Gary Ward Training, Health and Lifestyle

Who's asking for free tips on health??

You want tips? On health? Why? How do you know that I’m going to give you the right answers? Margarine is healthy, polyunsaturated fats save lives, take omega 3 oils for a healthier living, saturated fat kills and cholesterol needs to be lowered, drink Benecol to achieve it. Do a celebrity detox and lose weight over night, buy an ab roller for the ultimate six pack in 6 days. Drink semi skimmed milk and eat like the Mediterranean folk do. Use sweeteners instead of sugar, because sugar is fattening, choose slim line, diet and low fat products so you don’t get fatter. Go to a gym and run, cycle, cross train – you’ve got to get that weight down. Take sleeping tablets, have a cortisone injection and while you’re at it we’ll give you some antibiotics to feed all the fungus in your body and really try to kill you off – early!

All of the above are pointers for better health in a modern society. But where has it got us?

Diet coke and Mentos

See what happens when you mix diet coke and mentos: watch the video

That has to be happening in your stomach if you consume the two together doesn't it???
Oh my God!! And coke have sponsored it, sending a message to us all, knowing that it is showing us what can go off in our gut!!!! The mind boggles...

Enjoy the link and go easy on the sugar!

Cholesterol

I'm presenting my lifestyle talk tonight in Newark and am very much looking forward to it. It's still not too late to sign up for next week's nutrition talk!

I came across this text - a quote from the 'Cholesterol conspiracy' written by Dr. Russel L. Smith - at www.soyonlineservice.co.nz (a fantastic website if you want to find more information about the dangers of soy).

The text discusses the difficulty we have of being presented with factual and correct information regarding our medical health:

"Both the public and clinical physicians have simultaneously been swamped by an ever-growing tidal wave of exaggerations, distortions and even fabrications of the facts.  The media blitz has been so successful that nearly everyone is now thoroughly brainwashed.

In fact, it is nothing less than astonishing that this juggernaut has grown larger, richer and more powerful as the mountainous negative findings accumulated.  How can this happen? If you control the money and the media, negative findings are little more than irritants because the public will never hear about them.  It is a version of George Orwell's Newspeak.

The reader should be aware that such a state-of-affairs is by no means unique.  It has occurred in every branch of science for as long as anyone cares to remember.  But it is particularly devastating in medicine where billions of dollars are spent worthlessly and millions of lives are lost prematurely because research funding agencies have disregarded masses of scientific findings and fraudulently used public monies to disseminate dogma and propaganda.

Hitler did it.  He was not the first but he did it quite successfully.  It being the big lie.  He and his cohorts told it often enough, and with official state backing, so that just about everyone involved believed it.  And if you thought it could never happen again - outside of politicians, that is - you were mistaken.  What is even worse, the big lie may well kill millions of people without ever interfering with their rights, their beliefs or their backgrounds".

I look forward to seeing you all over the next couple of weeks.

Once again we have to consume good quality saturated fats and proteins to ensure our cholesterol levels are optimal. If your cholesterol is too high and you have been leading a poor lifestyle, then take it from me it's a message that you need to make a change - fast! But it's not the cholesterol that's killing you - it's the poor lifestyle and dietary choices that you are making.

If we do as cholesterol research states and eliminate animal fats from our diet, how are we going to have hormonal balance and functional digestive systems, not to mention dealing appropriately with the body's waste produce.

We need cholesterol in our body to protect cell membranes, build vitamin D, generate bile and digestive chemicals to help us absorb vitamins A,D,E and K (fat soluble vitamins) and cholsterol forms the basis upon which we generate the steroid hormones, estrogen and testosterone.

Cholesterol seems to be an evil component of the human body. It causes heart disease and strokes by building up on the interior walls of your arteries? Right? What if I was to tell you that cholesterol is actually a healing agent, the sicker you are, the more cholesterol builds up in your system but is not the causative factor in strokes and heart disease - it is merely present when you have your check up. Doug Kauffmann explains in the fungal link that the statins (a cholesterol lowering drug) were first invented to combat fungal infections - a siyuation wherby the body would naturally produce more cholesterol - and the use of statins, in curing the infection naturally lowered the cholesterol levels too. Magic.

BBCs The Truth about Food

I guess most of you saw this programme as I had at least three texts from clients checking up on me to see if I was dialled in! Thanks guys...

