Recently I met Sumit Nanda, a man who has a very interesting story about his journey to finding sustainable good health. Throughout his childhood, his teens and even his twenties, one health issue kept cropping up after another. As he began developing multiple chronic illness,  he was told, "Your parents have these diseases, so you have them too ... it is genetic."  For a period in time, he believed that there wasn't much he could do about it. He became a daily pill popper but continued to get worse. Fortunately, he came across a solution. Now, he has more energy, better sleep and much better health than in his twenties.  Along the way, he lost an impressive 20kg.  (Scroll down to see his transformation!)

How did Sumit get well?  He followed the ancient principles of Ayurveda, where they respect your bio-individuality.  Based on your body type, they identify what you really need. Applying the belief that food is medicine, he worked with his body's natural circardian rhythms on when to eat and what to eat through the day, looking also at what was available, based on the weather and season. He believes that you can reverse age naturally, along with many age-related illness. He's walking proof.

Sumit isn't the only person proposing that you can reverse age naturally. There are others advocating this strongly too.  Examples include Blue Zone Communities and if you haven't heard of them, you should!  Here's more information about who and what they are.

In 2004, National Geographic teamed up with some of the world's best longevity researchers.  They looked at places where people not only live the longest but also have incredibly good quality of life, practically right to the end.  They were nicknamed Blue Zone communities. Which communities were identified? Barbadia (Sardinia, Italy),  Ikaria (Greece), Okinawa (Japan), Seventh Day Aventists @ Loma Linda (California, USA), Nicoya (Costa Rica) 

One of the results of the documentary, was the setting up of the Blue Zones Project!  What does the project aim to do?  Reverse Engineering Longevity! So, what do people living in Blue Zone communities do?  Nine things: 

1. They eat wisely. Natural, nutrient-dense food that is available to their local communities and eating what's in season. They eat food designed by nature to be be good for them based on different physical demands created by seasonal weather. And yes, there is a strong bias towards plant-based foods.
2. They follow the 80% rule.  This means they eat small meals -- typically till they are 80% full (the Japanese are well known for this).  Often these communities have bigger meals earlier in the day, eating more lightly in the evenings.
3. They know how to "downshift" - they relax and unwind, to manage day to day stress.  They do this through naps, practicing gratitude or having "happy hour" (See point #4)
   
4. They practice wine at 5 - yes, they drink a small or moderate amount of alcohol or wine to unwind, typically at the end of the working day.  They unwind.
5. They move naturally.  They don't consciously exercise, but they use they are physically active as part of every day life, right through advanced years of age.
6. They live with purpose.  They have a reason to get up in the morning.  "Retirement" is often a word that doesn't exist in their communities.
   
7. They create right tribes.  They have communities or groups that support healthy behaviors - from food, to moving, to socializing, to having additional support.
8. They put loved ones first. Beyond having a life partner, giving children time and love, this notion of putting loved ones first, included parents and grandparents. 
9. They belong to faith-based communities.  Attending 4 times a month leads to 4-14 years longer in life expectancy. 

How many of these do you practice?

Coming back to Sumit, many of his eating principles (described on and off camera) mirror the first two points above found in Blue Zone.  You can find out more about Ayurveda and how he got well in the video below.

I am looking forward to hearing more about your thoughts or personal experiences on reversing aging naturally.  Thank you for reading my blog.

#reverseaging #bluezoneproject #longlife #longevity #holisticwellness #ayurveda #EGAjuiceclinic #juicing #circadianrythms #bodytype #ashwaganda #tumeric #moringa #amla #antioxidants #foodasmedicine #foodismedicine #letfoodbethymedicine #hippocrates #naturalhealing #naturaltherapies #curingchronicillnesses #antiaging #anti-aging #goldenmilk #goingoffmeds #glowinggoodhealth #juicefast #howtoloseweight #howtoregainenergy

Many of us believe that eating fruit is good for us.   Rich in vitamins, phytonutrients, anti-oxidants and fiber,  it's a healthier way for most of us to end our meals.   A nice piece of fruit also finds its way into our tummy's as a natural snack. 

But what about fruit juice?  Is it good for us?  And how much sugar is there really in a single glass of OJ? Watch this the vlog and let me what you think!

 #sugarinfruit #fructose #sugarinjuice #howmuchsugar #OJ #orangejuice #freshlysqueezed #fruitfiber #cuttingbackonsugar #diabetes #eatyourfruitwhole

While many of us are actively looking after our health and wellness, all too often, we overlook the importance of sleep.   Like most of us, you are probably living a full life and that means you are juggling multiple balls across work, play, sports, hobbies, friends and family.  do you get adequate sleep?  Often this is the one thing that many of us trade off.   Is this wise in the long run?

I was lucky enough to meet with Professor Michael Chee,  Director,  Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke-NUS Medical School. 

