Integrity in scientific research and reporting is so important to me.

Diabetes is one of the leading global epidemics in Australia and around the world, and getting to the bottom of diabetes is a matter close to many people’s hearts, including mine.

As a dietitian, I’ve worked extensively in the area of diabetes management over my 10 yrs of practice so far. Now, we work on identifying insulin resistance before it gets to the stage of T2 diabetes, in the hopes of catching it early, changing habits and preventing the devastating long term ramifications of poorly controlled blood glucose levels. It’s actually a bit scary how many clients we see have “perfectly normal” fasting glucose and HbA1c levels but are still insulin resistant and en route to diabetes.

For what seems like too long now, the world of nutrition science have been in two minds about the best approach to glycemic control – high GI vs low GI, high carb vs low carb. It doesn’t help that some basic definitions like “what is considered low carb” is even inconsistent. But hey, that’s a story for another day.

Up until now, for better or for worse, we’ve still used existing evidence – both scientific and anecdotal. But this segment of the ABC Science Catalyst program has me raising my eyebrows. (full segment can be watched here).

In this video you will see that there was a before and after scan for the consumption of white bread with butter and vegemite, and another one for the consumption of grain bread with avocado. The experiment was designed to compare the rise in blood glucose levels 30min after consumption of white bread vs grain bread.

This is how it played out.

The reading for the white bread with Vegemite was taken just over an hour apart and showed a rise from 5.5mmol/L to 8.4mmol/L.

 

 

Then, the reading from the grain bread with avocado showed a before and after screen that looked identical in both the time stamp in the top left corner as well as the glucose graph on the bottom of the screen. The only change was the glucose level going from 4.8mmol/L to 7.4mmol/L. This was meant to have been taken 30min apart. (If you look closely enough at the graph on the screen showing a 4.8 reading, you will see that it doesn’t match up! The graph is clearly indicating that the glucose was closer to 9 than to 4.8!)

 

Ignoring the obvious, if this was an experiment designed to be credible and actually demonstrate the changes in glucose levels 30 minutes after eating white bread vs grain bread then there needs to be several changes to the way this experiment was conducted.

• The spread on top of the bread needs to be the same – c’mon, basics!
• It needs to be bang on 30min between each test – not over an hour for one and what appears to be within the same minute for the other?! (hmm…interesting)
• It needs to be taken under similar circumstances – which means at least on two separate days, at the same time each day (or at least after the same number of hours fasted since last meal)
• Other factors need to be taken into consideration, such as sleep quality, what foods were eaten before the bread, and stress levels
• When interpreting the rise in glucose, we need to look at how much it rose and not just the absolute value. For example, if looking at the absolute value, the blood glucose was 1.0mmol/L higher after white vs grain bread. However if looking at the change, in experiment 1 with the white bread, it went from 5.5 to 8.4 (a rise of 2.9mmol/L, or 52.7%). In the second experiment with the grain bread it went from 4.8 to 7.4 (a rise of 2.6mmol/L, or 54.2%). The difference is negligible. THEN, when we take into consideration that the first experiment with the Vegemite and white toast was taken 1 hour apart and the second experiment with the grain toast and avocado was only taken (allegedly) 30min apart, these two results aren’t even comparable! You cannot compare a 1hr reading to a 30min one. This demonstrates NO scientific consistency whatsoever!
• A clear definition of what glucose level is optimal / ideal. In my professional opinion, neither 8.4 or 7.4 are optimal. The one thing that I’m sure wasn’t intentional, but happened anyway, was that it demonstrated, flaws and all, that neither white nor grain bread were great – because if the glucose rose like that on a supposed “non-diabetic”, bread would be the LAST thing a diabetic should eat – white or grain.

When none of these parameters are considered and discussed, the experiment doesn’t show anything worth noting.

It’s reports like this that do NOTHING to help progress science. It only perpetuates the confusion and throws more mud on the faces of dietitians, who’ve collectively lost so much respect already for the actions of a few.

Scientific rigor is something we must all uphold, and when leading nutrition scientists aren’t leading the charge to demonstrate scientific rigor when performing an experiment or proving a point, it doesn’t speak well to the credibility of us as a profession.

