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The Exercise Guru

Locality: Gold Coast, Queensland

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Address: 180 Monaco St 4218 Gold Coast, QLD, Australia

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25.01.2022 Part 3: Sarcopenia is one of the biggest problems facing the elderly. It is the disease of muscle wasting and can cause falls and bone fractures. Day to day activities like climbing stairs, carrying groceries and picking up your grandchildren can become very hard. Modern humans have a higher fat to muscle ratio, even in our younger people, and this is reflected in the skyrocketing obesity levels. This physiological imbalance has a profound and insidious effect on human health.... If you are weak and have small muscle mass when you are young it is only going to get worse as you age. So, the dilemma is what do we eat? how much do we eat? Do we keep protein low (for longevity and cancer reasons) or do we eat more protein and calories to stimulate mTOR, growth and muscle mass? I believe by doing combinations of these things, we can reap the benefits and keep unwanted risks low. Some of you may be asking, but what about a plant-based diet? You can, but there are downsides and I don’t believe it is optimal, mainly for these reasons. It is a restrictive diet. By not eating animal products you need to be much more vigilant about the type of food you eat to ensure you are getting optimum nutrient amounts. Micro and Macro nutrient intake may not be as good as with other eating plans. Low protein diets which usually go hand in hand with plant-based diets, can often lead to muscle wastage and a lower amino acid profile. You need to be very careful about vitamin deficiencies, especially vit B12, creatine and omega 3s. Getting the right balance of the omega 3s ALA, EPA and DHA can be challenging and needs attention to consume adequate amounts. Nuts and seeds in moderation are an option but using algae-based vegan omega-3 supplements are your best choice. Mixing with other like-minded plant eating people, can lead to a distorted and biased nutritional view and a misunderstanding of the complexities of optimal nutrition. Plant based eating is basically a low-calorie diet, so the problems I mentioned about continuously low mTOR levels (ie muscle density) is more likely to occur. Tomorrow I will talk about meat based populations and those who eat a low carb high fat diet.

21.01.2022 Caloric theory of weight loss versus the hormone theory You don’t need to eat food every 2 hours to survive, although when using glucose as a fuel (normal everyday diet) you will need to eat more frequently than if you were on a low carb high fat diet. Frequency will also depend on the glycemic index (how quickly blood sugar rises) of the carbohydrates you eat. The problem these days is instead of eating 3 meals a day, which used to be the norm, we are eating highly processed...Continue reading

19.01.2022 9: Gene Expression: Genes are small sections of our DNA that code for proteins. They contain the instructions for our individual characteristics like our height, hair colour and even our health. Signals from the environment, or the food we eat, stimulates a particular gene to activate and make a protein or a string of proteins called polypeptides to self-regulate a cell’s function. Some genes are permanently switched on, (eg DNA replication and repair) where others can either... be switched on, left dominant or switched off. Each gene provides instructions to make a particular molecule to perform a particular job in the cell. This expression of genes is what determines our health and disease outcomes. The proteins, fats and carbohydrates you eat also controls many hormones that serve as messengers which coordinate body functions and the physiology of your body. Certain foods will stimulate your body to store fat and other foods to burn fat. You must look at these food and environment regulation factors to determine what foods you should eat and what lifestyle factors you should follow. Environmental factors and the food you eat directly affects the way you feel, your health, your lifespan and health span outcomes. In part 2 of this article I mentioned research from the ‘Norwegian University of Science and Technology’ (NTNU) They make this quote: "We have found that a diet with 65% carbohydrates, which often is what the average Norwegian eats in some meals, causes a number of classes of genes to work overtime," says Berit Johansen, a professor of biology at NTNU. She supervises the project's doctoral students and has conducted research on gene expression since the 1990s. "This affects not only the genes that cause inflammation in the body, which was what we originally wanted to study, but also genes associated with development of cardiovascular disease, some cancers, dementia, and type 2 diabetes -- all the major lifestyle-related diseases," she says. In conclusion. Whether you consume meat or not, is a personal choice that you need to make, but if you have resistance to insulin caused by too much processed carbohydrates you need to lower your carbohydrate intake. Look at all the factors I have mentioned in my 9 articles, and then reach a balanced and un-biased position before going down a particular path. And when your heath changes, change your diet to reflect those new health conditions. I eat low carb, which includes meat and animal products, because I know I have some insulin resistance and an intolerance for carbohydrates, plus I believe it is healthy, right for me and right for my clients, but that doesn’t mean I would insist everyone should eat meatonly you can decide. E.G.G. That is the end of my 9 part series about plant vs meat diets. I hope you have found it informative. Click like if you did. Graeme