Hear what he has to say about sleep.  For those of you who believe that you can regularly get by on 5-6 hours of sleep, he doesn't have good news for you.

The rest of the interview with Professor Chee is found in the article below.  I hope you enjoy it.

Swee Lin (SL): Sleep is important to busy working adults, why is it more important than people would believe?

Michael Chee (MC):  Sleep is important to everyone – it doesn’t matter if you are child, a young, old or middle aged, or busy.  I would put it at the same level of importance to life as good nutrition.   We pay so much attention to having good meals – paying attention to macro-nutrients and micro-nutrients – and there are a lot of fad diets around, but we don’t pay enough attention to sleep, which is absolutely critical for adequate day time functioning and overall health.

SL: When you say “adequate day time functioning”, can you tell us a little bit more about that?

MC: I will preface these comments by saying that sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture by militaries around the world.  It has devastating effects --- it serves to disorient, to weaken, to break the will, to force bodily as well as mental discomfort, without leaving obvious marks.  When we are sleep deprived, there are several negative outcomes.    The negative effects of shortened sleep include early mortality (i.e., you will die earlier) than if you had a good optimal level of sleep.  There is an increased risk of illnesses, that include diabetes, cardiovascular disease, stroke, and Alzheimer’s Disease.  There is also an increase risk of accidents and of depression.  Finally, from the employers’ perspective, sleep loss is also increased absenteeism, and even “presenteeism” – where you are present at the office, but not really functioning. Unfortunately, these consequences of inadequate sleep are often attributed to other factors.

SL: What you have described about not getting enough sleep is very important.  What is the short-term impact from not having enough sleep, vs. the long-term impact from chronic lack of sleep?
 
MC: Even if it is just one or two nights, there are deficits in attention, processing speed, and vigilance.
Degradation in blood sugar control --- this has been shown to occur after just one night of sleep deprivation.  Similarly, dysregulation of blood pressure and cardiac rhythm, can also result.

After only one or two nights or rarely, these negative effects can be washed out with subsequent nights of sleep.  However, if they are encountered regularly, you are likely to encounter long-term impact on health.

SL: What happens if someone is being short of sleep for just 2-3 nights a week, but the rest of the time, they can get 7-8 hours of sleep. 

MC: You pose an interesting but hypothetical situation.  Most people, who are massively sleep restricted, to the point where they can feel it the next day, are usually in jobs or lifestyles that require their consent to these conditions. Most of these jobs involve sleep curtailment that begins with 1-2 nights, then it gradually becomes 6 nights. I would liken this to the analogy of boiling a frog. If you put the frog into hot water, it will immediately jump out.  But if you raise the temperature gradually, it may eventually get cooked without responding.   I think this is the state that most people are in these days in the developed world – they don’t realize the harm they are doing themselves in their relentless pursuit of a ‘better life’.

SL: That’s a really good analogy when you describe the frog in hot water, where the temperature goes up gradually over time.  Some people will say, “Well I have trained myself to get by with 5-6 hours of sleep a night.”  Is that something that they should be concerned with? 

MC: I would like to see the empirical evidence on people who are so called able to “train themselves” to get by with less sleep. While there is quite a variation with individual sleep need, there is no clear evidence in humans that the sleep need can be reduced by repeated exposure to sleep loss. 

In rodents, there are some adaptations in the brain.  However, in humans to my knowledge, there are no studies that show that if you merely get 4 hours of sleep a night for long, you can get adapted to it.

It is tantamount to saying, repeated deprivation of Vitamin C can somehow result in resistance to it’s deficiency.  This is wishful thinking.

SL: Say you have someone, who has a job or lifestyle, who really can’t afford more sleep, and they really enjoy their exercise in the gym.  What should they trade off?  An hour of sleep or an hour in the gym?

MC: There is good empirical evidence that regular exercise improves the quality of sleep.  The arbitrage between exercise and sleep --- it’s like trying to say, I don’t have enough Vitamin C but I will try to make it up with Vitamin D. 

SL: And if you are unable to get enough sleep in the night before, can you make up for it by taking a nap in the afternoon?

MC: Taking a nap in the afternoon has benefits. Vigilance (i.e., paying attention) improves immediately after the nap and in the early evening but this benefit wears off the following day.  It is not a replacement for getting enough nocturnal sleep.   

SL: Can you offer some tips about naps? 

MC: If you need a nap, do this in the afternoon, rather than the early evening, and don’t nap for more than an hour. The reason for napping in the mid afternoon, is because it occurs at a favorable circadian phase, a time when the brain are more predisposed to sleeping.  If you nap at between 7pm to 9pm in the ‘forbidden zone’ it might interfere with nocturnal sleep. This of course doesn’t apply to someone who is jet-lagged and has a body clock that is out of synch. 

SL: What about night shift workers, they have to work the grave-yard sleep?  Does sleeping 7-8 hours in the day make up for sleep loss? 

