By Guy Lawrence

Want to start your year the right way? Are you planning a New Years Resolution of great health, weight loss or exercise?

FACT: There are 10 times more bacterial cells in your body than human cells. If your gut bacteria balance is out, studies show that this will directly effect fat absorption. So yes, if you have a unhealthy gut, you will struggle to lose weight.

Win a free gut health consultation

If you live within Australia, we will pay for you to have a gut health consultation with a qualified practitioner and also a months worth of prescribed supplementation to help fix the gut if necessary.

What do you have to do? It’s super simple to enter… Continue reading →

By Guy Lawrence

‘For all but the last few hundred years (a heartbeat on the genetic evolution time scale), really sweet foods have been difficult to find.’ – David Gillespie

Sugar… It’s a delicate topic. Unless you’ve been living in a cave lately, you will know that sugar has been copping a lot of flack from the media over recent times (and rightly so I feel). But even with all this media attention, it still washes over many people’s heads and gets thrown into the all too hard basket, with my mate included.

I’ve been guiding my mate now for quite some time with the misconceptions of weight loss and his health kick. He felt that eating fruit salad would help his weight loss plan, counting calories and drinking diet sodas was a healthy choice, following the food pyramid was  beneficial and hours and hours of running a week was going to improve his health. Then I challenged him and his way of thinking and asked him to reconsider his approach, and thankfully he has so far.

We caught up for a cuppa and a chat recently, and as he puts a great big spoonful of honey in his tea, he looks at me and says “this is ok isn’t it? I mean, it’s natural right?”

He then tells me he’s stirring lots of agave syrup into his porridge in the morning too. O’ dear… Continue reading →

By Guy Lawrence

If you are reading this post, then I’m guessing you are looking for the best protein supplement bar on the market today yes? That is all well and good, but before you buy I want you to ask yourself the next three questions honestly. You will then soon know if you are purchasing the best protein bar for you.

Question 1 – Why are you buying a protein supplement bar?

Are you looking to increase your protein? Are you wanting to build lean muscle? Or are you simply wanting a healthy option with more protein and nutrients to meet your daily active needs?

It’s usually one or all of the above. Now, before you make a decision, if you are exercising regular and putting demands on your body daily, you will understand that a sound nutritional diet is paramount for success. A protein supplement is just that… A supplement. This is not going to give you all the anwsers, but it can be a convenient tool when needed if you are needing food on the run. But more importantly food that you can trust.

Question 2 – Do you honestly care about the food you put in your body?

This is very important. If you are sitting there reading this chugging on a can of coke or a redbull, this post is probably not for you.

Your recovery from exercise is as only as good as the food you put in your body 24/7. Not just post workout. You can’t out train a bad diet, and a bad diet will not help your goals long term…period. With this in mind, wouldn’t it make sense to choose a protein supplement that was healthy and free of cheap ingredients, chemicals, preservatives, artificial sweeteners and flavourings like cookies and cream, strawberry and vanilla. Yes vanilla! Flavourings including vanilla are chemically produced. Most sweeteners used in protein supplements and bars use aspartame. You can read more about that here.

All these things I’ve mentioned will put undue stress on the body over time and are not healthy. Does this seem a smart thing to be doing? Many ‘health supplements’ have slick marketing but are full of rubbish, so be cautious when purchasing.

Question 3 – Are companies being transparent with their list of ingredients?

When you are looking at a website, are the ingredients easily found and clearly listed? Have the manufactures have anything to hide? Do you recognise all the ingredients and do you consider them to be healthy?

If the company is proud of it’s products and is not trying to dupe the consumer, then they will be completely transparent. If you take a look around our website here at 180 Nutrition, you will see that we clearly list every ingredient and we even put pictures next to them.

So if you are looking for a protein supplement bar that is actually good for you, you can take a look at our ingredients here. We even sell starter pack protein bars too so you can try them first without committing to a whole box unless you like them.

By Guy Lawrence (Image courtesy of termlifeinsurance.org)

Know anyone who drinks soft drinks? If you do, tell them to spend 5 minutes going over this extremely well put together image. (Click image to enlarge.)

If they still persist and continue to drink the stuff, then shine a torch in their ear and see if you can see light the other side! Soft drinks are bad for you plain and simple!

Some of you might be reading this and say that’s ok, I only drink diet soda. Well think again! Diet sodas contribute to weight gain, obesity and ill health just as much as sodas.

I wrote a post recently on the effects of diet sodas – Are diet sodas a health choice?

The message is simple really. If you care about your health, kick the soft drinks all together!  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 →

By Guy Lawrence

“They may be free of calories but not of consequences.” - Professor Helen Hazuda speaking on diet soda.

After knocking the wind out of my mates sails regarding his healthy fruit salad and apple juice (click here if you’ve no idea what I’m on about), the next topic that came up on the radar was his diet soft drink. You see, the next logical step for my friend to take whilst on his weight loss plan was to be drinking the ‘diet’ stuff instead of  ’normal’ stuff.

I mean, if a soft drink has the word ‘diet’, ‘sugar free’ or ‘low cal’ etc… It’s got to be healthy for you right?

His new found enthusiasim for his health and weight loss plan had already taken a dent regarding fruit and sugar, so I understood the switch to sugar free soft drinks. After he finished guzzling down his cold can on a sunny day I said one word to him… Aspartame.

In a nutshell, this was my response…
Continue reading →