A: I like to educate people about what the supplements really
do and the misleading information out there. The Food & Drug Administration
does not regulate the industry. You can make claims on a label about things
... that aren't necessarily in the product. How the things are processed (when
the product is made) is directly correlated to their bioavailability -- your
body's ability to absorb and utilize those nutrients. There's also the food
issue. For me, it's more important for people to understand that supplements
are just that; they are not intended to replace food or nutrients. For the most
part, most diseases and conditions can be dealt with nutritionally. Many conditions
are caused by poor nutrition or lack of nutrition.
Q: What does that poor nutrition stem from in America?
A: People don't mean to eat badly. There are people who think
they're making good food choices but aren't getting what they think they are
out of what they eat because of misleading labels. When you go into a food store,
you need to be aware of ... the hidden things in the food. Transfats, the bad
fat, for instance, is not broken down on a food label. You have to look further
on the label and know to look for hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated fats
and to know those fat grams aren't calculated on the nutrition label. There's
a trend of people wanting to be more proactive in their own health ... by making
positive lifestyle changes. What we eat is important and there are supplements
that make a huge difference. The downside of the trend is that the more popular
it becomes, the more people are going to be out there trying to make a buck.
People need to know what they're looking for.
Q: So there's no one thing you can do to make things perfect?
A: It is a holistic approach. Whether it's dealing with an
illness or just weight loss, everything in your lifestyle matters: what you
eat, the supplements you take, your activity level, what you do to alleviate
stress in your life. There's a connection on all levels; it's all inter-related.
Your body is one big chemistry project; everything in our bodies has an impact
on something else. That's why you have to find what works for you.
Q: What do you consider to be the elements of fitness or wellness?
Nutrition plays a key role. If you exercise and you don't back
that up with nutrition, it's self-defeating. Three hours of aerobics without
eating ultimately will break down the muscle, but then you're not eating, which
slows down your metabolism, and you gain weight.
Q: How do people get to a balanced level of wellness?
A: Total reprogramming. You have to eat more to speed up your
metabolism. If you exercise and weight train, you're doing half the equation.
You also need protein ... to rebuild the muscle tissue broken down through exercise.
You need good, solid nutrition. That became evident to me on a personal level
when I began bodybuilding. I realized that with dieting strictly for competition
how much ... my body changed by what I ate. I could eat things one day and see
a difference the next day. The more refined you try to get your body, the more
you realize that every nutrient is a chemical reaction.
Q: Is changing lifestyle the biggest hurdle for the common
Joe?
A: Absolutely. Everything is set up in our society to be easy.
It's much faster and easier to eat drive-through fast food than to plan to have
the right food with you when you need to eat. We also make it very cost effective
to eat worse. It's cheaper to get a combo meal and super-size your fries. Sometimes
the side dish is worse than the main course. A large chocolate shake from Burger
King has more fat and calories from saturated fat than a 20-oz. T-bone steak
or 20 strips of bacon.
Q: Let's discuss the positive side of supplements or herbal
products as alternatives to traditional medicine or over-the-counter therapies.
A: Medications just treat symptoms. They don't really get to
the cause of the problem. Nutrition sometimes can get to the problem; nutritional
supplements sometimes can do the same thing and get to the deficiency ... and
the symptoms go away. You're taking a more non-invasive approach and for a shorter
period of time. You fix the source of the problem and usually it doesn't recur,
or you know what to do when it does. When you take medication, you take it to
get rid of the symptoms, but you don't get to the cause. The medications also
often cause other problems that cause you to need more medication.
Q: Has prevalence of information about the availability of
supplements and herbals hurt or helped?
A: The Internet is awesome and it's dangerous. It educates
people just enough so that they think they're doctors. Infomercials are even
worse. Just because someone spent a lot of money for an infomercial, doesn't
mean it's true. My biggest challenge is to educate people so they know what
they're doing. Knowledge is power. You don't need a personal trainer for the
rest of your life, just to help you learn how to do it right.
Q: If you could have everyone's attention for 60 seconds, what
point would you try to make?
A: That little bitty changes that you may think are so insignificant
can make a huge impact on the quality of your life. The amazing thing is that
if you just make a couple of little changes, they will produce such great results
that those results are going to motivate other good changes. It's not about
making all the changes all at one time; that doesn't work. Little changes are
easy to do. You can't change years of habits in a day. You can't change a lot
of health issues that accumulated over a long period of time ... but we can
reserve them with little small changes to the foods we choose to eat and little
changes in our activity levels. Little changes bring profound results.
