Happy New Year Metronians!

Moving into the new year is both exciting and nerve racking. 2016 was an amazing year for some, and a not so amazing year for others. For some, they achieved much. For others they didn’t achieve anything they set out to achieve.

So, why the discrepancy?

At the beginning of every year, almost everyone has grand plans and hopes for how their new year will look.

This will be my year! Says some.

This is the year of the ROAR! Says others.

I am going to ditch ALL junk food and join a gym

I am going to set up a morning ritual because I want to be successful and ALL successful people have a morning ritual…don’t they?

…

However, come the morning of January 1, these same people will wake up with a hangover at 11am, dive into a burger with chips all washed down with some soft drink or coffee.

By this point, they are WAY too drunk, hot and carbed out to go to the gym.

And morning ritual? What morning ritual…its midday now.
There goes my year!

Self-loathing sets in. Disappointment sets in. Old habits take over. Anxiety is rife.

Better luck next year!

When am I ever going to get on track?!

But really? Does it have to be like this?

The answer is no.
Firstly, there is no reason why your actions need to take place at the strike of midnight when the calendar changes over into the next year. Slow and steady wins the race! PACE YOURSELVES!

But more importantly, most people never achieve what they set out to achieve because they want to achieve too many things, and they don’t lay out a pathway to achieve these goals.

Our exercise physiologist Louisa explains the art of setting SMART goals perfectly in her recent blog.

But now that you have set your goals, what next?

At this time of the year, everyone is going on a health kick. Everyone wants to lose weight. But weight loss in and of itself can drive a lot of anxiety.What I hope to highlight to you today are some of the common anxiety-driving thoughts and issues that arise around weight loss and some solutions for these issues.

Issue #1 – I want to lose weight, but I don’t know where to start.

Having all these healthy intentions, but no idea where to start and what to do first can create a lot of anxiety and can send people into a whirlwind of feeling overwhelmed.

Let’s say for arguments sake, you are 100kg, and you’ve set your SMART goal already: to lose 20kg by Dec 31 2017.

Is it specific? Yes. Is it measurable? Yes. Is it attainable? Yes. Is it realistic? Yes. It is time-specific? Yes.

Ok, so you now know that you have a SMART goal.

Now, you stare at it and freeze.

How do I do this??

The shake diet I was on last year was disgusting.

Exercising is too hard right now with my sore joints.

How am I going to do this???

Solution: Now that you have your SMART goal, you need to TRAC your goal. What does TRAC stand for? (I made this one up myself, and I have to say, I am a bit proud of it).

Take a baseline

If your weight loss goals are driven by health, then make sure you take a baseline of your current markers – what is your glucose like? Your lipids? Your hormones? Your iron levels? If your weight loss goals are driven by aesthetics, perhaps get a DEXA scan, or take down your current weight, waist circumference or clothing size.

Record everything

Record your daily food intake, your water consumption, your alcohol consumption. Write down when you exercise. Describe your emotions and what drives you to eat certain foods. Analyze your hunger patterns and assess whether or not you are actually hungry every time you eat. From recording, you may already pick up on trends and habits that you feel confident in changing on your own.

Perhaps you have identified that every day at morning tea, you grab a biscuit with your coffee without even realising. Perhaps you don’t actually care for the biscuit and it is something you can easily cut out. Bingo! You are already making progress.

Ask for help

Many people see this as a sign of weakness. I see it as a sign of a strong person with self awareness. After all, when I need help with my taxes, I go to an accountant. Why wouldn’t you go see a health professional to help you get your health on track?

Sometimes it takes a health professional to prompt you to get the right blood tests. Sometimes it takes a health professional to identify the gaps in your eating patterns and advise on changes you need to make. Sometimes it takes a health professional to direct you to other health professionals to address issues you probably didn’t even realise were issues. That is why we are health professionals. We are trained in health. You just have to ask us for help.

Commit

Sounds a bit obvious? Believe it or not, this is possibly the biggest blunder.

Look, imagine this.

Imagine you were about to marry the love of your life. You are standing at the altar, and the celebrant asks: do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?

Your partner pauses, looks at you and says: Yes, I do, for the next 4 years, 5 months, 3 days and 13 hours.

