I confess…

I have a confession to make. I am living with an addiction. It’s been with me for almost half my lifetime. It all started innocently but has been creeping up on me slowly over the years and I did not realize until now how serious it is.

I’m addicted to fat. Animal fat, saturated or unsaturated. I just can’t live without it. Mostly butter since it’s easily available and relatively cheap. I churn through a block of this thick yellow substance in a couple of days. I also like olive oil for variety. I’ll go through a half-liter bottle in a week. In conjunction with the butter, by the way.

Occasionally, I’ll splash out on something more exotic like coconut oil. I just can’t go past the smell of fresh organic extra-virgin and cold-pressed coconut oil. It just makes my mouth water. It makes stir-fry taste a hundred times better. This stuff is a bit more expensive than other fats and oils and I feel guilty sometimes to just fry it so I use ghee instead. The coconut oil, I will eat it raw with a spoon, like a treat.

But the ultimate treat which I allow myself every now and then is hemp oil. This is even more exotic than coconut oil. It contains a lot of omega-3 fatty acids and has a beautiful nutty taste. I go nuts over it and can’t help myself but drink it straight out of the bottle. Yummy!

My problems start when I buy take-away food. The sandwiches and rolls are all without butter. Zero. Zilch. The food just tastes so dry. I have trouble swallowing it. Even worse some shops use margarine. Yuk! This stuff tastes plastic and contains trans-fats.

And it’s a similar story with sushi. It’s just plain rice with some raw fish or dry chicken. It just lumps in my throat and doesn’t want to go down. The other day I bought a coffee with a muffin. The muffin looked so appealing but when the waitress brought it over to my table she cheerfully announced that it’s 99% fat-free. And that’s just ruined the whole experience. One bite and I had enough, I just couldn’t swallow it.

The problem is getting worse and I just don’t know what to do… Does anyone know of any support groups for people like me? A rehab center?

But, on the other hand, it could be worse. I could have been addicted to smokes, alcohol or drugs with disastrous effects. Or even sugar. Looking so innocent and sweet, it is very treacherous. A little bit won’t kill you. Even a lot won’t kill you. It just makes your body respond with more insulin than necessary and make you crave for more. After years of abusing this substance, people end up obese and diabetic. As it is, I do not have to worry about these afflictions. I wear jeans size 28” in waist and still need to use a belt, have a six-pack showing on my stomach and weigh just over 70kg. Last time I checked, my blood sugar levels were normal and my cholesterol was 4.9.

I think I might have to learn to live with my habit…

Problem with supplements

Yes, I have a big problem with all the supplements.

No, it’s not that some contain lactose and it affects my stomach. And, no it’s not the inferior quality from some shady manufacturer in China or even America.

It’s the fact that it is almost impossible to verify all the claims on the packet. Claims like: It’s going to increase your muscle size tenfold!, or, If it were any stronger it would be illegal!, and so on.

No, the improvements (if any) are so subtle and take anywhere from a few weeks to years of taking the supplements that there is no way to attribute any change purely to the particular supplement. There are so many other factors that can influence the change; diet, exercise, stress levels, etc.

And another thing, most of the stuff being touted as good for you has had very humble beginnings. Like being an industrial waste. Then some smart executive had a bright idea to clean it up a bit, brand it, and convince the masses of the incredible health benefits. This is the case with whey protein. It started as a waste product from cheese making.

Others are basically cheap common product repackaged and marked up tenfold. I was shopping the other day and spotted “AKTA-VITE” on the supermarket shelf. A kilogram of this rubbish would cost $14.30. It is being marketed to families and especially new mothers and mothers-to-be. Being curious I looked at the ingredients. It says: cocoa (17%), sugar, and then all the vitamins and minerals follow. Notice how some sneaky marketing guru has spelled out the whopping content percentage of cocoa but not sugar. So I looked at the energy content of the product. Sugar, as part of carbohydrates, was 62.9 g per 100 grams!

Wow! You mix sugar with a little bit of cocoa and some minimal amounts of vitamins and this gives you a license to sell it at ten times the usual price. Now that’s what I call business. Using the proportion of weight of sugar in this can, it comes out at over $9 per kilo. That’s some very expensive sugar… Lets feed our families with this and make sure that the pharmaceutical companies will profit later from selling diabetes drugs.

