Calling Out The BS Misinformation About Fat Loss

Posted on January 3, 2018September 2, 2019 by Andrew Orr

The reason I am writing this post is that I have had many people contact me about losing weight and getting healthy for their New Year’s resolution. It is that time after all.

But, I have also had some people close to me tell me they have diabetes and other health issues that could significant impact their health and shorten their lives. All of these people have completely preventable diseases and would not be there if their diet and lifestyle was in better shape.

It is that time of year again and it seems to be when most people tend to throw out the healthy habits and adopt some not so healthy ones. Many convince themselves that it is “OK” because it is just for a little while, but the truth is that this altered state of perception often leads into weeks and possibly months of overindulgence and bad eating habits. Then New Year’s Eve comes and people go on the roller coaster guilt trip of needing to be healthy to bring in the New Year.

While it may be OK to eat a few unhealthy things for the day of Christmas, having it every day over the festive season could turn into a nasty habit that could have long term implications on one’s health. Add in some alcohol everyday and all those bad carbs and the weight (namely fat) can pile on very quickly indeed. This could be especially true if excess fat is stored and the exercise stops and next thing you know that you have a years worth of fat to try and get rid of. Worse still, some people are eating like this every day and not exercising and putting on more inflammatory fat and not realising they are a ticking time bomb. These people then have a lifetime of fat to get rid of and that is not going to be an overnight fix by any means.

So many people always try to convince themselves that a little bit of this, or that, won’t hurt. That is absolute rubbish. Yes, a little bit of this and that won’t hurt if you have reached your optimum weight, got rid of all the bad fat around your body, and reached your health goals. Sure. But if you are already overweight, have excess tummy fat etc, yes, that little bit just set you back big time. Excess fat= inflammation.

Excess fat is also estrogenic and part of the reason obesity also unbalances hormones, causes inflammation in all the cells, decreases fertility, but also puts you at increased risk of many of the cancers we get as humans. We will talk about that in later posts.

Before you start making excuses and trying to plead your fat loss case, you might want to stop for a second and actually listen to some cold hard facts and from a qualified healthcare professional, not your next door neighbour pushing the next multi-level marketed shake diet scam. You need to put down your degrees in Dr Google and tell Dr Google to stick his fat loss advice misinformation where the sun doesn’t shine.

Excess fat and a sedentary lifestyle is going to cut your life short and also lessen your quality of life and increase your risks for other diseases that could cut your life even shorter. It is time to cut the BS (Bullshit) and tell it how it is.

On a daily basis I hear every excuse to why someone hasn’t been able to lose weight, or get their life back on track etc. I have heard it all. Even many of my fertility patients just don’t get that their current fat status is hindering their chances of healthy eggs, health sperm, and healthy embryos and having a healthy baby.

I have heard every excuse from “I go to the gym 2 hours per day and still can’t lose weight”, “But my diet is great and I still can’t lose weight”, “I’ve tried everything and seen everyone and still can’t lose weight” and so many other excuses.

Each time I hear the excuses start, the BS meter starts to go off and I feel the need to call people on their story they are living in. Sure, I get it is hard. Sure, I get the excuses. Sure I get it and understand the story being told to me. But seriously, nobody is going to do this for you.

People just need to take ownership and just admit that they are 100% responsible for their own body and now just need to take on the advice and just do it. You cannot keep blaming someone or something and keep shifting the focus off the one things holding you back, which is your self.

If someone is eating correctly (I mean eating a proper diet, not the one you have been conditioned to believe is healthy by clever marketing for big corporation), then you will burn fat and lose weight. You can’t out train a bad diet and you can’t lose fat if you are getting bad advice.

You won’t lose fat if you aren’t being honest with yourself and having chocolate, treats, biscuits, and drinking alcohol and all the other bad carbs along the way. One biscuit here and one piece of chocolate there, adds up to a crap load of sugar and fat storage in a week. Let’s not forget how alcohol is full of sugar and bad carbs and stores fat too.

Nine times out of ten it isn’t the diet that isn’t working for someone, it is the person not working and not doing things properly. Once that is sorted and proper adjustments made, plus moving the body at the same time, people will always lose that fat. They do when I am helping them.

