Ross Walter Nutritionist and Naturopath health articles and blog

Eggs are good for you! Eggs do not raise your cholesterol!

2/4/2019

A little while back, the humble egg was demonised and many people were warned off eating them because they (shock, horror!) contained cholesterol and FATS! As a result, many people still have issues or an aversion to eating eggs because they believe they are unhealthy or cause weight gain or other health issues. But is this belief actually true?! Read on...

Back in the 1970s and 1980s, there were plenty of health warnings about not eating foods which contained fats or cholesterol, as it was believed that fats and cholesterol caused heart disease. This theory was quickly disproven, and shown to be the result of very poor research at the time. Many recent scientific studies proves that fats can be good for you (even saturated fats!), as they do not cause heart disease (yes, especially saturated fats and cholesterol!) or weight gain or diabetes or other chronic health conditions. It seems that old beliefs are hard to change in some people, despite all the recent scientific evidence! I have written several articles on heart disease, saturated fats and cholesterol in the past, so have a look for those below.

But back to the eggs... can they be good for you? Absolutely yes! BUT they have to be the right type of eggs, stored properly and even cooked properly for you to get the best benefits! The best quality eggs will be high in protein, and contain healthy anti-inflammatory omega-3 fats, the same as those found in fish, which is why they are good for you!

The best eggs - are certified organic, fresh (they completely sink when submerged in water), and are from free-range chickens who have access to the sun and grass OUTSIDE!

What to avoid - cracked or old eggs (which float or partly float when submerged), those from chickens fed on grains (as these contain less or no omega-3 oils, but a lot of inflammatory omega-6 oils, and not to mention antibiotics and possible hormones added into their feed), or caged eggs from battery operation chickens (inside in cramped and tiny cages which stresses and weakens them).

Cooking eggs should be done carefully to not overcook them (especially the yolk!). Omega-3 oils are quite intolerant to heat for long periods, but still shouldn't be overcooked. Eggs should be poached or lightly boiled so the yolks are still runny for the best benefits! Eggs are also a great source of proteins, and many other vitamins and minerals.

So it is safe to eat eggs regularly! What are your favourite ways to eat eggs?

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new research shows artificial sweeteners cause weight gain

18/7/2017

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I have written and warned people before about the dangers of some artificial sweeteners (see my other articles below or on my Facebook page), but some new research has been published which again confirms some of the major dangers of these chemicals (Azad et al., 2017).

This new study, published today (17th July 2017), reviewed 37 other studies on over 400,000 people and up to a 10-year follow-up. The study focused on artificial sweeteners such as aspartame and sucralose, usually found in diet soft drinks and cordials, and weight loss shakes or protein powders, to name just a few products they are in. The study also looked at studies on stevioside (Stevia extract).

Some of the findings included that the artificial sweeteners can:

1) have adverse effects on glucose metabolism
2) affect your gut microbiome (digestive bacteria) by acting as an antibiotic
3) affect appetite control by stimulating appetite and preventing fullness after a meal, so you eat more and put on more weight
4) increase fat stores, thus contributing to obesity
5) increase the risk of various heart disease symptoms, including high blood pressure, stroke, and other heart-related events
6) increase the risk of type 2 diabetes.

The study concluded to say that they found "the consumption of non-nutritive sweeteners was NOT associated with weight loss", and that "the evidence does not clearly support the intended benefits of non-nutritive sweeteners for weight management", and "routine consumption of non-nutritive sweeteners may be associated with a long-term increase in weight and elevated risk of cardiometabolic disease".

This study highlights the importance of checking your product labels for these chemicals - aspartame (E951), sucralose (E955), and stevioside (E960), and avoiding these products. Install an additive app on your smart phone so you can check the additive numbers while you are shopping!

If you feel you need to use artificial sweeteners to lose weight, then you are not focusing on the causes of weight gain, and you can be making your weight worse.

If your weight is an issue, I can help by identifying all the causes of your weight gain, and resolving those to help you to achieve a healthy weight! This can be done with personalised consultations, or our weight loss program.

Please contact me for more information.

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for weight loss, find and fix the causes, Not calories!

7/8/2016

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As a nutritionist and naturopath, I still see and hear of the common (mis)conception that to achieve weight loss, you need to eat less and exercise more, or to expend more calories in exercise than you take in as food... This is such an outdated and incorrect theory that it's hindering people who really want to improve their health. And to do this you supposedly need to count calories going in as food and calories expended as exercise. Who really has the time and dedication to do this?! I don't, and why I don't recommend this for anyone!