These are just 2 examples for now but there are many more to come in my future posts.

I was going to end this post saying that it’s just like horoscope – some people swear by the supplements while others think it a load of crap. However, this is much more than that. It’s a pure rip-off and it will make you sick.

Fight depression

Hit the gym! Or go for a jog. That’s right, exercise is the best way to fight depression. It is not only free but also natural.

Yesterday morning I worked on my legs in the gym. Did some squats, leg extensions and calf raises. Then I worked on my midsection. In the evening I played badminton first time in two weeks. Went home, had dinner, a beer or two and went to sleep. Trouble started in the middle of the night. I woke up with a cramp in my foot. Trying to stretch my foot out, I ended up with another cramp on the inside of the thigh. Try to stretch this one out in bed at 3 am

Anyway, this morning I had trouble sitting down. I just slumped. Standing back up was another matter. My glutes hurt so much that walking up the stairs was impossible. But I felt good. Overall, my mood was much better than yesterday. This is not the first time I’ve noticed this phenomenon so I thought I would share it with others.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is known for his “gym-high” remarks. For him pumping iron was like drugs – it gave him a natural high. This is because the body secretes a number of hormones during and after a workout. There’s growth hormone, testosterone, of course,  and endorphins. The endorphins are responsible for making you feel good. And all this without any side effects, unless you want to count the muscle pain. On top of that, you get increased oxygen supply to the brain.

I have battled depression for many years. I had absolutely no motivation to exercise during this time and lost a lot of weight. I tried anti depressants but could not hack the initial period of getting my body used to them. After just over a week of feeling constant nausea I filed the rest of the packet in the round filing cabinet.

Looking back over the years, I came out of the depression not long after joining a gym. Not doing much exercise for almost 20 years, I hit the gym with a vengeance and worked out 4 times a week. There were also other factors that helped, like socialising, having a goal and simply trying something new.

There is a strong link between exercise and good mood. There was no coincidence in my case that starting a new exercise program helped me overcome depression. So if you’re feeling blue, do yourself a favour and do some exercise. And if you’re feeling angry or frustrated then there’s nothing better than getting it out on a punching bag. Most gyms usually have one. (The one I had at home had a face drawn on it to help me focus…)

Do you wish for flat stomach?

And a six pack abs?

Then keep on reading! I have some news for you. Some good and some bad. I’ll start with the good ones. You already have a six pack abs. That’s right – your stomach muscles, or abdominals, are already well developed. You use them every day and they do a very good job supporting your torso every time you get out of bed (amongst many other tasks).

Now for the bad news. If your abdominal muscles are not showing, it it most likely  because they are covered by a layer of fat. And to make things worse, this is a very stubborn layer. Chances are that you have tried doing countless crunches and still no visible results. You can judge how difficult it is to get rid of belly fat by the countless ab machines advertised. AbDoer, Ab-Coaster, Body -Twister, Ab-Cruncher just to name a few.

Do they work? Yes and no. They do work to develop the abdominal muscles, however, they don’t do much about the layer of fat. Same goes for all the other exercises that fitness instructors tell you to do; sit-ups, crunches or leg raises.

If only you could just get rid of that fat from the gut and those love handles… I’ll tell you how in just a moment, but now I have a second lot of bad news. It is bloating and it may be preventing you from having a nice flat stomach. If you often feel like you have to suck it in, then it’s likely that you suffer from a bloated stomach.

The solution to this issue is much simpler in theory but harder in practice. Bloating is most often caused by lactose, and /or, fructose.  These are sugars that do not get metabolised due to a lack of an enzyme, and find their way into the gut where they provide a feast for the intestinal fauna. The bacteria just love sugars and produce a lot of gas as a by-product. If it happens in the small intestine, then the gas is very hard to come out and pushes out the stomach, just like a balloon. There are tests available for these and you can request one from your GP.

So, to stop it from happening you can simply avoid eating lactose and fructose. Yeah, easier said than done. Even if you have enough will power to deny yourself ice-cream, cakes, chocolates and other sweets, it is still very hard to avoid them. For example, skim milk powder contains much more lactose than full cream, and is being added to many other food products. Sometimes even breads or sausages.