The other big issue I see is people’s perceptions of what a good healthy diet consists of, or what they have been conditioned to believe is healthy. While this may not necessarily be their fault, once they have been told and don’t do anything about it, then there isn’t anyone to blame but self.

We also have the big issues in this country, and other parts of the world, with all of the unqualified wannabe health coaches (and bloody Dr Google) out there pushing the latest fad and not knowing what the hell they are doing and pushing it onto the unsuspecting masses who lap up the latest quick fix craze. We have also had years of indoctrination by cereal and bad food companies getting us to believe their sales pitch lies to boost their profits and keep us all sick.

Let me tell you one thing. There is no quick fix when it comes to fat loss. There is no magic pill, or magic shake, or magic supplement that is going to melt fat away overnight. People need to get that through their brains and start to be real about their expectations versus the reality of weight/fat loss.

It is called eating well, exercising and changing lifestyles, reconditioning the thought processes and learning to live life and love it at the same time. No shake, or quick fix fad, is ever going to replace a healthy diet and healthy lifestyle.

Those shake diets and quick fix fads only last a short time and while you are doing this and then once you stop, you rebound back to where you are. Don’t get me started on how those shakes etc are full of fillers, full of sugars and lack beneficial real nutrients and live enzymes. They aren’t real foods and they will never be real foods and we shouldn’t need to use them. OMG don’t get me started on what many people think are real foods.

One of the biggest issues with people not being able to lose fat is that their gut flora, or what we now call the Microbiome, is just not balanced and healthy and full of healthy bacteria. You can take multiple supplements and shakes and do copious amounts of exercise, but if your gut flora and Microbiome isn’t balanced and right, then nothing is going to work. If the Microbiome is balanced and healthy, then the rest of the body, the immune system and the mind will be healthy too.

Recolonising the Microbiome and balancing the gut flora is something I always start with when people are wanting to get healthy, and or lose fat. It is an absolute must to be able to reduce inflammation, get the digestion working properly, restoring the immune system, restoring optimum brain function, restore fertility and getting the body burning fat properly. Without getting the gut function working properly, nothing else will function properly either

You are all probably wondering why I use the word fat loss, instead of weight loss. That is because weight loss is not the goal to a healthy body. Fat loss is the goal. It is very easy to make someone lose weight, but the problem with most weight loss systems is that they make you lose muscle and body mass, not burn fat. So people lose the weight on the scales and the fat is left behind and then they rebound. It also leaves you a lighter person full of bad fat and full of inflammation that is still causing you to be unhealthy and have an increased risk of disease. You just become a fat skinny person and that isn’t good either.

We need to redefine the model of thinking around weight loss and start to re-educate people that we need fat loss to help the body become healthy. We also need to have a healthy Microbiome and healthy digestive system to achieve optimum health too. So no matter what your disease state is, your health goal is, or what you need to achieve to get your body back into optimum shape, gut health and a healthy Microbiome should be first and foremost.

Whether you want to lose fat, or recover from a disease state, or have a baby, fat loss and a healthy Microbiome are the integral key that you need to use to unlock your health and New Years goal. If you want to do fat loss properly, then book into a properly trained healthcare professional like myself, or a nutritionist and get your life and health back on track this New Year.

I know sometimes this may sound a little harsh, but it is from a place of caring and a place of wanting to give people the facts. We all need a wakeup call every now and then and sometimes there is no other way to do it but say it how it is. It is time to call people on their BS misinformation and excuses and let’s get the facts out there about what it takes to be healthy and what it takes to lose fat properly too.

Take care and here’s to good health this year

Andrew Orr

-Women’s & Men’s Health Advocate

-No Stone Left Unturned

Adherence to a Healthy Diet a Must For Fertility Success

Posted on June 24, 2017August 22, 2019 by Andrew Orr

Is it time you that you got your diet healthier to help assist you getting the baby you have been longing to have?

While eating a health diet isn’t going to be a miracle cure to having a baby, it may help you increase your fertility and chances of a healthy pregnancy.

