In the recent 2019 NBA finals where the underdog Toronto Raptors won their first and only NBA Championship, there were other major headlines surrounding the 6 game series then the victories themselves. I believe that no one can argue that had these instances not occurred then the result may have been significantly different. There were 2 career changing and series ending injuries that occurred in Games 5 and 6 that changed the dynamic of the gameplay. One injury happened to a player who most will agree at the time was the best player on the planet, Kevin Durant. The other injury was to one of the greatest 3 point shooters of all time Klay Thompson.
Injuries to the highest performing athletes In sports has been a common occurrence over the past few years. Because of this we are seeing the highest paid and most talented basketball players from various countries opt out of the world cup coming up at the end of August. The purpose of players doing this is to secure their long term future in the NBA and not risk injury in the pursuit of playing for their country. To most people these frequent shock injuries might seem strange since technology and advanced training techniques have been at an all time popularity.
A few simple reasons come to mind as to why this is happening. The first one is Food. Nutrients found in food is at an all time low. A small example is cashews. The magnesium content in cashews has dropped 70% since the 1970’s. This is all due to commercial farming. The spraying of pesticides and herbicides on crops and soil is affecting the nutrients. Fruits and vegetables grown out of this soil are seeing a tremendous drop in nutrient value. These chemicals also affect our meats, with the animals that we consume from either feeding off vegetation from the damaged soil or surviving off highly processed grains. Its also a topic of discussion as to the amount the steroids being used to improve animal size for selling, plus the use of antibiotics when the animals are sick which is causing more distress to the animals health than the decades before them. There has been proof that even our organic farms are not as nutrient dense as they once where. The reason being that the chemicals from neighbouring commercial farms are being transmitted through the air and onto the organic farms.
Interestingly enough, is how this is not only affecting our current athletes but how it will affect our future players. Studies have shown that eating highly processed foods affects the 2nd and third generations. The study which is published as Pottengers cats showed cases of deformities, illness, and even blindness in the cats as a result of eating processed meats, affecting the livelihood of descendants all the way down to the third generation of cats. You only need to ask yourself about the increasing rate of disease in the people around you to comprehend what is going on in our world.
The second reason of the frequent and serious injuries is the training programming and exercises that are being prescribed to athletes these days. Training has ‘supposedly’ taken leaps in improving performance. The use of balance training, electric machines and gimmicks have been implemented to what is supposed to be stimulating the co-ordination and strength of an athlete to succeed in a given sport when that skill is depended on. However, I am yet to see a study where single legged balance training for example can improve speed, agility and strength. I will bet all my money that the athlete becomes really good at single legged balance training but not actually a carry over to a movement in the sport. On the flip side you find numerous studies that improving the strength in a squat as another example can improve vertical jump, sprint speed and deceleration. Unfortunately, it may be another 10 years before research proves that all of these made up and so called creative ways to train an athlete are in no way superior to good old strength training. Training that was made famous by some of the worlds strongest men from the 1900’s is slowly making it’s way into combative sports and is being proven already to making athletes stronger in mixed martial arts as well as American football.
Athletes are athletes because they are already great at what they do. Most likely they are already highly skilled, strong and fast. All they need is a little guidance on how to prevent injury through improving the nutrients they consume and build their ability to train with weights properly. This information is not only going to greatly improve their strength but also their joint integrity, mobility and reactive forces on the ground. Improvements in these categories will improve an athletes, Strength, Agility and speed along with injury prevention and recovery time. That is a priceless amount to pay towards an athlete’s longevity in their sport.
There are a few simple steps to follow that will help you become the best version of yourself. If you’re an athlete or just want to help protect our future generations from disease and injury these changes can only have positive effects on you, you’re children and educating those around you. The first is to eat organic wholefood as much as you can by living by the 80/20 rule . 80% organic and 20% conventional. If you want a sure fire way to find which foods are the safest to eat, all you need to do is google the clean 15 for your country. It is the top 15 foods that are the least sprayed with herbicides and pesticides. If you also want to know the foods to stay away from ,then google the dirty dozen for your country. These are 12 of the most chemically laden produce in your area.
