Un-educated comments that drive me INSANE!

Happy Australia Day everyone! I hope you had a good one.

I spent my morning wrecking my legs at the gym. It was great to see SO many people training and putting their health first today.Whilst i was on the leg press, there were these two male bodybuilders training next to me. One said, "Geez we must be crazy training here whilst everyone else is sun-baking at the beach!" And i chimed in, "Well at least we probably look better than most of the people sun-baking at the beach!" And he said, "Now thats the right attitude to have!". Anywho it was nice to be around very motivated people this morning.

Now to the title of my post. So over the past couple weeks i've been in brief conversations with people about food and training that i have been dying to blog about. As you will read, the following comments drove me INSANE!

I bumped into a really lovely but overweight lady from my gym at Woolies the other day. I had my basket filled with the usual greens, some apples/bananas, chicken. tuna and PB and after a few sentences into the conversation she says, "Wow, your basket looks a lot healthier than mine!" As i peered into her trolley all i could see was white bread, chips, dessert, biscuits etc...basically JUNK! And before i had a chance to say anything, she says, "Well you know its back to school next week so i need food for the kids!" And before i could say anything she says, "gotta fly i'll see ya at gym!" Now what i wanted to say was, "that's not food, that's poison!"  Well honestly it was. Roll-ups, tiny teddies and poppers are the last thing you want to be giving your kids at school. Its a wonder why Australia is now the fattest nation in the world. Thats right, we have knocked the US right off their platform. Eating in this matter is teaching kids bad habits from day dot. If this lady doesn't change her tune, in 10 years time her kids will be in her fat shoes too!

I was speaking to another overweight lady and we got onto the topic of cereals. And this is what she told me, "So i think its important that i make sure the kids have more fibre in their diet." And i said, "yes, that is very important." And she says, "Well its good to see that Cocopops have added more fibre per serving. So i'm not worried about the sugar content any more, at least their bowels will be moving!" I just about died in horror! And before i could get a word in, her mobile started ringing so i had to say goodbye. You'd get more fibre from eating a stick of celery than a 30g serving of Cocopops! And who btw would eat only 30g???

There is so much mis-information in the world right now! AAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHH!

And then to top things off:

So i went for my afternoon walk the other day and stopped to have a chat with one of my neighbours. Now picture this, a big guy, 6ft 2, possibly 120kg, early 60s, with a ciggi and a 4X in his hand. Nice fella though, i've known him for most of my life. We got into a conversation about training and he says, "Now love, don't you go lifting really heavy weights cos you know what will happen when you stop?" And i said, "no, tell me." (cheeky cheeky!). He says, "Your muscles will TURN to fat and you'll end up big like me!" I was going to give him back some constructive criticism but realised it really wasn't worth my breath so i just said, "Oh really, i'll keep that in mind!".  And went home.

Seriously people, muscle and fat are two different types of tissue. Muscle can grow and it can shrink, same with fat. They can't turn into each other. You grow your muscles whilst lifting weights, if you stop for a period of time, they will shrink. Just like mine did. If you sit on your arse for 3 months and all you eat is chocolate and coke i can just about garantee that your body fat will grow...a lot! ( Though Bec, you are my one exception in the whole entire universe. You are the only person i know to have done that and lossed 40kg!). Think of cooking a steak and then half way through you decide you dont feel like steak and want fish instead. You can't just go sprinkle on some fairy dust and poof have a juicy salmon appear, muscles just don't change like that!

I think the education system needs to start implementing compulsary nutrition classes into the school curriculum from grade 1 (perhaps even prep or kindy!) onwards. There is way too much confusion about food, nutrition, exercise and health in general. Type 2 Diabetes and Obesity are two of the most prevalent diseases in our world today, yet they can be prevented by diet and exercise. Its that simple!