Hey everyone!!
Sorry have been off here for a while! I have been busy trying to come up with a new website and doing some stuff on youtube now to help people a bit more and more easily answer any questions and so on that people might have.
I have decided to go more into the medicines side of things and really help people understand what these meds are doing to them! I thought the best way to do this was to start a video series in which I will go through the most common medicines and explain what they do, how they are supposed to work, what symptoms they are supposed to be managing and so on. Then I want to explain what the impacts of lifestyle changes will do - ie how will eating better foods help to manage those symptoms, and how will simple compound functional exercises help with the symptoms...
It's tough for your GP to keep up with all the latest research and updates regarding health and wellness! The area is just so broad these days and includes so much! Your doctor is no doubt busy seeing lots of people and so any extra research on the latest developments in nutrition, exercise and other lifestyle factors would have to be done in their own time! And who wants to work all day and then research all night, missing out on family and friends and the rest of life?
So this is why I thought I could help people really understand what medicines the doctor has given you and help you really understand the impacts that good nutrition, exercise and other lifestyle changes can have on the same symptoms that you are taking that medicine for...
Check out the video below for a quick intro to the series....
Oh and our new website by the way is
wwwdotfitproclinicsdotcom
we still working on it clearly but at least you will see the blogs there more regularly...
Tuesday 2 October 2012
Wednesday 22 August 2012
What will it take??
I've been thinking this week about what will get people to make lifestyle changes. Particularly men. As we all know men's health is in most cases worse than that of our female counterparts. There are probably lots of different reasons for this - many of which science probably is not yet aware of. Whatever the reason the issue still remains.
What we need to do is find out what the motivator is for men to have healthy lifestyles. Clients of mine seem to be so busy being busy that they forget that life isn't all about "busyness". You've probably heard of the 4 hour workweek - the book that outlines how we can aim to be more effective in what we do, thus freeing up time to do more of what we want to do. It's a great book to read - even better if you actually apply some of it!
Anyway after reading that and doing some thinking I've decided to focus the work I do more on men's health. Today I read this article today which highlighted for me what happens when we don't make the changes we need to make - and this guy is only 39! Pretty sad really. It is said that sudden death is usually the first sign of cardiovascular disease - too late to know obviously. This guy was lucky.
So the question is what will motivate our men to do make lifestyle changes they need to make? Surely it doesn't have to get to the point that they have a cardiac arrest! Any ideas? I would love to hear from you about the men in your life and what motivates them or what you think would motivate them...
What we need to do is find out what the motivator is for men to have healthy lifestyles. Clients of mine seem to be so busy being busy that they forget that life isn't all about "busyness". You've probably heard of the 4 hour workweek - the book that outlines how we can aim to be more effective in what we do, thus freeing up time to do more of what we want to do. It's a great book to read - even better if you actually apply some of it!
Anyway after reading that and doing some thinking I've decided to focus the work I do more on men's health. Today I read this article today which highlighted for me what happens when we don't make the changes we need to make - and this guy is only 39! Pretty sad really. It is said that sudden death is usually the first sign of cardiovascular disease - too late to know obviously. This guy was lucky.
So the question is what will motivate our men to do make lifestyle changes they need to make? Surely it doesn't have to get to the point that they have a cardiac arrest! Any ideas? I would love to hear from you about the men in your life and what motivates them or what you think would motivate them...
Tuesday 14 August 2012
Sugar Free Family!!
It started with my wife deciding that she would give no sugar a go for 21 days! While not a new thing for her to cut out sugar, this was longer than any other attempt.
By about days 4 and 5, it was starting to get tough. Everything with sugar in it all of sudden seemed to stand out and say "Eat me!"
Measures needed to be taken like moving the brown sugar container (previously used for morning porridge) to a less prominent spot in the pantry and was promptly banished to the back! Visuals were also required and so the fridge became the count down calendar.
Most important though was the mental struggle to get through the 21 days - initially this required a fixed vision of the ideal figure she was after. With that firmly in mind she was able to avoid sugar temptation for the first week or so. Later on in the challenge however the motivation turned to the health aspects of cutting back on the sugar. Reduced inflammation around the belly, less afternoon crashes and increased energy levels! Of course she got through the 21 days without sugar which is awesome! As a "reward" for herself she went and ate a magnum and had some Dr Pepper and felt sick the rest of the day....lesson learnt....
One of the cool things that came out of it though was that her example meant that our oldest daughter Liahona also joined in. She started about day 14 with Mum and did really well in her little 4 day challenge she gave herself.
It might seem stupid that people deprive themselves of something. When you take a closer look at it, you realise that actually you are just cutting out foods that are good for us anyway. These are foods that make us feel tired, sick, bloated and overweight. If cutting them out means that I feel healthier, more alert, have increased energy then why would I feel deprived?
So now there are a few of us in the FitPro Clinic doing a 12 week no sugar challenge (although fruit and honey are allowed). This one allows a 24 hour window each week of eating whatever you like, and also has a 100 burpee penalty for any slip ups on the other days (someone is actually doing burpees as I write lol...)
I also know another 152kg guy who just by eating real foods (no processed foods) for the last 3 weeks has already lost 16kg! His goal is to get to 86kg by the end of the year! Imagine what that will do for his diabetes and cardiovascular health! He has now introduced a bit of walking on the treadmill to get some more movement happening in his life and he is feeling great. Just takes a step to get started - or a challenge with a group of others around you.
Find a few others close to you that are keen and give a no sugar challenge a go and see how you feel. Do it for as any days as you like, there are no rules as far as I'm concerned. ANY reduction in the amount of sugar you consume will be of benefit. There really is no other way to find out if it works for you or not - you have to actually give it a go....
By about days 4 and 5, it was starting to get tough. Everything with sugar in it all of sudden seemed to stand out and say "Eat me!"
Measures needed to be taken like moving the brown sugar container (previously used for morning porridge) to a less prominent spot in the pantry and was promptly banished to the back! Visuals were also required and so the fridge became the count down calendar.
Most important though was the mental struggle to get through the 21 days - initially this required a fixed vision of the ideal figure she was after. With that firmly in mind she was able to avoid sugar temptation for the first week or so. Later on in the challenge however the motivation turned to the health aspects of cutting back on the sugar. Reduced inflammation around the belly, less afternoon crashes and increased energy levels! Of course she got through the 21 days without sugar which is awesome! As a "reward" for herself she went and ate a magnum and had some Dr Pepper and felt sick the rest of the day....lesson learnt....
One of the cool things that came out of it though was that her example meant that our oldest daughter Liahona also joined in. She started about day 14 with Mum and did really well in her little 4 day challenge she gave herself.
It might seem stupid that people deprive themselves of something. When you take a closer look at it, you realise that actually you are just cutting out foods that are good for us anyway. These are foods that make us feel tired, sick, bloated and overweight. If cutting them out means that I feel healthier, more alert, have increased energy then why would I feel deprived?
So now there are a few of us in the FitPro Clinic doing a 12 week no sugar challenge (although fruit and honey are allowed). This one allows a 24 hour window each week of eating whatever you like, and also has a 100 burpee penalty for any slip ups on the other days (someone is actually doing burpees as I write lol...)
I also know another 152kg guy who just by eating real foods (no processed foods) for the last 3 weeks has already lost 16kg! His goal is to get to 86kg by the end of the year! Imagine what that will do for his diabetes and cardiovascular health! He has now introduced a bit of walking on the treadmill to get some more movement happening in his life and he is feeling great. Just takes a step to get started - or a challenge with a group of others around you.
Find a few others close to you that are keen and give a no sugar challenge a go and see how you feel. Do it for as any days as you like, there are no rules as far as I'm concerned. ANY reduction in the amount of sugar you consume will be of benefit. There really is no other way to find out if it works for you or not - you have to actually give it a go....
Tuesday 3 July 2012
Are we really addicted to sugar?
Could we really be sugarholics? Are there actually sugar addiction groups?
Apparently we are sugar addicts and sugar is a poison. Just finished reading Sweet Poison and Sweet Poison Quit Plan by David Gillespie - very interesting books and ones you should read to understand more about this whole sugar thing that many have been asking me about.
Basically, the simple story is that there is A LOT of hidden sugar in our diet. And it is pretty much in everything that comes in a package, packet, can or box in the supermarket.
What happens is that it gets added to foods so that we enjoy the taste of them - some other stuff I have read about actually shows that we feel rewarded (dopamine is released in the brain) when we eat sugar which is why we keep wanting to eat it - check out the 60 minutes video about sugar.
Best thing you can do to reduce sugar in your diet is to eat in a primal / paleo / ancestral / old school pre 1950s or whatever you want to call it type of way..
That means IGNORE most if the stuff you hear these days from the Heart Foundation or other National organisations telling us to eat heaps of grains as per food pyramid (which now contain lots of sugars), eat no/low fat options (which means we don't get full and so want to eat and eat and eat), and eat only x calories each day (which makes us count calories and forget how to listen to what our body is telling us).
What we need to do is eat like our grandparents / great grandparents ate. Eat REAL FOOD that doesn't have a label on it naming all those things we can't pronounce and your body can't metabolise, eat more good fats (yes there is such a thing), and eat until you are full.
Once you start eating less sugar and hopefully get rid of as much of it as you can from your regular diet and the family diet, then your body will switch to burning fat mode and you will use that stored energy all the time. Yes, that is what fat is - stored energy.
