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Most people know that Fish is good for your health but probably don’t appreciate how it will help protect you from most of the major lifestyle diseases that are so widespread today or actually eat anywhere near enough. Today I want to give you a summary of why you MUST eat more fish and what the best way of doing this is.

The average diet is severely lacking in Omega-3′s

“I eat cereal for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch and a healthy dinner (e.g. chicken. vegetables and rice) or takeaway in the evening – surely I’m doing okay?” Unfortunately you’re not – this is what most people are doing and if you eat like this you’ll be severely lacking in Omega-3′s in your diet. Omega-3′s are essential fatty acids (found in wild fish) and essential fatty acids are fats that our bodies need but can’t manufacture. The other main essential fatty acids are Omega-6′s which are far too abundant in our diet because of all the processed grains, vegetable oils, margarine and grain-fed meat that’s consumed. If you regularly eat out at restaurants or take-away food then you’re food is guaranteed to be cooked in oil that is high in Omega-6′s and this causes real health problems.

It’s estimated that our hunter-gatherer ancestors had a ratio of Omega-3 to Omega-6 of around 1:1 but that today the average person gets only 1:14 (and some people 1:25) and this causes real issues – this is because Omega-3′s reduce inflammation in the body, and most Omega-6 fatty acids tend to promote inflammation. All of the major lifestyle diseases today (e.g. heart disease, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, arthritis and even cancer) are inflammatory in nature and its thought that this imbalance between Omega-3′s and Omega-6′s is a major contributing factor.

How you will benefit from eating more fish

By eating more fish (and reducing our Omega-6′s by cutting out on refined vegetable oils) we can really help to balance the ratio of essential fats in the body. As well as reducing the risk of heart disease, clinical evidence supports that this will benefit many health issues including:

cholesterol levels

high blood pressure

diabetes

rheumatoid arthritis

lupus

osteoporosis

depression

bipolar disorder

schizophrenia

ADHD

Cognitive decline

Parkinson’s disease

skin disorders

Inflammatory bowel disease

Asthma

Macular degeneration

Menstrual pain

Colon cancer

Breast cancer

Colon cancer

Omega-3′s are also incredibly important for the development of children’s nervous systems and brains so if you have children then you must go out of your way to give them lots of Omega-3′s.

What’s the best source of Omega-3′s?

Dietary sources of Omega-3′s include wild fish (the best source by far!), grass-fed meats, free-range eggs and nuts and seeds (especially flaxseeds, walnuts, chia and pumpkin).

The research seems to suggest though that the Omega-3′s from fish and animal sources (called EPA and DHA) are best for the body. This is because the simpler forms of Omega-3′s found in sources like flaxseeds (ALA) have to be converted into DHA and EPA in our bodies before they’re used and we’re really not that good at it (one study suggests that only 1% of ALA consumed is converted into DHA or EPA). Nuts and seeds are also naturally high in Omega-6′s so consuming them doesn’t help balance the ratio of essential fats.

Are all fish equal?

A fish is only as healthy as the diet it’s been eating and a lot of fish available today is farmed. Unfortunately commercial farming pressures mean that some farmed fish (particularly salmon) are fed really poor, unnatural food and then treated with antibiotics to stop them getting sick from these dodgy practices. It’s therefore far better to eat wild fish.

There’s also lots of talk about how the larger ocean fish are higher up the food chain and therefore contaminated by heavy metals such as mercury and generally its advised that the best sources are the smaller wild varieties like wild salmon, anchovies, mackerel, sardines, snapper and bream. More recent studies suggest however that most large fish also contain high quantities of selenium which binds to mercury and stops it causing damage in our bodies – so tuna is back on the menu (sword fish is still off though as it’s low in selenium)! Canned fish like wild salmon and anchovies are also good options although fresh fish is always better!

Consider a fish oil supplement

If you really struggle to eat enough fish then you should seriously consider taking a good quality fish oil. Although its always better to eat the wholefood, this can help address the balance of fats in your diet. Its important to note though that Omega-3′s can go rancid and this can cause other problems in the body so make sure you go for a high quality fish oil, that’s mercury tested and keep it in the fridge if you live in a warm climate.

A client of mine recently put me on to a great site called iherb.com where you can buy good quality fish oil at decent prices. Check out the Nordic Natural Salmon Oil here

Krill oil has been shown to be an even more potent source of Omega-3′s than fish oil. This looks fantastic although the only hesitation is that all the research has been carried out by the main supplier – Neptune!

How much should I eat?

The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends eating fish at least 2 times per week.

For adults with coronary heart disease: The AHA recommends an Omega-3 fatty acid supplement (as fish oils), 1 gram daily of EPA and DHA.

