Chemical Free Kids

Yesterday I was lucky enough to have been invited to a very interesting presentation by Dr Sarah Lantz. Dr Edward Kachab .. and herself published a book to provide the information for parents interested in the health of their kids. (see Chemical free kids)

During the presentation it became clear that we are confronted with the following facts:

• People don't want to get out of their comfort zone
• People believe what their parents taught them
• People want to avoid pain and gain pleasure (Marketing strategy)
• People are lazy (I guess that's what we learn in physics as any particle is permanently trying to be in the lowest state of energy)
• People seem to be not interested in what they do to their bodies regarding food, cosmetics, cleaning products etc.   ... is it really so hard to look up in the internet and read some information? 
• People love the immediate effect and they don't see the longterm effect of chemicals in their body, mostly accumulated over time
• Australia is too far behind to ban toxic chemicals, when they are banned in all other western countries. Why?

We need to create more awareness of

• misleading labelling
• what is actually labelled
• tricks used when labelled
• the real toxicity of chemicals (in understandable terms)
• food sold in supermarket doesn't mean it is good for you

And how do we create this awareness?

• Teach the women and you teach a whole family!
• Teach toxicity at Universities and High Schools

After the presentation I got the opportunity to have a chat with Sarah. We discovered plenty of common things.

• The interest and challenges with raw food adventure.
• Why do people don't think like we do :o) (my favourite one!)
• The natural "love" of writing a PhD thesis

 Will definitely have a closer look at Sarah's blog and her book.

Join the revolution

You can't Believe in bHIP until You Believe in Yourself – Terry LaCore

Why am I on a 1500cal diet?

You can call it whatever you want ... I am in the progress to eat healthy the way I have chosen. Currently I am following the 1500cal plan from Lite'n'Easy. This sounds really not a lot, but I was surprised. When you really "spread" your input through the whole day, let's say you eat something every 2 hours, you are not starving. And you don't feel stuffed either, which I think is an awful feeling as well. 

Another thing I have noticed already after 2 weeks, I am not tired anymore in the early afternoon. Before that, I was deadly tired and I didn't get anything done between 1 and 3pm. And it is not easy to find something to lay down in an office, hehe.

What this diet also allows me to do is having some kind of gratification once or twice a month. The pictures below show what I mean. I can eat that without feeling guilty afterward. Yes, I felt stuffed and it just reminded me that I don't need so much food. But I loved it.

I really enjoyed this desert in the Belgium Beer Cafe after a full pot of mussels.

And no, I haven't lost weight yet, but I am sure over time it will come. The next weeks I will be away from home and can't really follow the plan, but then I will be back on it again.

One thing I might change with the plan of Lite'n'Easy is that I swap lunch with dinner. I still have my believe that you should eat the smallest meal in the evening, and with Lite'n'Easy you get the main meal for dinner. When I can, I will swap, depending if I am home or not.

In general I am very happy with Lite'n'Easy. The delivery and the meal are just convenient for me as a person too busy (and lazy) to cook.

P.S. I am not an affiliate of Lite'n'Easy, so I don't get paid to publish this here. All this is my own personal opinion.

Why are we so obsessed about food?

In a previous blog I have written about my attempt to be on 1500 cal daily. However, we know that an average human being should consume up to 2200 cal. This is plenty of energy to have a quite active day, including brain work.

Although I am a scientist, or maybe because I am a scientist, I don't see obesity as a disease. Unfortunately with the help of the media we start to call it like this. But why should it be? Isn't it logical that obese people just consume more energy than they actually need, for whatever reason I don't understand. Why are we so obsessed about food? Is it all about pleasure, addiction or are we just bored?

Just last week I saw a quite obese women with her similar obese daughter. They couldn't sit next to each other, as it would have been quite squeezy. (Yes, I support airlines charging obese people for two seats!) What is this woman doing to her daughter? Taking care of your own child doesn't mean making a child sick for the rest of its life. I don't want to go over all the cost obese people cost us in terms of environmental and health issues. I just don't understand how people can be so irresponsible. When you have a child, you have some duties. And I am sure it doesn't include to poison your own child.

