Do We Really Need Doctors? : Part 3

Not long ago, about a few months back, I attended a so called health talk, conducted by a doctor, a general practitioner, to the organization which I'm currently employed. I didn't expect much, just feeling a bit excited, walked in to the training room, and off goes the presentation. The doctor, who looks like he is in early 60's, but in fact, he is only late 40's. Accelerated biological aging perhaps? The session started off with exercise topic, and this 'old chap', presented as if he is a certifed personal trainer, or C.S.C.S. clearly, he is clueless about exercise science or musculoskeletal science. He does not know a single stuff about exercise! I mean seriously!

I pretended to be a dumb random audience, raised my hand and asked, "Does jogging increased bone density effectively?" he answered YES. What an answer! Next, he presented on nutrition, diet and foods. Well, apart from giving out tons of misinformation and does not know what he is talking about, he was telling the audience to avoid saturated fats, even coconut oil saturated fats!! I almost wanted to walk in front a slap this old chap but that's going to cause a scene and wouldn't look good at all. Worst of all, he recommend whoever attended the health talk, to consume commercial vegetable oils! Oh my GOD! Since when M.B.B.S or a GP qualified to be a nutrition advisor or dietitian? Since when studying M.B.B.S has any course or subjects on nutritional science or food nutrition? Conventional doctors DON'T study nutrition or anything to do with diets or exercise! Well, perhaps just couple hours of super basic lesson on carbs, protein and fats. Wake up folks! Most people think conventional doctors are GOD and they know everything about health. That's just stupid and absurd. Statistics show that doctors died earlier then general population, at average age of 56 years old? Most doctors look out of shape and fat. Don't believe? Observe and look around in any hospitals or clinics at any time at all. 

I was stressed out after attending that health talk. Apart from one of the most lack of knowledge doctors I ever came to witness in person, it was by far, the worst health talk I ever attended. I still remember he mentioned, "This is the best health program which everyone should follow". Wonder why cardiovascular disease is still the highest cause of death in Malaysia? There's your answer folks. He is one of the many conventional doctors who mislead and misfed health information to people like us, and there is no doubt at all, why general population health status are declining, and all of us are getting sicker and fatter. 

Alright. I just had to get it off my chest and rant a little bit. Let's continue with what we left off in the last post. Today, let's discuss about the 'doctor' inside of us, who will tell us, if we are eating the right foods or committing nutritional sins. Now, The human body has evolved over millions of years, just like every other living creature on planet earth. Not surprisingly, disease epidemics occur much less frequently among animals living in the wild (except those that are induced by man through environmental poisoning). One major difference between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom is that animals don’t read diet books, they eat their natural diet. 

Nature is full of examples that show us why modern dietary recommendations can’t be right for the human animal. We're told, for example, that eating red meat and animal fats clogs the arteries and brings about heart disease, but I've yet to hear of wild, carnivorous animals dying of heart disease the way we humans do. While so called nutritional experts debate over what is the best diet for humans, they, and their audience, have become obese, sick and diseased dining on their suggestions!

The fact is, we’ve moved far away from our natural diet and begun to eat what I call garbage foods. Quite similiar to SAD (Standard American Diet), primarily it is crap! What exactly is SAD or garbage foods? Simple carbs, refined foods, processed foods, additives and preservatives. It's the opposite of organic whole foods. General population and even professional athletes are habitually eating way to much processed foods, refined flour and sugar.

Now, before we proceed further, let's go back to the basics of 'You Are What You Eat'. The foundation of healthy whole foods, starts in the soil itself. The closed organic cycle, there is humus or organic soil and microorganisms, are the foundation of which the plants grow. Healthy soil, produces healthy plants. Healthy soil and plants, produces healthy animals. And since men eats animals and plants, it is obvious then, that men's health not only dependant on health of animals and plants, but the soil which they came from. Does this make any sense to any of you? 

Processed foods, table sugar, commercial milk, refined flour and also white rice, are categorized as non whole foods. These foods are non organic food source. Most primitive tribes and population DO NOT even know what toothbrush is, and these mentioned foods, is unknown to them. Tooth decay, is essentially a disease in the human body. When we allow food processing go to its extreme, today we have a huge problem with obesity, particularly industrialized countries. Certain poorer countries such as Tahiti and Fiji and even Russia, u can notice a lower rates of 'overweight and obese' people and far less diseases compared with industrialized nations. How could a high-tech and medically advanced country such as USA have much worst disease rates then these poorer countries? Hillariously, we have corporate leaders such as McDonalds taking the role in leaders in nutrition! And guess what, there are tons of kids who think that Ronald McDonald knows more about nutrition then their mothers! 