This also reminds me of all that’s currently wrong with nutrition research. It’s lazy! Most nutrition research is questionnaire based, relying on subjective memory and reporting. Others are based on crude nutrient split testing on rodents, and others…are doing experiments that don’t really have consistency or objectivity behind them.

It’s research like this that has articles published one day claiming that coconut oil is the elixir to life, and the very next day, it’s become highly toxic. On moment red meat will kill us, the next it prolongs our life.

We owe it to the general population to conduct quality research and publish useful and reliable reports that actually help progress people’s understanding of health and nutrition. Instead, nutrition science has been labelled a joke!

The truth is – it all starts with the beliefs and mindset of the nutritionists and scientists themselves.

Science is ever evolving. Nutrition science is even more the case. We can believe that we are right about something, but still have it proven wrong years later.

That was how my journey went. I literally spent the first 5 years of my career recommending low fat, portion controlled nutrition to my clients. I modified everyone’s diet to include more low GI sources of carbs when their bloods indicated that they have diabetes. I didn’t remove or even decrease carbs.

It’s not to say that this is necessarily “wrong”. But 5 years ago, I realised that there was a better way for diabetics, and that was to keep carbohydrates low altogether. It made logical sense, and I went through a phase in my career where I made up a whole bunch of analogies to demonstrate the logic behind the suggestion using real life examples.

The way I’d explain low carb vs low GI to clients would be:

Imagine the M1 freeway. At certain hours of the day, the high volume of cars congests the roads. The solution the government has come up with are the traffic lights at the entrance to slow the release of cars onto the major arterial. At first it feels like it’s working. The freeway doesn’t congest so quickly. But soon, we realise that it still congests – it just takes longer.

Our blood is no different.

Carbs are like the cars in our bloodstream. Low GI carbs is like having a traffic light at the entrance of our circulation. It will slowly release into the blood – but ultimately it will still end up there.

Ultimately – the only real solution to the traffic congestion problem? Get cars off the roads.

Now, whilst that’s not entirely possible for the freeways, we can certainly do that for our blood by removing carbs. How much we remove depends on how congested it is and how congested it can get.

 

For me, getting to the point of overhauling my practice and beliefs around nutrition wasn’t easy. I went through a mini existential crisis – on the one hand I felt embarrassed by how much I had got it wrong. On the other hand, I was apprehensive about re-starting my career (or at least that’s how it felt!).

At that time, things could’ve gone one of two ways.

I could’ve looked at the new evidence and blocked it out, or even fabricated the outcomes of evidence in an attempt to control the conversation, just to prove to myself that my way was right.

OR, I could embrace the new information and understand that as a dietitian and a scientist, it was my responsibility to upgrade my knowledge and skillset to best serve my clients, even if it meant a knowledge overhaul.

Now, 5 years later, I’m better for it. My clients are also better for it.

Deep down I don’t doubt that dietitians all studied dietetics to become useful in solving global health issues. I don’t think any dietitian became a dietitian to do harm wilfully.

And that’s what makes me very conflicted, seeing reports like this, where a very reputable nutrition scientist is literally at the same crossroads I was at 5 years ago.

The question is, which path will she choose from here?

4 weeks ago, I was honoured to be interviewed by ABC 4Corners investigative journalist Michael Brissenden to discuss the state of nutrition in this country.

For a long time now, we know that the Australian Dietary Guidelines are riddled with faulty misinformation, and outdated science. It also doesn’t help that these very Guidelines are heavily supported and promoted by the Dietitians’ Association of Australia, the governing body that I (and over 6000 other dietitians) are registered with to keep our titles as Accredited Practising Dietitians.

In Australia:

• Heart Disease is the leading cause of death, with 1 Australian killed every 12 minutes
• Of the Top 7 leading causes of death in Australia, between all the various cardio and cerebral vascular conditions, sits cancers, dementia and diabetes.

Looking into the current body of evidence, we know that sugar and a high intake of carbohydrates, NOT fat, is the underlying problem for all these conditions.

