Open Future Health Blog

March 2016 - 6 items

Your habits when you are in your 40's and 50's are the foundation for your good health and fitness at 85. Improved diet is the low cost alternative to extensive medical intervention later in life. The body has the ability to heal itself, if we treat it with respect. ANYBODY who adopts a healthy diet, at ANY AGE, will benefit, and as the months go by, those benefits will multiply.

The Beginning of a Health Blog (March 2016)

Four years ago (2012) I was offered a "free trial" of a Stemtech product, and to humour to person who offered it to me, I agreed to take the sample. Surprise! Some remarkable things happened, that at age 70, I didn't expect.

Note, 2022: Stemtech was a mistake. Don't do that. Read to the end.

I still considered myself "fit for my age" but I was lying to myself. My weight was 94kg, increasing about 1kg a year. Not good.

Over the next two years my health went from good to very good. I lost 17kg for a start. Once I realised that I could actively improve my health status, I began to look for other ways to do that. Over the next year I changed a lot of things, far too many. But my health did improve.

Edit; 2022: {My first reaction was that the Stemtech suppliments were valuable. About 18 months later I rejected that view.} The critical thing was that I became interested in my health and keen to take action to make it better. As the researchers in the "Dunedin Study" say I became "conscientious" about my health, and that made a big difference.

It's also important to note that to this point I had made many mistakes. There is health disinformation everywhere, some of it I believed and followed. The obvious thing is to be vegetarian, which is a critical error to my way of thinking now.

When I say my health was "very good" above, one again I'm lying. I've no idea what "very good" health is. When the doctor, confirms that my health is "excellent" as in the paragraph below, that just means no diabetes, cancer or cardio-vascular disease detected. {He means not yet sick enough to treat. }

I was so pleased that I ordered a full medical health check with my Doctor. He confirmed what I knew, that my health was excellent, but of course now I had some numbers to support that intuition.

Generally, people don't believe that their health can be improved. You give people good advice but they can't accept it. You tell people where to get good information for themselves,but they never bother to look. They have no faith that any better "health" than the one they are experiencing is possible.

I've discovered that there are many rungs on the health ladder, many of them far above, the sort of health I once understood, to be me at my best. That's a real surprise. I now believe that we don't need to get sick in our 60's and 70's. We can be healthy and well, until very late in life.

Nutrition is the Key

About 18 months ago, I was experimenting with my diet. I was forced into that by an allergic reaction to "me" I think. My immune system became over active, I had a rash all over my body, and it lasted for months. I tried all manner of dietary restrictions to try and find out what was causing it. Now I think, "none of those."

But, we had some success with gluten free, and it seemed even better if I was free of all cereals and flour.

Two years ago (2014) I discovered that there was something called a Ketogenic Diet, that was used for weight loss, and to help type 2 diabetics control their blood sugars.

I listened to Dr Tim Noakes explain all of the theory on a video. I was impressed, but that wasn't at all what I was intending to do.

However, encouraged by the rash I couldn't prevent, I ended up following the Banting Diet, promoted by The Real Meal Revolution. It's a really good programme, and that's why a year later, this web site exists.

A story I've been telling

I'm looking for people who need better weight control. People are inclined to dismiss the topic, because there was lot of nonsense told about weight loss in the past. Some of that officially sanctioned nonsense, from people who were supposed to be medical and dietary experts.

The Banting Diet, a real food diet, is based on the same new science as the New Atkins Diet. The Banting Diet makes no attempt to sell you a range of products to achieve your objectives. Shop where you usually shop. The Banting Diet is an educational and support programme, and I'm sure you'll be thrilled by the results.

But to succeed there's a good bit of unlearning most of us will need to do. You might ask why?

Remember that Dr Robert Atkins, promoted a diet similar to this in the 1970's. The medical authorities called him a quack, in some parts of the USA they tried to stop him practicing. That's because the authorities were convinced that a low-fat (to prevent heart disease) and high carbohydrate (to give you energy) diet, was the most healthy diet.