MC: This is generally fine but if you have to work on the night shift, it is preferable do it for a stretch of time – weeks or months rather than days.  Flipping back and forth between day and night shifts doesn’t allow the body to adjust.  This produces sleep/wake cycles that are similar to jetlag.   People normally who engage in this “social jetlag” tend to have wider waistlines, are more prone to drinking alcohol and are at higher risk for diabetes. Further, most night shift workers still want to maintain social contact and it is likely that most of their friends are free to see them only during daytime, a time when they should be sleeping.

SL: Does chronic lack of sleep accelerate brain aging? 

MC: Metabolic waste from neuronal activity accumulates in the brain during waking hours.  .  When you sleep, and enter slow-wave sleep (deep sleep), channels in the brain open-up and conduct away these metabolic waste products. If you don’t get enough sleep, these waste products can accumulate and contribute to the development of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s Disease.  

Inadequate sleep can also contribute to the decline in cognition through the effects of increased stress. Stress has adverse consequences for the hippocampus (the part of the brain, responsible for short term memory). Finally, there are also risks to brain health from the associated increase in risk for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease.

SL: Are there anyways to trick our brains into deeper sleep waves (e.g., Delta)?

MC: Deep sleep is very strong defended in children and young adults.  So, if you are sleep deprived, you tend to recover deep sleep first!  This typically will occur in the first part of the night.  We found in our studies that even adolescents sleep restricted to 5 hours of sleep a night, are able to recover their deep sleep in a few hours of sleep.  But as you get older, slow wave sleep (deep sleep) tends to be reduced and so this could be why eventually we experience negative effects on brain health.

A huge thank you to The Asian Parent for carrying my article in May and as a parent, I hope it sheds an alternative perspective to parenting a child, whom you love so much but can be such a challenge at times.   

The original was carried on this link sg.theasianparent.com/discipline-without-hurting-your-child/
but here is the article in full:

We have all been there with a challenging child. A child whom you love, but seems to know exactly what to do to push your buttons. If you want to change your relationship with your child, stop having assumptions or judging their behavior.

Instead, what you need to believe is that when anyone (big or little) acts out, it’s its root cause stems from some form of fear or insecurity. And when insecurity or fear has begun, adrenaline (the fight or flight hormone) is already starting to course through the person’s system.

With some people, they react fast — they fight, they raise their voice, they scream. With others, they withdraw — they hide, they sulk, they become quiet, hesitant or moody. Based on each person’s character, values, role models, they will react differently when feeling fearful or insecure.

For those who like to fight, it is important to them that they seem to be winning. For those who might be a little more introverted or naturally quiet, they will retreat into their own world. Neither is particularly a good outcome.  

WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOUR CHILD IS ACTING OUT
What you have to believe is that how you choose to respond (not react) will have a world of difference. Please remember, every verbal and non-verbal cue makes a difference. For example, your child (or colleague or friend) says or does something really dumb.
 

You react in one of these two ways:

1. You say, “What did you just say? Do you really think that or believe that?” On an extreme, you could add, “What a dumb comment!” or “How could you be so stupid?” or “Why on earth would you do that?”  
   
2. You may hold your tongue and not comment, but you may unexpectedly roll your eyes in disbelief. Remember, your child can see you and can catch these “mini” or “micro” expressions.  

Both reactions result in the child feeling judged, inadequate or stupid. Repeated over time, this erodes trust. In its place, variations of these feelings will start to take root: I feel stupid/silly/unsupported/angry/defensive/withdrawn …  Is this what you really want for your child?

So where do you start?  
You start by having an open conversation and stating ground rules. The most important one is having a family discussion to explain that no one is going to scold or punish anyone again. Make it clear that just because you are taking away scolding and punishments, it doesn’t mean that the child can get away scot-free when he has done something wrong.  

You are merely replacing the old system with a new one. What is the new system based on?

Five key steps.  The new five step system adopted by the whole family is based on

1. 100% staying calm + centred
2. 100% understanding + empathy
3. 100% accountability + apology
4. 100% commitment to learn + adapt
5. 100% solutions orientation to improve the situation

So let’s put this into place using this scenario with two contrasting sets of role modelling from the mother. 
Common Scenario:  John comes back from school and slams the door shut, throws his bag on the floor.  He looks grumpy and dashes up to his room. 

In this example, mom is reactive.
 
Mum:  How many times do I need to tell you not to slam the door and not to dump your bag in the living room? You know where these should go!
John:  Mum, you’re such a nag! He slams his room door shut.  
Mum: How dare you talk to me like that? Apologise now.
John: No! I don’t want to talk to you …
Mum:  I am getting your dad to talk to you when he comes home from work …

OKAY – we can all see how this clichéd scenario will turn out …
 
What’s the alternative?   In this example, Mum is centered and measured in her response.