I might sound a bit harsh. But as a human being you have a purpose here on earth. We are so lucky to be alive. The chance to live is smaller than winning in a lottery. The human body has much more to offer than we are actually aware of. Skills we knew thousands of years ago, but got lost because humankind got greedy over time. I just hope 2012 will bring a change and will open the eyes for all of us. Being a bit more grateful for what we have and not taking food for granted.

Photo Courtesy by Markus Brosch

 Just eat healthy and less! We don't need meat every day. Look at gorillas ... quite muscular species .. and vegetarian!

How much are 1500kcal?

It is one of my goals to reduce my weight by around 8-10kg. I wouldn't call myself obese, but there are bits and pieces I would love to disappear. I am approaching different strategies, of course the combination of all would be ideal.

• exercise: I am following a strict plan to exercise every second day for at least an hour. That can be in the gym or I go for a run. Looks like the I tend to build up muscles quite easily, so I prefer running to gym and have reduced the gym to once a week. It is not my goal to look like a female Arnold Schwarzenegger. I also think I would love the running if I would some some improvement one day ... but still after month and years ... I am still getting out of breath easily. I am applying now different strategies, like long and easy run OR alternating the speed. Will see how I go.

Photo Courtesy by Markus Brosch

• nutrition: As a German, I have my issues with some food here in Australia. I did put myself on a 1500kcal diet right now. According to the standards, this is a medium level ... but I am starving during the day. I am following the plan of a company who provides the food as well. So far ... my compliment ... very nice food. Much, much better then most suppliers on the UQ campus ;o) However, I believe the amount of breakfast (with a late morning) snack is not enough. For dinner they provide the main meal. Ok, change of attitude ... I love the dinners. I think it is ok, when you have dinner before 6pm. I am an early morning person ... so I have my breakfast at 5am ... then a snack between 8-9am ... and I start to starve for lunch around 11. I might increase my input to 1800kcal next week and we will see how I go. I haven't lost any kilo yet.
• is there anything else I can do? ...
  

Project review

When I go through my twitter messages and facebook statuses ... it really looks like I am quite busy. And yes, I am doing a lot of stuff. Maybe because I get too easily bored in something. Ok, let's get some structure in it.

1. PhD ... actual the main reason why I am ended up here in Australia. I am in the final year of my studies in Computational Biology. It is an amazing area to work in. However, maybe I am in the wrong research group or just the wrong University. I did publish two publications in my first 2 years ... then my motivation dropped. Where was the fun? I don't get a long easily with people around me and I started to question scientists and science in general. Did you know that 99% of all written PhD theses are never read again? Doing a PhD is the complete opposite of team work ... and what did we learn about team work ... different minds coming together and working on one goal together.
Anyway, I will finish hopefully in the next couple of weeks. I might need a break of this for a while. Maybe then I will find a way back, as I still love the subject of Biology.

2. Health/Nutrition/Fitness ... according to the BMI I am close to be overweight. However, I think I look alright. The scale tells me something else, so I decided to drop 8 kilos. The plan is to avoid any drugs to have a quite "organic" body. I am good at this. Beside that the problem with my thyroid will be always there. Maybe I can get my mind to repair it again by itself. It is all about what you believe. The majority of food/fuel I put in my should be organic. I can't handle meat and fruits from supermarkets. I have some kind of allergy against preservatives, which might be actually good ... I can do some testing , hehe. Fitness-like, I think I still haven't found what I really enjoy. The gym can be good sometimes, but I build up too easily. Maybe I give it another try. I did Kung-Fu some years ago and I loved it. But then they did more team games, and that is not my thing. With the personal trainer of my partner, we did some boxing lessons. And that was some fun, and it gets all the frustration out of you ;o) To start it at Uni, might not be worth it ... will see. Currently I just do some running. At least every second day with the plan to increase the time and distance.

3. Business ... I am registered soletrader here in Australia for 2 years now. I am doing contract work for other companies right now, but plans are bigger than that. I want to provide service B2C and B2B. The website is in progress and the list of ideas is full and keeps growing. I know very interesting people and I am sure I can make it.

All this keeps me busy. Recording it here, will make me more committed to it. Today's plan is update two websites and getting a new one up and running. I also will learn more about our CMS and about Internet Marketing. About all this I will write here in this blog.

Have a lovely weekend!