For adults with high cholesterol levels: The AHA recommends an Omega-3 fatty acid supplement (as fish oils), 2 – 4 grams daily of EPA and DHA.

For adults with high blood pressure, scientists generally recommend 3 – 4 grams per day, but you should only take under the supervision of a health care provider.

Precautions:

Because of the potential for side effects and interactions with medications, you should only take dietary supplements only under the supervision of a knowledgeable health care provider.

So make sure you go out of your way to eat more fish – it’s a great way to increase your chances of a happy, healthy, long life!

I thought you might enjoy reading about my morning yesterday, and I trust that it may resonate with you on one or more levels… I had planned to do a quick intervals session after the school drop off and as yesterday was a working day I was focusing on getting the boys and I out of the door as early as possible.

And then... It started to rain.

Now I’m as human as you are – the idea of going out into the chilly morning and getting wet voluntarily did not appeal at ALL.

So, by the time I had dropped my boys off I had successfully talked myself out of doing any exercise that morning.

Instead I convinced myself that I would do it ‘later’, which, quickly translated, meant probably not at all as I have a tendency on working days to get so absorbed in what I’m doing, whether it’s working with clients or creating new materials that school pick-up comes WAYYYYYYYYY too fast…

And then a little voice in my head said…” Just Do It”. “Come on! Just Do it!”

And I had to listen to that voice because I know it knows its stuff.

- It knows for example that studies have shown that when people have an intention to exercise in the morning it is far more likely to happen, as otherwise other things easily get in the way.

- It also knows that exercising in the morning sets you up for being far more relaxed, effective and better able to focus for the rest of the day.

- It also knows that simply getting some movement into my day, whether it’s some fast and slow walking, or lunges, or pushups will make a significant different to my body weight, shape and tone.

- That voice also knows (bl**dy know-it-all) that I was focusing on everything that could put me off – the chill, the wet, how I perhaps would have to rush to my client session – and that what you focus on is what you get. To the exclusion of everything else.

I certainly wasn’t focusing on how awesome I would feel afterwards, on how great I could feel for the rest of the day that I had done my exercise session and was moving towards to my ultimate goal for my body and my health! So, I decided to shift my focus. To what would work for me, rather than keep me stuck and still.

And I got out there and I just did it.

And I felt FANTASTIC! I had some cool tunes on my iphone and the rain, rather than keeping me cold, kept me comfortably cool as I exercised. I FELT ALIVE!

AND a few hours afterwards, I was still feeling the effects of being more effective, calm and positive having all those endorphins flowing through my body…

So, next time you’re talking yourself out of it (really? even though it may only take 15 minutes? even though you don’t even need to leave the house to do a 15 minute circuit?), maybe you’ll hear MY voice, saying Just Do It!

And if you’d like our help in creating a compelling vision for your body, as well as the plan to make it happen, check out our Valentine’s Offer to lose 5 kilos in 5 weeks!

To your health and vitality,
Amber

p.s. when you really don’t know what to do but want to do something exercise-wise for your body, do a squat hold against a wall or a pole. This really is a ‘do-anywhere’ exercise! Here’s a pic I just took (I’ve just realised how long my toes look… but ignore that… although Alex has just said that it looks like I have feet like Bilbo Baggins… hopefully less hairy…). Keep your thighs parallel to the floor and your knees at right angles and hold for as long as you can – build up to at least a minute, do it a few times a week at least and you’ll have strong and toned legs before you know it! (NOTE: Do not do this exercise if you have high blood pressure or are pregnant.

If you watch the popular weight loss programs you might be under the impression that to lose weight you really need to adopt a “No Pain, No Gain” philosophy towards exercise or you won’t get the results that you want – but I want to show you that it’s an absolute myth and that we can get much better results by simply swapping extended cardio sessions for moving more throughout the day!

Current research now considers aerobic exercise a really weak method of accelerating weight loss. A recent one-year study from Stanford University found that 350 men and women, who did 3-5 aerobic exercise sessions per week lasting 30-40 minutes each, improved their fitness but had no significant weight loss. This isn’t surprising when you consider that the amount of energy that you burn when you perform aerobic exercise really isn’t that much – you might feel great when you’ve worked up a sweat running for 20 minutes, but you’ve probably only burnt off the equivalent calories of a small glass of wine (isn’t it smarter to drink one less glass of wine?).

The other problem with extended cardio is that after the session people then tend to eat too much because they feel they can get away with it or that they have earn’t a treat. So unless you plan on running a marathon each day (which will stress your body and age you quickly!), and you have strict discipline that will keep your food consumption right down, you’re never going to make much progress relying on aerobic exercise to lose weight.

So what’s a smarter way to lose weight? If you really want to get great results and to get rid of unwanted kilos, it would be much wiser to put your focus on to eating right (we’ll talk about that another time) and to just moving more throughout the day.

