A no-nonsense approach to real-world, real-food dieting. Take it, or leave it.
Someone sent me a rather desperate email the other day. In 620 words, writing in an eccentric font, the lady detailed her strife with dieting. She told me, ‘I’m worn out, trying product after product[…]Can you tell me what actually is the best method by which to tackle burning fat? Is it thermogenesis or targeting your hormones or fixing your metabolism or intermittent fasting or whatever else?’
So, in a world of information overload, what should you do? Take it or leave it; this is what I told her.
Hi X,
It sounds to me like you’re looking for shortcuts…
The first study of its kind has demonstrated a link between cognitive decline and a condition of high blood sugar which can be reversed.
How’s your blood sugar? If your blood still contains a higher than normal amount of sugar after a whole night's sleep and no breakfast, you may be classified as prediabetic; a step towards full-blown type 2 diabetes. It’s estimated that eighty-eight million people in the US are prediabetic, and 84% of that jaw-dropping number are ignorant about their condition. That’s one in three people at risk of diabetes, a condition strongly associated with cognitive health issues.
Recent research from the UK has uncovered what many people have suspected for some time; that high blood sugar may be playing a role…
Recent research casts doubt on the popular time-restricted diet, should you resurrect breakfast?
In the US, intermittent fasting (IF) was the most popular diet of 2020 nudging ‘clean eating’ from the title and just managing to fend off keto. Time-restricted eating—the research name for intermittent fasting—is immensely popular worldwide because it’s easy to follow, and there are loads of research. Benefits of the diet include cancer-fighting, improved immune function, better cognition, and fat loss.
I practice the 16:8 version, use it to great effect with clients and have written about it. But, recent research may have thrown a spanner into the works. …
And modern bread breaks all of them.
Modern-day bread is the consequence of shortcuts made at every stage of its production. As a result, the human staple for millennia has now become junk food. It’s low in nutrients, high in energy, easy to eat, cheap to buy, and ubiquitous. Modern bread is also hard to digest and problematic for a burgeoning group of people. The old fashioned, ancient food is none of those things, for a whole host of reasons.
When the soil is rich, and the grains are processed appropriately; the end-product is a world apart from the highly processed, hyper-palatable pap you see on the…
Counting calories is a blunt, slippery system that is so often doomed to fail. Give yourself a chance.
Since Charles Atwater combusted different foods one by one in his patented Bomb Calorimeter, we’ve been led astray by the shakey science of Calorie counting. It’s always the simple idea that catches on: Add the Calories we consume, then minus the ones we ‘burn’, and hey-presto you have total control over your body fat. If only.
Taking in more energy than your body uses will result in fat storage. Taking in less energy than your body requires will result in weight loss. This is a universal truth, but there are a few problems. It’s impossible to be accurate when counting…
Lift yourself out of a funk in a second with this simple act.
It was a bad day to be inside my head, but there I was wallowing inside. I had locked up the shutters of my mind and was sitting in the darkness. The day felt like it wanted to close early. No one had uttered the word merry for at least a fortnight, and my mood had dropped the temperature by ten degrees at least. Everything was grey. I was the unvisited Ebeneezer Scrooge.
On rails, I auto-piloted towards my usual coffee house. A pair of well-worn, stone steps acting as a poor windbreak for the homeless man sitting next to…
Are junk food manufacturers partly responsible for the swelling obesity epidemic that’s shortening lives, or is the onus on us?
Since 2009, there has been a 62% increase in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in children. This serious malady is very strongly associated with obesity. In 2017, 8% of global deaths were attributed to obesity-related diseases. Today, more than half the world’s population are classified as overweight. Lives are being prematurely snuffed out, and our quality of life is being eroded as a direct result of overeating.
Data from the Pew Research Centre shows that 60% of Americans know they overeat. The largest slice of the country admits to eating ‘more junk food than they should’. 85%, of the two thousand…
It’s cheap, passive, and may improve your sleep beyond what you can imagine. It has for me.
I’ve been a mouth-breather all my life. A lifelong asthmatic, who as a child, might awaken in the middle of the night gasping and clawing for air. It was frightening. Not just for me, but for my Mum, who could only look on in horror, and pray for calm.
Since those times, I’ve managed to control my symptoms. Firstly with medications, and then with a healthy diet and lifestyle. But, I’ve never been a good breather. I remember waking up next to a new girlfriend, over twenty years ago, who half-cheerily said, “Morning Darth Vadar!”. We didn’t last long.
If…
One simple intervention at home can improve your metabolism while you sleep, and the positive benefits don’t end there.
The quality of our sleep is declining, which is a disaster for our health. As we toss and turn our nights away, we conjure more symptoms that force us into a vicious circle of poor sleep, metabolic dysfunction and weight gain. But, there is a way we can help break out of this destructive cycle and create one that, rather than worsens dysfunction and disease, feeds back into health. The good news is, it’s simple, and you can start tonight.
“a single poor nights sleep makes people more insulin resistant — a mechanism behind metabolic and cardiovascular disease.”
The Vicious Circle
Stop blaming your balls for what your fat cells are doing; here’s what you can do.
If we could distill ‘manliness’ it would be the sex hormone testosterone. The fact that this critical male hormone has been steadily declining for decades, has been shrouded by a lengthened life-expectancy. As men age, their ‘manly’ hormone naturally reduces and therefore shrinks the average. However, a new study has disrobed the truth: Young men are being afflicted at a rate that will likely make you gape. Make no mistake, low testosterone in men is a grave dilemma because it spells more dysfunction, disease, and premature death.
There are theories about our drooping total testosterone (TT) levels. A lack of…
