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I APOLOGIZE…..

If the last two years is anything to go by there is definitely one message which resonates across the board with everyone. That message is health. No matter what anyone says human health has certainly come to the forefont of global focus. What is sad is that it took the fear of a pandemic to wake people up and make them realise that.

Humanity across the globe is in a very unhealthy state but moreover a large percentage of the unhealthy population is based on very poor lifestyle decisions which have a detrimental impact on ones health and of course the consequences that come with it. Usually an individual will only value their health when they no longer have it. It’s debilitating physical and emotional impact period can leave a person begging for their health back. If and when it does return they generally go back to their previous bad habits. No lessons learned just Russian roulette with their health future.

The pandemic though brought another angle to the forefont and that was the question of am I healthy? If I do catch this virus how will my body respond? It is a very vital question to ask. I come across so many people in life who tell me they are healthy but once we start to dig deep we find that in actuality they are not. I mainly work with athletes. Take a look at them in general and your perception is lean, fast, strong and resilient. I take a look at them and see vulnerabilities caused by additional stresses on a body which can suppress proper immune sytem function as well as trigger a whole other host of potential issues which are never seen on the surface. Yes, they can also be high risk candidates.

When the pandemic started and treatment protocols were not crystal clear my immediate advice was tone down the training volume and intensity, focus on good nutrition, plenty of good sleep and fortify your health because that was our only initial natural fighting mechanism. Many did the opposite with their backyard ultra’s and clocking up the biggest home training sessions I have ever seen in my life. There were many who then when contracted covid got hurt and knocked down way worse than they should have. When I saw what was happening I took a bit of an angry and somewhat arrogant stance commenting that many had just taken their health for granted and now they were paying the price for their poor decisions.

I owe you an apology. Its not your fault. You were never guided, never taught, and grew up in an environment in which you didn’t know any better. It should not take a pandemic and fear mongering to make us change our attitudes towards our own health. It should be ingrained from a young age. Nutrition, exercise and general health should be taught at schools, should be brought into our homes and should be all encompassing in a family environment. However its very rare to find.

I dont like who I became. The pandemic triggered a huge sense of anger and resentment inside of me with the world looking for quick fixes and solutions to solve a pandemic which had absolutely no mercy on the vulnerable.
Admittedly I was one of the fearful when covid hit. The media loves sensationalism its how they make their money and fear was at the top of the list.

Eventually when I caught my first covid infection I had to go through the motions of a symptomatic illness that millions of others went through before me not knowing which way it would go. In hindsight the infection that hit my wife and I was fairly mild compared to many and we were over it in around ten days and slowly back to routine.
I was told by someone that I was lucky. That flared up some more anger because for the past 30 years of my life I have placed a huge amount of effort and focus on preventative health, through studying and constantly practicing. every single day of my life. Luck has nothing to do with it I lashed back. However again I need to apologize. My own turning point was three decades ago when I too succumbed to illness and it was my wake up call and my calling in life. If this is what it took me to wake up then it isn’t any different for others.

There was a major war going on across the globe of health versus covid. Having experienced covid and having some like minded experts at my side I became a frontline soldier. I went straight into the health battle and never looked back. Even to the extent that when my wifes son caught delta a year after our first infection I intentionally exposed ourselves to him to prove that health is the trump card here. We went through the second covid infection but this time way milder than the previous one. To be honest only two days of sinus irritation and then bloods were run and were all good and so again back to routine.

I was told by someone that my “brilliant chess move” was like cleaning my teeth with a shotgun. My convictions are solid, I just told him that for him it was fear talking, but I had already experienced covid and so I had none.
More arrogance set in because we bounced covid twice with ease and heath became even more of a trump card.
BUT, in hindsight I openly admit this was not a very clever move. As an educator and mentor it was pretty damn stupid. I demonstrated something which could have led others to do the same thing with dire consequences. Very few people on this planet actually have a true snapshot of their health. Their definition of health is an snapshot of how they feel from day to day based on physical and emotional feeling and function. They might not actually know what it truly feels like to be energetic and truly healthy. Its a biased opinion based on their life experiences.

I have let you all down. I played the health card over and over again during a pandemic when you did not have the slightest understanding of how you could be directly impacted by it. But because you do not have that indepth knowledge and know how into measuring your own health you could easily be at risk. Not just pandemic risk but any potential health threats that come your way.

