The incredible power of nutrition

I’m not sure if any of you have ever heard of Jessica Richards’ story but it is remarkable and so I wanted to tell you all about it today. It hasn’t really been highlighted in main stream media, not in a positive light anyway, as many people turn their nose up at what she did. But I think her story is just another step forward to nutrition becoming the medicine of today and making people realize the power their nutrition has on their own health and future quality of life.

Jessica Richards is a former model. After learning that she had an unusually large tumor in one of her breasts, Richards was told by her doctors that she would need to begin an aggressive treatment protocol that involved removing the breast, having it reconstructed, and undergoing an intense series of radiation and hormone treatments to keep it at bay. Knowing a bit about the toll this would take on her body, Richards decided to take a different route – very brave!

Rather than follow in the footsteps of the millions of others who have lost their lives during the cutting, burning, and poisoning, Richards made the personal, informed decision to naturally fight breast cancer by switching to a strict metabolic diet and feed her body a plethora of cancer-fighting nutrients, and cutting out a host of cancer-causing foods and substances. In her book ‘The topic of Cancer’, she writes:

"The cancer consultant who'd done my ultrasound scans said my tumor was so large I'd need accelerated chemotherapy for several months. He said I would almost certainly need a mastectomy or at least a large lumpectomy with significant reconstruction, my lymph nodes removed, radiotherapy and five years of hormone-altering drugs after that."

After researching alternative options, Richards decided to focus on alkaline over acid foods and eliminate all dairy and sugar from her diet, including most fruits, and instead eat lots of vegetables, short grain rice, quinoa and linseeds, and take high doses of vitamin C intravenously. After just three weeks of starting this regimen scans showed that Richards' tumor had essentially "gone to sleep," and was in the process of regressing.
After several months of adhering to her strict diet, which she admits has not always been easy, Richards was told by her consultant radiologist that her tumor was effectively breaking down in the same way as it would with intensive chemotherapy, except without all the organ damage and other deadly side effects. A little over a year after first being diagnosed with cancer, Richards was able to stop her intravenous vitamin C injections and not long after that was told that she was completely healthy, and would not have to return for a checkup for another year.
WOW – just think about that for a few minutes….then reassess what you are feeding your own body.

Why can't I lose weight?

Why Can’t I Lose Weight?

Losing weight and burning fat DOES NOT have to be a losing battle! You have more control over it than you think.
Small tweaks can make a BIG difference.
Here are a few reasons why you’re not seeing the results you’d like:

You’re not strength training. Often, people who are not losing weight don’t do strength training. The more lean, sleek muscle you have, the faster your resting metabolism is because muscle is the body’s most metabolically active tissue.

You’re not exercising in a way that forces your body to adapt. The adaptive response requires energy; it raises your body’s energy needs. The body will then dig into stored fat for this energy.
If you’ve been strength training and the weight hasn’t been coming off, it may be because you’re not doing much more than merely going through the motions.

There’s the story of a heavy-set woman who was doing body weight squats. A trainer waltzed over, knelt beside her, said “Hi” with a smile, then handed her two 10 pound dumbells (one for each hand).
The woman’s mouth fell open, but the trainer said, “You’re going to do eight reps of your squats but this time you’re going to hold a 10 lb dumbbell on each side.”
“I can’t do it with that weight!”
“Oh yes you can. Trust me. You’re going to complete all eight reps.”
The woman said her goal was to lose weight, but nothing was happening despite regular workouts. She began her squats, and it wasn’t easy. She had to fight her way to the eighth rep, but she completed eight full repetitions.
The trainer said, “Now that’s the way every set should feel. Apply this effort level to all of your sets for every exercise. You won’t lose weight if you keep doing something your body is efficient at. You must do something that forces you to struggle. Struggling begets weight loss.”
A month later the woman reported having dropped an entire dress size.
Moral of this true story: Exercises that require you to push harder will burn fat and spark weight loss, especially when paired with sensible eating.

You eat mindlessly. Every little sample and nugget counts. One tablespoon of gravy is 100 calories. A “little bit here and there” adds up. Avoid eating when you’re focused on other things, such as watching TV or you’re on the computer.

You drink diet drinks. Artificial sweeteners often trigger hunger and mess up your metabolism.

