Homework turned Blog-post: NTR320 Intro

To save time and not waste the hours of effort I’ve already put into these homework assignments, I shall be posting my assignments on this blog for anyone’s reading pleasure and hopefully, some extra education which can then be passed on. 🙂

“Hi everyone, before I write about myself, I just wanna say that the videos you have posted so far are very informative! So a big thank you 🙂

My name is John Tang and I’m also an exchange student from Singapore. In fact, Desmond and I are classmates taking a degree in Sports Science and Management from Nanyang Technological Institute (NTU). I chose this course because I have always fascinated about how human nutrition has evolved over the millenniums and the events which have lead to why we currently eat the way we do.

Since I was old enough to recognize the difference between healthy and unhealthy foods, I have always made a conscious decision to eat healthy. However, it wasn’t until very recently that I started to really delve into the world of nutrition and found out about numerous misconceptions and assumptions I had about food and what it means to eat ‘healthy’.

It all started when I got injured pursuing sports about a year ago. After months, there was no progression with regards to my recovery. In fact, I started to get more injuries, seemingly randomly and without any specific incident. Eventually I found out that one of my injuries had triggered a dormant autoimmune disease which I carried the gene for. Its called Ankylosing Spondylitis, very similar to arthritis.

It was during this period of suffering that I had the time and desperation to become a self-administered ‘google-doctor’ and did a ton of research on nutrition because I wanted to find out the best foods to eat to help me recover from injury faster. This mainly revolved around an anti-inflammatory diet of whole, high quality and naturally raised foods. I even experimented on a couple of diets.

This experience has lead me to appreciate food as the number one contributor to health (followed closely by sleep and exercise). It is so important to how we feel, look and live that I firmly believe that by simply eating the best foods for one’s individual needs, one can stay in the pink of health for optimal physical and mental performance. To quote Hippocrates, “If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health.”

Presently, I do not follow any single diet. I choose my food according to the beneficial principles of a number of diets I have read about and tried. Additionally, I time and fine tune the ratios of macro-nutrients according to the specific needs of my sport. Occasionally I still cheat on my diet because I love life, food and happiness, especially when I partake in a good buffet. 🙂 Its still a work in progress and I don’t believe in a perfect diet. In fact, I don’t even think people should follow diets. I believe everyone should be educated about the scientifically proven facts about food and then be allowed to make their own decisions about how much of what food to eat.

Here is a video of one of the diets I have tried and highly recommend for health and physical & mental performance. Its called a Ketogenic Diet and basically revolves around restricting one’s carbohydrate intake but being very liberal with one’s intake of healthy fats, vegetables (not fruits. Fruits are high in carbohydrates as most contain high amounts of sugars) and moderate amounts of meat. This video first explains why fats (esp saturated fats) are not the demonic food we have been brought up to think they are. In fact I consume upwards of 12 tablespoons of healthy fats a day and have never felt and looked leaner or physically and mentally performed better, ever. Next, Dr.Volek talks about the link between carbohydrate over-consumption (like in our modern diets) and weight/fat gain and its related diseases. Then he talks about why low-fat, low calorie diets tend to fail and why low-carb diets are more sustainable. Finally, he delves into what a low-carb diet is, why its beneficial, why top athletes are switching to this diet and abandoning the idea of carb-loading, how to start a low-carb diet and how a low-carb diet can put Type-2 diabetes into remission. Enjoy!”

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