Where Did It All Go Wrong?

Recently, I have spoken to many people about how sugar and carbohydrate is the major cause of Obesity, Type 2 Diabetes, Heart Disease, Fatty Liver Disease, hunger/tiredness – even though you just ate 2 hours ago – and a general lack of energy or fluctuating energy levels. Also, if you have ever had trouble to lose or control your weight without starving yourself or by cutting/counting calories, it is the sugar and carbohydrates holding you back.

Unfortunately, we have been brainwashed and mislead for approximately the past 50 years by governments, government agencies and major industries. What I have just said in the first paragraph would be making some, possibly most, people cringe with thoughts of ‘that’s not right, carbohydrates are the one of the most important things to eat.’ That’s definitely what I thought until about 4 months ago. I will gladly admit now that I had it VERY wrong but so did nearly everyone except those who truly knew how carbohydrates, including sugar, worked in our body. However, for the past 50 years or so, there’s even some cases from well before that too, anyone who has challenged the ‘healthy’ diet guidelines produced by various government health organisations and big industries, like the agriculture industry and sports drink companies, has had major campaigns against them to discredit and demonise them.

I have been wrong for the past 11 years, since first entering the health industry. It has been the standard advice since the 1970’s that a ‘healthy diet’ consisted of approximately 60 – 70% of our daily energy coming from the category of carbohydrates which was made up of grains and grain products (bread, pasta, rice, oats, etc.). Then, about 10 – 15% from certain fats and 20 – 25% from certain, lean proteins. Throw in your 5 vegetables and 2 pieces of fruit each day and you’ll be healthy for life. That was the advice I was given during my year of TAFE study in 2004. Because this is what I was taught by my teacher, I believed it must be all scientifically correct and anyone who thinks otherwise would be wrong.

I remember seeing a TV advertisement, probably about 5 years ago, for one of the evening current affair shows, I think it was ‘Today Tonight’, that was mentioning a story about a man who had achieved amazing weight loss results on a high fat diet. My immediate thought was that it was ridiculous because, even if he has lost a heap of weight, a high fat diet will be completely ruining him internally. I figured he would have severe issues with clogged arteries and all the other things we were lead to believe about consuming too much fat. Surely, his cholesterol would be through the roof too. Needless to say, I didn’t watch the show to find out why it worked.

No one can be blamed for following this advice because it’s what all the main government organisations or associations were preaching since the 70’s. But how did this come about? Surely it’s because science is always making new discoveries and improving things, right? Not quite. You see, there are some horribly dodgy things that happened for this to become the accepted ‘healthy’ advice. 

These dodgy events are explained in a book called ‘The Big Fat Surprise’ written by American investigative journalist, Nina Teicholz. Although, I have not read her book, I have watched a couple of videos on YouTube where she summarises her discoveries and her book has been highly recommended by Professor Tim Noakes for the nature of her findings. From this, I will briefly explain how this high carbohydrate movement was produced.

In the USA, during the 1950s, it was discovered there had been a dramatic rise in death from heart disease and heart attacks since about World War 1. So, they wanted to know why and were looking for scientists to provide the answers. This is where a scientist, by the name of Ancel Keys, a Pathologist from the University of Minnesota, steps in with his hypothesis that saturated fat consumption raises blood cholesterol, clogs arteries and causes heart disease and heart attacks. This was known as ‘The Diet Heart Hypothesis’. He did a famous study called the ‘Seven Countries Study’ where he researched the food consumption of seven different countries and noted their rates of heart disease. He came to the conclusion that those who had a high rate of saturated fat consumption had higher rates of heart disease.

At first, even the WHO – the World Health Organisation (WHO), not the band – along with other medical and scientific communities, were highly skeptical of this theory which set Keys back somewhat, but he kept persisting with his theory. Eventually, Keys got himself a position on the Nutrition Committee board for the American Heart Association (AHA). This allowed him to persuade the committee that his hypothesis was correct and, in 1961, the AHA issued their first ever anti-saturated fat advice which involved advising to dramatically reduce meat consumption along with full fat dairy, cheese and eggs. Keys became very famous and was featured in TIME magazine for his work.