So –

Why have we not yet implemented a much necessary tax on sugar in Australia?

Why are the outdated Guidelines promoting a low fat high carb way of eating still being regarded as the best framework for healthy eating?

But, more intriguingly –

Why are those who speak up against the Guidelines being punished and silenced?

With a public health crisis, and a refusal to step up and step in the right direction by leading health authorities in this country, it really makes us question the motive behind it all.

Putting it all on the line, we chat candidly with Michael about what we believe, and the change we desperately need to actually improve the health of Australians.

With The Australian Medical Association (AMA) and the Dietitian’s Association of Australia (DAA) also being interviewed, make sure to tune in to ABC on Monday 30^th April at 8:30pm AEST to see what unfolds.

SHOW UPDATE:
Unfortunately, none of my interview was actually aired on the show tonight. I’m disappointed on behalf of a LOT of dietitians out there that want to follow science based advice but are fearful of the repercussions of doing so. In the coming days I’ll be posting more about the challenges facing our industry and ways that we can start following the science when it comes to helping our patients.

If you’re interested, click the banner below and join the on-going discussion that 4 corners didn’t report from a dietitians perspective.

It’s a known fact that entrepreneurship is FREAKIN’ hard.

It’s also a known fact that stress and burnout plagues the entrepreneurial community.

So many articles have been written about the emotional battles that business owners have with running a business, and the inevitable personal battles they’ve got with self-worth, motivation and their own definitions of success.

What’s been interesting for me, is the number of entrepreneurs who are looking for way to boost energy and peak performance. Books have been written on this topic, events and programs have been developed for this, yet when I’ve dug deeper, what I’ve noticed is that the focus is usually from a daily habits, mindset, and business psychology perspective. Whenever there’s been anything on health, it’s been broad, like eat healthy, exercise and sleep well, or, consists of quirky hacks like cryotherapy and infrared saunas.

Don’t get me wrong. I think cryo- and infrared therapy are both amazing. I also strongly believe in personal development, mindset shifts, and creating habits conducive to productivity, deep work and creativity.

But as a dietitian, my inclination is to delve deeper into the nutrition side of things.

Having done quite a bit of work with entrepreneurs, I’ve discovered that virtually every single one of our entrepreneur clients, past and present, have a history of mental and cognitive health conditions – depression, anxiety, irritability, low mood, brain fog, poor memory, short attention span and energy crashes.

This prompted me to extend my research to see if this was a phenomenon that existed beyond my client cohort. To my shock horror, a study conducted in 2015 showed that almost half (49%) of the entrepreneur participants in the study had 1 or more mental health conditions, compared to the 32% of their non-entrepreneur counterparts.

Whilst there are limitations to this Study, it still got me thinking –

What if entrepreneurial stress weighs in heavily on the development and expression of these mental and cognitive issues?

What if we can build an armour to better deal with the entrepreneurial stress and significantly reduce its impact on our mental and cognitive function?

What if this armour is best built through the way we eat and not so much the way we think? Therefore –

What if entrepreneurial peak performance is less about the psychology but more about the physiology?

Let’s explore this more.

Your brain controls all the regulatory processes in your body, including your energy, mood and cognitive function.

When under chronic stress, you’re constantly activating a particular pathway known as the HPA-axis. This triggers your brain to work over time, stimulating the release of cortisol and adrenaline. Over time, this overactivation of the HPA-axis fatigues your brain, increases inflammation throughout your body (and brain) and leads to chronic elevated blood sugar levels and insulin resistance.

The combination of systemic inflammation and insulin resistance, with the continuous activation of your fight-or-flight mechanism, forms the perfect backdrop for all your cognitive, energetic and mental symptoms, including fatigue, brain fog, memory loss, irritability, low mood, depression, anxiety and overwhelm.

Ultimately, when entrepreneurs like you want peak performance, I know that what you’re really after is to feel your absolute best, so you can give your absolute all. You want your body to be in the best shape possible, your brain to be sharp as a tac, and to have all the energy in the world so you can out-work and out-perform all your competitors.

I know it sounds crazy, and for some of you, you’ve been feeling like crap for so long that you can’t even come at this concept yet, but here’s the thing –

It is possible.

