The truth? there's no secret.
I've been getting a LOT of queries with regards to my 'transformation', so I thought to put up some info here to share with friends and families.
Just sharing my experiences.. IF I CAN DO IT.. YOU CAN DO TOO!!
disclaimer - whatever i say here is just my own personal views. whatever you do, please check with your doctor first.
Great speech from Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple and Pixar at Stanford University Graduation ceremony... to encourage the graduates to pursue their dreams.
Don't miss watching this. I particularly love his 2nd life story - ..."...is to love what you do. if you haven't found it yet, keep looking, and don't settled..."
i.e.. if you want that six-pack, keep going.. and don't settled. ;)
Recently I was in a discussion with some friends, and the topic of interest was... Santan (coconut milk) is bad for you.. He actually goes to an extend explaining he lost some weight and dropped his cholesterol levels because he has been avoiding meals loaded with santan.
If you've been following me here, you know that I shall opposed to that - that I've always encourage anything that is close to it's natural form, real whole natural food is the way to maintain a good health... and coconut milk is one of nature most nutritious food! Yes it's loaded with saturated fat, but the good type of saturated fat, that we should be consuming it..!
Read this below article, it says it all. (thanks to my personal trainer Mike Geary for this).
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I've written many times in the last couple years about the mistaken beliefs in society about saturated fat and the false perception in the media AND with MOST health professionals that saturated fat is bad for you.
If you've seen in some of my articles, I've even showed you why saturated fat can even be GOOD for you in some cases, despite every health/fitness professional in the world just accepting the false belief that it's bad for you.
I have to say I was pleasantly surprised to FINALLY see a big name publisher have some guts to publish an article about why everyone in the world may be wrong about their beliefs about saturated fat.
I received my new issue of Men's Health magazine over the weekend (Nov issue), and they have a huge 6-page article in there about the faulty research in the past about saturated fat, and some new emerging research that is showing why it may actually be more good for you than you would believe.
I've got to give them credit... the article was VERY well researched and put together beautifully to summarize where the studies in the past have gone wrong, and why recent studies are showing that everyone may have been wrong for the last 5 decades about saturated fat.
I'd highly suggest you read the entire article if you can. If not, I'm going to try to give you a quick summary of the findings here since it was a long article...
First of all, did you realize that although doctors, nutritionists, fitness professionals, and the media all have told you that it's a FACT that saturated fats are bad for you, this "FACT" has actually never been proven!
It's actually not a "fact" at all. It was a hypothesis! This goes all the way back to a flawed research study from the 1950's where a guy named Ancel Keys published a paper that laid the blame on dietary fat intake for the increasing heart disease phenomenon.
However, there were major flaws to his study. For one, in his conclusions he only used data from a small portion of the countries where data was available on fat consumption vs heart disease death rate. When researches have gone back in and looked at the data from all of the countries, there actually was no link between fat consumption and heart disease deaths. So his conclusions were actually false.
Second, his blaming of fat intake for heart disease was only one factor that was considered. There was no consideration of other factors such as smoking rates, stress factors, sugar intake, exercise frequency, or other lifestyle factors.
Basically, his conclusions which blamed heart disease deaths on fat intake were really just a shot in the dark about what a possible cause may have been, even though all of those other factors I just mentioned, plus many others, may be the bigger cause.
Unfortunately, Keys study has been cited for over 5 decades now as "fact" that saturated fat is bad for you. As you can see, there certainly is nothing factual about it.
Since that time, numerous other studies have been conducted trying to link saturated fat intake to heart disease. The majority of these studies have failed to correlate ANY risk at all from saturated fat. A couple of them made feeble attempts at linking saturated fat to heart disease, however, it was later shown that in those studies, the data was flawed as well.
Do we actually have evidence that saturated fat may actually be good for you instead?
Well, let's consider a few examples...
Did you know that there are several well known tribes in Africa... the Masai, Samburu, and Fulani tribes... where their diet consists mostly of raw whole milk, tons of red meat, and cows blood? Despite their very high saturated fat intake, they display extremely low body fat levels, and heart disease to natives of the tribe is virtually non-existant.
Now most critics of this example will say that it must be related to superior genetics... however this is false, as when they studied tribesman who had moved out of their native lands and started eating more modern day diets, their blood chemistry skyrocketed with heart disease risk factors.
This is true of certain pacific island countries inhabitants as well. Several studies have shown that certain pacific island nations had VERY high intakes of total fat as well as saturated fat from tropical fats such as palm, coconut, and cocoa. Despite super-high intakes of saturated fat, these island natives were typically very lean and heart disease was virtually non-existant.
However, when researchers followed up with islanders that had moved away from their native island and adopted a typical western diet, the heart disease factors were through the roof.
In fact, did you know that although saturated fat intake does increase your LDL bad cholesterol, it actually increases your HDL good cholesterol even further, hence improving your overall cholesterol ratio, which has been proven to be more important that just total cholesterol level (actually total cholesterol is an almost useless number... inflammation is the REAL problem, but that's a whole different topic).
