I recently wrote about how sugar could be making you fat, read the article here. Now I want to talk about how sugar could be making you sick.

Most people acknowledge sugar is bad for you but few really understand how bad it actually is.

One thing you need to know is that you cannot eat sugar without causing a rise in insulin.

Here is a list of problems that have been associated with consuming sugar and the rise in insulin associated with it. I will not go into too much detail as I would be writing for days, but here is a summary:

* Sugar blocks the amount of vitamin C absorbed into our white blood cells. Vitamin C is essential to a healthy immune system.

* Sugar is devoid of any vitamins and minerals so it enters our bodies and robs essential vitamins and minerals from our muscles, bones, brains and other tissues.

*1 molecule of Sugar requires 56 molecules of magnesium to be metabolised which will lead to a magnesium defficiency. Magnesium defficiency is related to high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes and neurological problems.

* Consuming sugar will cause a sudden and dramatic release of insulin into the body. Over time this constant elevation of insulin levels will lead to insulin resistance or Type II diabetes.

* Insulin helps to store magnesium. If you become insulin resistant, your ability to store magnesium will be compromised leading to the magnesium defficiency and it’s related health problems listed above. Mainly high blood pressure.

* Insulin resistance is a factor in osteoporosis. Insulin helps control growth hormone, testosterone and progesterone. If these hormones are reduced, bone building is reduced and osteoporosis is a concern.

* Insulin resistance causes elevated levels of triglycerides. This is a major factor in heart disease and stroke. Most people think fat is the problem, but if we think about it, we all know this isn’t the case. Here’s a simple test; Do you or someone close to you have high cholesterol? Do you or they eat a high fat diet or high carbohydrate/sugar diet? The proof of the pudding lies in the eating. Literally! In the 80’s there was a push to cut down on our fat intake in order to reduce heart attacks. This fat replaced with an increase in sugar for flavour in our foods. This has led us to an increase in heart attackes, cardiovascular disease, obesity and metabolic syndrome. 

Yet, they still push the low fat theory for reducing heart disease etc. In what other place would you ever find a theory that causes the exact opposite of what it is meant to yet we still listen to it and believe it and die by it?

* Insulin resistance plays a major role in depression, fatigue and moodiness.

* Sugar is bad for your gut flora. It encourages the growth of parasites, worms, fungus and candida.

* Insulin plays a large part in cancer. I’m not going too deep into this one, but I have done my research and so should you for such an important issue. All of us know somebody who had been affected by cancer, but there are ways to help reduce your risk and killing your sugar consumption is the best place to start. Kill the sugar or let it kill you.

* Sugar makes you fat.

The American Diabetic Association lists sugar in the top 3 causes of degenerative disease.

I think we all need to take the idea of quitting sugar seriously.

I think we need a sugarholics anonymous!

What if everytime you ate a chocolate bar you had a heart attack. Woud you eat a chocolate bar again?

What if everytime you drank a cocktail you immediately got a serious illness die to your weakened immune system. Would you have 5 cocktails next Saturday night?

What if everytime you ate a bag of potato chips you suffered a stroke. Would you pick them as a snack again.

What if everytime you drank a bottle of fruit juice or soft drink you went into a state of depression? Would you choose it over water next time?

Sugar is killing us slowly. So slowly we don’t even notice it. Until it’s too late or as most people will say, just bad luck….

Is Sugar making you fat?

ABSOLUTELY!

There are so may reasons not to eat sugar that I am going to break this down into 2 entries. This first one will talk about weight loss. The next one about how sugar is responsible for a whole range of health problems. To view this article, enter here.

Firstly, let me ask you this question:

Are you overweight or at the very least, can’t shift the muffin tops?

Now let me ask you:

Do you eat a high fat diet?

or

Do you eat a high carbohydrate diet?

I personally don’t know anyone who eats a high fat diet. It is so hard these days with half the supermarket filled with low fat everything.

