Summer is on the horizon, people are beginning to do their Christmas shopping (already), and attention is going towards “looking great for Summer.”

This annual health bandwagon continues to get bigger and bigger each year as our obsession with looking good and avoid the scourge of being overweight intensifies.

However after recording this episode of 100 Not Out with my great mate, chiropractor and naturopath Damian Kristof, I’ve learnt that the idea of overweight, or the idea of losing weight, is no longer at the top of the list.

I asked Damian, “what questions are people asking you when they come in at this time of the year?” His answers may surprise you. 

IT’S NOT “WHY AM I OVERWEIGHT?”

  1. What is making me bloated?

  2. Why am I so tired?

No mention of being overweight! He answered both questions in detail, so I’ll let you listen to hear what he had to say about fatigue (fascinating!). What he said about bloating really got me thinking about what my own family eats. Here’s just some of what Damo had to say –

“A couple of years ago it used to be that people wanted to come in and lose weight. These days people are more concerned about their bloating. People are trying to work out what foods, or what bacteria they are lacking in, which may be causing their bloating.

“I don’t think people are as concerned about the couple of kilograms of body fat they have on them, as much as what they are about their bloating. People are describing themselves as looking (and feeling) three, six or nine months pregnant at the end of the day.”

SLOW COOKED FOODS

Damo referred specifically to the winter months and our newfound penchant for slow-cooked foods as a contributing factor to feeling below average.

“People are bloated and tired for a number of reasons. Firstly, they’re bloated because they’ve been digesting a lot of heavy foods and heavy starches, and not necessarily the resistant starch. And they may not have been eating much fruit.

And I know people are scared because fruit has sugar in it and that might kill them (joking!), (however) fruit contains lots of different sugars and starches – like fructooligosaccharides that allows our bacteria to grow in our gut. And it’s bacteria in our gut that manufactures our B Vitamins.”

LIKE LINKS IN A CHAIN

Did you just see all the links of the chain here? This fascinated me as I listened to Damo reel this off as this isn’t the type of information our health practitioners are easily communicating to their clients.

Is it any surprise that the most exceptional cultures in history had a diet rich in foods that were in or close to their natural state.

I know people are scared because fruit has sugar in it and that might kill them (joking!), (however) fruit contains lots of different sugars and starches … that allows our bacteria to grow in our gut.

– Dr Damian Kristof, Naturopath & Chiropractor

I’m interrupting Damian here (whoops), back to his words of wisdom –

“So If we don’t have the right carbohydrates going into our body – and a lot of that comes from grain, and the skins from fruit and the sugars in fruit and raw vegetables. If we don’t have that then we can’t manufacture our own B vitamins, so we get adrenally stressed, fatigued, etc. We rely on caffeinated beverages, and we are bloating, because our bacteria don’t have the opportunity to survive and thrive as much as what they should.”

So there’s two of our problems, fatigue and bloating, occurring as a result of having that heavy, overcooked food that we’d otherwise have in Winter.”

So there you have it. Just like our parents and grandparents told us growing up – eat your fruit and vegetables! And more vegetables than fruit, but not an overt guilt-laden attachment to fruit! I repeat – it’s OK, in fact healthy, in fact essential, to include fruit in your diet! If you have any doubts just go back and listen to this episode or re-read this article.

To your exceptional health and life!

Marcus

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