In fact, that’s what we do. We literally teach entrepreneurs like yourself how to

EAT your way to entrepreneurial peak performance.

You see, we know that as business owners, there are lots of demands daily.

You’re required to think on your feet, make decisions quickly, take on risks, deal with inconsistent cashflow and income, deal with staff, clients and suppliers.

The list goes on.

Yet, not many business owners consider these demands as being “above average” and eat accordingly. In fact, many of the business owners we speak to don’t ever prioritise their food and end up having very little to eat all day. Yet, you may have noticed that your weight keeps creeping up. Hardly seems fair, right? I explain this phenomenon in more detail here.

Take athletes for example.

If someone was training for and competing in ultra-marathons, would you be surprised if we told you that their nutrition requirements would differ, and would likely consist of a lot more food, than the average person?

Of course you wouldn’t be. Why?

Because their “above average” needs are tangible. You can see that person running every single day, and as a society, we’ve been conditioned to identify physical exertion as “energy output”. Therefore, to suggest that these guys need to match their output with the right input is not exactly a difficult concept to grasp.

Conversely, we’re also conditioned to think that if we sit behind a desk, our energy output is less. Despite the million-and-one things you need to do, and the concentration and focus you require, society is still convinced you don’t need to eat as much. In fact, since you’re so sedentary, you should eat less.

As a business owner myself, I know that this isn’t the case. Your mental energy output is still “energy output”.

Personally, I have to ensure that I’m able to stay mentally sharp 10 hours a day. When I’m hosting events like retreats, I’m literally “switched on” 24 hours a day. Trust me when I say, this requires an extraordinary amount of energy and the right nutrition protocol to manage and maintain.

Within my client cohort, my top-level clients have incredibly busy and demanding schedules, flying interstate and overseas regularly. In addition, they also present on stage, with events that go for a full 5 days. When you have to be engaging and engaged with a whole room of people for 5 days in a row, meticulous planning around your nutrition becomes vitally important. Otherwise, the yawns and brain fog will kick in, you’ll live off copious amounts of coffee during the day, wind down with copious amounts of booze at night, and you’ll find yourself fading with each day that passes.

Then, for those who do recognise the importance of eating well, the messages out there on what to eat is so confusing.

On a population level, if you look at how we eat these days, it’s completely unsupportive of the type of chronic stress entrepreneurs are under every single day.

When you think about it, our diets are low fat (especially animal fat), low cholesterol, and high in sugars and starches.

When our brain composition is 70% fat, and uses 25% of the body’s cholesterol supply, a low-fat and low cholesterol way of eating literally starves the brain!

So – is the answer then to add extra butter to your toast and drink full fat milkshakes? Absolutely not.

This is where it get’s more intricate.

Quantity, quality and meal timing all need to be designed to match your individual health status. Depending on what symptoms you have, how your bloods look, what your long term goals are, we need to create a blueprint specifically for you.

So, what can you do to make a start TODAY?

Whilst it does take a lot more specificity to get completely right, we’ve created a simple 3-step process for you to follow to start making some changes straight away.

Whilst this isn’t a full fix, it will provide you with something tangible to work on that will yield results.

In addition, we’ve also included a full symptoms checker list for you to download and check off. This will allow you to see how many symptoms you experience (some of which you probably didn’t even realise were symptoms), and will give you a great insight into where you’re at now, and the main areas of focus on moving forward.

If you resonated with what I discussed in this article and want to chat further, make sure you reach out to us here.

 

In the medical world, they see these as being separate issues….at least that’s what we’ve been told.

As a dietitian, we’re trained to think of everything as being separate, too.

But here’s the thing –

It’s not.

Our body is regulated by hormones that work together to regulate body temperature, sleep, metabolism, reproduction, mood and growth.

They also control our reaction to stress and regulates our energy.

When we are exposed to lots of stress, our stress hormone pathway become over-stimulated, and ultimately, it wears down. The reality is stress is first picked up by the brain, and it sets off a cascade of responses that ultimately results in the dumping of cortisol into the blood.