The last few weeks I decided to take a step back and went into deep thought as to how I can try to make this world a better place. I am tired of the ongoing battles and arguments ensuing the globe. I have my opinions but my job is to encourage motivate, and help others achieve a much higher level of health and longevity.
So for now the only way forward is to educate and motivate . To use all my experience and evidence based knowledge and the knowledge of others to give you the best possible opportunity at strengthening, improving and fortifying your health.

Its a new year, certainly a new era and all I can do is promise you to keep striving to help change lives for the better going forwards.

Yours in health always

M



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DROP THAT BODY FAT IN WINTER

Winter is that time of the year where most athletes hate getting up early in the dark hours and love the comfort of their warm beds.

Along with this comes the process of comfort eating.

The drop in temperatures leaves our bodies expending a little more energy to keep warm and so there are additional feelings of hunger that require satiation. However, most people tap into their emotional eating and consume an unhealthy mix of foods to provide them that level of comfort. Meal structure is lost and so too are the hopes of coming out of winter in good shape. 

SO HOW DO YOU EXIT WINTER LEANER & MEANER?
There are several steps you need to take and if you follow these you will succeed. 

SET YOUR GOALS
So you know you want to come out of winter leaner and meaner but what does that mean in terms of body composition goals?

The first step is to know your current weight and your current body composition in terms of body fat. You might be fearful of the numbers but once it is in black and white you can set yourself a goal as to where you want to go. As an example, you might want to drop a few percent body fat but if you do not have a starting point then you will not be able to measure your rate of success. Whatever your goal, whether it’s to drop a few kilograms, increase a few kilograms, drop body fat, drop waist circumference you do need a starting point. Numbers do not lie, and they set the foundation from which to launch. 

STRUCTURE YOUR TRAINING
Exercise is the only way to increase lean muscle. It is not possible to strengthen and grow lean muscle without some form of resistance training. Winter is a brilliant time to add a mix of strength sessions to the routine. They do not have to be long-drawn-out sessions. As little as 30min x 3 times, a week is sufficient to trigger hypertrophy with a split routine incorporating all muscle groups. I like to mix it up and target a combination of muscle groups a couple of times a week. This does not mean I neglect my running, cycling, cardiovascular exercise etc. It just means I reduce my volume sufficiently to incorporate a fair amount of strength training. 

NUTRITION IS KEY
Now we get to the low down on how to drop the body fat. Smart eating is the way to get that body fat down and it’s quite simple. Firstly, no it does not mean fasting, it means eating and eating well. 

Step 1 is to determine how many calories you are currently burning off on any day at rest and including exercise. Once you know this amount of energy expenditure you need to make sure you consume a deficit. So as an example, if an individual burns off around 2500Kcals daily and wants to lose weight then I would suggest a deficit of around 500Kcals meaning his intake should be no more than 2000Kcals. If you want a nice gradual loss over a longer period, you could go with a slightly lower deficit of around 300Kcals but for faster results, the former is better.

Do not think eating even more of a calorie deficit is good for you because it is not necessarily. It can cause fatigue, slow recovery, and drop those energy levels limiting your ability to perform. I often hear people tell me that to increase muscle one needs to eat in a surplus. This is not true, to gain weight sure you need to eat in a surplus, but you can still increase lean muscle by eating in a slight deficit or maintaining. The key to muscle growth is proper macronutrient intake specifically protein.

Let’s talk macronutrients for a bit………………

In my previous blog, I harped on about protein being the king macronutrient for increasing lean muscle and dropping body fat. Yes, this is vital, and you do need to consume the correct amount of protein per kilogram of body weight to achieve this. 

However for body fat loss, fiber is also important and a high fiber diet will see you feeling satiated and keeping blood glucose levels down. This is the trick with body fat dropping. It is ensuring you control blood sugar levels properly while giving it the proper nutrients required to achieve your end goal.

In many cases, people shift to keto diets to try to control blood sugar. I do not think this is a wise idea as it diminishes power and pace over time and that is what I would want to push harder during the winter months. An individual whose organs function normally and secretes insulin the way it was meant to will not have a problem processing carbohydrates. Most important is the volume of carbohydrates you consume per meal and if controlled you can limit blood sugar elevation. Doing this correctly can keep you in a fat-burning mode most of the time. So smaller meals more spread over the day is an excellent way of controlling blood sugar, hunger and stabilizing energy levels properly.

