Your Diet Is More Important Than You Think

Your diet is more important than you think.  Don’t believe me?  Just look around you.  Everywhere you look people are diseased.  Everybody thinks it’s just Americans that are fat.  Unfortunately it’s time for a wake up call.  EVERY country is riddled with obesity, type II diabetes, heart disease, osteoporosis and cancers to name but a few.  It’s time everybody took a long hard look at themselves and grew the f up.

I find it hard to see a single in shape, healthy person around me these days.  Everybody has some sort of dysfunction they just don’t know it yet.  The problem I have with this however is that you accept pain, you accept disease, you accept dysfunction all as if they were synonymous with your existence.  Listen up;

You are NOT supposed to be in constant pain

AND 

You are NOT supposed to be diseased

The problem is, these issues have in fact become synonymous with daily life.  We are all dumb as f**k.  The media has you thinking you must eat every low fat, low cholesterol, low carb, high in whole grains food in the supermarket.  What they fail to tell you is that we have slowly been conditioned to shop for nutrients rather than actual food.  As a result instead of looking in the whole foods, butcher or fruit & veg sections you are programmed to head straight to the aisle boasting all these nonsense claims.

How is it nobody ever thinks; vegetables don’t make health claims, fruits don’t make health claims, fresh meat and fish don’t make health claims, so by technicality you do not need them, right?

WRONG.

As a general rule; if a food makes any sort of health claim, it is NOT HEALTHY.  You should shop for whole nutritious foods, not ‘nutrient dense’ non-foods.

You know better.

Use your brain, we all know who controls the world; industry.  If industry is unhappy with things like health regulations they kick up a fuss and these regulations are reworded to keep industry happy, and guess what?  It works and is successfully fooling every single one of you.

If all these foods were good for you then why in the world are you fat and sick?

Take home message?  Educate yourself.  Stop letting billion euro industries educate you.  

There is a direct correlation between trans fats and heart disease.  There is a direct correlation between refined carbohydrates and type II diabetes.  There is a direct correlation between these ‘nutrients’ and decreased overall function.  

What does all this mean you ask?  It means not only will you be fat and sick but your brain function will plummet.  Goodbye mental clarity, goodbye good health, goodbye good body, hello your miserable self.

Ever wonder why peoples relationships become more and more bitter as the years go by?  I’d be willing to bet there is a direct relationship between your diet and exercise and your relationship quality.  The poorer these two variables the poorer you quality of life meaning you are less fun, you have no energy, your libido is non-existent and as I already said your relationships take a turn for the worse.

Two hip surgeries in 6 weeks, and an equally brutal diet during that time has destroyed my motivation (I used to be the most motivated man on the planet), made me incredibly unproductive, given me a chubby, bloated appearance and an awful outlook on life and made me a misery to be around.

As such, I can certainly relate with you.  I got the biggest kick in the teeth today and it has made me realise I need to get my act together.  It’s now 9 pm so as of first thing in the morning my diet will be cleaned up (I will be posting it weekly on my facebook page and to be honest my productivity has already improved.  The reason I am posting it on my facebook page is to create accountability.  You are going to keep me accountable.  This is something I recommend you all incorporate; get a training partner, tell everybody your goals, this will keep you accountable and help you stay on track.

I have no doubt you are wondering, what is the optimal diet?  The answer is this;

There is no perfect diet.

All you can do is try to improve it as best as possible.  Here are a list of rules I suggest adhering to;

#1  No refined carbohydrates (chocolate, cereals, breads, rubbish pastas, bakery foods and pretty much everything else with more than 3 ingredients.

#2  No trans fats.  These are lethal.  These will kill you and give you the memory of a goldfish and riddle your body with pain (arthritis among other issues).  You will find them in most packaged goods such as; crisps, chocolate bars, fast foods, margerine, pot noodle.  This is by no means an exhaustive list but hopefully you get the point.

#3  Limit your fruit intake.  I say this because I firmly believe a good appearance is central to feeling good.  This is not up for debate; fruit CAN make you fat.

#4  Overeat vegetables.  No explanation needed.  These are vital to your good function.  They will fill you up, provide you with excellent sources of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and dietary fibre (nobody want to be constipated).

As an aside, how often do you go use the toilet for a ‘number 2’ as my father quite eloquently puts it?  I suggest atleast TWICE each day.

