Re-wire your mind-set to take control over your diet

My first instruction for you today – Recognise that everything you eat is your own choice. Take responsibility for what you eat.

Now there’s a double headed sword! - On one hand, that means you have chosen to eat the things that got you to the body you have right now. If you aren’t happy with your body, that realization can be tough to handle. But on the other hand – the fact that you have the absolutely final say in what you eat is liberating. No one will pin you down and force Dairy Milk down your throat. You have the power to choose what and how much you eat, and with the right choices you can change your body.

This may seem obvious, but people often don’t accept responsibility for their food choices. People sometimes can blame others or the situation they were in. Ever said - “I had to eat _______, it’s all that was available there/I was starving/I didn’t have time to eat lunch“, etc. The truth is, you had the option to not eat _____, to make time for a real meal, or to bring food with you and not rely on someone else to provide food for you. Accepting responsibility for every bite that goes in your mouth is a big step forward.

Ok, now to the next instruction for you…You can eat anything you want. Anything.

Are you attempting to lose weight by declaring certain foods as off-limits, or telling yourself that you “should not” or “must not” eat them? You’ll want to rethink that.

By restricting yourself, you will ignite your natural, inborn resistance.

Eating a cookie on occasion does not make someone overweight. But what makes someone overeat cookies, not stopping at one or two, several times a week? Restriction. Restrict anything and you create an environment of scarcity in your mind. That’s Economics 101. A commodity which is scarce becomes more valuable. So now the forbidden item looks even better to you. This might cause you to think about it more often and creates a bad relationship – maybe even obsessive relationship- between you and this food. In addition to inflating the perceived value of the forbidden food, there’s a little rebellious streak in all of us. It’s invigorating, exhilarating even, to break a rule, even if it’s your own.

So now you’ve doubled the prize of eating the forbidden food: it’s built up in your mind to be the Best Stuff Ever and it makes you feel a little badass for doing it. I hope you see where this is going: A restrictive mind-set will not only make you fixate on and eventually eat the very items you’re trying to reduce, but when you do eat them, you’re likely to go headfirst into a massive quantity. Because after all, it’s rare and valuable and you won’t allow yourself to have it again for a long long time so you better get a lot in…

If you’ve ever had an experience with binge eating, recall it. Did it follow a time period of restriction or sticking to a very regimented diet? For many people, it does. The more drastic the restriction, the more binge-triggering it is. And the worst thing we can do after a binge is the most common response: following it up with another period of restriction to “make up for it”. If you’d like to break this cycle, it is a worthy challenge to not view any food as off limits.

What’s the alternative if nothing is off limits? What would keep me from eating junk all day?

If you think you only want to eat chocolate and chips, it may be because you aren’t allowing yourself to eat chocolate and chips.

My advice is to experiment: allow yourself to eat whatever you want, chicken or carrots or carrot cake, just eat it mindfully, and savour it. When you know you’ll still be free tomorrow to have whatever you want, you may be shocked to find you don’t in fact want the whole tub of ice cream or cake for every meal. More than 90% of the time you’ll probably want healthy food that nourishes you and tastes good, that gives you energy and not indigestion. When you aren’t attributing an artificial value to sweets by restricting them, you can let yourself discover that you actually only want them every now and then.

Think of a food right now that you know distances you from your goals, perhaps one that you have told yourself you “must not” or “cannot” eat. Could you instead accept that you are allowed to eat that food, yet you choose not to because you want your goals more? The action (not eating the food) is exactly the same as if you had just declared it off limits and stuck to it – but the mind-set is different.

When entering a restaurant do you say to yourself “Okay, no meals with no cheese and no fried stuff, no desert and no meats that aren’t organic. You’re not allowed to have any of those.” When you look at the menu it becomes an experience of limitation and restriction. Feeling like this can make you likely to fight back in some way, and sooner or later “give in” and break all of your ‘rules’.

Reminded yourself that whatever your goal is, it is your choosing, and there is a reason you have chosen it. Check in with yourself- is this still a valuable goal for you? Or would you rather choose the deep fried fish and chocolate gateaux? Because you are free to do either. Just remember the reasons you want to do both and I think you’ll find the reasons you want your goal are much more powerful than the reasons why you want the gateaux.

So implement these two pointers into your mind-set and start loving your diet rather than restricting it.

-      Take responsibility for your food choices.

-      Rather than telling yourself that you “can’t” or “shouldn’t” eat certain things, acknowledge that you could in fact eat any of them, but you CHOOSE to eat more of some and less of others.

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.

Women!: Taking the pill and feeling lethargic?...read on.

Many people report un-wanted side effects from taking the oral contraceptive pill. One thing that quite a few women mention is that they feel tired and lacking in energy a lot of the time. Despite various other factors that can lead to this, your contraceptive pill could be one major factor.  