The other day I went through HOW sugar gets turned into fat (when there is too much of it going around in the bloodstream), with one of our corporate teams. They found that particularly interesting so maybe I will have to try doing a few pictures here on the computer and put that in the next blog.
Til next time people - CUT the SUGAR!!
Apparently we are sugar addicts and sugar is a poison. Just finished reading Sweet Poison and Sweet Poison Quit Plan by David Gillespie - very interesting books and ones you should read to understand more about this whole sugar thing that many have been asking me about.
Basically, the simple story is that there is A LOT of hidden sugar in our diet. And it is pretty much in everything that comes in a package, packet, can or box in the supermarket.
What happens is that it gets added to foods so that we enjoy the taste of them - some other stuff I have read about actually shows that we feel rewarded (dopamine is released in the brain) when we eat sugar which is why we keep wanting to eat it - check out the 60 minutes video about sugar.
Best thing you can do to reduce sugar in your diet is to eat in a primal / paleo / ancestral / old school pre 1950s or whatever you want to call it type of way..
That means IGNORE most if the stuff you hear these days from the Heart Foundation or other National organisations telling us to eat heaps of grains as per food pyramid (which now contain lots of sugars), eat no/low fat options (which means we don't get full and so want to eat and eat and eat), and eat only x calories each day (which makes us count calories and forget how to listen to what our body is telling us).
What we need to do is eat like our grandparents / great grandparents ate. Eat REAL FOOD that doesn't have a label on it naming all those things we can't pronounce and your body can't metabolise, eat more good fats (yes there is such a thing), and eat until you are full.
Once you start eating less sugar and hopefully get rid of as much of it as you can from your regular diet and the family diet, then your body will switch to burning fat mode and you will use that stored energy all the time. Yes, that is what fat is - stored energy.
The other day I went through HOW sugar gets turned into fat (when there is too much of it going around in the bloodstream), with one of our corporate teams. They found that particularly interesting so maybe I will have to try doing a few pictures here on the computer and put that in the next blog.
Til next time people - CUT the SUGAR!!
Wednesday 20 June 2012
STOP and LISTEN!!
It is probably something you have heard before - "Just do the basics well". Yet we seem to be very adept at making things more complicated than they need to be - we look beyond the mark, find complexity, see obstacles, use excuses and basically find ways NOT to do things as simply as we could...
Perhaps it is part of human nature as the more we complicate things the less inclined we are to do them and that therefore provides us a reason NOT to do anything which ends up being the path of least resistance...
You see simple doesn't necessarily mean easy. In fact to keep things simple and resist the urge to overdo or complicate things is most often quite a bit harder to do. In fact, to simplify is usually to improve.
So what? Well a lot of life is about making things as simple as possible. Lets use nutrition as an example. Do we read and read and read and try and try and try all the latest things out about nutrition and still not get the results we want.
Do I count calories or not, buy free range or hormone free, go vegan or go raw or vegetarian, eat this meat or that meat, drink fruit juice freshly squeezed or eat fruit, do I have this food or drink 30 minutes before or 2 hours after that....... and on and on it goes until we get to the point where things are so complicated you either don't eat anything or you just eat everything!
Keep it simple I say. The simplest way I've found is to listen to what your body tells you. Get really good and knowing yourself and understanding how you are feeling. Sounds a bit weird but hey if I feel like a drink I'll have one, if I'm hungry I'll eat and by the same token if I don't feel hungry I won't eat.
We seem to have gotten so out of touch with what our bodies are trying to tell us that we have ended up eating ourselves senseless - as in no longer able to make sense of or understand what our bodies are telling us.
Simplest thing you can do is STOP and LISTEN! Get to know what that food is doing to you!
Perhaps it is part of human nature as the more we complicate things the less inclined we are to do them and that therefore provides us a reason NOT to do anything which ends up being the path of least resistance...
You see simple doesn't necessarily mean easy. In fact to keep things simple and resist the urge to overdo or complicate things is most often quite a bit harder to do. In fact, to simplify is usually to improve.
So what? Well a lot of life is about making things as simple as possible. Lets use nutrition as an example. Do we read and read and read and try and try and try all the latest things out about nutrition and still not get the results we want.
Do I count calories or not, buy free range or hormone free, go vegan or go raw or vegetarian, eat this meat or that meat, drink fruit juice freshly squeezed or eat fruit, do I have this food or drink 30 minutes before or 2 hours after that....... and on and on it goes until we get to the point where things are so complicated you either don't eat anything or you just eat everything!
Keep it simple I say. The simplest way I've found is to listen to what your body tells you. Get really good and knowing yourself and understanding how you are feeling. Sounds a bit weird but hey if I feel like a drink I'll have one, if I'm hungry I'll eat and by the same token if I don't feel hungry I won't eat.
We seem to have gotten so out of touch with what our bodies are trying to tell us that we have ended up eating ourselves senseless - as in no longer able to make sense of or understand what our bodies are telling us.
Simplest thing you can do is STOP and LISTEN! Get to know what that food is doing to you!
Saturday 16 June 2012
Food is SOOOO IMPORTANT!!
Was out visiting another corporate team yesterday introducing the 13 week program for health and wellness that they have just started with us here at FitPro Health Clinics.
Being proactive they have already done plenty of measurements like hip:waist ratio, heart rate, blood pressure and so on for baseline measures. Many of them are looking to improve their health and wellness and most are wanting to lose weight and expecting that I would talk about what exercises were going to help them lose the most weight.
Once I mentioned that nutrition was so important and that abs were actually made in the kitchen not the gym there was lots of discussion from everyone! So many people are confused with all the different theories and advice that is being pushed out there from all manner of sources - GPs, nutritionists, dieticians, friends, weekly magazines, trainers, neighbours and pretty much anyone else you can think of.
Should we eat eggs or not, can we eat cereal, what is the best breakfast to have, when should we eat and how often each day, what is this thing about coconut oil, is sugar bad for you, my doctor says that my cholesterol is high so what can I eat and probably the most often asked questions of "what will I eat if I can't have what I'm eating now?!"
Big food industry has done a great job of making us think like the 'food' they make is the only food we can eat. I was so glad when one of the people there actually brought up about how we should simply eat what our grandparents ate 2 generations ago - SO TRUE! I'm not sure how many people realise that if we did that we would have about 50kg less sugar per year than we currently do! 100 years ago it was 2kg per person whereas today we are consuming about 70k per person each year (that's on average... so some actually have a lot more than that!).
The best advice I would say is to do your best to reduce all processed foods from your diet (diet as in what you eat for life - not the latest fad 'diet') and eat as many good real foods as you can! Good real foods include things that organic meat and veges, a little fruit, some nuts.
Try it for 7 days and see what happens and how you feel - just eat meat, LOTS of vegetables, eggs, a little fruit, and some nuts and see how you feel your body will actually have a chance to absorb some nutrient dense foods and start to build your body with some good building blocks.
You probably have some questions too about nutrition. I'm about to come up with some short answer type information leaflets for the corporate team I'm working with now so if you have a nutrition related question that you are not sure of flick us an email with your question and we will answer them over the next few weeks and even send you a copy of the leaflets we make up..
Have an awesome week eating awesome foods!!
Being proactive they have already done plenty of measurements like hip:waist ratio, heart rate, blood pressure and so on for baseline measures. Many of them are looking to improve their health and wellness and most are wanting to lose weight and expecting that I would talk about what exercises were going to help them lose the most weight.
Once I mentioned that nutrition was so important and that abs were actually made in the kitchen not the gym there was lots of discussion from everyone! So many people are confused with all the different theories and advice that is being pushed out there from all manner of sources - GPs, nutritionists, dieticians, friends, weekly magazines, trainers, neighbours and pretty much anyone else you can think of.
Should we eat eggs or not, can we eat cereal, what is the best breakfast to have, when should we eat and how often each day, what is this thing about coconut oil, is sugar bad for you, my doctor says that my cholesterol is high so what can I eat and probably the most often asked questions of "what will I eat if I can't have what I'm eating now?!"
Big food industry has done a great job of making us think like the 'food' they make is the only food we can eat. I was so glad when one of the people there actually brought up about how we should simply eat what our grandparents ate 2 generations ago - SO TRUE! I'm not sure how many people realise that if we did that we would have about 50kg less sugar per year than we currently do! 100 years ago it was 2kg per person whereas today we are consuming about 70k per person each year (that's on average... so some actually have a lot more than that!).
The best advice I would say is to do your best to reduce all processed foods from your diet (diet as in what you eat for life - not the latest fad 'diet') and eat as many good real foods as you can! Good real foods include things that organic meat and veges, a little fruit, some nuts.
Try it for 7 days and see what happens and how you feel - just eat meat, LOTS of vegetables, eggs, a little fruit, and some nuts and see how you feel your body will actually have a chance to absorb some nutrient dense foods and start to build your body with some good building blocks.
You probably have some questions too about nutrition. I'm about to come up with some short answer type information leaflets for the corporate team I'm working with now so if you have a nutrition related question that you are not sure of flick us an email with your question and we will answer them over the next few weeks and even send you a copy of the leaflets we make up..
Have an awesome week eating awesome foods!!
Thursday 31 May 2012
Just start eating better!! Can you trust the health profession?
I don't know how it is with you but it seems most people get stuck on the whole healthy eating thing when it comes to good nutrition.
