My experience in the health and fitness industry has brought me to see many things, but if it’s one thing that I see most of my clients and general people take for granted, it’s their sleep, or should I say, lack there off! Because of late night TV, artificial lighting, jobs starting at 2:00 am in the morning, and work projects that require you to stay up till the morning to finish it or your boss will have your head the next day; we have absolutely screwed and fried our natural sleep-wake cycle. 

Some people simply think that getting 8 hours of sleep a night is good enough. Well this is not the case. Firstly human beings are in sync with light and darkness. Back in the caveman era where technology was nonexistent and the only light we had was of course the sun, and natural fire, our sleep would be in rhythm with the sun going down, and the sun coming up. You see when the sun rises in the morning and our skin experiences sunlight we stimulate a hormone called cortisol, this is due to the electromagnetic stress coming from the sun. Cortisol is an activating hormone, telling our body’s to get ready for the day’s activities. And come night time when the sun starts to go down, our body naturally starts to release sleep and repair hormones such as melatonin and G.H. This whole cycle is repeated day by day. It’s called the circadian cycle.

But this day in age most people’s circadian cycles are back to front! Meaning there natural sleep cycle is disrupted, people come home, and instead of winding down and releasing sleep hormones, cortisol is running rampant around the body keeping us wired, stressed and ready for action, I’m sure all of us has experienced this every once in a while. You come home, eat dinner, watch TV, find yourself not getting tired, it hits 10:00 pm, you have a shower and go to bed, still can’t sleep, so you read a book, it’s almost 1:00 am and still can’t sleep, your mind is racing with thoughts about the day, and things you need to do tomorrow, you close your eyes and fight it, you fall into a light sleep but are still aware of your surroundings, its  5:00 am, you finally fall into a proper sleep, but before you know it the alarm is cranking, its 7:00 am and it’s time to go to work. Many people have to live with this disrupted sleep wake cycle day in and day out. And it’s doing damage to their immune system, brain, adrenal glands, endocrine system (body’s hormonal system), daily performance, and overall health and well being.

Just in case you didn’t know as well, our circadian cycle has a specific time where the body does its physical repair followed by psychogenic repair. Between 10:00 pm and 2:00 am the body’s immune system is focused on repairing muscle tissue and physical aspects of the body.  After 2:00 am the immune system switches to more mental repair. So if you decide to get to bed at 12:00 am you have already missed 2 hours of your physical repair cycle. These repair times cannot be changed as there in sync with the sun and the planets, Mother Nature designed us to sleep at night and be awake at day time. If we abuse the system, we suffer the consequences.    

Know that you have a basic insight into sleep and why it’s so important to our body’s, here are my 5 valuable tips that you can apply now to your daily lifestyle that will improve you sleep quality and your natural sleep wake cycle.

 Avoid stimulants after lunch-Probably my number 1 addiction would have to be coffee. I never go a morning without a nice hot cup of organic coffee. But believe it or not caffeine actually has a half life of about six hours. So if you have an 8 ounce cup of coffee which contains about 300mg (milligrams) of caffeine at 3:00 pm, you’ll still have 150mg of caffeine in your blood stream at 9:00 pm at night. This can seriously affect your tapering down period which should start at around 6:00 pm at night where we should be relaxing and starting to release sleep and repair hormones. Instead we have all this caffeine stimulating our adrenal glands. So it’s important to avoid coffee or any beverage that contains caffeine after lunch, instead try some caffeine free herbal teas. This rule also applies for cigarettes and sugary drinks, as these can excite the central nervous system and wind us up through the evening.  

Sleep in a room that is completely dark-As I mentioned before when the sun rises in the morning and stimulates our skin, we activate cortisol which is our natural stress hormone, which prepares us for the day, but you must also understand that thousands of years ago we slept in complete darkness, once the sun went down we only had fire to use as light. Sleeping in complete darkness our bodies were not exposed to any light, alloying for our cortisol hormone to be completely shut off, and our sleep and repair hormones to get to work. But know a days with 24-hour lighting at a flick of a button we can constantly be tricking our minds and adrenal glands that the sun is out for longer than it should be. This effects our sleep wake cycle as we keep on releasing cortisol even at night time, even when we sleep if we decide to snooze with some sort of light on in our rooms. So when you sleep make sure your room is pitch black!  This will avoid any stimulation of cortisol when you’re asleep, allowing your body to go into a deep sleep and repair what needs to be done.