19.01.2022 To ketone or not to ketone Should I be in ketosis? One of my E.G.G. nutrition clients, asked me whether she should be in ketosis. This got me thinking about the misunderstanding about ketosis, even among those who coach athletes and also some keto practitioners. There is not one simple answer to the question of whether someone should be in ketosis, because it depends on many factors that relate to the circumstances, goals and physiological needs of that individual. For inst...ance, if I was training a young body builder that was after maximum size I wouldn’t use ketosis, why - because I would use carbohydrates to manipulate and stimulate insulin for muscle growth. Then again if that individual had particular physiological problems, then I would definitely suggest a ketogenic diet. Another example would be, if I was training someone with insulin and leptin resistance, I would suggest ketosis because a low carbohydrate diet would not only work better but would also be healthier. So, I want to emphasise these points. Ketosis is one diet of many that is used for correcting and manipulating certain physiological conditions. It is not a state that everyone needs to be in. Yes, it does produce ketones that are a healthy energy source of energy and have many good benefits, but the object of the game, (whether it be losing fat or getting healthy) should be how much fat you’re burning, not necessarily what your blood ketone levels are. You don’t need to be in ketosis to burn fat, just lowering carbohydrates or protein or both can be enough, it depends on each individuals physiology. Your health and lifespan will be determined by how much fat you burn over a lifetime compared to how much sugar/glucose you burn. I’m not going into why the body burns fat or sugar because I have written about this in previous posts, but I will say this again. If you keep carbohydrates down, eat moderate to low levels of protein (amounts will depend on your goals, muscle size, exercise levels, age, metabolism, etc) and eat enough good fat to supply your body the balance of your energy needs, you will lose fat and be healthy. Remember this. YOU DON’T GET FAT BY EATING FAT, YOU GET FAT BY NOT BE ABLE TO BURN FAT. If you eat enough fat to maintain cellular energy, your blood sugar will drop, your blood insulin will fall, and this will allow fat to be burned for energy instead of storing it in your fat cells. You will feel much better and be a lot healthier. Graeme

18.01.2022 Part 7: What about the other diets I mentioned before? Problems can occur with any so-called healthy diet if not followed correctly, and expected results won’t happen if that diet is not tailored for the individual. These problems can be overcome if you approach it from a good nutritional understanding and have an eating plan designed specifically for you. Ideally get someone who knows what there’re doing to help and guide you through this nutrition maze. Ask yourself these ...questions about any diet you are thinking of going on. 1. Is this particular diet better than other less restrictive diets? 2. Can I get the same or better results by doing a less restrictive diet? 3. What am I trying to achieve with this diet? 4. Is this diet based on my physiological needs and considered lifestyle factors? Is it going to give me the best results possible? 5. Is this diet restrictive enough to force my body to adapt in a way that will help fix my health problems? 6. Would another eating plan give me better outcomes based on the health problems I face? 7. Can I stay on this diet for the foreseeable future, or do I need to change it when and if my health markers change? 8. Is this diet flexible enough to allow any changes needed as my health markers change? 9. Am I looking at this eating plan from a health perspective or an ideological perspective? 10. Will this diet allow me to live my life with optimal health and lifestyle benefits? Note: This is why I suggest you get someone to help you. Tomorrow part 8 is restricted eating and fasting.