There is so much misinformation (is that even a word?) out there that it's no wonder people are confused. To make matters worse, even the health profession / industry can't seem to get it right. I just read this the other day in the recently released NZ Primary Care Handbook 2012 under a section called "The NZ cardioprotective dietary pattern".
They recommend
- veges 3-4 servings per day,
- fruit 3-4 servings per day,
- breads, cereals, grains at least 6 servings per day,
- low-fat or fat-free milk products 2-3 servings a day,
- chicken or lean meat 1-1.5 servings a day
- peas, beans, soy products 4-5 servings weekly
- fish, seafood 1-2 servings weekly
- eggs 3 weekly
- liquid oils, unsaturated margarines and spreads 3 or more servings a day (and they even say to have products made from sunflower, soya bean, olive, canola, linseed, safflower, or nuts and seeds OTHER THAN COCONUT! - could not believe that since coconut is probably one of the BEST foods we could have and has many health related benefits.
and on and on it went....
here is the link in case you just can't believe it either...
http://www.nzgg.org.nz/library_resources/92_primary_care_handbook
If that isn't a diet aimed at fattening you up then I don't know what is. If people were to follow this 'cardioprotective' diet here then we would see an increase in cardiovascular disease - and what do you know that is exactly what has been happening the last 40-50 years since this type of diet came out and was promoted. Maybe next time I will go through and highlight WHY and HOW this type of diet actually makes things worse!
It makes you wonder does anyone really know what "healthy eating" is? What are the "right foods" that we are supposed to be eating. What is healthy eating for cardiac sufferers and what is healthy eating for diabetics? Is there even a difference?
Is the 'food' that we see these days full of chemicals and stuff we can't even pronounce properly actually even food?
Many of my clients ask me what they should be eating. Who am I to say what they should be eating? All I know is that I'm still learning about what the best foods are for me - far be it from me to start prescribing diets for others.
However what I find really handy is for people to start actually writing down what they eat each day. Try it for a week and then go back and look over it. You can probably pick out what stuff should not really be in there and so try the next week cutting it out or eating less of that stuff. Changing food / diet is a part of lifestyle change. It happens gradually if you are persistent and keep working at it.
There are a few principles of nutrition that I know have worked for many - and those are usually the things that I recommend to people that ask me about nutrition. Basic as stuff like;
1. eat REAL food (that means miss all the aisles in the supermarket pretty much if you shop there)
2. avoid the foods that have labels full of chemicals you can't pronounce - they usually come in boxes, bags, tins, containers and are stored for ages on the shelf
3. grow as much of your own food as you can
4. buy and eat as many organic vegetables as you can
5. eat meat sparingly (and make sure it is as clean / grass fed meat as possible)
6. reduce your intake of processed foods (that means any food that goes through lots of refinement and processing before you can eat it)
7. eat when hunger ensues naturally
Try doing that for a few weeks or go for the 21 day challenge of eating ONLY REAL foods and see how you feel. Most people find it tough for the first week or two as their bodies adjust but if you can make it through you will be happy with the rewards! I'm not going to tell you what they are cause that will spoil the fun - only those willing to DO will discover... as is the case with everything else in life...
There is so much misinformation (is that even a word?) out there that it's no wonder people are confused. To make matters worse, even the health profession / industry can't seem to get it right. I just read this the other day in the recently released NZ Primary Care Handbook 2012 under a section called "The NZ cardioprotective dietary pattern".
They recommend
- veges 3-4 servings per day,
- fruit 3-4 servings per day,
- breads, cereals, grains at least 6 servings per day,
- low-fat or fat-free milk products 2-3 servings a day,
- chicken or lean meat 1-1.5 servings a day
- peas, beans, soy products 4-5 servings weekly
- fish, seafood 1-2 servings weekly
- eggs 3 weekly
- liquid oils, unsaturated margarines and spreads 3 or more servings a day (and they even say to have products made from sunflower, soya bean, olive, canola, linseed, safflower, or nuts and seeds OTHER THAN COCONUT! - could not believe that since coconut is probably one of the BEST foods we could have and has many health related benefits.
and on and on it went....
here is the link in case you just can't believe it either...
http://www.nzgg.org.nz/library_resources/92_primary_care_handbook
It makes you wonder does anyone really know what "healthy eating" is? What are the "right foods" that we are supposed to be eating. What is healthy eating for cardiac sufferers and what is healthy eating for diabetics? Is there even a difference?
Is the 'food' that we see these days full of chemicals and stuff we can't even pronounce properly actually even food?
Many of my clients ask me what they should be eating. Who am I to say what they should be eating? All I know is that I'm still learning about what the best foods are for me - far be it from me to start prescribing diets for others.
However what I find really handy is for people to start actually writing down what they eat each day. Try it for a week and then go back and look over it. You can probably pick out what stuff should not really be in there and so try the next week cutting it out or eating less of that stuff. Changing food / diet is a part of lifestyle change. It happens gradually if you are persistent and keep working at it.
There are a few principles of nutrition that I know have worked for many - and those are usually the things that I recommend to people that ask me about nutrition. Basic as stuff like;
1. eat REAL food (that means miss all the aisles in the supermarket pretty much if you shop there)
2. avoid the foods that have labels full of chemicals you can't pronounce - they usually come in boxes, bags, tins, containers and are stored for ages on the shelf
3. grow as much of your own food as you can
4. buy and eat as many organic vegetables as you can
5. eat meat sparingly (and make sure it is as clean / grass fed meat as possible)
6. reduce your intake of processed foods (that means any food that goes through lots of refinement and processing before you can eat it)
7. eat when hunger ensues naturally
Try doing that for a few weeks or go for the 21 day challenge of eating ONLY REAL foods and see how you feel. Most people find it tough for the first week or two as their bodies adjust but if you can make it through you will be happy with the rewards! I'm not going to tell you what they are cause that will spoil the fun - only those willing to DO will discover... as is the case with everything else in life...
Tuesday 15 May 2012
FitPro visits the Cardiac Club
This week I was asked to come along to the recently formed Cardiac Club run by one of the local personal trainers in association with the National Heart Foundation.
They asked me to come along and talk about medicines that these people are on. And that is cool. I don't mind talking about the medicines that I have spent many years of my life learning about and dispensing out to lots of people. And I have done plenty of those talks before.... only difference was before I was more or less encouraging people to take their medicines according to prescribed instructions.
This time however I found that I was catching myself before saying things like "stick to the directions on the label" and "follow what the doctor has said to you". You see the difference is that now I have come to the point where I believe that there are many medicines that people do NOT need to be on and should NOT be taking. In fact there are many that I wish many people were OFF completely. The more I work in primary health care the more I realise that it just aint workin for so many people the way we have things set up currently.
We go to the doctor when we are not feeling well (likely because we are eating foods that our bodies cannot tolerate, or are stressed with all manner of work/family/psychological issues, or are not really moving around as much as we should) and expect that the doctor can somehow magically make all that stuff right in a 10-15 minute conversation with a prescription!! Does that make sense at all? We go in with symptoms of dis-ease (our body is not at ease for whatever reason), and come out with something to control or mask those symptoms.... without making any changes to or addressing the cause of the disease... that's messed up!! Yet that is exactly what most people do these days.
Sure there is not enough time to get through the waiting rooms full of people with acute symptoms when we spend more time with people actually trying to address the cause. Well that is the usual answer you would get anyway - but what is the point of spending even that small amount of time on only symptom control when you would save time in the long run by helping people understand WHY they have those symptoms and giving them something to go and try to change in their lifestyle that would help them long term.
Just like Paul Chek's "last 4 doctors you will ever need"
Dr Quiet
Dr Diet
Dr Movement
Dr Happiness
Start by addressing those 4 main areas and you will soon see that some symptoms will disappear as you address the root cause. You will start to feel much better generally and will likely do more with all the extra energy you will have.
Also I just read this the other day...
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/05/02/is-sugar-toxic.aspx
...which points to sugar being one of the main things causing some of the chronic conditions many face today. In fact I read in a local health article this week that over 80% of the health spend goes on people with chronic conditions. Imagine the savings if we just cut out the sugar! Problem is we are all so addicted to it! Don't believe me? Take the 3 week challenge and see if you can last 3 weeks without sugar. That would include anything that comes in the aisles of the supermarket as they all contain sugar in some form, any wheat based product as that breaks down rapidly into glucose and pretty much any processed food! So that leaves you with lots of vegetables and meat and nuts.
You're probably thinking 3 weeks is such a looooooonnnnngggggg time. So what you can do is wake up each morning and tell yourself that for just this ONE day, I will eat only REAL foods (so not any processed foods only veges and some meat and nuts). Do that each day for 21 days and you're done!
If you manage to do it you will find that you lose weight even though you are eating more and feel full for longer, see skin improvements, feel healthier and have more energy - and all that without even doing any exercise yet! You will probably feel so good that you WANT to go and get active!
Give it a go and see how you like it - maybe next time I will go into the biochem of how getting off the sugar will actually get your body burning fat for fuel instead of all the sugar you've been giving it.
Have an AWESOME week!!
They asked me to come along and talk about medicines that these people are on. And that is cool. I don't mind talking about the medicines that I have spent many years of my life learning about and dispensing out to lots of people. And I have done plenty of those talks before.... only difference was before I was more or less encouraging people to take their medicines according to prescribed instructions.