The seconds tip is to find a great coach who will teach you the correct mechanics on the performance lifts that will make you stronger for your specific sport. Someone who also has the specialisation of some form of muscle release technique will also greatly improve mobility and prevent injury. Search for A.R.T Practitioners in your area. The result of the drastic injuries that occurred this year in the NBA Finals will change the course of the NBA for years to come and has already started taking place. The planning of even more load management for its star players and possibly more rest days between games seems to be a move in the right direction for those involved. I wonder when they will look more at the off field circumstances affecting the athletes.
Kevin Durant will miss 12 months of action and he will aim to return the same player that he was before the injury, however statistics are against him. Most players returning from an achilles tear never seem to get back to their best basketball. Kobe Bryant , the most recent and probably best known basketball player was a victim to this nasty injury and like Kevin Durant , this happened while performing a move on the court. Kobe was soon to retire a few years later when performing at a high level could no longer be achieved. Klay Thompson will be out of action for 6 months with an ACL tear and history of that kind of injury is that it is more than likely to be re-injured. ACL tears are the most common injury in sports that we see today.
We can only hope that coaches tone down the affect they have on an athletes body and aim to only make it more durable. For your own information try and google Kevin Durant’s shooting warmup routine. It consists of spins, pivots, single legged jumps and twists in the air. In my opinion, all of those movements should be saved for the sport and not be taking up mileage for the body in a workout or warm up routine. My synopsis is that in roughly 10 years from now there will be research into the measuring of some extent, the mileage a body can take before its at serious risk of injury. Hopefully we’ll see if making athletes stronger and looking more into their nutrition become more of a focus point and that they save all the other stuff for movements on the field, court or practice area.
On a note I do not know the extent of these athletes nutrition but as science has shown with the Pottenger’s cats study, is that it probably started with their ancestors 2 to 3 generations ago. Funnily enough that would take us back to the time of the rise of commercial farming in the U.S.
I hope this information has pointed a lot of people in the right direction to their health and performance. We are only as good as the fuel and knowledge that we obtain
This article comes around a topic of nutrition which I am hoping is starting to hit home for a lot of people now that living a healthy lifestyle and eating healthy, is key to fighting of disease and illness. This coming from numerous papers which have been released on the deaths through the corona virus that we are experiencing saying that a huge number of deaths and severity of the symptoms come from having other underlying health conditions. The report that came out of Italy on the 700 or so deaths stating that only 2 per cent had no underlying issues and the rest had some underlying health issues. A huge part of that which I want to make point of is that more than 50% of people who dies had more than 3 previous illnesses that are diet, lifestyle and exercise related. Because yes, some illnesses can be genetic, like cancer and heart disease being a couple of them but if you have 3 than that is more lifestyle oriented. For me being in the fitness industry for nearly 2 decades now I’m hoping that more people understand the importance of exercise and healthy eating and also training at a gym or personal trainer who actually know what they’re talking about and putting yourself in the safest hands possible and how is going to get you your best results.
Research into the illnesses that the severity of how that illness affects people and sometimes even death has been attributed to a cause of immunosenesensesne meaning immunosenessesnse is the cellular ageing of the immune system that can lead to increased mortality This is caused by a poor diet or lifestyle. A big important note to mention is that cellular ageing can be reversed through lifestyle changes and eating a healthy diet so I’m hoping that people find out professionals like a good trainer or coach that can educate them on the correct way to eat and how to improve your lifestyle. Not just following a diet that may take 10 years of research to find out how bad it is AKA the plant-based diet or other random ones that pop up out of nowhere. I’m talking juts simple facts on how the body works and what is right for them. The reason these so called new diets pop up which I’m hoping everyone is starting to catch on especially with what we’re seeing with big pharma for example and how viruses are making them rich with their drug vaccines and so forth and that is to understand that most things health related and promises to improve people’s lives or put them out of danger is all money driven or have an ulterior motive like the covid-19 conspiracy and is all making one group of people or organisation rich at the expense of everyone’s health. WE don’t need more diets that people are going to fail at following which lead to more lifestyle damaging factors. No need to get me started on that but we’ll just have wait for research to say of all these diets that keep coming about are unnatural and unnecessary, things like high plant level proteins, ruins our body, weakens our immune system and destroys the ecosystem. SO, remember this conversation about 10 year from now. All the changes in food labelling, additives and new fad diets is the cause of our weight gain problem and I will share info on those things here now and what is the best thing to do and eat. As for exercise I hope people just get out there and move that s all I can hope for and it’s a start. Later on I expect everyone do their own research on what is the correct way because there is some gyms, franchises and studios that there program and beliefs do nothing but over tax and overstress your immune system through too much intensity and lack of variability without enough recovery time, not introducing DE loads or nutrition protocols to enhance their training and are just basically breaking down their body. Your body grows when it’s resting and its ability to strengthen your immune system needs recovery and supplementation and to be adapted to your already adapted stress levels that everyone has. Things are just crazy and everyone is just so misinformed. if you do look after recovery, supplementation, and exercise variability then you’re on the right path. If not, then the opposite will happen, you will not recover properly and you will still cause ageing of the cells which what I just discussed at the start will cause immunosenescents. Which what did I say will lead to, increase disease and mortality.