There are a great many causes of weight gain, and the only way to truly lose weight and keep it off is to find and address ALL of the possible causes in each person, in a personalised and holistic way. One person's weight gain will be due to eating the wrong foods for their body, but another person's weight gain will be due to stress, or inflammation, or artificial sweeteners and other "diet" products (which have NO calories - oh, the irony), poor sleep quality or quantity, toxins in chemicals in foods or environment, the contraceptive pill, medications, hormone conditions, exposure to artificial light, genetics, increasing age, imbalance of gut bacteria, use of antibiotics, and many more causes...

In reality, as I see in practice, weight gain is very much a combination of several or many of these factors, and NOT just about how many calories someone is eating or not expending.

Can you see yet that calories are irrelevant?

Someone can be eating the best diet possible together with regular exercise, but still put on weight because of these other factors! Simply eating the "right" foods and exercising more will not correct all of the possible causes of weight gain in most people! This is why diets don't work and people who follow the diet/exercise theory almost always gain their weight back again, after all their efforts.

Counting calories is a waste of time! It doesn't work to help anyone lose weight. Focus instead on getting some help and advice on a holistic and personalised plan for you! I'd love to help you improve your health!

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weight loss is not about calories in vs. calories out

12/6/2016

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As a Nutritionist (and now Naturopath) I don't believe in the idea that weight gain is a result of a deficit of calories (ie, more calories in vs. less calories out). This idea has been disproven many times in recent research.

There are MANY causes of weight gain (as I have written about previously in my articles below) so having to weigh all your food, count the calories of all the macronutrients (carbs, protein, fats etc), restrict your food intake, struggle through craving...s and hunger, and all while exercising more, is all pointless! It just doesn't work!

Restricting foods because of their calories leads to nutrient deficiencies, chronic disease conditions (ie, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, depression and many other conditions) and even more weight gain - as your body adapts to the reduced food intake to slow down metabolism to store more fat instead!
Your health is not determined by how many (or few) calories you eat! Just because something is low in calories (ie, the carcinogenic artificial sweetener, aspartame) doesn't mean it is healthy, or that something is high in calories (ie, an avocado) doesn't mean that it is unhealthy!
The calories from the macronutrients are all used differently in your body, and differently again in other people!
Things that are important for a healthy weight are:
1) what nutrients your foods actually contain
2) how your foods are used in your body, or how they affect your body
3) your genes and your ethnicity
4) whether you are stressed, as you will not digest or absorb your foods well
5) when are you eating, how you cook your meals, and how much you eat
6) composition of your meals - % of carbohydrates, proteins and fats
7) how well your digestive system is functioning
8) and many more factors!

There are many things that need to be taken into consideration to losing weight, which is what I look at, for helping people to lose weight!

What are the right foods to eat, or the wrong ones to avoid? That can be a very individual thing - what may be good for someone else may not be good for you! Contact me to see how I can help you with a personalised plan!

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sleeping difficulties are no laughing matter

11/2/2016

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Getting a good nights sleep is not just something you need to recharge your batteries at the end of the day! Sleep is needed for:

1) Growth, particularly in children
2) Maintenance and repair of the body
3) Memory consolidation and learning
4) Detoxification and waste processing
and other purposes too!

Sleep difficulties are no laughing matter for people who can't sleep well. Symptoms of poor sleep include:

1) Difficulty getting to sleep
2) Waking during the night
3) Waking up tired
4) Poor concentration and memory
5) Poor immune system function and frequent infections
6) Depression
7) Weight gain.

There can be many reasons or causes for you not sleeping well, and can include dietary, environmental, lifestyle, stress and other factors. I have a range of options to help you sleep better, as it is something that I had difficulty with for a while too. Improving your sleep can make a huge difference to your health, your life and how you feel!

If sleep difficulties are a problem for you (or someone you know), please contact me!

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Is the paleo diet all it's cracked up to be?

24/12/2015

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The Paleo diet seems to be all the rage these days, if you watch or hear the media. So is it really that good?! Or is it unhealthy, as some health and media commentators suggest?

Firstly, paleo is a really bad name for this "lifestyle". It is NOT a diet! It is a way of life, a lifestyle. Diets are too hard to stick to, restrictive in nutrients, very unhealthy, and the body will adapt and change to the lack of nutrients and actually start putting ON weight! But that's another topic...

Critics of the paleo lifestyle get carried away with the name, saying that our paleolithic ancestors were lucky if they lived for 30 years, and this shows that paleo is useless and just another dangerous fad diet.