Any of you consult any dietitian, nutritionist or even 'doctors-wannabe-nutritionist', ask them to take off their shirt and that would make you realize if they would be your nutrition teachers. As I mentioned before, do not take health advise from someone's gut who look like shit! I may be blunt but ask yourself, would you take health or nutrition advise from a dietitian or doctor who is fat and out of shape, who look sick and aging? 

If you eat tons of junk or processed foods, or what is similiar to standard american diet, you can find yourself running into a number of common symptoms. They include:

       

Short-term symptoms:

• Headaches

• Anxiety

• Difficulty concentrating

• Skin problems, such as acne

• Get hungry quickly

• Tired, but ‘wired’

• Nervous Energy

• Energy Highs and Lows

• Emotional distress Long-term symptoms

• Depression

• Headaches

• Neck/shoulder/lower back pain

• Weakened Immune system

• Constipation

• Pimples

• Diabetes

• Cancer and other life-threatening diseases!

The simple explanation for all of these problems is that we just aren't built to eat the kind of diet that has become typical for the average people like us. It’s like trying to run your gas-powered car on diesel fuel. Your car won’t run for long, if at all! We need to rediscover our natural eating habits and this is where your 'integrated' doctor plays a major role.

If you consider our potential to be healthy, vital and loving as 10 out of 10 on a scale of 0 to 10, then the healthiest and most loving people in the world represent our ultimate potential. Once your vitality score drops below 7 due to over-exposure to any one or more of the common bio-drainers (listed below), you’ll soon start to suffer from a number of symptoms, including fungal infections such as dandruff, jock itch, athlete’s foot, vaginal yeast infections and even benign prostate hypertrophy. And, if you continue to allow the bio-drainers to exist in your life, you’ll be opening yourself to parasitic infection.

- Over worked

- Under/Over exercise

- Financial Stress

- Processed Foods

- Table Sugar, Commercial milk, refined flour, white rice

- Poor Water quality

- Skipping meals or 'dieting'

- Neuro Stimulant abuse

- Inability to receive and give love

- Family relationship stressors

- Work relationship stressors

Simply listening to your 'integrated' doctor can eliminate many of these challenges. So, let’s get better acquainted with your first doctor. In the wild, if you were to feed the diet of a giraffe to a lion or vice versa, you’d end up with bloated, tired, sick animals. The fact is that this description fits many people around the world today. The simple cure for many of our ailments is to eat according to our nature. Eat according to what we have evolved to consume for thousands and thousands of years. You can call it primal pattern eating, or dine like a caveman. 

Metabolism is usually divided into two categories: catabolism (yang) breaks down organic matter, for example through digestion and anabolism (yin) uses energy to construct components of cells such as proteins and fats. Your metabolism converts the raw materials of food to energy so that you can enjoy living. It determines which foods and drinks are nutritious and which are empty. The speed of metabolism, your metabolic rate, influences how much food you will require and how easily available it is. 

Today, there are several different systems that look at identifying one’s unique metabolism based upon genetics. Some use questionnaires, others use a combination of questionnaires and lab tests or at-home physiological challenge tests and markers to measure blood sugar handling. There are also now a number of companies that test your genetics to identify genetic markers, such as 'the fat gene'. Most often they take the information from the assessments and imply that you are predisposed to this, so you must eat that. In most instances, what results is a diet, a diet that you are supposed to stick to a diet that is right for you. Does that sound familiar?

Once you understand how internal stressors such as menstrual cycles or emotional stress and external stressors such as weather, exercise, or rushing to meet a deadline influence your body’s needs for plant or animal based nutrients, you are a primal pattern eater. As a primal pattern eater, you don’t need to follow diets or prescriptions, rather you honor your body’s requirements from meal to meal. It’s really that simple and is highly effective.

Your 'integrated' doctor who knows about diet better then anyone does, knows that as a science, looking at genetics can become very complex but he wants you to know that the basic concepts are beautifully effectual at a fundamental level. The ratio of foods we need to eat is based primarily on our genetics. Our racial and ethnic backgrounds, as well as the regions from which our root races emerged have heavily influence our genetics. 