Mum:  John, I have asked you to shut the door gently and to keep your things in your bedroom. You didn’t do that today.  KEY:  Ask this in a genuinely concerned way, or do it with a cheeky smile and add, “Did you forget? ☺ Were you just tired and in a rush to get to your computer games?”.
John: Uhhh kinda. (Sometimes I like to stun the child with kindness, so they get caught off guard! Why? This starts to switch off the adrenaline response linked to fear, nervousness, anger etc.)
Mum: I can understand that you were in a rush to start playing after a long day of school. Of course you’re tired and want to do something fun. I understand. It happens. Could you help me bring the bag up in the next 10 minutes? What do you say for forgetting today?
John: Uhhh I am sorry mum, I forgot cause I was in a rush.
 
Mum: And I know you will remember to close the door gently tomorrow. Thanks! (and when he comes down, give him a big smile and a hug if you can).
Alternative:
Mum: It’s okay, we all forget something sometimes, but I know you’ll remember it tomorrow. I’ll bring it up to you today, but it’s your to-do tomorrow, and to close the door gently, okay? And ask with a warm smile, Promise?
John: Uhhh okay mum. I promise.    
And deliver the bag with a kiss or a light hug. Add, ‘Love you’ as you leave.

In this example, the PARENT is being the role model of
#1. 100% calm + centerdness – to show that he/she is pretty chilled out about small things. If you can’t be calm immediately, go ahead and do something fun to distract yourself first. You calm yourself down fully before you address what just happened. Remember, you are the role model for change.

If you are starting from a place where traditionally there are fights and arguments, then after you have dropped off the bag, please add the following:
   
Mum:  I told you I wasn’t going to lose my temper or nag you anymore. So I have kept my promise and stayed to calm and asked to understand what happened. You’ve kept calm too. Good job. Keep it up.
This is really important because you want to take the adrenaline effect and “learned reaction and counter-reactions” from each away. You are showing more respect for each other.

#2. 100% empathy + understanding  – on why the child forgot. This is important too as you are recognising that your child isn’t perfect (no one is) and was just being a child who wanted to rush to play his games. Guide him gently and firmly to being a responsible adult by first showing that you see life from his side, building trust and respect from him on how you handle the situation. Once you get this from him, it will be easier for him to do what you want him to.

And who knows? Perhaps the child had a bad day at school and was teased or bullied, or did badly in a test. If so, the forgetfulness, the need to rush up and the slamming of the door is understandable (but not acceptable). But by building trust and showing respect, genuine concern, you child is much more likely to open up to you on what happened or how he is feeling.

#3. 100% accountability + apology – on still putting the responsibility back to the child, and getting a commitment from them to do this the next day. Remember to praise the child for each time he/she gets it right. Getting him to  say “I am sorry” is also very important.

#4. 100% adaptability + learning  –  Again, being flexible on what happened and encouraging them towards change. In the example, mum takes time to ask John what caused him to forget. Was he tired, was he in a rush? If this is the case, how do we help him remember? Read #5.

#5.  100% solutions orientation to improve the solution.
The mum can ask:  John, what can we do to help you remember? It’s probably going to be good to help your sister and dad too. Can you help me come up with ideas?  
Here is a simple one that you could devise: Perhaps you can put a temporary sign for 2 months on the front door that says: THANK YOU FOR CLOSING THE DOOR GENTLY with a happy face or positive picture. On entering the house in the hallway, a sign that says, “ALL BAGS IN THE BEDROOM”  and to continue with the role-modelling, you can add at the bottom (House rule for big and little people!). And be consistent, have mum and dad do this too.

Over time, when you practice these five steps, you will naturally find yourself staying more calm, more centred and more solutions oriented to any challenge that you face.  You become a terrific role model for your kids too on handling any form of challenge.

Today’s blog is going to be a bit different.  I normally blog about topics that relate to Eating Well, Being Well.  But wellness goes beyond what we eat.  It is also about your emotional and psychological wellness.  What’s sparking this slight shift in topic?   
 
Nearly a year back, on Sept 12th 2015, I flew to Manila to join the Amazing Food Challenge, Fun the Philippines Season 3.  You have no idea how petrified I was at the time.  Most people think that I am an extrovert, but at heart, I am not. I sit in the middle of being an extrovert and introvert.  As a little girl, I would shyly hide behind her mother’s skirt at other children’s birthday parties.  
 
Deciding to join a reality TV show was definitely not the path in life I had ever anticipated but, what’s life if you don’t put yourself out of your comfort zone and grow?
 
In Episode 1, I was incredibly ashamed at my choices and behavior.  Few people realize that it took months for me to deal with my mistakes. I had frequent flashbacks that made me cringe, panic and feel really awful.  As more than one friend put it bluntly, “You were clearly positioned as the Evil One in Episode 1.”
 
So what happened in Episode 1?
 
