Post baby bloat - The 5:2 diet

I've felt a little on the pudgy side lately.  Pants are getting tight and the kilos are creeping on, and I'm getting older so I thought about whether I should go on a diet or not, and have decided that I will.  I've never really dieted before and exercise is a lifestyle thing - I did try to do it regularly but I just am too lazy.  I need something I can maintain.

One of the people who is in my guild in World of Warcraft, suggested to me to try the Paleo, or Caveman diet.  The diet restricts you from eating processed carbohydrates and dairy but you can eat fruit, vegetables, meat - basically anything that Caveman could eat and gather - and it sounded ok in that it wasn't a starvation diet, you could still eat.  But cutting out carbs entirely is hard.  What would I eat for lunch?  And what about rice?  It was a good idea, but I wasn't sure if I could stick to it.

Then my sister recommended the 5:2 diet.  The principle is that you eat normally for 5 days and fast for 2 non consecutive days.  I wasn't sure about these starving diets because I thought it would slow your metabolism but apparently there are a lot of positive things said about this diet.

I came across an article called Two Day Diets: How Mini Fasts can help Maximise Weight Loss, and they had a lot of positive things to say.  An article in the Daily mail also had similar good reports. Fasting means eating 500 calories (2000kJ) a day (usual daily intake is 2000 calories, or just under 8500kJ).  This fasting appears to cause a drop in levels of growth factor, a hormone linked with cancer and diabetes, as well as a reduction in LDL and triglycerides in the blood.  Free radicals are also reduced, as well as levels of inflammation.

Professor Mattson, head of the neuroscience at the US National Institute on Ageing believes that it can protect the brain as well.  He states that dropping your food intake dramatically triggers protective processes in the brain, similar to the beneficial effects you get form exercise.  This could potentially protect the brain against degenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

Professor Mattson has done a fair bit of research on fasting in rats - he showed that rats got nearly all the benefits of calorie restriction when they fasted every other day when compared to those who were on a low calorie regimen all the time.

In the International Journal of Obesity also reported that fasting for 2 days had more benefit than a persistent lower calorie regime, with reduced insulin resistance in patients.

That was enough convincing for me.  So I've decided that the easiest days to fast are somewhere between Tuesday and Friday - days which I work and don't have much time for lunch. Sat- Mon are days I eat with the family or go out, so I wouldn't be able to stick to it those days.

So what can I eat on my fasting days? There was a great list on Marie Claire about what I can eat:

Breakfast
Muller Light yoghurt (89 cals)
Banana (90 cals)
Boiled egg (89 cals)
45g porridge oats (166 cals)
Orange (59 cals)
Apple (53 cals)
Kiwi fruit (47 cals)
Crumpet (100 cals)
1 slice of brown bread (74 cals)
1/2 tin Heinz Baked Beans (100 cals)
 2 egg white omelette (34cals)
1 rice cake with sugar-free jam (45 cals)
Poached egg with a slice of ham (100cals)
Alpen Fruit and Nut Bar (109 cals)
50g Total 0% Greek Yoghurt (48 cals)
Half a slice of brown bread (37 cals)
Half a grapefruit (39 cals)

Lunch
Half a carton of New Covent Garden Soup Winter Broth with Bacon and Kale (96cals)
Pitta (147 cals)
Rice cake (38 cals)
Celery (7 cals)
Itsu miso soup sachet (44 cals)
1 tbsp Light Philadelphia soft cheese (28 cals)
Heinz Weight Watchers tomato soup (76 cals)
One slice of smoked salmon on two wheat crackers (48 cals)
87g cauliflower (23 cals)
Tuna salad (175cals)
Waitrose Beetroot and Cheese Salad (172 cals)
Mushrooms on wholemeal toast (110 cals)
Heinz Weight Watchers Carrot & Lentil Soup (87 cals)
1 cherry tomato (4 cals) Cadbury Highlights Hot Chocolate (40 cals)
1 Light Babybel cheese (40 cals)
Quarter of a tin of Heinz Baked Beans (49 cals)
50g cooked prawns (50 cals)

Dinner
Chicken breast (162 cals)
Cous cous (176 cals)
Young’s cod steak in parsley sauce (101 cals)
Tesco’s chilli chicken noodle salad (195 cals)
Roasted aubergine (18 cals)
38g peas (38 cals)
50g cooked prawns (40 cals)
10 spears of asparagus (50 cals)
Weight Watcher’s Mediterranean Veg Quiche (156 cals)
Morrisons NuMe Cottage Pie (300 cals)
Half fillet of salmon (185 cals)
1 roasted pepper (30 cals) 38g
Feta cheese (100 cals)
100g brown rice (135 cals)

I'll do a weekly update and see how I go!

