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Losing weight is a science. Keeping it off is a psychology.

May 10, 2011 By Andrew Simmons Leave a Comment

Combine the science of eating water rich foods with the psychology of choosing to eat appropriate foods, and you are on the road to maintaining your weight.

For many people, losing weight seems to be a life-long process. Dieting and following new fads on television and in magazines is a lifestyle for some people, rather than a short means-to-an-end. This is because many don’t understand the science behind losing weight.

Think of your body as a machine and the process of losing-weight will become a lot easier to understand. It is a game of science and maths. Here’s the good news – you naturally burn energy by simply existing. A day spent sat at a desk still requires energy – not as much of course, but you still burn a set amount of calories.

Eating smart, not eating less is the key to losing weight and keeping it off. It’s all in your head. Being motivated to stick to a healthy diet is what drives results. Eating low in calorie density foods that are rich in water, such as vegetables and fruit, promotes healthy weight loss and prevents chronic illnesses. It also helps people control their hunger. They’re eating more, but actually less in terms of calories. What they learn is to make appropriate food choices for a low in calorie density diet.

So really, by simply knowing and controlling what you put into your mouth is going to make losing weight an achievable task. The science is eating low in calorie density foods. The psychology is choosing to make smart food choices and sticking to it. And that’s it! Combine the two rules and you’re set for a healthy diet.

Filed Under: Education, Emotions, Fitness, Straight Talk

Should we push for nutrition to be on the school syllabus?

April 27, 2011 By Andrew Simmons 2 Comments

Some health and nutrition experts have began to argue that the syllabus should now incorporate health classes – and that if there’s not enough time to fit this into the timetable then sports and games should incorporate nutritional education as part of their classes.

One school in Sydney has actually already started doing this and has earned itself top marks when it comes to pleasing both parents and education authorities. Even the children are enjoying the classes!

The idea is that by teaching children about food, they are taking life-lessons away with them and helping to keep their weight healthy for the rest of their lives. The school, Coogee Public School, has introduced a Healthy Active Kids program, which aims to improve diets and increase exercise levels.

The idea is that if kids learn how to be healthy at an early age it will lower the risk of becoming overweight in adulthood and be a lesson that is taken away with them for the rest of their lives, having a continuous beneficial impact. As part of the initiative, the school gave out journals to almost all of its 560 students. They used these to record how active they are and what they are eating. In class they then focused on nutrition, physical activity and exercising the mind. Deputy principal Stewart Crawford said: ‘We have had such a positive response that we are looking to run it again. There’s been a 15 per cent increase in the number of children who say their diet is excellent.’

Ley us know what you think of this initiative….

Filed Under: Eating, Education, Food, Straight Talk

Labeling laws could be changing?????

April 21, 2011 By Andrew Simmons Leave a Comment

The labeling of food is a confusing process for many – we also tend to feel less guilty when we can’t see the stats of the food we’re consuming, which certainly doesn’t help the general push to label all food. We can go to a bar and drink a glass of wine relatively guilt free when we can’t see how much sugar we’re consuming. However, slam a label on the side of the glass and show us just what we’re doing to our bodies and we suddenly recoil in disgust – or at least, that’s the plan.

It may be soon be introduced that all alcoholic beverages are labeled with their exact contents. The urge comes as more and more pregnant women continue to drink during their pregnancy and end up causing harm to their baby.

One doctor commented: ‘We have got to get over the notion that it is politically safe to talk about the bad effects of smoking but not the even more harmful effects of drinking while pregnant.”

Former health minister Neal Blewett has commented: “it was rather odd that you have all this information, all this advice, yet at the point of sale there is no indication at all”

In Britain, a traffic light labeling process was introduced with three stickers on food – red for high in fat, yellow for ok, and green marked clearly for “go”! This is a simple and very easy to follow system which Australia is hoping to adopt and even use across its alcohol companies.

But would this make you change your habits? Let us know…

Filed Under: Eating, Food, Straight Talk

Second-hand smoke linked to diabetes

April 19, 2011 By Andrew Simmons Leave a Comment

We all know the risks of smoking when it comes to lung cancer and other forms of respiratory associated disease. And we all know the health risks associated with a poor diet – obesity, diabetes and cardio-vascular problems, just to name a few. But now scientists have revealed that smoking, and even second-hand smoke, are linked quite significantly to diabetes.

There has never been a better time to get healthy – and we don’t just mean by exercising and maintaining a healthy diet – but by cleansing every single part of your lifestyle, from smoking and alcohol intake, to the amount of time you spend with those who smoke.

Diabetes Care has revealed that the longer a person spends taking in second-hand smoke, the greater the risk of type two diabetes. This research has come from the Diabetes Research Centre at Harvard University, which revealed that this discovery is completely unexpected but confirms the all-round detrimental effects of smoking.

