Sugar has been getting a lot of attention in diet books, magazines and TV over the last few years. When they talk about sugar they are referring to refined sugars like sucrose (table sugar). This type of sugar has definitely contributed a lot of empty kJs to our modern diet, displacing good nutritious food. A lot of the foods that are high in sugar are also high in fat and low in fibre. Foods like cakes, pastries, biscuits, ice-cream, confectionaries, soft drinks and fruit juices all contain a lot of refined sugars.
In a few fad diet books doing the rounds at the moment, they give the impression that sugar is toxic. Anything in large enough quantities can become toxic, but It’s important to understand that refined sugar is just a carbohydrate (glucose combined with fructose) and all carbohydrates are broken down to either glucose, fructose or galactose during digestion before being absorbed into the blood stream. We all need carbohydrates we just have to make sure that we mostly get our carbs from relatively unprocessed fresh produce, so we not only get glucose and fructose but also get fibre and the many other nutrients available from whole foods. Fructose has been getting a bit of bad press over the last few years, and not without some justification. In the USA it is used as a cheaper alternative to sweeten processed foods and drinks and has added a lot of empty kJ’s to the American diet. The refined form of fructose which is part of table sugar is something you should aim to minimise in your diet, but just because the natural sugar in fruit is fructose doesn’t mean you should avoid fruit. All fruits contain a lot of water and fibre, so are quite bulky and hard to over consume. In comparison to their volume they don’t actually contain a lot of fructose and they are packed full of essential nutrients. If you choose foods form the 5 food groups in the recommended servings, you won’t need to worry too much about refined sugar. Refined sugar is mainly in the category of discretionary foods which are ok if they are not part of your everyday diet (save party foods for parties). As always if you have found this post helpful please share it with your friends on Facebook or share the link to the Astute Fitness Blog www.astutefitness.com.au/blog to help use get our message out, Thanks, Daryl
0 Comments
Bench press is a great exercise for building strength in your shoulders, chest and triceps. to get the most out of this exercise it's important to have good technique! the following video will give you the basics of how to do the barbell bench press. As with most exercises, it's sometimes hard to monitor your own form while you are actually doing the exercise. Having your PT correct you while performing the lift will give you a better chance of developing good technique habits. It's also important to make sure the weight isn't to heavy. If you use a weight that is to heavy, you'll lose form and build bad habits. In the long term you will be way in front by slowly developing good exercise technique. An important note to make is that you need to make sure that you balance this exercise out by working the opposing muscle groups. exercises like bent over barbell row, dumbbell bent row, bent lateral raises and seated row are great for balancing out the strength in your upper body and helping to maintain good posture and healthy shoulders joints. I will be putting up videos on these exercises and more over the coming weeks and months. Share the link to our you tube channel with your friends!! Astute Fitness You tube Salt is needed for good health, but like most things you can have too much of a good thing! Too much salt in your diet is a risk factor for high blood pressure, stroke and kidney disease. A lot of the excess salt in the Australian diet comes from processed and packaged foods, just another reason to stay away from these foods as much as possible. It’s also a good idea to minimise the amount of salt you add to cooking and to not add extra salt at the table!
