Strong or Skinny?

Taz made an appearance on sports show Hyundai Code last week. She was asked by resident joker Matua Parkinson how strong she was, because, as he said "you don't look very chunky....."

Taz replied very nicely that she could manage 30 odd pullups without too much trouble, and that being strong does not need to mean being 'chunky'.

For too long women have avoided lifting weights - either because weights was just what the men did, or because of a fear of growing to resemble those men......

There are so many other benefits to weight training besides growing bigger muscles. But to address that concern first - muscle weighs more than fat. We just finished up a six week challenge at CrossFit New Zealand and many of our women (and men) have not budged the weight scales a bit in either direction, however they have lost kilos of fat and gained kilos of muscle. The results of this is a smaller clothing size as muscle takes up less ROOM than fat.

And it gets better - that extra muscle now burns more fat for energy every single day, both during exercise and even at rest.

Extra muscle means you are stronger - better able to deal with the rigours of everyday life, and better performance in your sport.

Extra muscle makes you look leaner, firmer and healthier.


Tennis star Daniela Hantuchova - formerly the 'Slovakian Skeleton', has improved her sports performance, her body and most importantly her health through weight training and good nutrition.

Skinny is not attractive!!

Attack of the FrankenFoods

Flicking through a cooking magazine my flatmate subscribes to, I came across a full page advert for healthy sugar.

I read with amazement the claims by Aussie company CSR that their new low GI sugar was better for you. Here's an article going into it further.

GI if you are not familiar with it means glycemic index and it’s basically the extent to which blood sugar levels are raised after eating that particular food. Less than 55 is considered to be a food that releases energy slowly while something in the 90’s releases energy very quickly

But just because a food is low GI, doesn't mean it is good for you. A chocolate bar is less than 50, but so is a bunch of grapes. Does that make them equally healthy? Of course not.

This crap was created in a lab with $5.4 million of government funding and is being marketed as “the sweetener for the health conscious”.

Those claims go nicely with margarine's claim to fix cholesterol and marshmallows 'fat free' boast. The creation of these Frankenfoods do nothing to increase our health, but they do increase the $$$ in food companies pockets.

To make matters worse we have nutritionists saying that this sort of thing is a good idea.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, broccoli doesn't have a healthy food claim written all over it because it doesn't need one - we KNOW it's good for us.

Be suspicious of any 'food' that sounds too good to be true.

Well farmed meat, fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds will always be the key to a healthy life.

There are no shortcuts.