Dr. David Nathan, head of the department has commented that:

“This just reinforces the lesson from a public health point of view that we’ve been stressing for decades”

His point being that people should avoid being near cigarette smoke, as the full dangers to health are still not completely known and constantly surprising us.

This is a study that spanned over two decades and captured data from over 100,000 women. The women were all nurses participating in a national study that would provide information about how much time they spent around cigarette smoke. During the next 24 years, about one in 18 women were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

The message to be taken away from the results of this research is that cigarette smoke is to be avoided at all costs – even when breathed in passively it is seriously harmful to your health. If you live with a smoker, take time to help and support them to stop.

Filed Under: Education, Circle of Influence, Straight Talk

The Athlete’s Diet

March 26, 2011 By Andrew Simmons Leave a Comment

It caused a bit of a stir some years ago and now it’s back – the Weetbix advert which asks ‘How many do you do?’ The downfall of this advertisement however, is that all of the celebrity faces are athletes and obviously eat (and should eat) more carbs than the average person. Think of their routine, they train all day long and burn off massive amounts of carbohydrates and need more for the energy that they burn during sport.

They are in essence encouraging a child to eat as much as they do, to take in as many carbs as they do, and ultimately not burn them off. These characters are also idol figures for children, which means it’s far more likely that what they say on these adverts will be taken extremely seriously by children and undoubtedly be emulated.

And if you think this isn’t quite true, or an extreme, we did a little forum searching around the subject and found a mum’s forum talking about their kids’ reaction to the advert. Their children wanted to challenge their parents to see ‘how many they could do’. One woman’s little girl could eat as many as her father! This is shocking as there’s absolutely no way that the little girl will burn off as much as her Dad. However, what’s even worse is that the family in mention didn’t see anything wrong with this, it was simply a family challenge and they found it funny just how much the little girl could eat.

It’s understandable that children with a limited knowledge on food will be sucked in by these adverts but when parents are too, it becomes extremely worrying.

Filed Under: Eating, Education, Food, Straight Talk

Fitness in Australia being tax deductible

March 23, 2011 By Andrew Simmons 1 Comment

The cost of gym memberships, gym equipment and gym clothing doesn’t seem fair at times. We spend so much money on preparing ourselves for a work-out, that when it finally comes to working out we feel both financially and motivationally drained.

There has recently been a push towards making fitness in Australia tax deductable and we would love to hear your thoughts. The argument is that there are thousands upon thousands of Australian people who are seriously harming their bodies through smoking, drinking and generally not taking care of their own health. These people end up in hospital and are getting taken care of courtesy of tax-payers money. Now, it’s a fine-line to tread, as obviously these people are ill and have the same rights as any other person in hospital, however, while healthy people spend hundreds on gym bills and keeping themselves out of hospital, the unhealthy are in hospital getting treatment for free.

The push is for gyms to be able to provide a tax report for all members who have held a membership for 12 months. Then when the tax-period comes around they can claim back these costs as part of their annual tax-return.

The idea is that those who support and look after their bodies are encouraged to keep this up, as it’s these people who will ultimately be less of a burden on the health-care system.

It takes nothing away from the unhealthy, but certainly benefits those that are actively taking care of themselves – it may also encourage more people to start working out in gyms. Those who currently feel like they can’t afford to do so will have an extra shot of motivation. And with Australia currently having the highest obesity rate in the world, this may be the push that the country needs.

Filed Under: Education, Fitness, Straight Talk

Cereal Offenders

March 19, 2011 By Andrew Simmons Leave a Comment

The marketing industry is one of the fitness industry’s biggest and most competitive rivals – marketing ploys are created on a daily basis to try and hide the hidden demons in foods.

Low fat foods, which are adorned with logos and slogans promoting ‘99% fat free’, ‘the healthy choice’,  etc, may be low fat but they’re usually packed with carbohydrates that we’re never openly told about – carbs which are so well hidden under scientific terminology, that most consumers don’t know how many grams they in actually consuming.

Take for example, a popular health cereal by a well-known cereal brand – it promotes low fat, in fact virtually no fat almost at only 0.6g per 45g serve. Many would think, ‘great!’ and start snaking on bowls of cereal all day long, however, per 45g serve, there is also 33.7g of carbohydrates – an incredible amount, which if not burnt off will turn straight into sugar and then fat.

It’s extremely important for parents of young children to look out for this. Parents especially try and do the right thing by their children by buying low fat foods, but simply end up piling them with masses of carbohydrates which cause their sugar levels to rise and fall very dramatically.

