I feel so strongly about the following subject that I need to break it down into 3 different posts to really convey how bad this problem is.

I am going to start at the local indoor sports centre.

I take my 2 year old daughter to Kinder Gym once a week. It is held at the the local indoor sports centre. They have a gym, personal training, gymnastics, boxing classes, indoor basketball, soccer, table tennis and the list goes on.

I have been going for about 6 weeks now and I normally don’t look at the counter as I walk in but last week Hannah came with me and her first observation was what was on the counter.

There was nothing for sale other than junk food. They had a pretty extensive range too, from dozens of different ice creams, to any chocolate bar you can think of down to lollies like red skins and milkos. Now if you would like something hot, they have a great selection including hot chips, chiko rolls, chicken nuggets etc. Do I need to go on?

This is just crazy. This is meant to be a sports centre! I am not stupid, I know it is up to the individual person to make the decision as to what goes in their mouth, but surely we can help out a bit by providing more nutritious snacks for after exercise other than 100% junk food.

There is no secret as to how tempting junk food is, especially for kids and especially when it is right in their faces all the time!

I don’t know what the answer to this problem is, I just know it is a problem!

What do you think?

Here’s a few things that work for me on the go or at work.

Firstly, plan ahead. Take food from home or at the very least know in advance exactly what you are going to buy for lunch. Don’t just wander aimlessly into the food court and hope that the salad is more appealing than the meat pie, because I’ve got news for you!

Takeaway is expensive, make your lunch at home!

Check out this quick and easy salad to have for lunch or dinner – Yummy Salad

If you get breakfast at work, try poaching your eggs in the microwave – I put boiling water into a cereal bowl, crack in 2 eggs and put in the microwave for 1min 15 seconds. Drain off the water and eat.

Breakfast in the car, bus or train on the way to work – Protein shake bircher muesli – I mix up a berry protein shake and add my serving of rolled oats. Leave over night and drink it down on the way to work.

Always have a packet of almonds in your drawer at work for a snack with an apple.

Sanitarium natural peanut butter is ok spread on crackers. All others have sugar and oil added.

If you have any tips of your own, please share them with us.

I make this salad to serve with any protein accompaniment. It is so easy to make at work, you just wash all the ingredients and throw them in a bowl with the dressing of your choice. No chopping or cooking required.

3 in 1 sprout mix from the fruit and veg shop – It has alfalfa sprouts, snow pea sprouts and mung beans. The brand I get is “Belmore Bean” and it is called “3 in 1 combo”. Chuck in as many as you like of each type.

Grape tomatoes – The tiny ones at the moment are so sweet and juicy. I use about half a punnet for myself per serve.

Baby spinach – As much as you want, the stuff is so good for you.

That’s it, wash it, dress it, eat it with your accompaniment.

Here is an awesome article I came across today written by a nutritionist/blood analyst Christine Pedersen. I couldn’t agree more with what she has to say, so I have taken the bulk of the article below. To view the full article, click here.

Please take the time to read it, it is well worth it. If you don’t have time to read it, I disagree, this is far more important than reading the garbage in today’s paper or the gossip mag’s.

Happy reading.

Life is a series of choices, from when we are babies and all the way through to old age.  We have available to us hundreds of choices for our health and life.    When our bodies are in balance physically, mentally and spiritually, choices come easily and positively. When we get out of balance, it becomes hard to make the right choice.  Small continual good choices will lead us back to health and balance.

Although food would seem to be something our body requires on a physical level to build new cells, to give us energy, to ease hunger, our foods are most important to feed our brain and our heart so we can maintain life.  The choices we make of which foods we put in our bodies sets the basis for physical, mental and spiritual health.

Every single moment of every single day from the moment of our birth, our bodies strive for life – long, energetic, healthy, happy life.  We are beautifully designed to live and to live fully!  (Thank you God!)  We are for sure the most sophisticated “vehicle” on this planet.   Every single moment we are building bone cells, muscle cells, liver cells, pancreas cells, brain cells, skin cells and so on.  In a one year time frame we rebuild and replace every single cell in our bodies.  The catch here is, what quality of raw materials are we putting in while we are building all these cells?

Imagine this, for breakfast you had – nothing! – at school a friend shared some Halloween candy with you, and then for lunch you had – a microwaved fast food and a pop – and then after school for a snack you had – a bag of potato chips and a pop, and even worse a diet pop – and then for dinner you had a packaged mac and cheese, wieners, ketchup and a glass of chocolate milk.