How would you feel? Is that a bit silly?

Now imagine this.

Imagine the same scenario: do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?

Your partner pauses, looks at you and says: Yes, I do, on the condition that she wears red on Mondays, blue on Tuesdays….

How would you feel again?

Yes, I know that sounds funny, yet, most people treat their health and their health goals like that!

I call it the subscription mentality. Most people treat it like it is a subscription to Netflix. I’ll try it out for 6 months and if it doesn’t work, then I will stop it.

The very definition of commitment is: Unconditional, with no expiration date. Yet most people place condition upon condition to achieving their goals, and only set out 12 weeks or 28 days at a time to achieve their goals.

Issue #2 – Dieting is so restrictive!

This is true! Yet the diet industry is a multi-billion dollar industry! Everyone wants to jump onto the next big thing, everyone is in search of that magic bullet that (sorry to say) does not exist! To do it, people are willing to sacrifice taste and quantity of food to lose the weight. Because, hey, it’s only for 12 weeks until the challenge ends, right??

That is why I have grown to hate the word dieting. Imagine how differently people will approach it if it was called nourishing or healthy-ing?

Whenever someone embarks on a diet, it is because someone else had great success with it, and introduced them to it too.

What we need to remember is this: everyone’s body is built so differently. Everyone’s food preferences are different. Everyone’s health markers are different. Everyone’s life is so different. Maybe Bob lost a lot of weight doing the shake diet because all the shake did was create an energy deficit that Bob desperately needed! Maybe you are actually under eating, which is why the shakes aren’t working for you!

Remember that dude who lost a lot of weight on the potato only diet? What if you tried that and you are insulin resistant? Do you think your body would respond the same way?

Solution: So how about let’s quit copy-catting our next door neighbour and what they’re doing and actually eat real, good, unprocessed wholesome foods and seek help to find out what type of macronutrient ratio works best for you and your body, and what foods will offer you the most micronutrient-dense profiles!

Once you stop dieting and start nourishing, you will feel a cloud of anxiety lift!

Issue #3 – I come home after a long day and the last thing I want to do is cook.

Is your fridge full of plastic bags full of rotten food? Is your fridge so full to the brim you don’t actually know what is in there anymore? Can you still see any free space on your bench top? Is there a pile of dirty dishes in the sink and all over the stove?

Clutter is something that can drive anxiety immensely. With order, brings focus. With order, brings calmness.

I read a fabulous blog the other day, written by Chris Irving, CEO of The Zenith Network, where he has created his own DARE system to overcoming anxiety.

So, in applying his DARE principles, I would recommend that you set aside a weekend to organise your food space. Tackle that thing you have been running away from head on!

Solution: Pull everything out, clean out your cupboards and your fridge. After all, they are the places you store your food. Best to keep those spaces clean and mould-spores free.

After that, do a purge. A liberal one. Throw out everything that has expired or is visibly spoilt. Gather all the foods or items that you have not used in the last 6 months. Now throw them out. Gather all the foods or items that you have used in the last 6 months, but cannot see yourself using again for the next 6 months. Throw them out too (or give it away!).

Remove everything from plastic and put them into well labelled clear BPA free plastic Tupperware or glass Tupperware containers.  Place them back into your cupboards and fridge.

Wash and organise all your dishes. Clean your benchtop and clear it of things that don’t belong in the kitchen. Nail polish and hair ties for example – they go in the bathroom!

Now – how do you feel now?

The kitchen is only a scary place because we have neglected it for too long. With a little TLC, we can learn to love our food space again.

So, why not put these 3 solutions into action, and see how you go with your goals this year?

 

Happy New Year! 2017 is upon us and I feel a positive shift in all those around me. There is a vibe and it’s different. The realisation of how important it is to stop and be present is increasingly being practiced in society today. Life is just too busy which is why those who are aware have the ability to know exactly what they want to achieve and how to go about it!

So many of us place enormous pressure on ourselves to achieve a specific goal that may take months to achieve for example ‘weight loss’ being one of the more popular new years resolutions. How easy is it to announce to the world on the first day of the year – I want to lose weight? And how easy is it a few days into January to lose your way? I am here to tell you that it is very common and you are not the only one!