It has been shown that there is a link between taking the pill and depletion of vitamin B6. Along with the rest of the B-complex vitamins, Vitamin B6 has an important role in the generation of energy in your body. It also helps immune function, protein metabolism and is involved in over 100 enzymatic reactions that take place within the body.

Long term deficiency in B6 can cause lack of energy, depression, decreased brain function and higher levels of homocysteine (linked to heart disease).

Taking oral contraceptives can stem to a whole host of negative effects on the body, depending on the individual, and nutritional supplementation becomes almost a necessity. The B-complex vitamins are water soluble so your body does not store them. This means you need a constant daily supply to keep your levels above that of deficiency. Good sources of B6 include bananas, prunes, tomatoes, avocado, cruciferous vegetables, walnuts and hazelnuts. The average person gets their daily quota of vitamin B6 from their diet but women on the pill may benefit from supplementation too due to the constant depletion of B6.

Be careful with the supplements that you by. Look for timed release vitamin B complexes so the vits are release slowly over time. This allows for maximum absorption and minimal wastage in your (expensive) urine. Also, make sure you take your supplement WITH FOOD always. Look at the list of ingredients of your supplement bottle and make sure there are no artificial ingredients, colours/dyes or preservatives. Poor quality supplements do not provide adequate nutrition. Good quality is more expensive but can you really put a price on your health?

The 6 weeks to OMG diet

I took my once in a blue moon journey on the London underground the other day and past a huge billboard advertising The 6 weeks to ‘OMG’ diet by Venice Fulton. The first thing that annoyed me about this diet was the tag line – ‘get skinnier than your friends’….well that really promotes a healthy attitude doesn’t it Mr Fulton.

                Venice Fulton has a degree in Sports science and has come up with what he classes a great diet plan for people wanting to lose weight. I, on the other hand BEG to differ and just reading about the book is irritating me, let alone even putting myself through the pain of having to read the book itself. So if you have read the book and think it’s the best thing since sliced bread then please do comment, I’d love to hear what the book offers that its explanation doesn’t.

                So to start my rant I’ll just take you through the basic principles of this diet. There are 5 key principles Fulton focuses on:

1. Lose fat

2. Get toned

3. Slim down your thighs

4. Flatten your belly

5. Keep your skin, hair and nails growing

….right so the same as everything else….

Then he also has certain ‘rules’ and ‘theories’ that he bases his diet on

                -Fulton states in his book that ‘carbs are carbs’ and that it doesn’t matter whether you get them from an apple or a slab of chocolate cake. Well, I don’t know where he studied his ‘nutrition’ but he clearly didn’t pay attention during class. I won’t bore you with the science, but take my word for it – that statement is WRONG. I’m not going to insult your intelligence either as I’m sure you didn’t need me to tell you that! Just for the icing on the cake read this other sentence of his- ‘broccoli carbs can be worse than soda carbs’…..I mean SERIOUSLY, is this guy for real!!

                -The book encourages people to take cold baths and showers to lose a few more pounds. He stresses the calorie burning benefit of cold water since your body has to use energy to keep your core body temperature at 37 degrees. Yes your body will use up energy but not anywhere near enough for it to become an effective weight loss method. You’ll find yourself slipping into hyperthermia before you’re slipping into that little black dress.

                - Fulton says that breakfast should not be eaten until you have exercised –read my past blog post on eating before exercise to see how miss guided this is. Again, I feel this statement really promotes an unhealthy attitude to diet, fitness and generally towards your own confidence and self-esteem.

-Readers are encouraged to drink black coffee because of its antioxidants (ok I’ll give you that depending on what type of coffee), zero calories (correct again….doing well…), metabolism stimulating properties (ah damn, and we’re back to the cold shower idea!). Caffeine is a stimulant and will slightly increase your heart rate, depending on how sensitive you are to it. The physiological changes from coffee are not strong enough to make a massive difference in your overall calorie expenditure.  He also promotes coffee drinking as it suppresses your appetite. Again, he steers his readers straight back into such a terrible mind-set.

                -The foods he recommends includes green leafy vegetables, chicken, nuts, lean beef, fish, beans, lentils, brown rice and other fresh vegetables.  

Ok, so in a nutshell this diet has all the makings of a FAD diet – simple food recommendations that comply with healthy eating with a list of random wacky rules that are the only thing that will distinguish it from all the other books out there that essentially offer similar ideas. FAD diets do not work, and that is why there are so many of them out there. If one worked there would be no need for more to be made. Nutrition is simple once you know the rules. There is no ‘secret trick’. It’s all very basic, and the more basic you keep it the easier it is to follow, maintain and enjoy – after all it’s going to be a part of your life, every day, for the rest of your life. Do you really want to be obsessing about the temperature of your shower being too hot or the dash of milk you like to have with your coffee?     

