Of course, before I start I will acknowledge that anything about nutrition is very emotionally changed and many people have pretty set ideas. My work with coaching and studying extensively on a broad range of subjects over the last 20 years leads me to believe that the most evolved people have open minds, are forever curious and can hold paradoxical thoughts without flipping out.
So do enter this conversation with an evolved mind and see what you can take away for your personal benefit. 🙂
I am just going to lay out a few bullet points and then direct you to the movie I would recommend called Fat Fiction which is pretty well presented and collated. There are a couple of video images in the film from the 1970’s (I think) and present day. They are so telling. So let’s dive straight into the points I make and then I encourage you to watch the documentary.
In relation to FAT this is what I have come to believe and understand:
Fat Fiction
- All calories are not created equal (e,g. 200 calories from an Oreo cookie is not the same as 200 calories from a portion of almonds). Having said that, I am not really into calorie checking diets at all. The right foods, eaten the right way, at the right times, take care of the numbers intuitively.
- The theory of weight loss around Calories In and Calories Out is just not true. The human body is not a fixed robotic apparatus, it is highly complex, intelligent, and adaptive. If you eat the same calories (and food type) at midnight for 30 days and then do the same experiment for 30-days, but eating in the middle of the day, you will have a different outcome…because we are not robots. As humans, what, when, and how we eat matters.
- Eating fat makes you fat. Just not true. We actually have a 50+ year war on fat to prove it.
- There is a very clear and direct relationship between cholesterol levels and heart disease. This might challenge some of your minds. Keep them open. I read the book The Great Cholesterol Myth a number of years ago, and did a blog post on it. I have read other stuff suggestion similar, but recently a read a book by Dr Kelly Brogan (A Mind of Your Own), where she suggested that since cholesterol is an essential nutrient for brain function, cholesterol lowering drugs (i.e. Statins) are likely to effect mental health. SO, if you are taking cholesterol lowering drugs, or thinking of doing so, watch the movie I recommend, read my blog, read those books, and then make up your own mind.
- Low Fat products are better for you, than full fat products. To create low fat foods, there is a shit-tonne of extra processing done (not good), plus there are lots of not so good things added back in to replace the flavour provided by the fat (think sugar, high fructose corn syrup, artificial sweeteners, etc.). A lot of the stuff added is highly toxic for the body. If you still use margarine, because it is easy to spread; throw it away as it is terrible for our bodies.
- The ‘Food Pyramid’ is accurate, effective and useful. (NUP)
Fat FACT: (Or more likely to be true in 99% of cases)
- The obesity epidemic/pandemic is more related to an over consumption of carbohydrates.
- The over consumption of carbohydrates in the vast majority of cases comes in the form of highly processed food. With lots of added sugar or sugar substitutes, plus a whole shopping list of ingredients that are often toxic for the body. This food is often called ‘fake’ food, because our metabolism and digestion of food has evolved over 100,000’s of years (and probably more accurately millions), and our bodies can not recognize the ‘food’ and therefore metabolize it effectively (or tell us when to stop eating).
- Removing fat from the diet generally increases the amount of carbohydrates added to a plate, and most of the carbohydrates are likely to come in the form of highly processed carbohydrates (with lots of sugar or ingredients that are quickly converted to glucose to create a similar effect).
- Fat is a highly valuable and effective fuel source for the body, when it is an a fat burning mode, as it provides more energy than carbohydrates and protein. The brain loves it as a fuel source as it has over twice the energy of glucose. It is what our ancestors relied on to give them sustainable energy, in between, and during their hunt for their next meal. Again the body has not adapted at all to a modern western diet (which unfortunately is spreading across the world and leaving a lot of poor health in its wake).
- Consuming healthy fats is likely to leave you satiated after a meal, so you don’t need to snack between meals and consume food unnecessary for healthy body functioning.
- Consuming healthy fats does not mess with your blood sugar levels and throw your insulin production and its effectiveness into a tail spin. In the movie they show some great graphics of the blood sugar levels of carbohydrates versus fat. If you don’t like having your mood and energy levels bounce all over the place after meals, then it is time to welcome healthy fats back into your life.
- There are good fats and bad fats. You probably know some of the good fats from foods like nuts, seeds, coconut oil, olive oil and avocado (PS: eating avocados will not make you fat. Some of the worst fats (and most toxic) for you come in the form of vegetable oils like corn oil, canola oil, sunflower oil, and peanut oil. Also strike margarine off the list of healthy fats, it is one of the worse fats out there on the scene.
- Good fats are shown to be highly effective if they constitute more of your ‘calorie’ consumption, than carbohydrates.
I could probably go on for longer adding to both of those lists, but I don’t want to take up any more of your time. Just check out the movie (free on YouTube) called Fat Fiction and make up your own might as to what resonates for you and makes sense.
I am a big fan of finding my own information, and discerning my own truths when it comes to my own health. Plus I like to experiment with different approaches to health (i.e. Fasting) to see if the outcome is true or not. Do the same thing for yourself. Don’t just believe what an authoritative figure tells you; and know for a ‘fact’ that politics, government policies and Big Business (in this case Big Food), have the business strategy of making money and profits well in front of making you happy, healthy, vibrant, and living a long vital life.
Okay. Enough from me.
Apart from this final message. Over this corona virus thing, the greatest mortality rates were people over 80 and people with co-morbities; many of which are related to obesity and its side effects (e.g. high blood pressure, type II diabetes, etc.). So bulletproofing our health is absolutely essential for us to live well and be free of fear when it comes to viruses and the like.
The final, final message and then I will bugger off…
In November / December I will be running a 5-week workshop called Becoming a 21st Century Natural SuperHuman, so keep an eye for more details on that. I have this belief, that we are all WAY MORE POWERFUL than we have been lead to believe, so I want to be a part of helping people unleash their inner awesomeness.
Have a glorious day.
Much love.
Carl
PS: If you have some major decisions to make, or a life-changing transition on the horizon, I strongly encourage you to book a Decision-Making Mastery Strategy Session with me, and invest in advance, to save often a lot more money in the future, due to bad decisions, mistakes or lost opportunities)