So how can you make the things you want in life (both personally and professionally) achievable?

To put it simply, it’s about breaking down the end result. You want to lose weight? How are you going to achieve this? What is your motivation for losing weight? In what time frame? How will you eat? What will be your exercise plan? And the list goes on…you can see why a few days in, you’re ready to throw in the towel!

Ok – so let’s think about it. How much more achievable will your goals be if you mapped out the steps required in order to reach the ‘ultimate goal’? Use the SMART goals principles, as it is a researched process that makes goals attainable. Here is an example of what an action orientated goal looks like:

Specific – Your goal should be clear and easy to understand.

Example: I will lose weight.

Measurable – How will you track your progress and how will you know when u reach your goals?

Example: I want to lose body fat (and will track this with quarterly dexa scans)

Attainable – Add a number to it.

Example: I want to drop 7% of body fat (as opposed to 37%)

Realistic – Is the goal relevant to you? Make sure the goal is motivating to you.

Example: I have at least 10% to lose, so 7% is realistic – as opposed to wanting to lose 7% when I only have at most 5% to lose

Timely – Include an endpoint. Having a deadline motivates you to get started. Example: I want to lose 7% body fat, which I will track with quarterly dexa scans by December 31, 2017

The reality is that there is no point in setting the same resolutions you’ve been setting for years on end, only to feel disappointed and down on yourself. Like Albert Einstein said, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Do it differently this time..BE SMART

 

I have a bone to pick today. And I am going to pick it.

In the current nutritional climate where information, misinformation and everything in between is rife, it is really difficult to know who we can trust as the “real experts”.

There has been a long standing Cold War between different health professions – Physios can’t stand Chiros; Conventionally-Trained Doctors can’t stand Traditional Chinese Medicine Doctors; Dietitians can’t stand Nutritionists; and no one can stand Homeopaths… #sorrynotsorry

But at the end of the day – why is this happening?

I’ll tell you why. It is all because of 3 little letters – E-G-O.

Ego.

Honestly – when did ego ever save a life? When did ego ever help science progress? When did ego ever let YOU progress?

Yet, everyone has one, and everyone loves to whip it out and compare it to the next person’s. “My qualification is better than yours” is the argument we hear and see over and over again. But qualifications alone mean very little.

Over the years, I have encountered many health professionals – mostly doctors and dietitians – who have proclaimed to be experts in Heart Disease and Cholesterol Management. If you do a Google search, you will see exactly what I mean – everyone claims that they are an “expert in” or “specialises in” Heart Disease and Cholesterol. But how many of these “experts” are real experts in these areas?

Well I guess our first pit stop is to define the word “expert”.

According to the Oxford definition, an expert is someone who is “very knowledgeable about or skilful in a particular area”.

Now this is where things start to fall apart. You see, when you ask a lot of these “experts” about Heart Disease and Cholesterol, they will state (almost in unison) that you need to maintain your Cholesterol below 5.5mmol/L and that eating more Saturated Fats will clog your arteries and lead to higher LDL cholesterol (the “bad” cholesterol) and an increased risk of Heart Disease.

[The reason why I make a point of pointing out that this is “almost in unison” (apart from clearly identifying that I do not echo their sentiment) is because the general impression is “surely if there are so many people who share the exact same views, then it MUST be the correct information. Right?” WRONG.]

The aforementioned statement that a lot of these “experts” make is the very reason why they are NOT experts and why I have this massive bone to pick today.

People get their Cholesterol levels checked by their GPs by the swarms each day, and this test itself has almost become an indispensable part of their routine blood workups. However, why is it that I see clients who have terrible lipid profiles not having their Cholesterol addressed (or have it addressed in a non-expert way that only leads to these numbers worsening), and why is it that I equally see clients who have always had great lipid profiles being put on Statin medication when there is no real indication for it?

This comes down to the “experts” knowledge and skill in interpreting pathology and knowing what to do to manipulate pathology in favour of the clients’ Heart Health.