This time however I found that I was catching myself before saying things like "stick to the directions on the label" and "follow what the doctor has said to you". You see the difference is that now I have come to the point where I believe that there are many medicines that people do NOT need to be on and should NOT be taking. In fact there are many that I wish many people were OFF completely. The more I work in primary health care the more I realise that it just aint workin for so many people the way we have things set up currently.
We go to the doctor when we are not feeling well (likely because we are eating foods that our bodies cannot tolerate, or are stressed with all manner of work/family/psychological issues, or are not really moving around as much as we should) and expect that the doctor can somehow magically make all that stuff right in a 10-15 minute conversation with a prescription!! Does that make sense at all? We go in with symptoms of dis-ease (our body is not at ease for whatever reason), and come out with something to control or mask those symptoms.... without making any changes to or addressing the cause of the disease... that's messed up!! Yet that is exactly what most people do these days.
Sure there is not enough time to get through the waiting rooms full of people with acute symptoms when we spend more time with people actually trying to address the cause. Well that is the usual answer you would get anyway - but what is the point of spending even that small amount of time on only symptom control when you would save time in the long run by helping people understand WHY they have those symptoms and giving them something to go and try to change in their lifestyle that would help them long term.
Just like Paul Chek's "last 4 doctors you will ever need"
Dr Quiet
Dr Diet
Dr Movement
Dr Happiness
Start by addressing those 4 main areas and you will soon see that some symptoms will disappear as you address the root cause. You will start to feel much better generally and will likely do more with all the extra energy you will have.
Also I just read this the other day...
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/05/02/is-sugar-toxic.aspx
...which points to sugar being one of the main things causing some of the chronic conditions many face today. In fact I read in a local health article this week that over 80% of the health spend goes on people with chronic conditions. Imagine the savings if we just cut out the sugar! Problem is we are all so addicted to it! Don't believe me? Take the 3 week challenge and see if you can last 3 weeks without sugar. That would include anything that comes in the aisles of the supermarket as they all contain sugar in some form, any wheat based product as that breaks down rapidly into glucose and pretty much any processed food! So that leaves you with lots of vegetables and meat and nuts.
You're probably thinking 3 weeks is such a looooooonnnnngggggg time. So what you can do is wake up each morning and tell yourself that for just this ONE day, I will eat only REAL foods (so not any processed foods only veges and some meat and nuts). Do that each day for 21 days and you're done!
If you manage to do it you will find that you lose weight even though you are eating more and feel full for longer, see skin improvements, feel healthier and have more energy - and all that without even doing any exercise yet! You will probably feel so good that you WANT to go and get active!
Give it a go and see how you like it - maybe next time I will go into the biochem of how getting off the sugar will actually get your body burning fat for fuel instead of all the sugar you've been giving it.
Have an AWESOME week!!
Saturday 28 April 2012
remembering what's most important...
It's an interesting time... While we were away and probably before that to be honest, I had been pondering about what I should be doing and how I can be a better husband, Dad and so on..
It's funny how we think that when we are really busy we must be doing something really good for our families. So busy that you come home from work and then do more work on the computer, or do some pre-reading for a meeting coming up, or prepare a report for something else, or organise some business stuff or sort some paperwork and on and on it goes - and all this when you are 'not working'! seems stupid I know but that was exactly what I was doing. One night I remember Kristen telling me I'm doing too many things - yes I know I said "but I'm doing it all for our family."
Really? Is it really for your family who don't see that much of you, or get much out of you when you ARE at home? I remember she counted the things I was involved with at the time - came out to be at least 10 separate things once the contract work, business stuff, church stuff, boards, national organisations and things were all taken into account. I've since cut that back which in itself has been a relief.
I thought I was being a good Dad and a great husband by doing all those things because I was doing all that work so that we have income to live, to survive - and survive we did but I've since realised it doesn't help us to thrive.
There was seemingly no end to the work. I would try to spend time with the kids and with Kristen - and would actually schedule in time in my weekly planner to do so every week - problem was it wasn't long enough. It would end up being like an hour or two a week if that and even then it wasn't focused time with them. I would still be thinking about what work I had done or still needed to do. While I thought I could see the end in sight, the light at the end of the tunnel kept moving - it would seem closer and then all of a sudden it would be so far away I could barely make it out.
A weird way to start a blog that is supposed to be about health you're probably thinking. What has this got to do with health? Well it all comes down to chronic stress. Low grade long term stress (as opposed to the fight or flight type stress), leads to increased cortisol levels which in turn tells our body we are under stress and then the biochemical machinery kicks us into fat storing mode.
There is no shortage of stressed people out there - question is how to we manage stress better. We need to learn how to relax and chill out more as my wife says but that is easier said than done.
Part of the health journey should be learning ways to effectively deal with stress. Make time to do things that relax you - I've started doing setting aside time each day for "quiet" time. This is where I can just do nothing for at least 10 minutes a day and ponder something. I've found it awesome! It is also very refreshing and helps to keep me focused on the important things in life - my family!
Give it a go this week for at least 7 days and see if you notice a difference!
It's funny how we think that when we are really busy we must be doing something really good for our families. So busy that you come home from work and then do more work on the computer, or do some pre-reading for a meeting coming up, or prepare a report for something else, or organise some business stuff or sort some paperwork and on and on it goes - and all this when you are 'not working'! seems stupid I know but that was exactly what I was doing. One night I remember Kristen telling me I'm doing too many things - yes I know I said "but I'm doing it all for our family."
Really? Is it really for your family who don't see that much of you, or get much out of you when you ARE at home? I remember she counted the things I was involved with at the time - came out to be at least 10 separate things once the contract work, business stuff, church stuff, boards, national organisations and things were all taken into account. I've since cut that back which in itself has been a relief.
I thought I was being a good Dad and a great husband by doing all those things because I was doing all that work so that we have income to live, to survive - and survive we did but I've since realised it doesn't help us to thrive.
There was seemingly no end to the work. I would try to spend time with the kids and with Kristen - and would actually schedule in time in my weekly planner to do so every week - problem was it wasn't long enough. It would end up being like an hour or two a week if that and even then it wasn't focused time with them. I would still be thinking about what work I had done or still needed to do. While I thought I could see the end in sight, the light at the end of the tunnel kept moving - it would seem closer and then all of a sudden it would be so far away I could barely make it out.
A weird way to start a blog that is supposed to be about health you're probably thinking. What has this got to do with health? Well it all comes down to chronic stress. Low grade long term stress (as opposed to the fight or flight type stress), leads to increased cortisol levels which in turn tells our body we are under stress and then the biochemical machinery kicks us into fat storing mode.
There is no shortage of stressed people out there - question is how to we manage stress better. We need to learn how to relax and chill out more as my wife says but that is easier said than done.
Part of the health journey should be learning ways to effectively deal with stress. Make time to do things that relax you - I've started doing setting aside time each day for "quiet" time. This is where I can just do nothing for at least 10 minutes a day and ponder something. I've found it awesome! It is also very refreshing and helps to keep me focused on the important things in life - my family!
Give it a go this week for at least 7 days and see if you notice a difference!
Monday 16 April 2012
ONLY in America!
We have just returned from a trip taking Mum and Dad over to the States for a 3 week break. As they had never been to the States before, we thought it would be best if we went along with them to help them with the whole travel thing with being in a different country...
It was a great experience that took us to visit family in Utah, Iowa, Las Vegas and my wife and I also took a quick 5 day trip to New York. We certainly enjoyed our time meeting family over there and spending time with them.
However the hardest thing we found throughout the trip was the food! Not that there was a shortage of food by any stretch of the imagination - in fact quite the opposite - there was too much food! It was really difficult to find good REAL foods (REAL as in not something processed that comes in a packet or a box) that we could eat (apart from when we were eating home cooked meals with the family of course).
It's like we were surrounded by all manner of wheat based products, fast foods, processed foods and of course soda. Kind of have a greater appreciation now for what all the other State-side health bloggers discuss in the various internet forums. I think this was no more evident than in the kids we saw while traveling around - when we were out and about we hardly saw a kid that didn't have some kind of soda, fast food, or candy in their hands!
It also has opened my eyes even more as to why these big companies have such huge success promoting these products and the power they have. On one of the flights we saw this on the napkins they give you when they offer you a drink of water or diet coke.... which supports heart health...
Even more unbelievable was that I saw so many people drinking diet coke or something similar - ALL the time - it was constantly having some form of soda drink with them. It was like soda was one of the essential items that go into the handbag when you leave the house!
Anyway, will blog more about the foods and sights and sounds of our trip next time - well the parts of it that have something to do with health and fitness anyway lol...
It was a great experience that took us to visit family in Utah, Iowa, Las Vegas and my wife and I also took a quick 5 day trip to New York. We certainly enjoyed our time meeting family over there and spending time with them.
However the hardest thing we found throughout the trip was the food! Not that there was a shortage of food by any stretch of the imagination - in fact quite the opposite - there was too much food! It was really difficult to find good REAL foods (REAL as in not something processed that comes in a packet or a box) that we could eat (apart from when we were eating home cooked meals with the family of course).
It's like we were surrounded by all manner of wheat based products, fast foods, processed foods and of course soda. Kind of have a greater appreciation now for what all the other State-side health bloggers discuss in the various internet forums. I think this was no more evident than in the kids we saw while traveling around - when we were out and about we hardly saw a kid that didn't have some kind of soda, fast food, or candy in their hands!