Fat loss Protocol
Today is going to be starting point for some of you on nutrition and others you have been training with me for a while now should hopefully learn some new things to apply to your eating to achieve their goals. Because for those who do not know these nutrition talks that I do are about the right foods to consume to improve your body composition. This in turn will also tailor that towards improving your health through improving insulin sensitivity in doing so by not trashing your immune system with a high carbohydrate or process food consumption. and also, by being more aware of the foods you’re putting into your mouth. Today I will drum home the point of why carbohydrates are not good for most people unless your lean enough to deserve them…which is not many people, and the importance of fats and the how and why to use them for weight loss. So, sit back and I hope you enjoy the lessons I’m about to bring across your way.
Typical diet symptoms
So, to jump away from the immune health thing for a minute let’s talk about food that can help in achieving your fitness goals. I think we all have experienced when we start to diet how it initially feels good for a little while, you start to feel good that you’re doing something good for yourself maybe you start to see some changes but what them typically happens.
You start to feel deprived of some foods from eating so little of so you start to get cravings. This is cause by an imbalance in blood sugar levels and a secretion of a substance in the brain which causes cravings called neuro peptide y which will make you want to increase carbohydrate consumption, and the more you consume the more that your body wants. SO, depending on your goal, well unless its weight gain, everyone is going to feel this and it’s important to know that point and you can try and do one of 2 things. 1 just don’t give in to the feeling and understand that the cravings are part of the process and I will help you with that today or 2 fuel yourself with enough nutrients of good quality so that malnutrition doesn’t lead to more production neuropeptide y. Use tips like increasing water intake to keep leptin levels happy and just understand losing weight is a process and if it came at the expense of where we never got hungry or hangry then we would all look great now wouldn’t we. SO, I think everyone knows that means quality protein, fats and carbs together is how we can endure a more consistent weight loss phase. In my opinion with the state of the world, with the viruses we’ve been exposed to and flu season that comes around all too quickly is that’s why we need to eat high quality organic food as much as possible and if not then you will need further supplementation to prevent what is going to come around and challenge our immune health in the very near future. . Imagine the effect of 5G when it hit your part of the world and not only what it’s going to do to the sickness of the people but the sickness of the animals we eat and the soil we get our vegetable from being more polluted with toxins than ever before. SO, we need to value the vitamins and mineral we put into our body more than ever before. Supplements are a completely other topic and I think I’ve delved into that a lot before so I’ll keep all of this to the point the best that I can.