Since our bodies are designed to keep us alive, it will prioritise the stress response, and kick our bodies into a state of preservation anytime we’re stressed.

Because of this, several physiological changes will start to occur – we dump more sugar into the blood for energy, our heart rate increases, inflammation levels drop, our immune system shifts to protect us more systemically, our pupils dilate and our mind sharpens.

In the short term, this is great, and it’s exactly what we need to stay alive.

However, when we become over-exposed to stress, that’s when things go south.

As you can imagine, if our bodies were constantly dealing with stress, our bodies will be non-stop working to keep up with the production of cortisol, as well as do it’s other jobs in regulating everything else in the body.

Overtime, our stress response mechanism breaks down, and frankly, we break down.

Imagine your office space.

Everyone has their own individual tasks to perform, as well as mini projects that they work on in small groups. Then, from time to time, there are massive projects with a high-priority label on them, and it requires the whole team to work together to get it done.

Short term, the workers can cope with their individual work loads, their mini projects and do their part in getting this high priority project done. Sure, it’s a bit taxing on the team, but they can do it.

However, what would happen if these “high priority” projects became a weekly thing? What about a daily thing?

Since these projects are labelled “high priority”, they will be prioritised ahead of everything else. The team will dedicate most of their time and energy to work on this. As a result, their mini projects and their own roles will suffer.

Give it more time, and everything starts to fall apart.

The individual stuff will be left undone, the mini projects won’t sync up anymore, and even these high priority projects won’t be completed to a satisfactory level (that’s if they’re completed at all).

The end result?

A complete office meltdown.

The truth is, our hormones work much the same as this office space – each hormone have their own individual roles, they also work together on other functions of the body, and then in times of stress, they come together to produce adequate quantities of stress hormones to keep the body alive.

Overtime, and overuse will lead to a system-meltdown – not only will their individual functions be compromised, but their collaborative effort to produce adequate amounts of stress hormones will also be compromised.

This is why, under prolonged stress, the body will produce seemingly unrelated symptoms.

Metabolically, you notice that your cravings increase, your weight goes up and your energy levels plummet.

Mentally, your mood shifts with you oscillating between being irritable and flat, and anxiety builds and you experience a constant fog in your head.

Physically, the gut starts to play up and you think you have IBS, your sleep patterns are all screwed, your joints and muscles hurt, your sex drive falls through the floor, you’re catching every bug under the sun, and in some cases you start to notice other mystery symptoms like rashes on your skin or your hair falling out. As for your productivity? That goes through the floor, and you can’t seem to work out why you’re procrastinating more and resisting getting things done.

But here’s the thing.

All of this is fixable. Through food.

If you’re a business owner experiencing any of these issues, and you’re worried and frustrated at the lack of answers, shoot us a message and let’s have a chat!​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Attn: Female entrepreneurs of the world.

You run a business – in fact, you run a REALLY successful business. However, after a day of being the boss woman, you go home and you’re mum, you’re wife, you’re cook, you’re cleaner….

After everything, you just CRAVE a glass of wine. It’s your reward, you tell yourself.

It starts off being a glass.

Then it quickly becomes a couple of glasses…

And then, a whole bottle.

Deep down you’re extremely concerned.

“Is this the path to alcoholism? Am I becoming an alcoholic?”

But here’s the thing.

In between being the awesome boss lady at work and being the domestic goddess at home – where is the time for YOU?

Since I’ve started working with high achieving entrepreneurial women, I’ve noticed a pattern – they’re all highly disciplined women.

These women have their shit together.

I mean, they didn’t go from having nothing to building a multi-million dollar empire by not being disciplined. But their problem with discipline isn’t that they have none – in fact, it’s quite the opposite: they have too much of it.

Their discipline is turning them alcoholic!

Now, I know that sounds a little crazy, but let me explain.

When you run a highly successful business there’s a lot happening behind the scenes. These women are always under the pump, with a million and one things to do every single day. They mostly eat at their desk or on the run. Sometimes they don’t eat at all.

Over the years, they notice they’ve stacked on weight, which they’re not proud of. They’ve become extremely tired all the time. They’re often irritable and grumpy.