Another fact worth noting in favor of saturated fat...
Saturated fat is comprised of various different types... the 3 most common types are stearic acid, palmitic acid, and lauric acid.
Stearic acid is found in animal fat and cocoa in higher levels. Research continues to show that stearic acid has no negative impacts on heart disease risks. If anything, it's either neutral or beneficial. In fact, your liver breaks down stearic acid into a monounsaturated fat called oleic acid, which is the same type of fat that makes up most of heart-healthy olive oil. Bet you didn't know that!
Lauric acid is beneficial as well. Not only has it been shown to increase your HDL good cholesterol levels significantly, but it is also lacking in most Americans diet and has even been shown to have some powerful immune-boosting effects potentially. It is even being studied currently in HIV/AIDS research to help improve immune function in patients.
Tropical oils such as coconut and palm are the best sources of lauric acid.
Palmitic acid is the other main component of saturated fat and has also been shown to increase HDL good cholesterol to the same, if not greater extent than LDL bad cholesterol, thereby making it either neutral or beneficial, but certainly not bad for you.
So, if all of these researchers have tried so hard over the years to point the finger at saturated fat, but have continued to fail to show a correlation between saturated fat and heart disease risk, what are the REAL culprits for heart disease?
Well, here are the REAL causes of heart disease risk:
*Trans fats (artificially hydrogenated oils)...
*Heavily refined vegetable oils such as soy, cottonseed, corn oil, etc.(inflammatory inside the body, and typically throw the omega-6/omega-3 balance out of whack)
*Too much refined sugar in the diet (including high fructose corn syrup)
*Too much refined carbohydrates such as white bread, low fiber cereals, etc
*Smoking
*Stressful lifestyle
*Lack of exercise
*Other lifestyle factors
So why does it seem that so many attempts over the years have tried to lay the blame on saturated fat... do you think it might have anything to do with the muli-bil_lion dollar vegetable oil industry, which has taken over for cooking oils for what used to be mostly animal fats and tropical oils in decades past...
hmm... do multi-bill_ion dollar industries really have an influence on the way data is portrayed to the public? Of course they do! And don't even get me started on the cholesterol meds industry! Again, I digress.
I hope this article has opened your eyes about the truth about saturated fat and how you've been misled over the years.
The true FACT is that saturated fat is a neutral substance in your body, and even beneficial at times, not a deadly risk factor for disease. The REAL risk factors are what I listed above.
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Now, back to my friend story, he thinks he lost the weight is because he has been avoiding coconut milk - but I'm too very sure, he has lost it because he's more aware of what he's been eating - most of it is because he dropped the junk & processed foods.
I tell you right now, do that, and you'll see your fat will melt away. (i've written all over this blog the reason of it).
Alright! now, since we're on the topic of saturated fat, I don't want you to miss this great video from my favorite nutritionist... Isabel De Los Rios..
my take? drop the liquid sugar, no table sugar (sucrose) should be added to your drinks. The sugar in the fruits (fructose) is padded with fiber, that wouldn't spike the insulin level as high (so it's okay - but still practice in moderation). Sugar in our body (glucose) should come from it's natural form - from the carbohydrates that we eat, not from the added sugars to our food/drinks.
Controlling your sugar intake, ensuring your insulin level doesn't spike, allows you to control your hunger better..
This past week, I've started a new test on myself... I've started to EAT more!
why?
I've been getting way too many comments from my friends and family that I'm getting too skinny already.. some people commented that I overdo myself.... some say.. i'm getting too paranoid.. some even say. . i'm beginning to look haggard... :(
this is a recent pic of me (was out with my kids at a park)
As much as I wanted to achieve my last 2 pack (got 4 now) - and my goal to shed a few more bodyfat, perhaps I needed to fine-tune my method.
This is my new plan:
I started to load-up on food (healthy ones of course, but bigger portion that is) this is mainly to add the bulk, while continuing with my exercise to convert the energy (from the food) into muscles - i still would like to focus on complex carbs and going as natural as nature intended it - just that, the portion would be slightly more (extra pieces of chicken/fish, more eggs, more diary products, more nuts and seeds.. etc..)
I also need to change my exercise routine into a more heavier weights with low reps to shock the muscles into overdrive! while going slow on traditional cardio (running/cycling), but focusing on strength training cardio.
Allow me to continue this test, and I'll update you on how it goes.
sorry, slightly off topic -- but i would like to share something with you all here.. this is the most beautiful song that hit me recently.. it is in Arabic - and i do not know what's the meaning of it.. i just love the overall tune.. syahdu..
See this below, and be mesmerised with the beautiful tune..
Been wondering what's the meaning of it... took me a while (few weeks has passed..)... but i keep on searching.. and suddenly I've found it (it was right under my nose).. in malay version... see below..
Subhanallah!
Get the HadadAlwi'sI'tiroof in MP3 version!! (for your phone/pc/car)