So today, let’s have a Master Class on Cholesterol Pathology Interpretation. By the end of this, I hope that you (if you are a client) will no longer sit there blindly nodding at your blood test report, not knowing what means what; and I hope that you (if you are an “expert”) will no longer be misleading your clients in how their bloods are actually performing against their risk of developing Heart Disease.

This is going to get quite scientific, so hang in there!

In order to begin this Master Class on Cholesterol, I think it is best to set the scene for what Cholesterol actually is and what it actually does in the body. For so long, people have cowered at the word “Cholesterol” but never really understood even themselves why they act that way.

Cholesterol is literally defined as “bile solids”. In our body, most of the bile salts are made from cholesterol, and without this, we would not be able to absorb any fats. Cholesterol is also an integral structural component in all our cell membranes, it forms the precursor of Vitamin D, and, it is directly responsible for producing steroidal hormones such as testosterone, progesterone and cortisol. As you can see, without Cholesterol, we’d all be in a bit of strife…

So why is it then that we are all so afraid of something so essential to life?

It may have something to do with all the “experts” perpetuating the same WRONG information around what your Cholesterol levels actually mean.

Let’s take a look at 2 different Pathology reports (I encourage you to get yours out so we can go through it together too):

So, which one is better – Sample A or Sample B? Who is at a lower risk of Heart Disease? Read on to find out.

Total Cholesterol

This means nothing. A healthy individual will have Cholesterol in the blood. Depending on many factors, this could be higher or lower, but ultimately this number alone has ZERO implications on your risk of Heart Disease. And frankly, if you had none, you’d be dead.

Take Home Message: Stop placing so much emphasis on this number. At the end of the day, it means very little.

 

Triglycerides

Triglycerides rise in the blood when excess carbohydrates are consumed, especially an excess of fructose in combination with glucose.

This happens because when muscle glycogen levels are full, glucose enters the liver. Fructose cannot be taken up by your muscles in any capacity, and it goes directly into the liver. Because of this build up of sugars in the liver, the body converts it to Triglycerides.

These Triglycerides are then exported from the liver in a large particle called VLDL (Very Low Density Lipoprotein). For the sake of this article, I will refer to VLDL as a “big ball of Triglycerides”.

This big ball of Triglycerides will then go on to interact with HDL (High Density Lipoprotein) via a process called CETP and gives up Triglycerides in exchange for Cholesterol. This process wears out the HDL.

As a result, in people with high Triglyceride levels, their HDL levels will always be lower.

Take Home Message: Triglycerides and HDL are inversely related – when Triglycerides are high, HDL is low; when Triglycerides are low, HDL is high.

 

HDL

This has widely been considered the “Good” Cholesterol. This is because, as explained above, if HDL is high, then our Triglycerides will inevitably be low.

So why is it a good thing if Triglycerides are low (or for that matter, if HDL is high?)

I go on to explain this later.

Take Home Message: We want HDL to be high (and by association, we want Triglycerides to be low).

 

LDL

LDL (Low Density Lipoprotein) is a NATURAL by-product of fat metabolism. Although this is widely referred to as “Bad” Cholesterol, it certainly does not deserve this title. Let me explain.

In normal fat metabolism, our big ball of Triglycerides (VLDL) will travel through our blood, offloading triglycerides, and swapping it for cholesterol. By the time it becomes LDL, the particle is now mostly cholesterol, as the triglycerides have all been swapped out.

Under normal circumstances, LDL will go straight back to the liver. However. If there is a LOT of triglyceride to exchange, the LDL will be parked in the blood for longer, leaving the LDL open to oxidisation and glycation, both processes changing the inherent structure of the LDL, and it becomes small and dense and sticky, known as sdLDL (Small Dense LDL…duh!). Because of this, the liver no longer wants it back.

Take Home Message: LDL is not inherently bad. However, when it stays in the blood for longer than it should, it becomes small and dense and this small, dense LDL is what increases your risk of heart disease.

 

So what happens to this sdLDL?

Our body has natural scavengers known as Macrophages. These macrophages go around and suck up these sdLDL. Unfortunately, if there is a lot of these sdLDL, the macrophages become engorged on it, and this forms what we commonly know of as “plaque”. Being small and dense, sdLDL can easily get caught in the blood vessel walls, and as macrophages gorge on sdLDL, these plaques start to form on the blood vessel walls.

