Following on to my introduction article on Z Health, I’ll begin to explain the ‘Phases’ in more depth. So this may be of interest to any individual wanting to understand Z Health how they work and how to get started using the process to improve your body & your training or if you are thinking about starting professional certification, R-Phase Certification is most certainly something that I recommend as it will give you real insight of how to make anyone’s nervous system move faster, stronger and without pain. I recommend this, as I would with anything, purely because I live, sleep and walk the principles, and after all my time in the industry I can recognize a good health system when I see and practice it. So to make it easy for you to understand, I’ll break it down so that you know what it’s all about. There are four levels before Master Trainer, the first of which is :

R-Phase – Level I – This level of training is based on the concepts of Injury Rehabilitation, Nervous System Re-education using Mobility Restoration. What does that actually mean? Well it is based on the principle that the Nervous System governs the body, as it is the fastest system to respond to any issue within the body, it tells us to tense up, flinch, drop, blink & recoil without conscious thought. It bases this information on the sensory input that it gains from the millions of receptors placed around the body. So if we wish to elicit the fastest change in our pain, athleticism, posture we should aim to work as many of these receptors as possible.

Areas of the sensory motor system that hold the most receptors are the joints, ligaments, skin, muscles and tendons, with ligaments being the most densely packed with all four of the mechano receptor types, Golgi organs, Pacinian corpuscles, Ruffini endings and free nerve endings. thus if we influence them and encourage them to move with precision we create the fastest change possible!

The change that we make within the Nervous System is actually stored in our proprioceptive map within the brain and remembers the precise position of each joint, both specifically with the joint and systemically through the entire body. This explains why you may be able to dumbell press the same weight in either hand, but you are not able to hit a golf ball, kick a soccer ball or throw with equal power from either hand or foot. The movements we perform are specific to the exact task we wish to replicate. This is summed up in the S.A.I.D. principle, Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demand, or said differently as Dr Cobb likes to say, “the body ALWAYS adapts to EXACTLY what it does!”

So How Does R-Phase help me?

Simply put, R-Phase systematically clears out the junk information stored in your joints. We all have movement flaws, from the elite performers and olympic athletes and  these flaws either slow us down and take us away from our genetic potential with respect to our fastest speed, our quickest reactions, or hardest strike etc. These movement flaws predispose us to or precipitate injury. As poorly functioning joints usually transfer wear and tear or load to other more mobile areas of the skeleton. By removing these flaws via the dynamic joint mobility introduced in the R-Phase DVD we are able to allow the governers and inhibitors from within the central nervous system to operate at a much higher level in terms of speed, power, agility and reaction speed. I have seen clients lift more, drop deeper into a squat, run faster with just 60 seconds of the right joint mobility work, it’s that fast. Finding an actively immobile joint and then teaching the individual how to free it up themselves is way more powerful than working on the joint passively, like I learned to do in manual therapy school.

At the same time the controlled use of the joints allows the body to co-ordinate movement and help increase efficiency and reduce pain. Which on a mechanical level obviously reduces stresses and strain on the system, but also from a neuromatrix perspective can lower the confused signaling that the brain interprets as pain(Butler&Mosley2003). There is much more depth on this at the certification, but essentially the controlled movement engaged by the participants own brain actually helps to reset the interpretation that the brain recognises as pain. This may sound confusing but it is in essence quite simple and practical to apply.

‘After just 10 mins of Z Health mobility my terrible desk posture is gone, I feel like I can stand up tall with ease, I’m like a new man. It would have taken me more than 30 mins of stretching to get the same result’ – L.Kelly – Accountant

What Do I Do Now?

Click on to one of the R-Phase links and just get started on your own joint mobility, no matter what you have done before you will not have done work that is as specific, beneficial and as worthwhile as this. Again once you have practiced this on yourself, you will see what a powerful tool this is to use with your clients, athletes, patients. When you take action on this you will feel the amazing results for yourself. Click Here

Click Here For Part II In the Secret of Z-Health – R-Phase Series (Coming Soon)

Assessing your percentage of body fat in proportion to muscle mass, as well as testing hydration status and cellular health markers are baseline tests that all health care practitioners should evaluate in their practice.  Testing and re-testing also helps to encourages you to stay motivated with your health programme as these assessments can show you that your programme is “working”.