We only have to look at people in Asia to see that this works. Outside of the modern cities it’s incredibly rare to see someone doing an intense cardio run down the street and yet these same people, who also eat a stack of high-calorie white rice, have so few problems with their weight. This is largely due to the fact that even though they eat rice the rest of their diet is pretty unprocessed and their lives are also so much more physical and they often walk or bike ride everywhere. Compare that to us – as well as eating highly-processed food we also have very little physical movement in the day. We drive to shops, drive our kids to school, drive to work, take lifts and escalators instead of the stairs and we don’t even need to get out of our seats any more to change the TV Channel!

We’d therefore recommend going back to basics and to simply grabbing any opportunity you can to walk. Humans have evolved to be active – it’s estimated that our caveman ancestors would have walked for hours each day just looking for food and shelter. Most of their movement was long, slow and of a low intensity and occasionally they would expend a short burst of high intensity effort – lifting a heavy object to build a shelter, throwing a spear to catch some food or climbing up a steep hill. Today many of us struggle to notch up even a couple of kilometres and addressing this movement deficit is one of the most effective ways to improve your health.

Walking is an incredibly powerful tool that, when used regularly, will have a massive impact on your health and energy levels. It’s also very enjoyable – especially if you do it with friends or family. Even though you’ll burn less calories doing this than more intense cardio – the difference really isn’t that much and it will leave you feeling energised rather than drained. Walking also tends to suppress your appetite rather than stimulate it so you’ll be much less likely to sabotage yourself after your session by reaching for that snack or treat.

So how do we go about walking more? Here are a few suggestions:

• leave the car at home and walk to the shops;

• walk to work or get off your bus/train early and walk the rest of the way;

• walk your children to school (this encourages them to be active too!)

• climb up stairs instead of using the lift;

• start or finish your day by going for a walk in the park or around your neighbourhood with a friend; or

• instead of walking you can also use biking, swimming, dancing and playing with the kids as good movement alternatives.

Some people like to wear a pedometer to monitor their general activity. If you do wear one then aim for an absolute minimum of 10,000 steps per day.

On a later blog I’ll talk about how you can also get huge weight-loss benefits from the short, high-intensity workouts that our ancestors carried out (aka strength training and intervals!) but for now get out there and walk and you’ll feel fantastic for it!

If you enjoyed reading this then you’ll love our new Equilibrium Program for effortless weightloss, stress relief and abundant energy which is coming out on 1st March!

Most people know about overwhelm.

In fact, most people are best mates with overwhelm because they hang out with it often. Trouble is… overwhelm is crappy company. Now I’m pleased and relieved to say that I don’t do overwhelm even a fraction as much as I used to, because I used to be a bit of an expert at it.

And there’s a reason I say ‘do overwhelm’.

Because it’s not something that happens to us. It’s something we do. To ourselves. Totally self-inflicted.

In fact, I can even teach you how to ‘do’ overwhelm, because there’s a tried and tested strategy that I’m pretty sure you’ve used yourself … maybe more than once if you’re reading this… It goes something like this:
Step 1. Think of everything that you possibly have to do or how ‘big’ the situation is.
Step 2. Think about how you can’t possibly get it all done right now or all the ways in which it could go wrong.
Step 3. Fall into stressed and/or paralysed and/or soggy mess.
Step 4. Ta-da! Overwhelmed.

So let’s nip this in the bud. Let’s stop doing this horrible thing to ourselves!

Here are 4 tips that can assist you to overcome overwhelm every time (unless of course you like it so much that you want to keep doing it? Hmmm… I didn’t think so):

Tip 1. Get It All Out
Often overwhelm can hit (after you’ve done those key steps) because your mind keeps jumping between all the things that you’re mentally keeping track of and thinking are urgent and important, or all the important aspects of a certain situation, and there seems to be so many of them!

Write everything out on a piece of paper, so you can mentally de-clutter, and have an objective look at what you’ve listed. I was speaking to a client earlier this week who did exactly that because she was feeling so stressed and it actually made her laugh – it was simply ridiculous the amount she was thinking she had to get done in a certain time period! Ask yourself:
1. What is urgent and must be done today (not what would I like to get done today)?
2. What is urgent and when does it really need to be done by (not when would I like it done by)?
3. What can I plan for right now?
In most cases those three questions will give you clarity and direction, as well as a plan for getting a big chunk and certainly the most pressing things dealt with.

Tip 2. Get Some Perspective
Sometimes simply asking yourself whether what you’re stressing about will matter in 1 year or 5 years’ time can be a real leveller. It’s easy to blow things out of proportion when everything else seems to be falling in your lap and quite often we’ll work ourselves into a state about stuff that is really… just ‘stuff’.