#5  Stop falling for absurd health claims on foods– they are as I said; absurd and the primary reason for your terrible body, terrible health, god awful brain and consistent grumpy face.

#6  Don’t drink milk.  No doubt this is going to hit a few nerves.  The only milk you should be having is breast milk, and since that is a bit weird after two years of age I suggest cutting is altogether.  Milk has actually been shown to increase incidence of osteoporosis (brittle bones), heart disease, type II diabetes among a range of others (who would have though).  The only milk you should drink is almond milk.  I do not however suggest buying it at the supermarket as just like everything else it is laden with an array a non nutrients.  Make it yourself.  I will do a video during the week showing you exactly what to do.

#7  Don’t overeat at night.  You will spike your body’s blood glucose levels which in turn will spike your body’s blood insulin levels which in short is less than conducive to good health.  Read this post and watch this video for a  better understanding.

#8  Limit your higher sugar foods to pre- and post- workout.  For more on this watch this and this.

#9  Eat slow releasing, high fibre carbs- the one’s that don’t make health claims.  Examples include; kidney beans, chickpeas, pinto beans, sweet potatoes, quinoa and lentils.  Read this post for more info.

#10  Stop drinking so much- moderation please.

#11  Lastly, EXERCISE.

Take home points; MAN UP and read more and remember what I said; your diet is more important than you think.

Stay Healthy,

A.B

Ireland’s Banking Crisis and what it can Teach You

Unless you have been hiding in a hole deep under the sea you have undoubtedly heard of Ireland’s current banking affairs and the recently released tapes highlighting corruption and ignorance which in short discuss the destruction and devastation of our economy and in turn our country.

This post will consider some important points that we as a public and as health & fitness enthusiasts can take and learn from the farce that is Ireland.  David Drumm and John Bowe both portray far from exemplary traits as human beings and public figures, namely; corruption, selfishness, ignorance, appalling character and above all a disgraceful showing of personal and ethical character.

Due to the publicity of the current phone recording controversy the entire country is under the international spotlight.  We are all being labelled with the same branding iron.  These cowboys are representative of your character and of your person.  They are a complete facade.

So, what can you and I learn from this and what in the name of God has it got to do with fitness?  As I said; these two men portray some god awful traits all of which I believe can be tackled through leading a healthy lifestyle.  Irrespective of the mode of training in which you participate, it undoubtedly builds strength and depth of character.  We train our body’s which in turn trains our mind and with the risk of a lot of cringing faces; it trains our soul.  Anybody that trains early in the morning can attest to the initial struggle but eventual realisation of the person it creates.  Anybody that tells you they cannot get up early before work/school to train is foolish.  In my opinion this is the best time to train and it induces many benefits.

#1

You become an animal in all walks of life, yes you will resemble a salivating American Bulldog.  I firmly believe getting out of bed

Monster on the right

before everybody else is one of the most important traits of successful, determined people.  Firstly you are getting a head start on the competition.  You are developing your body which of course will induce good health, meaning you miss less days in your life due to sickness and overall ill health.

#2

Getting up early for any reason especially to workout will create an inherent drive to lead a healthier and more successful lifestyle.  Starting your day off well, eating a hearty breakfast and not rushing around because you woke up late are all contributory factors to a healthy, stress free lifestyle.  It forces you to plan in advance and prepare for the day ahead.  Despite the negative comments from the naysayers, getting up early is bliss.

Working out early results in a feel good factor for the remainder of the day, in addition to an added sense of energy due to increased blood flow within your body and improved hormone function.

It might even allow you to eat more- surely this keeps us all happy.

#3

An early morning workout creates a great sense of accomplishment.  This of course has to carry over some place in your life and more often than not this place is; your diet.  I don’t know where it  comes from but for some reason working out early in the morning almost creates an obligation to stick to your guns and not eat that bag of muffins at lunch or that tub of ice-cream at dinner.  In my own case this is very much true; as I am not training at the moment I am finding it far more difficult to stick to my diet.  In comparison when I train I have almost no problem turning down that mouthwatering chocolate cake.

You are creating an inherent drive, motivation and self-respect unlike that of our fraudulent bankers.

Being diligent with your training and nutrition you elicits an incredibly positive effect on your body, appearance and overall health.  I cannot begin to explain how much good diet, good training and a good lifestyle can impact your life as a whole.  You might think that all you have to do is eat healthy and do a little exercise, however this viewpoint is so flawed it makes me sick.  It is most certainly not a matter of just do a bit of exercise and avoiding that bagel at lunch.