New Vaccination Laws in NSW

Recently the government introduced some tough new vaccination laws.  Under the new laws, unvaccinated children will be excluded from child care centres unless they can provide evidence from their GPs why their children cannot be vaccinated OR for religious reasons, the child cannot be vaccinated.

This has sparked a huge debate, and there are many opinions about this matter.

What is interesting is what some people have done to exploit loopholes in this system.

Recently in the news, a group of anti-vaccination campaigners have decided to create their own religion to use this loophole to circumvent the government's new law.  This will negate the government's attempt to boost public health awareness in preventable diseases.

Why are people refusing to vaccinate?

1. In 1998, Andrew Wakefield published a paper in the Lancet suggesting a link between the MMR vaccine and autism.  This was later found to be fraudulent, with Wakefield found to have fixed and manipulated data, as well as having a conflict of interest in publishing the paper by receiving £55000 from lawyers looking for evidence against vaccine manufacturers.  Since then, there have been multiple research papers with no link between autism and the MMR vaccine.
2. Herd immunity - if the vaccination rate is 95% then the 5% who are not vaccinated will be protected.  This is often the case for cancer patients and young babies as their immunity is low and it is they who will be put at risk.  If everyone is immune, then they will be protected as the disease will be unable to get a foothold.  Those parents who choose not to vaccinate believe that the herd immunity will help protect their child, which is probably true.
3. Building immunity naturally without chemicals and toxins.  Vaccines used to contain heavy metals, formaldehyde - things which nobody would want injected into them.  Our body was made with an immune system to fight disease - we should use it.  (though it's funny - vaccines stimulate your immune system to fight the disease, not give immunity passively)
4. Belief that vaccines don't work.

I am a health care professional, so perhaps my opinion is skewed.  Of course I will be a believer in the modern vaccine.  Giving your child a weak strain of a disease so that they can build up immunity to the strong strain is a great advance in modern medicine.

Measles is a childhood illness but the most serious complications can be panencephalitis (infection of the brain) which can cause permanent brain damage or death.  The risk of that is low - maybe 1:100,000.  It can also cause pneumonia which is very serious in adults - in 1920, the death rate from measles pneumonia was 30%. Of course with modern medicine that would be a lot less.

Mumps is generally a benign illness but can cause unilateral deafness in 1:2000 patients.  Panencephalitis can also occur.

Rubella is not a serious illness in childhood, but it causes significant problems in pregnancy.  Rubella is responsible for stillbirth in early pregnancy, and significant congenital defects in the heart, brain, eyes and ears, resulting in congenital heart defects, congenital cataracts, and deafness.  The vaccine was mainly developed to prevent infection during pregnancy.

I am not sure that restricting unvaccinated from childcare is the correct decision.  I agree that reducing their welfare payments for unvaccinated children as well as increasing health insurance premiums would be a better way to deal with the problem.  Drop the child care rebate for unvaccinated children.  They can still go to childcare but the government isn't going to help pay for them to go when they are disregarding publich health and safety.  The unvaccinated child should have the same rights as a vaccinated one - but just as we cannot force people to drive with their headlights on, we should be aware that they are compromising the safety of others, and they should be penalised for that.

I remember the case of the 4 week old baby who died from whooping cough in one of the lowest areas of vaccination in the state - that was 4 years ago.  That news item prompted a big push for vaccination. However, what I did not realise is that the anti-vaccinaters had a hate compaign against that family, who had already suffered enough.  Some of the comments or letters they received included:

• "harden the f*** up"
• "I could walk through a ward of babies dying of whooping cough or any other infectious disease and it would not affect my decision to vaccinate my children."

It must be hard enough to lose your own child without having to endure this insensitive barrage as well.

They are not the only ones.  Another father, whose son died of chicken pox, was rung by anti-vaccination campaigners who said this:

• His son must have been weak, to have succumbed to such a harmless disease.  These things are a matter of survival of the fittest.

I urge everyone, to consider vaccinating your child - if not for their own safety, for the safety of others - including your own unborn children.

Pudging up

I think I have to cut back on those fast food dinners and lunches.  I'm getting a real pot belly with muffin top now happening and I might have to do some *gasp* exercise, or even worse!  Cut back on some of those junkie foods.

I guess that means no more donuts for breakfast, KFC for lunch and pizza for dinner...

Ok so my diet of moderation starts today, and I will start doing some casual walking around the area where I live with the kids in tow, and hopefully that will get some incidental exercise happening.  I know it's not much but I have to start slowly somewhere.

With Christmas coming I think it best if I start now...