Over the next 20 years, people needed to know what to eat when they weren’t supposed to consume meat, eggs and dairy. Firstly, the United States Senators were convinced that Americans had to reduce their saturated fat consumption. Then, the US government found a way to work with the agricultural industry and make billions of dollars by the production of grains – wheat, corn, oats, barley, etc. – which had seen a massive surge of production and mass production capabilities over the previous 100 years since the Agricultural Revolution. This meant that the United States Dietary Association (USDA) was influenced by the money and power of this movement and came up with the advice that the American diet should now consist of mainly ‘healthy’ grains which, of course, are carbohydrate dense products that contain little to no other essential nutrients. President Richard Nixon was a major influence in this movement, basically, using this topic to appear to care about the health of the people. Eventually, the famous ‘Food Pyramid’ was produced by the USDA to help people understand how to form a complete ‘healthy’ diet.

Unfortunately, it seems that what influences people in the most powerful country in the world has a complete flow on effect to at least the rest of the developed world and some developing countries too. One of the hugely detrimental results of this low fat/high carbohydrate movement was the mass introduction of low fat food items that were packed with sugar from cane or they used the new product in abundance, derived from corn – high-fructose corn syrup – which is sweeter. The companies making these products needed something to put taste back in their food because removing the fat made it taste horrible. This has driven the corn trade in America to become one of the biggest food production industries.

So what was wrong with this turn of events? Basically, Ancel Keys manipulated his findings of the ‘Seven Countries Study’. As it turns out, he actually used 22 different countries in his study but there were 15 countries which didn’t support his hypothesis, so he decided to dispose of that data and just keep what was useful for proving his theory. Therefore, it appears Ancel Keys was a fraud and he, along with governments, government agencies and big industries have caused the skyrocketing rates of obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and fatty liver disease, among other things, with no regard for the health of their citizens. Subsequently, pharmaceutical companies have made billions of dollars from producing drugs to treat these diseases which are just another industry that will try to convince you that the high carbohydrate guidelines are correct.

Millions of people worldwide could have avoided suffering through sickness and living on medication if these parties genuinely cared for the lives of others instead of their bottom line.

I look forward to telling you more about the effects of a high carbohydrate diet in the near future. I have seen some amazing changes in myself within just 2 months of transitioning to a low carbohydrate lifestyle and I hope I can help others to understand how it could be the best thing you ever do for your health.

Cheers,

Lincoln.

Clean Eating: High Fat/High Protein/Low Carb

In my last post, I wrote about my most recent half-ironman distance race at Challenge Melbourne, on February 1. I explained why it was my best performance to date due to the contribution of my recent research and implementation of a high fat/high protein/low carbohydrate diet. I would like to elaborate on this and provide further information about some of the things I now do to satisfy this lifestyle.

I won’t be getting into the scientific data behind it all but I urge you to read ‘Challenging Beliefs: Memoirs of a Career’ by Professor Tim Noakes. Alternatively, watch his lectures found on YouTube about this subject. He has decades of experience which has resulted in his discoveries about the benefits of this lifestyle. Also, please watch on YouTube ‘Sugar: The Bitter Truth’, presented by Dr Robert Lustiq. His lecture will provide you with more of the how and why sugar is causing such havoc throughout the world, particularly in developed countries like Australia, USA and England.

Below, I will show you an example of a day of eating. Bear in mind, I am a shift worker but most of the time I work during the afternoon/evening and train up to 2 hours during the morning.

2 or 3 days a week, I enjoy starting the day with a session before breakfast so I’ll just drink some water before doing a low intensity 1 hour run or ride. I will drink more water afterwards but all water intake will be determined completely by just satisfying my thirst. Then I’ll have breakfast.