For example, the Inuit live primarily in Polar Regions where it is very cold. So cold, in fact, that very little plant life grows for much of the year. As a result, an Inuit diet is primarily a Polar type, about 90% eyes foods and only about 10% no-eyes foods. What I meant was 90% protein-fat, and 10% carbs diet. That’s probably not a diet that modern nutritionists would recommend to anyone, yet Inuit that eat according to their traditional diets are very healthy and relatively disease free.

If we now look to a warmer region of the world, such as the Australian outback, we find inland Aboriginals who eat a diet literally the inverse of the Inuit. These Aborigines eat about 90% no-eyes or plant foods and only about 10% eyes or animal foods and so I would consider them Equator types. This ratio of no-eyes to eyes has been with them for thousands of years because big game or fish are simply not available to them.

So, we can see that different peoples evolved to be healthy by time of the Second World War, so for most of human history, our cold weather ancestors couldn’t get fresh vegetables except during the growing season. If tribes from winter-like regions of the world didn't live a nomadic lifestyle, following animals to eat based on availability and variety, they would simply have perished and the remains of their gene pool would be found only in fossils.

Now, let me share with you, 3 different types of primal pattern which are discovered and found.

Polar Types: People whose gene pool emanated primarily from regions of the earth in which the ground froze during the winter and therefore had to sustain themselves on animal foods or eyes foods. These people typically eat a diet of greater than 60% animal foods and the rest on plant or no-eyes foods. Typically for natives in this area of the world, no-eyes foods (including nuts and seeds, root vegetables, berries and fruits) are eaten only when they are available.

Equator Types: Those people from the equatorial regions of the planet typically ate diets of greater than 60% plant foods (variety) and ate eyes foods depending on their availability. Think of a region like Hawaii where there is plenty of warmth and water year-round and access to a variety of vegetables and fruits food selection would seldom be limited. These regions of the planet often lack large game animal, but because these tropical areas often provide access to a great deal of water, available eyes foods for natives in these regions frequently consist largely of varieties of fish and shellfish.

Variable Types: The previous two primal pattern eaters are drawn from the more extreme poles of temperature. But the earth can’t be divided into purely winter/summer zones. There are transitional regions between the warm and cold regions. These areas around the planet have less harsh winters and have greater availability and variety of animal foods and plant foods. People in these regions typically do well on a variable diet of about half plant foods and half animal foods.

Today, we have so much intercultural marriage and childrearing that it isn’t at all unlikely to have someone with North American Native American (Polar Type) blood from one parent, and Polynesian and/or inland indigenous native blood (Equator Type) from the other parent. The result can be any one of the primal pattern eating types because as you know, some children take on traits more predominantly of one parent or the other and those traits vary. For example, you may have your mother’s eyes and your dad’s hunger for big juicy steaks. That is why I said that awareness is essential when following a primal pattern eating plan.

Stay tuned as I discuss more about these 3 primal pattern types as well as why water and organic foods is so crucial for us.

Do We Really Need Doctors? (Part 2)

In any part of our lives, whether it be personal or professional, every situation perceived as stressful, activates the 'fight or flight' branch of the nervous system (also called the sympathetic nervous system). The purpose of the system is to provide the body with a boost to protect itself during short periods of stress. Think of your ancestor, the caveman, fleeing from a bear or tiger whose path he innocently wandered across. The bear or tiger probably isn’t going to stalk him for days, so he doesn’t need to have the fight or flight system running constantly, just long enough to escape the immediate danger and return to his natural, relaxed state. In order to help us out in these brief times of emergency, our 'fight or flight' system enacts the following biological changes:

• Increased consumption of bodily resources. This includes neurotransmitters, stress hormones, and energy stores, particularly stored glycogen from the liver.

• Shifting blood away from the internal organs to the skin and muscles of the body. This stops all digestive processes, and allows a readily available supply of blood, oxygen and blood sugar to provide energy to the muscles.

• Release of stress hormones. When a stressful event occurs, a sequence of hormones is released in the body, ending with a class of chemicals called glucocorticoids. These chemicals:

- Elevate the heart rate and blood pressure to meet any immediate demands, allowing maximum opportunity to fight vigorously or to run as fast as possible for as long as needed to survive.