Callie fell off her bike, I flew past her on my shaky bike and I didn’t stop to help her.  Then, to make matters worse, I genuinely forgot to mention this to anyone when I arrived at the next station.  (I have a terrible working memory – a friend used to joke that if I had a child, I would accidentally leave my baby behind in a mall.  Fortunately, I have spared my son, Dillon from this experience!).  Fortunately, Callie and I talked that evening about what had transpired.  I apologized and asked her to forgive me.  She was generous enough to do so, and we are still friends one year on.  Thank you, Callie.
 
Then, in the first cooking challenge in Banaue, our team didn’t share any of our kaffir lime leaves with Tri.  Poor Tri.   Our host, Aaron, was delighted!  He whooped with excitement!  He kept reminding us that it was a competition and one small thing like sharing a prized ingredient would make or break us at the judges table.   We fell for it and I felt really awful.  Hanson, my team mate, finally fessed up to Tri that it was his decision, not mine.  At the time, I was the deliverer of the message and got the flak for it!  Thankfully, Tri’s still a terrific buddy. 
 
After that experience, both Hanson and I told the rest of the teams that if anyone wanted anything from our cooking station, all they had to do was ask and we would share.  For the rest of the show, we shared ingredients whenever we were asked. We also shared one of our cooking fires with Tri & Callie.  And Fauzan was also kind enough to share ingredients with us when we didn’t have enough.

A few weeks ago, I came back from work with two large muffins and a cookie.  The baked goods had been bought from a global, well-known chain of cafes that also sold coffee, tea, quick meals, salads and baked goods.  The food always looked relatively fresh. The muffins were even kept in a chiller and the cookies in a nice old-fashioned glass jar. 

They had been bought at lunch time for the working team, but unfortunately, we were too full to eat them and so I brought them home. 

At 1:30am (yes, I left the office at a very late hour that day), I was looking for comfort food, and decided to have ½ a chocolate chip muffin.  It absolutely hit the right spots for me in terms of taste and texture that night! Yum! I rarely have cakes, muffins and cookies as I am gluten intolerant but as I believe in eating in moderation, and having the occasional treat, I happily went for it that evening as I was exhausted from work and wanted a naughty sugar-and-starch hit!

I crashed to sleep right after, and woke up in the morning. My first thought was, “Oh no, I left the un-finished muffin on the table … I bet it’s teeming with ants by now.  Ugh!” 

​Now, I live in Singapore and in our tropical climate, ants, cockroaches and insects are a part-and-parcel of life.  So, when I walked past the previous night’s half-eaten muffin, I was stunned to find that there wasn’t a single ant in sight nor were there any cockroaches.  Shocking!

So that got me wondering, “What on earth could have been added to the ingredients that even ants and cockroaches no longer recognize the muffin as food?”  

​So the next night, I foolishly decided to eat ½ the cookie and placed the remaining ½ out for the ants to have a feast.  Again, when I woke up the next morning, there wasn’t a single ant or cockroach around the cookie. 

​Now, I was beyond S-T-U-N-N-E-D.  I also started to worry about what sort of chemicals I had ingested when I had eaten that ½ muffin and ½ cookie!
 
In the video at the start of this blog, you see me with another cookie, bought from the same globally established chain of cafes. 

It’s now four nights into my experiment and no ant, nor creepy-crawlie wants to eat it.  I’ve moved that chocolate chip cookie around the house, left it on the floor, near trashcans too but no, they really, really don’t want it.  

What did I finally resort to doing?  I left a crumb directly near a trail of ants.  Any luck?  Well, watch this next short video. 

Besides the expected list of flour, butter/oils, sugar, flavourings etc., are you curious as to what is typically added to common every-day baked goods?  The processed food industry often adds chemicals, which slow down spoilage, preserve textures and of course extend shelf life by preventing mold and bacterial growth. 

A quick google search yielded this list of food preservatives used in baked goods like bread, cookies, cakes, muffins: 

• Butylated hydroxyansiole (BHA) – a waxy yellow solid used to prevent oxidation
• Butylated hydroxytolune (BHT) – white powdery substance added to packaging, fats and oils and is often found in shortening.
• Disodium ethylenediaminetetraacetic (EDTA) – retards oxidation as a chelating agent for metals in the food.  

Gosh, I can’t pronounce these words easily --- can you?  If we have difficulty pronouncing our food ingredients, perhaps we should avoid eating them altogether.  

I am now quite curious to see how long the cookies lasts in Singapore’s humid, hot weather.  If you are as curious like I am, please continue to follow my blog to see how long it lasts before it goes moldy!  It’s now four nights since I started the experiment.  Stay tuned for more ... 

Thank you for reading my blog! :)

Most of us mom’s would have become familiar with the term colostrum. What is it you may ask?
Well it’s found in early mother’s milk for newborns. It is baby’s first food and helps baby build its
Immune system. Good stuff indeed.