FLUID CONSUMPTION
Water is so vital in any healthy eating regime. I advise consuming around 30-40ml per kilogram of body weight daily. Now with the winter months and the cold many people turn to loads of coffee consumption and many with sugar. Instead of playing havoc with excess caffeine consumption and loading yourself with sugar try to incorporate some herbal teas. Green tea is my favourite and due to its catechins especially EGCG it can increase metabolic rate aiding weight loss. Over and above this its polyphenols provide a host of health benefits.

Another trick is to have ice water which cools down the core temperature leaving the body to work harder to warm it up. Not many people can wake up to a glass of ice in winter so green tea would be your next best bet .

To sum up train smart, eat smart and use this period to make the positive gains you are looking for towards your goals instead of hampering them and having to do some damage control when you exit the winter period.

Just a few tips to help you through this period

DON’T LET WINTER BREAK YOU, LET IT MAKE YOU.

Mark Wolff is a certified exercise & sports nutritionist, endurance nutrition and physiology expert with over 20 years experience. An endurance multi-sport athlete with a running, triathlon, mountain biking and weight lifting background, he works extensively with professional and amateur athletes in a variety of sports disciplines as well as those just wanting to change their lifestyles. He firmly believes that a person can only reach their full potential when their health and nutrition is given the proper focus. Mark’s focus on nutrition and physiology is not just on training and racing, but he places major emphasis on recovery, immune system health, emotional stability, stress management and performance. Mark is co-founder of 32Gi, a sports nutrition company, focused mainly on health and endurance nutrition. He is also co-founder of Rapid Recover focused on pneumatic compression equipment to improve circulation for recovery, rehabilitation and health.

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REFLECTIONS OF A PANDEMIC YEAR

I am going to start this post with a very short descriptive sentence “2020 was an absolutely f’ed up year” and I am sure most of the worlds population feels that way. On a personal note this has been an absolute roller coaster ride and I am the kind of individual that does not take kindly to situations that are out of my control. I am an analytical person that thrives on statistics, numbers, predictions and strategies with predictable and achievable end goals and outcomes. Well this year took all of that knowledge and know how and just threw it on its head which made it a very challenging one.

2020 was the start of what felt like a movie except we are the main characters. Thrown into a complete lockdown for which was basically our peak of summer and racing season it suddenly became a psychological battle for most with the inability to venture outdoors even to train. Some of us were more fortunate in that home gyms and indoor training equipment made it possible to continue exercising however the difficulty for most was the motivation factor with no known goals as events were postponed and cancelled. Over and above that financial worries set in with many. Income sources were burned out and many companies were put into red zones of retrenchment and the inability to support their loyal staff. In some cases like mine with airports shut down and travel restrictions as well as the cycle of lockdowns across the globe, I was unable to see my children. Its now nearly been nearly a year since I have seen them last. Simple things we took for granted now became unachievable.

It sounds like an entire year of doom and gloom, and there are still unkowns, however as the year went on I started to find some light in the situation. I noticed that what many take for granted slowly started to come to the forefront of importance.
There is a proverb which goes “he who has health has hope, and he who has hope has everything”. Its a quote which has stuck very close to me for more than twenty years. I have mentioned in the past that in my twenties I fell victim to a virus which pretty much threw my entire world into chaos. It did not leave me alone and for years I battled with the ups and downs of reinfections and long lasting bouts of post viral and chronic fatigue. It took an enormous amount of focus and effort to take back control and over many years of studying and knowledge gaining eventually I was able to turn the tables. I managed to get to a position where those tables could never turn back. I could never let my guard down ever and I needed to ensure I had my nutrition, sleep and exercise routines completely down packed. It was never perfect but over many years of gaining more and more knowledge and tweaking here and there I finally became a master of my own health.

When Covid hit I was more determined than ever to make sure that health came to the forefront for myself, my family, friends and all the athletes I work with. It was the only weapon we had in such an unkown situation. Exercise continued, nutrition became a lot more focussed and easier due to constant kitchen access. Gaining proper sleep was pretty easy with no need of having to get up at the crack of dawn to travel. When lockdown eased later in the year Covid struck rampantly and my wife and I landed up contracting the illness. We didn’t know what to expect and took it one day at a time. Symptoms set in with what seemed to be a sinus infection and fatigue and every day was a different story. We didn’t suffer with fevers or lung function issues just severe headaches, some muscle aches and lingering fatigue. Exercise stopped completely and we focussed on nutrition and sleep.