- Increase immune system performance for brief periods of time

• Increased sweat. Chronic stress results in sweaty hands and armpits. Because sweating is the human version of a radiator, this helps the body to stay cool and work more efficiently while running from that bear or tiger.

Because every one of us experiences these different dimensions of our lives, we are subject to stress on those levels as well. There are physical stressors, emotional stressors, mental stressors and spiritual stressors. They are an unavoidable reality in our experience of life, and successfully managing them is how we grow. They are gifts and we grow through them.

As I’ve said, all of these features are really helpful for brief periods of time. But the stressors that we face in the environment of our modern world aren’t temporary like the startled bear or starving tiger that our ancestors faced. They can persist for long periods of time and thus our 'fight or flight' systems stay active for durations that weren’t originally intended in their design. In fact, in the face of chronic stress, our 'fight or flight' system can have the following negative effects on our body-mind:

• Radical swings in energy levels during the day as blood sugar levels change

• Progressively reduced energy levels over the long term

• Weight gain, including in particular the accumulation of fat around the middle (potbelly) in response to blood sugar fluctuations and hormonal stress

• Low self esteem caused by weight gain/body issues

• Self identity issues

• Digestive troubles including gas and acid reflux

• Chronic constipation, common to approximately 90% of people worldwide today!

• Strong, smelly body odor

• Persistence of glucocorticoids and other stress hormones in the body trigger:

- Chronic elevation of blood pressure and heart disease, not to mention elevated triglycerides (fats)

- Weakened immune system, as the more stressed out the body is, the more susceptible it is to colds or flus that go around

If the stress persists in your body-mind long enough, you’ll begin to experience the effects of chronic stress. These health effects are characterized by prolonged or repeated exposures over many days, months or years. Symptoms may not be immediately apparent but the over production of stress hormones is also likely to lead to adrenal fatigue. The adrenal glands are small glands that sit atop each kidney and manufacture your stress hormones and most of your sex hormones. As the adrenal glands fatigue, the body starts to suffer from:

• Low energy

• Poor recovery from physical exercise

• Diminished sex drive

• Accelerated aging

• Difficulty concentrating

Now that you’ve read this laundry list of symptoms, it probably comes as no surprise that fatigue is the most common reason for visiting physicians worldwide! Has a clearer picture now why you often feel fatigue? 

With that, I will now explain to  the 'integrated doctors' which exist inside of us, and those are the only 'doctors' you will ever need. So, how do we cope with and overcome excessive stress? With the help of the 'Integrated doctors', you will learn how to identify if you are not eating right, not feeling happy or not having enough rest. Today, because so many people are either sedentary or over-training. Obese people carrying mega size potbelly giving all sorts of excuses for not having any physical activity or exercise, while athletes drowning themselves with chronic stress hormones burning out their adrenals. 

First of all, foundation for wellbeing. Food and drink dramatically affect our energy levels and our biochemical reality, which in turn influences our emotional and our mental reality.For years of meeting different types of people,  I’ve seen over and over again that when the diet is deficient, there just isn’t enough energy or clarity of mind to initiate and sustain the changes needed for self-healing. But, bear in mind, not everyone is necessary able to eat the same types of foods. In fact, the kinds of foods and the proportions of those foods that are right for you may vary quite radically from your friends and loved ones. You body may react well with eating avocado, but the other person may has a pretty awkward response after eating that same very food.

Secondly, there is a 'physician' inside of everyone, particularly in charge of energy management and recovery. When you’re overly stressed and your fight or flight system is triggered repeatedly or for long periods of time, one of the first things to suffer is your sleep. Unfortunately, your body’s ability to recover and repair itself is tied in very real, biological ways to the sleep that you get.

This 'physician' duty is to encourage you to get the necessary sleep to recover from the challenges you faced the day before and to wake energized for the day to come. At the same time, this 'physician' guides you to get the relaxation and the selftime you need to stay calm, focused and energized during the day. For example, this 'physician' can show you how to get active rest during your workday that will help you to tackle your projects more efficiently and effectively than ever. In short, following this 'physician' specific guidelines and sleep recommendations will take you a long way towards permanent health and wellbeing.

Next, we have another 'physician' that always there to lead us toward a life that fulfills our individual needs. This particular 'physician' advises us that if we lead a life that doesn’t fit with our core values and doesn’t fulfill us, every facet of our life becomes a burden. So, the less your current lifestyle fits with your core values, the more frequently your fight or flight system is active. The important guiding truth that this physician offers is that happiness is an essential feature of genuine lasting health. This 'physician' shows you how to create and undertake the deep introspective study and intention to discover what makes you truly happy.