This same day when you woke up, your body was all charged up to make brand new heart cells, and the raw materials you gave your body to do this were – nothing! – so without you even knowing it, your body had to go ahead anyway and make these cells with what it had to work with so they were made smaller, weaker and damaged.  Then as the day goes on, your body had to make bone cells, and again these were made with what you fed yourself.  So the quality of your cells is directly related to the quality of your food.  When this goes on and on for days, and months, and years you can understand how we can slowly, very slowly, lose ground in our life.

Now lets imagine this, for breakfast you have – a large glass of pure water while you are preparing a blender protein drink, Vanilla with frozen strawberries (takes 5 minutes).  You drink this while you are getting dressed and organized for your day.  For a quick mid morning snack you have a small container in your back pack or locker of mixed dried nuts and fruit (your favorites).  For lunch you have a multi whole grain sandwich or tortilla filled with your favorite cheese, lettuce, sprouts, green pepper, cucumber or even a container of chopped carrots, celery, cauliflower, snow peas which you eat along with a handful of raw almonds and pumpkin seeds and mid afternoon have a protein bar and an apple or a fruit bar.  For dinner you have a mixture of 6 steamed veggies along with a small salmon steak and a tossed salad.  And, of course, throughout the whole day you have been drinking pure water from a go bottle that you keep with you.  Probably does not seem like enough food to get you through the day but it is 1000 times more actual useful food than the other day listed.

When we eat food that is not recognizable by the human body, our bodies have to do their work anyway so have to use up our reserves.  From the moment of birth we have reserves set aside in a “bank” which our body is meant to use when we are in a crisis such as when we get a cold or have the flu, in an accident when extra healing is needed, when we diet or refuse to eat, or when we choose poor quality foods. When we eat poorly continuously, we overdraw our “bank” dangerously.  These reserves are also meant for when we need to do major bone building, teeth building, brain building, etc.  When we do not have enough minerals for building our bones or teeth, our body sends us a powerful message which we call “pain.”  When our legs burn, or our back aches, or our teeth are highly sensitive and hurt us, these are all messages from our body that it does not have enough raw materials to work with.  We are so incredibly designed that we are given “pain” as a message to alert us that something is out of balance and needs to be corrected.

There are several essential raw materials and building blocks for life:

1. Water – pure and clean (not chlorinated) 
2. Minerals and vitamins from whole foods 
3. Essential fatty acids from Omega 3 and 6 oils 
4. Enzymes from living plants 
5. Friendly bacteria (probiotics) 
6. Plant based proteins

These building blocks are needed every single day of our lives.   When any, or worse yet, all of these are missing, we get off balance and our brain will give us a strong message by slowing the entire body down and we will experience tiredness – the very first sign of imbalance or in other words, disease.

Often when we experience tiredness, we put something into our bodies to give us energy – this is the correct thing to do – but we often make the wrong choice here.  A good choice would be several of the above listed essential foods; however, we often choose caffeine from pop, coffee, chocolate or sugar. Although it perks us up quickly and temporarily, it definitely will not be used by the body for rebuilding or health.  In fact, it only makes us think we have more energy, when in reality it is doing major harm to our cells and our brain.  This is when depression creeps in, another sign from our bodies that we need better choices and nutrition.

When most of the foods that are going into our mouths are “acidic” in nature, they have to be continually neutralized with minerals from our bones and muscles.  All packaged, processed, fast, microwaved, deep fried foods are acidic.  All animal products including meats, fish, dairy (milk, cheese, yogurt) are acidic.  Only fruits and vegetables are alkaline and only alkaline foods neutralize acidity.  External sources of acidity are smoking, drugs, medications, heavy exercise, environmental toxins from shampoos, skin care products, etc. and stress which is the biggest cause of acidity and “dis-ease” in our bodies.  A balance of 70% alkaline and 30% acidic in our bodies and in our meals is ideal.

When we become deficient in minerals because of too much acidity developing in our bodies, we become agitated, nervous, “stressed out,”  tired, can’t deal with life, or in other words, depressed.  Minerals, along with enzymes, are the essence of life in our bodies and in every single cell of our bodies.  Minerals and enzymes come from plants and that is how we are meant to get them.

Yesterday whilst litening to the radio in the car, a woman rang in to make a complaint about KFC. Now she opened by stating that she is 8 1/2 months pregnant, so she is eating whatever she wants.

Now this says to me she is fully aware of how bad KFC is for you and the social stigma associated with eating such crap, so she justified herself by stating that she is growing a foetus inside of her and that she has the right to feed that foetus whatever garbage she decides, simply because she is fat anyway.

Now this is not uncommon. I remember when my wife was pregnant and because she continued to eat healthily as she always did, the women in the office would gather around her and say – “You know you can eat whatever you want now, you’re going to get fat anyway”.