Many practitioners continue to use the outdated weight scale as a measurement of “healthy” or “unhealthy” patients. In addition, health care professionals have used height versus weight scales (body mass indicators, or BMIs) for years to determine overall health. However, these are not always suitably informative because they fail to determine if someone has elevated fat or muscle mass levels.

Scales do not differentiate between muscle and fat.  Lean mass is simply your muscles, bones, connective tissue and organs. The remainder falls into the fat category. You do require a percentage of fat to function, but that consists of only a small percentage of your total body weight.

There have been studies that have indicated that college-level football/rugby players are overweight and based on that marker alone are then thought to have poor health. In reality, this is far from the truth.  If these athletes were measured in terms of body composition, we would see that they have a larger percentage of lean muscle mass to fat, which is the healthiest ratio marker.

Quite often people assume that people who are thin are healthier.  Again, this is another myth that has to be dispelled.  Your seemingly healthy weight friend may in fact be a “skinny-fat person”.  Meaning people who are thin may actually have higher fat to lean muscle mass ratio making them “fat.” Strange I know, but studies have shown that skinny is not necessarily healthy, especially if there is a high level of fat around the organs.

Starvation studies have indicated that parallel losses of lean mass and fatty tissue left subjects with the same percentage of body fat after weeks of starvation. In addition, our metabolic rates diminish as we reduce our percentage of lean mass. Our bodies require far more energy to move lean mass than to move fat. Remember, fatty tissue is an energy source and does not require energy to move. If we have a larger percentage of muscle mass, not only is it easier to move, but we also require more energy to do it. This is why exercise is so important in maintaining a healthy body type.

Measuring your body composition will give you a powerful tool to calculate your baseline general health and allow you and your health coach to set clear goals for exercise and nutrition, encouraging you to follow a programme that will not only decrease fat percentage, but increase muscle mass and health and vitality.

Contact Us on guy@successfulhealthcoach.com to arrange a FREE Consultation

There seems to be some confusion as to what Z Health actually is! What is it doing and how is it going to help someone run faster, get out of pain, smash a baseball further and add height to ANYONES vertical jump? Tall claims I know, and as usual I  didn’t believe it myself….until that is a actually took the time to try it on myself.

After all I have been in the health & fitness industry for over 11 years, studied many forms of exercise therapy, martial arts, corrective exercise, kettlebells, 3-D functional movement screening programs and studied manual therapy at degree level for three years. What more could I learn about exercise, performance and pain reduction?? This article is designed to let you in on that little known secret of ZHealth and encourage you to get started on the R-Phase DVD or do the professional certification right now. As knowing what I now know about it I wish I had been given the proverbial shove in the right direction much earlier in life, it would have got me fantastic results much more quickly, so I will give you the shove right now!

I’ll explain what humble pie tastes like….. it is a warm, crumbly and bursts with flavours of new knowledge, increased performance, pain reduction(zero actually), fast reflexes and fluid movement.

So, What is ZHealth?

It is a system designed by Dr Eric Cobb, a Chiropractic Physician who has studied extensively in the areas of health, he has a degree in human biology and has done post-grad studies in a variety of areas, including kinesiology, musculoskeletal trauma, and advanced soft tissue techniques. The unique system he teaches consistently produces instant reductions in pain, rehabilitation of injuries and amazing performance improvements in athletes, as well as individuals from all walks of life.

Dr. Cobb is an international presenter has an absolute passion for human performance and teaching the practical implementation of complex training concepts comes through in the dynamic, entertaining educational programs and professional certifications he teaches also a life-long martial artist and combatives trainer with deep ties to the military and law enforcement communities.

This system is comprehensive and is based on accessing the potential the body has to move at it highest athletic level – sometimes known as genetic potential – and without pain. A level much higher than individuals usually believe they can actually operate at (including me). I though that I was only good at certain aspects of movement and strength and that I could only change my poorer aspects or athletic abilities a small amount. Again remember that humble pie taste I mentioned. Both my clients and I have improved enormously in pain reduction and speed and reactions since practising Z Health regularily.