Lastly, the 'physician' who tells you whether you are sedentary, lack of physical activity, or suffers exhaustion from over training or exercise. Over the course of history, humans have become more and more sedentary. We no longer have to hunt and gather just to feed ourselves, and most of us aren’t working in the fields growing our own food either. Our jobs and careers require us to sit most of the day in front of computer screens, and the daily demands of our life often keep us from any kind of beneficial physical movement. Daily movement isn’t simply necessary for keeping a trim figure or decreasing the risk of heart disease. In fact, it’s necessary to get nutrients to and through our body, to move waste out of our bodies and to generate emotional stability and mental clarity. This 'physician' is there to show you the way to acquire more life force and how to move it into action so that you can truly experience and enjoy life.

The big question is, are you ready to consult your own 'panel doctors'? Your own 'integrated doctors', which very few of you, would realize and know about it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people argue that it’s just easier to take a pill and forget about it. But, because pills don’t address the root causes, the constant, excessive stressors that trigger our fight or flight systems, they can never give us the freedom of true health.

When we don’t listen to our body and resort to unnecessary drugs to avoid the actual cause of our problems, we are no longer really living. We’re just aging, and fast. It should come as no surprise that the anti-aging business is the latest and greatest medical boom to come along, with yet another host of drugs, synthetic hormones, injectable and surgical cut and tuck procedures, none of which addresses the stressors that caused the problem to begin with!

With a little bit of training, you can learn to hear the voices of your own ' integrated panel doctors'. Each of these inner doctors will help you to understand the symptoms that you’re facing and their causes, and provide you with the tools and guidance you need to transform these distressing pressures into opportunities for personal growth and wellbeing. Sounds cool? 

If you are ready to truly live, to enjoy energy and vitality again, if you are ready to regain your shape, balance your emotions and tune up your mental function, I’m sure you are ready for the truly beautiful spiritual experience your integrated doctors offer you, a fulfilling, happy life of wellbeing. In the next post, I will share with you in details on all these 'integrated doctors' within your inner self. 

Do We Really Need Doctors? (Part 1)

Friends, colleagues, family members and to all the people that know me, this topic is especially for you. To those who really know me well, you will realize that I'm all about primal living, drug-less minded,  hollistic approach, and eating real foods. Some people hate me, some people loves me. Most conventional doctors hate me, a number of personal trainers hate what I'm doing to help people for such a dirt cheap fee and even free, occasionally. Most people I've helped throughout the previous years, deeply appreciate and thanked me, and they followed my program for a long time. Question is, the ones who hate or envy me, do i care? Answer is NO. To those who have great results and improved their health and fitness tremendously, I sincerely feel happy for you.

I'm been thinking for a long time, on and off, tons of people came to me, telling me about what their doctors said to them, giving them advises which cast doubts over their heads. Health screening results came out, "My doctor said my total cholesterol serum levels is 6.0 and its high. Will my doctor put me on statins?". How about "My doctor tell me not to go off my hypertension meds, else my arteries are going to explode!". Well, my advise to you, "Fire you doc!". Dump your doctor until you can get a decent knowledgeable health practitioner.

Today, I'm going to write all about your overall health, and the truth about whether you really need doctor or any prescription drugs. I will write about some of the major causes of illness and diseases and how do we deal with it. Have an open mind, connect the dots, and continue reading.

What if I tell you, that you are you own doctor? What if I tell you that you don't need any conventional doctor to help you with your health conditions? What if I tell you that you don't need any drugs or pills whenever you are sick or even suffering from chronic diseases or illness? Sounds to good to be true?

Before we move on, let me give you a list of common symptoms, illnesses or what you might considered it as 'pain'. Chronic neck or back pain, digestion problems such as gas or indigestion, general fatigue, depression and mood swings or even anxiety, weight gain, flu and colds, decreased sex drive, constipation, etc. I can go on and on and on, but I'm shortlisting a few common health symptoms and illnesses.

Modern western medicine has really thrown in the towel when it comes to dealing with the causes of chronic symptoms, let alone finding a connection amongst them. It’s much easier for a doctor to prescribe an anti-inflammatory drug, a laxative and the blue pill Viagra. The problem, of course, is that while these drugs may take care of their immediate symptoms, the person taking them is forever chained to their medicine. Until we learn to address the causes underlying these problems, we’re simply masking our symptoms.

