Extreme Makeover – Rachel

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How food is information

Source: http://sg.news.yahoo.com/blogs/fit-to-post-sports/food-information-085756648.html

Yahoo! photo.

Would you agree that this is a pretty average daily food intake of a Singaporean?

• Breakfast: Bread with kaya, milo
• Morning snack: Biscuits from the office pantry or a curry puff from the store downstairs
• Lunch: Cai-Fan from the food court
• Afternoon snack: More pantry food
• Late dinner: Noodles from the food court

From hundreds of fitness bootcamp and personal training Singapore client interviews per year, these are the answers my team and I at Genesis Gym have encountered.

“Well its what everybody does” is the main reason for eating this way. That is the way an average person eats. True. But remember…

Average is not the same as normal.

This is not the way you should be eating normally for maximal health or weight loss/fat burning results.

“But I have counted the calories, and it’s within my recommended daily intake”

Calorie counting is useless if you have not got the correct food type first.

That is because food is not just calories. It is not even just nutrient content like grams of protein, fat or carbohydrates.

In fact, food is information to tell your body what to do.

The bread and kaya and Milo are high in refined carbohydrates which tell your brain to relax and fall asleep.

Breakfasts like this are part of the reason many people have poor energy in the morning, and can’t be productive at work. A better choice is a piece of meat with a few nuts.

Or at least some food with protein like Greek yoghurt or eggs. Nuts and protein improve your concentration and memory.

The biscuits and curry puffs at snack time are usually full of refined carbohydrates (we just talked about those) and refined vegetable oils.

Those oils signal your cell walls to become more resistant to nutrients entering the cell. This not only “starves” the cell, but makes your blood sugar higher (if the nutrients can’t go into the cells, they stay in the blood), and eventually these nutrients end up being stored in fat cells (which are always ready to accept them).

A much better snack choice are some nuts (healthy fats) and perhaps some veggie sticks (lots of fiber which does not raise blood sugar).

At lunch, besides the high refined carbohydrate content of white rice, the food quality is often compromised by unwashed vegetables and bad oils used in meat preparation. We have covered bad oils and refined carbohydrates, but the unwashed vegetables in many food stalls still contain toxins. These toxins signal your body to slow its metabolism and store fat.

This is actually good, because if you have lots of toxins, which are mostly stored in your fat cells, it is a good idea to have them diluted (more fat!) and circulating less (lower metabolism).

However it’s not a great solution for long term health or weight loss. So ideally bring your own food to work. Or at least get some of those pre-bagged veggies from the supermarket.

Finally, the late dinner signals your body to go into “digestion mode”.

That is fine for most of the day, except that your liver is heavily involved in digestion and is not able to perform it’s night time functions of detoxification and activating of hormones which repair your body and burn fat.

This is why I suggest going to sleep slightly hungry.

As you can see, food tells your body what to do, and that means food plays a huge part in determining what your body becomes.

Quoting my mentor in nutrition and functional medicine, Dr Bob Rakowski, “The new science of nutrigenomics has proven that food is not just calories and micronutrients, it is information that drives genetic expression. All proteins -structural and enzymes are created by what we put into our body.”

That is why 1,000 calories of meat, nuts and veggies is very different from 1,000 calories of french fries!

Make good choices and tell your body to do the right things.

Coach Jonathan Wong is the owner of Genesis Gym Singapore which aims to provide the best personal training and fitness services in Singapore.

Sugar Should Be Regulated As Toxin, Researchers Say

By Christopher Wanjek | LiveScience.com

Source: http://www.livescience.com/18244-sugar-toxic-regulations.html

A spoonful of sugar might make the medicine go down. But it also makes blood pressure and cholesterol go up, along with your risk for liver failure, obesity, heart disease and diabetes.

Sugar and other sweeteners are, in fact, so toxic to the human body that they should be regulated as strictly as alcohol by governments worldwide, according to a commentary in the current issue of the journal Nature by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

The researchers propose regulations such as taxing all foods and drinks that include added sugar, banning sales in or near schools and placing age limits on purchases.

Although the commentary might seem straight out of the Journal of Ideas That Will Never Fly, the researchers cite numerous studies and statistics to make their case that added sugar — or, more specifically, sucrose, an even mix of glucose and fructose found in high-fructose corn syrup and in table sugar made from sugar cane and sugar beets — has been as detrimental to society as alcohol and tobacco.