We all need some salt in our diet, but most people will get enough from the food they eat without adding extra. Salt (Sodium Chloride) is about 40% sodium. Sodium is easily absorbed through the intestinal tract. Once absorbed into the blood stream sodium is filtered out by the kidneys which then precisely returns the exact amount needed to your body. The excess sodium is excreted by the kidneys. Sodium is involved in maintaining fluid balance in your body. Its main role is in maintaining extracellular fluid (the fluid outside and between cells). Sodium also maintains acid balance in your body and is essential for nerve signal transmission and muscle contraction. Too much salt in the diet is linked to high blood pressure. Reducing salt intake has been shown to reduce blood pressure in both people with or without high blood pressure and causes no harm to either. For this reason, the Australian Dietary Guidelines advise that you should choose foods low in salt and not add salt while cooking or at the table. The Upper Level of Intake advised in the Australian Nutrient Reference Values (NRV) is 2.3 grams (approximately 1 teaspoon). We can generally get enough salt through eating unprocessed foods, without the need to add extra salt while cooking, through processed foods or by adding salt at the table. If you follow the Australian Dietary guidelines, you shouldn’t have to worry too much about excess salt in your diet. As always if you have found this post helpful please share it with your friends on Facebook or share the link to the Astute Fitness Blog www.astutefitness.com.au/blog to help use get our message out, Thanks, Daryl There a few types of fat that we come across in our diet each day, some are considered healthy and some not so healthy. The thing to remember is, whether healthy or not healthy they can all be unhealthy if over consumed. All types of fat contain 37 kilojoules per gram compared to carbs and protein which contain around 17 kilojoules per gram. A lot of fatty foods are also low in fibre and in most cases contain no fibre at all, making them very energy dense. It’s very easy to add a lot of extra kJs to your day if your diet is too high in fat. If you’ve been following my “Healthy eating made easy” series, you’ll understand how too many kJs are a major cause of a lot of health issues in Australia.
The types of fat that are considered healthy are the unsaturated, mono unsaturated and poly unsaturated fats. Mono unsaturated fats are found in things like olives, some nuts, avocado and canola oil. Poly unsaturated fats are often talked about for their health benefits. You might know them as omega 3 and omega 6 oils. The omega 3 oils that get the most press are the long chained variety DHA and EPA. These are found in fish, especially oily fish and also in lean red meat. The short chained variety can be found in nuts, seeds and vegetables. These short chained omega 3’s can be converted to the longer chained omega 3’s in your body. These unsaturated fats help to reduce the risk of heart disease, and lower cholesterol among other health benefits. The Mediterranean diet is relatively high in mono unsaturated oil, as well as omega 3 and omega 6 oils. These fats are all liquid at room temperature. The less healthy fats are saturated fats and trans fats. There are certain fad diets that suggest that saturated fats have no negative health impacts, but there is very little evidence to support this. There is however a huge amount of research showing the benefits of a diet lower in saturated fats. The one thing everyone seems to agree on is that trans fats are definitely not good for you and have been shown to increase the risk of heart disease. Trans fats occur naturally in small amounts in certain foods such as dairy and meat products but are also produced in some types of food processing such as the hydrogenation of polyunsaturated oils to produce margarines. Look for margarines that are free of, or low in trans fats. Trans fats are also found in many packaged foods, another reason to stay away from packaged and highly processed foods. Cholesterol is another type of fat which has been misunderstood over the years. There was a time when we thought that dietary cholesterol was the main cause of arthrosclerosis (a build-up of fatty deposits on the inner walls of arteries), we now know that saturated fat and trans fat are the major contributor to this condition. How can you tell if it’s a good fat or a bad fat? Generally, the fats that are considered healthy fats are liquid at room temperature and bad fats are solid at room temperature. That’s ok if you are looking at the fats on their own, but it’s not always that easy to tell when the fat is contained in a food. For instance, avocado and nuts contain healthy fats but you can’t tell if they are liquid or not because they are contained within the food. In general, if the fat is from a plant based food it will be unsaturated, but this isn’t always the case. Coconut oil for instance is one of the most highly saturated fat available. If you limit the amount of packaged and processed foods and other high fat foods like pastries, cakes, deep fried foods and red meats you will be fine. I think we all know that anyway, the hard part is actually doing it. If you can the benefits are well worth the sacrifice. You don’t have to get to carried away with reading nutritional tables on packaged foods, just minimise those types of products and try to stick as closely to the Australian Dietary Guidelines as you can. In a few weeks I will summarise this into a simple set of steps, that will make it easy for you to keep on track! As always if you have found this post helpful please share it with your friends on Facebook or share the link to the Astute Fitness Blog www.astutefitness.com.au/blog to help use get our message out, Thanks, Daryl
This time of year we are all recovering from over indulging over the Christmas/New Year period. It’s not just all the food, there were probably a few extra celebratory drinks in there as well. So I thought that this post on Alcohol and how it effects your body might help you get back on track. Not that there is anything wrong with a couple of drinks with your friends, but over consuming can put some real stress on your body.