It's a long story, Nina Teicholtz tells it in 406 pages, in her book "The Big Fat Surprise." I'll give you the key understanding by telling you about only two studies. The first, the very famous Framingham Heart Study. Begun in 1948, intended to PROVE that a low fat diet, that was also a low cholesterol diet, was a heart healthy diet. Thirty, years later they reversed themselves on total cholesterol. Surprise one, people with higher total cholesterol suffered fewer heart attacks and lived longer than those with low cholesterol. How could that be? (See the next entry.)

The Framingham Heart Study

The Framingham Heart Study first identified high cholesterol as a risk factor for cardio-vascular disease. But 30 years later they reversed that idea. "Total Cholesterol" was NOT a good marker of heart disease.

However, by now the science had improved, and they were measuring HDL-Cholesterol and LDL-Cholesterol. HDL-Cholesterol was definitely protective of your life. So maybe, LDL-Cholesterol is "bad". For the last 25 years, statins have been issued to millions of people on the assumption, LDL-Cholesterol was "bad". That assumption is (most probably) wrong. The LDL-Cholesterol itself is harmless, and essential to your good health, but maybe the small dense particles it contains are harmful. Case not proven either way at the moment. (2016)

So after 40 years the Framingham study is producing lots of results, many of them highly confusing, and not what researchers expected. So they decided to design another study, a "Rolls Royce" study, with good controls, that would give better and more definite results than they could get from Framingham. They called it The Women's Health Initiative, and almost 50,000 post menopausal women were chosen to take part. The study was initially funded for 10 years, starting in 1991.

There were two groups, those on the recommended diet (low-fat high-carbohydrate, and low cholesterol), and those who could do what they liked. After eight years the study was stopped. Women on the recommended diet were dying earlier than those who were not. They also had more heart attacks. This result astounded researchers. They couldn't believe their own results, and so in 1998 the study was stopped. (The researchers had a duty of care to the participants.) Prior to this study, it had always been assumed the "everybody knew what a healthy diet was." Since the 1950's reducing saturated fat in the diet to protect against heart disease had been recommended. Researchers Nathan Pritikin, Dean Ornish and Caldwell Esselstyn all recommended some form of vegetarian diet. What was or wasn't a healthy diet was supposed to be self evident. The Standard American Diet Guidelines, reinforced that understanding.

The Women's Health Initiative, was supposed to prove the SAD was healthy, and protective against obesity, cancer and cardio-vascular disease. But the researchers careful and well controlled study, didn't show that. Apparently, what "everybody knows about diet" isn't self-evident after all. Confusion and controversy about how to report the results followed. Their results were delayed and not published until 2006. At that time they said, "The recommended diet has no health benefits," that is surprise number two.

After 1998, there was for the first time in 40 years and incentive for dietary research of a different nature. Key researchers were Dr Stephen Phinney, Dr Jeff Volek, and Dr Eric Westman, who together wrote the book giving "The New Atkins Diet" it's scientific backbone. To those three I add the name Dr Tim Noakes, a very well known expert in sports medicine and physiology in South Africa. Noakes, with Jonno Proudfoot (chef) and Sally-Ann Creed (Dietician) developed in South Africa, The Real Meal Revolution, and the Banting Diet, based on the latest dietary science.

Hot Cross Buns

Two years ago (2014) our household would have eaten perhaps four dozen hot cross buns in the month of April, and there are only two of us.

Last year we might have eaten two dozen or a little more. We were certainly thinking about reducing the carbohydrate in our diet.

A Hot Cross Bun - Forbidden

Last week Carolyn came home with 6 buns in a pack. They didn't look appetizing to me. However, I decided to try one. I sliced it open, buttered both halves, added a few sultanas, and indulged myself. Not quite; it was nice, but not as enjoyable as I anticipated. About 20 minutes later, I felt like I needed another one. That's the trap when you eat carbohydrates. You get a glucose hit, and as the glucose level in the blood falls you crave for more. It was easy to ignore that temptation.

Living in Ketosis

I've been living in ketosis for about five or six months now. The immediate thing you notice is that you are never hungry. I eat more out of habit than necessity. But we often have meals late, and many people in ketosis cut back to two meals a day.

For myself I notice that I don't crave carbohydrates or sweet things at all. But, I do crave things like a quarter apple, or half a nectarine. Very ordinary meals, vegetables and meat, look delicious on the plate. Much more so than my meals used to look. My body knows what it needs, and looks forward to that.