I personally do know lots of people who eat high sugar diets and this is why people are fat! If eating a low fat diet made you lose weight, then why so many fat people? Am I wrong? Think about your own diet.

When we eat/drink sugar or a food that turns into sugar, that sugar is delivered into our blood stream. This results in high blood sugar levels. Your body does not like high blood sugar levels, so it releases insulin from the pancreas. The insulin pulls the sugar out of the blood stream and delivers it to your muscles and liver and anything left over is stored as fat. There’s one more critical factor here. When there is insulin circulating in your system, your fat cells are immobilized. So when you eat sugar, you can bet that you won’t be burning any fat for up to 6 hours.

How does that sound? Eat sugar and don’t burn any fat for hours. Does that sound like something you want happening in your body?

I think it is funny when somebody tells me they love eating sweets and that it isn’t a big deal. They feel that so long as they are not eating loads of fat then they are fine. What a mistake. That sugar is converted to fat very quickly!

I do however understand that sugar is highly addictive and so should you.

Here are a few questions to determine whether you might be addicted to sugar:

Do you use sweets as a reward?

Do you eat sweets when you feel down or stressed?

Do you eat sweets even when you’re not hungry?

Have you said you are going to give up sweets but find yourself eating them a few days later?

Do you make jokes about how you just love eating sweets and don’t have an interest in cutting back?

Do you take a small bite of something sweet and then can’t resist eating the whole thing?

Do you ever binge on sweets?

What do you think, are you possibly addicted to the sweet stuff?

There are a whole range of problems that sugar can cause in the body and I will go through that soon, but for now, I only have one very, very important thing to say to all of you;

STOP EATING SUGAR OR FOODS THAT TURN INTO SUGAR AND START LOSING WEIGHT NOW!

What do I mean by foods that turn into sugar?

I am basically referring to the glycemic index. The glycemic index refers to how quickly a food turns into sugar in your body. The higher the ranking, the quicker it turns into sugar. Eating low glycemic foods are the best. Bear in mind that only carbohydrates are on the glycemic index because they are what turn into sugar. By carbohydrates, I am referring to anything from chocolate cake to carrots, weetbix to grapes, lollipops to strawberries. They all have different rankings and turn into sugar at different rates. You might be surprised at some of the findings. I recommend buying a glycemic book with charts or find a good webpage with charts on it to help you make wise choices.

Here is a little tip; When eating carbohydrates, try eating some fat and protein with them. This will slow the affect on the blood sugar levels as the body has to process everything together and isn’t just converting the carbs to sugar. Combining the fat and protein with the sugar dulls out the affect to some degree.

For example, combine your fruit with nuts, choose whole fruit over fruit juice, have protein on whole grain sandwiches.

Lastly, I just want to say again STOP EATING SUGAR OR FOODS THAT TURN INTO SUGAR AND START LOSING WEIGHT NOW!

If you think I may be wrong then I encourage you to stop eating sugar or foods that turn into sugar for 30 days and see what happens. What have you got to lose other than your gut?

To view my article on how sugar could be making you sick, enter here.

The most common thing I get asked when I recommend someone eat more eggs is “Aren’t eggs bad for you?”

The short answer to that is NO!

Now, ask me if eggs are good for you…

Hey Troy, are eggs good for me?

YES, they are, thanks for asking.

And here’s why…

• 1 eggs contains just 75 calories.
• 1 egg contains 6 grams of protein and all 9 essential amino acids.
• Eggs are one of the few foods that contain naturally occurring vitamin D.
• Eggs contain Lutein and zeaxanthin. Huh? It’s good for your eyes and can help reduce cataracts and macular degeneration. Oh.
• 1 egg contains 300 grams of choline, a member of the vitamin B family which is essential for normal himan function and regulates the cardiovascular and nervous systems. It is also great for pregnant women to help development of unborn children.
• Eggs also contain; calcium, biotin, folate, iodine, iron, zinc, magnese, magnesium, copper, sodium, thiamine, potassium, selenium, vitamins (A, B2, B12 and E).