Why is it nobody considers their hormones, or their stress levels, or their sleep quality never mind sleep quantity?  

All these factors must be considered.  These are some of the most critical, yet hardly thought of factors that can help you on your way to feeling amazing, looking amazing and above all they can help create a happy human being that does not succumb to the ignorance, arrogance and selfishness of riches such as the case with our very own Anglo bankers.  Feeling good about yourself is one of the most important things contributing to a moral and confident person.

So how the hell do we start to feel good is the next question, right?

You must manage insulin and cortisol among other hormones of course.  The question is how do you do this?  You must incorporate some easy strategies that I have spoken about quite a bit of late.  The first step in developing the ultimate person is by way of insulin management.  If insulin is out of sync you may as well just give up now.

That was a joke, you can rectify your insulin resistance assuming you haven’t already been diagnosed as a type II diabetic (although I wouldn’t be shocked if that could be reversed to an extent also).  You manage insulin in short by managing your carbohydrate intake.  Although there are good carbohydrates and bad carbohydrates it is carbohydrate that spikes you blood insulin the most compared with all other foods.

As an aside; you may be interested to note that snickers bars were shown to induce a lower spike in blood insulin than white bread.  

Don’t act like you’re not intrigued.

p.s. I am not suggesting you go and indulge in a mountain of snickers bars either.

In addition to monitoring your carbohydrate intake, it is essential to reduce your overall ingestion of food.  Consistently eating induces repeated spikes in blood insulin which is a sure fire way to drive you to drink (really though, it makes you fat and sick).  The solution?  Eat 3 times per day and incorporate and pre- and post-workout drink too provided you aren’t carrying elephant like fat levels.  Another excellent method would be to eliminate carbohydrate entirely for two weeks to ‘reset’ your insulin switch.  You may of course continue to eat vegetables which will provide a good source of fibrous carbohydrates to keep you feeling full and of course to ensure you don’t have a blockage.  Of course you will need to limit your carbohydrate intake when you reintroduce them to your diet in order to ensure positive effects of your two week abstinence.  To learn more about insulin click here.

Additionally, in order to regulate the negative effects of cortisol it is critical to improve your insulin sensitivity by way of the previous point.  Additionally eating close to bed time and not getting enough sleep play a crucial role in down regulating its negative effects.  Alleviating the strain of high cortisol will result in improved body composition, decreased agitation, decreased mood swings, increased energy and increased productivity and brain function.  As such it goes with out saying your really ought to get cortisol in check.

Although there are several other hormones to consider in improving yourself both physically and psychologically they are deserved of an article to themselves.

To sum up, although these strategies will not guarantee you won’t become a corrupt Anglo banker, they certainly will aid in increasing your quality of life, your appearance and above of make you a happier person.

If you enjoyed this please subscribe to my blog and share it with everyone.

Stay Healthy,

A.B.

Energy Drink Myths

I nearly crashed my car this afternoon driving past a primary (elementary) school.  A kid no older than 10 walking with his mother was guzzling a huge can of Red Bull.  I could not believe my eyes.  To say I wanted to get out a smack some sense in to that woman is an understatement, thankfully my current disability kept her safe.  Energy drinks and other soft drinks are the bane of my life.  How can any half witted person think these drinks are doing anything other than bloody murder.

Before I delve into the health issue of energy drinks and soft drinks I would like to point out; no child should ever need ‘fake energy’. Children are full of energy or so they should be at least.  However kids simply cannot utilise their own energy stores because their metabolism and hormonal profiles are completely broken.  Although if I were to offer my opinion, kids diets look more like punishment that they won’t pay the price for until it’s too late at which point nobody will blame the parents.  Do we even know what health feels like any more?

Let’s get to it.  The first energy drink on the list is Red Bull.  Below is a picture of the ingredients.  To the unknowing eye they all appear ‘healthy’.

Energy Drinks Kill

They are even posited as revitalising.  This is in part due to the fantastic marketing campaigns Red Bull have run.  Upon browsing their website this morning they give a breakdown of the ingredients and they do a great job of portraying this product as healthy, beneficial and anything but detrimental to your health.

