The Optimise Health Blog

I have been on the diet for 12 days now. The last few days have become more challenging as I have begun to have some strange cravings - orange juice being one (which funnily enough I don't drink much normally) and I have needed some more variety than the trial diet period offers so have deviated from the diet plan a little to introduce some sustainability. My weight day 0 The scales don't lie and I cant believe how quickly weight has come off around my tummy. Both K and I have lost over 2 Kilos each - thats an average of a kilo every 5 days! I am running faster than ever but have noticed some muscle aches and twinges of cramps ( these are apparently common side effects when on a ketogenic diet due to lack of salt or dehydration) and K has continued to feel rough while I have only noticed the side effect of more mucus production when eating high cream recipes. We are both aware of how much carbs were part of our diet before, also walking into a supermarket you realis...

It's day 9 and as usual with diets mine came unstuck on a weekend away. We went to visit friends in Northern Ireland for a Christening party and had a lovely time but strict diet habits are hard to maintain in new surroundings and despite our hosts best efforts to feed us bacon and eggs, my willpower was lacking and I ate some food which was off diet (sausage rolls and trifle) and drank some white wine (a glass scores 1), narrowly avoiding a brush with high carb Guinness (a bottle scores 13) while watching the rugby! What was interesting is that my weight stopped falling, but didn't go back up. I have plateaued at 87.7 Kg. My fat content went up to 25.4% (probably due to alcohol) but my visceral remains at 9. What is more interesting is that yesterday I ran my usual 4k run into work almost 2 minutes faster than my normal time over recent months, without really having to try hard! All this means that high fat working as a source of energy for exercise is sustainable w...

This weight loss is crazy! I am not hungry and have good energy but my weight and my fat content are dropping and I haven't exercised since monday! More exciting is the fact that my visceral fat has already dropped to 9 - something which has only happened in the past when I am in final stages of triathlon training and going alcohol free. One challenge is cooking from fresh all the time - I have a great respect for my wife now as it is hard to cook when you have come in late from a meeting or work and you have to prepare food after the kids have gone to bed. Still the food prep is minimal and the food is delicious - last night we had salmon in chilli sauce with spinach sauteed in butter - really yummy. I also boiled some eggs for snacks and have prepared to make more snacks with bacon wrapped haloumi cheese. I can't get on with what the diet is calling "bulletproof coffee" which is coffee and butter and coconut oil whisked into a latte.. it just doesnt taste ri...

Weight already falling and fat content too! On day 1 I felt a little high in the morning at work, similar to the positive rush of excitement you get when you've heard good news of a new opportunity or had a success or booked that holiday you can now look forward to. I ran one of my fastest times into work and I felt good energy levels and liked how this felt. I didn't get hungry till later in the day thanks to a fry up breakfast and coffee with cream. I felt I could have gone without lunch, then around 14:30 felt a little hungry so ate last nights dinner for lunch as per the diet recommendation. Then I felt some low carb side effects as my digestion got to work, brain fog, lightheadedness and slight confusion so I drank a cup of swiss bouillon stock and this went away. I didn't feel hungry later in the evening until around 1930 (very unusual for me who feels hungry and has to eat every 2-3 hours). The food was delicious quick and easy to cook. I got "Keto b...

So I took the leap and signed up to a diet online created by a renowned doctor and backed up by some good evidence of effectiveness. I don't have shares in dietdoctor.com but wish I did! I had to buy the ingredients and prepare the fridge for my first week of high fat low carb diet. I had to weigh myself: I had to persuade my wife that this was worth it ( a work in progress) with the added bonus that I would do all the cooking.. I posted my resolve on facebook to set it in stone: I got an unprecedented response from my contacts as seen below it sparked interest and some debate:  and more comments and interest:  and yet more interest  :  - some comments and interest from health professionals and teachers - this has hit a nerve:   - some interesting comments about what we feed our kids (and my wife struggling with the side effects which I luckily didn't have quite so badly!) So how is ...

I have been looking into nutrition and diet information and body composition since 2011. My aim was to learn about, blog and apply to myself the best advice for daily life, disease prevention and performance in endurance exercise with good  weight maintenance  and the optimum body composition. This article will be  salted with links  to previous articles you can click on to see what I have found so far. I have always struggled to keep my body  weight  in check and as a muscular man have found my BMI is always in the overweight range and I had an  XL mindset , my body fat and visceral fat had also been high, unless I am in the final 12 weeks peak training for a Triathlon running up to a race. We know that  exercise is key in maintaining health  and wellbeing, but is weight loss solely "you are what you eat?" If you read back in my blog you will see tips on weight management and diet have always been a subject I blog ...

In the British Medical Journal (BMJ) this week there is an article about excess weight and cancer risk.  With an estimated 62% of the UK adult population being classed as overweight, d octors have been concerned about people being overweight for some time. This article highlights grave reasons for concern other than heart disease.   This weeks BMJ literature review covers many different academic papers, asking the question " what is the strength and validity of evidence for an association between being fat and risk of developing or dying from cancer"? After a rigourous review of the evidence, t he article showed strong evidence for association with obesity in 11 cancers. The commentary the article explains that there is a clear association between  developing cancer and  high BMI or high abdominal circumference. It seems that being fat increases the risk of most digestive system cancers as well as uterus and postmenopausal breast cancer.  ...