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Those of you who know me well know I love a cliché. So let’s start with a few of them to pave the way ahead;
A life with purpose means knowing where you have been and knowing where you want to go……
What you cannot measure you cannot improve.
Simply put change involves awareness of the present situation, awareness of where we want to go, a plan of how to get there and the ability to maintain the plan.
For fat loss or muscle building this means taking some simple biometric readings regularly.
We can dig deeper into DNA, microbiome, red cell nutrients to truly maximise our human potential……..
BIOMETRIX – it’s surprising how few people keep a track of the basics even….
You can for a small amount of money get some really good insightful readings.
Scales which measure body fat through bio-impedance (a small electric current) these give an estimation of body composition.
You can only compare like with like in terms of methods of body fat evaluation. Different equations, scales and practitioners will measure differently.
A tape measure is one of the most powerful tools, with waist circumference being an independent risk for metabolic syndrome. The wider the waist at a given height the more at risk you are for developing symptoms associated with metabolic syndrome. I wrote about this here if you want to read more.
A blood pressure monitoring machine can be purchased cheaply on amazon. As well as plastic callipers – these are not ideal but if you are honest they can give an ok ball park for body composition.
You can also measure your waist and neck and if you do an all over calliper test then you can use all the various equations and see where you come out. Personally the 4 site Durin and Womersley is as good a method as any. I set the age to 21 to allow for testing general athletes otherwise the equation assumes you get fatter each decade.
Blood testing is getting much more popular now too. There’s some good at home tests you can organise through Thriva or Werlabs. Doing these once every few months is a good idea especially if you take supplements. Things I like to see are red cell nutrients like omega 3/6 ratio (I’ll be talking about that much more in another post) magnesium all the minerals, B12, folate, iron a general nutrient status is essential.
There’s a protein called homocysteine also which if high (not good) requires methylation support from certain b-vitamins and betaine. More about methylation in a future post.
I’m also very interested in fasting insulin and glucose levels as this gives an idea about glucose tolerance and the degree of insulin resistance. You can work out your functional insulin resistance index FIRI. FIRI = (Insulin x Glucose) / 25 (if it’s over 1 then it indicates potential degree of poor blood glucose regulation or dysglycemia).
Perhaps a better calculator is the HOMA score. This gives an insulin sensitivity score, beta cell function and is based on some solid research coming out of Oxford university.
You need a blood test showing your fasting glucose and fasting insulin for both of these calculators.
I also like looking at hormones mainly saliva but also urine in case of extreme fatigue or over training. Gut and stool testing the microbiome is also really interesting and finally I recommend all clients do detailed DNA testing…… There’s a detailed document on this you can read more here.
What’s increasingly apparent is the link between gut health and brain health. There’s a cool summit coming up soon which I’m looking forwards to on Alzheimer’s risk and everything we can do to avert this.
I do like things which work quickly for brain health there’s 3 really cool nutrients (carnosine, acetyl l carnitine and DMAE) which clean up the brain, support cognition and learning and protect the brain against glycation. This is how sugar damages cells and clogs up brain function. Unsurprisingly two these are all in my Focus Sustain formula.The third carnosine is built very easily from beta alanine. Beta alanine and citrulline are new additions in the next run of Focus Formula out soon these are included for the same price.
Once I have all these results spoken about above you really can fine tune, foods, supplementation, performance and recovery protocols to the most detailed level…..
After all what you cannot measure you cannot improve….
If you are interested in going through some of these tests please do contact me. These can form part of a 3 or 6 month supporting package including all supplementation and nutrition coaching.
If you know anyone who would like to hear this kind of information you can send them this link to sign up.
Have a great weekend.
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