Of course, there are so many other factors to fertility and proper evaluation and assessment is crucial, but research does show that by adherence to a healthy diet can increase pregnancy rates by up to 80%. (American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) 61st Annual Clinical Meeting: Abstract 96. Presented May 6, 2013.) + (Fertil Steril. 2012;98[Suppl]:S47)

It is well known that healthy couples produce healthy sperm and healthy eggs and healthy parents produce healthy babies. A proper healthy diet may also help assist with gynaecological conditions as well, alongside medical management.

When I talk about diet, I am not talking about it in term of dieting. I am talking about it in terms of the proper way to way. Diet is such a crucial part of my fertility program that has helped with assisting over 12,500 babies into the world.

So many people neglect a healthy diet and don’t try hard enough to adhere to it. Preparation for falling pregnant is just as crucial as preparing for a marathon. If you don’t put in the work, nutrients and the training, you won’t make the distance, or get a result.

It is so sad seeing people go through cycle after cycle and not doing anything to change their diet and lifestyle and then getting a failed cycle time and time again.

Of course their can be other factors to take into consideration as I said before. But, you can’t go into a cycle, or try to fall naturally, if you not eating properly, or if you are overweight, or underweight for that matter.

Medically we know that the risk of miscarriage, preterm delivery, complication etc is high in women who are either under, or overweight. (Lifestyle management before fertility treatment -Obstetrics & Gynaecology 2007;110:1050-1058.)

So many people think they have a good diet, only to find out that what they have been taught is not right. It isn’t their fault. Some people really just do not know what a healthy diet its either.

A poor diet that is high in High GI Carbohydrates causes inflammation and this has a negative impact on fertility. Inflammation is causes by high sugars, which then spikes your insulin and this causes the inflammatory response. This may also affect hormones as well.

High inflammatory response then causes oxidation which may then affect your egg and sperm quality and this may then result in damage to the DNA of the sperm and egg.

As I shared before, a healthy diet is a big part of my fertility program and those on the program then know what a good diet is supposed to be like. Yet we see many ignoring it and wondering what has gone wrong, or what else they can do.

One of the answers is, be good with your diet!

Close enough is not good enough in this case. It is all or nothing, because this is so important. This is about having a baby. But, while having a baby is one thing, we also need people to realise that a healthy diet is also important for living a long and healthy life long after baby has arrived.

If you are overweight, you need to lose weight and if you are underweight you need to put some on. Many people are looking for miracles and go looking for an answer that doesn’t exist, or blame something else, when the fix may be as simple as adhering to a healthy eating regime.

Again, obviously diet is only a small piece of the puzzle when it comes to fertility, but it is an important one at that.

There is so much medical research out there showing that adhering to a low GI diet and the diet I promote at my clinic and for those of my fertility program

The nurses study of 17,500 women showed that a diet with protein, full cream dairy, multivitamins and supplements, good fats etc increased fertility rates exponentially. (Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Nov 2007)
Harvard medical schools study on 19,500 women showed that having full fat diary increased fertility while low fat dairy decreased it by 85 % and had an anovulatory effect. (Journal of Fertility and Sterility Feb 2008)
A recent study in the Journal of Fertility and Sterility showed that diet increased embryo quality and pregnancy rates by as much as 80%. In a study presented at the American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) in 2012, IVF patients who switched to a low-carbohydrate, high-protein diet and then underwent another an IVF cycle increased their blastocyst formation rate from 19% to 45% and their clinical pregnancy rate from 17% to 83% (Fertil Steril. 2012;98[Suppl]:S47).

Even non-IVF patients with polycystic ovarian syndrome and endometriosis have improved pregnancy rates after making dietary and lifestyle changes.There are many other research papers out there showing this.

So if you are having failed cycle after failed cycle, or not being able to conceive naturally, you need to start looking at your diet and lifestyle as a major factor.

If you are overweight, or underweight, the same applies. An easy way to work out what weight should be (roughly), is take 100cms off your height and this will give you what you should be in body mass.

So if you are 165cms tall, then you should roughly be about 65kgs (give or take a few kilos).

All men should have a waist size of 94cm or below for good health, and all women should have a waist size of 80cms or below for good health. This is measured from the belly button around, not higher, or lower than this point.