17.01.2022 Diabetes Type 11 Diabetes is a misunderstood disease, especially by doctors. Doctors tend to look at blood glucose and if high they often bring it down with insulin. The problem with this approach is the body most likely already has too much glucose, so insulin will cram more glucose into areas like eyes, liver, nerves, legs and the heart because insulin resistance will not allow it to be burned in the muscles. Over decades the body will accumulate way too much glucose. This ...causes blindness, nerve damage, heart attacks, foot and yeast infections all because of the high amounts of glucose and the extra insulin that has forced it into the body. What doctors are doing wrong, is they are treating the symptom, which is high blood glucose but they are not treating the disease, which is insulin resistance. Giving patients insulin, which we know makes you obese, is just making the matter worse. So, what should they do? If the body is filled with too much sugar you need to cut sugar out of your diet by going on a low carb low sugar diet, and then get rid of the excess sugar/glucose by using intermittent fasting. Unfortunately, too many doctors are using drugs to get us back to health instead of using diet to fix the underlying problem. They need to deal with sugar overload by diet manipulation instead of treating their patients with insulin. See more

17.01.2022 Part 5: To ensure you're consuming meat in a way that's healthier for you and the planet here are some tips: Choose grass fed cattle that consume a natural diet of grass, rather than grain fed. This will produce meat that has less hormones and other nasties and is higher in omega-3 fatty acids and antioxidants. Often it is better to source this meat from small farms or suppliers that sell for these farms. Buy wild caught seafood not farmed for the same reasons as above. ... Give grass fed organ meats a try because they are a rich source of many vitamins and minerals. Minimize high-heat cooking by cooking more slowly at lower temperatures. Consume low glycemic unprocessed, plant-based foods (leafy greens, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower etc) with your meats, eggs or seafood. These have high amounts of fibre, and contain valuable antioxidants. To maximize benefits and minimize risk, choose non-processed meat, avoid high-heat cooking, include plant foods in your diet, and choose organic or grass-fed whenever possible. Tomorrow I will talk about the ‘Blue Zones’, places around the world where they eat a high carbohydrate diet with relatively low fat and meat, and they live a long time.

14.01.2022 What is love - sexuality We can only start to understand the role of sexuality in love if we can accept that it is not from a purely physical point of view necessarily a uniquely pleasant experience in and of itself, it is not always a remarkably more enjoyable tactile feeling than having a scalp massage or eating an oyster. Yet nevertheless, sex with our lover can be one of the nicest things we ever do. The reason is that sex delivers a major psychological thrill. The p...leasure we experience has its origin in an idea: that of being allowed to do a very private thing to and with another person. Another person’s body is a highly protected and private zone. It would be deeply offensive to go up to a stranger and finger their cheeks or touch them between their legs. The mutual permission involved in sex is dramatic and large. We’re implicitly saying to another person through our unclothing that they have been placed in a tiny, intensely policed category of people: that we have granted them an extraordinary privilege. The person who loves us sexually does something properly redemptive: they stop making a distinction between the different sides of who we are. They can see that we are the same person all the time; that our gentleness or dignity in some situations isn’t fake because of how we are in bed and vice versa. Through sexual love, we have the chance to solve one of the deepest, loneliest problems of human nature: how to be accepted for who we really are. See more