Take Home Message: If given the opportunity to stay in the blood for longer, normal LDL becomes oxidized and glycated, and turns into sdLDL. This sdLDL is what directly increases your risk of Heart Disease.

 

Can we test for sdLDL?

The answer is yes. You can get LDL-P size testing done, but there are only a couple of labs that do it in the whole of Australia. In the absence of direct particle size testing, we can always predict it using 2 known figures: Triglycerides and HDL.

When Triglyceride levels in the blood are HIGH (meaning >1.5mmol/L), sdLDL are almost always present. We also know that when Triglyceride levels are LOW (<1.0mmol/L), the LDL is almost always the large fluffy kind, not the small, dense kind.

THIS is why we want triglyceride levels in the blood to be low, as it directly reflects the type of LDL you have in your blood, and your risk factor for Heart Disease.

However, statistically, Triglyceride levels are not very consistent or reliable. So what do we do? We look at our HDL levels. HDL is much more consistent and reliable as a statistical marker.

Take Home Message:

If HDL is high, Triglycerides are low.

If Triglycerides are low, sdLDL is low.

And when sdLDL is low, your risk of Heart Disease is LOW.

 

So when you next look at your blood lipid profile – you won’t have to sit and stare blankly anymore. You can follow these steps instead.

1. Make sure that your Triglyceride are low (less than 1mmol/L)

2. Make sure your HDL is HIGH (whatever it takes for Triglycerides to be less than 1mmol/L)

3. Stop looking at Total Cholesterol – it means NOTHING

4. Stop letting people tell you that LDL is the “bad” cholesterol

a. The small dense kind, yes

b. The large fluffy kind, no

And how do you know which is which? Go back to Step 1.

And THAT is how you Interpret your Cholesterol levels in relation to your risk of Heart Disease.

So the BIG QUESTION now is…..what foods increase Triglycerides and decrease HDL, and which ones do the exact opposite (which is what we want!)?

Stay tuned for Part 2 where I go into all things food.

 

 

Today is my birthday.

Every year on my birthday, there are 3 things I love to do.

1. Spend time with the people I cherish

2. Do something that I love doing

3. Reflect on the year that’s been, and get excited about what I will accomplish in the year to come

This year it is no different. Today I get to spend time with my beautiful partner and my family, and I get to go to work! Now, don’t get me wrong, this isn’t sarcasm. I GENUINELY am looking forward to a day doing the one thing I love, which is to educate, treat and inspire people to make changes to their lives through better nutrition.

Now, as I sit here grinning from ear to ear thinking about all the wonderful things that have happened in the past year, and all the beautiful people I have met along the way, I had a light bulb moment. I have realised what my mission in life is (yes, it sounds corny, but who cares…it’s my birthday).

So you already know that I love to educate, inspire and treat people. So, my mission in life?

It is to EDUCATE, INSPIRE AND TREAT MYSELF OUT OF A JOB.

Yes. You read that right. But do let me explain.

Ever since I became a dietitian, I wanted to actually make a difference. This is the very reason why I was so unhappy to just plod along in the hospital system, and why I felt the need to create a platform where I could actually make a difference.

I’ve always been one to search for answers, and one to look for new information. Learning became a passion of mine, as I noticed the more I learnt, the more I was able to help my clients. Through the process of learning, I have realised that I have needed to increasingly challenge what I already know. I have had to re-learn a lot of things, and accept that science, especially nutritional science is fast progressing and ever evolving. I knew that I had to keep my mind open to new information because I believe that the day I stop being open to new information will be the day I stop progressing as a clinician.

As I learn more and put more pieces of the complex puzzle that is the human body and metabolism together, the more I am convinced that there has been so much the world has been misinformed about. What perplexes me is the fact that the science isn’t new or ground breaking – it’s the same old stuff we all learned about back at Uni – but somehow, between the lecture theatre and the real world, a lot of the science was forgotten (or just got hidden) behind a world of guidelines and legislations.

