Back to Basics Exercise and Nutrition

02/10/2025

Exciting news! We will soon be launching our health food brand called Notre Vie.

We will be launching with the following two flagship products:

1. A Cold-Brew Spiced Matcha beverage providing sustainable energy and increases both mental clarity and immunity.

2. Chocolate biscuit crisps, a low-calorie, low carb, and low sodium snack option providing 20% of compete protein with every bite.

We are currently looking for taste testers, so like our page and reach out if you are interested in trying!

LOOKING FOR TASTE TESTERS! Read below for info...

I have always been curious about caffeine. The way it makes people feel can be described in many ways, but most would openly admit that they NEED it to function. The interesting thing is, many also don't know when they are consuming caffeine as it is found in many places: in your daily coffee; tea; soft drinks; and even in chocolate!
This curiosity helped me to achieve a degree in food science degree. During this time, I was constantly focused on one question, "What can I do with this information to help people feel better in a SIMPLE way?"
I realized that lots of people drink coffee, but after coffee we usually get a caffeine crash. I then wondered if there was a way to get the caffeine kick, but without the crash? Matcha was the answer! Over the next few years I played with the recipe, finally realizing that adding ginger, clove, black pepper, and monk fruit (in just the right amounts!) produced a complete caffeine drink that not only tasted good, but was super healthy! We also do a masala flavored variation if preferred.

If you want to break that coffee habit with an alternative that will leave you feeling great at the end of the day, send through a message and we can arrange a taste test!

14/12/2024

A quick revision on cardio.

What is best: LISS (Low-Intensity Steady State); MISS (Medium-Intensity Steady State); or HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training)?

In terms of the time you're taking to work out, HIIT has a clear advantage, as you'll be burning a higher number of calories in a shorter window than you would be during a lower-intensity session. However, this also requires a higher skill level. If you're doing sprints, you need to be at least good enough to be able to do that in all-out intensity, whereas in lower or moderate intensity, a lot of skill is not needed, we can do something like walking, riding our bike, going out for a hike.

Therefore, for most people trying to increase exercise levels as beginners with the goal of weight management, a lower intensity workout over more time can burn more energy overall if done without causing too much unnecessary discomfort.

Something else to consider is 'interference effect', in other words, the idea that the more cardio you do, the more it negatively impacts your ability as a strength athlete. If we're doing a significant amount of steady-state cardio, we're creating this adaptation response where our body wants to be good at cardio. Being good at cardio and being a good bodybuilder don't necessarily complement each other.

But ultimately, the best cardio is the one you don't hate. Find what you absolutely love, it's got to come from a place of enjoyment.

02/08/2024

A common question, definitively answered.

A study published recently in 𝙎𝙥𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙨 highlights that consuming large portions of completely plant-based meals can satisfy protein and leucine requirements for maximal muscular development and athletic performance in adult male rugby athletes while aligning with public health recommendations.

Rugby athletes often consume large amounts of animal protein to gain muscle mass and strength which is misaligned with dietary guidelines which suggest limiting animal products to prevent chronic disease.

This modelling study demonstrates that completely plant-based diets scaled to the energy requirements of adult male rugby athletes achieve recommendations for protein and leucine and are compatible with maximal muscular development and athletic performance.

To read the full free text visit: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11281145/

04/06/2024

Great little video about the importance of balance.

19/04/2024

Very interesting. Is it worth it just for 'convenience'?

We're in a new age of eating, but how is ultra processed food harming our bodies - and the world?Buy Chris's book here: https://geni.us/YqqoRSubscribe for re...

16/04/2024

Worth a read. Simple changes in diet can help more than you think.

Once again, sugar-rich processed foods are shown to increase the likelihood of anxiety.

16/04/2024

In my years of research as an exercise scientist, the one thing I have found over and over again is athletes underutilizing their lungs, and simply breathing poorly. There are small changes to habit, that may take a while to adapt to, but will substantially improve athletic performance for aerobically demanding activities.

Here are the basics of what I have learnt:
1) Your breathing should not match the rhythm of your strides (during running), instead try to expand your lungs as much as comfortably possible on each breath.
2) It takes practice, but breathe through your nose as much as possible during your breaths.
3) When breathing out, use your core muscles to help empty your lungs as much as comfortably possible.

Cooper (2009) in Respiratory Medicine and Dallam & Kies (2020) in the Journal of Sports Research do well to discuss the benefits of these little habits, but what convinced me the most was my own anecdotal evidence. I was always a good sprinter, I was blessed with fast-twitch muscles, and I would always run out of breath extremely quickly. But in my mid-late 30's I began using these techniques and I can now run 20-30 km's without running out of breath, and the only issue for me now is getting my muscles to keep up with my aerobic capacity.

