Eels Blogs

I know the Orff Season is officially over,but ask Phil's indulgence in allowing a very important blog about the most important thing,your health.

I posted a blog last year about the easiest diet diet ever,the Ketogenic diet (or zero sugar,low-carb,high fat diet).I noticed with bemusement an article in the paper that labelled it along with The Atkins,Paleo and other diets as "fads" and then they re-iterated the old chestnut about "everything in moderation".Well, here are my results after a solid 6 months on this diet and you can judge for yourself.

43kg gone and falling,

fatty liver...gone,

high blood pressure..well within normal limits,

high insulin levels have fallen dramatically,

blood glucose readings which were catastrophically high at 19.5 are now between 3.1 and 5.3,well within the lower limits of the accepted range.

Have there been any downsides? YES. It is getting expensive constantly buying smaller and smaller clothes.You pooping habits will change.I go from not pooping for 2-3 days,then the runs.Upside?I've made huge savings in toilet paper spending.Seriously,for any extra willpower on my part ,the rewards have been beyond my wildest expectations.If you are serious about shedding those extra kilos,do yourself a favour,find my previous blog and read it.It outlines how to start this diet.

It isn't a fad ,but a prescribed diet from a highly experienced doctor.Step 1) Stop ALL sugar consumption,2) all carbohydrates must cease,no bread,no pasta,no rice and no vegetable oils or margerines.The only oils you can use are Extra Virgin Olive Oil,Coconut oil and butter 3)No alcohol

MOST IMPORTANTLY,this will be hard at first,but you must do this,NO SNACKING BETWEEN MEALS.

You can eat full fat meat,chicken with the skin on,bacon,eggs,greek yoghurt and all the green vegetables you can eat.There are countless videos on youtube on what you should eat,but you will be amazed that once your sugar levels fall,so will your constant hunger pangs.The high fat content of this diet helps to switch on the "I'm Full" message to your brain and your portion size will fall away dramatically.

The old saying about calories in,calories out,is only partially true.If your calorific intake consists mainly of sugar and complex carbs.any efforts to exercise away those calories will be futile as your energy expenditure will always be less than your intake,so therefor the energy will be stored as fat. Eating a high-fat diet does not spike your glucose or insulin levels.By not snacking you avoid constanly raising those two levels which make you constantly hungry.

Why do most diets fail after initial good results?By reducing your calories,your body will use up it's fat stores at first,but will slow your metabolism down to stop you starving yourself.After all ,your brain as far as it is aware,you are not feeding your body,therefor it must slow your energy expenditure lest you starve,a very clever evolutionary adaptation.The Keto diet helps bypass this brake your brain puts on fat loss,by chemically eating foods that cause your body to use stored fat,but because you are still eating substantial meals, the brain never experiences the emergency "you are starving" message.

Since my initial blog,I've added another element to the diet.Intermittent Fasting.Tad put up a blog a while back that talked about this practise.Basically the longer you go between meals,the lower your insulin levels fall.Your body has no choice but to start eating it's fat reserves.My routine is as follows,on the 3 days I go to the gym  ,I practise an 18 hour window between meals ,ie I'll eat my supper at 8pm,then my next meal will be at 12 pm for lunch then the next meal will be at 8pm again.On non-gym days I follow a 24 hour fast.I have a black espresso for breakfast,a small cuppucino for morning tea and another at lunch,then nothing until the evening meal.It may sound difficult but after a few days you do adapt.I admit to feeling hungry in the mornings but after the lunchtime  coffee,I have no more hunger pangs.

What are my meals like?This lunch time after an18 hour fast,I ate 3 eggs fried in butter,4 rashers of bacon,a plate of greek yoghurt with strawberries,blue,black and raspberries,pumkin seeds,sunflower seeds,almond meal and psyllium husk and finished with a cup of black coffee with 2 dollops of double cream.Does that sound like any diet you ever heard of? My evening meal is always protein,fish,chicken or meat,vegetables and a salad.You soon get the "I'm full " message and you stop eating.This diet is a simple as that.You don't need or have to pay for Jenny Craig or Weightwatchers type programs.Just eat eat real food and avoid the sugar and carbs.You body/machine then starts to run on fat very efficiently.

I do get light-headed at times,mainly to the diabetes and blood thinner medications I take.The solution? A heap of salt on the back of my hand and I wash it down with water.You MUST consume between 4-6 grams of salt a day.Once you stop eating processed foods with their high levels of sugar and salt you must regulate the salt intake.

Finally a word about exercise.Nothing made me laugh harder around Christmas time than strolling through Westfield  and seeing people trying to sell these boards-type things which wobble and supposedly make you lose weight.Like all the other late night exercise machine ads,THEY ARE ALL COMPLETE BULLSHITE!.

There is a very wise adage in the fitness industry,"You can't exercise away a bad diet".You can do 100s of situps a day if you want.You will get great abs,but the surrounding fat layers will not burn away,only reducing your fat levels will reduce your waist size.For the first 3 months of this diet my exercise consisted of 30 seconds of pedaling as hard as I could on a exercise bike,then 2 minutes of rest,repeated 3 times.That's it! You must allow 36 hours of recovery between the exercise.Three months ago ,I found an Olympic Weightlifting gym near me so I restarted in a sport I last tried 12 years ago.Was it hard? Hell yes!  At 50 you just don't have the strength and stamina you did when you are 18.Is it worth it?Hell yes!

Despite pulled groin muscles,sore knees and back,I've packed on muscle like I used to have in my teens and twenties.The scale has stopped falling as fast,mainly because of the increase in muscle mass.You do realise that the weight is still falling from the amazed looks of your friends and gym buddies,who soon start asking what is your secret.I bought my fourth set of shorts this summer,they last about a month before becoming too baggy.I enjoy being the old man of the gym and regaling the kids of how it was like "back in my day".There is nothing like having a pretty girl load your bar for you while you act old and feeble.

Sorry for rattling on so long,but if anyone has any questions send me a PM and I'll be happy to help you out.At work my nickname is fast becoming "The Disappearing Man".

Below is my last licence photo from 5 years ago and my new photo.The lady at the Registry was amazed.

I am only halfway to my goal.I am embarrassed to say that at the beginning of this jouney I weighed 178 kg,yes you read that right, 178 Fecking kilos.I am at 135 kg now and my goal is to fall under my teenage body weight of 88kgs.Unfortunately once you balloon,so does your skin stretch to cover the extra blubber.I now have in my estimation at least 15-20 kg of overhanging gut,known as an "apron" that will require surgery to remove.Your poor old skin is an amazingly resilient organ but can only stretch and contract so much.My best advice to anyone is learn about how nutrition works and don't allow yourself to reach my former level.You only need to do strenuous exercise for at least half an hour, every other day.That exhausts the 20 minutes worth of glucogen i.e sugar that your muscles store. The rest is all diet.I hope this blog will be the inspiration to get of your arse and do something about your health.

I'll finish up by putting up a photo of myself the last time I weighed 89.7 kg,way back when the Eels were a Premiership force, 1985.I was only 19.