My mission is to put everything I have learnt (and will be learning) into turning people’s lives around. I don’t want to regurgitate old guidelines. I don’t want to lead people down a garden path – one that is safe, but is not revolutionary nor life-changing.

I want to stop diabetes from developing, by catching it even before it becomes “pre-diabetes”. I want to help my clients successfully lose weight in a sustainable way when weight loss has been something they have tried and failed time and time again. I want to use diet to help clients improve their moods, their gut health and disease state. I want to do so much more than just “manage” patients. I want to educate them. I want to inspire them. I want to TREAT them.

The exciting part of all of this is the fact that everything I WANT to do is already starting to happen. I AM “catching” diabetes before it becomes diabetes; I AM helping people lose weight and keep the weight off without them having to starve themselves; I AM lifting people’s moods and improving their gut health; I AM turning peoples’ lives around.

Whether this is because I am applying the science as the science was intended to be applied; whether this is because I have opened my mind to learn, re-learn and accept new information; whether this is because my passion for what I do has been infectious enough – the fact is, I am making a difference and this makes me excited.

As I say goodbye to clients after discharging them, I feel a sense of fulfilment. I hope I never have to see them again. I hope that I can start discharging more and more clients – to the point where I no longer have a job.

But by then, I will have more than just a job I love. I will have a dream fulfilled.

So there you have it.

That is my mission in life.

To educate, inspire and treat myself out of a job, and into a dream fulfilled.

 

We all have a story. Today I feel open to sharing mine.

I have always had a passion for physical activity and sport from a very early age. I remember my mother enrolled me into basketball at the age of 6. I felt at home when I was on the basketball court. I was a natural and freely able to express myself through my sporting skills and abilities. Sport was a big part of my life whether I was playing it or watching it.

At the end of high school my career path was obvious to me. Either a Physical Education Teacher where I get to wear tracksuit pants and runners everyday to work (my life long dream) or learn about the human body and how it functions through a Human Movement degree. I applied for both!

As fate had it, I fell just short of the Enter score required and was accepted into my ‘just in case’ course – Computer Technology. Yes – you read right! It was the other thing I was good at but less passionate about. I distinctly remember sitting behind my computer screen stuck in an office with minimal windows and barely talking to anyone. I knew I had so much more to offer. 6 years into my IT career, I was no longer comfortable ignoring my true calling and what I knew I needed to do. I returned to University and completed my Bachelor of Exercise and Sports Science where I qualified as a ‘Glorified Personal Trainer’. This was too general for me.

My story doesn’t end there. I wasn’t satisfied. I needed more.

Having been involved in two car accidents, I suffered substantial whiplash injuries. I was referred to a Chiropractor – which I became very reliant on and it never looked like I was going to be discharged, then onto an Osteopath where things improved slightly but NO ONE could tell me what I needed to do to treat my injuries through exercise. I was so confused. I needed someone to provide me with some guidance around what to do before integrating back into the gym. I quickly realised that there was a gap in the system and knew that this was the career I wanted to pursue. I completed my Masters of Applied Science (Exercise Rehabilitation) and have not looked back since.

I now have people coming to see me for exercise programs to rehabilitate their injuries. Nothing is a coincidence. We create our reality. I created mine.

I am a passionate Accredited Exercise Physiologist working in private practice. I treat people with chronic disease and illness including diabetes, osteoporosis, cardiac issues, obesity, chronic pain, falls and balance prevention and manage these conditions through evidence-based exercise prescription. I take into consideration lifestyle factors and barriers to exercise, as no two people are the same. My assessments will always include a discussion around diet, sleep quality, stress levels and so forth. I believe in treating people holistically. I have learned that to achieve desired outcomes, it’s about investigating the reasons WHY people are overweight and can’t lose weight, WHY they are living with chronic pain, WHY they are insulin resistant and so forth. It’s about LISTENING but more importantly HEARING and from there, identifying the right type of treatment at that moment. I get pleasure out of empowering people to take back control of their health and wellness. This is my mission. This is my purpose.

I don’t regret anything that has happened in my life for it has led me to where I am today. I love my job and guess what? I get to wear tracksuit pants and runners to work everyday!

I am exactly where I need to be…