I'm not able to measure my output of ketones. It's too expensive at this time. However, with my daily intake of carbohydrates less than 50gm most days, I'm sure that I'm almost always in ketosis.

My homeostatic setting has changed. I'm not sure, but perhaps it's taken 3-4 months. I know that because now it's very easy to eat this low-carb diet, and not feel that I'm missing out on anything I really want to eat. Yet, if I do on occasion break the diet, I seem to get away with it. For instance at a birthday party. Everyone has to eat the cake. I've found that I can, and my system, which is not insulin resistant, is able to cope with the glucose spike, and tuck that glucose away, without reverting back to a glucose metabolism.

The longer I've been in ketosis the easier it gets.

Obesity and Diabetes Can be Avoided

Success and failure are driven by the same things, the situation you are in, how well you understand that situation, the quality of your knowledge, and how hard you are prepared to work.

With regard to our nutrition, we have often understood the undesirable situation we are in. How can we eat a more healthy diet? If the information about how to eat in a better way is faulty, no matter how hard we try, we will continually fail.

The Women's Health Initiative demonstrated that what's "healthy" is not self-evident. The SAD recommended since the 1970's has no health benefits. Science can demonstrate and even prove what doesn't work. But proving what the best human diet might be, is much more difficult.

Diabetes-epidemic-USA

Here is a very simple graph, that demonstrates how badly we are getting our nutrition wrong. The diet we have been encouraged to eat, works when we are young, but as we age it makes us carbohydrate intolerant. The more severe that is the fatter we get. Overweight, becomes obese, becomes type 2 diabetes, becomes many "illnesses" and early death. The CAUSE is the change in our diet. I believe because of the way supermarkets advertise and promote food sales. They want to SELL MORE, and they do so by feeding you misleading propaganda about what you should be eating.

"Everybody knows what a healthy diet is!" People I meet ALL believe they already know what a healthy diet is. If you KNOW, that forbids you looking for a diet that's better than the one you are currently eating. As the late Waldo Salt said, "You can only search for truth after you know you've lost it."

So if you believe you are eating a healthy diet, NOTHING anyone can say will convince you otherwise until you discover for yourself that your current diet is NOT healthy. IF you look honestly that evidence is often present, but people can't see it. If you are developing the symptoms of metabolic syndrome, in 20 years (or less) your faulty diet will make you fatter than you should be, older than your age, and sick with five or more "lifestyle diseases." You'll be permanently on medication from the time you are 70 until the time you die. The pharmaceutical companies will be overjoyed.

Old man in Poor Health

It need not be like that. We do not know scientifically, what the best long term diet is. But we do know, that 40 years of trying to prove that a low-fat high-carbohydrate diet is healthy has never succeeded. Better than that, the Women's Health Initiative, a study designed to prove how HEALTHY a low-fat high-carbohydrate diet was, after seven years was abandoned because the results clearly demonstrated that this recommended diet "Has no health benefits."

That's precisely the diet most people are still eating, claiming that it's a "healthy diet."

You can't begin to look for a better diet, if you believe that your present diet is healthy.

If you don't know what to look for, making that discovery will take you maybe 20 years, and by then you'll be old and sick and wondering why? Even so. At ANY AGE, if you transfer from a faulty diet to a better formulated diet, your health will improve. Improve quickly, in weeks and months, not many years. But over several years, the benefits will also accumulate.

I recommend that you join the Open Future Health, Banting Lifestyle Forum. This is a free, but public forum. It will allow you to slowly and quietly learn more about nutrition and to carry our some personal experiments for yourself. If there is a better diet, YOU have to discover it. That's an active learning process, nobody can give it to you, you have to earn it.

(Note: 2022) Alternatively, Join the Australian Group "Defeat Diabetes" led by Prof. Peter Brukner, and guided by Dr Paul Mason. This is a relatively new group, with clear objectives and tidy presentation. There is still a lot to learn, so don't mess about with the three month subscription, take the annual option.

My Own Quick Health History

Here is my own 30 year journey (50yrs to 80yrs) in five short paragraphs.