So what really is paleo all about? The main ideas behind this lifestyle are:
1) Eat organic foods (uncontaminated by toxic pesticides, herbicides and fertilisers etc)
2) Buy or get foods locally, fresh from your own garden, or farmers markets - so you know they have not been in storage for 2 years or lacking in nutrients, and don't have a high "carbon footprint" by needing to be transported long distances
3) Eat seasonal foods - they are cheaper and fresher, again not likely to have been in storage
4) your money goes direct to farmers, not a pitiful percentage that the supermarkets pay them
5) sustainable production of foods.

That all sounds good right?! Yes!

What is confusing is that there's no one paleo diet either! There are many variations on this theme. The is also a misconception that paleo is high in protein (ie, meat), or low in carbs - which is also incorrect. Generally, however, what is true is that the foods allowed in this lifestyle include:
1) grass-fed meats
2) organic and fresh vegetables and fruits
3) eggs
4) nuts and seeds (except peanuts which are actually a legume!)
5) healthy fats and oils.

This is a "whole food" lifestyle!

Foods that are not recommended include the following:

1) grain-fed meats
2) whole grains and any grain products (breakfast cereals, breads, bakery products, pasta etc)
3) legumes (beans, lentils, soy, peanuts)
4) dairy products
5) sugar
6) potatoes
7) processed foods (and packaged foods)
8) refined vegetable oils (canola, margarine, and other nut/seed-based oils).

There are no set rules about this lifestyle, as it is flexible, and you can occasionally have other foods without feeling guilty about it! Critics of the paleo lifestyle (ie dietitians in particular) jump up and down that you can't remove a whole food group (such as grains) from their unhealthy, corrupt and industry-funded food pyramid model! With paleo, you don't miss out on any nutrients, as the lifestyle allows for substitution of common foods with healthier alternatives, such as nut milks instead of dairy, and healthier nuts and seeds instead of grains. There's nothing in grains that you can't get from other foods or food groups! Actually I don't necessarily recommend cutting all grains as some are better than others. It's mainly wheat and corn that I recommend avoiding.

There are very good reasons why paleo is a good nutrition lifestyle to follow, but it does depend on which variation you look at. Paleo can improve your health, help you to lose weight and reduce various symptoms that you may be experiencing.

The reasons for the exclusion of certain foods will take too long to explain but some are found in my blogs or articles here. More information on the paleo lifestyle will be coming in early 2016 as I am putting together a paleo seminar and workshop where you can find out more! Please let me know if you are interested in learning more about the paleo lifestyle in my upcoming seminar or workshop!

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Sun Exposure doesn't cause skin cancer...

17/10/2015

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Now that it's getting sunnier and warmer here in Brisbane, it's time to think about being sun-safe again - but perhaps not in the way you expect, as you will find out when you read on...

Did you know that your bodies make vitamin D from direct sunlight on exposed skin? Vitamin D is needed in our bodies to boost the immune system, enable calcium from foods to be absorbed and used for strong bones, to help with sleep, reduces inflammation and stress, reduces depression and other mental health issues, reduces the risk of most cancers, assists with weight loss and many more benefits!

Despite the fact that we have a high number of sunny days in Australia, that most Australians are deficient in vitamin D even in summer! This is due to the "sun safe" programs, supposedly to protect people from skin cancer. Unfortunately the real science shows that sunlight does NOT cause skin cancer - sunlight and vitamin D protects against cancer!

One study published in the International Journal of Cancer in 2000 (entitled: "Sunscreen use and malignant melanoma"), it showed that people who used sunscreens did NOT have a reduced risk of malignant melanoma, that they spent more time in the sun and got melanoma even if they didn't get sunburnt, and there was an increased risk of melanoma from sunscreen use.

Sunscreens generally block the UV-B light (which is what we need to make vitamin D), and they allow the UV-A light to penetrate our skin, but this is the one that actually causes skin damage and skin cancers! Sunscreens give people a false sense of security to allow them to stay out in the sun longer and be exposed to more UV-A light, which increases their risk of skin cancer. This is the real issue. Then there's the toxic and cancer-causing chemicals actually found in recommended sunscreens!

An expert Dermatologist, Dr Bernard Ackerman, who has published 625 research papers on skin cancer says that there is no proven link between sun exposure and melanoma. And people with melanoma have it on less exposed body areas.

In the Cancer Epidemiology Markers and Prevention Journal in 2011, 49000 women were studied over 15 years, and the research showed that there was no evidence of cumulative UV exposure increasing the risk of skin cancer. In the same journal in 2011, 38000 women were studied over 15 years, concluding that sun exposure reduces the risk of cardiovascular diseases and dying from any cause.