Other serious offenders are all the vitamin-enhanced drinks, which claim to be incredibly good for you due to their added vitamin levels, but are packed with sugar. On one hand, yes, it’s great that they are packed with so many vitamins and nutrients – often things that you wouldn’t take in sufficiently through diet alone, but on the other hand, they are full of so much sugar that the negatives outweigh the positives. If you’re really concerned about your vitamin intake then the best thing to do is buy vitamin tablets and take these with water – by far the healthiest of options.

When tempted by the low fats and the healthy choices, make sure you read all of the stats – the marketers will obviously want to push the goodness and ignore everything else.

Filed Under: Eating, Education, Food

It’s all pretence!

February 11, 2011 By Andrew Simmons Leave a Comment

Snacking on, and drinking foods that are labelled as good for you, has got to be one of the biggest downfalls when it comes to our diets.

There are many culprits in the food industry but one of the biggest (especially over the summer months) is low carb beer. As the sun shines, many people turn to a refreshing beer as a thirst quencher… and many opt to drink low carb beer, as they believe it will have less effect on their bodies.

However, it’s been revealed that Australian drinkers are being exploited by this low carb myth as many are fooled into believing that this is the beer to drink to promote good health.

In fact, when surveyed, 38% of people thought it was actually healthier than lower-alcohol light beer compared to 36% who knew it wasn’t. This is a shocking statistic – more people believe that low carb beer is actually healthier than low alcohol beer. The results of a great marketing tool it seems. The consumer’s ‘desire’ to make a healthy choice is what is being exploited. People want to do the right thing and are being fooled into thinking that they are. What’s worse is that many people have admitted to drinking more, purely because they believe it to be healthier.

What the consumer should actually look out for is kilojoules as this is far more relevant to your health… it is the units of energy that your body will need to burn after intake. The ones you don’t burn will turn into fat – but the marketers don’t want to teach anybody about that it seems!

Filed Under: Eating, Education, Food, Straight Talk

Fast food brands & their healthy partnerships: Care or Con?

February 6, 2011 By Andrew Simmons 2 Comments

As more and more fast food brands partner with ‘healthy’ companies it seems that the only thing healthy to be got from the situation is the size of their bank balance.

It has been reported that many fast food chains did reasonably well in the recession as consumers opted to purchase cheaper items like bottles of soda over health food with higher price tags.

Now, after recession, there seems to be something else that is helping them out – and that’s selling on the back of a health brand. The consumer gets more health conscious by the day, and unfortunately, so do the marketing companies.

The Biggest Loser joined forces with Domino’s Pizza under the shade of wanting to promote the Domino’s ‘healthy range’ which is a small selection of reduced fat and sodium pizzas.

However the marketers spin it – which they do, and they do well – Dominoes is still a pizza company. It still sells extremely unhealthy food that does not sit with the Biggest Loser brand. Their ‘good choice range’ does of course, but if you look at the menu as a whole and the percentage of healthy offers compared to unhealthy, and possibly compare the increase in sales across both ranges, then you can safely see that on the back of the ‘healthy team up’ they have increased sales of unhealthy food.

And it is happening across the board, with McDonald’s and Weight Watchers making a partnership and Nestle buying Jenny Craig.

But you have to ask yourself, if they really cared so much about health, would they make such unhealthy partnerships?

Filed Under: Education, Emotions, Straight Talk

The great weight loss plans

February 5, 2011 By Andrew Simmons Leave a Comment

Quick fixes are devised as a way of drawing people in and are the easiest traps to fall into. Celebrity workout videos and promises that in two days time you’ll have the body of your lifetime are sometimes too tempting to pass on.

However, you have to ask yourself… how often does one of these ‘new regimes’ and new diet plans happen? It’s simply not possible that each week there’s a new scientific breakthrough or development.

In fact, after 13 years using the same system, Weight Watchers has completely overhauled its ‘points scheme’ saying that ‘more has become known about the science behind weight loss’… which isn’t exactly ideal for those who have been following the program for 13 years!

There were some unusual comparisons to be seen with the old Weight Watchers points program – a breakfast for example consisting of a croissant and butter had the same points value as a breakfast of toast, ham and eggs as long as it contained the same number of calories – however, now Weight Watchers has added a point to the croissant because of the difference in nutritional value. So, after 13 years, we’re now being told the old idea was wrong and this new idea is correct. It leaves a lot of people left wondering where all their time and energy went.

The important thing to remember, with all diets and regimes, is that they are asking you for a commitment – the results don’t simply come from doing nothing – and it’s this concept that should be taken away and worked on.

Good results don’t come from doing nothing whichever diet you choose to follow. However, if you applied this notion to your physical workout and showed the same kind of commitment there, then the results would probably be much greater and sooner. And remember… there are no fads with exercise, just time and commitment!

Filed Under: Eating, Education, Food, Straight Talk
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