If you are looking to improve your aerobic capacity, and want to try this technique or just get some personalized guidance, shoot through a message!

07/11/2023

Here is the introduction to my newest research surrounding safety of alternatives to traditional meat. Get in touch if you would like more information, or for the complete document.. :)

I can also provide nutrition and exercise advice! ;)

"An exploration into sustainable sources of ‘complete protein’ have been ongoing for many years amid environmental concerns stemming from animal agriculture being a major contributor to global climate change. To avoid potential catastrophic events, annual global temperature increases should be preserved to within 1.5 °C of the pre-industrial levels (IPCC, 2018). Livestock production contributes to over 14.5% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emission (Ge**er, et al., 2013) and with the world population ever increasing, it is critical now more than ever that nutritionally comparable meat alternatives become an easy and appealing option for people to consider adding to their everyday meals.

As of 2023, the most prominent meat alternative sources of comparable nutritional profile include cultured meat; plant-based meat; insect protein; and single-cell protein (Hadi & Brightwell, 2021). When developing these alternatives, human health and safety must be the highest priority amidst any environmental disaster where complacency can be common in pursuit of seemingly ideal solutions (Griffiths, 2021).
Safety concerns currently surround three main areas: Food safety due to microbial exposure; nutritional quality of ultra-processed food and as an appropriate substitute for traditional meat (in terms of nutritional content and ability to be absorbed); and potential long-term adverse-effects of genetically-modified foods (Hadi & Brightwell, 2021)."

18/10/2023

Ever heard of telomeres? They are a fancy science discovery found all throughout our body in our DNA, and could be closely linked to ageing!
Telomeres cover the ends of our chromosomes to keep our DNA from being damaged, like the plastic tips on the ends of our shoelaces. Every time our cells divide, a bit of the telomere is lost, and once they get too short, the cell can die. Every year they naturally get shorter and shorter, kind of like life’s fuse.

But we do have some control over this! There is an enzyme within our cells called telomerase. It is able to not only recover the lost bits of our telomeres, but actually extend them. So.... How can we boost this enzyme to, in effect, recover our youth?

Dr. Dean Ornish, a noted Clinical Fellow in Medicine at Harvard Medical School, studied the effects of comprehensive lifestyle changes on telomerase activity and telomere length, using the same plant-based diet and lifestyle program shown to reverse the progression of heart disease, early-stage prostate cancer, and possibly even early-stage Alzheimer’s. The telomere length shortened in the participants in the control group, and they aged five years as expected. For those in the plant-based lifestyle group, however, their telomeres actually lengthened.

I have expertise of the diet used in the research and would be happy to assist anyone looking to pursue this lifestyle.

04/10/2023

*Pretends to be shocked*

Promising preliminary trials conducted in animals show that tumor growth can be slowed through dietary means. Researchers have tested low-calorie, intermittent fasting, keto, and more: https://www.freethink.com/health/precision-nutrition-cancer

24/08/2023

If you take young, healthy people and split them into two groups, half on a fat-rich diet and the other half on a carb-rich diet, within just two days, glucose intolerance skyrockets in the fatty diet group.

In response to the same sugar water challenge, those who had been taking in a lot of fat ended up with twice the blood sugar. As the amount of fat in the diet goes up, our blood sugar spikes.

Insulin is the key that unlocks the door to our cells to let blood sugar enter and be used or stored as energy. If there was no insulin, blood sugar would be stuck out in the bloodstream, banging on the doors to our cells but unable to get inside. So, with nowhere to go, sugar levels would rise and rise.

That’s what happens in type 1 diabetes: The cells in the pancreas that make insulin get destroyed, and, without insulin, sugar in the blood can’t get out of the blood and into our cells, and, therefore, blood sugar rises. But what if there’s enough insulin being produced, but the insulin doesn’t work (as in cases of type 2 diabetes)?

When insulin is present, but something is gumming up the lock to open the cell wall, not allowing it to work properly, that’s called insulin resistance. Our cells become resistant to the effect of insulin.
What’s causing this? Fat in the bloodstream can build up inside our muscle cells and create toxic, fatty, breakdown products and free radicals that can block the signaling pathway process. So, no matter how much insulin we have in our blood, it isn’t able to open the glucose gates, and blood sugar levels build up.

This mechanism, by which fat (specifically saturated fat) induces insulin resistance, wasn’t known until fancy MRI techniques were developed to see what was happening inside people’s muscles as fat was infused into their bloodstream.

The bottom line is....

Insulin doesn’t work as well on a high-fat diet, like a ketogenic one. Our bodies are insulin-resistant. As the amount of fat in our diet gets lower and lower, insulin works better and better.

Information from NutritionFacts.com. Watch the video "What Causes Insulin Resistance?" on https://bit.ly/3ekYbIJ to learn more: http://bit.ly/2t58PeF