G'day UAC'ers. It's mid month and how are you tracking?
(I'm still in my target weight range and doing fine on maintenance).

Had another topic prepared too, it's "Food for thought - What bad advice have you seen?"

Modern media bombards you with ABC are good foods, XYZ are bad foods, etc. Even the news here has a "health and medical" reporter that often gets nutrition information badly wrong (at least against what my research has turned up).

Probably the WORST advice I have seen is the classic food pyramid. (The following is aimed at kids and is a DISASTER in the making).



The end result will be:



Excess processed carbohydrate consumption seems to be the root cause of the Western obesity epidemic. Sugar, and most flours (wheat, corn, etc..) are highly processed carbohydrate (most fibre stripped out). These are easy to over eat, calorie heavy, long shelf life, highly profitable and heavily subsidised (ever wonder where the push for the food pyramid comes from ).

Fibre is the antidote to the harmful effects of carbohydrate. Every natural carbohydrate occurs with fibre. Take fibre without carbohydrate, no problems, to taking fibre with carbohydrate (Whole fruits and vegetables), no problem. Take carbohydrate with reduced or no fibre, big problems (satiety not triggered, blood sugar spikes, longer lasting elevated blood sugar, ect...)

For *most* people, if you substantially reduce processed carbohydrate consumption (ie. put breads, cereals and potato on the top of the pyramid with sugar and soda), then weight will just fall off till you get into the healthy BMI category.

One of the effective methods for controlling Type II diabetes is no GPS (grains, potatoes or sugars). Tip: Anything that is reduced fat is usually higher in processed carbohydrate which you do not want.

Fat (except trans fat) seems to have been given a bad wrap too. Trans fat (hydrogenation of oil - fat from frying) sabotages the bodies ability to manage LDL cholesterol (the bad cholesterol). Fat does not metabolise directly into fats in the blood. It is broken down into fatty acids and glycerol. So eating natural fats does not seem to cause out of balance LDL cholesterol (and fatty deposits in the blood stream).

(I'll stop here, I could go on for weeks. I researched this for months reading hundreds of pub-med articles and trying to disprove my own assumptions).

What other bad advice have you seen?

Still in a funk, but slightly better than yesterday. I'm strongly suspecting it's TOM related. I've been on mirena now for almost 5 years but it's clearly wearing off. I think maybe I've just forgotten how bad some of these symptoms can be. I've been really struggling with fatigue and low motivation for several months now, and I'm wishing I had better tracked it to see if there's a cyclical pattern. Regardless, might be time to see the doctor again.

No exercise yet today, but I have a kickboxing class at 7pm. My trainer is the instructor, so not even a chance that I'll blow it off.
Haven't logged today, but so far eating what was preplanned.