WOW, they sound like a wonder food. So why all the bad press?

Well, if you take note of the latest research, even the experts are saying that aggs aren’t bad for us. 

Here’s a few things to take note of and you can make up your mind.

• Eggs do contain cholesterol, but no saturated fat. Saturated fat is our real enemy. Most people are happy to eat a steak or lamb chop loaded with saturated fat, but wince at the idea of eating an egg??? How about the saturated fat in cakes, full fat dairy and takeaways? 
• There have been studies showing that a diet high in egg consumption can possibly lower cholesterol due to the eggs shutting down the body’s production of cholesterol.
• There have been numerous studies conducted at Universities all over the world to keep people like you happy and here’s what they have found; Egg consumption did not cause a spike on cholesterol levels or an increased risk in cardiac risk. Eggs may actually help lower blood pressure.

Now I am not saying that eggs are a miracle food, but I will tell you this. I eat a diet low in saturated fat. I eat a minimum of 2 eggs per day and I most certainly do not have high cholesterol. How about you?

Yours in Fitness

Troy Shipsey

Centennial Park & Randwick Personal Trainer I’ll get you fit’n'healthy

With all of the info around at the moment, I thought I would give you a brief explanation of why it is that we do certain things if we want to lose weight.

I hope with this understanding, you will be able to make better choices and not follow fads or be sucked in by headlines in magazines.

What is the most effective weight loss mechanism? Our metabolism! The calories that are burnt while our body carries out it’s own internal functions.

Why do we train at all then? We want to burn more calories. calories are a unit of energy that we receive when we eat food or drink beverages other than water. If that energy is not used, it will be stored as fat.

Why do we train aerobically? Aerobic training increases fitness levels, helps our health and most importantly for a lot of people, it burns calories. It burns calories at the time of training and during the recovery hours after the training. With the chronic changes that effect our blood and organs, we will speed our metabolism.

Why do we train weights? Weight lifting gives us more muscle tone and being stronger helps us in everyday life. We burn calories during a weights workout and in the recovery time after the workout, but the most important reason is that more lean muscle mass createsa faster metabolism by needing to use more energy to support the newly created muscle mass.

Why do we walk? Most of us don’t move enough! We wake up, drive to work, sit at our desk and then drive home to have dinner and go to bed. We NEED more movement in our lives! Don’t you wonder why we are a population that is getting bigger and bigger?

Why do we eat regularly? When we eat regularly, our bodies need to process the food, thus speeding our metabolism. If we leave large gaps in between meals, our body may think it is starving and it will hold onto the food we put in, not knowing when the next meal may come. By adding food regularly, we eliminate this problem.

Why do we eat more protein and less carbohydrates? Protein is the building block of the body, our growth and repair rely on the amino acids that are found in protein. 

Carbohydrates give us energy. If you consume too much energy without burning it away, it will be stored as fat. High glyceamic carbohydrates will spike your blood sugar levels causing insulin to be released into your blood supply which will immobilise your fat cells. Putting it simply, don’t expect to use any fat as energy for the couple of hours after eating high glyceamic carbohydrates.

Most of the population eat far too little protein and far too much bad carbohydrates!

Why do we train our abdominals? Our abdominal wall gives support to our spine. If you can strengthen your abdominals, you will have less chance of back injury.

If you are very lean, training your external abdominals will give you a six pack look.

Why do we stretch? Tight muscles can cause injuries not only to the muscle itself, but to the joint that the muscle crosses and/or affects.

Why do we rest? Our bodies need rest to avoid over-training. With too much exercise, our body may start to panic and go into survival mode and hold onto fat as an insurance for itself as it doesn’t know how much more exercise is around the corner.

Our muscles need rest to recover from the workout that we have put them through, so that they can repair themselves and grow stronger to accomodate the overload that we put them through with each workout.

