The next big job was to sift through the mountains of confusing, and often contradicting, information regarding what is
actually healthy and unhealthy. Health and weight-loss have become such
big money spinners that one can’t simply trust every label or product that claims to be able to “cure” you. Industry recognises the despondency in the market place and lack of knowledge and all too often promises miracles with
virtually no responsibility or change required on your part.
Labels like
low GI, low fat, gluten-free, fat burning, low cholesterol, added fibre, added vitamins, etc. attempt to attract you to foods that promise whatever the market seems to want at the time. We see this happening with the Low Carb High Fat or ‘Banting” approach and the influence it has on marketing and purchasing trends.
This experience resulted in me losing
23kg of body fat that I didn’t even know I had. What an eye-opener to realise the denial and blindness even a doctor, “who should know better” can have.
This motivated me to start BetYaLife and a series of talks called the “Nutrition Revolution Sessions”. This represented one of the first “whole-istic” health and weight loss programmes in South Africa, that placed the emphasis on the health changes rather than on the weight loss.
This subtle change meant that weight loss came as a result of
sustainable change,
reversing chronic disease and uprooting the
cause of the problem. This also meant that, although weight loss might be slower, the all to common chance of
regaining the weight, was minimised.
I threw myself into researching everything I could about the body we get old in, as well as the
nutrition and lifestyle modification that can help it age MAGNIFICENTLY. This became something of an obsession and involved much study, travel and expense in addition to working at my practice 6 days a week.
What I discovered about our food was just plain scary. Unsurprisingly, the changes and processing of our foods have rendered them unrecognisable from their original ingredients and the
value of the food has been destroyed in an attempt to make food last longer and taste “better!”
It became obvious to me that we are swapping good nutrition for handfuls of pills to make up for sedentary and convenient lifestyles. Somehow, we’ve been duped into thinking it’s the same thing.
In addition to this we take more handfuls of supplements and vitamins even though few of us are truly convinced of their value. Which is why we all have half empty bottles of some or other wonder potion in our cupboards!
An unexpected obstacle to a better way of living, was the
reluctance of people to
change their thinking or to spend time planning and preparing meals. We live in a convenience era, no question! Change that isn't easy, is seldom sustainable. It remains interesting to me how few of us recognise the
connection between the food we eat AND drink, and our chronic medical condition, low energy levels and behaviour/mood disorders.
Another common misconception is that eating properly is too expensive.
The truth is that when you eat properly, you eat less food in general and even less often.
I am convinced that eating well is not more expensive and will save you a fortune over time, on health costs.