It also has opened my eyes even more as to why these big companies have such huge success promoting these products and the power they have. On one of the flights we saw this on the napkins they give you when they offer you a drink of water or diet coke.... which supports heart health...
Even more unbelievable was that I saw so many people drinking diet coke or something similar - ALL the time - it was constantly having some form of soda drink with them. It was like soda was one of the essential items that go into the handbag when you leave the house!
Anyway, will blog more about the foods and sights and sounds of our trip next time - well the parts of it that have something to do with health and fitness anyway lol...
Thursday 22 March 2012
Toughest thing to do is come off the bread. Well that seems to be the word from most people that I talk to about this stuff.
Here are a few reasons I hear most often...
"If I don't have any carbs (carbs for them mean bread, pasta, pastries...), then my brain won't get enough glucose to function well."
Hmmm... yes your brain DOES need glucose to work and function well. We do however get PLENTY of glucose from eating foods other than bread. I'm sure you are getting plenty of glucose from drinks, packet stuff (loose term for anything in the middle aisles of the supermarket lol), cereal, and so on. If you are not eating that stuff then surely you will get the glucose your body requires from the other good carbs you DO eat - like vegetables! Yes vegetables are carbohydrates - seems many people think that carbs = only bread, pastries, lollies and so on...
Vegetables are great carbs - you get plenty of fibre and lots of other good stuff from them too! And you don't have to worry about calorie counting or anything - eat as much veges as you want! Go on I dare you. See if you can overeat on veges like people can with bags of chips, donuts, pastries and the like...
But can you can only eat vegetables for dinner right?
"What will we eat for breakfast?"
It's as if the breakfast
people - whoever they are - have brainwashed us into thinking that we
have to have some cereal and toast for breakfast.
I remember we were ALWAYS having
toast for breakfast. I would ALWAYS be starving by 10am when I was at
school which meant getting something to eat for the tuck shop at
interval - usually a pie - and then eating whatever lunch I had at
lunchtime (sandwiches or fruit or something) and then still being hungry
when we had rugby training after school. Good times..
Anyway
toast seems to be something you have with every breakfast. Eggs on
toast, bacon and eggs on toast, spaghetti on toast, whatever spread on
toast, toast on toast...
YES there are other options!
We have found last night's dinner to be a great breakfast. So is avocado and eggs, bacon and eggs, omelets,
spinach, eggs and tomato; there are SO MANY options here using veges in the fridge (yes those ones that usually go from shopping day to shopping day and stay in there until you throw them out when you buy more of the same veges that you throw out after next shopping day!), and left overs from last night's dinner. Overeat on those veges! go on!!
I find this kind of breakfast
lasts me a good 4 hours easy. In fact sometimes I don't even feel hungry
at all.. I know the kids love a good breakfast too - they have slowly gone off the Weetbix, cornflakes and other cereals and enjoy wholesome full breakfasts before they take off to school! Which leads to the next question...
"What will the kids take to school for lunch?"
Well, they can actually survive quite well on a range of other foods that do not include wheat based products. In fact it did take a while for our own kids to change to having chicken and roast veges (in coconut oil of course!) for lunch in their little lunch boxes. Other kids would tease them about their funny looking lunch that doesn't have white bread wrapped around it.
However we told our kids to just be happy that they are eating REAL food and that their bodies and minds would do better with this better food. Funny thing was our daughter started telling all those cheeky ones that they would be the ones getting sick when they are older hahaha...
Mind you, it would have been easy for us to just say "OK take your sandwiches to school" cause what parent wants their kids to get teased? In fact ALOT easier cause we wouldn't have to spend so much more time cooking their lunches in the morning or the night before. And it would have been alot cheaper too (at the moment the kids are eating lots of chicken!).
While it is more effort, I do believe the better health outcomes for the kids in the future is worth it. Stuff that is worth it is always more effort - that's just the way it is.
Tune in next week as I blog about our eating adventures in the States - should be interesting...
Thursday 8 March 2012
Wheat book!
SO I REMEMBER saying that I was going to start telling you all about some bits of info I get from reading 'Wheat Belly'.
Been an awesome book to get into - probably a bit geeky with the sciency type stuff and probably why alot of people I know wouldn't read it. Gets a bit too in depth with that stuff - not that it's a bad thing cause I like to know exactly why and how things work in the body and all the biochem and sciency terms are familiar to me..
However for most people that stuff is straight up boring or just frustrating cause they get lost in it - unless they already have some background in it.
So what I have thought about doing is trying to put some of the principles into some more easily understandable terms....
So here a a few things I have learnt so far...
A.
Wheat (the kind of wheat we have today which has been changed from days of old remember) spikes your blood glucose more than table sugar does! All of you current diabetics could try it for yourself by taking your blood glucose before and then 10-15 minutes after eating a couple of slices of bread.
How is that you say? Well wheat is really fast at breaking down into glucose. Wheat is made of lots of glucose bits stuck together like any other carbohydrate but has an amazing ability to break down to the glucose molecule - and so can do it faster than other carbohydrate foods.
B.
The constant high spikes in the blood glucose levels in your blood (from always eating those foods that break down really quickly into glucose), causes all kinds of problems with your arteries and that means heart disease.
You may well think "how can foods that have virtually no triglycerides (fat) in them, make me fat?"
Well, for those of you that really want to know, this is how.
1. Foods that cause high spikes in blood glucose trigger insulin the most.
2. High insulin levels in the blood triggers your liver to convert sugars into triglycerides and then packs heaps of those triglycerides into VLDLs (very low density lipoprotein). By the way that is how things are intended to work because it is how we would store away excess calories to use later (when food was not so abundant as it is now).
3. These big VLDLs start bumping into stuff along the bloodstream journey and can become small LDLs or large LDLs. So the more VLDL in your blood means lots of small LDL particles too since VLDL is like the parent of these large and small LDLs.
4. Lots of small LDL particles cause heart disease because they are what contribute to clogged arteries. These are the main cause of heart disease, NOT cholesterol! In fact cholesterol is what your body is using to try and repair the artery damage being done by these small LDLs.
C.
The 'heart healthy' carbohydrates are actually bad guys undercover. They have been given the healthy heart tick and we might think they are good for us because of the fibre in it or the omega-3/flax oil fats or the vitamin enriched products they make now BUT none of these can erase the adverse effects of the wheat - the main ingredient in these products. It will still trigger the high blood sugar and the rest of the story above through to the increased small LDLs which cause heart disease - not to mention the exorphin release and inflammatory responses our bodies have to wheat and its products. But that is another story - maybe next week...
OK I'm off to eat some real food at Sunday Roast!
PS. and so are the kids lol -I'm sure it will be their favourite place soon too!!
Been an awesome book to get into - probably a bit geeky with the sciency type stuff and probably why alot of people I know wouldn't read it. Gets a bit too in depth with that stuff - not that it's a bad thing cause I like to know exactly why and how things work in the body and all the biochem and sciency terms are familiar to me..
However for most people that stuff is straight up boring or just frustrating cause they get lost in it - unless they already have some background in it.
So what I have thought about doing is trying to put some of the principles into some more easily understandable terms....
So here a a few things I have learnt so far...
A.
Wheat (the kind of wheat we have today which has been changed from days of old remember) spikes your blood glucose more than table sugar does! All of you current diabetics could try it for yourself by taking your blood glucose before and then 10-15 minutes after eating a couple of slices of bread.
How is that you say? Well wheat is really fast at breaking down into glucose. Wheat is made of lots of glucose bits stuck together like any other carbohydrate but has an amazing ability to break down to the glucose molecule - and so can do it faster than other carbohydrate foods.
B.
The constant high spikes in the blood glucose levels in your blood (from always eating those foods that break down really quickly into glucose), causes all kinds of problems with your arteries and that means heart disease.
You may well think "how can foods that have virtually no triglycerides (fat) in them, make me fat?"
Well, for those of you that really want to know, this is how.
1. Foods that cause high spikes in blood glucose trigger insulin the most.
2. High insulin levels in the blood triggers your liver to convert sugars into triglycerides and then packs heaps of those triglycerides into VLDLs (very low density lipoprotein). By the way that is how things are intended to work because it is how we would store away excess calories to use later (when food was not so abundant as it is now).
3. These big VLDLs start bumping into stuff along the bloodstream journey and can become small LDLs or large LDLs. So the more VLDL in your blood means lots of small LDL particles too since VLDL is like the parent of these large and small LDLs.
4. Lots of small LDL particles cause heart disease because they are what contribute to clogged arteries. These are the main cause of heart disease, NOT cholesterol! In fact cholesterol is what your body is using to try and repair the artery damage being done by these small LDLs.
C.
The 'heart healthy' carbohydrates are actually bad guys undercover. They have been given the healthy heart tick and we might think they are good for us because of the fibre in it or the omega-3/flax oil fats or the vitamin enriched products they make now BUT none of these can erase the adverse effects of the wheat - the main ingredient in these products. It will still trigger the high blood sugar and the rest of the story above through to the increased small LDLs which cause heart disease - not to mention the exorphin release and inflammatory responses our bodies have to wheat and its products. But that is another story - maybe next week...
OK I'm off to eat some real food at Sunday Roast!
PS. and so are the kids lol -I'm sure it will be their favourite place soon too!!
Thursday 1 March 2012
Feelin' so sick right now!!
Man it's been over 6 months since I have eaten any rice, wheat, pasta or anything like that... but....
