Effects of unhealthy diet

Hi everyone, it's great to be back after a lovely quick break. We have had 3 Bootcamps since my return and everyone has been putting in a fantastic effort especially considering the hot weather we have been having.

Brooke had her measurements taken yesterday and she has lost another 17.5cm in the past 4 weeks, so a huge 'well done' to her. Keep up the great work.

I wanted to write today about non-insulin dependant diabetes, which is a very common condition these days. Even more so than you think and unless you are eating healthy foods almost all the time, you are very likely to develop this condition yourself. It used to be called adult onset diabetes but now it is so common in young people, including children, that the name does not fit the disease anymore.

Insulin resistance is basically when the body becomes resistant to the effects of insulin. Insulin is one of the most powerful and important hormones in the body and it's job is to get energy (in the form of glucose) from your blood into your cells and regulate blood sugar levels. Without it, you would die as your body would not be able to use the energy (glucose) that your diet supplies no matter what or how much you consume. People who cannot produce their own insulin have Insulin Dependent Diabetes and must use insulin injections instead to prevent hyperglycaemia, coma and eventually death.

A diet too high in carbohydrates and a lack of exercise are two of the leading causes of insulin resistance. When you eat carbohydrates, glucose is released into the bloodstream. This signals your body to produce insulin to take some of this energy to the cells for immmediate energy. It also converts some to glycogen which is sent to the liver and muscle tissue for short term storage. This energy can be used when blood sugar levels drop again. This short term storage is limited and so excess glucose is converted to body fat for long term storage.

This system works really well most of the time, but an excess of carbohydrates and certain kinds of carbohydrates are more quickly converted to glucose and cause a flood of glucose into your bloodstream. This causes an equally large surge of insulin which causes your blood sugar to drop very quickly and triggers fatigue and cravings for more carbohydrates. When this happens regularly, your insulin levels remain high and your body struggles to convert all the glucose properly. It then continues to produce insulin in an attempt to overcome this and eventually the receptors in the cell membranes become less and less effective in recognising the hormone insulin. Another side effect of the glucose that remains circulating in your bloodstream is that it begins to effect your heart, kidneys, nerves, eyes and blood vessels. I am sure that you have heard of amputations and blindness being caused by diabetes.

Eventually your pancreas is unable to supply enough insulin to maintain stable blood sugar levels and your blood sugar rises above normal levels. At this stage you may be diagnosed as having Non Insulin Dependent Diabetes. If you do not get this under control (because you don't change your dietary and exercise habits or you haven't been diagnosed and don't know you have it) your pancreas will eventually falter and be unable to keep up with this condition. This may lead to having to take insulin injections as you progress to having Insulin Dependent Diabetes. (The cause is different to people who experience Insulin Dependent Diabetes from childhood)

If detected early, this condition can be managed and full blown diabetes can be prevented. Don't wait till you have been diagnosed, do something about it now. Clean up your diet and exercise regularly.
Some preliminary symptoms include but are not limited to:

Anxiety, fatigue, sleeplessness, head aches, palpitations

Eating in response to emotions

Cravings for high carb foods

Overweight

Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome

Frequent hunger or thirst

Dizzy spells

Pins and needles

These are just some of the signs and you may have all or none of them. (these symptoms can also mean other things so check with your doctor if suffer from any of them)

Please note that I am not recommending that you do not eat carbohydrates. What I am recommending (after studying loads of research) is that you change your sources of carbohydrates to fruits, vegetables, some yoghurt and limit your intake of grain based carbohydrate foods like breads, pastas cakes, pastries, biscuits, sweets etc.

I am also researching at the moment on the latest info that says it is actually our overconsumption of carbohydrate foods of this type and not our saturated fat intake that is increasing the rate of heart attacks, stroke, high cholesterol etc. I will bring you more on that later.

The above is a simplified, but accurate, version of how your body works in regard to insulin production. If you are interested, I can recommend good books that provide more information on this.

