Nutrigenomics

Have been reading a bit lately, so it's about time for some book reviews - but not today. Today is really just noting the subject matter those books are based on, which is Nutrigenomics - the application of a number of sciences to the relationship between human nutrition and health - or how food talks to your body at gene level. It's fascinating so far (the reading, that is: I haven't started a new scientific research career) and I'm enjoying understanding the metabolic processes a bit better and also finding out the reasoning that nutrition and disease are so closely linked - everything from being overweight to developing cancer. I'll review at some point, but if you're champing at the bit for some very interesting reading, I highly recommend "Ultrametabolism" by Mark Hyman, M.D. (ISBN 1-86395-318-3). It's aimed at the weight loss market, on its cover, but don't be fooled by the cover - this book has health and wellness information in it. Another book that wil help you appreciate our metabolic processes better (not at cellular biology level, but at organ and hormone level) is "YOU: on a Diet" by M.D.s Michael F. Roizen and Mehmet C. Oz. (ISBN 978-0-00-724184-2). Again it's aimed at the weight loss market, but don't let that deter you if you're not experiencing excess weight.

The right stuff..

Following on from my last post...It's high time we got serious about what we should be eating and why. Apart from what your grandmother told you (well, mine did, anyway) there is plenty of research that backs up the necessity of nourishing our bodies properly in order to give ourselves the best chance of living healthy, well lives. We need to understand that food is medicine and we need to get the right stuff to keep our bodies functional. We talk and talk about functional exercise and functional exercise prescription, but I haven't heard too many people talking about functional eating. And we need to. We need to get back to basics - eating good clean honest food that really serves us on a day to day basis. I mentioned previously that we are, for the most part, designed to hunt and gather, and that means that we're designed to eat a bit of meat (we don't need much) and lots of in-season fresh fruit and vegetables, nuts and legumes. Basically, on an average trip to the supermarket: the less additional labelling and packaging surrounding the food, the better is is for us and the more likely it is that it should be added to the shopping basket - it's real food and is more available because it's what we need to function at our best. There are reasons that Ice-cream trees and French-Fry bushes don't occur naturally (if at all) - sure, it's fun to eat, but not fun for our bodies and if we insist on consuming highly processed substances our bodies will, day by day, year by year, wear down and become diseased unnecessarily.

Try it for yourself: get to know how your body really feels when you eat a nutritious, "alive" diet. Cut highly processed food from your diet for even a few days and notice the difference when you're feeding on fresh fruit and vegetable and nuts with a bit of animal protein thrown in for good measure. Be really strict with cutting sugars (except those from fruit), caffeine, and processed grains (eg. breads and pastas), and if you're really keen to experiment, drop dairy too, as it's commonly known to initiate an inflammatory response along with the aforementioned - Try it for a week or two and see how you feel. Most people report unaccustomed feelings of well being, greater alertness and clarity, higher ability to process information and often weight loss - without feeling hungry.

The Obesity Challenge: Why we often eat too much.

Thinking about the obesity and resultant heath and wellness challenges that our society is facing across the world, I had a fairly simple realisation a couple of weeks ago: we humans have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years and until very recently we've had to hunt and gather what ever food we ate - we've had to work hard for the food that was available and that we needed. We learned to feast in times of plenty and do without in leaner times. We're still doing that today, because it's how we're programmed. BUT today, with the advent of organisations such as Coles, Woolworths, Sainsburys and TESCO, we're always in times of plenty and we can have what ever we want and as much of it as we want and we don't have to have only what we need. AND "hunting and gathering" in the local supermarket doesn't take quite the effort that hunting and gathering in the wild thousands of years ago used to take.

You're probably beginning to see my point: we need to be more conscious of our current environment and our own ancient needs and drives. While our survival brains are telling us "good times: eat up today - it might not be there tomorrow!" ....as we unconsciously cruise the supermarket aisles and throw one of every fancy coloured package into the shopping trolley or onto our plates, we need to realise that just because we can have it all today, we don't have to, and we don't need to.

Driving an ancient organism in a modern world is a tough challenge and one that we need to wake up to and meet if we want to enjoy the best health and well being possible.

Think about it.... :)

Getting and staying healthy is easy...

It seems that I keep coming up against this good, honest and basic advice for staying healthy time and time again -even when I'm not looking for it, and today while flicking through the Sydney Morning Herald online, I came across yet another article that lets us all know how simple it is to keep our bodies in better shape for longer. For general health benefits, it's as easy as 30 minutes of walking 5 days a week and 2-3 x 20-30 minute resistance training sessions.

You don't have to blast your body for hours on end, day in day out to reap some great general health benefits. The most important thing is that you do something everyday. Start with Walking - it's easy; it gets you outside and for those sweat-phobics out there, there doesn't need to be any involved. If you can't do 30 mins in one stretch for what ever reason - get your body moving for at least 10 mins at a time, three times a day. It's as simple as a 10 min walk to the bus stop in the morning and then again in the evening after work, and a walk down the road at lunch time.
For resistance training all you need is your own body and some basic 'big muscle group' exercises. - Start with taking a look at this video ..and trying the suggestions.

Here's to a healthier you in 20-30 minutes a day..let me know how it goes....Cheers

New Technology - Progio

Have had the great fortune to be offered a Progio Training companion to road test by a friend of mine, Darren Hughes over at Satellite Fitness in Melbourne. It's a virtual training device for use by personal trainers, their clients or anyone looking for great workout advice without the cost of a personal trainer.

As a Personal Trainer you can create workouts to give to your clients if they are travelling for extended periods of time. One of the best tools I've come across to help you create these is PTontheNET , but there are others. Basically, you design the workouts, upload them to the training companion loaded with the Progio software and hand over to your client to do their stuff. Your clients can then record and upload their workout records for you to check and provide feedback.

The Progio software is compatible with Windows Mobile devices - yes, that's right, your Phone/PDA can also become your virtual personal trainer with Progio. The only drawback I've come across is that my 3 year old imate just doesn't have enough memory to take on the software AND training sessions (must be time for an upgrade - hehe).

The device looks a bit bulky and at first you wonder how you're going to go for a run with it, but the design cleverly and securely fits into the palm of your hand and isn't noticeably heavy: resulting in a surprisingly great user experience! I've run, walked, done sprint sessions and many combinations of the above and never had the worry of it slipping out and off my hand - so it's not a distraction.

The Progio Training companion also incorporates Polar compatible heart rate monitoring software, and can be bundled with a Polar chest strap. You can load your own music onto it, too! It has the capacity to handle video images of activities, whether they be animated or live video, so you can see what you're supposed to be doing as opposed to what your interpretation of the written instructions might be. Having said the written instructions are very clear with the HyperStrike workouts I've downloaded, but as a Trainer, I'd like to know that as little as possible is left to my Clients's imagination, especially when I can't be there.

All in all, I thinkit's a gerat innovation,a fantastic tool and opens up soo many more possibilities with regard to helping people be active - there are getting fewer and fewer excuses to not be "on the move". GO PROGIO!!