Monday 25th August 2008 - Week Six Day One - Global Health Challenge

From years of training clients and advising other trainers when I became an instructor trainer, a key nutritional health message that I tried to get across to everyone was that everyone needs to eat more salads and vegetables. Notice, I said salads and vegetables and not just fruit and vegetables.

All too often we use Salads as just a Summer meal option when in fact it is a fantastic element to most of my meals. This will do me no favours with those that push the benefits or sell fruit but I want to qualify my advice and reasoning. Again, I’m trying to give you knowledge for these workable solutions as well as “insider secrets” to getting lean.

Most people I have met and talked to that are already lean and healthy, and these range from fitness professionals, health educators, professional athletes and models seem to have two schools of thought on this issue:
1. You can eat as much fruit as you like if you exercise everyday = Partly True; if you exercise everyday with a reasonable level of intensity to use the additional calories consumed then this would seem to be acceptable (within reason but I would rather )
2. You can eat lots of low G.I. fruits and this is part of a healthy food intake = Partly True, but finding out which fruits are low G.I. is a key element to this concept.

Again, I think that there is truth in both examples, so I want to give you the knowledge to make your own life decisions easier and eliminate some of the confusion I often hear from parent’s of children I know and those that I have met over the last few years.

You see I would also promote the benefit of increased nutrients such as anti-oxidants, phyto-chemicals etc that will support a low insulin response and these come from coloured fruits and the higher the anti-oxidant content the better.

Why is this important to understand?
When you eat carbohydrates YOUR body secretes Insulin in response to the elevated blood sugars and this has a "measure or score" known as G.I. which stands for Glycaemic Index is an indicator of how fast your body releases Insulin (the storage hormone) in response to elevated blood sugar levels and is based up a standard of glucose of 100.

This has been shown to impact on fat loss success if the numbers you eat are always above 50 and there are two interesting points we also need to be aware of:
1) when you add a few low G.I. scores together it can raise or elevate the overall effect from good to not so good. This is known as Glycaemic Loading.
2) when you eat protein or fat with carbohydrates this lowers the Insulin response which is good so eating foods that have protein or "good fats" is definitely a benefit for this.

Tomorrow the Fruit vs Juice vs Soft Drink (Soda) debate.

Goal of this next twenty one (21) days or three (3) weeks is designed to consolidate the first 5 weeks including the Human ECO Cleanse and to now establish patterns for your new LIFE.

- Assess your eating habits and see what you have re-introduced. Did you re-introduce caffeine or red meat and have you found you can now do without as much of these
- Check your workout intensity and now see if you are planning these in to your routine
- Reward yourself with only 21 days to go.

NOTE - this is isn't the end but rather the beginning of YOUR new Human ECO friendly LIFE.


TONY 's DIARY - (Week Six - Day One)
Protein Re-introduced but still increased Good Fats

Breakfast:
Energy Shake - 400ml Water + 40g Protein Powder + Combination Greens Powder + Organic Coconut Oil. Take a Daily Multi vitamin + Joint Power + 2 x Omega 3 Capsules

Mid Morning Workout - Spin Class

Mid Morning Snack:
6 x Corn Thins + Peanut Butter

Lunch:
Tuna + Mixed Leaf Salad + Tomato + Cucumber + Pear + Sweet Potato + Strawberries + Low Fat Dressing + 2 x Omega 3 Capsules

Mid Afternoon snack:
2 slices Soy Linseed Bread with Lean Ham + 20g Protein Powder with water + Organic Coconut Oil

Evening Workout - Trained Cardio and Weights

Dinner:
Tuna + Mixed Leaf Salad + Capsicum (Red pepper) + Tomato + Pear + Celery + Strawberries + Low Fat Cottage Cheese

2 Hours before Bed:
400ml water + Fibre Shake + Combination Greens + Organic Coconut Oil

Overall - Water consumption = It's been colder and I am only getting in 8 glasses apart from when I work out when I add more. Training session intensity back up to 100%.

Daily mantra:
I am totally committed to supporting my Human ECO System with my actions.