These are the same women who will complain about their weight day in and day out, will go on and off diets for the rest of their lives and will bitch about someone who has a better body than them to make themselves feel better.

One of the girls in my wife’s mothers group has an overweight friend who said – ” I can’t wait to get pregnant again so I can justify being fat”. No joke, she actually said that. Her friend thought as she was hearing it – “Why don’t you just lose weight”. But, she couldn’t say that, she could only think it, because you’re not allowed to tell people they are fat, you can only tell people they are too skinny or they should eat more junk food.

Just the same as you can’t make someone feel bad for stuffing a large piece of chocolate cake in their mouth, but you can make them feel bad for not stuffing that same piece of chocolate cake in their mouth and choosing an apple instead.

What you will find is that people will be constantly encouraging you to eat crap, so that they can feel beter about eating it themselves.

Be strong willed, don’t let them get to you, be healthy and if you are pregnant or trying to get pregnant, please feed your foetus healthy nutritious food!

As a little related side note, last night I was watching “The Office”. One of the averweight guys has a heart attack as a result of one of his fellow employees playing a practical joke. The boss says – “You gave Stanley a heart attack”. His response was – “Yes, I shoved butter and sugar in his mouth and forced him not to exercise for the last 50 years”.

Only in a TV show could we get away with that honesty.

I am just going to tell you guys what I take and why I take it.

I feel great all the time and I rarely get sick. I am a normal weight and I don’t do anything extreme. I exercise most days at a high intensity. I eat healthy and try to minimise sugar and I take these 4 supplements regularly.

1) Juice Plus: Fruit and vegetable capsules. I don’t care how much fruit and veg you or I eat, you need more. We get all of our vitamins and minerals from fruit and veg and this is how we build strong immune systems to fight against disease and illness.

Multivitamins are a waste of money, they are manufactued in a factory and you pee them out. You shouldn’t be trying to isolate any particular vitamins and feed them to your body. Juice plus is a whole food supplement, meaning it is 16 fruits and vegetables dehydrated and stuck into a gelatine capsule without the sugar.

Where to get it – Contact me and I will get it from my nutritionist for you. It’s not cheap, but it’s cheaper than a coffee a day and so worth every cent.

When to take it – Daily

2) Protein powder: Optimum nutrition – Natural 100% whey protein, strawberry or vanilla flavour. The chocolate is gross.

Many of us don’t get enough protein in our diets, so a protein power can be a great option. It also makes for a low calorie, low carbohydrate snack. It is quick and easy to prepare if you don;t have time to prepare a snack at work.

Most protein powders are full of so many chemicals and weird ingredients, this is the most natural one I have found on the market. In fact it’s all natural.

Where to get it – I buy it from a website called vitaminking.com. It is a lot cheaper than the shops and they send it to your door for $5 http://www.vitaminking.com.au/100-natural-whey-protein-by-optimum.html

When to take it – Up to your indiviual needs.

3) Fish oil capsules: Any reputable brand should be ok. Fish oil is great for brain function, joint function and maintaining healthy cholesterol levels and fighting against coronary heart disease.

Where to get it – Your local supermarket or health food store. You can get bulk containers which makes it fairly cheap.

When to take it - Daily

4) Psylium husk: This is just fibre. Your body won’t digest it, it will absorb water and pass through your colon and pick up lots of crap on it’s way out the other end. Great for cleaning out your colon and fighting against bowel cancer. 

Where to get it – Your local supermarket or health food store. Buy a large bag for about $6 which will last for ages.

When to take it – 1 teaspoon mixed in a glass of water daily for the first couple of weeks. By then you should be somewhat cleaned out, so 2 – 3 times a week should be fine from then on. If you aren’t noticing much difference when you go to the toilet, try a tablespoon instead.

There you have it, other than that, eat plenty of veggies and salad and lean protein, some fruit, nuts and grains. Drink plenty of filtered water, move daily and sleep well.

This is an example of what you could eat and still be considerably reducing your sugar intake. You don’t have to follow it to the letter, but it can help if you are stuck for things to eat.

This food plan is totally managable. There is nothing drastic on there, just healthy eating.
What you will notice is the lack of:
*So called healthy breakfast cereals
*Bread several times a day
*Various bread products – only mutligrain types are allowed, soy linseed is the best.
*High calorie no nutrient spread for bread
*Lots of pasta and rice dishes. Any pasta meal should be a large salad with a small pasta. Generally pasta is the main item with a small salad on the side, but not here!
*Biscuits or muffin for morning/afternoon tea.
*Fruit on it’s own. Should be with nuts or protein shake.
*Dessert – it is only a habit. Brush your teeth after dinner.
*High sugar yogurts. If you can find one that has less than 10g sugar per 100g yogurt, then you can eat it. About 100 – 150g is a fair portion size.