Most of the people I know, who faced the challenges I’ve listed above were really under the thumb of one root cause, Stress. Stress is a powerful buzzword in our culture. We’ve all heard about stress and how harmful it is. As our awareness of the potential dangers of stress grows, we are also discovering there are many different kinds and sources of stress that we experience most every day. After all, as busy modern humans, we take on many different roles in our daily lives and each one of them presents us with their own set of challenges.

The key to genuine, long-lasting vibrant health is learning how to manage daily stress. For example, in my own life, I have a very busy daily schedule that has the potential to cause me stress, if I allow it. Life stressors, whether they’re physical, emotional, mental or spiritual, regardless of their origin, work much the same way. We simply need to learn how to manage them properly, and when we do, they provide us with opportunities to become more healthy human beings.

The main stumbling block to genuine health and happiness that most of us face in our lives is that we have no one to help us understand how to manage the different sources and kinds of stress that we increasingly experience. Inside of us, we have within ourselves, integrated 'doctors' which most of us don't even realize it. We just need to learn how to listen to the advice that they’re continuously offering us. These 'integrated doctors' are telling you about the challenges to your wellbeing that you’re facing and how to use that information to guide you to a happier, healthier life.

The human body is amazing! At any given point you have many biological processes going on, such as circulatory, digestive, brain & central nervous systems and more. In order for you to experience vibrant radiant health, these systems must be supported and maintained, and that’s where your 'integrated doctors' will help you. Before I introduce you to your integrated doctors, I want to talk more specifically about the different sources of stress common to our lives. In essence, we are all really spiritual beings that are having a human experience as physical beings here on planet earth. And, just like the Earth isn’t simply a big dead rock flying through space, the miracle of who we are is that we are not merely a physical body.

We are also emotional beings, sensitive to the wants and needs of others and ourselves. And beyond that, we are mental beings. We think. We process information in very complex ways, and this allows us to experience the richness of life in tremendous depth and complexity. For example, when astronauts go into outer space, there isn’t enough gravitational stress on their bones and muscles. Without the proper exercises, they begin to lose muscle and bone mass, which is damaging to their bodies. In other words, sometimes we can be damaged by a lack of necessary stress. In this case, the required stress is gravity, a stress we are actually built to experience!

Stress of any type crosses social, cultural and economic barriers. Stressful challenges are necessary for our developmental growth and overall health as human beings. If there was never any stress in our relationships, would we ever learn to communicate with each other effectively? Would we ever learn to understand what we feel, or manage those emotions? If we had never faced mental challenges that forced our minds to grow and mature, would we have computers, cars, the Internet, or the means to travel into space? If there were no such thing as spiritual stress, would we ever learn what it means to love others or ourselves? Would we have any grasp on the value of life? The answer to each of these questions is a big NO!

Your body has no way of differentiating a physical stress from an emotional, mental or a spiritual stress. To the nervous system and hormonal system, it doesn’t matter whether you’ve just had a car accident, are going through a divorce, are under the pressure of too many deadlines at work, or even just won a million dollar in the lottery! Your hormonal and nervous systems react the same way, its just stress.

Ancient survival mechanism, 'fight or flight' situation, it's part of our sympathetic nervous system response. These common symptoms are the result of our body’s general reaction to stress. To the degree that your body-mind as a whole interprets that it’s under stress, your body triggers its fight or flight hormones. In the short term, this reaction is healthy, necessary even. But when chronically triggered, the fight or flight reaction can be extremely harmful to your health.

In the next post, I will explain about fight or flight response, also introducing and explaining more about our 'integrated doctors' within our inner body. Stay tuned.

AFC 2012 - Day 3

More photos and videos on the final day of AFC 2012. After 10 workout sessions in 3 straight days, I'm practically toasted and my muscles are screaming for a massage and total rest! It has been the best ever fitness event/convention I attended. KUDOS to the organizers and presenters for making this a huge success and an unforgettable experience. I'll be back next year! 