Sour words about sugar

The background is well-known: In the United States, more than two-thirds of the population is overweight, and half of them are obese. About 80 percent of those who are obese will have diabetes or metabolic disorders and will have shortened lives, according to the UCSF authors of the commentary, led by Robert Lustig. And about 75 percent of U.S. health-care dollars are spent on diet-related diseases, the authors said.

Worldwide, the obese now greatly outnumber the undernourished, according to the World Health Organization. Obesity is a public health problem in most countries. And chronic diseases related to diet such as heart diseases, diabetes and some cancers — for the first time in human history — kill more people than infectious diseases, according to the United Nations.

Less known, and still debated, is sugar’s role in the obesity and chronic disease pandemic. From an evolutionary perceptive, sugar in the form of fruit was available only a few months of the year, at harvest time, the UCSF researchers said. Similarly, honey was guarded by bees and therefore was a treat, not a dietary staple. [6 Easy Ways to Eat More Fruits & Veggies]

Today, added sugar, as opposed to natural sugars found in fruits, is often added in foods ranging from soup to soda. Americans consume on average more than 600 calories per day from added sugar, equivalent to a whopping 40 teaspoons. “Nature made sugar hard to get; man made it easy,” the researchers write.

Many researchers are seeing sugar as not just “empty calories,” but rather a chemical that becomes toxic in excess. At issue is the fact that glucose from complex carbohydrates, such as whole grains, is safely metabolized by cells throughout the body, but the fructose element of sugar is metabolized primarily by the liver. This is where the trouble can begin — taxing the liver, causing fatty liver disease, and ultimately leading to insulin resistance, the underlying causes of obesity and diabetes.

Added sugar, more so than the fructose in fiber-rich fruit, hits the liver more directly and can cause more damage — in laboratory rodents, anyway. Some researchers, however, remained unconvinced of the evidence of sugar’s toxic effect on the human body at current consumption levels, as high as they are.

Economists to the rescue

Lustig, a medical doctor in UCSF’s Department of Pediatrics, compares added sugar to tobacco and alcohol (coincidentally made from sugar) in that it is addictive, toxic and has a negative impact on society, thus meeting established public health criteria for regulation. Lustig advocates a consumer tax on any product with added sugar.

Among Lustig’s more radical proposals are to ban the sale of sugary drinks to children under age 17 and to tighten zoning laws for the sale of sugary beverages and snacks around schools and in low-income areas plagued by obesity, analogous to alcoholism and alcohol regulation.

Economists, however, debate as to whether a consumer tax — such as a soda tax proposed in many U.S. states — is the most effective means of curbing sugar consumption. Economists at Iowa State University led by John Beghin suggest taxing the sweetener itself at the manufacturer level, not the end product containing sugar.

This concept, published last year in the journal Contemporary Economic Policy, would give companies an incentive to add less sweetener to their products. After all, high-fructose corn syrup is ubiquitous in food in part because it is so cheap and serves as a convenient substitute for more high-quality ingredients, such as fresher vegetables in processed foods.

Some researchers argue that saturated fat, not sugar, is the root cause of obesity and chronic disease. Others argue that it is highly processed foods with simple carbohydrates. Still others argue that it is a lack of physical exercise. It could, of course, be a matter of all these issues.

Christopher Wanjek is the author of the books “Bad Medicine” and “Food At Work.” His column, Bad Medicine, appears regularly on LiveScience.

Are you at risk of back pain?

Extracted from Yahoo Singapore:

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/blogs/fit-to-post-sports/risk-back-pain-054939415.html

Are you at risk of back pain? Many of our personal training clients start training with some kind of back issues, and we need to help them overcome back problems before they can train safely. So it is part of the health building process to make sure backs are as strong and healthy as possible.

Think about this…

Have any of you been camping? Or built a temporary shelter in the army? You know when you pitch a tent or “basha” the incredible thing is that that tent is very strong and a good tent can even survive the night on a windy mountain slope.

The secret to the strength of a tent is the poles or wires which anchor it to the ground. Without these poles or wires, the tent is just a floppy, weak, piece of fabric.

It’s the same thing with your spine. In general, my 85-year-old grandmother’s spine can support about the same amount of weight as 2010 world strongest man winner Brian Shaw. Roughly the weight of a person’s head.

But why so some people get injured picking up a pencil, while others can lift hundreds of kilo’s off the floor safely?

The secret is in the strength of the muscles around the spine.

Unless you are lifting massive weights where strength matters, it is in fact the endurance of these muscles that is the critical aspect of back health.

World renowned back health researcher Stewart McGill gives these following norms for core strength and stability which result in long term back health.

Next time you are doing your exercise program, give these tests a try. They are fairly easy to do and are pretty safe.