Tonight we had my son's birthday as he turned 6 years old. This meant he was able to choose where we go for dinner tonight. I even limited his options by saying "we aint goin to any McDs, KFC or BKs". I even tried to suggest this nice place called Sunday Roast down Broadway Ave where they have nice as roast meals. He loves chicken but this time didn't go for it.
Instead he chose Indian and said he wanted chicken and rice with the yellow sauce on the chicken (which we discovered was chicken korma once we got into the plaza). He had been there before with his Nana so knew exactly where he wanted to go.
Anyway after all that we ended up eating there - I had the mango chicken option with rice and even with naan bread. Normally I would forego the rice and naan but thought what the hey let's go with the birthday. Bad mistake. Since eating that my body has been telling me all about how stupid that was in the form of stomach cramps, bloating, headaches for the last 3 hours. And then to top it all off (since it was all over anyway) we had chocolate cake that my wife made. She had made it as healthily as possible of course (with dark chocolate, half almond flour and so on), but that only served to make us feel even worse.
So here we are sitting in the kitchen feeling sorry for ourselves and feeling so sick. I guess it is a lesson learnt again. We already knew the consequences of eating that food yet fell into the trap again. How stupid are we? No, not stupid. Just really wanted to make sure that it WAS that food that was making us feel sick lol. Isn't it funny how even though we know what these foods are doing to us - like the blood glucose spikes and so on and all the stuff about the wheat and the effects that has too - and still we manage to eat those foods we know are just not good for us.
I'm sure that is enough moaning for now - I'm gonna hit the sack and get some sleep and hopefully wake up feeling much better!
Next week I will post some stuff from the Wheat book I have been reading. By the way all these awesome talks (including one from the guy who wrote the Wheat book) are at the following website. There are some cool as pieces of info here so check them out on this paleo summit thing Sean Croxton has going on this week.
OK until next week!
Tonight we had my son's birthday as he turned 6 years old. This meant he was able to choose where we go for dinner tonight. I even limited his options by saying "we aint goin to any McDs, KFC or BKs". I even tried to suggest this nice place called Sunday Roast down Broadway Ave where they have nice as roast meals. He loves chicken but this time didn't go for it.
Instead he chose Indian and said he wanted chicken and rice with the yellow sauce on the chicken (which we discovered was chicken korma once we got into the plaza). He had been there before with his Nana so knew exactly where he wanted to go.
Anyway after all that we ended up eating there - I had the mango chicken option with rice and even with naan bread. Normally I would forego the rice and naan but thought what the hey let's go with the birthday. Bad mistake. Since eating that my body has been telling me all about how stupid that was in the form of stomach cramps, bloating, headaches for the last 3 hours. And then to top it all off (since it was all over anyway) we had chocolate cake that my wife made. She had made it as healthily as possible of course (with dark chocolate, half almond flour and so on), but that only served to make us feel even worse.
So here we are sitting in the kitchen feeling sorry for ourselves and feeling so sick. I guess it is a lesson learnt again. We already knew the consequences of eating that food yet fell into the trap again. How stupid are we? No, not stupid. Just really wanted to make sure that it WAS that food that was making us feel sick lol. Isn't it funny how even though we know what these foods are doing to us - like the blood glucose spikes and so on and all the stuff about the wheat and the effects that has too - and still we manage to eat those foods we know are just not good for us.
I'm sure that is enough moaning for now - I'm gonna hit the sack and get some sleep and hopefully wake up feeling much better!
Next week I will post some stuff from the Wheat book I have been reading. By the way all these awesome talks (including one from the guy who wrote the Wheat book) are at the following website. There are some cool as pieces of info here so check them out on this paleo summit thing Sean Croxton has going on this week.
OK until next week!
Thursday 23 February 2012
Food or drug? Can you tell the difference??
Was thinking over the past week that food really is like medicine. The more I study about food, the more I see how similar it is to medicines that I used to dispense in the pharmacy. Here are three of those things...
1.
So many foods these days are almost as synthetic as the medicines we get. We used to eat a lot of REAL food (as in not processed or highly refined) but now food has been processed to the point where food is so synthetic it isn't really food anymore - our body can't recognise most of the ingredients in that packet of 'food' you get off the supermarket shelf so how do you expect it to metabolise it and break it down into something useful or of nutritional value. Half the stuff in the ingredients you don't even know how to pronounce and the other half are numbers cause they don't even have names for what they are!
In the same way in medicine we have moved away from the natural herbs and remedies our ancestors used to treat symptoms. Again it was a move away from natural compounds easily recognised and used by the body. Even as recently as a generation ago there were pharmacists that actually compounded medicines - not like today where all we get to do is put labels on the boxes of fully synthetic, pharma-industry-made medicines.
2.
Food has effects on the body and the body has effects on the food just like medicines affect your body and your body also affects your medicine. To oversimplify, in pharmaceuticals the study of how your body affects the medicine is pharmacokinetics and the study of how the medicine affects the body is pharmacodynamics. Food can change the way your body digests other foods - it can change the pH (how acidic or alkaline) in your body affecting many other processes. Medicines also have an effect on how your body works and the 'side effects' are just that medicine working in different parts of the body other than the area we were 'targeting'.
3.
There are unknown side effects from medicines that we don't know about and cannot or do not test long enough for in clinical studies. In the same way I am finding that 'food' is not always tested for human consumption over as sufficiently long enough period of time and in some cases there are no tests done on foods to assess the effect on the people. There are so many side effects we don't even know about - the crazy thing is that some of those effects that come from food are what we then go to the doctor for to get medicine which we think will make it better?! In many people those side effects we know about can show as food allergies, food intolerances, and food sensitivites. In many others these effects can take form that we just don't expect and so would never relate back to food.
More on this stuff to come....
Thursday 16 February 2012
Medicines in "chronic disease" - what we have been lied to about!
I was catching up with a GP yesterday who has been in general practice for the last 20+ years. He works in one of the practices that I do some work with so we know each other quite well now.
We were discussing medicines and why they have all of a sudden become, by a long way, the most common intervention used by doctors. Is it because we as patients go in expecting to get something and would feel ripped off coming away with nothing, or is it more because doctors are so overrun with patients that they prescribe to match symptom and don't have the chance to actually address the REAL CAUSE of the symptoms - possibly due to the patient wanting it fixed NOW! It is certainly an interesting dynamic.
How would you feel going into the doctor and getting only advice about what you should and should not be eating and about the increased exercise you should be doing and not taking away with you any medicine to 'fix' the thing you went in for?
Even more interesting is whether or not the doctors know or keep up to date about what the best lifestyle change advice is (is it still the food pyramid for nutrition? because that is the advice most often given to everyone that comes into contact with the health system). Then again, is it appropriate to try and help someone change their lifestyle completely in a 15 minute consult every 3 months? Do doctors even have the motivational techniques required to help people make changes? It isn't part of the 5 years at med school that's for sure. Do we really expect that the doctor can fix everything after some patients have abused their bodies for the last 30+ years and think they can return to complete health in a couple of weeks?! Some still see health as a guaranteed right but not realising it is a responsibility - and a personal responsibility at that.
For example, if your blood pressure is quite high one time you were visiting the doctor should you immediately be put on a blood pressure lowering tablet? Should other risk factors be taken into account first? Does the doctor have time to spend with you to identify WHY your blood
pressure might be high - and do they then have time to explain what you
can DO about it yourself?
I'm not trying to say doctors are bad or people are lazy or anything like that. I'm just saying that I find it interesting that we expect an overloaded health system (that is focused on disease) with a flawed model of delivery to keep us healthy?! The sooner we realise health is OUR personal responsibility the better - and the sooner we realise it is more cost effective for the nation to invest in our health from the earliest point possible in preventative techniques the healthier we will all be.
But what will happen to the drug companies and the billions of dollars they make from finding a 'disease' (really just a set of symptoms they can then call a disease), and then matching that with their most recently developed medicine. Well I guess we will have no more need for them!! Especially not for those "chronic conditions".
(I don't even like the term "chronic" because it immediately makes us as the patient believe that you have this for life - AND YOU DON'T HAVE TO!! If you make changes you DO NOT have to be on those medicines forever).
In fact we have been lied to by big pharmaceutical companies trying to scare us into thinking that the risk of something bad happening to us is so much worse if we don't take their medicine.
What they talk about is relative risk instead of absolute risk. What that means is that say there were 100 people and we put them all on a medicine. 5 of these hundred were going to get heart disease anyway. Of those 5, 2 did not get the heart disease as a result of taking medicine but 3 of them still did EVEN though they were taking medicine. This would be a great result for a drug company because they have reduced the risk of getting a heart attack by 40%!!!! ie 2 people of the 5 that were going to get heart disease were 'saved' and 2/5 is 40%. That is known as the relative risk reduction. Can you see the problem here??
What they don't tell you is that the ABSOLUTE risk reduction is actually only 2% as only 2 of those 100 people that took the medicine did not get heart disease as a result of taking medicine!!
Relative risk is how MANY if not ALL drug studies are written up and for obvious reasons. How much of a medicine could you sell by telling people it gave a 2% reduction in risk. I won't even go into this part yet but there is the whole thing of you won't even see that 2% reduction until after 10 years or more of taking the medicine... cRAzy stuff!!
Well I think I've gone on long enough and it wasn't even about what I initially was going to write so I will have to change the post title so it is relevant lol...