The Australian Dietary Guidelines and the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) recommends no more than 2 standard drinks in any one day. There is no level of alcohol consumption that can be guaranteed as being totally safe, but by sticking to this recommendation you will significantly decrease any risk. The more alcohol you drink the greater the risk! Although drinking alcohol in moderation may reduce some health risks, there are no benefits for people under 35 years old, and for people over 35 the possible benefits need to be weighed against the many known harmful effects of consuming alcohol. It has been estimated that at least one teenager aged between 14 and 17 years dies each week from alcohol related events and over 60 are hospitalised in Australia. Alcohol is also a major contributor to premature deaths in older Australians costing the health care system millions of dollars each year. So why is over consumption of Alcohol bad for your health? The type of alcohol in alcoholic drinks is ethyl alcohol (ethanol). Although it’s less toxic than other forms of alcohol, it still acts as a lipid solvent which means that it dissolves lipids (fats). Cell membranes are made from proteins and a type of fat called phospholipids. Alcohol can dissolve the lipids out of cell membranes allowing the alcohol to pass quickly into the cell, destroying the cell in the process. This is the reason that alcohol is such an effective disinfectant. In your body alcohol is treated differently than carbohydrates, protein and fat. Carbs, protein and fat require time to be digested and absorbed whereas alcohol can be absorbed across the walls of an empty stomach to reach the brain in just a few minutes. It is less quickly absorbed when the stomach is full of food. Women produce less of the enzyme that breaks down alcohol in the stomach than men, so more alcohol reaches the small intestine to be absorbed in women, for this reason, women will absorb more alcohol than men and will be more effected by the same amount of alcohol than a man of the same size. Because alcohol is toxic to the body it’s given priority and metabolised before most other nutrients. The cells in your liver are able to produce more of the enzyme needed to break down alcohol than any of the other type of cell in your body, so your liver gets the job of disposing of as much alcohol as it can as soon as it enters your blood stream. Your liver likes to get its energy from fatty acids, any excess fatty acids are then packaged into triglycerides and sent off to other parts of the body to either be used as energy or to be stored as body fat. When alcohol is present the fatty acids accumulate in your liver while the liver cells deal with the alcohol. Alcohol can also permanently alter liver cell structure reducing the cells ability to metabolise fats. In heavy drinkers this can lead to the condition known as fatty liver. Many of the damaging effects of alcohol abuse are caused by the chemical produced in the first stage of breaking down alcohol (acetaldehyde). This is then broken down further to acetate which is converted to acetyl CoA, a compound that is used to produce energy. In the process a lot of the B group vitamin niacin is used. Without enough niacin, the energy pathways cannot function which causes other problems. One problem it causes is that it can shift the bodies acid balance toward acid, another problem is that acetyl CoA builds up and can be used to synthesis more fatty acids, which as I mentioned before is a problem because the liver is already busy dealing with the alcohol. A liver clogged with fat is less able to perform all its tasks. After a single night of heavy drinking, fat accumulation can already be seen in the liver. Because the liver gives priority to metabolising alcohol, it can interfere with how your body handles prescribed drugs, as well as other nutrients. Alcohol alters or modifies body functions and so is classified as a drug. Like all drugs it has side effects. To help minimise these side effects or hazards the NHMRC has developed this set of guidelines. Guideline 1: For healthy men and women, drinking no more than two standard drinks on any day reduces the lifetime risk of harm from alcohol related disease and injury. Guideline 2: For healthy men and women, drinking no more than four standard drinks on a single occasion reduces the risk of alcohol related injury from that occasion. Guideline 3: Parents and carers should be advised that children under 15 years of age are at the greatest risk of harm from drinking and for this age group, not drinking alcohol is especially important. For young people 15 – 17 years, the safest option is to delay the initiation of drinking for as long as possible. Guideline 4: For women who are pregnant or planning pregnancy, not drinking is the safest option. For women who are breastfeeding, not drinking is the safest option. In case you aren’t sure what a standard drink is: any drink that provides you with 10g of alcohol is considered a standard drink. Following is a list standard drink serves,
I’m definitely not saying you shouldn’t have a social drink with friends, but it’s a good idea to stick as close to the NHMRC guidelines as you can, because the risks increase sharply when go above these recommendations. As always if you have found this post helpful please share it with your friends on Facebook or share the link to the Astute Fitness Blog www.astutefitness.com.au/blog to help use get our message out, Thanks, Daryl There are some foods that don’t fit into any of the 5 food groups. This is because they’re not required for good health and when over eaten can actually contribute to a number of health risk factors. These foods are commonly too high in saturated fats and trans fats, processed sugar, salt or alcohol and low in fibre. They are usually high in kilojoules, and low in nutrients so are considered “energy dense and nutrient poor”. Foods from this category are usually highly processed packaged foods like potato chips or sweet biscuits or bottled or canned beverages. The following list gives you an idea of the types of things that would be considered discretionary foods.