Because it is an endurance, rather than a strength test, the requirements are the same for men and women.

If you have problems holding the right position, or passing the test, its time to use these exercises as a training so you can get your back and core strong enough to support your spine well so you can have a pain free, and perfect functioning back.

Back Extension Test - Passing mark 120 sec keeping the back flat

Personal training Singapore back extension flat

Healthpointe Success Story: Former Diabetes Patient – Thomas Kong

My name is Thomas Kong. I have been a diabetic patient for the past 10 years.

All these while, whenever someone tells me that there is a medication or health supplements that would help with my diabetic conditions, I would just pay at any price and consume without any questions asked. However, none of them actually works. A lot of money was spent and a lot of frustration too!

People often comment on my tired and haggard look, they even made jokes out of it without realizing my condition. My eyes were bloodshot and I looked stoned most of the time just like i have just been to the pubs for a few drinks.

As my condition deteriorates, my medication dosage increased. I continued to binge on unhealthy food such as red meat, carbonated drinks, ice-cream, etc, etc as I could not control myself. I started to get blurred vision, numbness in my toes and my wounds were unable to heal properly! All that resulted to a total lost of confidence in myself.

When Michael introduced me to the Health Pointe program, I immediately took it up. Before I even began the program, I could see my blood glucose level dropped from 14 to 5 just by going through the preparation phase.

After I completed the program, my blood glucose actually dropped to 3 from 12.9! My cholesterol level had dropped from 8 to 4, body fat from 24% to 21% and body weight from 80kg to 70kg. My vision improved, I felt lighter, more energetic and regained my self confidence. Even my sinus problem improved. Dr. Zuraimi, my physician, who did my blood test and monitored my progress throughout the program was so happy that she actually cried !

My greatest gratitude to all those who have helped and supported me, especially Michael, Robin, Kit and Haji Aman.

For those reading this message, please do not take your health for granted. Speak to your advisor as soon as possible.

Health is wealth !

Thomas.

Attached is my blood test result before and after Healthpointe 2.0

Really Good Healthpoint Compliant food at SS2 Mall Petaling Jaya, Malaysia

Hi guys,

Really deliciousssss Health Pointe Compliant food @Henry Cook in SS2 mall! =)

http://www.facebook.com/henrycookgroup

KLue – Henry Cook opens at SSTwo Mall!.

How to Stay Young and Beautiful – BBC

This is a series shown on BBC that shows the effect of phytonutrients on our health and especially our looks. Enjoy!

Part 1 of 6

Part 2 of 6

Part 3 of 6

Part 4 of 6

Part 5 of 6

Part 6 of 6

Visceral Fat Explained

Many BellyFit Clubbers are asking what are Visceral Fats when then got themselves onto the Omron Scales. Happen to chance upon this on youtube with a clear explaination from Dr Alvina Lam on ChannelNewsAsia!

Would you like to test your level of visceral fat and would like to know how you can reduce it systematically and healthily? Contact the Belly Fit Club at bellyfitclub@gmail.com and book your free consultation today!

Does Omega 3 help make children smarter?

This is a very useful video on the effects of Omega 3. The modern diet in many countries just does not allow the intake sufficient Omega 3!

Calculate your BMI now!

BMI is the common acronym given to Body Mass Index, a number calculated from your weight and height that roughly correlates to the percentage of your total weight that comes from fat, as opposed to muscle, bone or organ. The higher a person’s BMI, the higher the percentage of fat in their body. It is defined as:

BMI = Weight (kg) / Height (m) ²

This calculator is rough translations of true percentages, and there are a number o f factors that might influence whether or not your BMI is a true reflection of your total body fat.

For instance, muscle is denser than fat and takes up less space. Therefore a heavily muscled person might weigh more than a same sized over-weight person, or two individuals with identical BMI might have widely different percent body fat. In this case, calculating your percent body-fat might require more sophisticated equipment, such as an immersion tank. Since fat is more buoyant than muscle, two same-weight individuals will not float at the same level if they have different percentages of body fat.

Women typically carry more subcutaneous fat than men do, particularly in the breast and hips, so their percent body fat may be higher without it necessarily being reflected in their BMI or having any adverse health effects. Very low body fat, which may or may not show up in a BMI, depending on the individual’s musculature, might be unhealthy as well. Your body needs some stores of fat to draw upon for energy and if fat is absent, the body will begin to consume muscle mass to keep itself going. Athletes who overtrain may find themselves losing strength rather than gaining strength, for instance.

CLICK HERE TO CHECK YOUR BMI NOW!