By Guy Lawrence

          “Health is a resource for everyday life, not the objective of living.” -
… Health Promotion

My mate was faced with something that he felt was a serious problem, his job demanded lot’s of hours, blood, sweat and tears on a weekly basis. He loved his job but his health was beginning to suffer. He’d been at it for four years and whenever he fitted exercise into his routine it became too much and simply exhausted him.

When we met up one evening, he told me that he had a 6.30am spin class that morning with a jog lined up for the following night. He also looked like he was going to have to crawl home like a lizard as he was that tired! I did feel for him.

After discussing the food pyramid at length and coming to the conclusion it sucked, I really felt we’d need to look at his exercise regime too.

I asked him why he was exercising?

After a bit of a dumbfounded look he said he wanted to be fitter, leaner, toned and healthier. He was feeling like a slug with no backbone when he sat in his office chair and he desperately wanted it to change.

From where I was sitting, his road to greater health wasn’t looking pretty. All I could see for him was fatigue, burnout, frustration, possible injury and an attitude that said ‘screw you’ to exercise with a million justifications on why he can’t do it anymore.

Do you like the idea of exercising less & becoming a lean mean health machine in the process?

He did… Continue reading →

By Guy Lawrence

“…an 8 oz /230g serving of hamburger daily, is technically permitted under the pyramid.” - Harvard nutritionist Dr. Walter Willett

Have you ever had one of those moments… Someone asks you a question which seems to be really simple, yet you know if you answer it, it opens up for a 100 more questions?

After explaining to my friend about my feelings on why counting calories doesn’t work (you can read my thoughts on calorie counting here), I think he was having a little bit of a paradigm shift regarding his health, nutrition and weight loss. I had just created a monster and I knew more questions would come flying at me!

The penny had dropped and all was not as it seemed in the world of weight loss and marketing. He began to understand that nutrient dense food was of the upmost importance when it came to weight loss, not counting calories. He also began to realise that most of his daily diet consisted of food that was not nutrient dense. It was loaded with refined grains, white flour and starch like breads, pastas, rice etc.

So here came the next question… What about the food pyramid? He was actually eating in no greater quantity than what is recommended by the somewhat vague prescription advocated by the food pyramid. Yet he wasn’t losing weight.

This was my answer to why I thought the food pyramid sucked. Here’s why… Continue reading →

By Guy Lawrence

I’ve recently been reading David Gillespie’s book – Big Fat Lies. It’s certainly a book I’m happy to recommend. It make’s some interesting points on counting calories, weight loss and the general public perception of it all (points that I happen to agree with I may add). This got me thinking as I have never counted a calorie in my life, and I have no problem with my weight or health.

So after walking through Sydney Central Station tunnel to meet my friend with David Gillespie’s book in hand, I was blown away by how many people had some form of diet soda in their hands. I’m quietly thinking to myself: are they drinking it because they think it’s healthy? Seeing my friend make the switch to diet sodas because they are ‘zero’ calorie (learn more about the switch here), got me thinking it’s very possible that they do.

It was good to see my friend had stopped the diet sodas after my last blog post. As he sat there drinking his herbal tea he started picking my brains about calorie consumption. The serendipity of me thinking about counting calories and my mate quizzing me was to coincidental.

After his ‘diet’ soda incident and aspartame he began to realise not all was as it seemed in the world of weight loss and calories.  Hence this blog post. Continue reading →