Too many processed foods. These trigger hunger, and too much white sugar and high fructose corn syrup will get stored as fat.

You skip breakfast. Breakfast, even if it’s only a cup of yogurt, tends to tame later-day appetite. Skipping it can make you feel entitled to overeat later on.

You hold onto the treadmill. This has got to be one of the most weight-loss-sabotaging habits out there. The body has absolutely no reason to burn more fat in response to make-believe walking.
Instead, pump the arms and get winded to force your body to adapt. Remember, the body won’t adapt to something that it’s very efficient at doing (e.g., walking while holding onto something for support).

You don’t do HIIT: high intensity interval training. This form of cardio blasts fat.

Inconsistent exercise habits. Regular exercise means the difference between success and failure. Even if you’re doing everything right in the gym, consistency is the MOST important thing.

Poor sleeping habits. Research shows that under six hours of sleep and over nine are strongly linked to excess body fat.

Too much daytime napping. Excessive inertia means a slowed metabolism to accommodate it.

Before you give up review your lifestyle habits to find out what can be modified to promote fat loss.
Contact me today and i can help you get there!

Probiotics: part 2- the good from the bad

Just remembered my past blog on probiotics promised to give you all more information on how to wheedle out the good supps from the bad. I got highly distracted with my angry rant on the OMG diet and never followed this up…so here we go…

So the current market for probiotics is very confusing to most consumers. You can choose from a wide array of products all making claims on their different strains, species, billions counts, shelf stability and so on. And all of these products can also come in different forms - probiotic capsules, pills, yoghurts, drinks, even chewing gum and chocolate! So what do you pick? What’s actually important? Read on for some basic tips when choosing:

1. Avoid the yoghurt drinks- especially if you want to watch your waistline or if you have diabetes; as the levels of sugar in these 'health' drinks can be very high. Leading probiotic yoghurt drinks contain more sugar than fizzy drinks; and the sugar-free options contain artificial sweeteners that will mess up your metabolism.

2. Count the number of bacteria. The gut is home to roughly 100 trillion bacteria. So it’s best to go for a supplement offering at least 15 billion live microorganisms, as opposed to a few million. Look for the potency at time of expiration as the bacteria will degrade in the bottle. However, pay close attention to the strains as it will not be beneficial to take 30 billion probiotics per day if the probiotics have not met more important criteria, for example the ability to survive stomach acidity, and to bind to the gut wall lining.

3. Do not fall for the 'Time of Manufacture Guarantee.” Whilst this appears to be a good statement what this really means is that the number of billions stated on the pack is actually the number of billions that existed in the product when it was made. As bacteria are of a delicate nature, this count will certainly drop as the product sits on the shelf, or even in the fridge. So look for the numbers at the expiration date stated instead.

4. How many strains? I would recommend buying multi strain probiotics as different strains naturally reside in different areas of the gut so taking more than one will support a larger area of your gut rather than just the small intestine for example. Different strains also have different survival rates and health benefits so a mixture can provide optimal results.  On the other hand, if you are looking at a product with a huge amount of different strains, be wary that various strains can actually 'cannibalise' each other within a capsule. Make sure you are going for a reputable company with an expertise in probiotic & prebiotic supplements - they should have tested the strains to make sure they can survive together.

6. Get the correct strains for you. Research on probiotics consistently shows results that different strains will have different effects on the body. For example, Bifidobacterium infantis is a great probiotic species for children, and is thought to play a key role in immunity. It will naturally settle in the large intestine, however, so it is not an ideal probiotic to be taking for a patient on antibiotics (who will be losing vast numbers of probiotics from the small intestine.) Try to find a probiotic supplement that is tailored for your health condition, rather than a general product that is marketed to everyone – again, this situation highlights the benefits of a multi-strain probiotic.

7. Make sure there is research. Do your research and make sure they have done theirs - reliable probiotic supplements should be backed up with HUMAN clinical trials - and these trials should be available for you to read. One place to start your research is with the UK company OptiBac Probiotics. They specialize in probiotics & prebiotics and have developed a range of probiotics targeting specific health conditions by using specific probiotic strains.

Any further questions or help on finding a supplement, or just want me to check out yours before you buy, email me the details over and I’ll be happy to help.