Please check your sunscreens, and do your research on the ingredients in them - even the ones promoted by the Cancer Council have very toxic ingredients including neurotoxins, or they affect fertility or cause DNA damage (ie cancer), or disrupt your normal hormones.

For your family's health, get some sunlight on your skin in small doses (but not enough to burn) and use a natural sunscreen that does not have toxic ingredients in it, from a health food shop.

References:
Vitamin D deficiency in Australia - study on 24,000 people:

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/diet-and-fitness/the-great-aussie-paradox-vitamin-d-deficiency-rates-soar-20121023-282kg.html

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2265.2012.04398.x/full

Swedish study – sunscreen use and malignant melanoma (2000) - http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/1097-0215(20000701)87:1%3C145::AID-IJC22%3E3.0.CO;2-3/full

2011 study - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21551241
2011 study - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21297041
Hormone-disrupting parabens in sunscreens: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/04/02/toxic-parabens-on-breast-cancer-patients.aspx and http://davidsuzuki.org/issues/health/science/toxics/chemicals-in-your-cosmetics---parabens/

Benzyl alcohol in sunscreens:
http://www.annmariegianni.com/ingredient-watch-list-benzyl-alcohol-another-irritating-preservative-unsafe-for-infants/
toxic sunscreens:

http://www.novamagazine.com.au/article_archive/2008/08_12_toxicsunscreen.htm

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What do I specialise in?

31/8/2015

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I've had some people recently ask me what is my specialty, or what conditions do I help with. My specialty is helping people with cancer. Strangely enough, somewhat related to cancer is weight loss and type 2 diabetes, which I do help people with too!

There is a well known fact that the typical unhealthy western diet contributes to weight gain, which in turn leads to diabetes and cancer. Conversely, improving your nutrition can relieve the symptoms of weight gain and cancer. This can only be achieved with a holistic approach which includes specific nutrition and lifestyle advice, stress relief, emotional healing, and a lot more.

Cancer has been a major interest of mine for many years. While I don't treat cancer as such, I treat and support the whole body to relieve symptoms, reduce the side-effects of cancer treatments, reduce pain, and generally improve quality of life. There is much recent research that an intake of good nutrition (together with specific supplements) can do all of these things, and I only use scientifically proven treatments (ie "evidence based") to help improve peoples' health.

If you know anyone who is looking for a more natural, gentle approach to weight issues or cancer, I'd be grateful if I were able to help.

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Weight loss basics...

14/2/2015

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I'm sure you have heard it before and I heard it again recently that weight loss is just about taking in less calories than you are actually expending, leaving a calorie deficit. This idea is an extremely simplistic view and so absolutely wrong it is degrading to all those people who are trying their hardest to lose excess weight and exercising and for whom this may not be working.

Firstly I do not recommend calorie counting anyway, as it is not necessary and people who do this tend to become obsessed with it and actually eat less real nutrients that their body REALLY needs in order to function. Such dieting can therefore lead to nutrient deficiencies (and subsequent disease conditions), cravings for more food, and the often inevitable giving into those cravings and further weight gain.

So if it is not the excess amount of calories that people are eating that is causing weight gain, then what is it? I'm glad you asked! Here is a list of SOME of the major causes of weight gain:

- Genetic predisposition,
- Type of food/drinks consumed,
- Lack of exercise,
- Stress and emotional issues,
- Slow/low metabolism, menopause, hormone conditions,
- Quantity of food/drinks being consumed,
- When do you eat, and with whom, how fast, where…
- The food that what you ate – what did it eat? (ie animal products)
- Medications (corticosteroids, antibiotics, antidepressants etc)
- Artificial sweeteners, chemicals in foods,
- Increasing age,
- Lack of sleep,
- toxicity in the body and in foods,
- food allergies and sensitivities,
- Imbalance in gut bacteria.

If you are doing all you can to be a healthy weight but can't, please contact me on 0417 632 464 to make a booking for a consultation so I can determine what your cause may be, and help you to achieving your perfect weight!

Good health to you!

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Eggs are good for you! Eggs do not raise your cholesterol!

new research shows artificial sweeteners cause weight gain

for weight loss, find and fix the causes, Not calories!

weight loss is not about calories in vs. calories out

sleeping difficulties are no laughing matter

Is the paleo diet all it's cracked up to be?

Sun Exposure doesn't cause skin cancer...

What do I specialise in?

Weight loss basics...

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