They recognise that this is having a negative effect on their relationships – both at work and at home. They feel guilty that when they’re at home they have no energy to have meaningful conversations with their husbands or children. They’re annoyed that they’re so good at keeping it together for work and at home, but when it comes to themselves – they feel like they’ve lost control.

But this is their dilemma.

Looking at themselves in the mirror, they see the 10kg they’ve gained in the last 10 years. But, rather than seeing it for what it is – a sign of all the sacrifices they’ve made to build their business, the late nights working and nursing their baby, the never ending list of commitments they have every day – these women see it as a sign of FAILURE.

They feel responsible for their weight gain, and believe that if they got the weight down, all their problems would go away – you know, the crappy sleep, the stress, the low energy, the irritability.

They embark on a weight loss challenge.

500kcal a day for the next 30 days, kickboxing 3 times a week. Surely, that would do it, right? I mean, if they cut calories in, and increased calories out, surely they would lose weight?!

Wrong.

They do lose a bit, and their energy levels even improve for the first couple of weeks.

And then shit goes south very quickly.

Their weight loss stalls, their energy levels are back down, they’re hungry ALL THE TIME and they become moody.

Then. The weight starts to creep back up. They’re hungry all the time, and they can barely drink enough coffee to keep themselves functioning at work. Then at home, they find themselves not just looking forward to a glass of wine to simply wind down at night.

They are CRAVING alcohol.

Like, they have an insatiable need for it. The scariest part is, having the wine actually makes them feel BETTER. And this freaks them out.

What they don’t realise at this point is that their body is burnt out. That they have a dysfunction of their HPA-Axis, and the fix isn’t to check into an alcohol rehab centre, but rather to start actually taking care of themselves.

Because what’s really happening?

They are under-fuelling their body, leading their body to burn alcohol as fuel.

So the less they eat, the more desperate for alcohol their body gets.

The alcohol is there serving as energy that the body is dramatically lacking in. It is also serving as a relaxant to help them get SOME sleep, so they can somewhat function during the day.

But the problem with alcohol is that it is non-nutritive, and whilst there is alcohol in the system, the body will preferentially break down the alcohol and metabolize that in favour of anything else you eat or drink.

What we have noticed is that when the HPA Axis function is restored, the craving for alcohol typically goes away within the first 3 weeks (we just had a client last week lose their alcohol cravings after 5 days of eating right for their body!). Funnily enough the women we work with also start to notice other positive changes – improved energy levels, better sleep, weight loss, improved satiety. What fixing the root-cause does is it allows the regulators of all the hormonal and metabolic pathways to restore, and that in turn will help the body function optimally again.

The reality is, if you are in burnout, and your perceived alcoholism is indeed a symptom of a bigger problem, you will be exhibiting a whole host of other signs and symptoms too.

So, if you feel like this sounds a bit like what you’re going through then it’s worth us looking further into this, so just shout out to us here we’ll work out a time to chat!

Last year in December, I was quoted in an article published in New Idea magazine on the ketogenic diet (See Article Here).

The ketogenic diet has been used quite extensively by Hollywood A-listers to lean out, but for us non-Hollywood people, we know that the ketogenic diet has gained much popularity and momentum in recent times as a viable solution for weight loss, but more importantly, in regulating hormonal and metabolic imbalances to generate positive health outcomes.

This particular article centres around the use of ketogenic diets for weight loss, but one of the stories (Megan’s Story) highlight the benefits of a ketogenic diet for mood disorders, especially in her case, PTSD and anxiety. She also noticed the benefits of a ketogenic diet on her food cravings, and how keto has helped liberate her from the grasps of food obsession.

Whilst I love the fact that the ketogenic diet is being referenced in mainstream media publications, I am still cautious of the limitations a single article has to dispel decades of misinformation, and I am super aware of how easy it is to misconstrue information, even in well-meaning articles like this.

Let me explore a few of these with you here, so you can understand more in-depth what I mean.

1. In the body of the article, Kate explains ketosis, and describes something called “mild state of ketosis”

In this section, there are a couple of things worth noting.