Add a magnesium supplement into your diet-Magnesium is the fourth most abundant mineral in the body. It’s involved in 300 essential biochemical reactions. But one of its main traits is it aids in detoxification of cortisol, and we should all know by now that cortisol is your enemy when it comes to sleep quality and quantity. It is also essential for calming down the nervous system, which is what you want when you get home from a nasty day of work. Adding in a high quality magnesium supplement will surely improve your sleep and create more of an anabolic (repair) environment in the body. But also remember the magnesium supplement must be of the highest quality, and it also should contain all 4 magnesium chelates. Most magnesium supplements on the market use salts, which are not absorbed and retained in the muscle tissues as well as chelates do. The best magnesium supplement I can recommend would be Poliquins ubermag or ubermag plus as they use all 4 free forms of chelates for maximum absorption and quality.  

Avoid training in the evening-To some people training in the morning just does not exist in their lifestyle. Whether if its work related, motivation, or simply they’re just too lazy to get up. But choosing to train earlier in the day even in the afternoon can really avoid the risk ramping up the nervous system to late in the evening and having a poor quality sleep. You must understand that exercise is a type of stress to the body, good stress but its stress. So that means if we decide to train after work at around 6:30 pm and our workouts are about 1 hour duration, we are flooding the blood with stress hormones, including your favorite hormone cortisol! From there our central nervous system has been excited from all the training and stress hormones being released into the body. And it takes a while for the nervous system to calm down after training. Many people say training in the evening helps them to relax from the day, which is fair enough, but still you cannot change the biochemical reactions in the body, exercise is exercise and you will get the same hormonal reaction whether you like it or not. If you decide to train in the evening, avoid long distance aerobic training such as long jogs on the treadmill and bike rides, as this type of training will pump your stress hormones through the roof. Instead do a bodybuilding or weights session lasting for up to 30 minutes as this is more anaerobic and you will avoid much of a cortisol reaction in the body.

Have dark chocolate and Spanish wine-If you are not only looking for something to help you fall asleep, but a lovely treat, try having a glass of high quality Spanish wine and some 70% dark chocolate. Let me explain how this helps you fall asleep. Spanish wine aids the body to help release a vital sleeping hormone called melatonin. Melatonin is present at night time as it helps the body fall asleep. Dark chocolate (must 70% or more cocoa, nothing less) is high in the mineral magnesium. As I said before magnesium is very important in relaxing the nervous system. Even though a Poliquin magnesium supplement would be much more powerful, you can still get a good dose of magnesium from rich dark chocolate. These two pack a powerful punch in helping you to relax and get some shut eye.    

From time to time life can just get the better of us, working hard, late nights, the kids are getting to much, and of course its winter, the cold freezing nights are just an invitation to have something warm and comforting. We all love are comfort food! And truly, at times we just deserve to treat ourselves.

But imagine a comfort food without the guilt! That’s right, comfort food that is actually nutritious for you!

Well my friends at the Tonic Superfood team have just come up with the perfect comfort food with a high nutritional value. Its called cauliflower Maca mash. And let me tell you, its a treat! I will provide the link for everyone to see the recipe from the Tonic Superfood site. But before your go and make this lovely food i just want everyone to see what kind of nutritional value this food has.

Cauliflower provides the body with optimal doses of vitamin A, calcium, magnesium, and potassium. As well as plenty of fiber, folate, selenium and vitamin c for increased immune function, and we all know how important vitamin c is in winter.

Maca, which is one of the main ingredients in the cauliflower Maca mash is a powerful superfood containing high levels of essential minerals including selenium, calcium, magnesium, and iron, it also contains high levels of amino acids to help repair muscle tissue and improve recovery from exercise.

Well as if that was not enough to convince you to try this comfort food. Please check out the link and have a go at making the cauliflower Maca mash and reep the rewards of good taste and some much needed nutrition!

click the link underneath for the full recipe and how to make cauliflower Maca mash thanks to Tonic Superfoods.

http://www.toniclifestyle.com/2010/07/cold-weather-comfort-food.html

Snacking is a part of everyday life. And it’s good for you! It keeps the metabolism up, stops us from overeating, and keeps our blood sugar at a safe level so it doesn’t drop to low during the day. But in today’s society people tend to snack on candy bars, biscuits, potato chips, protein bars (yes protein bars are not good for you, unless there organic and clean) and so on and so forth. Constant nutritional flow is very important for the body, and these foods I just mentioned play no role in providing the body with adequate nutrition. Even having too many fruits such as bananas, oranges, pairs and apples can flood the body with excess fructose which is something the blood sugar and liver cannot process very well.