Troy Shipsey

Centennial Park Group Fitness Trainer

Once you have decided to take action to achieve your goals, you must determine where it is you want to be and realise where it is you are starting from. From there, it is a certain amount of “positive steps” you need to take to achieve that goal.

Everybody has to take a different amount of “steps”, as everybody is different.

The variables that determine the amount of “steps” you need to take may include:

• Your fitness level when starting out
• Your goal at the end
• Age
• Gender
• Your hormones
• Your lifestyle
• Your metabolism

All of these things and many more must be considered when making your action plan for success.

You have to be taking constant steps forward to reach your goals.

The more steps backward you take, the longer it will take to reach your goals.

Examples of “steps” forward are:

• Eating breakfast
• Eating regularly
• Eating healthy nutritious meals with a balance of low GI carbs, protein and salad or vegetables
• Thinking positively
• Training correctly
• Training regularly to your appointed schedule
• Opting for water rather than alcohol or soft drink
• Sleeping 8 hours per night
• Drinking 3 litres of water per day

Examples or “steps” backward;

• Skipping meals
• Eating incorrectly such as high GI carbs and high fat, high sugar meals
• Not incorporating enough protein into your diet
• Drinking alcohol
• Drinking soft drinks
• Skipping workouts
• Training incorrectly
• Thinking negatively
• Not sleeping enough
• Not drinking enough water

Remember that taking a step backward does not leave you level, it leaves you back one step from achieving your goals, because if you had taken that step forward you would have been one step closer, now you are 2 steps further away because you passed up the opportunity to be one step closer.

So every time you take a step backward, remember it takes 2 steps forward to advance you along the way to achieving your goals. Try to think of how many steps forward you took this week and how many steps backward you took. Did you advance, stay level or go backward?

Does this make it a little clearer as to how diligent you have to be to reach your goals?

Fat doesn’t lose itself!

Yours in Fitness

Troy Shipsey

Does alcohol make you fat?

Ok, so we have discussed training to burn calories in Part 1, eating for good health and less calories in Part 2, now it is time to talk about the pure fuel source called alcohol.

I call it fuel, because that is what it is. Calories are a fuel source for our bodies. When you consume more calories (fuel) than what is needed by your body on a daily basis, you will gain weight.

Alcohol is just empty calories.

There is no enzyme in the human body that will convert alcohol to fat. So what happens is, you drink alcohol and it sits as your fuel source to be used next. Next being before the food you are eating. So what happens to that food? It gets stored as fat. The more alcohol you drink, the more empty calories are sitting waiting to be burnt and the longer it will take to burn it off, so the more food will be stored as fat.

You can’t counteract this by not eating on a day when you drink because we all know that starving our bodies results in even more negative changes to the body eventually resulting in more weight gain.

What you can do if you know you are going to have a big night on the drink is eat very healthily on the days leading up to and after the drinking session and also increase you exercise on the days either side to compensate for the extra calories that are hanging around in your body.

Another thing to take note of is the junk food that you usually eat when you are drunk or hing over. Generally, any healthy diet goes out the window when you have a few drinks in the system!

A general rule of thumb that I use is 1/2 a calorie in each ml of alcohol. This is not exact, but it is a good rule of thumb to give you a general idea of the sabotage you are doing to your weight loss goals when you head out on the drink.

I haven’t touched on the negative affects that alcohol has on the human body, but believe me, there are plenty. For now, I am just talking alcohol and weight loss.

Does alcohol make you fat? Absolutely!

Next time you get stuck into the drink, remember the negatives;

* 1/2 calorie per ml

* You will eat more junk food when you are drunk

* You will eat more junk food when you are hung over

* You won’t want to train if you are hung over

* You won’t train in the morning if you went out drinking the night before and you wouldn’t have trained at night because you were already out drinking

* Weight loss aside, alcohol is a depressant and a diuretic

Not really anything good about alcohol is there, so drink it in moderation!

Drinking beer is so rare for me, I had to have a photo! Who wouldn't drink a beer that is named after them?

