The good old days
Back when I was a personal trainer I use to always choose low fat. In fact, I would choose low fat everything, low fat milk, low fat muesli. I would cut all fat off my meat and stay away from nuts and seeds, because they were over 50% fat. I knew the calories of everything I ate. I had memorised every food, and how many calories they contained.
I trained hard at the gym, had very slow results and started to get serious health problems.
The more my health suffered the stricter I became with my diet, it was a downward spiral.
This continued on for about a decade until I started studying. I remember questioning everything in our nutrition class, I liked to challenge the teachers and thought I had something up on them.
The 360 degree turn around
One day a man came to talk to the class who was a chapter of the Weston A Price foundation. They teach eating a diet based on whole foods, or more natural foods. Nothing added and more importantly nothing taken away.
At this stage I remember my weight being down to about 77kgs. I was lean, a fast runner, I joked about being a greyhound or wippet.
I listened attentively and hung on to what he was saying. I was lucky enough to hear about Sally Fallon coming to town. Sally is the head of this foundation. I was expecting to listen to just another expert amongst the thousands, all with conflicting advice.
How wrong could I be?
Not only was Sally friendly, approachable and full of advice, she was also humble. An attribute I greatly admire.
Her presentation was based on different cultures around the world, their health statistics and a lot of science to back it up. There was an emphasis on consuming fat soluble activators with meals to increase the absorption of vitamins, minerals and protein.
If you were to list the highest foods in protein per 100grams on one hand being nuts, seeds, animal products you may also notice these have moderate amounts of fat in them. In seems nature puts them together for a reason.
I decided to give this a go and see what would happen.
The transformation
Now, I want to emphasise here that I was doing weight training about 4 days per week for about an hour per session.
This was stimulating my body to change, but what happened next was incredible.
In 6mths my weight increased up to 120kg, I remember the day the dean of the school approached me.
She said she had been asked on behalf of the students to talk to me about being on steroids and how bad they were for you.
I laughed and told her it was the vitamins A,D,E and K that were producing the results with a little bit of hard training.
I have now backed off solely doing weights and also do some cardio, the missing link is flexibility which I will focus on soon. My weight is now about 104kgs and I feel that is about right, although I am no longer so concerned with the scales. I remember a day at work where about 10 guests were weighing themselves after every meal.
I believe scales to be a tool which we over use, its harmless to weigh your self once a week or so to see how you are progressing, but a better indicator may be your belt. Is it getting looser or tighter? The size of your belly has been attributed to cardio vascular disease with an increase in visceral fat.
We all know when we look in the mirror in which direction we are heading, up or down.
Muscle is heavier than fat after all, I have seen very lean people weigh more than people who are overweight.
Should we remove the fat from breast milk?
When I talk weekly I would always ask the question should we be removing the fat from breast milk.
My normal response is a bit of a laugh, with comments like "thats ridiculous."
My next question is something along the lines of,
"Can anyone name the top 20 foods in protein?", you would be very surprised to learn that milk is number 19 on this list at 4% fat, rice comes in at number 20 at 2% fat.
No one is mentioning about nuts and seeds being up to 1500% higher in fat. Macadamias last time I checked were over 65% fat.
Chew your food
When you eat natural food in its natural state, complete with all its fibre and fat you will find that a very little fills you up.
You have a mechanism to tell you when to stop, this is what we don't listen to anymore.
I once taught a class on chewing slowly and the weight loss over the week was the greatest by all those who practiced slowing down and chewing thoroughly. The trick is to push the plate away when you feel comfortable, this is about a 7/10. christmas day being a 15/10. I would rather you didn't finish your plate.
Don't get me wrong
I am not saying add fat to everything, I am saying if nature put it there, leave it there.
Although we included fats in the diet at the health retreat the focus was on a lower calorie approach over all.
A more balanced diet!!
Food was supposed to be enjoyed
As Adro one of the biggest losers stated while doing a presentation at the retreat, "Calories in must be less than calories out."
When having fruits in the morning for breakfast, it is ok to have full cream yogurt on top.
When eating muesli, it is ok to have nuts and seeds in it.
It is even ok to have a teaspoon of butter on your roast potato, once per day.
Remember moderation!
When you remove all the fats you miss out on vitamins A,D,E,K and I have noticed those who have low fat milk, together with low fat diets end up with a vitamin D deficiency and cannot absorb the calcium. There is a reason they fortify Milk now with vitamin D in the United States.
Vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin meaning if they remove the fat they must also remove vitamins A,D,E and K.
Low fat = low nutrition!!
My name is Blair Harvey and I have had the pleasure of working at one of Australia's best Health Retreat's for the past fourteen wonderful years. Over those years I have had the delight of working with a spectacular kitchen team, we all have an immense passion for cooking good healthy food that is unique and tantalizing to your taste buds. Together we have not only developed our skills in cooking wholesome, nourishing and out right delicious foods, but we have been committed to broadening our knowledge of healing with whole foods and exploring the beauty of healthy living. Because of our enthusiasm in the benefits of foods and there healing properties I developed a blog to help us SHARE what we have learnt with the rest of the world.
You will find tasty gems of wisdom on health, food and healing, helping to expand your mind and revitalize your knowledge of healthy eating.