An important macronutrient that I was to talk about now is carbohydrates. There is so many diets out there that preach their own difference towards the topic. From paleo, to ketosis, to now the over popular plant-based diet which consists of mostly carbohydrates. MY opinion and my clinical research. And my clinical research meaning what I have applied in my business over the years which has always worked is understanding the psychological and physiological impact carbohydrate can have on someone. Can someone oxidise them based on the genetics, in terms of where their ancestors came from to the now damaged metabolism whether that be from the wrong lifestyle and exercise based on their genetics or damages to their insulin sensitivity through over consumption of carbohydrates. Over consumption leads to a worse immune system and therefore illness. The problem is I don’t think I’ve met anyone who has said that they don’t like carbohydrates. I was going to preach that in my talk today when actually until this morning where I was having a conversation with a prospective client in the hallway who was saying that she was keto because carbs make her feel crap and all she wants to do is sleep after them. SO, she labelled herself as not liking carbs, which came at a funny time because I was planning on this talk today about carbohydrates and that I’ve never met anyone that doesn’t like them. So, it was ironic. Which made my think there is more people out there like her because of the reason that she feels this way. Because what she doesn’t understand and what I wasn’t going to go and prove her current [personal trainer wrong too early is that of course she feels tired after…because she’s most likely insulin resistant from carrying to much body fat which leads to you not converting carbs to glycogen and using them as energy and therefore feeling tired. I didn’t want to delve to much into how I am going to change all that because again the misinformation she has been fed for years is going to take me a while to fix. All the new diets and crazes sometime make my job harder. So, people just need to understand the basic sometimes. So in saying that apart from the one lady I spoke to today is that in terms of carbohydrates for my typical client and psychologically going to be beneficial as a reward because theyre liked and enjoyed. Physiologically though they are not well tolerated by an individual who is holding onto too much body fat like the lady I saw today. Chances are their leaning towards insulin resistance so they shouldn’t be consuming carbohydrates because they are not using them as energy the right way. I’ve covered what insulin resistance is in the last presentation so I’ll just go ahead and say that what has worked for me is to limit carbohydrates until the persona has earned them. 2 Ways they can earn them 1. By limiting them throughout the week or 2 limiting them until get lean enough that their insulin sensitivity has improved and I recommend that most people do both. Restricting carbohydrate intake for anywhere between 6 to 14 days and doing until the person is way more insulin sensitive which is usually when a good drop in bodyweight occurs or they got to an ideal bodyfat percentage. Eating at a calorie deficit by restricting carbohydrates can be detrimental long term to your body so that why I like to incorporate carbs because they do have their value so that’s why the eating plan and lifestyle practices that I teach have more compliance and the results have more longevity as opposed to full keto or paleo restrictions. If you’re just starting out on you weight loss journey and you’re overweight then I would suggest that you are limiting your intake a little bit longer than someone who only has a few kilos to lose. In terms of weekly balances, you may be limiting them for 12 to 14 days instead of the typical 6. So how long should you use carbohydrate restriction? meaning how do you know what is right for you. Typically If you’re a male over 12% body fat then you need to limit your consumption of carbohydrates until you get closer to 10%, and a 5 or 6 day carb restriction will work for you, the same goes for a female over 20% up until 30% bodyfat then you need to limit your consumption until your under 17 or 18% again for about 5 to 6 days per week. If you are a male or female outside of these so a male over 15% or female over 30% then you would be looking for more of a 10 to 14-day restriction with strict wholegrain choices as your carbs when you get to those days of be rewarded. These stats are just my opinion on and what has worked for my clientele .When I really start to see an improvement in insulin sensitivity though a moderate drop in body fat plus the body fat doesn’t increase with the refeeding of carbs then I will allow it more often in their diet. , SO the more fat you have to lose the less frequent you carbohydrate intakes for refeeds or cheats are. I have a more relaxing figure for female because they need more energy for hormonal balance, moods and energy that they need for everyday life, motherhood or exercise unless they are competing in a figure contest obviously when their trying to get close to 12-15% body fat but we’re talking the general population here.