It is broken down into four main areas to allow ease of understanding with a focus on the basics of nervous system control of movement and proprioception first, a simple but effective look at specific mobility. Something no other system I have studied or encountered has done so precisely and effectively in my experience. The subsequent levels as you progress past the basics are :

I-Phase Package – Level II, Integrated Nervous System & Integrated Movement stage training.

S-Phase, Sports Specific & Nervous System Reaction Training and……. Finally T-Phase, learning to use this in Therapeutic respect. So progressive levels for everyone.

R-Phase – so called due to the focus on Injury Rehabilitation and Nervous System Re-Education through the regular practise and understanding of Joint Mobility Restoration. This begins in the form of dynamic joint mobility, using a high level of anatomical specificity that is unparalleled in precision and it improvement in function. The seemingly simple exercises have the ability to rapidly improve the function of your whole nervous system leading to instantaneous and long-term increases in strength, power, coordination, efficiency, agility but first and foremost PAIN REDUCTION. As we all inherently know, without all the fancy talk about pain signaling and motor neurons, mechano receptors inhibiting muscle function etc., that pain in the body reduces our ability to perform, deliver power, speed, relax….whatever functional compensation you like ……PAIN INHIBITS PERFORMANCE!

Click Here to have a look at the-Phase DVD I move better than I did when I was 21- John Wilde, Financial Advisor and 47 y.o. tennis player

Who Is It For?

In my experience the individuals who benefit most from this type of training are people in pain, and people who want to perform at a higher level in sport. Athletes, Martial Artists, Physical Therapists, Chiropractors, Osteopaths, Personal Trainers, Dancers, Strength & Conditioning Coaches wil find this the fastest way to improve their professional skills. If this is you then read on.

ZHealth unlike most traditional training systems has its roots in athletic movement, infact it mirrors athletic movement. If you think about most exercise programs, they are based on a body building system, and have been mildly adapted to be specific to “your sport” Is that really relevant to helping you move and perform and is it likely to help you realistically avoid pain? If you are lucky maybe…. but usually not that likely due to your nervous system reproducing EXACTLY the moves you train it to do, at EXACTLY the same speed, and you ve guessed it….EXACTLY the same joint positions and angles.

What does that mean? Well think of it like this, if you train for soccer, hockey, tennis, running, rugby etc, what are the movements? What are the speeds? How often do you use both legs together in the same direction, your arms? How often do you keep your knees exactly over your toes? Your feet facing forward? The answer when you spend 10 seconds watching good movers in sport is VERY LITTLE.

What this means is you have to find a training system that helps you & your Nervous System have more access to the fluid positions that improve performance and maximize efficiency(reduce pain). The template Dr Cobb has created begins with the R-Phase DVD and I make no excuses for telling you to go out and buy it. The reason for that is that I hesitated when I found the ZHealth system and waited for about 6-9months before I actually went out and bought it and that was a big regret. I wish had known about this earlier as it would have got me out of pain and increased my batting average by 50% (thus far) 6-9 months earlier. So I wish someone had told me to go out and get started much more aggressively. Grrrr, there you go! This info IS DIFFERENT I promise!

A truly unique system – and as I see it, the beginning of a huge paradigm shift in body therapies – Pernille Springer, Physiotherapist

More articles on Z-Health – R-Phase, I-Phase, S-Phase & Essentials of Elite Performance to Follow

The Secrets of Z-Health – R-Phase (Part I)

Thankfully, the benefits of hydration (and the perils of dehydration) have been documented in a review in this month’s edition of the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition [1].

Of the two authors of this review one is from the Department of Physiology at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. The other author’s place of work is listed as ‘Nestlé Waters’ in Paris, France. Bizarrely though, the fact that one of the authors works for a company selling bottled water is not declared as a conflict of interest. An unfortunately common theme in ’scientific’ research nowadays. Anyhow, onto the review…

The review actually summarises the role that water plays in the structure and function of the body. Here’s an overview:

Water as a building material
Water is present in each and every cell in the body, and acts first as a building material.