I must admit it was a roller coaster ride not knowing what to expect from one day to the next, it didn’t feel natural and symptoms changed here and there but my wife and I both agreed we had been way sicker in our lives with previous infections.
After the 14 day quarantine period we still felt lingering viral fatigue but straight off to the physician for a full medical and some drips to help with the post viral oxidative stress. Bloods were completely normal for my wife and mine were a little out with hyperferritnemia and elevated liver function. Covid is known to impact iron so that would have explained it. However me being mainly plant based it did not elevate it much at all. Liver function could have been due to meds or it could have flared up my previous infection which was associated with liver function issues. The knowledge of being able to deal with these issues as well as working with an exellent physician as a sounding board made it pretty simple to get back on track. The post viral fatigue faded over the next two weeks and once the cardiologist gave the green light it was back to proper training and getting back on track.

The more and more people I engaged with that had caught Covid the more I realised that there was a pattern forming. The young were not being affected as much as the elderly. Those that were generally in good health tended to overcome it pretty well and get back to normality quite quickly. Many that I know who have not really looked after their health, have overtrained or exerted themselves a lot, sacrificed on sleep and nutrition or with underlying conditions etc seemed to be far worse for wear and battled through the illness. So much confusion also hit the medical fraternity never really knowing what to expect when patients contracted the illness. Then there were even those who were very ill who tested negative for Covid and that threw even more confusion into the works. As the year dragged on and the more people I came into contact with who had contracted Covid the more it became clearer and clearer. Health is the surely greatest form of wealth.

I had this thought that when we are young we have these immaculate immune systems which function at their optimal and as we age we can either nurture them or damage them. Most of the world damages their health. Poor nutrition choices, processed foods, junk food, lack of exercise, poor sleep, working around the clock and additional stress factors do not bode well for a healthy individual but rather weaken the body and make it more susceptible to illness.

I am currently on an athlete blood chemistry course with some top docs and scientists who in their eccentric nature love the numbers just as much as I do. I remember one lecture clearly which focussed on a cluster of over 32 scientific research reports discussing nutrition and blood markers. The doc threw a sentence out there saying unfortunately the research we are looking at was carried out with a population where over 90% of the participants are obese. Taking into account other factors that basically means 98% of those participants are unnhealthy. In short the results of this science cluster in all likelihood cannt be applied to a health athlete.
Why was this a big eye opener? Simple the majority of the world is unhealthy. Many have done damage to themselves over time resulting in long term health issues or medical conditions. The problem with an illness like Covid is that it has no mercy on these individuals. Some will get away but many will not and this is the frightening reality of the situation. Statistics of illness and death rates caused by Covid again is spread across a globe of predominantly unhealhy individuals.

World health day ,Stethoscope wrapped around globe on pastel blue background. Save the wold, Global health care and Green Earth day concept

As the year comes to a close with potential treatment methods in the form of a vaccine and much more knowledge on the situation at hand. I can only but utter that for all of you out there who have not contracted Covid now is the time to realise you were given an opportunity light. You are given the chance to truly focus on your health and build it like you have never built it before. Do not become complacent because this is not gone and there is no guarantee that it cannot happen again. Those who have had Covid and experienced the suffering and those who have lost loved ones truly realise the harsh nature of what many have had to face and experience this terrible year. You are the ones that truly know the value of what it means to have health and hope. Many have become complacent and many are just waiting to be vaccinated to end this nightmare. However we unforuntatly know there are never quick fixes in life and I urge you all to hang on to your health with everything you have. Respect it, nurture it, look after it and fortify it for without health there is no hope and without hope there is nothing.

Many blessings for 2021
yours in health always

M

Mark Wolff is a certified exercise & sports nutritionist, endurance nutrition and physiology expert with over 20 years experience. An endurance multi-sport athlete with a running, triathlon, mountain biking and weight lifting background, he works extensively with professional and amateur athletes in a variety of sports disciplines as well as those just wanting to change their lifestyles. He firmly believes that a person can only reach their full potential when their health and nutrition is given the proper focus. Mark’s focus on nutrition and physiology is not just on training and racing, but he places major emphasis on recovery, immune system health, emotional stability, stress management and performance. Mark is co-founder of 32Gi, a sports nutrition company, focused mainly on health and endurance nutrition. He is also co-founder of Rapid Recover focused on pneumatic compression equipment to improve circulation for recovery, rehabilitation and health.