It’s very easy to over consume these types of food and drinks. All these types of food tend to be very energy dense with little nutrient value, so people who consume food from this category on a daily basis will be displacing good nutritious food. This can lead to deficiencies in essential nutrients. The higher levels of kilojoules, saturated fat, added sugars, added salt and/or alcohol that these foods contain are associated with increased risk of obesity and chronic disease such as heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and some forms of cancer. That’s a good enough reason to limit the amount of food from this category. I like to call these foods “sometimes foods”! The saying “save party foods for parties” sums it up! In other words, I’m not saying not to eat these foods but limiting them to special occasions is definitely a good idea. As always if you have found this post helpful please share it with your friends on Facebook or share the link to the Astute Fitness Blog www.astutefitness.com.au/blog to help use get our message out, Thanks, Daryl
Over the last month or so we’ve talked about the 5 food groups and how much we need from each group. In this post we’ll talk about processed foods and how they fit into a healthy diet.
There are some good processed foods and some not so good ones. Technically any food that has been altered from its natural state is a processed food. But some processing isn’t a bad thing depending on what it is. Cooking is a process, but that doesn’t mean we need to eat all our food uncooked. In some foods, processing is a good thing. A couple of examples of this are reduced fat milk where some of the saturated fats have been removed, or whole grains that have been milled to make wholemeal flour. In some cases, more nutrients are introduced during processing. Examples of this are milk with added vitamin D, or bread flour with added iodine and folate. Some processing even allows us to add variety to our diet. For instance, frozen vegetables or berries, or canned foods (look for varieties with no added salt) can be a good way of including these foods in your diet when fresh varieties aren’t available. The not so good processed foods are foods where some of the good parts of the food have been removed. An example of this would be white flour, where most of the fibre has been removed leaving mainly carbohydrate. Don’t get me wrong, there isn’t anything wrong with carbohydrates, but people with a diet high in processed carbs tend to displace a lot of nutritious foods, leaving a less than ideal diet. In some cases, it can be easy to over consume on highly processed foods, which can lead to weight gain and all of the problems associated with that. There is also a tendency towards higher sodium and lower potassium content with some types of processed foods. This can cause problems with fluid balance and is associated with high blood pressure. Dried fruit is another example of processed food. Dried fruit can be nutrient dense, but be careful because it can also be energy dense, so can quickly add a lot of extra kJs to your diet. There is a bit of a trend towards making nutritious “superfood” snacks from dried fruits, nuts and seeds. These types of snacks definitely are full of nutrients, but they are also high in kJs so I would consider them “sometimes foods” or special treats, not foods that you should include as a part of your everyday food intake. My advice for snacks would be to stick to a piece of fresh fruit. Fresh fruit is not only nutritious but tends to be high in fibre to help keep you feeling full, while being not so energy dense so they won’t add too many kJs to your day. Try to keep away from packaged foods in the isles of the supermarket. They tend to be highly processed and can contain a lot of preservatives and flavour enhancers (salt, MSG and a variety of other chemicals). Nearly all of the breakfast cereals found in the isles of your local supermarket are examples highly processed foods. With most of these you would have trouble identifying what they are made from. Without even reading what additives are in these foods the fact that you can’t identify what they are made from is a good indication of a high degree of processing. If you stick as close as you can to the Australian Dietary Guidelines, you’ll be eating