Note:
All meats should be lean, I do not want you to increase your saturated fat intake.
Olive oil dressings on salads are best.
Getting good fats from Olive/flaxseed oils, nuts and fish are great.

With summer fast approaching, everybody starts to panic about getting their winter bodies out. Most of us had grand intentions over the past few months of getting in great shape and some of us have. Unfortunately though many of us have slipped up far too aften and the results we should have achieved didn’t come to fruition.

Add to this, the party season approaching in December and we have a recipe for 1 piece costumes at the beach and ankle length skirts for the girls. Guys, that 6 pack you dreamed of sporting at the beach this year looks more like a keg than a 6 pack.

But, there is hope. Make November your best month to date!

Join the No sugar challenge!

Here’s the rules:

All rules apply for the entire month of November. 

When you mess up, which I am sure you will, at least once. You have to write down what you did on the blog for everyone to see. This alone will help to keep you on track. There is nothing like being accountable to keep you on track, let alone being accountable to everyone in the challenge!

No refined sugar at all.

No sugar in tea or coffee.

No artificial sweeteners either! 

No cakes, chocolates, lollies, soft drinks etc

No bottled fruit juice

No alcohol

No dried fruit

Only 2 serves of fruit per day

No sweetened yogurt

No white potato

Only mulitgrain bread if you must have bread

Only basmati rice if you must have rice

Pasta no more than twice a week

If you follow this, you are sure to trim away the bodyfat. I don’t like to make outrageous comments, but I am positive if you follow these rules, you will get leaner!

It really doesn’t take that long to change your tastebuds and reduce the amount of sugar in your diet. Try it for 30 days and see how you feel. Other than being thinner and healthier, I bet you won’t crave it as much either!

If you are keen to join the challenge, enter your name in the comments and any other info you might like to add and then consider yourself part of the challenge.

I hope by the 31st October we have a large list of names to join the challenge.

After my recent posts on how sugar is making you fat and sick, I had a lot of people asking me what they should eat, if they are trying to eliminate sugar from their diet. It sounded like some people may be taking it to the extremes, so I am going to give you some sensible advice about how to minimise the affects of insulin on your body. These points below are easy to follow ways to help reduce the sugar in your diet.

1) Eliminate as much refined sugar form your diet as possible.

What does that mean? Don’t eat any cakes, lollies, jellies, ice-cream, chocolate, etc, etc, etc. If you simply must eat this garbage then limit it to once per week. That is somewhat acceptable.

2) When eating carbohydrates, choose low glycemic carbohydrates. 

What does that mean? Low glycemic carbohydrates will not cause the sudden rise in blood sugar levels thus triggering the release of insulin. To find out whether a food is low or high glycemic, try this link, they have a fairly substantial database of foods,www.glycemicindex.com

3) Limit fruit to 2 pieces per day and when you eat a piece of fruit, eat some nuts with it.

The fat and protein in the nuts will help to mellow out the affects of the sugar.

4) Try to base your lunch and dinner around salad and/or veggies with protein.

Most people base their lunch and dinner around starch such as pasta, rince, potato etc. It doesn’t take long to change your habits to eat more veggies and salad. Not only is this beneficial in reducing the amount of starch you are eating, but it drmatically increases your vitamin and mineral intake form the veggies and we all know how beneficial it is to be getting all those natural vitamins and minerals!

5) Don’t think of sweetened yogurt as a health food.

Sweetened yogurt contains on average 15g sugar per 100g, some more, some slightly less. Not much different from ice cream! Natural yogurt is a different story, with around 5 or 6 grams of sugar per 100g.

6) If you are really craving a dessert and you must have it, choose ice cream.

As mentioned above, it can have anywhere from 15 to 30g sugar per 100g. A typical block of chocolate will have 60g sugar per 100g.

7) If you are having dairy, choose full fat.

Why? 2 reasons;

a) Most low fat products have has more sugar added to make up for the lack of flavour when fat is removed.

b) When you don’t have any fat present, the affects of the sugar on you rblood sugar is more dramatic. Fat will help to mellow out the spike in the blood sugar.

8 ) Don’t have sugar in your coffee or tea.

Add up how much sugar you put in your caffeine and you’ll be surprised.

9) Never ever drink soft drinks.

They are just empty sugar calories. 

It really doesn’t take that long to change your tastebuds and reduce the amount of sugar in your diet. Try it for 30 days and see how you feel. Other than being thinner and healthier, I bet you won’t crave it as much either!