Please also think about this stuff and how it relates not only to yourself, but to your loved ones as well. For instance, don't let your kids get to the stage where they worry about how they are going to lose the excess weight and get their health problems under control. Teach them now about healthy foods and encourage them to eat a variety of real foods rather than filling them up on junk. Just remove the junk from the house and take healthy foods with you when going out. It can be done and they will not starve when they refuse to eat it. Don't give in-this is their health and yours that we are dealing with.

Remember when party food was only eaten at parties?? Now it is a regular addition to peoples' diets several times every day.

Don't forget Bootcamp this evening at 5.30pm (Tuesday-bring plenty to drink!!

Jo

What are we eating?

I'm not the only one raving about eating real food. There is a plethora of information about it on the net. Here is a really short article about going to the supermarket.




"Look On Aisle 5 was written by Virginia Bola, PsyD from DietWithAnAttitude.com

Have you ever stopped to calculate how much time you spend in each section of the supermarket?

Apart from the non-food areas of drug store supplies, rubber goods, and diapers, most stores have about 10 distinct food areas: produce, dairy, meat, ethnic foods and pasta, canned foods, prepared foods, drinks, frozen foods, snacks, and deli.

The areas where most of our intake should focus, if we are watching our weight and our health, are always on the edges, against the wall: produce, meat, dairy. We can easily navigate through 80 or 90 percent of the store without bumping into them.

Next week, I’ll get vegetables, we promise, as we wade into the packaged and frozen foods that fit so much more neatly into our time-starved, rat-race lives. It is so much less time and trouble to microwave a plate than slow simmer or steam something, plus there’s all that cutting and chopping time we just can’t spare.

The frozen stuff doesn’t taste as good but luckily the manufacturers figured that out and added butter sauce or cheese sauce to give it more flavor, a few nuts or other crispy additions to add some snap – nothing is plain any more.

We stock up on packages loaded with chemicals we can’t even pronounce. We pick up bags of quick snacks with nary a nutrient in the bunch. We throw fluffy breads and crackers into our cart, knowing they are merely edible plates.

Ten years ago, I lived in a Korean neighborhood. I couldn’t read half of the market’s signs and ingredients but shopped there anyway because of the atmosphere, dominated by an enormous variety of produce that took up at least half the store’s space. Trying totally new, strange-looking roots and fruits was exciting: sometimes marvelous, occasionally vile.

We have taken our markets into the age of the superstores where everything is available but nothing is natural. What are we doing to our poor bodies? We feed them junk and then spend a fortune on trying to acquire the "natural" look. Fat chance (pun intentional)!"

There is more info about this at www.fitterfasteronline.com

Eggs for breakfast

Just a quickie this afternoon. As most of you who have purchased my meal plans know, I am a huge fan of eggs for breakfast. Check out this latest research.

Eggs for brekkie helps weight
loss
Recent research from the US has indicated
that eating eggs may assist weight loss
and increase energy levels in overweight
individuals.
A two-month study of overweight and
obese adults, led by Nikhil Dhurandhar
an associate professor in the laboratory
of infection and obesity at Pennington
Biomedical Research Centre, Louisiana State
University, discovered a positive association
between egg consumption and weight loss.
Study participants who ate two eggs in the
morning, as part of a calorie-reduced diet,
lost 65 per cent more weight than their study
counterparts who ate bagels for breakfast,
and also displayed a 61 per cent greater
reduction in body mass index and increased
energy levels.
‘People have a hard time adhering to
diets, and our research shows that choosing
eggs for breakfast can dramatically improve
the success of a weight loss plan. Apparently,
the increased satiety and energy due to eggs
helps people better comply with a reducedcalorie
diet’ said Dhurandhar. The study was
funded by the Egg Nutrition Centre.
Source: International Journal of Obesity.

How about that!! For other great diet tips see www.fitterfasteronline.com

Jo

Low carb diets?

Hi again everyone

As you all know, I recommend a diet that consists mostly of non processed foods such as fruit, vegetables, eggs, meats and fish. I read an interesting article which talks about this and low carb diets I have included below.