Although Red Bull do provide high levels of B6 and B12 vitamins I would certainly question their quality.  That aside let’s get down to brass tax; a regular size can of Red Bull provides large amounts of glucose, sucrose and caffeine.  Now in the context of the little kid I saw, he was chugging approximately 50mg of caffeine, 12g of glucose and 15g of sucrose.  For those of you that have no idea of grams and milligrams, 50mg of caffeine is the equivalent to 3 – 4 large cups of coffee without the health benefits, 12g of glucose is similar to eating a bunch of candy and 15g of sucrose is the equivalent to injecting a few spoons of table sugar directly in to your bloodstream.

If your goals include obesity, diabetes (type II of course) and heart disease and an energy free body then by all means drink a case a day and be on your way.  

This is a fast track to an early grave so I suppose their tag line Red Bull gives you wings is pretty apt.

 Okay, on to the next one; Lucozade.  For those of you unfamiliar with this it is the equivalent to Gatorade, Powerade and any other drink with ‘ade’ stuck to the end of it.

Suicide by Energy drink

I couldn’t actually get a list of the ingredients and quantities for Lucozade for makes one wonder right away.  Regardless, here are the list of ingredients: carbonated water, glucose syrup (25%), citric acid, lactic acid, flavouring, preservative, caffeine, antioxidant (ascorbic acid) and colour.  Before discussing these in more detail I am compelled to say that it also says on the label that the colours added may have adverse effects on activity and attention in children.  Right from the get go we should be worried.

I will discuss 2 ingredients from this list; glucose syrup and caffeine.  Firstly, as I said with Red Bull; Lucozade has a similar amount of caffeine.  Why in the world would anybody need that much ‘false energy’.  Does it not say something about your diet and lifestyle if you must rely on excessive amounts of caffeine to get through the day.  If you are this person I invite you to re-prioritize.

A good friend of mine insists he needs his morning coffee to get going.  In my opinion it is just habitual for him and he does not actually NEED the caffeine.

Glucose syrup is next on my attack list.  This is actually worse than ordinary table sugar due to the manufacturing process is goes through.  Research suggests that it compounds obesity.  Now take note; 25% of this drink is made from glucose syrup.  Now add in the rest of your days eating and you have put yourself on a roller-coaster to misery.

There is approximately 40g of SUGAR in these drinks.  Although i do not propose its consumption ever, if you were to consume it, the only time you should is around a VERY INTENSE workout.  It is likely to be utilised by your body’s muscle cells at this time. Having said that, you would be better served using a higher quality source rather than a sports drink.

I’ll wrap this post up here.  I hope this gives you a little more understanding of energy drinks and sports drinks and the myths surrounding them.  By and large these drinks are all very similar regardless of the brand.

Stay Healthy,

A.B.

Being stupid makes you fat

This video gives a short explanation of what happens when you eat and why you need to consider what foods you combine for appearance and health.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZKbs1UzrqI&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Please subscribe to my blog and YouTube channel so you don’t miss out on any great content.

A.B

Unlocking Pain with Trigger Points (Part II)

Following on from my initial trigger point post and the video yesterday this video will show you how to relieve trigger points in your traps that cause nasty pain at the back of your neck and headaches.  This is central to everybody of all backgrounds.

 

 

Be sure to subscribe, share and comment.

A.B.

Unlocking Pain with Trigger Points (Part I)

Following on from yesterdays post this short video demonstrates a quick tip to relieve nasty headaches and neck pain.

 

 

Be sure to subscribe and share and comment.

A.B

Why you are crippling yourself: Part III (Understanding Trigger Points)

This post is a follow on from my initial posts on your probably dysfunctional movement patterns.

I have said it before and I’ll say it again, I guarantee that either you or one of your close friends are in pain every single day.  Again I have no doubt many of you are shaking your heads in disagreement but you are going to read on because deep down you know that I am right.

As an aside about me; I tend not to be wrong too often.

This is the typical process; you feel pain, you ignore it for a while hoping it will disappear, it persists, you go the doctor, they say they don’t know what’s wrong but prescribe some ridiculous narcotics to ‘fix’ you’re problem but in actual fact it these medication only serve the mask the pain and cause countless other problems within your body some of which I will discuss at a later date.  In addition to all that the problem is almost certain to pop it’s ugly head up at a time that’s most inconvenient to you.

I’ll bet the vast majority of pains you experience in your body and this includes those headaches that people for some reason always have are due to trigger points somewhere in the body and the cure is not to pop paracetamol.

