I never thought that I would become a staple in the Australian cultural diet. The equivalent of bread or milk, or a fine old Tasmanian Mauve Vein. I think it’s because I talk about things that people dare not mention. I don’t mean raunchy things or unsavoury things. I call a spade a spade – I discuss things in a realistic manner.
In the 20 long, hungry years between my late teens and late 30s I bought in to virtually every new diet and/or exercise regime that hoved into view, particularly at this most vulnerable time for those of us prone to poor body image – a new year.
The meteoric rise of the ‘wellness’ industry online has launched an entire industry of fitness celebrities on social media. Millions of followers embrace their regimens for diet and exercise, but increasingly, the drive for ‘wellness’ and ‘clean eating’ has become stealthy cover for more dieting and deprivation.
I have learned a lot of interesting things about nutrition in my cricket career but the biggest lesson of all is to ensure your healthy eating habits are sustainable. The best way to eat healthily is to think of nutrition as a lifestyle, not as a diet.
I don’t believe in diets. They don’t necessarily work. What they do is scrub your weight down, but as soon as you finish, you naturally go back up. I keep everything in my diet – gluten and sugar – I just cut it down a little bit and train more. It’s not rocket science.
One of the main secrets to staying young is staying healthy. I’ve sometimes had to suppress a smile when some young lady, who has obviously not taken care of herself through diet or exercise, says admiringly, ‘Ooh, I hope I look as good as you do when I’m your age!’ Although it’s intended to be complimentary, it’s actually a back-hander.
I don’t like to diet, so I work out with a trainer a few times a week. We do kickboxing and strengthening – it’s hard! I also do yoga and love to walk everywhere. I live in Brooklyn, so walking is the best way to discover the city and the neighbourhoods.
I think, for me, I really looked at nutrition, talked to some people who knew a lot about nutrition, looked at different meal plans… calorie intake and what I was trying to do. I started slowly. I didn’t start as a ‘diet.’ I started as a lifestyle change.
Healthy people are those who live in healthy homes on a healthy diet; in an environment equally fit for birth, growth work, healing, and dying… Healthy people need no bureaucratic interference to mate, give birth, share the human condition and die.
You can train and train until you are blue in the face, but you’ve got to diet, you’ve got to have that leanness because if you are not lean, your abs won’t show. Of course, the training has to be put in, but then you’ve to shed all the fat and keep the fat off. And that’s how you get an eight pack.
Try not to completely change your diet just because you read it somewhere or someone tells you it works for them. Do what is best for your body and don’t think that just because everyone else is doing it that it will work for you. Know what fuels your body to be at its best, and enjoy the little things! Indulge! Cupcakes and cookies.
Resveratrol had a decent benefit when the mice were obese and sedentary. The mice that were fed a lean diet and resveratrol lived significantly longer than other treated mice as well as those that had no healthy diet and no resveratrol. So resveratrol is not an excuse to be lazy or eat whatever you want.
An Asian way of eating and living may help prevent and even reverse the progression of coronary heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, prostate cancer and breast cancer. Incorporate more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, soy products and fish in your diet. Eat at home more with your family and friends.
The truth of the matter is if we listened to our bodies and cleared our psychologies, we would inherently know what we need to do to stay healthy, and there wouldn’t be a market for diet pills, extreme cleanses, or low-calorie, pre-packaged junk food.
I have argued for years that we do not have a health care system in America. We have a disease-management system – one that depends on ruinously expensive drugs and surgeries that treat health conditions after they manifest rather than giving our citizens simple diet, lifestyle and therapeutic tools to keep them healthy.
When I work, a lot of times I have to lose weight, and I do that, but in my regular life I was not eating right, and I was not getting enough exercise. But by the nature of my diet and that lifestyle – boom! The end result was high blood sugars that reach the levels where it becomes Type 2 diabetes. I share that with a gajillion other people.
No one wants to work for what they have, to achieve a goal. No one wants to step outside of the house and go for a long run and sweat. Everybody wants to run inside the house, the treadmill. They want to trim up a little excess body fat, but they don’t want to diet and train. Go straight to the lipo and whatever else they do. The easy way out.
For most teenage runners, the right foods means a varied diet, decreasing the amount of fat found in the typical American diet and replacing those calories with carbohydrates. Avoid saturated fats, such as those found in fried foods, and eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables.
A relationship book I once read told women to use the word ‘fun’ whenever possible. The author claimed it had a subliminal aphrodisiac effect on men, who want a relaxed girl attached only to good times – the human equivalent of Diet Coke. This is not me.
As a kid I had a very unhealthy diet. I try not to place any blame. Mum was uneducated in cooking. She left school and home at 15, had my older brother when she was 17 and me at 19. It was usually frozen meals and lots of cola, peanut butter, jam sandwiches, sweets and loads of chocolates.
All fraudulent elections should be condemned, including those in Turkey and Russia. And we need to be doubly mindful not to indulge amateur socialists in this country, because even though a Bernie Sanders presidency is a joke, the consequences of diet communism are deadly serious.
I’ve seen so many people – loved ones and colleagues – who jump from one diet to the next, one exercise regimen to the next . I was trying to figure out what were some of the basic things that each of us can build into a lifestyle for good, instead of bouncing from one thing to the next.
I was rejected for couple of adverts for sounding too sad. One was for Diet Coke, but it’s a good thing it didn’t happen because it probably would have been a big blight on my soul. It also happened with a fabric softener called Downy, and I guess the way I sang ‘Only Downy’ made people weep.
I never cheated on nutrition, I always had a really good diet and I always supplemented well – that’s a massive factor in any sport. Even in everyday life, if people are just going to the gym recreationally, they’ll have targets in mind and if you’re not supplementing correctly or concentrating on your diet, you’re wasting your time.
Diet cola is my absolute favorite drink in the world; I used to drink four cans a day. But to help me cut down, I’ve turned it into a treat. Now, instead of having dessert, I’ll have a can of diet soda. Putting a limit on how often I can drink it has helped me appreciate it more.
