Articles

As a naturopath and health consultant specializing in human performance and clinical sports nutrition, I routinely engage with a wide variety of clients who express enormous variation in body chemistry, origin of descent, body composition and knowledge in health, fitness and nutrition. On a one to one basis, my initial goal is to determine their present functional health status and physical condition.

It’s not uncommon to think of lactic acid as an enemy. For decades we've been conditioned by teachers, coaches and personal experience to think of it as some kind of useless waste product; the cause of that “burning” sensation when you run fast or pump iron to complete failure. Of course almost everyone associates lactic acid with next-day muscle soreness, fatigue and stiffness.

Quick, in ten seconds or less, name the number one cause of stress. Smoking? No. Drugs and alcohol? Guess again. Divorce, aging or public speaking? Wrong. The most common cause of stress known is INACTIVITY… responsible for more disease and premature death than any other factor.

Ask a hundred gym members why they train and guess what they'll say? The overwhelming majority do it for the look. Sure, some will say it's for health; others will say it's because of how it makes them feel. A few even do it to improve their performance in sport or out of necessity for rehab or medical therapy. Others do it to burn off their habits of indulgence.

There are two forms of bodybuilding. The first is called Biological. It is the best, the original and commonly known as "natural". It is the form advocated by all bodybuilding associations, but seldom practiced by the world's best bodybuilders; in fact, there are NO natural bodybuilders at the very top of the competitive bodybuilding ladder, as in Zip, Notta, Zero, Diddly-Squat, NONE!

Almost everyone at one time or another has either experienced for themselves, heard of or seen someone else experience what is commonly known as a “side-ache”. It’s certainly well known to many parents who grew up with the same warning they now give their own children, "Wait an hour after eating before you go swimming, so you don’t get a cramp and drown."

Good question!!!! The term “Sports Nutrition” is social misnomer, because it implies a special kind of nutrition only for people who play sports. Granted, anyone engaged in sport is a candidate for such a reference but ‘sports’ in this context is generic and much broader in its definition.

Chi is the active principle of anything alive. Some call it "prana", the "force" or "Gaia", the underlying life force shared by all biological organisms. In orthodox biology what animates living things is perceived as nothing more than digitized complex information technology. Chi is the Chinese word used to describe "the natural energy of the Universe".

Knowing the glycemic response of food is just as important as knowing its micronutrient content, its caloric value and its acid to alkaline ratio. Successful body composition management relies on this knowledge, and for athletes, it is crucial to performance.