‘Trigger points are the primary cause of pain within the body (Travell & Simmons, 1992) and you suffer continuous pain due to the ignorance and misinformation provided by the medical profession.  Too many physicians prescribe narcotics for pain relief, not necessarily because they don’t know what to do rather due to an inordinate pharmaceutical interest in medicine (Wolfe et al. 1999).

So what exactly is a trigger point?

 ‘A highly irritable localised spot of exquisite tenderness in a nodule in a palpable taut band of muscle tissue.’

(Travell & Simmons, 1992)

In plain English this is an area in the body that feels like a kick in the gonads.  Some will double over in pain, others will want to cry.  Trigger points are not fun but the unfortunate truth is that EVERYBODY suffers from them both young and old.  Most of you will know them as knots.  The different types of trigger points goes beyond the scope of this article.  What you should know however is these knots restrict your range of motion and can elicit pain at the source of the knot, refer pain elsewhere in the body or both.  Be under no illusion, there is no relationship between muscle size and the quantity of muscle pain due to trigger points rather any pain is due to the irritability of the trigger points.

‘Trigger points in the tiniest muscle can cripple you with pain.’

(Davies & Davies, 2004)

Classic examples of referred pain are issues with knuckles, wrists, elbows, shoulders, knees and hips (Davies & Davies, 2004).  It should come as no surprise that low back pain is often due to trigger points in your glutes and hips rather than some of the more common diagnoses such as arthritis and disk issues.  I have no doubt it will come as no surprise to you after reading this that tight calves are also know for flaring up with the infamous title of low back pain.  Irrespective of the cause of back pain there is always a myofascial component (Davies & Davies, 2004).  Additionally treatment of back pain does not usually work unless trigger points are taken in to account (Rosomoff et al. 1990).

Trigger points are the proverbial nightmare.  They limit your range of motion, cause immeasurable pain and result in your protection of the ‘knotted’ area.  As an example, if your shoulder hurts, it is likely you will stop reaching for things.  Can you guess what happens next?  This forces the recruitment of other muscles that would usually would not be called in to action.  This will inevitably stress these other muscles which no doubt you can guess will eventually induce trigger points.

A perfect example that the vast majority of the world can relate to is brutal posture.  This will result in trigger points in your head, face, neck, upper back, lower back, and lower extremity.

How to treat your trigger points.

Murder by Kettlebell and baseball

Luckily trigger points are easily treated and the best part is you can do it yourself.  In short you will utilise various methods of pressure and massage on tender areas which will invariably lead to significant reduction in pain and a real free feeling in your body.  Be under no illusion however, your initial few trigger point experiences are likely to feel like bloody murder.  You must endure a little pain at first to induce the positive and invigorating effect of trigger point therapy.

Compression results in small electrical impulses that are therapeutic as they disrupt the neurological feedback loop maintaining the trigger point (Davies & Davies, 2004).

I will return during the week with some quick and easy techniques to resolve your trickiest trigger points.  If you have any particular issue be sure to comment and I will post techniques to help you on you way to a pain free life.

You WILL get trigger points regardless of lifestyle.

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References

Wolfe S. Sasich L. Hope R. & Public Citizen’s Health Research Group.  1999. Worst Pills, Best Pills: A Consumers guide to avoiding drug-induced death or illness. New York: Pocket Books.

Travell J. Simmons D. 1992. Myofascial Pain and Dysfunction: The Trigger Point Manual. Vol 2, 2nd ed. Baltimore: Lippincott, Williams and Wilkins.

Rosomoff H. Fishbain D. Goldberg M. 1990. Myofascial findings in patients with ‘chronic intractable benign pain’ of the back and neck.  Pain Management 3(2):114-118.

Davies C. & Davies A. The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook 2nd ed. Your self treatment guide for pain relief. 2004 USA: New Harbinger Publications.

A.B.

How to eat when travelling

You have taken it upon yourself to live a healthier lifestyle; no soft drinks, chocolate, sweets, biscuits (cookies for the uncultured yanks among us), ice cream and all other fat making, disease causing foods.  Everything is great until you decide to travel someplace.  The airports don’t have any healthy food is what you hear.

So what do you do?  More often than not you will head to the nearest McDonalds and chow down.  So you had one McDonalds, big deal.  You know as well as I do that in reality you don’t just have one bad meal, instead your diet goes out the window either for that travel period of the entire holiday (vacation).  You must plan.  There are a few options available to you;

1. You fast for the entire travel period- oddly enough this isn’t anywhere near as hard as some might think and it will bring the added benefit of giving your liver a break from the constant bombardment with food day in and day out.  Of course you may drink water, black tea, all green tea variations and black coffee.