Water as a solvent
For nutrients like glucose and amino acids.

Water as a carrier
For the transport of nutrients to cells, and the removal of waste from those cells. Also, for maintenance of blood volume and circulation, which is essential for the function of all organs and tissues of the body.

Water and thermoregulation
To allow sweating, which can dissipate heat from the body.

Water as a lubricant and shock absorber
Water ensures lubrication for joints, as well as parts of the body including the mouth, digestive tract and lungs.

In terms of the effects signs of dehydration, the review lists (for mild-to-moderate dehydration) among other things:

Dry, sticky mouth
Sleepiness or tiredness
Thirst
Decreased urine output
Muscle weakness
Headache
Dizziness or light-headedness

The review goes on to cite official recommendations regarding water requirements (European Food Safety Authority, 2008). These come out at about 1.5 litres a day for adults, with more required during pregnancy and for breast-feeding mums. However, the authors also allude to the fact that making blanket recommendations is not easy, because needs for water will depend on several factors including climate and physical activity.

The authors also write about the assessment of hydration status, and mention urine colour as an indicator. I generally suggest to individuals that this is the most practical way of gauging hydration status. The usual advice I give to individuals is to drink enough water to ensure that the urine is pale yellow throughout the course of the day. I might follow this up with something like “If at any time you notice your urine has straying into darker tones, and has become noticeably odourous, the chances are you are dehydrated and you might think about increasing your water consumption.”

I don’t think anyone’s formally studied this, but my overwhelming experience in practice is that individuals who take steps to improve their hydration almost always feel improvements in terms of their energy and wellbeing. Maintaining hydration easily is generally facilitated by ensuring that you have water by you. So, keep a bottle or jug of water and a glass by you at work, in the garden, when relaxing etc. Most individuals find themselves quite naturally reaching for water as long as it’s in front of them.

References:

1. Jéquier E, et al. Water as an essential nutrient: the physiological basis of hydration. Eur J Clin Nutr 2010;64:115-123

Suppose you were forced to live on a diet of red meat and whole milk. A diet that, all told, was at least 60 percent fat — about half of it saturated. If your first thoughts are of statins and stents, you may want to consider the curious case of the Masai, a nomadic tribe in Kenya and Tanzania.

In the 1960s, a Vanderbilt University scientist named George Mann, M.D., found that Masai men consumed this very diet (supplemented with blood from the cattle they herded). Yet these nomads, who were also very lean, had some of the lowest levels of cholesterol ever measured and were virtually free of heart disease.

Scientists, confused by the finding, argued that the tribe must have certain genetic protections against developing high cholesterol. But when British researchers monitored a group of Masai men who moved to Nairobi and began consuming a more modern diet, they discovered that the men’s cholesterol subsequently skyrocketed.

Similar observations were made of the Samburu — another Kenyan tribe — as well as the Fulani of Nigeria. While the findings from these cultures seem to contradict the fact that eating saturated fat leads to heart disease, it may surprise you to know that this “fact” isn’t a fact at all. It is, more accurately, a hypothesis from the 1950s that’s never been proved.

The first scientific indictment of saturated fat came in 1953. That’s the year a physiologist named Ancel Keys, Ph.D., published a highly influential paper titled “Atherosclerosis, a Problem in Newer Public Health.” Keys wrote that while the total death rate in the United States was declining, the number of deaths due to heart disease was steadily climbing. And to explain why, he presented a comparison of fat intake and heart disease mortality in six countries: the United States, Canada, Australia, England, Italy, and Japan.

The Americans ate the most fat and had the greatest number of deaths from heart disease; the Japanese ate the least fat and had the fewest deaths from heart disease. The other countries fell neatly in between. The higher the fat intake, according to national diet surveys, the higher the rate of heart disease. And vice versa. Keys called this correlation a “remarkable relationship” and began to publicly hypothesize that consumption of fat- causes heart disease. This became known as the diet-heart hypothesis.

