Are we really what we eat?

My interest in nutrition actually started many years ago; to be honest it was when I had signed up as Neways consultant. Part of the training was to listen to tapes which discussed nutrition being the answer to fighting disease rather than pharmaceuticals. Some of my early influences were Anthony Robbins who was into eating food that didn't have eyes; this started my experimentation with vegetarianism, or as it soon became know as 'Flexitarianism'. I just can't say no to Duck!

Following on from this I attended Michelle's Natural Food Preparation Classes, which Jason Donald and I discovered at one of our Neways meetings. I got a number of my go to dishes and non toxic practices from the classes that I still use today.

It was probably around four years back that I caught up with Ol’ Mate Kate Radford, she had just returned from the south of France where she was nannying on a super yacht. Whilst off duty and lying around on deck sunning herself, Kate had been investigating nutrition.

When I caught up with Kate she told me of this diet where you had to eat fat (chicken skin), couldn’t eat carbs and had to work out; this conversation planted a seed…

That seed grew, piqued my interest in nutrition again and after some Googling and I came across the Paleo movement. I spent the next 2 and a bit years reading, listening to podcasts and experimenting with Paleo and some of the Paleo variants like Mark Sisson’s slow carb program.

It wasn’t long before my born again Paleo preaching started to drive everyone around me nuts. Like all the other Paleo nuts, we became the new jehova’s witnesses of nutrition. And then, slowly but surely, the Paleo movement became more and more mainstream and more and more people came on board.

I think it’s quite logical really, some of the guiding ideas behind Paleo is that the food you eat isn’t processed, is as whole as possible and represents what humans have eaten for the past million odd years.

So all the time that I was experimenting with Paleo I had in the back of my head the original message from Kate; Fat is good…

Then in November last year, I went to Gold Coast for a holiday and stayed with Kate’s sister Sarah Radford; one of my best friends from College. As you might expect, Kate had gotten Sarah on board and she was on the fat program.

This trip was just what I needed, we listened to some Keto oriented podcasts as we drove around and the food we ate was in keeping with the macro nutrient ratios one needs to enter a state of ketosis.

There this story begins...

Cereal Killers the Movie

I just saw this movie, Cereal Killers, and was inspired to share it!

Check it out and pass it on!


http://www.yekra.com/cereal-killers

Professor Tim Noakes is one of my new heroes! https://twitter.com/proftimnoakes

Sugar: The Bitter Truth

I was listening to Eve Schaub on one of Jimmy Moores podcasts this morning and she brought up this lecture by Dr Robert Lustig. It was her light bulb moment, apparently it's infamous...

It's only been a couple of decades since the internet became available to the public and in that time it's become such a part of normal life for so many people worldwide.

I think back to when I was growing up, which was only one or two years ago… There was no Internet, we had computers and even bulletin boards that you viewed by dialled into them using very low speed modems; well low speed compared to today's standards. Last night I joked with my mother that I couldn't fathom how she and Dad managed to bring us up without the internet.

How different would we have been with access to all that information just being a click away?

So invasive has the internet been to our everyday life, that we are always carrying devices to access it; devices we sometimes use to make calls. Compulsively connecting with friends on Facebook, looking up when the next tram is coming, recording a TV show on our digital recorders at home, reading emails, taking and uploading photos, every spare minute is filled with any manor of internet powered task.

All this connectivity and convenience can become an addiction come dependence; some see this as detrimental and others of us like me embrace it and expect it at all times.

This in itself creates many first world problems.

When travelling overseas, data rates can be excessively high and left unchecked  a nasty little surprise form your phone company could be waiting for you in your letterbox upon your return home. I may have had one or two of those experiences; with what I thought was restrained internet usage I racked up a $2,500 phone bill.

Here is my sure fired way to travel, stay connected and do it at a reasonable price. Firstly, turn off data roaming; you do not want your phone to transfer data directly over the phone network for any reason when you are roaming.

• You will need to get yourself a Pocket WiFi device. These devices connect to mobile phone networks and then share internet access via wireless or WiFi for up to five devices. You can find these on eBay for quite a reasonalbe price; just make sure it isn't locked down to a particular phone network.
• Next you need to get a Sim card for the Pocket WiFi, it's easiest to do this when you land in your destination country. It pays to do some prior research and look up the available carriers and their network coverage. Locate one of the carriers stores, talk to a sales assistant and let them know you are looking for a data sim card for the the Pocket WiFi device. The sales person will advise you on the best plan for data.
• Make sure the card is activated before you leave the shop and you have instructions on how to top it up, should you need to.