Tip 3. Get Some Air
This is a really good one, although it can often be a challenge to do because we’re either wallowing in overwhelm and therefore feel disinclined to do anything (notice the irony here?) or we think that if we take time away from being able to ‘get things done’ that we’re wasting time or being ineffective.

The reality is that getting out for a quick walk around the block or 10 minutes of deep breathing on the deck will, if you spend the time simply focusing on the sounds around you (people chatting, children playing, traffic, bird calls and so on) or on your breathing, quieten your ‘monkey brain’, giving your mind a well-deserved rest. Even better if you do a longer session with some movement (research has shown that exercise is the most powerful method to reduce stress as it deals directly with our primal ‘fight or flight’ stress response). You’ll then be better equipped to re-enter your situation with more detachment and the ability to think more clearly, as well as feel more energised about taking action!

If you’d like to join some scheduled classes, check out PrimalFit’s latest fitness timetable here!

Tip 4. Get A Purpose
If we’re focusing on all of our choices, or on everything we have to do or on the intricacies of a potentially stressful situation then we’re getting lost in the detail and the action, and focusing on what we fear or what seems ‘hard’. Shifting our focus to ‘the big picture’, to what we want to achieve, or how we want to feel, or what a successful outcome is going to give us puts a completely different and non-overwhelming spin on things, enabling them to feel fun, inspiring, exciting, challenging or anything else that we’d rather feel than overwhelmed.

So if you have a project or presentation that is occupying your every thought, focus instead on the impact that you want your contribution to make overall, or how you want to engage and connect with your audience in order to educate or create positive change perhaps, and how you feel about achieving that outcome. If seemingly endless home duties are ‘doing your head in’, focus instead on how these things enable you to look after and nurture the people you love most, and how knowing that makes you feel.

I’d love to know how you get on with these tips, and if you liked this then you’ll love our Lighten for Life 10-week online program that removes the overwhelm and gives you all of the nutrition, exercise and mindset tools you need to get the body, energy and fitness you want! Register here before Monday 20th February for our current special offer!

To your health,
Amber

If you’re familiar with the PrimalFit philosophy then you’ll know that we don’t subscribe to having to live like a monk to get healthy! We believe in 80/20 living – if you do things right 80% of the time then you can enjoy some treats (like alcohol) and still get great results.

So you might be wondering, if this is the case, why we need a dry February – surely its better just to drink in moderation? Well the chances are that over the last few weeks, with holidays, Christmas and New Year, you were treating yourself considerably more than 20% of the time. So it’s now time to get back on track and to even things up a bit!

February is the shortest month of the year and using this month to give your body a break from alcohol is a great way to recharge your energy levels, lose a few unwanted kilos and to give the body a well-earned detox!

So the challenge is to go alcohol-free for the month of February. Now, it’s highly likely that you have some big event to attend this month e.g. a best friend’s birthday or a wedding etc so to account for this the challenge will allow for one alcohol evening/day to be used when you most need it.

How do I enter the challenge? Now I believe that to give yourself the best chance of succeeding with a challenge that it’s really important to show some commitment and to create a bit of pressure on yourself. So, I’m proposing that to take up this challenge you email me to show your commitment and then you make a donation of $20 to the Umbrella Orphanage (this is a fantastic charity that looks after disadvantaged children in Asia’s poorest country, Nepal that we’ve supported for a number of years). You can find out more about Umbrella and make your donation here – http://www.umbrellanepal.org

If you make it through February without drinking alcohol (apart from your one permitted evening) then you don’t need to make any further payment (although you may choose to!). If you don’t reach your target then you agree to donate an additional $50 to Umbrella.

The challenge starts on Thursday 1st February. If you’d like to sign up then please email alex@primalfit.com.au by Tuesday lunchtime.

I hope you decide to take part – it’s a great way to start the year, to get into shape and to help a fantastic cause!

To your health!

Alex

We all lead busy lives and sometimes it can be a struggle to find time to exercise, especially if you have kids – today I’m going to show you an easy way to create some extra time so that you can exercise and have fun with the children and that’s through our park circuit. This will tone and strengthen your body and boost your metabolism to help you reach or maintain a healthy body weight. I explain everything in the short video below!



To summarise:

1. Row/Pull Up (10-15 reps)

2. Squat (wall/pole/normal/weighted/with push, 10-15 reps)

3. Push Up (knees/normal/weighted/swing, 10-15 reps)

4. Lunge (stationary/step-back/bulgarian, 10-15 reps)

5. Dips (knees bent/normal/leg lift, 10-15 reps)

Repeat above 2-5 times with rest of 90 seconds in between circuits

Cool down with Plank/Jack Knife

Remember to always ensure that your children are safe and have fun!