Edit: April 2022

Thirty years ago, (1992) at fifty I was a marathon runner, but although I ran 130km a week, you can see I'm already in trouble because of my diet. I'm too fat to run really well. My weight; 72kg. Marathon time just over 3 hours. Almost everyone in middle age is suffering the same problem, but they don't know it. I was proud of my fitness, but I was already becoming sick, and I didn't know it. I should note now that I had already been operated on to tie off painful varicose veins in my legs 4 times.

I stopped running because of knee problems. But I continued to eat my "healthy low fat diet" and I got quite fat. By the time I was sixty I weighed 94kg. My waist measurement was 104cm. Males in my family die before they are 80, I was exactly on course for that.

I'm a teacher, I know the recommendation to lose weight, calories in v calories out, eat less and move more. Over the next 10 years (2002 to 2012) I successfully reduced my extreme weight, mainly by eating less bread. At seventy I weighed 83kg and my waist was 96cm. This was a struggle. At seventy two, I learned from Dr Tim Noakes, in an online video, how to control my weight. He recommended a Banting low carbohydrate, high fat diet. This made sense to me but I didn't act on it. There are no prizes for what you don't do.

Sadly I'm not the only one. When given this dietary information, almost everyone either rejects it or procrastinates, at a time for action they do NOTHING. They waste two years or more, putting off the need to do something. Eventually you will get really sick, as I did.

When I got sick. My immune system attacked me, and I developed a severe rash that lasted for most of a year. We called it hives. I searched for a cause. Changing my diet was the key thing I could do. After a long searching process I found better health. Then I stumbled back to Banting. I lost weight, and resolved several other minor health problems. I expect I've also added 10 years to my healthy life-span. Not perfect but much improved, except the low incidence of background hives. (Late update: I now think part of the hives problem was anxiety. Of course I deny being anxious. "Not me." But when I work on this website, the problem diminishes. So the unfinished business here, is apparently part of that problem.)

The varicose veigns in my anckles also started to be troublesome again about 2010. My doctor warned me that I'd need to pay for private treatment in a year of two. Twelve years later my ankles are still fine (2022).

There's been a watch on my enlarged prostate since about 2012. Three biopsies; no cancer. A year ago (2021) I was unable to uriate properly, it was causing kidney problems too. Surgeons very successfully gave me a "rebore" so that normal urinary function has been restored. (Sounds awful, but not so bad really.)

I currently weigh 75kg, and my waist measurement is 92cm. I exercise, using an online app called "Fitify" that I've used for two years now (40 minutes most days). In the garage I have some weights, kettle bells and plates and a very basic bench. Not trying to lift anything very heavy, more looking to build strength with higher repetitions. I'm walking (8-10km), cycling (30km) and dancing (5 hours) each week. I've given away distance running in favour of trying to sprint. I use the 30-15 Intermittent Fitness Test developed in France by Dr Martin Buchheit. There is an 80 Metre straight line course painted on the footpath outside my home. I use it 2 or 3 times a week. Unlike my father and grandfather I fully expect to be alive and well at 90. Good health can vanish very quickly, emergenies occur. But the poor health most people suffer from was 20 or 30 years coming and can be avoided. Diet, Exercise, Sleep, Work and Social connection, are critical to health.

How to Begin Changing Your Life

First of all Explore the Open Future Health Website.

Our objective is a grand one. More years of healthy life. (10 to 12 years if you get this right.)

But it involves a long slow change; changing who you are now, AND who you are becoming.

To restore you to your best adult weight. To restore your ability to exercise in the process.

To help you to understand how that weight can be easily maintained, without hunger.

To make it possible for you to do difficult and strenuous things, and enjoy doing so.

To give you knowledge you can pass on to family members and friends.

If you really like what we are doing here, you might like to become part of the Open Future Health Team.

Please accept this invitation to join the Banting Lifestyle Forum on Facebook, so you can continue your own health journey. This is a free public discussion group. Where you can ask questions and get help from group members or the moderator's. Please use this link.

And also join the Facebook Group for Open Future Health website. This will help you keep up with changes in the Open Future Health Website. If you wish you can also engage in discussion there. Please use this link.

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