I want to provide you with a berry nutritious snack you can eat any time anywhere, and will definitely give you a bang for your buck in terms of nutritional value and content. And these red little things are called Goji berries.

What are Goji berries?

Goji berries, also known in Chinese tradition as wolfberry, are a red berry grown in subtropical regions ranging from china to Mongolia, to the Himalayas in Tibet. Used for up to 6000 years in Chinese medicinal practices, Goji contains many health promoting properties. As shown in this study by the Beijing nutrition research institute, wolfberry (Goji berry) contains many primal nutrients and secondary nutrients such as

-up to 18 amino acids

-21 trace minerals (including calcium, chromium, copper, magnesium, potassium, and zinc)

-29 fatty acids and 6 essential fatty acids

-Vitamins B1, B2, B5, B6, and E

-16-17% protein by weight (that’s more protein then bee pollen)

-more beta carotene than carrots

-more calcium then cauliflower

-more vitamin c than oranges

-powerful antioxidants

-long chain polysaccharides (used by cells as effective cell communication)

Well as if this was not enough detail to convince you to snack on Goji berries from time to time. I mean compared to some of the other rubbish we put into our mouth. Imagine if we substituted 2 handfuls of Goji berries compared to snacking on an energy bar or chocolate bar. The 2 handfuls of Goji would almost quadruple the nutritional value of energy bars and other sweet snacks.  

But Goji berries not only contain an abundance of nutrients. They have the ability to enhance immune function, protect the liver, improve sexual function and fertility, help eyesight, and aid in moping up free radicals due to the antioxidants beta carotene and zeaxanthin.

Goji has even been used on cancer patients. One study published in the Chinese journal of oncology showed that 79 people with cancer responded better to treatment when Goji berries were added to there regimen.

There have been many cases in Chinese history showing that farmers who ate fresh Goji on a day to day basis lived lives for up to 100+ years. Compared to the average life span which was about 10 to 20 years younger. And let’s face it. The world we live in today average westerners are dying at ages of around 40 to 50 years old, even 30. And displaying cancer and deceases as young as 25 to 30. And ill tell you what people, its only gonna get worse unless we change our lifestyle and eating patterns. And it can all start with putting something healthy in your mouth. The Chinese have always had a knack for living long, staying healthy and cancer free, and coming up with some of the most powerful nutritional foods and herbs. So why not try and replace your evil candy bars,energy drinks, and cans of tuna (yes cans of tuna are loaded with mercury and will fry your brain to a crisp) with some all powerful Goji berries.

Where do I by Goji berries from?

You can find Goji in many places, even local supermarkets started selling them, BUT! The quality of these Goji berries are like eating dried up old raisin that has been sitting around for month, and they would be loaded with pesticides. It’s best to go to a well known health food shop and by top quality certified organic Goji berries. Or you can purchase high quality Goji from tonicsuperfoods.com. You can even use my discount code located on the side of my blog!

How much Goji should I eat?

Look, even though these things are packed full of health, do not over indulge too much, start with a handful a day, even two. Add them into your smoothes, combine it with yoghurt, sprinkle it on your cereal, and even use them in deserts, have some fun with them, but make sure there certified organic high quality Goji.              

Congratulations to Luke Kellet. Hitting 190kg for a 2 rep max. Unexpected as we started on 140 kg and moved up 5 kg each set. Finally he hit 190 kg for 2 reps. Soon we will attempt 200kg. Good nutrition, proper training, and a strong mind set will get us there!

Since I was a young boy my parents always told me that fruits had natural sugars and that it was healthy for you because it was natural, unlike table sugars such as sucrose. And don’t get me wrong, natural is a better way to go, but like many other life lessons I have learned growing up, too much of anything can be bad for you. And this article is referring to fruits, or to be more specific, the fruits natural sugars “fructose” and how high consumption of fructose can have negative metabolic effects on the body!

Fructose can be categorized as a monosaccharide sugar that is found in several different fruits. Many people define fructose as a “healthy sugar” generally because it’s found in natural foods and even though it’s classified as a simple sugar, it does not have a significant effect on blood sugar.

But on the other hand, fructose has a different enzymatic system where instead of being processed as glucose, where glucose usually enters the bloodstream and is used as energy, fructose is broken down by the liver. When consumed in high amounts, the liver has trouble metabolizing all the fructose and instead any unwanted fructose is converted back into the blood stream as dangerous blood fats also known as “triglycerides”.