2. You can prepare food before you leave for the airport-before going through security be sure to chow down.  Here is an example of what  I brought before I flew a few weeks back and I didn’t want to see any food until I got off the plane;

High fibre meal

3. Once you get through all the questions head to the first shop and buy a bag of assorted nuts such as; almonds, cashews, red skin peanuts, an ice-coffee (black) and you will be set for your flight.  If you think that’s not enough then buy some fruit.  I have no doubt  a lot of you are moaning saying it’s too expensive.  To that I say this;

• It’s just as expensive, if not cheaper than the crap you would normally buy at any other airport shop
• It’s nothing compared to the hospital and doctors bill you could have in years to come of you didn’t listen to me.

4. You will find a Starbucks in most airports; they sell a good variety of nuts for €1-2/$2-3.  Avoid the glazed ones.

How old is he?

As an aside, I never understand why people sit around wasting so much time while they travel.  Bring a book, bring you laptop; do something and be productive. Don’t  just waste 2-3 days.  Grab a tea/coffee and for the love of God educate yourself.

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A.B

Girls Gettin’ Swole Part III

Today’s post is quite short, I apologise for not posting lately, things have been hectic.  I intend to post much more frequently in future.  The Girls Gettin’ Swole posts seem to get the most views, I can’t be sure whether it’s down to my charmingly witty personality or an interest in the content; nonetheless here is part III.

This post is inspired by my disdain for the countless numbers of girls I see day in and day out banging out set after set of sit-ups, crunches and those godforsaken ridiculous sit-ups that apparently target your obliques.  If there was one thing I wish every girl in the entire universe would take from me it’s this;

Don’t do ‘ab’ work. 

Before you do your next sit up or weighted crunche, ask yourself what happens when you lift weights?  You get bigger and stronger (assuming a number of other variables such as diet are in place of course).  Now don’t mistake what’s being said here, training your abs and core stabilisers is essential in all walks of life.  However, by doing your nonsensical ab work, in effect you are pushing your abs out.  So they look better, right?  Wrong.  Take your hypothetical average person, guys included; the vast majority have, will have or have had an extra layer of juicy flab around their midsection.  Under that you have your divine six-pack.  Hopefully you’re starting to piece together where this is going.

If you add mass to your mid-section but don’t remove the flab, the only possible end result is you resembling a gargantuan hippopotamus.  Regardless of your diet, bulging abs do not look good on women.

For those of you belting the screen and saying;

‘I’m in good shape you ass, this doesn’t apply to me.’

Remember what I said earlier, the vast majority of average people if they aren’t lugging around a few extra tons at the moment you can be sure this won’t always be the case.  So, despite your best efforts now and your craving to justify doing direct ab work you might just be coming back with your tail between your legs a year from now wondering why you look like a chub.

The only answer to getting good abs is through diet.  We all do great workouts but we don’t all have visible abs.  Stop lying to yourself, you can’t eat like crap and look good.

Try exercises like these instead;

I hope you enjoyed this short post.  Be sure to subscribe by email and like and share on Facebook.

A.B

Why strength IS health (Part 1): Understanding Diabetes

I would like to say that I sat down one day and instantly came up with the name ‘Strength Is Health‘.  That would be a bare faced lie though as what actually happened was I spent days upon days tyring to come up with something witty but had relevance at the same time.  I searched online, and asked a significant amount of people (thank you all for being no good to me-genuinely).

It came to me when I was least expecting it; pulling  HUUUUGE weight from the floor.  I asked myself, why do I lift weight?  To be strong.  Needless to say this begged the question, why do I want to be strong?  Obviously for vanity purposes, no, all jokes aside, I want to be strong because by default it means I will be healthy and so, ‘Strength Is Health’ was born.

Everybody knows exercise  is essential in combating countless numbers of disease. Everybody knows the health implications of inactivity   The problem is; most don’t understand the mechanisms underlying different modes of exercise and their inherent potential for preventing disease and reducing diseased populations.

This article would literally never end were I to consider every contraindication to inactivity.  So I have short-listed a few diseases that I feel already are or will become central to the lives of most.