Firstly, ketosis is ketosis – you are either in a state of burning fats and producing ketones as a by-product, or you’re not. How much carbs someone needs to be in keto will vary based on current health status, especially metabolic status and carbohydrate tolerance. However, the main objective of keto is to enter into a state of burning fats as a primary energy source, instead of relying on carbs.

Secondly, Kate mentions that going much lower than 50-70g of carb will start eliminating food groups.

The concept of food groups is one that does perplex me a lot – there is no real rhyme or reason, for example, for us to consider a porterhouse steak as being equivalent to a bowl of borlotti beans, even though they officially belong in the same “food group”. One is animal based, the other plant based. That aside, nutritionally they are not equivalent either – the predominant macronutrient in steak is protein, and in borlotti beans it’s carbohydrates; steak has no fibre, and borlotti beans have 25g fibre per 100g.

The reality is, food groups were conceived when the first ever dietary guidelines were released, and subsequently, when nutrition was forcibly over-simplified to fit into a pyramid.

Debating the legitimacy of food groups aside, I think what we really need to be mindful of here is to ensure that in the process of “going keto” we focus on consuming nutrient dense foods that offer a wide range of nutrients to support a healthy metabolism, healthy hormone production and the healthy turnover of cells for continuous growth, recovery and healing.

 

2. Dr Axe warns against keto for women who are pregnant and breastfeeding, as well as those with hypoglycaemia, thyroid issues, an eating disorder history, adrenal issues or kidney disease.

I totally agree with his warnings, as he’s right, the safety has not been thoroughly proven, and depending on severity of adrenal issues, thyroid issues and kidney disease, shooting for keto for the sake of keto can be frivolous and even counter-productive.

However, I point this statement out because when reading an article like this, it’s easy to see this list and take it as “keto = dangerous for [all the listed conditions]”. What we know for a fact is that keto is not dangerous – if you think about it, if done properly, it’s just real food, and real food is not dangerous. However, regardless of keto or no keto, those who have adrenal, thyroid, glycaemic or renal issues should have everything assessed and taken into careful consideration. For example, someone with end stage renal failure not yet on dialysis will require protein intake to be kept to a minimum. After commencing dialysis, and depending on hemo or peritoneal dialysis, that same patient will require their protein intake to be dramatically increased, or at the very least adjusted to suit needs and demands of dialysis. So – what is important here, is to have each individual’s health status carefully evaluated, and have their nutritional requirements and nuances discussed and tailored to suit.

 

3. The 7-Day Keto Plan includes things like “lemon ricotta cheesecake”, “quinoa”, “bircher muesli”, “toast” and “protein balls”.

Here’s the back story. Originally, they asked me to whip up a 7-Day Keto Plan, which I did, and sent it over. However, they asked me to “make the foods more mainstream” and to remove the quantities that I had specified. To that, I declined.

So, I can only imagine that they same rules were given to Kate when she formulated her plan. All in all, she’s made a great effort here but for the average reader, I want to clarify some things.

Firstly, there are keto-friendly recipes for lemon ricotta cheesecake, and there are full blown diabetes-inducing lemon cheesecake recipes too. In the context of keto, I am going to take a stab and say that Kate was implying “keto-friendly” cheesecake, for which here is a really kick-ass recipe you can try. Same goes for protein balls – here is a keto-friendly one to try (I’d personally recommend replacing the peanut butter with almond, walnut or macadamia nut butter).

However, quinoa, muesli and toast all do not really belong as part of a well-formulated ketogenic diet. These take up plenty of “carb space”, leaving little room for more nutrient dense carbs like vegetables and low-sugar fruits such as berries.

Great alternatives would be to replace quinoa or other grains with cauliflower rice, muesli with chia seed puddings (I’d recommend the AYAM brand coconut milk), and toast with a keto-friendly alternative.

In addition, I believe that the biggest trap most people fall into when doing keto for the first time is not eating enough food, especially fats and proteins – in which case quantities are critical. I understand why this plan doesn’t have quantities – that was the rule passed down to us, but this is where I feel that single articles in magazines like this have limitations when it comes to giving a well-rounded impression and education around keto.  The reality is, without those quantities specified, this well-meaning “7-Day Keto Plan” could quite easily become a low fat, low protein high carb diet plan, especially if we applied the current filters most people have around what “healthy eating” means.

