Archive for category Nutrition

A challenge!

Aug 14

Posted by Adam Stanecki in Health, Nutrition, Yourself | 1 Comment

It strikes me that many people are coming to the understanding that gluten isn’t all that good for us mere mortal humans. I’ve been of this thought for a little while. My mother is coeliac which means gluten is a complete no-no. So, I’ve been monitoring myself when I eat gluten-containing foods. I have found that if I ever get a crook tummy or a bit of wind (well, more than normal) it’s after I’ve eaten bread or pasta or pizza…you get the idea. Now, I don’t eat these foods very often (although I really like to) but my ad hoc investigation seems to validate the ideas of Robb Wolf and other.

So, here’s the challenge:

One week of not eating anything that contains gluten. That should be simple enough.

If you’re up for it, the bigger challenge is to go one month without gluten.

I expect that anyone who takes up this challenge will be feeling a whole lot better about themselves very soon.

Tags: gluten, gluten-free, Robb Wolf

Paleo, baby!

Aug 13

Posted by Adam Stanecki in Nutrition, Yourself | No Comments

Healthy?

If you haven’t worked it out yet, I’m a big fan of simple. An even bigger fan of thinking for yourself. And a huge fan of evidence-based activity.

Today, there are so many “diets” that it’s enough to drive you completely bonkers. And most of them are – please pardon my French – complete bullshit! If people actually stepped back a moment and thought for themselves they’d soon discover that pills, potions and quick fixes don’t work and are not sustainable.

Worse still, our government agencies have got the heads planted firmly in the sand (perhaps an upgrade from where they normally plant them). Take a look at the so called Healthy Food Pyramid from Nutrition Australia. Does anything look wrong to you?

Please tell me that I’m not the only one looking at this diagram and thinking “what the…?” It’s all over the place like a mad woman’s shopping. Let’s take a quick step back…

Mmm, fresh!

Consider the humble human being – Homo sapiens – as a species we have existed for about 200,000 years. Not long in the scheme of things. We lived as hunters and gatherers until about 10,000 years ago then we start to get civilised. Soon, we domesticated animals and developed agriculture.

So, have a think about it. We lived for almost 200,000 years as hunter-gatherers and for under 10,000 years we’ve been moving to an agriculture-based diet. In this time do you think our genetic make-up has changed? If our genetics have in fact altered in the last 200,000 years, the change would be infinitesimal.

As the situation stands we are eating foods that we are simply not designed for.

What you eat matters! There is no use concerning yourself with portions, combinations, meal timings, Glycaemic index values…blah…blah…blah…if you are eating crap! It can’t get any simpler than that.

What to do? Go Paleo, baby! It’s not pseudo-science. It’s been proven over hundreds of thousands of years. Eating from a can or a box is not good for you. Eat fresh, eat real whole foods and you will be healthier than ever. Visit Dr Loren Cordains’s site for all the Paleo info you need.

Need a simple nutritional guide? Here’s CrossFit’s maxim:

Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. Keep intake to levels that will support exercise but not body fat.

Dead simple!

Selected references:

Tags: Paleo Diet

Eat right

May 21

Posted by Adam Stanecki in Nutrition, Yourself | No Comments

If you are listening to advertisers and taking your nutritional advice from the TV then I’d suggest it’s highly likely that you are eating crap. Here is where a little uncommonsense is required. Think about it. If Kellogg’s tells you that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and that cereal is your best choice, do they have a vested interest in you believing them? Watch this video. Unbiased? I think not.

Of course breakfast is an important meal but you won’t die if you don’t eat it…you’ll just feel sub-par all day.

Here’s the startling truth. If you are fat, you are so because you eat crap and because you eat too much of it. Sure, there are some medical issues involved but don’t get all caught up in excuses if you are still eating Tim Tams and Corn Flakes and drinking Coke.

On the flip-side, if you’re thin it’s also because you’re eating crap or you’re eating well but hardly enough. The result is the same. Fat or thin, you are not optimal and you are paying the price for poor nutritional choices.

Here’s an idea! Stop look outside yourself and start looking in. I bet you’ll find that you can make some changes that immediately improve your health and shortly thereafter your physique.

Just so you know this isn’t a case of do as I say not as I do, here’s what I’m having for breakfast today: a 3 egg omelette with a little bit of melted cheese, a cup of decaf tea, an apple and some almonds.

Another example of uncommon sense – eating for type two diabetics

Feb 11

Posted by Adam Stanecki in Health, Nutrition | No Comments

The Type 2 Diabetic suffers from insulin resistance. His/her cells have become resistant to insulin. Consumption of carbohydrates leads to the release of insulin into the bloodstream. Too much insulin leads to insulin resistance. So, how would you treat a Type 2 Diabetic?

If you answered “By getting 60% of dieatary nutrients from carbohydrates” you’d be following the American Diabetes Association’s plan. And you’d be wrong. That’s right the association that exists for diabetics has things ass about.

If you answered “Eat less carbs” – well done. It makes sense – uncommon sense it would seem.

Eating less carbs and therefore reducing your production of insulin helps with the issue of insulin resistance.

Sometimes, even those you think would know everything about a particular area are way off the mark. Be careful. It’s your body, not theirs.

Tags: insulin resistance

Cholesterol

Jan 11

Posted by Adam Stanecki in Nutrition | No Comments

There might not be an area of nutrition and biochemistry that’s more fought over than cholesterol. On one side you have the skeptics who say that cholesterol isn’t the big, bad wolf that many experts would have us believe. On the other side, you have those who think that cholesterol is killing us all and that we need drugs to fix this…right now! People populating the middle ground are hard to come by.

I am by no means an expert in this area. But I tend to fall closer to the skeptical side than the ‘we need drugs’ side. There is certainly a correlation with high cholesterol and cardiovascular disease but I do not believe that it is causitive. For one, cholesterol is absolutely essential to human survival. No cholesterol in the body means no cells means death. And the amount of cholesterol absorbed from foods is negligable, so eating eggs and red meat isn’t going to kill you because of the high cholesterol levels in each.

The point of this post is to illustrate that it is not a cut and dried debate. We shouldn’t blindly believe our GPs or pharmaceutical companies. In fact, I have heard off the record reports that these companies actually encourage prescription of statins by GPs when they really aren’t needed. Oh, the almighty dollar!

Educate yourself. Arm yourself with knowledge! Then make a decision based upon something other than ignorance. Here are a few sites that you really need to visit:

Tags: cholesterol