Please note that I do not necessarily recommend a low carb diet. Of course a diet that does not include a lot of bread, pasta, rice etc will be lower in carbs naturally. Fruits and vegies contain lots of carbs too though, but they also have loads of water and fibre which makes them extremely hard to consume too many calories with.

www.ThePaleoDiet.com
Loren Cordain, Ph.D.
Issue: # 2008 - 10 / September 19, 2008


Hello! Welcome to The Paleo Diet Update, your guide to eating for optimum health. The Paleo Diet is based on the simple concept that the healthiest diet is one which attempts to mimic the diet that we evolved to eat.

Until the invention of agriculture a mere 333 generations ago, humans rarely had access to high amounts of carbohydrate containing foods. When farming replaced the hunter-gather lifestyle, the macronutrient content of the human diet changed dramatically. Today most people consume bread, rice, pasta, sugar, and other high carbohydrate foods with virtually every meal. Others have heard the message about the benefits of reducing carbohydrates, but may go too far too quickly.



People who go on a low-carb diet will sometimes report feeling weak or light headed during the first few days on their new eating pattern.

Whether this happens depends on two main factors: 1) the total carbohydrate restriction and, 2) the total caloric restriction.

Popular low carb diets typically restrict carb calories to 50 grams (~200 kcal) or 100 grams (~400 kcal). If the diet is low in calories and carbs are restricted to less than 100 grams, many people will feel weakness because their muscle and liver glycogen stores will become depleted and they must rely upon beta oxidation (the metabolism of triglyceride) as their primary substrate source.

Additionally, the brain can only use glucose as an energy source, hence hepatic gluconeogenesis (the synthesis of glucose from either protein or fat in the liver) represents the primary glucose source. However, gluconeogenesis is inefficient and can only supply small quantities of glucose.

All of these metabolic adaptations - beta oxidation, hepatic gluconeogenesis and ketosis (a by product of carbohydrate restriction and beta oxidation) - upset homeostatic mechanisms shaped by a lifetime of high carb intakes for the average Westerner.

With the Paleo Diet, we advise people to get all of their carbohydrates from fruits and vegetables and to restrict grains, sugars, legumes and processed foods. Carbohydrates are not restricted on the Paleo Diet, but because fruits and vegetables contain so much fiber and water, it is difficult to consume more than about 30 percent of the daily energy from these foods.

Most people don't experience weakness or lethargy upon adoption of the Paleo Diet, but rather the opposite. Their energy levels remain stable over the course of the day.

I think that he has hit the nail on the head here. Low carb diets do usually work in the short term, but are very hard to maintain and have their own set of side effects.

Sometimes we do need loads more carbs than this type of diet can supply however. For instance I am presently training really hard and long for a half ironman distance traithlon in a couple of months. I use carbohydrate sports drinks while training and sometimes afterwards for recovery. I need to do this as I am using very high intensity training usually twice a day for up to 14 hours per week.

The average person will not need to supplement their diet with extra carbs if they are consuming lots of fruits and vegetables. Fruits and vegetables also have many other health benefits such as fibre, vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals that are vital to our healthy existence.

So heap up those plates and get training.

Jo

Sample healthy meal plans for weight loss

Hi guys

Well I have had such a great response to the launch of my website and received heaps of questions. One of the most common questions has been "what do I eat?"

Most of you want to lose some weight. I am going to put a couple of sample days plans together here. Now these are not 'diets' in the traditional sense. These are examples of how you should be eating every day, not just till christmas or till the wedding or whatever.

These two sample days do not allow for any 'treats'. Make sure that twice per week-no more you allow yourself a treat. Do not go way overboard though. The more you cheat, the slower the weight loss will be. Have your treat with one of the meals. If you find that you are hungry, you are not eating enough. Increase the size of the servings!!

First rule: Eat every 2-3 hours!!! I cannot stress this enough. If it is less than 2 hours since your last meal, do not eat. If it gets to the 3 hour mark, you need to eat right now.