At the time, plenty of scientists were skeptical of Keys’s assertions. One such critic was Jacob Yerushalmy, Ph.D., founder of the biostatistics graduate program at the University of California at Berkeley. In a 1957 paper, Yerushalmy pointed out that while data from the six countries Keys examined seemed to support the diet-heart hypothesis, statistics were actually available for 22 countries. And when all 22 were analyzed, the apparent link between fat consumption and heart disease disappeared. For example, the death rate from heart disease in Finland was 24 times that of Mexico, even though fat-consumption rates in the two nations were similar.

Perhaps a more sensible approach might be to link the increase in heart disease to the increased consumption of grain fed animals, processed food, refined sugar and vegetable oils. A relationship that does actually correlate.

Have a look at another article in this series – Is Saturated Fat Actually Bad, The Evidence!

So how do you get a quality workout at home?

Don’t have access to a gym? Can’t afford to join one? Don’t have the time? There’s lots of reason why people don’t exercise, but not having access to a gym is actually not a good one! Indeed, once you start thinking about it, there are plenty of ways to stay in shape without joining a gym.

The key to gym free fitness is to stop thinking along traditional lines. Of course it would be easier if you could join a class or have a huge range of cables, freeweights and medicine balls, kettlebells available to you, but even without them you can have great workouts. Look at martial artists, kettlebell users, pilates and yoga enthusiasts, they can excel with minimal equipment.

While working out at a fully equipped gym or health club is great, there is also a certain freedom to working out at home – no driving time, no crowds, you do it when you want, and you never have to wait for a piece of equipment to come free!

Plus of course you can listen to your favorite music!

Let’s look at some of your options.

The Workouts

Working out without an expensive gym doesn’t mean you should be restricted in your choices. Indeed, you’ll likely find yourself doing things you would never have done otherwise.

Cardio:

There’s loads of great choices for cardio workouts. These are the main ones:

Walking or running: All you need for this is a good pair of  mobile shoes. Research shows that walking or running three times a week for at least twenty minutes is a great base for overall conditioning, with either a brisk walk or easy jogging effective in getting your heart rate going sufficiently.

Other methods of achieving a good home-based cardio workout include:

• Stair climbing
• Kettlebell Circuit
• Skipping
• Mini-trampoline
• Martial arts (boxing, kickboxing, etc)
• Home versions of gym cardio machines – a stationary bike or stepper for example. These don’t have to be expensive – there are always loads for sale in local newspapers, at garage sales, or on e-bay.

If you are buying equipment for home use, look for good quality equipment, and choose a machine that you enjoy using – too many homes have stationary bikes or treadmills that are used for nothing more demanding that hanging the ironing!

Alternatively you could put on your favourite music and dance, or use a keep fit video of some kind (Kettlebells, aerobics, yoga, Pilates etc).

Resistance training covers all areas of strength training – free weights, bodyweight, Kettlebells, punch/kick bag, cable, TRX (suspension ropes) or resistance bands.

TRX Suspended Push Up

Resistance training should be a regular part of any exercise program, and it’s easy to achieve at home. If you have the money and space, a few dumbbells will allow you to do a whole range of resistance exercises for the whole body. Or try resistance bands – they are surprisingly effective, particularly if you also get a video or DVD that shows you how to use them.

Another piece of equipment that will add a great deal to your home workouts is an exercise ball. They are infinitely adaptable, and are not just for core work – they make a great substitute for a bench with many exercises.

Finally, if you have absolutely no equipment, you can still get a good resistance workout using just your body weight – the following exercises would form the basis of an excellent workout:

• Squats
• Lunges
• Calf-raises
• Push-ups (or modified push ups)
• Wall push-ups/Counter height push-ups
• Chair triceps dip
• Curls (holding anything!)
• Abs bridge (two legs/one leg)
• Crunches

If you’re not sure how to do any of these exercises, just Google them – there’s plenty of sites with good illustrations and descriptions.

The beauty of working out at home is that you can do it whenever you want – even in front of the TV if you have to keep yourself up to date, though focus on your workout is ideal. It’s amazing how much easier a set of crunches are when you’re working out to ‘Eye of the Tiger’!

So if lack of funds or opportunity is holding you back from working out, it’s time to be imaginative. Once you start to look for ways to workout at home, it becomes easy.