I found in New Zealand that I could get a prepaid sim card with 500MB preloaded for around $30. Once that 500MB was used, for $20 more you get 2GB. Get the assistant to activate the card and make sure you keep the Sim Card pack which has info needed to top it up online, if needed.

Once up and running you will be able to connect up to 5 devices at a time to the internet at reasonable rates. This is perfect for checking emails, satisfying that Facebook fix and sending out any tweets; I wouldn’t download movies from iTunes but the odd YouTube video shouldn't use all your data allowance.

Good luck and happy travels.

Is that Acetone I detect on your breath?

Okay, so I'm very excited... The Ketonix, Breath Ketone Analyzer, has just arrived...

I heard about the Ketonix on one of Jimmy Moore's podcasts and mentioned it to my chiro, Dr Steve, so he purchased one of each model and we are now going to give them a go.

Since about November 2013 I've been trying to keep myself in ketosis and learn as much as I could about living a fat friendly, low carb life. Initially I was using ketostix to measure ketones in my urine :) nice, I know. But after a while it can be a bit of a drag, so I just got used to how it feels to be in ketosis and just used my gut.

But now we have the Ketonix, so lets see how this goes.

My thoughts on Apple

Apple make beautiful unique pieces of hardware, on the outside that is. On the insides, they are the same as everyone else's; Intel make their processors too.

The last time Steve Gates left (or was thrown out) apple dived, when he arrived back he bought with him a fresh view on usability and interaction along with some amazing design talent which revolutionised personal computing to what we know it as today.

I've been using most platforms extensively over the past 20 years and Apple don't really write the applications that are used everyday, like Adobe's Creative Suite or Microsoft's ubiquitous office Suite. And I know it's a shock to designers everywhere, but the applications work the same, regardless of the Operating System they are running on.

Apple's strengths are they look pretty and that has garnered them a cult like following; the other is their very compatible ecosystem. Their very tight and closed ecosystem is built by excluding other manufactures of hard and soft ware, reducing consumers choice and forcing us to use their profit centric innovations like iTunes.

For the record, I have more iPods than I can use, iPhones lying round and at work I'm surrounded by the Apple logo.

I can use any platform to achieve what I need in work or recreation. I do not like Apple's exclusionary business practices. But I see it as their major downfall; they will only be a niche product when the chips land, I call them a 20 percenter. They'll only ever have 20% of the market when the peak from releasing something new fades in to the back ground....

5 things Julia Gillard should do in the next 6 months.

So it looks like it could be total annihilation for Federal Labor, in Australia, this September when Aussies go to the poll. Julia you have strayed from your Left leaning Labor path and fallen into tit for tat politics with Dr No of Australian politics.

Here are five things you can do to restore our faith in you, if they don't have the affect of getting you voted back in for another term; you will at least leave the country a better place than when you found it.

1. Gay Marriage: Of course this is going to be my #1 suggestion. You are a self proclaimed atheist, so you have no religious objections to Gay Marriage, you live in a partnership with Tim Mathieson and from what I can tell I don't think you are homophobic.
   It smells like political pandering to the small but vocal conservative religious right. Look out, it looks like you are about to be out flanked by the Liberals as they are all coming out in favour of it before you.
   Stop discriminating and start recognising our relationships and our rights.
2. Immigration: It is awful watching the Australian major political parties using refugees as a political foot ball and trying to appeal to the racists and xenophobes, who are also very minor representation of the populous.
   Why don't we start processing the backlog of refugees in Indonesia faster and also bring in at a minimum our international commitments. If the queue is moving, there will be less motivation of having to jump it.
3. Trickle up Economy: Stay the course with your social policies and don't get led astray. Has anyone else noticed how the Australian and US economies, which have stimulus policies, have bounced back faster and stronger than those of the EU, UK and New Zealand?
   Money does not trickle down in an economy, the Rich sit on it. If you feed the many at bottom of the pointy triangle of wealth, the money will eventually flow upwards, flatten the triangle and improve things for everyone.
   The National Disability Insurance Scheme will continue to be one of the great things you and your government has done.
4. Stop the Whaling: Get back into the International court with New Zealand and make motions against the Japanese to stop them from Whaling, there is no point of it and it's screwing up the ecology in the oceans.
   Protect our waters and keep them out, stop leaving it to the Sea Shepherd and the former Leader of the Greens, Bob Brown.
5. Beat Tony Abbott in September: The thought of having Tony Abbott as PM is not very palatable. His shear unpopularity is one the biggest things you have going for you coming into this election. Hopefully he finds it hard to keep his mouth shut for much longer.