Thursday 9 February 2012
I wanna lose wheat!
Everyone wants to lose weight! But not everyone wants to do what is required to lose the weight..
Some research done recently shows that wheat has a HUGE impact on how our bodies store fat - particularly around the belly area which is where most of 'today's people' store fat. In fact they call it wheat belly now.
I've always thought but what about how in the bible it talks about wheat for man - well let's just say that we are not talking about the same wheat.
Wheat has changed significantly since biblical times.
In fact in the last 50 years wheat has changed so much thanks to the geneticists and others that (with good intentions) have genetically modified the wheat in order to make it produce more - most likely with the good intentions of feeding the world and alleviating hunger throughout the world. And also of course for the money... but that's another story.
I've just bought the book Wheat Belly by Dr William Davis (a preventative cardiologist - check his blog in the link) and will be sharing some knowledge from what I get out of the book and how we as a family have tried to implement it in future posts so keep an eye out for them.
This particular idea to start with of not having breads, has been a bit of a journey for our little family. The first question was "so what will the kids take to school for lunches if they aren't going to have bread?" In truth this issue hasn't been fully solved as they still sometimes take sandwiches to school because it is the easiest thing to make (and they can make it themselves!). But as far as usage in our house overall goes we have reduced bread intake by at least 70%.
We have also stopped all pasta and cereals. Our kids are now having fish, steak, chicken, eggs, spinach or whatever else we as parents end up cooking for our breakfasts. They are loving it - our son will eat as much as we do if he could and he sure isn't missing cereals and grains. Our daughter on the other hand has found it a bit harder and still wants cereals and toast in the morning and is addicted to sandwiches for snacks. However, what I have noticed over the last few weeks is that because everyone else is eating something different, she wants to have what we are having now. Perhaps it has gone past the 'tipping point' for her because her brother now eats what we have been eating whereas before he would have what she was eating otherwise it 'wasn't fair'. And for snacks now instead of sandwiches they have fruit or a vegetable after school. We need to keep working on the lunches (and that just means we need to be better at preparing their lunches instead of doing last minute lunches or letting them do their own).
It really just takes some discipline and commitment to make changes and then slowly the changes will happen. It is certainly tough to get past the initial moaning and complaints and so on for the first few weeks but once you learn to be a little more creative with other foods around, it becomes so much easier!
So what's the difference?? No, our kids have not lost huge amounts of weight or 'lost inches off their waist' like all that other stuff you see on TV and of course we don't want them to (we already get in trouble as it is with grandparents for 'not feeding them enough').
But it's not about that - for our kids it is about teaching them what is the best way to eat so that in the future they are keeping themselves healthy and well and won't get into the problems and chronic illnesses that many adults are facing today.
If you are keen - give it a go and try not eating bread for a day.. or a week. Find some veges you like that you could use to eat instead of bread or different meal options. Let us know how you go!
Some research done recently shows that wheat has a HUGE impact on how our bodies store fat - particularly around the belly area which is where most of 'today's people' store fat. In fact they call it wheat belly now.
I've always thought but what about how in the bible it talks about wheat for man - well let's just say that we are not talking about the same wheat.
Wheat has changed significantly since biblical times.
In fact in the last 50 years wheat has changed so much thanks to the geneticists and others that (with good intentions) have genetically modified the wheat in order to make it produce more - most likely with the good intentions of feeding the world and alleviating hunger throughout the world. And also of course for the money... but that's another story.
I've just bought the book Wheat Belly by Dr William Davis (a preventative cardiologist - check his blog in the link) and will be sharing some knowledge from what I get out of the book and how we as a family have tried to implement it in future posts so keep an eye out for them.
This particular idea to start with of not having breads, has been a bit of a journey for our little family. The first question was "so what will the kids take to school for lunches if they aren't going to have bread?" In truth this issue hasn't been fully solved as they still sometimes take sandwiches to school because it is the easiest thing to make (and they can make it themselves!). But as far as usage in our house overall goes we have reduced bread intake by at least 70%.
We have also stopped all pasta and cereals. Our kids are now having fish, steak, chicken, eggs, spinach or whatever else we as parents end up cooking for our breakfasts. They are loving it - our son will eat as much as we do if he could and he sure isn't missing cereals and grains. Our daughter on the other hand has found it a bit harder and still wants cereals and toast in the morning and is addicted to sandwiches for snacks. However, what I have noticed over the last few weeks is that because everyone else is eating something different, she wants to have what we are having now. Perhaps it has gone past the 'tipping point' for her because her brother now eats what we have been eating whereas before he would have what she was eating otherwise it 'wasn't fair'. And for snacks now instead of sandwiches they have fruit or a vegetable after school. We need to keep working on the lunches (and that just means we need to be better at preparing their lunches instead of doing last minute lunches or letting them do their own).
It really just takes some discipline and commitment to make changes and then slowly the changes will happen. It is certainly tough to get past the initial moaning and complaints and so on for the first few weeks but once you learn to be a little more creative with other foods around, it becomes so much easier!
So what's the difference?? No, our kids have not lost huge amounts of weight or 'lost inches off their waist' like all that other stuff you see on TV and of course we don't want them to (we already get in trouble as it is with grandparents for 'not feeding them enough').
But it's not about that - for our kids it is about teaching them what is the best way to eat so that in the future they are keeping themselves healthy and well and won't get into the problems and chronic illnesses that many adults are facing today.
If you are keen - give it a go and try not eating bread for a day.. or a week. Find some veges you like that you could use to eat instead of bread or different meal options. Let us know how you go!
Thursday 26 January 2012
What is the REAL cause of illness and disease?
So I was in a discussion today with some regional health funding organisations. We discussed what I believe to be the real cause of illness and disease and a program I've been working on that could potentially change the way health systems work in primary care.
No, it's not that people don't know what they should be doing because there is certainly no shortage of information out there. And with the Internet and Google you can pretty much find anything! So you can't plead ignorance. So it's not lack of information.
It's not even that people don't do enough exercise. Sure exercise is really important and essential to overall wellness but I don't think just lack of exercise is the real cause of illness and disease.
And it's not even the food. I know a HUGE part of it IS the food and if we could get everyone eating properly (as in eating REAL food) that would make a massive difference on peoples overall wellness and reduce the burden of disease. However, if best nutrition was available to all (which is NOT food pyramid by the way - even though that is what the dieticians other health care professionals in the health system are telling us we should follow), there would still be many that could/would not follow it.
Which leads me to what I believe to be the real cause of disease - a LACK OF SELF-MANAGEMENT SKILLS (and I can't really find a good picture for it...). If we really think about it, we could do anything we put out minds to yet we limit ourselves by not knowing HOW to apply new things and changes into our lives that will make us better, happier, more successful and so on.
What is self management you ask? Well it includes the knowledge, skills and ability to drive your own personal health and wellness - so you can be in control more of your health and not at the mercy of our health professionals (most of whom of course are well-intentioned but may not be following the latest information and therefore not giving you the correct, most current up to date information or in fact may not be giving you all the options that are available). The problem is that we have become lazy, too focused on instant gratification, too comfortable with what we do now, too good at telling ourselves that we are fine, too expert in justifying away what we do to our bodies - which for many of us is downright abuse of the gift we have been given.
How would this help? Well, these people would then have the skills to apply good healthy eating principles they have learned and eat better, they would understand the importance of exercise and know HOW to apply that into their lives, and would know HOW (by experience not just listening to how) look after their bodies in the best way possible. Surely that would lead to reduced burden of disease.
And how do I propose we do that? By taking people by the hand and walking them through it, gradually letting them do more and more until they are at a point where they can start taking more of a lead and then finally at the point when they can lead themselves and their families (and even influence others around them) to apply positive changes and move towards healthier lives!
No, it's not that people don't know what they should be doing because there is certainly no shortage of information out there. And with the Internet and Google you can pretty much find anything! So you can't plead ignorance. So it's not lack of information.
Which leads me to what I believe to be the real cause of disease - a LACK OF SELF-MANAGEMENT SKILLS (and I can't really find a good picture for it...). If we really think about it, we could do anything we put out minds to yet we limit ourselves by not knowing HOW to apply new things and changes into our lives that will make us better, happier, more successful and so on.
What is self management you ask? Well it includes the knowledge, skills and ability to drive your own personal health and wellness - so you can be in control more of your health and not at the mercy of our health professionals (most of whom of course are well-intentioned but may not be following the latest information and therefore not giving you the correct, most current up to date information or in fact may not be giving you all the options that are available). The problem is that we have become lazy, too focused on instant gratification, too comfortable with what we do now, too good at telling ourselves that we are fine, too expert in justifying away what we do to our bodies - which for many of us is downright abuse of the gift we have been given.
How would this help? Well, these people would then have the skills to apply good healthy eating principles they have learned and eat better, they would understand the importance of exercise and know HOW to apply that into their lives, and would know HOW (by experience not just listening to how) look after their bodies in the best way possible. Surely that would lead to reduced burden of disease.
And how do I propose we do that? By taking people by the hand and walking them through it, gradually letting them do more and more until they are at a point where they can start taking more of a lead and then finally at the point when they can lead themselves and their families (and even influence others around them) to apply positive changes and move towards healthier lives!
Thursday 19 January 2012
Getting Results!
After all is said and done - what results have you noticed??