Best duration for fat loss
I typically suggest 6 days per week of limited carbohydrate consumption in term of only coming protein, fats and non-starchy vegetables for both male and female and then depending on your insulin sensitivity or body fat percentage then one meal of whole grain carbohydrates on the 7th day. Keeping in mind this is the average person who comes to see me. Some I may stretch out to 10 t0 14 days. The general population who hasn’t been educated on how to eat and exercise and is flooding with bogus information on the correct eating plans. This system works for my clientele however I do delve more in detail to skinfold measurements to determine other limited factors such as hormone imbalance and lifestyle implication that are stopping their progress but these typically work for starting out. Only then would I tailor their nutrition advanced strategies later on if need be, such as intermittent fasting, removing food intolerances, getting blood wok or even calorie counting for a physique athlete. But the simple terms to use for the average person is simple and that’s improving insulin sensitivity by reducing carbs until they earn them and incre3se their resistance training works around 90% of the time. Being a good coach with experience will help the other 10%. So, you get the point. Limit carbohydrate content for roughly 6 days and maybe 2 weeks if you have a lot more to lose. Reward with a meal of wholegrain carbohydrates which I will go into a lot more in a second and then back to Limiting those carbs once that is done. I don’t wholeheartedly believe that limiting carbs forever like the paleo or ketogenic diet because they are a good source of nutrition for fibre and energy if they can be used in the right way that is and research will tell you that fibre, water and exercise helps regulate the immune system and 70% of the immune system is regulated in the gut. The reason I like fibre coming from the carbs rather than just relying on vegetable is because of the other nutritional benefits of wholegrains. SO, you will start to see why it would be great for everyone to be insulin sensitive enough to deserve carbs because they can serve you really well. Unfortunate as I mentioned the body fat percentages that I recommend of the people who deserve them is very little of the population that come across
Whole grains are complex carbohydrates that contain the endosperm, the bran, and the germ. These 3 combined provide vitamins and minerals, anti-oxidants, fibre and fats that are going to nourish the gut and feed the good bacteria. When you balance the good bacteria with the bad it will make weight maintenance easier, improve your immune system like I mentioned and improve your mood and emotions. If you can understand, that we have 2 brains and that we have one in the head and one in the stomach and they are constantly talking to each other so if you improve your health through eating, the brain in your head will improve your moods…. So then also then if you can improve your brain through exercise and stress reduction than that will improve the health of your gut and it will create a good circle of overall wellness.
In terms of wholegrains without confusing everyone too much on what they are, to help you …. when you are looking at the packaging of wholegrains there are 2 words that you need to be aware of and they are the word refined and the word enriched. Refined carbs or grains are ones that are missing one or more of either the endosperm, the germ or the bran. Those foods are typically white, like white flour, white bread, white rice and degermed corn flour. Avoid those where possible because we want quality nutrition remember especially if we are already leading towards insulin resistance at least the carbs that we do have need to be high quality to avoid other diet related issues that we don’t want to have to tackle as well. Remember this one meal on your 7th day of eating healthy with no carbs so we don’t want and go ruin everything in one day that is going to ruin all your hard work. The other word to look out for is enriched. Try to avoid foods that say enriched in my opinion and you may be thinking as to why. The reason being that back in the day when there seemed to be an obese epidemic across the world in order for governments to do their best to help people, well as they say that, that was their intention but it hasn’t really proven to have worked but basically what they did was the governments put in place ways to enrich foods of higher nutrients but you need to understand that now the food is unbalanced from its original state which is not good for a variety of reasons making it highly processed and usually filled with more fat, sugar and sodium, so avoid those and the way to do that is check the package of things you may buy in forms of cereals, breads, bars, and things of that nature.
Examples of what you can plan to eat for your carbohydrate meals are things like Whole oats such as steel cut oats, unsterilized oats, and rolled oats and make sure to avoid instant oatmeal again no nutrients and its highly processed. More options are whole wheat and whole grain rye, buckwheat, millet and whole barley which are cereal grains so it’s easily prepared, another one is spelt and a few other options are whole grain breads, brown rice and my favourite is popcorn. You can get healthy wholegrain and even organic popcorn which is a great tasting whole grain. But don’t forget I make sure I have earned my carbs. Me personally I hover around the 10% bodyfat so I’m usually pretty insulin sensitive most of the year and I make sure I am weight training and taking my fish oil and l carnitine year-round to stay in shape so my insulin sensitivity is pretty good.
Ok so you get the idea hopefully on whole grains and how to implement them into your diet. With either a rewarding meal on day 7 or longer if you fall under the categories that I suggest to do like over 30% body fat for example, or holding onto to excess weight through inflammation and poor or too much exercise can even make you a candidate. You guys need personal attention and coaching but generally you guys are every 10 to 14 days until you earn it. One thing that I have always pointed out towards these so-called cheat meals or refeed meals is that they are for your phycological benefit that eating healthy can be rewarding to some degree. It won’t be rewarding after falling off a strict diet which deprived you so much that you ate and ate and woke up the next day fat and inflamed, that will just lead to a downward spiral and will produce thoughts of “what am I doing this for” “I look fat and out of shape I might as well give up” And guess what those comments may even come if you behave on your diet and it’s something that you need to understand., Because your body is going through so many hormonal, digestion and fluid shifts that sometimes it just don’t look all the flattering in the mirror. But over time you will. You have to be thinking about the big picture and your long-term goals and what is good for you mentally like I mentioned in the video how to lose wight at home and also briefly in the q and A video.