If you are on my fertility program you should be doing this. If you aren’t and need assistance, then you can call my friendly staff and find out more about my fertility program.

I always tell my patients that the time for making excuses is over. If you do want to have this baby you have been longing to have, then you need to prepare the body as though you were about to train for a marathon. We always say that the ones that do everything right have a much higher chance of getting the results.

Is it time you got your diet and lifestyle back on track?

Take care

Regards

Andrew Orr

-No Stone Left Unturned

-Women’s and Men’s Health Advocate

-The International Fertility Experts

What Affects a Menstrual Cycle – Part 1 (Non Gynaecological Factors)

Posted on September 10, 2016August 22, 2019 by Andrew Orr

After my post on “What a Proper Menstrual Cycle Should Be Like”, I always have lots of people asking what the cause of their menstrual irregularities are.

Most of the causes can be broken into two causes being:

Non Gynaecological Factors– Meaning things you do, or may have done to exacerbate current conditions, or throw your cycles out of balance

Gynaecological Factors– Disease states such as Endometriosis, PCOS, Fibroids, Polyps, Adenomyosis, Cancers and other causes.

I’ll talk about the factors (Non-Gynaecological Factors) in people’s control so that they may be able to identify some of those things they may be doing on a daily basis to exacerbate current underlying issues, or just interfere with their hormones and lead to problems with their menstrual cycle.

These ones you can work on and be aware of in case your cycle isn’t regular, or your pain is worse in a month. This way you can look back and go “Oh….. Now I know why my cycles wasn’t so good this month”

I’ll talk about the Gynaecological Causes of irregular, or painful cycles in my next post. For now here are the Non-Gynaecological causes.

What Affects a Menstrual Cycle- Non-Gynaecological Factors.

Poor diet – Foods such as high sugars and junk foods all cause inflammation in the body and lead to hormonal irregularities and can exacerbate, or cause pain with the menses

Alcohol – Most alcohols contain high sugars and they also cause inflammation in the body. It also interferes with your hormones and affects the liver too. In Traditional Chinese medicine, it is believed the Liver governs the menstrual cycle and the Live also controls the emotions. Excess alcohol leads to SOL ( Shit on Liver) and thus the moods and cycle get affected.

Poor Sleep– Sleep deprivation leads to reduction in hormones such as melatonin, which is a precursor to serotonin and then effect the moods etc. Lack of sleep also interferes with the other hormones in our body too. Lack of sleep also stops the body from repairing and can lead to other health issues. We know that shift works do have a lot more disturbances with their cycles and also have lower fertility rates.

Trauma – Things such as surgery, a virus, cold/flu etc, or where the body has to repair, can lead to menstrual irregularities. The body shuts down the menses so that it can repair itself first. Emotional trauma can also cause the menses to shut down, or become irregular too.

Weight gain, or weight loss– It is a well known fact that many athletes do not get a menstrual cycle because of lack of body fat. The same goes for people who are over-weight too. Eating disorders can also cause irregularities and infertility. Too much or too little body fat interferes with your fertility. All your hormones are made from fats and protein.

Emotional Issues– Bottled up emotions such as anger & frustration cause blockages in the system & then cause pain. Emotional issues also cause problems with hormones. Emotions and stress are a major cause of menstrual irregularities. Bottled up emotions can cause SOL too ☺

Drugs/Hormones– Both pharmaceutical and recreational drugs can also cause menstrual irregularities and can stop the menses completely. Recreational drugs can also lead to permanent infertility.

Travel– Travelling over time lines and even just interstate can cause issues with your cycle too. The body has to cope with adjusting to different times zones, different foods and water etc and the pressures from flying can also throw the cycle out.

Hope this help explain a little bit more about how our diets and lifestyle can affect your cycles each month too.

If you would like to book in a consultation with me, please call my friendly staff, or using the automated emails system on the website.

There are options for online consultation for those that are interstate, not local, or those that live overseas. My friendly staff will be able to sort this out for you.

Next I will talk about the gynaecological conditions which can causes issues with your cycle. Stay tuned 🙂

Take care

Regards

Andrew Orr

-“Leaving No Stone Unturned”

-Women’s and Men’s Health Advocate

-The Endometriosis and PCOS Experts