I have discussed more than once that reviews of the literature found no evidence that saturated fat causes heart disease. And it’s a shame (in my opinion, anyway), that this study got no mainstream publicity.

The same, appears to be true, of a recent report published in the Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism [1]. You can read a complete version of this report here. The whole edition of this journal was dedicated to reporting an ‘Expert Consultation’ held jointly by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the US. The consultation took a wide, sweeping look at the relationship between fats, physiology and health, and took place in late 2008. One of the things that was inevitably a focus of the consultation was the link between saturated fat and heart disease.

The ‘experts’ responsible for assessing this relationship looked at two lines of evidence: epidemiological studies and intervention studies. Let’s look at both in turn.

Epidemiological studies look at the relationship between factors (such as smoking and lung cancer, exercise and dementia, saturated fat and heart disease) in populations. These studies can only really tell us about associations between things, but can’t generally be used to inform us if one thing is causing another. Nevertheless, if saturated fat does truly cause heart disease (like we’ve been told for the last few decades), then the epidemiological evidence should show that higher levels of saturated fat are associated with a higher risk of heart disease (also known as ‘coronary heart disease’ or ‘CHD’ for short).

Well, according to the WHO/FAO report, there is no association. Here’s what the report states:

“Intake of SFA [saturated fatty acids] was not significantly associated with CHD mortality…”

and also

“SFA intake was not significantly associated CHD events [e.g. heart attacks]…”

And now on to intervention studies…

In such studies, individuals a subjected to some sort of intervention (such as a medication, increased exercise or dietary change). The relevant intervention in this area is to put people on a low saturated fat diet diet, and see how they fare compared to individuals who are not subjected to this change. Unlike epidemiological studies, intervention studies can prove ‘causal’ links between things. For example, if eating less saturated fat leads to a reduced risk of heart disease, then it’s a pretty good bet that saturated fat causes heart disease (all other things being equal).

So, what did the WHO/FAO report find with regard to relevant intervention studies? Here’s what:

“…fatal CHD was not reduced by…the low-fat diets…”

Just this week saw the publication of another huge study which assessed the relationship between saturated fat and heart disease [2]. This study was actually an amalgamation (meta-analysis) of 21 epidemiological studies. Taken all together, this review monitored almost 350,000 people over between 5 and 23 years. And here’s what it found:

1. No association between saturated fat and risk of heart disease

2. No association between saturated fat and risk of stroke

You know what this all means, don’t you? That there really is no evidence that saturated fat causes heart disease or cardiovascular disease generally.

Despite all this evidence to the contrary, I suspect the idea that saturated fat causes heart disease will perpetuate for some time. One reason for this has to do with cholesterol. There is some evidence that saturated fat puts cholesterol levels up, and we all know that cholesterol causes heart disease, right? So, if saturated fat puts cholesterol up, it must increased the risk of heart disease too. Well, this line of argument assumes that cholesterol causes heart disease, and actually the evidence shows this is far from assured. But even if it did, the logic is still faulty. We could use the same logic to claim that if something causes cholesterol to fall it must be good for heart health. So, if arsenic and cyanide reduce cholesterol, should we all be swigging these poisons down every day?

Anyway, while the ‘cholesterol causes heart disease’ paradigm is prevalent, I think saturated fat is going to be in the firing line. Shame, because at worst it appears an innocent bystander.

Another reason that saturated fat is likely to get a hard time for some time yet has to do with the fact that paradigms do tend to change very slowly. And at least some of this has to do with a reluctance some of us have to changing our minds about things we ‘know’. Some of us feel we ‘know’ saturated fat causes heart disease, because we’ve been told it so often and consistently we’re not even inclined to challenge this notion. And if we happen to be health professionals or academics who, at least in part, define ourselves by our ‘knowledge’ and ‘intelligence’, it can be mightily difficult to admit that we were wrong.

Not being a literary type, I’m not really a quote person either. But I do know at least one. It is British economist’s John Maynard Keynes’ assertion that “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” How I would like to see health professionals and Government departments take a leaf out of Keynes’ book, and make pronouncements regarding saturated fat and other dietary factors based on science fact (not fiction).

