Naturopathic Solutions

I've mentioned before that I am involved with a great charity called 'Books In Homes'. It's a program where children at a disadvantaged school recieve 9 books of their choice each year. It all stems from the findings that the majority of those in prison come from disadvantaged areas, and have poor reading and writing skills. Books In Homes is all about getting thee kids interested in education, so they can make a better future for themselves.

Part of the program is the book giving ceremony, where the corporate sponsor, and a role model go out to the school and present the kids with their new books.

Well last week I was invited to be the role model at Doonside Public School. To be asked to do this was humbling to say the least, given that last year they had Michael O'Loughlan (Sydney Swans), and the Govenor General!

The coorporate sponsors for Doonside Public School are MainFreight, and they had 2 representitives from their company in attendance. It must be said that Mainfreight not only provide books at Doonside, but also at many other schools across Australia and New Zealand.

The assembly was formed and there I was standing in front of all those gazing eyes. The excitement in these kids were unbelieveable! I told them my story, about my achievements and how important education has been in my life. I explained how cool physics and biomechanics can be (Did I just say that!), and gave examples of how these subjects relate to the sports they enjoy playing. I then asked around the room, to see what they dreamt of being when they are older: teachers, archiologists, marine biologists, and captaining the Australian Rugby Team, were just a few. I remember being that old, and attending a school very similar. I really didn't want to sit back down!

The assembly finished and I was given a series of 'hi fives' as I left the assembly. We went back for some morning tea with the teachers in the staff room and I hadn't had a sip of my tea, when I was challenged to a game of handball by a group of students. I was warned that they were pretty good (and that the rules change very regularly :), but I remember being pretty good back in the day so took my suit jacket off and headed down to the 'arena'. There were 6 squares, with a line up of about 15 reserves, and apparently this is what it is like at every break. Well I held my own, but was certainly given a lesson by a couple of the older boys (Lol, 11 years old!).

The kids really seemed to love the interaction and I always had at least on standing next to me telling me their story, about where they're from, what they'd like to do in the future, or why they chose the books they did. We even had one of the more troubled students following the principal around asking a series of jokes from the joke book he had just recieved (yes, they were sick jokes, and yes I laughed at every one of them!)

I am being totally honest when I say it one of the best things I've done in years. I walked into that school thinking that I had few stressful situations to deal with during that week, but left with a whole new perspective. I couldn't get the smile off my face, and there was no event in my life at the moment that was even the slightest challenge. How could I think otherwise after seeing these kids, and the joy they had at just recieving these books?

Now I know these kids will go back to their normal lives, some probably have minimal love and supervision, or not even the essential 3 meals a day. But now they have these books, and I have no doubt that there will be some in that group that will one day look back on the Books In Homes program, and wonder where their life might've ended up without it!

I can't wait to go back!

  This NYT article by the well known health and fitness writer, Tara Parker-Pope, dissects the standard push-up.  Here are some highlights from the article.  Read the article in full here:

1. The push-up is a good barometer of overall fitness engaging muscle groups in the arms, chest, abdomen, hips and legs.
2.  The obesity epidemic has made push-ups more difficult to perform for the average American—pushing up all that extra weight is not easy.
3. The aerobics revolution has shifted emphasis away from maintaining upper body strength, which is not a good thing.
4. Lots of people can’t do push-ups, including for the reasons listed above.  Kids are failing push-up tests at an alarming frequency rate.
5. Being able to do push-ups is particularly important as we age as push-ups can provide the strength and muscle memory to reach out and break a fall, and it’s well known that falls can be debilitating for seniors.
6. People lose strength as they age but regular exercise enlarges muscle fibers and can mitigate the decline.
7.  A 40 year old man should be able to do 27 push-ups.  At age 60, the number is 17.

While the article focuses on the time honored push-up, it is really another wake up call regarding the importance of exercise in life and particularly as we age.  Let’s face, how many 60 year old men can hit the deck and crack out 17 push-ups?  Staying in shape confers huge health and lifestyle benefits as we age.  Push-ups are a good barometer of your overall fitness and should be part of any training program. 

Les Rice, the best tattooist in Sydney. Well I think so anyway!

I'd been looking to get a short sleeve on my arm for the past 2 years but had found it hard to find a good tattooist. Eventually I emailed Paul Braniff who is quite well known in the Australian tattoo scene. The only problem was he is based on the Gold Coast. Anyway, I was willing to travel if he could fit me in.

A few weeks after I sent the email I heard back from him telling me about Les and how he was just kicking off again in Sydney. You may have heard of the Rice name in tattooing as his father, sister, and brothers are all in the trade.

I would later learn that Les is also an award winning artist, last year winning the world's richest portrait prize, and this being a finalist in the Archibald Prize.

I had my first 3 hour sitting on Wednesday where I got the outline and shading done, and I'll be back in 10 days for the next stage. It's looking awesome so far and can't wait to see it with a bit of colour!

You can check out Les' work at: http://www.artintimidatinglife.com

Try and read this article on Vitamin D by the dean of health and fitness writers, Jane E. Brody from The New York Times.  She recaps the current thinking about the benefits and proper doses of Vitamin D.

Here are some of the key points from her article:

Many Doctors and researchers now believe that the current recommended daily allowances (RDA’s) of Vitamin D are too low. 

You can get your Vitamin D through sunlight, eating certain foods rich in D or through supplements.

Skin exposure to the sun’s UV rays (the same ones that cause sunburn) forms Vitamin D. 

Other sources of Vitamin D are fortified milk, juices and certain foods such as the oily fishes.  Some vitamins contain D, but not all.  Check your labels.

It takes a quart of fortified mild a day to reach the current RDA of 400 international units (IUs).

Researchers now believe that 700-800 IUs per day will significantly reduce risk of bone fractures

Animal studies show that Vitamin D reduces tumors.

Observational studies in people show that low levels of Vitamin D are linked to the increased occurrence of many types of cancer including breast, stomach, bladder, pancreas and uterus as well as Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and multiple myeloma.  A recent double blind study showed that those taking 1000 IUs of D had 80% less chance of cancer than those that did not.  Diabetes and MS have also been linked to low levels of D.

It is unclear what the maximum safe dose of Vitamin D is as reliable studies are rare.

Check your vitamin D intake today and read the Ms. Brody’s important article in full. 

This Med Headlines article describes a recent study involving lab animals who gained more weight when they were exposed to artificial sweeteners than to plain old sugar.

The study was performed by the IngestiveBehaviorResearchCenter at PurdueUniversityand compared weight gain in rodents who ate artificially sweetened yogurt to those who consumed sugar sweetened yogurt.  The sugar fed rodents gained less.  “The study surmised that by breaking the connection between a sweet sensation and high-calorie food, the use of saccharin changes the body’s ability to regulate intake.”

As the article points out, the obesity epidemic has continued in full force during the introduction of artificially sweetened foods into the food chain.

“The data clearly indicate that consuming a food sweetened with no-calorie saccharin can lead to body weight gain that would not occur if a person consumed the very same food sweetened with higher calorie sugar, the authors wrote.”

We previously reported on the possible link between diet drinks and heart disease here.