Alternatively, you can take the enzyme supplements, like lactase. However, this can be expensive in the long run and not always reliable. Unfortunately, you just have to be vigilant and avoid the foods that bloat you if you want a flat stomach. You just can’t have a cake and eat it too.

Now for that tummy fat issue. Some more bad news before I get to the solution – you cannot lose fat in one spot from the body. If you lose fat, it’s happening from everywhere at the same time. So all these ab machines are pretty much useless in that respect. No matter what the manufacturer claims. You just have to lose the overall fat. And the solution is simple – calories in, have to be less than calories out. In other words, you have to expand more calories than you intake through food.

But here’s a twist. Most traditional fitness gurus will count the calories from food and the calories expanded during the exercise. This way, you would have to spend countless hours in the gym. This is also one way to discourage people from even taking up a moderate exercise routine. No, that is the wrong way. Research shows that with certain exercise routines, you can achieve the afterburner effect where your body continues to burn calories at a much higher rate even long time after you finished your session at the gym.

You can get much more from a half hour high intensity resistance workout than from a longer low intensity traditional cardio workout. Interval training is one way to get the afterburner effect and I have already mentioned the benefits here. The afterburner effect is just a fancy new name for a higher resting metabolic rate.

In summary, you do have nice abdominal muscles but they are hidden. In order to show them you need to lose the fat and stop eating things you may not tolerate.

What’s wrong with flaxseed oil?

Maybe the question should be “What’s right with it?” It actually would be easier to answer. Nothing.

I have just been discussing flaxseed oil with a friend of mine. He, like almost everyone I know is taking it as a supplement believing in the benefits touted by the industry. I have never been convinced about it, and have pointed out the dangers of taking it. I thought it a good idea to share it with others.

Firstly, flax seeds contain a small amount of cyanide. There’s always a chance that cyanide can be released into the oil during the extraction process. I’m sure noone would like to put it in the body.

Second, flaxseed oil is very new to our diets. Our ancestors have used flax fibers to make linen and rope. The seeds were given to animals to eat, they did not eat the seeds themselves. With the onset of agriculture, people thought there might be some commercial value from cracking open the seeds and extracting the oil. And it is excellent as a wood varnish! You may already know it as linseed oil. It’s one and the same. It is only very recently that people have started eating it. What I’m trying to say here is that our bodies have not adapted to this and may not be able to extract any goodness out of it.

In fact, flax seed contains a lot of omega-3 fatty acids, but of the wrong type. The body needs EPA and DHA forms of omega-3 but they are non-existent in flax seed. The alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) from flax seed needs to be converted by the body into EPA and DHA (more complex forms of omega-3). According to many studies, our bodies are very inefficient at doing this.

There is also research published the Journal of The American College of Nutrition which indicates that ALA can be a risk factor in eye disease such as cataracts. This is because ALA causes changes in density in the lens of the eyes.

Next, is the cancer risk. That’s right, while many people actually think flaxseed oil will protect them from cancer, there is considerable research done stating otherwise. This applies especially to men and prostate cancer. Flax seed contains lignans which are phytoestrogens, or chemicals that mimic estrogen. While some women may need extra estrogen, men certainly do not. The side effects for men may include developing breasts, reduced sex drive and increased risk of prostate cancer.

Last thing I’ll mention is that flaxseed oil, because it is not saturated, oxidises very easily. This means it goes rancid. Rancid oil can be very toxic and is full of free radicals. The heating during detoxification process (removing cyanide) is largely contributing to this problem, and flaxseed oil can go rancid even before it hits the shelves of your local store. If it is in capsules, then you’ll never even know about it.

Personally, I have never taken this stuff. My favorite alternatives are (in no particular order):

- olive oil

- hemp seed oil

- fish (whole fish as opposed to fish oil)

- avocados

- eggs (free range eggs actually contain more omega-3 than eggs from grain fed chickens)

Why is saturated fat bad?

Science sometimes is useful and sometimes it’s downright confusing. When it comes to fat and diet, it is certainly not helpful. Fat is being analysed, categorised, differentiated and transformed into other staff all the time. Research has and is being done every day. And saturated fat has received a lot of bad press lately.