Ø  Breakfast: 4 – 6 eggs scrambled with cheddar cheese, 3 rashes of middle bacon, 6 – 8 standard mushrooms chopped and sautéed, a large handful of spinach sautéed, 4 – 6 pieces of asparagus fried and a whole tomato chopped and sautéed with pepper and dried oregano. I will put full fat butter in the pan for the eggs and use either butter or coconut oil with the other items. I will normally have a coffee with breakfast and my coffee of choice is a single espresso long black with a dash of cold milk. 

Late morning/lunchtime workout: Swim 1 hour and follow this with 5 – 10 minutes of core strength work. No need for any fluid or calories of any kind during the session.

Ø  Post workout: Approx. 500mls of full fat milk with 5mg of glutamine mixed in for added amino acids to aid recovery. Also, a banana and approx 50 grams of mixed nuts (I enjoy a mix of unsalted almonds, walnuts, brazil nuts and cashews).

Ø  Mid-Afternoon: One very large salad with chopped cos lettuce, tomato, cucumber, capsicum and a whole avocado with plenty of extra virgin olive oil. Then, I will add the meat from 3 or 4 chicken drumsticks.

Ø  Snack (if needed): 50 – 100 grams of mixed nuts.

Ø  Dinner: One tin of sardines (approx. 180 grams) in extra virgin olive oil and some vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, chilies and carrots stir-fried in coconut oil. Note: when comparing sardines and tuna for omega 3 fats per 100g, depending on the brand, sardines have 10 – 20 times more omega 3 fats. They both have similar protein content but, with tuna, more of the fish is stripped away before packaging. So, start swapping your tuna for sardines and reap the benefits.

There is a range of other items that I eat and I will mention more of these in the future.

As you can see, I eat a lot of vegetables. I always aim for a minimum of two meals per day which have a large vegetable portion but commonly I achieve 3 meals with vegetables per day. This means I am consuming a large amount of essential vitamins and minerals, as well as, heaps of anti-oxidants and natural dietary fibre. Also, vegetables have a high water content which plays a big role in my hydration.

The fibre is especially important for satiety. Previously, when I ate a lot of carbohydrates, I would over eat and have many cravings despite eating very often. Now, I can go longer between meals and I have a greater recognition for when my gut is satisfied and full. This also contributes to my longer lasting energy because food is metabolized slower and, therefore, released slower so I am getting my energy at a more consistent rate.

The high fat and high protein content comes from the eggs, bacon and other meats, nuts, coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil, sardines and other fish, avocado and dairy. The important thing to note about these foods is that they provide a lot of omega 3 fats, along with other quality natural fats that will provide most of my energy resources. I get my fats from these items as opposed to consuming trans or processed fats and omega 6 fats, like those found in vegetable oils such as sunflower or canola oil, which create inflammation in the body.

At all costs I will avoid any highly processed foods which have a lot of preservatives and a long shelf life. Also, I am strictly avoiding anything with added sugar and the only sugar I will consume comes in natural forms from items like fruit and dairy. I will talk more about sugar in future posts.

Here are a few points to consider:-

Ø  Sugar is toxic and addictive. The insulin response you get when consuming sugar (soft drinks, cakes and pastries, etc. and confectionary are obvious examples but there are so many more) is a major problem for your body. In fact, consuming sugar is the main cause for people being overweight and obese, not to mention the massive range of diseases that goes with it. The sooner you get this crap out of your diet, the better, and it will go a long, long way to helping your body start working as it should.

Ø  Just because you’re not overweight, doesn’t mean sugar is not a problem for you. It is a problem for everyone. We should all be avoiding it.

Ø  Fat, from items mentioned above, is a quality, sustainable energy source.

Ø  A wide range of vegetables provide essential nutrients which support so many functions of the body. Not the least being the immune system. 