11.01.2022 A possible reason why you’re not feeling well on a low carb/keto diet When you change over from a normal glucose-based energy system to a ketone-based energy sy...stem, you can suffer flu-like symptoms caused by the body adapting to this new energy source. The severity will depend on the individual person and other factors like what you have been eating previously. Severely reducing your carb intake, forces your body to burn ketones for energy instead of glucose, but this will not happen easily especially if you are insulin insensitive or don’t reduce carbs enough to force your brain to signal your liver to change energy systems and start making ketones. When changing to ketones to fuel your body you may feel low energy levels (keto flu) and not quite right for a week or more until you get your blood ketone levels up near 1 mmol/L and your body adapts to this new energy source. As time goes by and carbs drift back into your diet, these flu-like symptoms can reappear. Unless you are constantly checking your blood ketones, you may not realise why you are not feeling well. In this case blood ketones will be a lot more useful than blood glucose, (BG) because BG levels are raised and lowered by hormones (eg Glucagon and adrenals) to keep BG relatively stable. On average when you are not in ketosis your brain consumes around 120gm of carbohydrates per day, and another 30gms are used by red blood cells, eyes, lungs, testes and kidneys and muscle cells can consume another 100gms plus just doing day to day normal things and I haven’t even mentioned exercise. When keto-adapted, this daily need for carbs will go down to around 30gm per day. Your liver stores around 8090gm of carbs in the form of glycogen and your muscles stores around 500gm. We store this amount so blood sugar can be raised or lowered to stabilise between meals. This stored energy is especially crucial during the night where we might not eat for 12 hours or more. So, if your carb requirements are around 250gm per day, plus energy expenditure for metabolism and exercise, this could rise to over 1000gm per day. If you are only eating 50100gm per day and not in ketosis, your liver and body stores will rapidly be used up and you will start converting your muscles (amino acids) into glucose for energy. (gluconeogenesis) This, in turn, will cause muscle loss and a general feeling of unwellness. So, you need to remember these points. If you have drifted out of ketosis and are in this ‘grey energy area’ with not enough ketones to supply energy needs and/or, not enough glucose to fuel body requirements, you need to change things and get back on track. You can do this by doing either of these things. 1. Cut your carbs back further until your blood ketones are around 1mmol or higher. This will mean you are burning fat for energy. OR 2. Keep burning glucose but increase carb consumption until your daily carb maintenance level is reached. This level will vary from person to person. Personally, I prefer to do both of these but not at the same time. I.e. you can cycle in and out of ketosis and low carb on a daily or weekly (etc) cycle. How to do this will depend on your health status and physiological requirements and will take into consideration the diet you have previously been on. So, to sum up. If you feel like crap when on keto or low carb, measure blood ketones and then decide whether to raise or to lower carbs. Remember you’re feeling this way because your body is telling you there is something wrong. See more

10.01.2022 Part 8: Time restricted eating and fasting A technique I thoroughly recommend is intermittent restriction of food intake and fasting. This could mean daily, weekly, monthly or once every multiple months. There are many ways to not eat and drink only water. (longer fasts may require the addition of minerals, talk to a health professional that knows about this) You can also limit your feeding window to 6 to 10 hours (eg you eat over 6-10 hours and fast for 18-14 hours). Ideally... only drink filtered water when you are fasting. Using this powerful technique can have amazing results on your health. I also like 3, 7, 14 day fasts but how often, and to what degree you do them, will depend on the individual and the health issues that person faces. Fasting can have many benefits compared to low calorie eating. Muscle loss when fasting is less and the benefits you get with mTOR when refeeding can have significant positive results. When you look at data from clinical research trials, cycling nutrients allows you eat enough protein for muscle maintenance but the fasting component gives you those health benefits that you can’t get from low calorie eating. Another big benefit of cycling between food and no food, is if you eat enough good fat, (especially omega 3s and 9s and limit processed oils) and you keep your carbohydrate load low, satiety won’t be such a problem. Insulin levels will be lower, fat will be burned and not stored and you will be less hungry. During the fasting hours/days your body learns how to burn fat for energy and you will still retain much of that fat burning advantage during the feeding phase. It is not that you never get hungry, it is that hunger is so much easier to control. The more you fast, the easier it is to slip into fat burning mode and ketosis.* *Ketosis is a very clean burning and efficient substrate to fuel your body when dietary carbohydrates are very low. Ketones are made from fat and are a natural energy for the body. Being able to access fat and ketones changes your body from being a fat storage machine to a fat burning machine. I believe that being in ketosis all the time is only necessary for those that have chronic health problems, but cycling in and out of ketosis from time to time is beneficial for your health, because it encourages ‘autophagy’ and ‘apoptosis’ (both are involved in unwanted cell turnover). There is also very little muscle loss during the fasting stage, (normally around 14-16 hours) whereby with long term low calories diets muscle loss is more of an issue. Tomorrow is 'Gene Expression' and what it means for your health.