But is eating saturated fat really bad for you? Let me a try to debunk this without relying much on science

Saturated fat is only bad when there’s too much of it inside the body, or when it is manufactured by our bodies unnecessarily.

Fat stored in our bodies is saturated fat. Because structurally or chemically it looks similar to other animal (saturated) fat, it has been associated with the animal fat in our diet. After all, it looks the same so it must be bad to eat. If you eat it you’ll get more of it on your body. So the thinking goes.

Is the saturated fat from the diet contributing to the fat stored in the human body? I have been unable to find any conclusive proof of that. What I want to see as a conclusive proof is a fat molecule from a diet that has been somehow marked. Then I would like to see the same fat molecule, in an unchanged format, found in the body. Unfortunately, science has been unable to provide me with that kind of proof.

The only common thing between the two is that both are animal fats. A human is after all some kind of animal… A mammal, to be exact.

Logically then, why are cows getting fat? They do not eat saturated fat. Where does the fat on the steak come from? Where does lard come from? What about drippings? And my favorite, butter?

The cow has made it eating grass and feed. One thing to note is that cattle gets fatter the more grain they have in the diet. So there goes the theory that eating fat is contributing to obesity.

But cows are genetically different from human, you may say, and therefore this example is flawed. Ok, then, I have seem many people on vegan or vegetarian diets that are not skinny and I think statistics confirm my observation. My own experience of following a vegetarian diet for 3 years has been the opposite. But then again I still ate a lot of saturated fat, mostly coconut oil, and was subjecting myself to constant jokes and laughs from my scientific friends. In the end, they got fatter and I got slimmer.

From my experience, logically, and from the lack of (real) scientific proof, I can conclude that eating saturated fat does not contribute to me being fat.

Idiot’s guide to butter

No, not you, oh reader!
It’s me! Yes, they’ve called me an idiot for eating butter while they all ate margarine or some other spreads.

This is my personal account of the infatuation with butter.

They said that I would be fat. However, I have an athletic build with minimal amounts of body fat and with BMI of about 23. And all this after many years of eating butter and avoiding margarine. All the while their weight and BMI have been skyrocketing for the past few decades.

Next, they totally freaked out when they saw the amount of butter I would put into my sandwiches. An example of comments I was getting: “healthy on the outside but all sick on the inside (of my arteries)”. But guess what? Again, while my cholesterol is perfectly normal theirs is going ballistic.

Then they would claim that I must be doing soooo much exercise that I burn it all off. Like running to and from work every day and spending all my free time in the gym. To be honest, not really. Half an hour a day of weights and one hour a week of badminton, that’s all. My job has been in front of a computer for the past 18 years. This was not a good explanation for them, so they they would attribute this to my lucky genes… Oh boy, I guess there’s just no use arguing. Some people just won’t see even though their eyes are wide open.

Butter is basically fat from the milk. It is 80% fat and 20% water and the fat is moslty saturated. Yes, I have been consuming it in large quantities in preference to the unsaturated and poly-unsaturated plant based fats and oils. Why would I do that?

First of all is the taste. You just can’t beat it with the plastic-tasting margarine. Have you ever seen any of the celebrity chefs using margarine? No, they all use butter. Margarine would spoil the taste, simple as that.

Second, whoever said that saturated fat is bad? It contains more omega-3 fatty acids than unsaturated (plant based) fats. Furthermore, most of the cholesterol inside the body is manufactured by the liver and has not entered directly from food. Fructose, which is not used directly by the body, is changed in the liver into triglycerides and than convereted into fat and cholesterol. So don’t blame the butter if you drink 2 litres of Coke every day

Third, it’s the trans-fats. While butter contains some naturally occurring fully hydrogenated fatty acids, it’s the man-made partially hydrogenated ones in margarine that are doing the damage. As they do not occur in nature, bodies do not know what to do with them and usually store them if they cannot eliminate them. Apart from other damage, they also contribute to the cholesterol epidemic.

So there you have it. Butter is just too good not to use it. I love it so much that eat it even though I am lactose intolerant. Luckily for me, there’s not much lactose in butter.

Oh, I almost forgot. There’s one thing that butter is not so good for. It’s frying. Because of the 20% water content and some milk solids, food tends to burn a bit. To bypass this problem I use ghee – it’s pure butterfat and stir frying or shallow frying never tasted better