But did you know that colostrum is no longer just for tots? Indeed, colostrum is now being
packaged as a wonder-supplement for adults. Several years back, it was not a mother, but a
male friend who introduced me to it. “It’s great for your immune system but when I took it, my
skin improved,” he said. Now, that got me intrigued! So besides thinking of it as just baby’s first
food, I wanted to know more. What exactly is in colostrum? Colostrum has over 90 immune
factors (immune cells and antibodies), over 80 different growth factors, a host of proteins and
Vitamin A. So what does all this good stuff do for you and how can you benefit from taking
colostrum?

Here are five reasons to add colostrum back into your life.

1. Strengthening the immune system. According to one study, up to 70% of the immune
system’s cells reside in the gut. Often, when we have a weakened immune system, this
is the result of inflammation in the gastrointestinal tract. Studies have shown colostrum
to be excellent in healing gut inflammation, thereby rebuilding or maintaining a strong
immune system.

2. Improving moods. There are an increasing number of studies linking mood to the gut
response. When we address and heal gut inflammation, this indirectly improves mood by
encouraging the brain to produce dopamine and serotonin.

3. Supporting weight loss. Colostrum has also been shown to help the body turn to its
fat stores for fuel, instead of the proteins in muscles. This can help in weight loss.
Besides this, it has also shown to help stabilize blood glucose levels, leaving one feeling
less hungry and less fatigued.

4. Healing wounds and reducing recovery time. People taking colostrum have been
shown to have faster wound healing. This ranges from cuts to burns. It helps the body
in managing potential infections, thereby reducing inflammation and scarring associated
with the wounds. More athletes are learning about its benefits too in muscle recovery
time. This means that after a hard day’s training, the athletes need less time to recover
from aches or injuries. Interestingly, in the 2000 and 2004 Olympics, the Australian
swim team took colostrum supplements and attributed their wins in part to this
supplement.

5. Improving skin. Supplementing the body with colostrum has been shown in studies to
provide the body with more human growth hormones and other growth factors, including
epidermal/epithelial growth factors that prevent skin aging.

So if you like me are now intrigued by colostrum and want to add it to your nutrient plan,
perhaps you could wander down to your local supplement or health food store. It’s usually
available in a capsules. Alternatively, you can find it in a format that resembles milk powder,
which is then added to water.

Lastly, here’s a clip I came across today on colostrum.  Hope you enjoy it!

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-36285079

​Thank you for reading my blog!

References:
​https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colostrum
http://www.secrets-of- longevity-in- humans.com/colostrum-benefits.html
http://www.icnr.org/articles/skin.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2515351/

Most of us know that having lemon juice in the morning with water is good for us. Many people drink lemon juice squeezed into warm water, hoping to lose weight.  Other’s believe that it helps to keep the body’s PH level more alkaline, thereby preventing a host of other potentially chronic illnesses.
I started adding lemon juice to my morning water to encourage myself to drink more water each day.  At the time, I really didn’t like the bland taste of plain water.  Lemon juice turned out to be the answer and it’s certainly got me drinking my 6 – 8 glasses each day.

Then I discovered just how good the rind and pith and membranes were for you.  So I found a way to incorporate these into my daily lemon water.  Here are 5 reasons why you really need to be keeping the rind, membranes and pith!

1. The rind is richer in Vitamin C than the juice itself.  So why throw it away?
2. The rind is also rich in phytonutrients, which makes absorbing the Vitamin C even easier.  Some studies show they enhance and prolong the positive action of Vitamin C in our body.  
3. The bioflavionoids in the rind can assist with capillary function.  Some studies found them to be highly effective in preventing and treating varicose veins!  They also have been shown to help athletes recover more quickly from injuries.  Additional studies show that the bioflavonoids have also been shown to help significantly reduce the level of infection for common colds and the flu.
4. The natural fiber from the rind also keeps me full longer as it slows down digestion and keeps more blood glucose levels more stable too.  Pectin in the lemon fibers has been shown to promote weight loss too.
5. The type of fiber in the rind has been shown reduce cholesterol levels – especially the low density lipoproteins (LDLs) which are the bad type of cholesterol for your body. 

Interested in incorporating the rind into your water?  Here's what I do each morning. 

​RECIPE FOR MAKING LEMON WATER
Ingredients: 
1/3 lemon
25 fluid oz of water / 750 ml of water (preferably filtered)

Method
Roughly chop the lemon and remove the seeds. 
Place with a quarter of the water into a blender and blitz for a 1 minute (or less)
Add remaining water and mix.  Enjoy!

If you like additional freshness, you can add more mint leaves into your glass.  
What's interesting about preparing lemon water this way is that the water no longer tastes sour but has a clean, slightly bitter but refreshing taste. I try to drink most of the water by 11 am and if not, I sip it through the day. 

CLOSING TIPS
- Worried that your dentist will disapprove?  Drink this through a straw!. 
- Worried about the residual pesticides on the rind?  Buy organic if you can.  If you can’t look for a natural vegetable and fruit cleanser.  A brand I like is ETLNo.9.  It’s an all-purpose green cleaning formula and I use it on my fruits and veggies at home.   