09.01.2022 Part 6: Blue Zones The ‘Blue Zones’ are places and populations around the world where people live longer lives, they eat a high proportion of their calories as carbohydrates, they eat relatively low amounts of fat and protein, and their health markers are usually good. How can completely different eating regimens have similar outcomes? This is what I believe: It is not a matter of whether eating natural animal proteins and their by-products are bad for you, or that eating hig...h amounts of carbs are good for you, it depends more on the health and physiology of the person eating those foods and the hormone and genetic response that those foods elicit. If a person’s health has been compromised, because of years of eating high sugar, highly processed carbohydrates and processed fats, then they need to change those foods and their eating plan. They need to eat a lower carbohydrate diet, (ie green leafy vegetables and natural unprocessed carbohydrates) and replace processed fats with good natural saturated fats and omega 3s. If their blood test shows specific problems (eg insulin resistance which is one of the best measures of good health), they need to lower their carbs, and I mean lowering all carbs, good and bad, and replace them with high to moderate amounts of good fats and proteins. But don’t let calories get too low, otherwise metabolism will drop affecting energy levels and the degree of fat burn. This is why you must replace the carb calories with fat calories. Once cells become more responsive to insulin and can lower blood glucose more efficiently and quickly, they may be able to eat more low glycemic carbohydrates without negative consequences. But doing that when the body can’t properly process carbs and lower blood glucose is a recipe for diabetes and other chronic health issues. Indigenous people that lived in those high carbohydrate eating zones, their insulin receptors would metabolise carbohydrates in a very efficiently way. (similar to how children can eat high glycemic carbs and get away with it). Their blood insulin levels would be moderate, their blood fasting glucose and HbA1c numbers (which measure long term glucose levels) would be normal, so they could happily live and be healthy on this high carb, low fat diet. But when you start adding sugar and highly processed unnatural foods to any society’s diet, the high rates of cancer, diabetes, heart disease and chronic diseases will quickly affect them as it does with all modern societies. Tomorrow I will talk about other diets that I have previously mentioned. E.G.G.

08.01.2022 When I hear or read the rubbish out there about dieting and losing weight, it prompts me to tell you again what the true story of losing weight/fat is. First, there is no one rule fits all. What decides which diet you should be on, is determined by whether you are a fat burner or a fat storer and what your hormone profile is. You can’t simply lower your calories or do more exercise and expect to get long term results. All that will do is slow down your metabolism and make i...t harder for you to burn energy and calories. It may work for awhile but eventually you’ll end up fatter than you were before. So what to you do? First, find someone that knows their stuff so they can guide you through a weight/fat loss plan. This may take a lot of research, because there are so many so-called experts out there, that don’t fully understand what is going on. You need the right person to help you succeed. In a nutshell you need to change the foods you eat (not the quantity) to stimulate those hormones that directly control how fat is partitioned in your body, ie stored or burned. You need to start exercising, (preferably weights combined with aerobics) not just to burn calories but to make your lean body cells stronger, larger and more sensitive to those hormones that you are stimulating. All that might seem complicated but it isn’t, provided you have a nutrition mentor to take you through it step by step. If your nutrition guy is good and understands what he is doing, long term results will follow and the weight/fat you take off will stay off.

06.01.2022 Body Fat When you eat, your body wants to store the energy in case you need it in the future. When you don’t eat your body takes energy from fat stores and burns it, but to burn fat your insulin levels need to be low and to store fat it needs to be high. Having energy stores (fat) in our bodies is why we don’t die from lack of food between meals, but to access or store this energy we need to manipulate insulin, and you do this through your diet.