Let’s talk walking in next week’s tip let’s get fit for Summer Part 4.

Yours in fitness

Troy Shipsey

Ok, so in Let’s get fit for summer Part 1, we discussed how many calories you could be burning off if you turn up to all your workouts. 

Now we will look at how what you put into your mouth has just as much if not more affect on your body than exercise.

Let me firsty say that yes, food should be enjoyable! But no, it should not be detrimental to our health!

Food is the fuel that keeps our bodies functioning day to day. We need to be feeding our bodies with healthy food to function properly.

Healthy food is not only good for long term health, but it is great for us in regards to weight loss, because healthy food generally has less calories. We all know that we need to burn more calories than we are consuming in order to lose weight. 

For more information on caloires, please refer to Calories Part 1 & Calories Part 2. You will be able to calculate just how many calories you should be eating.

Now, let’s say you want to lose 1 kg of fat. As mentioned in part 1, this is 7700 calories. I recommend creating a diet defecit of approx 500 calories a day in order to safely and effectively lose weight.

Easy to say, not so easy to do! The fact is, most people eat way more than they should every day. Then they exercise and wonder why they are not losing weight. If you exercise 5 days a week and burn off roughly 3000 caloires in the week, but you eat 600 calories a day more than you need to, you won’t lose any weight! This is not taking into account the weekend where you probably eat more!

So, you decide to eat well… You do this for a week, maybe 2, you start to feel better in yourself. You feel lighter, you feel less bloated, you notice a difference in your waistline. But then the takeaway food sneaks back in. The dessert after dinner sneaks back in. You start to skip breakfast again and before you know it, you are back into your old habits.

Maybe something far worse happens… you decide to go on a diet. I am not sure which one, I don’t really care which one, they are all as bad as each other. The fact is, when eventually you go off the diet, you will gain back all of the weight you lost and then some. I have the proof, hundreds of people I have spoken to who all tell me about the diet they are on or have been on and who all without a doubt, put all of the weight back on, regardless of their training because they haven’t created any good eating habits and when they aren’t on some sort of diet, they just eat badly!

Eating well is a life long habit you need to create. Weight loss should be slow and steady and acheived through a change in diet, exercise and lifestyle habits.

So we’ve looked at exercise and food, what about liquid… Next week we will look at all of those empty calories in alcohol in Let’s get fit for Summer Part 3.

Yours in fitness

Troy Shipsey

Everywhere I look these days, there is information about a “diet”. Any diet and every diet. This diet and that diet. Have you heard of this diet? Have you tried that diet? What do you think of this diet? I think I’m going to try that diet. So and so has got a great diet out. That other guy has got a new diet out. Thingy has come up with an entirely new diet. There is back log of getting product for that diet, so it must be awesome!

Give me a break! If each diet worked long term, then we wouldn’t have a million and one diet books on the shelf.

On the cover of a popular magazine I once saw Kirsty Alley and Oprah Winfrey and the headline was “The great diet showdown”. Is this how we should be thinking? Taking advice from two women who yo-yo with their weight more than anyone in the public eye!

We need to stop the diet mentality!

We need to realise that health is more about eating healthy food, not about being thin regardless of the path taken to get there!

In order to live a healthy life, you should eat a diet rich in fruit and vegetables (preferably organic if possible, but not essential). I also believe in eating fish, lean organic chicken & eggs and a little organic red meat.

If you want to eat junk food, save it for the weekend and eat it in moderation. Limit yourself to 2 junk food meals per weekend.

Remember that fruit and vegetables are carbohydrates, so this is not a carb free diet! It is a natural eating diet. No gimmicks here, just eating food in it’s natural form.

Try it, you will feel so much better, your energy levels will be higher, you will lose weight and you won’t feel bloated hours after a meal.

If we all just stopped looking for the quick fix or giving these stupid diets the time of day, we could all focus on eating for good long term health.

