News You Can Use
From
Janet Alexander and Chris Maund
November 2012  
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Welcome to our November newsletter. This month's photo was taken in Sudan in 2007...this man does not know what industrial grade food is...and he is better off not knowing!
If you have been thinking about adopting a vegetarian lifestyle then this issue is for you. We also dissect the mythical fat burning zone.
Animal, Vegetable or Mineral...

There is a lot of debate and disagreement over what we should eat. One of the most polarizing topics is whether or not humans should eat animal flesh. There are several reasons why it may NOT be a good idea to eat meat, fish, poultry or eggs.

 

The food supply in the US is now dominated by industrial techniques concerned only with profit. The same can be said for most Western countries but the US has gone down this path further than anybody else. When the food industry is driven entirely by "for profit" motivation, absolutely no attention is paid to the health implications.

 

If you buy meat, fish, eggs or poultry from major supermarket chains you are guaranteed to get food that is full of antibiotic residues, hormone residues, pesticides, insecticides, preservatives, colourings, flavourings, artificial sweeteners and many other unpleasant chemical additives that do not belong in your body. Many of these additives were "invented" in the last 100 years so there is zero chance that any of us have adapted to cope with the inclusion of these foreign molecules in our bodies. Eating these industrial grade ("conventional") foods puts a toxic load on your body that results in poor health and leads to serious illness. Industrial grade fruits and vegetables are also full of toxins...in fact almost all foods you buy in big name supermarkets will undermine your health. 

 

If you are waiting for scientific proof that industrial grade food is not healthy, don't bother...you'll be dead before you ever see the proof. It would take a long term study of thousands of individuals to demonstrate that eating industrial grade food is much less healthy than eating food that you have grown/reared in your own garden. The food industry has plenty of money but has no interest in running such a study because the results are not likely to reflect well on them. They would shoot themselves in the foot...and they know this. Such a study would require millions of dollars over a 20-40 year period. Only a philanthropic donation could fund such a study.

 

Why doesn't the government run such a study? Surely the savings in health care costs would make it worthwhile? You're forgetting one tiny detail...your government is massively influenced by commercial, industrial interests. Do you really think the food industry would be happy to see the US Government run a long term study designed to detect the health differences between consuming food you buy in the shops and food you produce at home? The food industry will do everything it can to make sure that such a study never happens, and it will discredit any truly useful information that comes to light as long as it perceives a threat to its profits.     

 

People who make money out of the food industry are concerned only with making more money. They are NOT concerned with your health...it is up to YOU to look after your own best interests. Do you really need to see a scientific study before you'll believe that home grown vegetables are better for you than vegetables you can buy in the shops? Do you really need a study to prove to you that keeping your own chickens and eating their eggs is better than eating store bought eggs?

Do you really need a study to prove that 100% grass fed beef is better for you than feedlot beef? Have you ever driven past a feedlot? You'll never eat industrial grade beef again once you visit a feedlot.

 

So what are we saying? Are we saying that you should not eat fish, meat, eggs or poultry? Absolutely not...what we are saying is that you should not eat industrial grade food because it is full of toxins that will rob you of your health and make you sick. This includes industrial grade fish, meat, eggs, poultry, fruits, vegetables, fats, oils, cheese, yoghurt, legumes etc...

 

Next month we'll explain how you obtain food that improves your health (hint...get a garden!) We'll also explain why being vegetarian is temporarily useful for detox purposes but is NOT a good strategy for long term health. 

The Fat Burning Zone....What A Load Of....          
Let's start by explaining what is meant by the fat burning zone. Then we'll explain why training in the fat burning zone is a hopeless way to try and shift body fat.

We have two ways to produce energy in our bodies....aerobic metabolism and anaerobic metabolism. This two pathway model is oversimplified but it will serve our purpose today. Both pathways function all the time. When you are sleeping most of your energy is produced aerobically and only a tiny fraction is produced anaerobically. When you sprint 50m as hard as you can most of your energy comes from the anaerobic energy system and a smaller contribution comes from the aerobic system. This means that there is never a situation where you are 100% aerobic or 100% anaerobic...at all times both pathways are running.

When you sleep the rate at which you expend energy is low. When the rate of energy expenditure is low a large percentage of your energy comes from fat and a small percentage comes from carbohydrate. Your body always tries to use fat as a fuel source rather than carbohydrate, mainly because we don't have large stores of carbohydrates in our bodies but we do have large stores of fat.

However, when your rate of energy expenditure is very high e.g. when you sprint 50m as fast as you can, your body gets a very large percentage of it's energy from carbohydrate and a very small percentage from fat. This is because fat cannot be broken down to produce energy at a very fast rate. Only carbohydrate can keep up with energy demand when high intensity exercise is performed. Note that under normal conditions there is never a situation where you are getting ALL your energy from fat or ALL you energy from carbohydrate. Both substrates are used simultaneously...what varies is the relative contribution from both.

The "fat burning zone" is a relatively modest exercise intensity where most of your energy comes from fat metabolism. Remember that as the intensity of exercise increases the proportion of your energy coming from fat falls. So far so good.

Now here is the problem...high intensity exercise produces metabolic and hormonal changes that induce an elevated post exercise metabolic rate and turns your body into a fat burning furnace. If the best way to get lean involved doing long/easy cardiovascular workouts then why do you see so many fat people walking for hours every week on treadmills or sitting on exercise bikes reading the paper?

By contrast, how many fat 100m sprinters do you know? People who do a lot of anaerobic/high intensity training are always lean. We have both noticed that when we focus on long/slow training we get less lean and as soon as we put track workouts back into our weekly training the body fat comes off. The effect is almost immediate.

Next month we'll show you how to safely include high intensity training in your weekly regimen.      
Remember...when it comes to healthy choices...there's never a crowd on the extra mile.