Ø  Eggs are awesome! They are full of omega 3 fats, protein and a whole bunch of vitamins and minerals but even more so when derived from organic free range chickens which are raised with quality pastures to forage in. The cholesterol is not an issue unless you have sugar and a high carbohydrate diet. Professor Tim Noakes will explain in detail why.

Ø  Changing your eating habits takes time. It will be easier for some than for others but just remember how much good you will be doing for yourself. Taking steps to be the healthiest person you can be means you can avoid complications later in life such as, contracting a long term or permanent illness, spending time in hospital and relying on medication just to get by.

Once again, I urge you to look at the research from the resources mentioned at the start of this post. It’s one thing to listen to what I am saying and just go with it but if you see the evidence for yourself, you will be better informed and can even pass that information on to others.

I have only been properly researching and changing my eating in the past 6 months and, looking back at previous blog posts, some of my former choices were not really based on much more than mainstream theories. I have already seen amazing benefits from my changes and I am continuing to refine my practices and, over the course of the next 12 months, I will include refining my fueling techniques during 2+ hour training sessions and races.

There is so much more to come in the future of clean eating. I hope you can join me on this journey.

Cheers,

Lincoln.

Challenge Melbourne

I haven’t blogged since Ironman 70.3 Ballarat, which was on November 16. Following that race, I competed in a sprint distance event, at Elwood, on November 30. 

The Elwood event was a 500m swim, 20km ride and 5km run. I had a pretty good race with an average swim but followed up with a personal best 20km ride of 30 minutes 10 seconds, an average speed of 40km/h, and finished off with a run of 18 minutes 36 seconds averaging 3:43mins/km. I claimed 6^th spot in my age group and had an overall time of 1 hour and just 28 seconds.

In the week after that race, I really noticed the fatigue in my body from the two races and promptly stopped training completely for 5 days. With my next race being Challenge Melbourne on February 1^st, I gradually returned to training for the 3 weeks prior to Christmas, knowing I had planned to have a rest period around Christmas as well.

During the past couple of months, I have been doing a lot of research into nutrition to continue looking for what works best for me and fuel my training and racing. What I have discovered is the enormous benefits of fueling with fats. That’s right, fats, not carbohydrates. I bet this is confusing some of you reading this because, particularly when associating fueling with an endurance sport, such as triathlon, common theories speak of carbohydrates needing to dominate the diet and race nutrition.

I have researched and discovered how much better and more sustainable fuel from fat is. I will discuss this more in a future blog but you will get a sense of the benefits of energy from stored fats from my Challenge Melbourne race experience below and how it contributed to my best race so far. FYI, my pre-race breakfast was 4 scrambled eggs, bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes and asparagus. I also had a coffee and I drank about 600-700mls of water in the following two hours before race start.

So, Challenge Melbourne on Sunday February 1^st over the half-ironman distance of 1.9km swim, 90km ride and 21.1km run. The conditions were wet and windy all day. The swim at Brighton Beach was tough in the choppy 1 metre swell. I really struggled with rhythm but was surprised to be out of the water in 34 minutes. It felt longer than that. I was happy with some aspects of the swim such as, I kicked more often and consistently. I have often neglected or just forgotten to kick in race swims and I know that holds me back and affects my momentum. Also, I was reasonably happy with how my arms felt, not feeling as fatigued as usual and my ability to complete a full stroke when I was tiring was much better than previous races. In the end, the conditions held me back because I only train in the pool but I take confidence that I have improved my swim to a degree but I won’t see the full extent of improvement until I race again in flatter conditions. I anticipate that won’t be until 

December at Ironman 70.3 Ballarat.

After a long run from the water, through transition and out to begin the bike course I was quickly aware that my sunglasses wouldn’t be very useful as the rain came down. So, I put my glasses in my back pocket and I didn’t use them again. The first few kilometers were nervous as I assessed the condition of the wet road and the gusty crosswinds coming off the water. It wasn’t long before I tucked in and felt comfortable to ride hard and I didn’t hold back despite the on and off rain and constant wind.

