 24 hours a row is not fasting!!!

2. I work at night and I don’t eat almost anything all day because I'm just not hungry, but I gain more and more weight. Why is that?

This is the most common thing I hear here from some of my clients and other people as well. As I said before, not eating is not the way to lose fat or get into better shape. Without food you don’t have energy to exercise and the energy you do have is coming from protein that builds muscle, not from fat. Usually working and living at night involves drinking alcohol more or less. At least this is what I hear and see. And this is the reason why you don’t feel like eating and losing your form!!! I can't ban you from drinking alcohol so I just give you some useful information about it.

Alcohol has 7 calories per 1 gram, what makes it second worst after fat. The calories in alcohol are called “empty” calories, because there is nothing useful in them - no vitamins or minerals. And what’s even worse, it destroys all the vitamins and good nutrients in your body!

Here is a list of some drinks and calories contained! The first one is my favorite. Not that I drink it, but just to make you think about it.

MARGARITA one glass (200 ml) has 453 calories. Compare it with the world famous Big Mac from McDonalds which has 490 calories. So it sounds crazy to eat 4 or 5 hamburgers in a row, but this is exactly what you are doing by drinking 5 margaritas. Of course this is just an example, if you are only counting calories. In the big picture and long term any hamburger is innocent as health food, comparing to alcohol. From a burger you get all the nutrients needed. There's a little too much fat, but it’s ok. Because normally, you don’t get hangover or headache after eating burgers. So it shouldn’t be a problem to hit the gym afterwards to burn all those calories and make some use for those proteins and carbs. But what I don’t see is how you exercise after a few margaritas. And if you even manage to work out with alcohol in your system, you do more bad to yourself than good! So usually you just relax and chill and let all of those alcohol calories to shape your body. It may sound like I advertise junk food here, but it’s not like that at all. I want you to see that alcohol is worse than any junk food and if you can't live without drinking alcohol, then try to eat some very good quality healthy food.

Back to the list now!

MARTINI one glass (200ml) has 413 cal.

WHITE WINE glass (200ml) has 120 cal.

ROSE WINE glass (200ml) has 136 cal.

RUM & DIET COKE glass has 133 cal.

GIN & TONIC glass has 178 cal.

TEQUILA shot has 100 cal.

VODKA 40% alc (100ml) has 222 cal.

CHAMPAGNE glass (200ml) has152 cal.

BEER   (300ml) has 90 cal.

As you see, by not eating all day and drinking alcohol, you can actually still have more than enough calories per day that will make you gain weight.

Priit is willing to answer any question and give out advice about nutrition or working out. Please send your questions to tene@i-marbella.com and you'll be able to read the answers on i-Marbella.com real soon!