a healthy diet that doesn’t contain to many highly processed foods anyway. The benefits you’ll get from having a healthy diet will make the few small sacrifices well worth it. As always if you have found this post helpful please share it with your friends on Facebook or share the link to the Astute Fitness Blog www.astutefitness.com.au/blog to help use get our message out. Thanks, Daryl The Barbell Back Squat is one of the best exercises for developing functional strength. Like the deadlift, the squat, not only works all the big driver muscles of the lower body, it’s also one of the best way to develop great core strength. Always have someone spot you whenever you squat with heavy weights. I'll be adding more instructional videos to the Astute Fitness you tube channel from now on. To subscribe to our channel, click the you tube link at the bottom right hand corner of our home page then click subscribe when you get to our you tube channel. Share this info with your friends if you think they will find it useful Thanks Daryl I’m starting to sound like a broken record! Most Australians are only getting about half the recommended serves of dairy each day. Eating or drinking reduced or low fat milk, cheese and yoghurt is recommended for most people over 2 years old. If you prefer to follow a dairy free diet or have an intolerance to lactose (the sugar found naturally in dairy products) you should aim to include some of the alternative products made from soy, nuts or grains (soy milk, almond milk, rice milk etc.). Choose varieties that have at least 100mg of calcium per 100ml. Avoiding dairy products or their alternatives can have a negative impact on your long term health. Some people avoid milk products because they believe it increases mucus, but there is no scientific evidence that connects milk products to mucus production. If you believe you have an allergy or intolerance to milk products, you should see your doctor to be diagnosed. The chart below shows that as a food group, dairy is a great source of calcium. Sardines and other fish with edible bones are also a great source of calcium. Vitamin D, calcium and regular load bearing exercises work together to help maintain good bone health. There is more to dairy than just calcium though! Dairy also contains a number of other beneficial nutrients, such as; protein, iodine, vitamin A, vitamin D, riboflavin, vitamin B12 and zinc. If you are trying to put on some lean muscle, milk is for you. No need to spend all your money on expensive protein supplements. Milk contains all the essential amino acids and is a great source of protein.
Some ways to incorporate dairy into your day: A low fat latte A Small tub of yoghurt A Glass of milk A Slice of cheese in a sandwich Milk on cereal for breakfast How many serves of milk do I need each day? Women 19 to 50yrs = 2 ½ serves Women 51yrs plus = 4 serves Pregnant or Lactating women = 2 ½ serves Men 19 to 70yrs = 2 ½ serves Men 70yrs plus = 3 ½ serves Infants 1 to 3yrs = 1 to 1 ½ serves Girls 4 to 8yrs = 1 ½ serves Girls 9 to 11yrs = 3 serves Girls 12 to 18yrs = 3 ½ serves Boys 4 to 8yrs = 2 serves Boys 9 to 11yrs = 2 ½ serves Boys 12 to 18yrs = 3 ½ serves What is a serve of Dairy?
Anyone unable to drink or eat milk products due to allergy or malabsorption should talk to their doctor or dietitian about other ways of getting their required calcium intake. As always if you have found this post helpful please share it with your friends on Facebook or share the link to the Astute Fitness Blog www.astutefitness.com.au/blog to help use get our message out. Thanks, Daryl I hope you're beginning to see the trend. In general, the idea that one particular food can be categorised as a superfood isn’t true. We should focus on eating a variety of the least processed foods that we can. When you compare chia seeds with pumpkin seeds you can see that pumpkin seeds are higher in nearly all nutrients. Chia seeds are definitely much higher in calcium, but dairy products are considered the best choice for calcium (however, that’s another story). As per usual I’m not picking on chia seeds, I just want you to see that the whole super food thing is mainly a marketing hype! A diet that contains variety is more important than any single food on its own. |
AuthorDaryl Maddern Archives
July 2019
Categories |