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...

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!!

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!

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...

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...

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!!

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!