The truth is, I’m super grateful and super chuffed that keto is breaking into the mainstream, and becoming a lot more widely accepted. I just hope that articles like this are interpreted with caution, and where there is confusion, check in with a dietitian or nutritionist who has experience in this area to properly help you formulate a plan suited to you, so you can gain the optimal benefits of this way of eating.

A lot of successful business owners and entrepreneurs that I’ve spoken to have echoed the same frustration to me – they’re applying their business work ethic to their food and exercise, but their weight is not budging, and their energy levels aren’t improving.

The thing is, the message out there, being perpetuated by PTs, health professionals, even doctors is that weight loss comes about when you achieve a caloric deficit.

Fundamentally, they subscribe to the belief that it’s all a matter of Calories in, Calories out.

Based on that, to lose weight, an energy deficit must be created. Simple!  Right?

Just reduce your caloric intake by watching what you put in your mouth, and increase your caloric output by training hard.

If you do this and you still don’t lose weight? Well that’s because you’re a liar and you’re lazy.

But here’s the thing.

How is it that a successful entrepreneur who has built her business from zero to multi-millions of dollars, stuck to a 500kcal a day diet whilst doing kickboxing 3 times a week, found herself at a point where she was 89kgs and her weight just wouldn’t budge?

Oh, that’s right – she must be a liar and she must be lazy!

See, if there is anything I’ve learnt, it’s that highly successful people don’t get to where they are by being lazy. They don’t get to where they are by cutting corners on themselves and they certainly don’t get to where they are without the most ruthless work ethic.

So, business owners, you want to know what I think the problem is?

The problem is that the calories in calories out equation is wrong, and your ruthless work ethic – the same one that got you from zero to multi-millions in your business –  is the very work ethic that is stopping you from losing weight.

Yes, I said it.

You are TOO disciplined and it’s your discipline that is making you fat.

Just like athletes have a specific set of requirements to fuel their bodies and sustain their training for optimal performance, business owners have their own unique set of requirements, too.

What you need to understand as the business owner is that you didn’t gain weight because you over-ate. Therefore, you won’t be losing weight by under-eating and starving your body.

When you under eat, you place your body under undue stress, further adding to the stress you are already experiencing from business ownership. When that happens, your body experiences a whole cascade of metabolic responses to that stress, and that is where it all starts.

Your insulin levels rise, your hunger-fullness hormone secretion is disrupted, your sleep is disturbed, inflammation increases and your gut microbiota is affected.

Literally, a chemical shit-storm breaks out, and the side effect? Weight gain.

When you begin to understand that your weight gain didn’t happen because of too many calories in, you will stop blaming yourself for not being disciplined enough.

When you learn that your cravings are from starving yourself and you’re not just weak with no self-control, then you will stop feeling guilty every time your mind wanders to candy-land.

For you, we need to calm the storm, fix the signalling, and address the issues in a way that makes sense for your body.

Then, you will be able to experience not being hungry all the time.

Then, you will know what a good night’s sleep really means.

Then, you can have a chance of seeing weight loss and increased energy levels exist within you, simultaneously.

Because, let’s be honest, eating broccoli 6 times a day has certainly not boosted your metabolism and helped you lose weight – it’s just made you hungrier, crankier and frankly, more disappointed in yourself.

In case you haven’t noticed, this is something I’m fiercely passionate about, and I’m dedicated to helping business owners like yourself really get to the bottom of this chemical shitstorm (aka: burnout) and what you need to be doing to actually fix it and starting shifting that weight properly.

Because of the overwhelming number of business owners I come across in this situation you find yourself in, I have prepared a report that I am giving to you for free, so you can really get to understand burnout.  There’s a LOT of myths perpetuated about burnout and what you can do to fix it – many of these myths actually make your burnout worse!

So to get the report, simply click the banner below and enter your details — and we’ll send the report out to you.