Well, it was refreshing to see a programme inquisitive enough to recognise that our health problems stem from poor nutrition. And they managed to come up with reasonable and successful remedies too. The most notable being the one that ran throughout the course of the programme - the test to see if living like Apes is sufficient to lower your high cholesterol. The guests were encouraged to eat 2300kcals of fruit and veg for 12 days. All of them were coming off the back of shocking diets, so my guess was that we were going to see some success here. My fear was that it might advertise the benefits of a no meat, no fats approach to our health. But as the programme went on they graduated the guests through millions of years of human evolution, allowing them to use tools and access to different foods including fish etc. So gradually they built in the need for natural proteins and fats. All of the participants experienced normalisation of their cholesterol levels within twelve days! Thus proving it doable for every body who finds themselves in that situation. What they really proved ,in my opinion, with this experiment is the value of eating non-marketable produce, or as i put it to my clients food that existed 10,000 years ago... no packaged food, no refined food, nothing with a label on it and certainly nothing that is marketed so hard that it must be bad! Margarine and Coca Cola are but examples of this.

So our biggest problem today is the accessibility of food, the ease of access in packages, ready prepared, microwaveable, with additives, having undergone serious processing treatments, the list goes on.

If we all get into the habit of eating fresh food that EXISTED 10,000 years ago (and incidentally edible grain was not in the human diet at that time!) there would be a huge shift towards health benefits, namely reduced cholesterol levels, fewer cardiac problems, less obesity and consequently fewer diabetes sufferers.  But the temptation for easy food is so powerful that convenience is currently the main attraction in the would-be toss up between convenience and health.

Imagine if everybody bought fresh and nobody bought packaged foods - have a think what the effect would be on our supermarkets and the BIG companies who control our food choices. We wouldn't need them anymore - and if any you have seen Supermarket Secrets (available for your viewing pleasure at Google video) then you'll understand why I'm a proponent of the supermarkets final hours...

The truth about food? Each success on the programe was down to fresh foods being consumed in their natural form. It's not that difficult is it? And finally my constant gripe, despite all it's plus points the programme still framed saturated fats as the bad guys... and once again I'll reiterate that only unhealthy saturated fat is the villain.

There's more of the same next week on the Truth About Food: I wonder what they've got in store for us - no doubt I'll have an opinion!

Fat Powder... ?

Well, I'm in Meribel, France and saw the New Year in in style...

The weather turned on New Years Eve and it's been dumping with snow in the Alps ever since. So I'm a happy chap skiing around in fresh powder even though I cannot see past my nose end. 40cm of fresh snow fell over night and another 35cm is due tonight! With the sky clearing tomorrow afternoon, there looks to be a few good final days in store...

Rosemary Conley was on tele this morning telling us all to eliminate fats from our diet for 2007. You lot must be so confused? If only the media and people like rosemary would add in one single word to help people begin to understand the farce about fats...  BAD!

Eliminating all fat from your diet is harmful, consuming GOOD fats is crucial and eliminating BAD fats is what's really important. Our body need a complicated balance of fats, carbs and proteins to function optimally. Eating carbs on their own is a bad idea because you lose the valuable input from the protein and the fat. Marketing and guidance suggests the majority of our meal plate should be carbohydrate with a small amount of protein and to trim away the fat.  It hasn't done us many favours has it? Disease, illness, sickness and obesity are the remains of good marketing!

In 2007 we should be freely consuming fats (GOOD ones of course) and balancing our meal plate with optimum amounts of carbs and proteins as well as eliminating all fats (BAD ones of course), refined foods, processed foods and anything you are sensitive to... if you get that balnace right then 2007 will be an exceptional year for you - nutritionally at least.

Follow this link to sign up for my nutrition workshop on the 24th January:  http://garyward.typepad.com/gary_ward_training_health/2006/12/your_health_in_.html

Happy New Year

The truth about fats

Well, I've had three conversations today about fats; so what is my blog for if it's not to set the record straight on this ever so touchy subject!

2 + 2 = 5 where fats are concerned and this is a huge problem with our health today! Fat people do not get fat from eating fat. It's not that simple! There are so many factors that contribute to our fatness (or clinical term obesity) and high quality saturated fat is not one of them.

We have survived on saturated fats for years and years and years, so why now, in the last century are we running scared of them? I'm going to quote from "Eat, Move and Be Healthy" here as Paul Chek sums it up in a nutshell for you guys:

"Today, heart disease causes at least 40% of all deaths in the U.S. If, as we have been told, heart disease results from the consumption of saturated fats, one would expect to find a corresponding increase of fat in the American diet. Actually the converse is true. During the sixty year period from 1910 - 1970, the proportion of traditional animal fat ... declined from 83% to 62% and butter consumption plummeted from 18lbs per person per year to four. During the past eighty years, dietary cholesterol intake has increased only 1%. During the same period, the percentage of vegetable oils in the form of margarine, shortening and refined oils increased about 400%, while the consumption of sugar and processed foods increased about 60%". (How to Eat, Move and be Healthy by Paul Chek) [see the side bar to buy this product - it's essential if you are interested in real health.]