The next relatively quick topic I want to touch on today is the right amount of fats in your diet. Fats got so much bad publicity in the late 90’s early 2000’s and I hope most of you have been corrected on the true value of fats in your diet. The research that they conducted saying high fat diets cause health issues has been debunked and has ruined a lot of the foods that we eat today. When it was though that fats were bad for us the governments demanded more low-fat foods so what they did was just like the enriched grains they did a similar thing to fats. In the processing of the foods they replaced the fats with artificial sugars and other preservatives which we now know the health implications that that had brought among us with more diabetes, cancer and other lifestyle related diseases and what’s funny is that all the low fat foods are still on our shelves today. So, try not to opt for low fat artificial products. Fats are good for our hormones, hair, brain and muscle growth so don’t count them out. Especially since the average person that I have been talking about here is that when you subtract carbs until your insulin resistance picks up then you must increase the fats in your diet. When you take something out you need to replace it with something else. Healthy fats will increase insulin sensitivity and also give you the caloric load and energy to replace what you would have gotten from carbohydrates. I will run though some good tips now because you still want to be careful, because fat has a more caloric load than carbohydrates with 9 calories per gram of fat as opposed to only 4 calories per gram of carbs so don’t overdo the fats. Fats are typically split up into 4 groups, saturated fats which were once considered bad for you but I can tell you that that research was bogus news and it’s now been said to be healthy. The saturated fats are the fats you get from meat and the skin of meat and are also found in oils such as coconut oil and palm oil.
Poly and mono unsaturated fats are healthy ones and can be found in salmon, plant and animal foods, and some nuts and seeds, and the last fat is trans fats which are the deadly ones and they are found in processed foods like biscuits and chips and they are highly inflammatory. Good fats for you are actually key to losing weight and a flatter stomach. And here’s why.
Fats are still being researched for wellbeing and disease prevention and the results are still heading that way as opposed to what was thought in the late 90’s. My goal here is to tell you how you can get fat loss results with adding fats to your diet and what I can say is that in a nutshell if you just remember these few things then you can benefit from them. Improved insulin sensitivity has been proven to lead to a smaller waist circumference. And that is what a typical client that I see wants as a result from their training, a flatter stomach or 6 pack is the common wants of people. Balancing out the saturated AND poly and monounsaturated fats has been proven to tighten the waistline. From my experience which has gotten me great results not only personally but with clients and competitors is to cover all of those bases in a few simple steps. Cook with avocado oil where possible because it has 1 a high heat threshold and won’t turn rancid or have a smoke point until after roughly 270 degrees of cooking temperature and 2 it’s poly and monounsaturated fat with a little saturated fat. Trying to avoid cooking with olive oil is another one because of how it becomes rancid at high heat and on grocery shelves so sometimes it’s already craps by the time it gets to you. But you can defiantly use it on your salads. You want to Sometimes cook in coconut oil for better tasting meals and a dose of saturated fats and it won’t overdo it. Drizzle cold pressed extra virgin olive oil on salads or wherever possible just don’t cook with it and of course a high-quality fish oil is going to balance out the bad ratio of fats even more so for better stomach flattening results. One last point is that the more good fats that you eat the more you become better oxidising fats as fuel and you will be become a fat burning machine. Personally, I prefer getting the balance of fats from the oil that I cook or use as dressing because you can control the caloric amount which you can’t really do with meat unless you sit there cutting all the fat off. And then you can improve the dose of healthy fats with less caloric load using a good fish oil. I hope all of that helps
Ok well Without bombarding you guys too much. I could really keep going but I’m going to leave it there until next time which then I’m hoping it will put all the pieces together for a long-lasting lifestyle choice. Remember it’s not really a diet, not a strict diet anyway. It’s a choice psychologically to go through the turmoils of losing a lot of weight and committing to yourself for your future health you and those around you. Thanks for listening guys please pass this on to those you who think it may help and you will hear from me soon.
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