References:

1. Fats and Fatty Acids in Human Nutrition. Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism, 2009; 55 (1-3).

2. Siri-Tarino PW, et al. Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating the association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease Am J Clin Nutr 13 January 2010

Why Organ Meats?

Compared with muscle meats, organ meats are richer in just about every nutrient, including minerals like phosphorus, iron, copper, magnesium and iodine, and in B vitamins including B₁, B₂, B₆, folic acid and especially vitamin B₁₂. Organ meats provide high levels of the all-important fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K, especially if the animals live outside in the sunlight and eat green grass. Organ meats are also rich in beneficial fatty acids such as arachidonic acid, EPA and DHA. Organ meats even contain vitamin C—liver is richer in vitamin C than apples or carrots!

Even if you add only small amounts of organ meats to your ground meat dishes, you are providing your family with super nutrition. . . in ways that everyone likes and are easy to consume.

About the Author

Sally Fallon is the author of Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats (with Mary G. Enig, PhD), a well-researched, thought-provoking guide to traditional foods with a startling message: Animal fats and cholesterol are not villains but vital factors in the diet, necessary for normal growth, proper function of the brain and nervous system, protection from disease and optimum energy levels. She joined forces with Enig again to write Eat Fat, Lose Fat, and has authored numerous articles on the subject of diet and health. The President of the Weston A. Price Foundation and founder of A Campaign for Real Milk, Sally is also a journalist, chef, nutrition researcher, homemaker, and community activist. Her four healthy children were raised on whole foods including butter, cream, eggs and meat.

The National Obesity Forum has called for campaigns to improve public awareness about the dangers of following fad diets.  This follows news from a survey carried out by UK GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare that found nearly 90% of British people are unaware of what visceral fat is, yet two thirds were motivated to lose weight after learning about the dangers of carrying too much of it.

Visceral fat, often referred to as ‘hidden fat’, is carried around abdominal organs and can increase the risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes in particular.

Two thousand adults were questioned as part of the survey and the researchers found that 64% of them were determined to lose weight this year.  They also found that 86% of the people who had previously resolved to diet at New Year admitted they had been unsuccessful.

Chairman of the forum, Professor David Haslam warned: “Fad diets, which usually promise quick-fix weight loss, are unsustainable.  They can actually do more harm than good.  Invariably, weight is put back on, with some of the weight regained accumulating as visceral fat.”

Figures from the NHS Health Survey for England show that around two-thirds of men and more than half of all women, were overweight in 2007.  This again serves to underline the importance of understanding how to lose weight effectively.

So why are faddy diets so harmful for your health?

• Diets which severely restrict calories effectively send the body into starvation mode as if there was a real famine situation.  This causes the body’s metabolism to slow right down so that when a more normal eating pattern is resumed weight will accumulate very easily.
• Some diets advocate following a low-fat regime, regardless of the type of fat consumed.  Whilst it is unhealthy to consume a large amount of certain fats in your diet it can also be very harmful to your health to cut out fat completely.  It is important to make sure you include essential fats such as those found in nuts, seeds and oily fish in your diet even when trying to lose weight, not only are they absolutely vital for all round optimal health, they can also help to regulate metabolism and promote healthy weight control.
• Diets which restrict particular food groups, such as high protein / low carbohydrate diets can play havoc with your health and will very likely lead to some unpleasant side effects.  Headaches, irritability, hormonal and digestive problems, bad breath and sleep problems can all result from following a high protein diet.  In extreme cases they may even cause kidney damage and other more serious irreversible health problems.

So what’s the answer?
The answer that most people don’t want to hear is that there is no ‘quick-fix’ to healthy & sustainable weight loss.  Those people looking for a magic bullet may find it in the short term but will also most likely find themselves locked in a never-ending cycle of weight loss and gain throughout their lives!

The healthiest way to approach weight loss is by following sensible, scientifically proven guidelines to improve body composition.  Such as a Metabolic Typing or similar individual plan which combines dietary guidelines with exercise and lifestyle tips to promote healthy, sustainable weight loss and optimal health both now and well into the future.  For more information on this exciting programme, please click here.
Sources:

www.nursinginpractice.com Fad diet warning issued 4th January 2010