Second rule: Eat protein at every meal there are several reasons for this which I will go into in a future post. Very very important

Third rule: Eat salad, fruit and vegies till satisfied You should not be hungry eating like this. If you are, eat more fresh fruit, salad vegetables or steamed vegetables at your meals. When I say huge serving, I mean HUGE as any of you that know me personally can testify to. You will probably find yourself thinking 'gee is it time to eat again?'



DAY ONE SAMPLE MENU

Meal One
2 whole eggs, poached, fried (just a spray of olive oil), scrambled or cooked into omelette.
1 piece of wholemeal or wholegrain toast-no spreads
You can add grilled tomatoes if you want, or add onion, capsicum etc to eggs

Meal Two
1-2 pieces of fruit
1 protein shake with water (no carbs)

Meal Three
approx 100g chicken
steamed vegetables- cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, sweet peas, zucchini, capsicum etc
1 small steamed potato is optional

Meal Four
200g full cream yoghurt
fresh fruit-I cut mine and put it into vanilla yoghurt

Meal Five
approx 120-140g chicken, lean beef or lean lamb
huge salad-no dressing mix it up and have heaps of different salad vegies

Meal Six
1 piece of fresh fruit or 3/4 cup of canned fruit no added sugar
1 protein shake with water (no carbs)

DAY TWO SAMPLE MENU

Meal One
200g full cream yoghurt (300g if you did one of my workouts beforehand)
no sugar added canned fruit or fresh fruit (enough fruit to satisfy hunger)

Meal Two
approx 100g of left over chicken, lamb or beef from last night's meal
with medium salad

Meal Three
150g white fish or 100g salmon
large serve of steamed vegetables as in day one OR huge salad
Optional small/medium steamed potato

Meal Four
1-3 pieces of fruit
1 protein shake with water (I blend together my shake with fresh strawberries and canned pears or even frozen berries and water)

Meal Five
120-140g chicken, beef or lamb
huge serve of steamed vegies or huge salad

Meal Six
100g plain cottage cheese mixed with 1 teaspoon of jam
Add strawberries if you want. Tastes like dessert, but cottage cheese is high in protein and low in fat and carbs.

Now remember these are just samples of what I would eat in a day. I also add some chocolate about once per week, usually to meal six. Most Saturdays, I have pizza for tea. I have a vegetarian one that does not have much cheese and I get extra vegies on it. I eat 1-2 pieces and then pick the grilled toppings off the rest. Yum! Depending on my protein intake for the rest of the day, I may also have a protein shake with it.

You can also alter the order of the meals by swapping Meals two, three or six around with each other. It all just takes preparation. Cook extra meat the night before and pack with salad to take to work. You can easily steam vegies in the microwave a t work too. Even though I have included protein shakes in the menu samples, I still want everyone to eat heaps of real unprocessed foods. Protein shakes are just a great way to get the protein in when you are on the go.

If you would like an individual plan made up, go to Customised Nutrition Plans. These plans include a base daily schedule and food lists from which you choose. That way I can include foods that you like and vice versa for ones you don't.


Give it a try. You will definately lose weight, but even better, you will improve your health and feel heaps better.

Jo

PS and don't forget to sign up for my newsletter at www.fitterfasteronline.com

the diet solution

I found this great product the other day and agree with the principles included. Basically it recommends eating natural foods and choosing health as a means to a fit lean body when it comes to nutrition. Check it out here The Diet Solution

for free nutritional advice you can check out my website at http://www.fitterfasteronline.com/

And remember that the best thing to do to improve your body is just something. Get up right now and do a 20 minute fat blasting cardio session. Decide not to eat that biscuit or piece of cake. Right now, do something that will get you closer to your goal.

It doesnt matter if you have kids home sick or you have the baby there. Do it anyway. You will be surprised how they love to watch, and my kids join in all the time. You just need a small space and your bodyweight. Do an interval session of lunges and squats. Jump rope or do step ups for 30 seconds on and 30 seconds off. Get huffing and puffing, that is a sure sign it is working. And yes, you can train like this every day. YOU WILL NOT OVERTRAIN unless you are doing several sessions every day and not eating and sleeping properly.

NO EXCUSES JUST DO SOMETHING NOW!!

Jo