 Diabetes (specifically type 2)

I have no doubt that many of you know somebody that has recently been diagnosed as diabetic.  Who cares? says you.  Well that is exactly the problem, nobody seems to care.  As far as most are concerned the answer is simple; take the pills the doctor prescribes and be on your diabetic way.

To me it displays an incredible level of carelessness on the behalf of the physician and the patient not to delve deeper into the root cause of your diabetes.  I would be shocked if the vast majority of recently diagnosed diabetics even bothered to ask why it is they have diabetes in the first place never mind what diabetes actually is.

I suppose you’re going to tell me, ‘sure it’s the doctors job to tell me these things.’  Well, let me tell you, it isn’t the doctor who’s diabetic AND the doctor knows what diabetes is (or so you hope).  Therefore the onus is on you to ASK the pertinent questions.  Let’s be honest, everybody knows the doctors office is a business, they want you in and out in as little time as possible and on to the next one.

Stay diseased for my sake

Only recently I was asked to leave the doctors office for taking up too much of his time, but I’m pretty sure the fee is €60 an hour not a sentence- I left when I was satisfied with the information.

That aside, for those of you who are unaware, type 2 diabetes (T2D-yes that is a scientific abbreviation) is basically insulin resistance.  Which begs the next questions, what is insulin? and what is insulin resistance?

Insulin is a hormone released in the body in response to glucose (sugar) in the blood.

How does glucose get into the blood?  A few ways, but usually from eating, more specifically from eating carbs.  Now, the more refined the carb you eat (the worse the food) such as chocolate and other delicious non-food sources of the sort, the greater your blood glucose response is and in turn the greater your insulin response is.

Over time as you consistently test the boundaries of your body’s power, constant battering with glucose leads to an impaired insulin response, meaning it takes greater levels of insulin to deal with an ordinarily easy to deal with amount of glucose.

As this process continues it induces impaired glucose tolerance and in turn impaired fasting glucose.  As a direct result of this you are left with T2D.

Again, what difference does it make, i’ll just take the metformin tablets and everything goes back to normal.  Right?  Jesus no, that’s the typical misguided nonsense the medical profession will feed you to keep you diseased and as a results lining their pockets for the rest of your probably short life.

Not Surprisingly Diabetic

The prescription of pills masks the problem, it does not magically increase your insulin sensitivity and bring your fasting glucose levels back to normal.  It stops glucose production and increases insulin secretion.

What you need to do is pose the question, why did I get like this in the first place?  Simple, your diet is overrun with things you want to call food but deep down you know more closely resemble weed killer.

By the way, simply being overweight dramatically increases your chances of becoming insulin resistant and in diabetic in due course (DeFeronzo & Tripathy, 2009).

Diabetes in gym rats

How can your classic bodybuilder/weightlifter relate to this?  I have two words in response to that and it’s the farcical 9 months of the year you refer to as ‘bulking season’.

Bulking season for the misguided goes a little something like this (Run DMC); Eat everything and anything in sight.

Diabetes..gimme that.

‘But I lift weights 5 days a week?’

IT DOESN’T MATTER.  You’re getting progressively fatter, and one thing all the research points out is that overweight people have heightened insulin resistance and in turn are at greater risk of T2D (Hawley 2004).

Remember, just because you aren’t diabetic at this moment in time, does not mean you’re  not doing the damage now that will kick you in the teeth in ten years time, when by the way there’s a big chance you won’t be working out either (DeFeronzo & Tripathy, 2009).

Not working out & insulin resistance = You being screwed.  

For those of you crying at the screen saying you simply cannot get big without bad food, you’re probably not trying hard enough.  Don’t blame not being able to eat crap food for your mediocre body.

Regradless of insulin resistance and the risk of diabetes among a variety of other cardio-metabolic diseases;

Removing the sugar makes you feel better.

I really hope that comes as a shock to none of you.  I have been limiting/eliminating my sugar intake completely over the past few weeks, and at the risk of sounding cliché  I really do feel like a million bucks.  Of course when I re-introduce sugar even just for a day, I immediately become groggy and cranky.

I hope you found this article informative.  I will be back to discuss other releveant diseases soon.

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References

DeFronzo R. & TripathyD. Skeletal Muscle Insulin Resistance is the Primary Defect in T2D. Diabetes Care. 2009; 32(2):s157-163.

Hawley J. Exercise as a therapeutic intervention for the prevention and treatment of insulin resistance. Diabetes Metab Res Rev. 2004; 20: 383–393.

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