I know as fitness trainers or health professionals we all TALK about
'results this', 'achieve that', 'abs here', 'tight and toned there' and
give you lots of advice on what you should and shouldn't do, what you
can and can't eat or drink and so on. We promise all kinds of things and
some even give guarantees that you will get that result. We can even
provide all manner of research, studies and opinions to back up what we
are doing or recommending, or not doing and not recommending as the case
may be.
But when it all comes down to it - you need to ask yourself
"am I getting the results or outcomes I want?"
I have come to realise that as health and fitness professionals, we cannot GIVE you the result or outcome no matter how much we promise it or how technically correct and evidence based we think our programs or advice are. YOU must earn that result - you must put into place the strategies to succeed, you are the one that has to get more in tune with your body and realise how it tries to tell you when you have eaten crap food, you are the one that needs to get yourself off the couch and stay active regularly, you are the one that needs to get yourself to sleep at a reasonable time so you can recover properly.... and so on and so on.
When it comes down to it all we can do is provide solutions. What I'm saying is YOU need to actually put it into action. You cannot avoid the work, the sacrifice, the commitment and honesty required to achieve your goal or the result you want. We can invite and keep inviting you to make changes required, but only you can decide on whether to be or not to be; whether to act or not to act. They say "be before you are and you will become" (more on that another time).
So the question then is what do you want? Are you strong enough mentally, physically and all the other ways to make those changes yourself? If you are, then why haven't you already done it? If you need support what kind of support do you imagine you will need?
I think the only way you can be helped is by uncovering and tapping into the motivation or potential within. And I certainly can't do that for you. I can help with throwing off some of the layers that keep that motivating factor hidden and perhaps even opening your eyes and understanding to who you really are and what is available to you. I can even help to encourage you and provide an example for you, pull you through the tough times and most importantly BELIEVE in YOU. I probably believe in you more than you do in yourself.
To finish off this post let me just say this. Words are powerful - they can motivate change. Positive words will motivate positive change. Give it a go and start by talking good, positive words about yourself and how you CAN achieve your goal. You might surprise yourself with what YOU can achieve.
Say it; believe it; do it.
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But when it all comes down to it - you need to ask yourself
"am I getting the results or outcomes I want?"
I have come to realise that as health and fitness professionals, we cannot GIVE you the result or outcome no matter how much we promise it or how technically correct and evidence based we think our programs or advice are. YOU must earn that result - you must put into place the strategies to succeed, you are the one that has to get more in tune with your body and realise how it tries to tell you when you have eaten crap food, you are the one that needs to get yourself off the couch and stay active regularly, you are the one that needs to get yourself to sleep at a reasonable time so you can recover properly.... and so on and so on.
When it comes down to it all we can do is provide solutions. What I'm saying is YOU need to actually put it into action. You cannot avoid the work, the sacrifice, the commitment and honesty required to achieve your goal or the result you want. We can invite and keep inviting you to make changes required, but only you can decide on whether to be or not to be; whether to act or not to act. They say "be before you are and you will become" (more on that another time).
So the question then is what do you want? Are you strong enough mentally, physically and all the other ways to make those changes yourself? If you are, then why haven't you already done it? If you need support what kind of support do you imagine you will need?
I think the only way you can be helped is by uncovering and tapping into the motivation or potential within. And I certainly can't do that for you. I can help with throwing off some of the layers that keep that motivating factor hidden and perhaps even opening your eyes and understanding to who you really are and what is available to you. I can even help to encourage you and provide an example for you, pull you through the tough times and most importantly BELIEVE in YOU. I probably believe in you more than you do in yourself.
To finish off this post let me just say this. Words are powerful - they can motivate change. Positive words will motivate positive change. Give it a go and start by talking good, positive words about yourself and how you CAN achieve your goal. You might surprise yourself with what YOU can achieve.
Say it; believe it; do it.
Thursday 12 January 2012
Simple yet profound motivators!!
How do we get more people into health and wellness?
So back to the first question... How do we get more people into health and wellness? I would suggest it is through their families. If they won't do it for themselves, perhaps they will do it for their loved ones, and in particular their children and grandchildren!
First thing is do they WANT to be in the first place? If they have no desire to be healthy or feel better then you are flogging a dead horse as they say...
However! If they have a small hint of a desire to do something to improve their current situation, and are willing to do something then you are in business.
Next thing is how do you know they have a desire and what brings about that desire?
I had an awesome discussion with a lady who was telling me a story about her 7-year-old granddaughter who she found doing star jumps in her room. She thought this was interesting so asked her granddaughter why she was doing star jumps?
The response amazed her when the granddaughter said,
"I don't want to get diabetes!"
What this 7-year-old knew was that 3 out of 4 of her grandparents had diabetes and most of the other adults in the house were also on medicines for other chronic conditions. It highlighted the impact of disease and ill health of family members on a child. Even at such a young age she realises that she doesn't want to
go through the things that she sees her role models go through each day
(she is probably particularly worried about the insulin injections one
of them has to take everyday cause even I'd be freaked out about that too!).
It seems that often we don't think too much about the effect of ill health on ourselves and even less about the effect of our ill health on loved ones around us. We have this kind of mentality where "I'm fine", or "I'll be OK and only I have to deal with it". Perhaps we have that sort of 'macho' thing going where we are so tough and even though we are sick we carry on doing what we do as if there is nothing wrong.
What I found interesting was that it was THIS experience that prompted the lady to ask me what she could do with her family to make some
lifestyle changes to improve their health and wellness. No, it wasn't all the ads you see on TV, it wasn't the doctor or any other health professional saying you should do this and that, nor was it the fact that this lady and the rest of the adults already know all the things they should be doing anyway.
IT WAS the simple yet profound comments and actions of a young girl expressing how she didn't want to get diabetes... that's powerful when you think of how much money is spent on all those other areas everyday that are supposed to motivate us to make changes!
So back to the first question... How do we get more people into health and wellness? I would suggest it is through their families. If they won't do it for themselves, perhaps they will do it for their loved ones, and in particular their children and grandchildren!
Friday 6 January 2012
a new year!!
HERE WE ARE AGAIN at the start of a new year! How cool is that!
I remember hearing a couple of friends recently debating the worth of making goals at the start of each year. One was saying that people that want to achieve something should go ahead and start working towards achieving it immediately as opposed to waiting until Jan 1st to start doing something. The other was proclaiming the benefits of having a set time to work within for achieving those goals.
For me I think there is no debate - it's great to have both. When I identify something that needs work (which happens quite often for me), I usually start working on it straight away if it isn't too big. For the bigger vision and dream kind of goals I like having the time frame of 1 year, 3 years or even 7 years so I can track progress over that time.
This came to mind because this past week I have seen SOOOOO many more people running in the morning past our house. I think it is awesome that so many more people have made the effort to get out there and do something. They are full on into them for the first couple of weeks - what I find sad is that come end of January I don't see them anymore...
I wonder what it is about human nature that makes it so difficult for us to change behaviour? They say you need to do something for at least 21 days before it becomes a habit. That's 3 weeks of sticking to something religiously every day and that is tough for anyone. It takes self discipline, a clear goal, a vision of the outcome, and alot of effort.
BUT IT CAN BE DONE!!
From what I have found with the people I train, most of us just need someone to hold us accountable to what we have said we will do. They need to be firm but fair. They need to be your friend but at the same time need to keep that distance so that you will still respect and follow their advice. So perhaps one way to improve your chances of achieving your goal is to tell everyone you know - but more particularly those whom you know will support you in your goal and provide a level of accountability for you.
I wish you all the best this year in achieving your goals whatever they may be - go forward with faith for we will never know what we can achieve nor what our full potential is until we exercise faith. That is, until we have faith enough to take those few steps into the dark outside of our comfort zones. Enjoy the journey and take someone with you along the way that can keep you accountable!!
I remember hearing a couple of friends recently debating the worth of making goals at the start of each year. One was saying that people that want to achieve something should go ahead and start working towards achieving it immediately as opposed to waiting until Jan 1st to start doing something. The other was proclaiming the benefits of having a set time to work within for achieving those goals.
For me I think there is no debate - it's great to have both. When I identify something that needs work (which happens quite often for me), I usually start working on it straight away if it isn't too big. For the bigger vision and dream kind of goals I like having the time frame of 1 year, 3 years or even 7 years so I can track progress over that time.
This came to mind because this past week I have seen SOOOOO many more people running in the morning past our house. I think it is awesome that so many more people have made the effort to get out there and do something. They are full on into them for the first couple of weeks - what I find sad is that come end of January I don't see them anymore...
I wonder what it is about human nature that makes it so difficult for us to change behaviour? They say you need to do something for at least 21 days before it becomes a habit. That's 3 weeks of sticking to something religiously every day and that is tough for anyone. It takes self discipline, a clear goal, a vision of the outcome, and alot of effort.
BUT IT CAN BE DONE!!
From what I have found with the people I train, most of us just need someone to hold us accountable to what we have said we will do. They need to be firm but fair. They need to be your friend but at the same time need to keep that distance so that you will still respect and follow their advice. So perhaps one way to improve your chances of achieving your goal is to tell everyone you know - but more particularly those whom you know will support you in your goal and provide a level of accountability for you.
I wish you all the best this year in achieving your goals whatever they may be - go forward with faith for we will never know what we can achieve nor what our full potential is until we exercise faith. That is, until we have faith enough to take those few steps into the dark outside of our comfort zones. Enjoy the journey and take someone with you along the way that can keep you accountable!!
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