The author of this book has a history of helping athletes and celebrities…not really your ‘average Joe’. Athletes’ lives are ruled by their bodies and how their bodies function. With knowledge of athletes I would have expected Fulton to have a better idea of human physiology and what the body needs in order to function optimally. Maybe it was when he moved his attention to celebrities that his mind ended up in the clouds. Celebrities have to look good and they are under immense pressure to do so. They don’t have the time or the energy to think about their diet so will generally get someone else to do the thinking for them and just do what they tell them to do. So yes- if you lived on black coffee and exercised with no fuel in your body you would lose a stack of weight. But you’d feel like crap all the time and you would be a VERY unhealthy person with an ever diminishing life span to look forward to with brittle bones, illness and disease in your pension fund.

So my advice to you is probably pretty clear –Don’t buy this book! If you’re after healthy eating advice and want a nutrition plan that fits around YOUR lifestyle that you can maintain day-in, day-out then please get in touch and I would be happy to help. I am starting my own experiment to show how a very simple diet plan and training program can get desired results – no airy fairy mumbo jumbo – back to basics. I’ve teamed up with Protégé London’s managing director Lewis Thorneycroft. He’s a top class personal trainer and strength and conditioning coach. With the plans in place the trial will be starting soon. I’ll keep you updated with the results!

Look after yourself with Probiotics

There are hundreds of different species of bacteria living in our gastrointestinal tracts. Your gut bacteria have many more functions than just aiding digestion. They are responsible for triggering immune system reactions throughout the body and will greatly affect overall physical AND mental health. The ‘good’ bacteria in the gut should make up 85% of your intestinal flora, which allows for the remaining 15% to be pathogenic. Over two-thirds of your immune system relies on this make-up. So let me take you through why your body can benefit from adding probiotics into the mix:

-          Enhance immunity.  This is an important point to consider during pregnancy and breast feeding. A mother passes on her intestinal flora to the baby during the birthing process which essentially sets up the baby’s immune system. During breast feeding the mother’s milk will also contain bacteria from the mother. The immune protection of a mother’s milk is greatly enhanced if the mother is taking probiotics to support her own gut flora.

-          Probiotics can help to reverse and ease gut inflammation which is a leading cause of many ailments such as Ulcers, IBS, Crohn’s Disease, Ulcerative Colitis and IBD.

-          Celiac Disease or Gluten Sensitivity symptoms can be eased by adding probiotics.

-          The increase in processed foods and low fibre diets in the modern world allows for an increase in pathogenic bacteria, over taking the good bacteria, which can diminish colon function. Firstly, CUT the processed food and UP the intake of fresh, fibrous fruit and veg, but secondly, add a probiotic to help your stomach recover.

-          If you repeatedly suffer from yeast infections such as Candida, this could be caused by an imbalance in your intestinal flora. Supplementing with probiotics can help to restore your levels of good: bad bacteria.

-          A healthy gut flora could help to prevent cancer by nourishing the enzymes responsible for inhibiting tumour production throughout the body.

-          Modern-day food processing methods such as the use of Genetically Modified Organisms and antibiotics found in non-organic meat and dairy products can strip the gut of its healthy intestinal flora. It is necessary to add probiotics back to your gut if your diet contains food of this nature.

So where do you get your probiotics from?

You can supplement with probiotics in capsule form. Always be prepared to pay higher end for all of your supplements. This particularly applies to probiotics. You need to ensure the protective capsule is strong enough to withstand the acids in your stomach in order for it to reach your intestinal tract where it is needed.

Do not spend countless money on daily probiotic drinks and yogurts. For my research project during my undergraduate degree I worked on the research for Yakult products. I was looking into the effects the product had on the immune response, as the product was making claims that Yakult could help support your immune defences. Well, I found NO significant difference….needless to say the adverts for these products soon changed and now they just use wishy-washy  claims such as, ‘lots inside’ or ‘billions of bacteria in each little bottle’…..well yes, but it goes no further than the bottle!  

Look out for my next blog post where I’ll be going into more detail on how to sort through the millions of probiotics available to find the best product.

An alternative method of taking in probiotics is through fermented foods such as milk kefir and water kefir which can be consumed daily. You can make your own kefir, just order ‘starter grains’ online or check your nearest health food store and then check out YouTube videos that can take through the process every step of the way.

A healthy gut is vitally important to a healthy body. Support yours with a balanced and varied wholefoods diet, regular exercise and a well-planned supplementation routine.

To find out more on supplementation and discuss what YOUR body requires please contact me for a complimentary half hour consultation.