Not only is fructose found in many fruits, but it’s also disguised in many shelf and packaged foods as “high fructose corn syrup”.  This syrup is pretty much 40 to 50% fructose and the other half glucose or sucrose. High fructose corn syrup can have many harsh effects on the body including

-increasing chances of syndrome X or insulin resistance, which further leads to type 2 diabetes

-unexplained increases in uric acid levels, which can be an early indicator of metabolic syndrome

- increasing mercury levels in the body, which in turn can shut down thyroid function and damage the brain. 

-increase levels of blood fats in the body, which in turn increases risk of heart decease

-according to Laura Dolsen, a former health and nutrition teacher out of California who has been studying low-carb eating and low-glycemic eating for over decade, stated that fructose ends up  circumventing the normal appetite signaling, so appetite-regulating hormones aren’t triggered, and your left feeling unsatisfied.  

What is a safe amount of fructose to have?

According to nutrition expert Robert Crayhon, an average couch potato should consume no more than 5-10 grams of fructose a day. A very active individual (someone who does physical training and competes in sports) can consume up to 20 grams of fructose a day.  One apple equals about 5 grams of fructose.  

How to avoid having to much fructose and high fructose corn syrup?

-limit fruit intake daily, stick to low G.I fruits with thin skin, such as apples and berries. (Thin skin fruits have more antioxidants because they have to protect themselves from the sun as they grow in the wild; therefore they have to store more antioxidants to survive, as opposed to thick skin fruits such as bananas)

-Avoid eating packaged foods from supermarkets, especially sodas, biscuits and other sweet snacks as they contain huge amounts of high fructose corn syrup. Instead eat more natural organic foods free from packaging.

-Make sure every meal has a good quantity of animal protein, healthy fats, and high fiber vegetables such as green leafy vegetables, broccoli, cauliflower and so on.

-Always read the label when you’re buying something from the supermarket.

-use good fats such as almonds, macadamias, and Brazil nuts as snacks instead of fruits. As these healthy fats will keep your blood sugar level stable and avoid any insulin spike.

Should I stop eating fruits overall because of fructose?

No! Definitely not. Fruits Contain many important nutrients that you cannot find in other foods, such as different antioxidants. It’s a matter of balancing quantities and not having too much. If you are a healthy individual who is active, eats the right foods for their metabolic type, and is low in total body fat %. Then you can surely eat fruits. However if your insulin resistant or are quite high in total body fat% then you should cut out fruits and work on doing a protein and vegetable boot camp which includes no sugar for 14 days. To find out if you’re having insulin issues or you want to know what your body fat % is then you should try my bio signature modulation test. This will tell you if you’re having problems metabolizing sugars and how high your overall body fat% is.

When it comes to the subject of weight loss I’m sure we all love to here about the “fat burning foods” and “fat burning nutrition”.  And if you don’t know by now that fats are a much more nutritious counterpart than sugar, you have been tucked away in a cave somewhere. But have you ever wondered about fats that actually burn fat! Can your number 1 enemy in your fat loss conquest be just as helpful as a hard workout in the gym? Whether your goal is weight loss, muscle gain, or simply just be plain healthy, nutrition plays a vital role in any sort of body composition goals. And as a personal trainer and health coach that’s where I see most people fail.

Getting your regular good fats into the day is not really that hard. Good fats are not only responsible for keeping your body’s cells healthy, but they keep your blood sugar levels at an optimal standard and help prevent any sugar spikes which can cause unwanted fat storage and insulin resistance.

There are many types of good fats,

Omega 3’s-(found mainly in wild meats and seafood, as well as dark green vegetables)

Omega 6’s-(found mainly in different types of nuts and seeds, as well as olive oil and other meats)

Omega 9’s-(Also found in nuts and avocados and olive oil)

Saturated fats-(raw organic butter, coconut)

Remember fats are good for you but in a health standard they must be consumed in small amounts, a good resume for healthy fats such as nuts can be up to 6 servings a day. 6 to 10 nuts (must organic  unroasted and unsalted) are aloud each serving, as well as ¼ avocado each serving up to 6 times a day, no more.

But let’s get on to the fat burning fats! I have chosen these 3 fats because not only are they beneficial for your health and well being but they all contain properties that will aid and accelerate your fat burning furnace!

