My Morning Walk

is not really exercise to me. If I go early in the morning, it's quiet and peaceful. I like to walk slowly, take deep breaths, and relax...

View from the top of the park


Near the start of the walk. TJ loves to sniff around all the bushes here


Walking up the gently sloping hill with the sunlight coming through the trees


Walking down the hill towards the lake


View from near the bottom of the hill


Near the turn-around point. You can see how strong the sun is even at 7am


Heading back up the hill


TJ enjoying a paddle near the end of the walk

Storage of Fat

Since my post on combating obesity with folinic acid, I've been doing a bit more reading. Dr Peter Tunbridge, an integrative medicine expert, has this to say about the MTHFR gene polymorphism on his website:

How does it affect weight?
The gene defect prevents the body from getting rid of oestrogen (female hormone) down a pathway that ultimately affects how your body converts its food into energy.
In absolute terms it makes the body convert most of your glucose (which ALL your food other than oils is converted into), into Free Fatty Acids rather than Glycogen.
This means your body is converting the sugar into fat. This means you have less energy and feel tired all the time. This means you are making fat, and because most of this is occurring in the blood vessels around the bowel then the fat is deposited centrally. If the oestrogen levels are high, then this accelerates the process, and if you have the gene defect then this will also accelerate that process.
The Cell that lines all the microscopic blood tubes in your body is where this happens. If these cells fill with FFA’s (Free Fatty Acids) then its ability to take in more sugar is slowed. The body responds to this by making more insulin in an attempt to give you more energy. This will cause a sudden rapid loss of blood sugar - this is that profound weakness that overcomes your body occasionally when your legs feel like tree trunks and you just want to sleep. The oestrogen levels are making you store fat and so you do not get anymore energy when this happens – just fatter and fatter and craving more and more sweet things.

Will this folinic acid pill make me lose weight if i just take that and do nothing else?
No! It must be used to full advantage as an additive to a proper diet (in my opinion this should be a low carbohydrate diet) and a gradual increase in excercise as you begin to get more energy.

How does folinic acid stop this?
Giving folinic when you have this gene defect essentially provides the body with what it cant make. It thereby “bypasses the biochemical deficit. It therefore allows a better metabolism of oestrogen and stops the body from converting too much of the food into fat. It essentially negates having the gene defect anymore relative to what it stops from happening in the biochemistry of the body.

Wild Venison Sausages

This is what we had for dinner last night. Well, not raw, but they look the same as any other sausage once cooked, so thought you might like to see what the packaging looks like in case you want to look out for them at your supermarket (I got these at Coles).





They don't have a very strong meat flavour. In fact, I'd say the strongest flavour is garlic, with touch of aniseed/fennel. They aren't as salty as the kanga bangas made by the same company. The macros for 100g are actually quite similar to a scoop of protein powder (18.6g protein, 2.6g fat, 1.6g carbs), so they might make a nice portable snack.

A typical day for me at the moment

walk TJ

Breakfast
Option 1
high-fibre cereal, lactose-free milk, medium fruit or a snack pack of organic dried fruit; fish oil, vitamin B

Option 2
organic egg OR baked beans on sprouted grain bread, medium fruit; fish oil, vitamin B

Snack
protein shake with lactose-free milk and low GI fruit; Vital Greens
(sometimes I have the milk in an organic coffee and make the shake with water instead)

Lunch
sprouted grain bread
with lean meat, chicken, salmon or sardines OR baked beans or bean salad
and large salad
and small fruit

Snack
protein shake with lactose-free milk and low GI fruit; Vital Greens
(sometimes I save the milk to make a cocoa before bed, and
make the shake with water instead)

go to gym

Dinner
Lean meat, chicken, fish or beans/lentils
and potato/sweet potato/rice/pasta/bread
and vegetables/salad
and small fruit
fish oil

(optional) Snack
nuts/chocolate
cocoa

I'm breaking some 'rules' during my day: I don't always eat protein with every meal; I eat meals with starchy carbs outside of the workout period; and I drink 'calorie-containing beverages' like milky coffee and cocoa. But, eating this way is keeping me sane (it's flexible and enjoyable, and pretty healthy), and it's sustainable (I'm less likely to eat a whole heap of crap in one go if I can eat a little bit of whatever I like whenever I want). And my abs are coming back. So there!

Gone Crazy About Food

'A large amount of work I do is with women who are recovering or dealing with eating disorders. Time and time again this issue was coming up. "I can't eat these foods, they are fat gaining foods." "I was told my thyroid stopped working because of these chemicals so now I only eat xxxx."
 
All of a sudden the health problems my girls were having were because of a type of carb, or chemical, or a combination of "fat gaining foods." All of a sudden the reason they were so tired and dealing with massive exasperation was because they weren't eating organic. It couldn't possibly be because they were doing 5-6 day a week extreme training programs (HIIT, supersetting, high volume, heavy weights, etc) on no calories leading to the inevitable binge fests. No, apparently it was the type of spinach they were eating.'
 
Source: Leigh Peele, in her interview with Tom Venuto
 

Small things amuse small minds...

Had to pop into my local Coles at lunchtime to pick up a couple of things and noticed they are now selling venison and goat (sausages, fillets, mini roasts etc, along the same lines as the Macro Meats kangaroo products). Think some of them will be finding their way into my trolley on Saturday...
 

Training update

I seem to spend so much time here talking about food, so thought I'd say something about my training, particularly in regards to my monthly cycle. My last comp was October last year, and my periods started again in January. I've had them every month since, although the timing has varied slightly, ranging from 18 to 33 days. What I have noticed, though, is that for the few days before my period starts I am absolutely pooped, like my body is putting all of its energy into that. I need much more sleep and I really struggle to get out of bed. Once I'm up, I don't feel like doing much, including working out. I think I've skipped the workout prior to my period arriving for the last 3 months running. I thought it would be great to have a program that I could fit around my monthly cycle, structured so that I'm training less vigorously leading up to my period and more at other times.

And then I read Danny McLarty's Deload Week: The Missing Link. In it there is a Four-Week Strategy for Women that suggests a deloading week around the time frame that I typically have lower training tolerance (days 22 to 28 of cycle).

Here is what he suggests for a 28-day cycle:

Week 1 — Days 1-5 of menstrual cycle: Medium Volume Week

Because you should still be on the "cautious" side here, I suggest leaving a little in the tank on each set by staying a rep or two from failure. Volume-wise, aiming for 16 sets per training session would be a good guideline.

Week 2 — Days 6-13 of menstrual cycle: High Volume Week

Time to get after it and really push it! Aiming for 20 sets per training session would be a good idea over this time period.

Week 3 — Days 15-21 of menstrual cycle: Very High Volume Week

Time to crush it again, just like in week two, but now we'll increase the volume even more because we know that we'll be backing off next week, as that's when the deload time begins. Shoot for 24 sets per training session here.

Week 4 — Days 22-28 of menstrual cycle: Deload Week

Once again, you have the option of reducing either volume, intensity, or both. You can either reduce your volume by 50% from the very high week, or reduce the intensity by 10-20%. Since this is the time of the month where injury risk is at its highest, I suggest taking a break from plyometrics and any other high impact or high injury-risk movements during this week.

I am in week 1 at the moment and have adjusted my training schedule so that I am using it as the first week of a new program. The following two weeks will increase in volume, then my 'deload' week will essentially be my first full week in New Zealand, when I'm not expecting to get as much exercise done. Am looking forward to seeing how this approach works for me. Am feeling pretty good so far, deliberately being a bit more cautious this week than usual.