Category Archives: Nutrition and Diet

Are we tricked into eating all those “healthy foods” … Anon Quote easily relate-able to Nutrition and Food.

Personal Training Nutrition Food Coaching in South Dublin since 2003 Sandyford Foxrock Leopardstown Belarmine Stepadside KiltiernanWhen reading this quote, from Anon, I had to think of how applicable it is to food, diet, nutrition, exercise and being physical active.

Most of us have a reasonable good idea what we should and shouldn’t eat, drink in terms of food and beverages or what we should and shouldn’t generally consume ( e.g. cigarettes, excessive alcohol or various other drugs).  I’m always astonished how we, or better our mind, is able to trick us into eating or consuming things we 100% know are not good for us.

Or …. are the food producers tricking us into this, adding ingredients i.e. sugar (often labeled different)  and other additives that can be addictive and make us buy those foods and goods over and over again. I guess the whole area of marketing and advertising psychology plays a huge role.  As we get promised if we eat this bar or that yoghurt it’s going to help us with X, and makes us feel happy (see all those smiley, young and fit looking people on the packaging) etc. etc..
The claims on food packaging can often be very misleading and are wide open to interpretation. In the one year long Nutrition & Health Coaching Course, I just completed, we spend a whole weekend on food labeling, learning how to read and interpret food labels, and also got two assignments going into lots of detail and assessing claims, packaging, nutritional values etc.. It was a fascinating assignment.

Coming back to my initial point …. all this raises for me the omnipresent question “How can we get ourselves to actually apply, day in day out, what we know is good for us in terms of nutrition, diet, food and exercise?”. This is one of the main questions I try to find answers to since I started to work in the health, fitness and well-being area in 2002. One of the main areas is raising awareness, educating clients and passing on knowledge to enable them to be self-sufficient in their quest to be a fitter and healthier person.
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Before we educate, learn and start we ideally identify our BIG – WHYs, our reasons for, wanting to be healthier, fitter, trimmer looking, more energetic etc. and what those things allow and enable us to do or be in our life. These BIG – WHYs  can then be used as motivators, when we sometimes are in danger of falling of the wagon.
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Action Steps – Lets get you started (this will only take 5 minutes):
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(1) What health and fitness areas do you want to improve in? Make at note of three to five areas.
(2) Jot down three to five goals or objectives for those areas?
(3) Write down one or two specific actions you can take in the next week to get closer to achieving these goals (do this for all goals). Keep it simple and make it easily achievable, set yourself up for success.
(4) Take your diary (paper or online) and schedule a date/time when you do these tings.
(5) Get started now and progress step by step over the coming weeks.
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I hope this helps to get you that little bit closer to be healthier, fitter and happier.
Let me know how you get and what you think about these ideas.
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Martin

“The Secrets of Sugar – the fifth estate” Video

The Secrets of Sugar - the fifth estate Personal Training in South Diublin, D18 D16 D16 Dublin 18 Dublin 16 Dublin 14I’m just back from another a weekend of learning more about diet and nutrition as part of a one year “Nutrition & Health Coaching Course” with the IINH in Bray, just south of Dublin.

We covered topics like: (1) Organic vs Non-Organic (2) Pesticides, Herbicides (3) Food Labeling and the food industry’s tricks and labeling games, trojan-horse tactics aiming to confuse the consumer with jargon that most of us don’t understand, unless you put some time and effort and educate yourself about how to read and interpret food labels.

All fascinating, thought provoking and to a certain degree mind boggling.

I will produce various handout and talk about different aspects of the learnings in the next few weeks and share them with my personal training clients and group class participants to pass that knowledge on. So you benefit from all this.

Below a 42:00 minutes video about sugar … “The Secret of Sugar – the fifth estate.”

Enjoy and be surprise.
Martin

Here the original video description:
We’ve heard for years about the dangers of eating too much fat or salt. But there have never been recommended limits for sugar on Canadian food labels, despite emerging research that suggests the sweet stuff may be making more of us fat and sick. In the fifth estate’s season premiere, Gillian Findlay digs into the surprising science — and the reaction from the food industry — to reveal The Secrets of Sugar. Has the sugar industry been hiding an unsavoury truth from consumers?

A small but influential group of medical researchers is stirring up the health debate, linking sugar not just to rising obesity rates but also to a host of diseases including cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer’s.

We put a family of four on a healthy diet to try to beat their sugar habit and track the surprising results. We talk to leading scientists – and their critics. And we ask the food industry why those ingredient labels are far from clear when it comes to how much sugar is really on your plate.