Omega 3 essential fatty acids- A long long time ago, in a land far far away, the caveman era was probably the most healthy and fit generation of our ancestors. Back then your most common health threats such as heart decease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and stroke were all non existent, and do you know why? Well not only were harmful chemicals such as pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and fertilizers not around that are present in our conventional farming today, but the foods we consumed were rich in vital nutrients. And probably the most important nutrient that we consumed was from wild meat. And that’s omega-3. You see in today’s society animal meats are depleted in omega-3 essential fatty acids. This is due to the poor upbringing and farming and lack of nutrition fed to the animals. Think about it for a second? In the cavemen ere thousands of years animals were free to roam around in there natural environments, stress free movement, accompanied with good nutrition such as grass and leafy vegetables, and you have one healthy animal full of nutrients. But in the neo era our basic supermarket meats contain only probably a quarter of the nutritional value then a healthy raised, grass fed, organic animal. Not to mention the other krap that is put in to these foods, which the names of the ingredients I can’t even pronounce.

And one key missing nutrient that has been pretty much scrapped from most of our meats (unless its offcourse it’s organic or grass fed) is omega -3.

Not only is every disease known to man positively affected by omega-3, but it has many fat burning properties that would make any weight loss client tingle with excitement. Here they are,

According to world renowned health and strength coach Charles Poliquin, omega 3 essential fatty acids

-Turn on the human genes for burning fat, which will allow for a greater fat burning effect

-Turn off the human fat storing genes to avoid fat storage

-increase insulin sensitivity, which means if your insulin resistant you can increase you insulin receptor sites and help your body metabolize sugars and carbs more efficient and burn more fat each day.

According to www.bodyincredible.com

-Omega-3s increase the heat of your cellular “furnaces”, which are otherwise known as the mitochondria and the peroxisomes. Omega-3s make these organelles burn more and more energy, thus turning you into a fat-burning machine.”

-they allow the body to burn fat in situations where fat burning is turned off, such as after a high-carb meal or after high-intensity exercise (where the body preferentially burns glycogen).”

Good sources of omega 3 essential fatty acids are from

-Organic and free range meats (particularly red meats)

-Dark green leafy vegetables

-fish (stay away from tuna and big types of fish as they contain high contents of mercury, stick to more smaller oilier fish)

-eggs

-high quality fish oil supplements (Poliquin range or metagenics)

So I would definitely rate omega-3 as the best fat burning known to man. Here are some other great articles on omega-3.

www.bodyincredible.com/why-omega-3-is-the-smartest-fat-for-burning-fat

www.charlespoliquin.com/ArticlesMultimedia/Articles/Article.aspx?ID=54

coconut oil-Thinking of cooking up a beef stir fry, or maybe a nice salmon steak, well you cant go past coconut oil and its numerous health and weight loss benefits.

Before I go on about coconut oil let me squash any negative talk about the saturated fat content and saturated fats over all. Coconut oil contains medium chain triglycerides, which in fact are not hazardous to your health, but good for you. Saturated fats that have been altered from its original form (hydrogenated) are the bad fats. Raw, organic, clean saturated fats are healthy for you.

The fat burning benefits from coconut oil come from the high content of lauric acid. Lauric acid is a medium chain fatty acid. Daily consumption of coconut oil is known to

-raise the body’s metabolism which in return helps to boost thyroid function. And from there on lead to greater weight loss.

-contribute to lowering LDL cholesterol which is the bad cholesterol that causes heart disease.

-enhances the immune system to help the body fight infections, diseases, bad bacteria and yeast invasions. Lauric acid is known to be anti-viral, anti-fungal and anti-bacterial.

Coconut oil is also one of the rare oils that does not oxidise under high temperatures such as when cooking or frying, it remains in a medium chain fatty acid state and does not turn into a Trans fat unlike other oils such rice bran oils and vegetables oils which are more commonly used today.

So it’s your best bet to use coconut oil next time you decide cook.

A good coconut oil can be purchased at any health food shop. The best quality would be unrefined and organic.

Olive oil-By now you should know olive oil is great when it comes to flavour and adding abit of zing to your salads and foods. But the weight loss benefits tend to be forgotten. First of all you should consume olive oil as raw as possible. And it should be a good quality organic extra virgin olive oil.

Olive oil is high in monounsaturated fats. These fats help to lower LDL (bad) cholesterol and increase HDL (good) cholesterol. As well as reduce inflammation and other harmful blood fats. It is a great antioxidant and is also anticancer, due to the compound Oleic acid, which helps to destroy cancer cells.

Recent study has shown that people who substitute olive oil with other fats were able to lose a moderate amount of weight with out additional food restrictions or physical activity.

Also recently last year I was at the CHEK holistic lifestyle coach certification program, and there world renowned health and well being guru Paul Chek stated that regular consumption of olive oil boosts your metabolism.

Olive oil has great flavour; I advise adding it to your salads and meals, but remember don’t fry with olive oil in high temperatures as it can oxidise and turn into a Trans fat.