Thank you for reading my blog. :)

P.S.  I know I was supposed to blog more about eating a range of foods but I hope you don’t mind me going with the flow today.  I really wanted to talk about lemons!  

In my last blog, I mentioned that I had added larger portions of complex carbohydrates to what I ate in exchange for cutting out sugar from my everyday eating.  By doing this, I unexpectedly lost weight.  So in today’s blog, let’s discuss what caused this.

GLYCEMIC INDEX AND GLYCEMIC LOAD
When you consume carbohydrates, your body produces insulin.  And insulin is often nicknamed the “fat storage hormone”.    However, not all carbohydrates are the same and a key difference comes from where they lie on the glycemic index (GI) and the glycemic load (GL) which adjusts for a standard portion size of that food.

Low GI foods, when consumed produce a small rise in blood glucose levels. Your body produces less insulin in response to the lower blood glucose levels.  Conversely, high GI foods produce a higher rise in blood glucose levels. Your body produces more insulin to get the blood glucose level back to its optimal range.  In the latter case, this means more glucose is stored away as fat in the body’s pool of fat cells. 

COMMON MEAL TIME CARBS VS. SNACK TIME SWEETS
What did I do?  Quite simply, I added more meal friendly carbs like potatoes and peas and cut back on snack time sweets and candy. 

While most people would say that this would be obvious, let’s do just a quick comparison to show why this isn’t so straight forward.   

If you look at the table above, it is clear that by volume, I was eating more food by introducing more peas and potatoes versus seven tiny sweets.  However, comparing standard portions of peas and potatoes to the sweets,  the former had generally less carbohydrates than the sweets.  The glycemic index was also lower, as was the glycemic load.   So swapping out my nightly sweets for extra peas and potatoes changed my body’s insulin response.  Therefore, although foods like the potato with butter was higher calories than the seven small sweets, it did not lead to weight gain as one would have expected.

On a regular basis, I ensure that when I have carbohydrates, I combine them with protein, vegetables and oil.  Why is this important? For that, here’s how combining food groups can change the glycemic index of the meal.  Here’s a simple example using potatoes.

WHAT HAPPENS TO THE GLYCEMIC INDEX WHEN DIFFERENT FOODS ARE EATEN TOGETHER?

Pure oils and fats, including butter are not on the glycemic index because they do not have carbohydrates.   This also means that when I have the potato with butter or olive oil, the average glycemic index of the meal is lower.  This combination results a slower surge in my blood glucose levels compared to when I have the plain potato on its own.  When I have the potato with the skin, the skin takes a longer time to digest and results in yet a slower surge in blood glucose levels and insulin. The same effect happens when you add protein to your meals.

HOW TO LOWER THE GLYCEMIC INDEX IN EVERYDAY MEALS
When I discovered this, I changed how I ate.  I used to eat mostly carbohydrates and vegetables, and used to restrict the amount of fat in my diet.   Then I started ensuring that nearly every meal I ate contained a fair size of protein, along with some carbohydrates and good quality oils.   While eating a balanced meal is important, I realized that this way of eating would allow me to eat a wider variety of foods and food groups, stay full and not suffer wild swings in my blood glucose levels.

If you are a pasta or pizza fiend, what can you do if you can’t give these up?   If you are going to order the pizza or pasta dish, add a salad with extra roast chicken, turkey, beef or eggs.  Eat a quarter or half at the most of the pasta or pizza dish.  If you are out with friends, share the pizza and pasta.  If you on your own, save the rest of your pasta or pizza for later. 

Here’s an additional example if you like your Asian noodles.  On the days I feel like having noodles and I am out, I usually ask for extra portions of meat, fish and vegetables to be added to the dish and pay extra for these.  Most of the time, I may not finish all the noodles as I have already filled up on the extra protein and vegetables.

Wanted to know the additional benefits of eating this way?  Read my next blog!

Thank you for reading my blog! :) 

Title Photograph:  
Courtesy of Thanksgiving-Stock-Free-Image-08112015-image-182

Additional sources:
https://www.caloriecount.com
http://www.glycemicindex.com
http://ultimatepaleoguide.com/glycemic-index-food-list

 
EAT LESS SUGAR. This is one of the 10 Easy Habits of Eating Well, Being Well.

Earlier this year, as I was editing the book, I stepped up further on eating less sugar in my every day meals. While I usually have a few chocolates, sweets or an occasional scoop of ice-cream, I reduced these treats even more significantly. I made a decision to cut back further on refined sugar because of several reasons but weight loss was not one of them. Unexpectedly, I lost 4.5 pounds (2 kilograms) in about 2 weeks.

On the surface, this seems straight forward – eat less sugar, eat less calories, weight comes off. Logical? So it would seem. But here’s the twist!