My race nutrition was the most interesting point from the day. You may say that the cool conditions contributed but I raced in cold weather at the Ballarat race and still felt the need to consume 800 calories and 2 litres of fluid during the 90km ride. However, in this event I only took in 470 calories during the 90km bike leg. This was in the form of 1 PowerBar (220 calories) and one Honey Stinger Gel (120 calories). To that, I had one 250mls can of ‘V’ which has approximately 130 calories. As for fluid intake, I only consumed approximately 800mls of my mild electrolyte drink, so, add the ‘V’ and that makes only 1.05 litres. My 90km split was 2 hours 21 minutes and 17 seconds, which is a new PB and my speed was very consistent throughout the entire ride.

Some other interesting points to note about my nutrition intake were that I didn’t have anything to eat or drink until the start of the second bike lap. The 90km was split into 3 x 30km laps. This meant I didn’t consume anything until 1 hour 25mins after my race start at which point I had half of my PowerBar. I then had the other half at the 45km turn around. After 60km, I had my gel and finally my ‘V’ at 75km. I drank my electrolyte mix with each bit of food and a little more just before I finished the ride. This is about half the quantity of what I have consumed in all of my previous half ironman distance races, yet I felt as good as ever, if not better, as I started the run.

The run was 3 x 7km laps. Unfortunately, the rain had left a lot of puddles on most of the course and caused the gravel trail sections to be very slushy. This definitely affected everyone’s pace. My legs felt as good as they ever have, when starting the run of a half ironman, being slightly heavy but not feeling like they wanted to cramp. I found my stride and rhythm very quickly which was only broken slightly when trying to find the smoothest or driest part of the course to run on. There were also two rather steep inclines to negotiate as well as a slippery downhill to descend.

I took a gel at the start of the second lap and a mouthful of water but I’m not actually sure I needed it. To my surprise, I maintained a highly consistent pace for each of the 3 laps and the only thing I consumed for the last 14kms was a mouthful of electrolyte drink from one of the drink stations. In fact, my first and last laps were exactly the same time with my middle lap being one minute slower. On the last lap, I actually felt amazing. Although my legs were tiring, it only made the uphill sections difficult and once I was back on the flat areas, I felt like I was flying. My posture and turn over were as good as they have ever been. My final run time was 1 hour 29 minutes 27 seconds. About 3 minutes below my PB from Ballarat but, I believe, it was only that way due to the wet course conditions and the added uphill terrain.

My overall time was 4 hours 30 minutes 39 seconds. 6^th place in my age group and 54^th overall finisher. A solid day out and I am calling it my best race to date. Although 5 minutes below my PB from Ironman 70.3 Shepparton, 2013, that was in absolutely perfect conditions. I genuinely feel a much better athlete these days with greater technique and strength, and now, much better nutrition.

In the past couple of months, I have taken on a higher fat, lower carbohydrate way of eating. Also, I look to avoid all refined and processed items, especially anything with refined and added sugar. This includes no bread or pasta and only using gels or energy bars during really long rides and races. What this race experience shows to me is that this approach is working. I only needed half of my regular amount of calories during the race because I have trained my body to use its most efficient and long lasting energy source, fat.

In the near future, I will blog to explain further why a high fat/low carb approach to eating is not only safe and effective to use in endurance sport but is essential for greater health.

A massive thank you to Dr David Riordan at Holistique Helath and Spa and his wife Mandy (please check out her awesome website devoted to clean eating – www.mycleaneats.com.au – and like her facebook page – Mandy’s Clean Eats) for their continued support, but more recently, advice and inspiration towards greater health through clean eating. Learning to eat cleaner and experience so many wonderful, natural foods that not only taste amazing, are enjoyable to cook and/or prepare, but provide my body with so much goodness, is truly gratifying.

I hope I can inspire some of you to give clean eating a true shot.

Leave a comment or question below about anything nutrition related.

Talk soon,

Lincoln.