Combat ropes with kettlebells

STROOPS resistance workshop

Steve Cotter giving instruction in one of his workshop 

Bosu, VipR and stability ball

One of Parkour's workshop

AFC 2012 - Day 2

On the 2nd day of the convention, things are getting better and better, more fun and loaded with kick ass workouts and great workshops! After the end of day 2, the muscles are sore and DOMS are kicking in. 8 tough workout sessions in 2 days! One more day to go before the end of the convention. Enjoy the pics and videos. 

The one and only, Steve Cotter

Med Ball madness workshop!

Fabio Comana pairs up with Steve Cotter, a mentor and his former student.

Setting up STROOPS equipment

Lunch break

One of Parkour's training drills

Parkour workshop

One of Steve Cotter's kettlebell's workshop

kettlebells

Just too tired..it's only day 2

AFC 2012 - Day 1 (Opening Ceremony)

Just came back from Asia Fitness Convention 2012 in Pattaya. It was an awesome, exciting yet tiring trip, a fun filled packed fitness convention, loaded with world class health and fitness presenters and experts. I have to say that this is the best ever convention I attended, and I got to meet and train with some of the world class fitness trainers including Steve Cotter, Fraser Quelch, Peter Twist, Mindy Mylrea, Anthony Ricci, Cassidy Phillips, Leslie Bender, etc.

Captured some videos and pictures during the convention, met a lot of new people from all over the world, and it was simply awesome! Below pictures and videos are recorded and captured in day 1 of the convention.

AFC 3 days schedule

TRX Circuit Zone training

14 awesome stations!

A powerful training tool - RIP trainer

Opening Ceremony

HockBurn & Coccidiosis - Sick Nasty Chickens!

Today, I'm going to blog about chickens, particularly commercially raised chickens. I know most people buy chickens from supermarkets, fresh markets and minority from the farmers directly. What about these so called 'fresh chickens'? It's often labeled in supermarkets, hypermarkets, grocery outlets and even called 'Ayam Kampung' in fresh markets as fresh free range chickens. The thing is, how much truth is behind all the labeling from these sellers?

I remember that I used to buy so called free range @ ayam kampung in fresh market around my neighborhood a few years back. After a few weeks of investing on so called free range chickens from the fresh market, I started to notice something fishy and was disappointed on what I discovered.  What I found, was a brown burn marks on the legs of the chicken. First thing that hit me, hockburn! Damn it! Isn't these chickens are suppose to be breed and raised on non commercial farms? Could I have missed the last batches of chickens I bought months back? Or maybe I was unlucky not to have purchased the 'uninfected' chickens?

Now, what is hockburn? Well, it is a common disease where chickens squat on dirty wet litter consist of ammonia and uric acid. The waste of other birds(chickens) burn the skin of the legs and joints as well. This usually occurs in commercial farming or broiler farms where hundreds and thousands of large flock of chickens are raised with poor, congested, dirty and disease infested environment. So, how would you know if you are really buying a free range organically raised chickens? Look out for hockburns on the lower extremities of the chicken, but it may be found on the breast of the chicken as well. Once you found hockburn on that brand of the chicken sold, or from the same farmer, it is time to buy from a different seller.

How about coccidiosis? It is a parasitic disease which largely affect animals especially poultry. The parasite lives and multiply in the intestinal tract of the chickens and causes tissue damage, poor digestion, dehydration and blood loss. If you want to know more about this parasitic disease, go google yourself and enjoy a good read. Below are also some of the medical research and studies which relates to both hockburn and coccidiosis.

Always remember, if you eat sick animals, you will be as sick as these poor little living species. There is no health in eating unhealthy animals. Rest in peace, those poor obese chickens with skinny weak legs, being fed with pesticides contaminated foods, pumped with antibiotics and synthetic growth hormones.

Broiler/Commercial Farm

HockBurns

Fast foods/Commercial chickens...obese, sick and malnutrition

Am I obese?? I can't walk!

Studies/Research:

HockBurn
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17578688 - Division of Farm Animal Science, School of Veterinary Science, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21498198 - Department of Musculoskeletal Biology, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, University of Liverpool, Leahurst, Neston, Cheshire
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20954018 - Department of Epidemiology, School of Veterinary Science, University of Liverpool, Leahurst, Neston, UK

Coccidiosis
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22925822 - Animal Science and Technology College, Beijing University of Agriculture, Beijing 102206, China.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16451116 - Animal & Natural Resources Institute, BARC-East, Animal Parasitic Diseases Laboratory, USDA-ARS, Beltsville, MD 20705, USA