While I stepped down on these sweet treats, I stepped up on more food, including carbohydrates. While I normally have carbohydrates every day, I ate even larger portions of complex carbohydrates in the form of root vegetables, pumpkin, rice and rice noodles. During this time, I also added a little more good quality coconut oil or olive oil into my daily home-cooked meals. I also ate solid portions of protein – such as ¼ of a roast chicken at lunch and at dinner. And I still continued to meet friends outside for delicious lunch and dinners. I wasn’t counting calories at all. So what was going on?

One of the answers lies in managing the body’s insulin response. To understand this better, we’ll need to look at the simple chemical reactions that are happening inside the body when we eat. To keep the key ideas easy to go through, I have deliberately taken a few complex processes and simplified them.

When we eat, the food is digested and broken down into ever simpler forms that can be absorbed by our body’s cells. For example carbohydrates are broken down into ever simpler forms of sugar, ending with absorbable glucose. Proteins are broken down into amino acids. Fat is broken down into fatty acids and monoglycerides. The simple digested food finds its way into the blood stream.

Insulin is produced by the pancreas. It acts like a key, unlocking cells and allowing them to absorb nutrients, use the energy from the food or store the excess. Cells use the energy from the food to allow us to think, move, carry things, exercise and for core organs like our heart, kidneys, lungs and liver to function. Amino acids, vitamins and minerals provide nutrients to repair old cells and rebuild new cells.

What happens when we eat too much and have indulged in a carbohydrate and sugar rich meal? The body stores some of the glucose as glycogen in the muscles and liver. But the muscles and liver can only store a set amount of glucose as glycogen. When there is much more glucose than expected, the body produces even more insulin. Guess what the excess glucose is stored as? If you guessed FAT, you are correct!

Cells that are designed to store fat are unique. There has been a lot of research to study fat cells’ behavior and their apparent limitless ability to store fat. Some of these studies found that the number of fat cells in a human body remained unchanged over the course of a lifetime. Instead, they grow in size to accommodate the amount of additional fat that needs to be stored. Another study found that people who lost weight through fat reduction surgery had the same number of fat cells two years afterwards. Incredibly, new fat cells were created to replace the ones that had been removed through surgery! With studies such as these, researchers had better answers as to why it is so hard for many of us to lose weight and why many dieters seem to gain and lose the same pounds and kilos over and over again.

So what I had I done these last few weeks to trigger weight loss? I had managed my body’s insulin response even better than I had done up to now. Not surprisingly, insulin is often referred to as “the fat storage hormone”.

So could a few pieces of chocolate and sugary treats have made that much difference? In my body’s case, it seems that the answer was a resounding, "YES!"

These foods would have been classified as “high glycemic index foods”, in other words, they result in a faster, more sudden spikes in blood glucose levels when they are eaten regularly. What happened when I had them? I had trained my body to expect these bursts of sugar, to produce more and larger surges in insulin and to store away the excess glucose as fat more quickly and efficiently!

So what happened when I stopped having these sweet treats daily? My body learned very quickly to produce less insulin and in the process, I started storing less of what I was eating as fat. Personally I was surprised at how quickly the weight came off.

Weight loss programs like The Atkins Program work because they strive at removing as much carbohydrates from one’s daily eating as possible. At its core, the eating plan is focused on meals with protein, vegetables and fat/oil. In The Atkins Program, starchy vegetables and roots veggies are discouraged. This form of eating results in two things:
1) It triggers the body to produce a lot less insulin.
2) It triggers a ketogenic response in your body, where your body draws upon existing fat reserves for energy.

People certainly lose weight on The Atkins Program. A few people I know tried it. They lost weight. However, some found it quite restrictive and not sustainable in the long run. Some regained weight once they went off the program.  (Note though that the updated Atkin's Program does indeed allow carbohydrates in the diet.   Initially all carbs are removed from the diet to put the body into a ketogenic state.  Subsequently, a small amount of complex, un-refined carbs are added back, a week at a time until weight loss stops.  They describe this as the optimal level of carbs that the dieter's body can handle and recommend that you stick to an amount just below that.)

At the start of this article, I mentioned that I had added larger portions of complex carbohydrates to what I ate. While these were not excessive, I still made sure I was eating enough carbohydrates because I do believe in eating in a balanced way and this means, eating enough protein, fat/oils, vegetables and carbohydrates.

So how did I still manage to lose the weight? Something else interesting was happening to me internally as I enjoyed my meals of complex carbohydrates, proteins and fats together. If you would like to eat carbohydrates every day and still lose weight, please stay tuned for my next blog!

Thank you for reading my blog :)

P.S. I am presently eating more to regain the weight I lost.


Additional sources:
http://www.livestrong.com/article/264767-how-is-excess-glucose-stored/
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/05/health/research/05fat.html?_r=0
http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/fats-digested-8510.html