06.01.2022 This is a 9 part article I have written to give my opinions and insights in plant and animal based diets. I will post every day until finished. Plant or animal ...based diet, which is best? Part 1: Some of my fitness clients now and over the previous years when I was a gym owner and personal trainer, would ask me which is the best a plant diet or an animal-based diet. My knowledge was a lot less then but my answer was basically the same as now...it all depends on you. My own thoughts are that you don’t need to be on one particular diet, you can use the good features of many diets to treat whatever condition your treating or the goals you have set. It is more important to understand the mechanics of what you are trying to achieve and consider the goals that you have set for yourself. Vegan, vegetarian, ketogenic, paleo, high carb, low carb etc, assumes that everyone is the same and likes the same thing, but this is not the case. All these diets limit you to eat certain foods that may or may not appeal or be suitable to everyone. Everyone’s dietary needs are different and everyone’s physiology is different, so it’s not a one fit all approach that’s needed. Every diet should be tailored for each individual. You can safely say that many people that are on one type of eating program are doing it for reasons other than health Maybe they are following a philosophy or an ideology, eg ‘I don’t want animals killed to feed me’ or they have environment or conservation concerns. This is fine, but don’t let ideology get in the way of doing what is best for your own health.

05.01.2022 Part 4: What about Animal based diets? Today there is so much more bad publicity about eating meat and animal products, but looking at the medical and human trial data it is hard to find a paper that offers conclusive scientific evidence that eating animal foods are bad for your health. In fact, generally you find the reverse. Both sides will cherry pick data that supports their beliefs. The plant eaters will talk about the blue zones (traditional cultures that have longevi...Continue reading

04.01.2022 PLEASURE, HAPPINESS AND SUGAR Pleasure is a positive emotion. An example would be - This feels good and I want more. Pleasure involves feeling good in the short term, but if you have too much there is a risk of long-term negative outcomes. Happiness is more like - This feels good but I do not want or need more. Happiness is the intentional pursuit of activities that promotes long term health and well-being. Here are some differences between the two. Pleasure - Short liv...Continue reading

03.01.2022 Part 2: There is a very important nutrient sensor that has a Jekyll and Hyde personality and is switched on or off by the foods you eat. Epigenetics and gene expression refer to the process where information from a gene's DNA sequence is translated into a protein, and these proteins are used in the body cells to affect structure and function, both positively and negatively. DNA damage is crucial to our health and is linked to our lifespan and why we might develop certain dise...ases like heart disease and cancer. Damage to DNA can occur naturally from metabolic and environmental factors and food is directly linked to this damage. Scientific research is demonstrating that nutrients in different foods and supplements we eat can change or reverse these epigenetic mechanisms, so, what we eat now affects how healthy we are in the future. Biologists in Norway from the ‘Norwegian University of Science and Technology’ (NTNU) say if you could ask your genes to tell what ratios of foods are best for our health, they would answer, one-third protein, one-third fat and one-third carbohydrates. This combination assumes the body’s physiology is relatively healthy, but from vegan to carnivore, low carb to high carb, and the normal American/Australian diet, none would meet these targets. This is not to say that certain diets can’t work to improve our health but they need to be adjusted as our health declines or improves. mTOR mTOR complex 1, is one of the nutrient sensing proteins that senses and responds to amino acid concentrations and growth stimulating signals. Low levels have been linked to lower cancer rates and longevity, because mTOR C1 ramps up cell death for unwanted, cancerous and damaged cells. (autophagy) On the other hand, high mTOR levels, increase protein synthesis, bone density and cell growth, to keep muscle, bones and connective tissues strong. This has a very positive effect on our health span by making our lives more liveable and enjoyable as we age. Studies have shown that keeping mTOR in a continuous low deactivated state, overall is not a good strategy for our health, especially for optimising our immune system and retaining muscle mass.# By practising a continuous low-calorie and low protein diet you are probably doing more harm than good. Why.? #Data is still unclear about whether low mTOR rates have a positive or no effect on cardio vascular and neurodegenerative diseases. G Tomorrow I will talk about muscle wastage and the ‘Plant based diet'

02.01.2022 mTOR what is it - is it important - is it good or bad? Every action has a reaction and every cause has an effect. Once you know the cause, you can change the effect. Too much mTOR activation can contribute to many human diseases and decrease longevity Too little mTOR activation will not allow us to keep and put on healthy muscle tissue. mTOR is a protein kinase or simply a protein. It stands for ‘Mammalian (or Mechanistic) Target of Rapamycin. A mouthful to be sure but it is...Continue reading