The only people who benefit long term from these diets are the guys who came up with the diets and sold a whole bunch of books and supplements to ingnorant people who want the quick fix.

I urge you to take control and think about the information you are being fed. Block out the con artists who want to take advantage and get rich from your desire to create “a healthy body”.

Try to eat as close to the natural form a food comes as possible and exercise regularly.

Yours in Health and Fitness

Troy Shipsey

As I have mentioned earlier, food is of the utmost importance in our lives.

Food is our fuel and without the correct fuel, we cannot expect to live long, fullfilling and diease free lives.

Food and water are the essence for survival, so the next time you think you don’t have time to prepare a healthy meal because other things are more important, remember this, food supplies the fuel to power your body, with the wrong fuel, you will get sick. Be it obesity, diabetes, A.D.D, irritable bowel syndrome, heart disease, cancer or something else, a weakened immune system through poor nutrition will result in something bad. Oh and on that note, let’s just remember that cancer is not caused through bad luck, contrary to popular belief.

But, despite all the information out there about how important food is, it just doesn’t sink in for the majority of people. In actual fact, most people take better care of their car than their body. So I have prepared a couple of little analogies which I use on my clients.

“Would you set out on a road trip up the coast without any fuel, oil or water in your car? NO?
Then why do you set out to take on the day’s challenges without putting the correct fuel and water into your body?”

“Perfume smells great, but put it in your petrol tank instead of petrol and your car won’t run properly.
Junk food tastes great, but put it in your mouth and your body won’t run properly!”
When you wake up feeling crap, thank about what you ate yesterday.

“Would you take your car to the mechanic for regular servicing and then pour methylated spirits into the fuel tank? NO?
Then why do you visit the gym regularly or even see your personal trainer but then put crappy food in your mouth?”

I think you get the message, please be aware of what goes in your mouth. I am not saying to eat alfalfa sprouts all day long, but it is really so easy to make healthy, tasty, nutritious food and just limit your junk food to weekends and takeaway dinners to once a week.

Troy Shispey

Fitta Bodies Personal Training

Group Training Centennial Park, Sydney

I am sure you are all aware of the impact that food has on our long term health. We are all made up of living cells. Those cells renew themselves from the food that we eat. Without the correct nourishment, our immune system will suffer and disease will set in. Think about the food you eat and what it is made from. Then think that those ingredients are what is making up your living cells. 

Now that you can think of food as a fuel for your body, not just something you eat every few hours, you might make a few changes to what goes in your mouth.

I believe a diet rich in vegetables and protein will help to promote a healthy body, in a healthy weight range without feeling bloated and tired.

Here are a few tips to incorporating more vegetables into your diet. When I refer to vegggies, this incorporates salad as well.

* When shopping, choose your favourite vegetables. It is quite often easier to buy carrots and brocoli because they are cheap and miss out on the more exotic veggies you really like because they cost a bit more, only to get out of the fruit shop and go and spend $4 on a coffee.

* Variety!

* Have a plate of cut veggie sticks on the fridge ready to snack on daily.

* Don’t overcook your veggies. Steam or stir fry them, they will have better flavour, colour and texture.

* Try a new veggie along side a familiar one.

* If you find something you don’t like, don’t eat it. Try something different next time.

* Don’t think of veggies as just an evening meal ingredient, tomato, mushroom and spinach are all great breakfast veggies. Mixed salad is easy to prepare in the morning to take to work. Veggie sticks are great as snacks.

Here are few tips to incorporate more protein into your diet

* Firstly make a list of all the protein foods you like to eat.

* Secondly write down beside the protein all the foods you like to accompany it.

* Thirdly write down what time of day you would prefer to eat that food.

* Now plan your week’s food plan and shopping list.

* Be sure to vary your diet. When you write down your accompanying foods, make sure you have several options for each protein.

Healthy eating and happy living go hand in hand, so eat well and enjoy life!

Troy Shipsey

Fitta Bodies Personal Training

Group Fitness Centennial Park, Sydney