So you see, we decry fats and try to find alternatives and the longer we go on doing that, the more ill we become as a society - just have a look around you. Sure, stress plays a part in obesity, as does lack of exercise and poor sleep... but your diet is absolutley crucial to your survival.

So why do fats have a bad name?  My feeling is that due to bad farming standards in particular where meat is concerned, the fats that we can get in our supermarkets from commercially farmed animal produce carry the toxins of unhealthy beasts. Saturated fat produced by organic grass fed cattle provides toxin free saturated fat so it is essential to find out where your meat comes from and support the small local farmer. He is vital to your health and well being!

Some pointers about fats that hopefully will make you realise that you need them in your diet:

My fat facts are as follows:

• Fats are needed for your 'rest and digest' hormones (DHEA) to be absorbed into the body. Without the necessary fats present, the inhibition of this hormone will allow cortisol to run riot in your body all day long. Cortisol is your 'fight or flight' hormone and has a stress like response on the body. If you are stressed try consuming more good quality fats.
• Digestion starts in the mouth: cortisol inhibits saliva production making the digestive process in the mouth difficult to begin with.
• If fats are not present in your food, lipase will not be released into the mouth, the body will not produce leptins and the food will not be adequately broken down. If nutrients in your food are not absorbed the body will invoke a hunger response requiring you to eat more!
• Essentially FATS ARE WHAT SATISFY YOU…
• High good fat intake avoiding bad fats: this will create an isotonic saline solution and will normalise the gut’s rate of emptying which is dependant upon certain chemical compositions in the chime (liquefied food in the gut). These chemicals come form saturated fats in your diet. Without the presence of saturated fats, your food will not easily pass through your system and your digestive system will be imapired.  How much IBS is out there right now?
• Bile which is produced in the liver is excreted when you eat fats. Bile needs to flow or it becomes toxic when stagnant.  FASTING, in particular FAT FASTING causes bile to be stored in the gall bladder. Pasty bile eventually becomes a gall stone over time.
• Fat is required for vitamins A,D,E and K to be absorbed into the body.

What happens when fat is not present? Well, the body still recognises it's requirement to complete the necessary functions and will do so to the best of it's capabilities even though it is stressful to carry it out. Stress in the body leads to sickness or illness, sickness in the body requies healing, the body's natural healing agent is cholesterol - so the body releases more cholesterol into your system to promote healing. Meanwhile you recognise symptoms of being unwell and ideally rest up and wait for it to pass... or not! What we actually do is ignore it, carry on with our normal diet and our 'oh so busy' lives! What happens then is that you get more and more ill until the signs are really obvious now, your cholesterol is through the roof and the Doctor gives you medication to lower your cholesterol. Now what's going to do the bidy's natural healing as we are now using drugs to reduce the natural healing agent in the body. Our body, clever thing it is, recognises the lack of cholesterol and simply produces more... Meanwhile we are so stressed that our blood starts to coagulate (remember stress in evolutionary terms is akin to being chased by a Sabre Toothed Tiger, so, our blood thickens when stressed in case we get bitten and then we might not bleed to death in the event we don't get eaten alive!), thickened blood lines our arteries and reduces blood flow to the heart. You know the rest of the story...

So eat more fat, get more good quality fats in your system, allow your bodily functions to operate as they are designed to, and reduce the risk of illness, excess weight, poor energy and underactive thyroid and diabetes and ... the list goes on!

We all need fats, and we all need protein. No indiginous cultures were ever found to be 100% vegetarian. None. Some people will need less fat than others and some will need more. For those of you who know me, about 60% - 65% of my diet is saturated fats and proteins. My bodyfat measures less than 10%, the rest is muscle. Do I look like i'm about to drop off and have a heart attack?? What's your fat intake and your body fat percentage? Hopefully this is starting to make sense.

If you are interested in finding out how much protein and fats and carbohydrate you require in your diet, then call me, email me and let's get started on my optimum and individualied nutrition programmes. I am also in the process of setting up some group courses which should be ready to go in the near future.

Pass this information on to your friends and relatives, pass the word around. the sooner we start consuming good quality fats, the sooner we can begin to normalise the state of our society... don't even get me started on hyeractive kids and Attention Deficit Disorder. Guess what they need more of in their diet?

I'll see you soon

Peace

Gary