Colin is a popular and sought after speaker who has presented and talked to a wide variety of organisations. He delivers entertaining, interactive and powerful presentations and Colin will have a few surprises and promises to challenge your beliefs about food and nutrition. Full details of Colin’s company can be found at www.diet-nutrition.co.uk.

Download audio file (Colin-McKeand-1-March-2011.mp3)
Download

BiG Event Report
Colin McKeand introduced this topic  by reminding us that the way we live is greatly influenced by the way we eat and the fundamental factors in his talk were, there are a huge range of ‘myths’ surrounding food and what is best for us. He prefaced his talk by reminding us that in all things we need to treat the topic not in isolation but to look at food, nutrition, diet and lifestyle as a whole rather than  something to be focused on narrowly.

Colin exposed many of the myths that have become fact in our understanding of eating and about what foods are good for us. He reminded us that in 1977 in the United States and then 1983 in the UK there was a complete ‘u turn’ of advice on food: basically fat was no longer good and indeed ‘demonised’. Subsequently carbohydrates were promoted as substances that we ought to eat much of, so therefore we were encouraged to base our meals on starchy foods,  together with  five fruit or vegetables a day and fish at least twice a week. In addition, the less salt we took with our food the better. The advice would be rounded of by drinking lots of water and fundamentally don’t skip breakfast.

Colin highlighted that the topic is a little more complex than the above. For example  salt intake is an important issue but what do you cut out? Effectively sodium chloride is the salt that is not good for us but the salt we need is the unrefined kind and it is as important to consider the constituent elements of the salt as much as the amount.

Colin took us back to the fact that in 1991 in California a marketing company devised the scheme of eating five pieces of fruit and vegetables a day, this has been the mantra of most health organisations and government agencies ever since. The irony is, as far as Colin could make out this is not evidence based. It sounds good but what about the issue of what is better to eat, vegetables or fruit? Colin highlighted the fact that vegetables are probably the better for us and when we eat fruit we should eat it in conjunction with nuts and seeds because they are full of minerals and that fat soluble vitamins need fat receptors to absorb them.

He also highlighted the need for Vitamin D in our diet and with the discouragement to spend too much time in the sun, there is an upsurge in the vitamin D deficiency in  the form of rickets.

It was quite clear in the way Colin was taking our talk that a lot of the things we take for granted needs to be looked at even more closely. He also highlighted that our food is the poorer now because minerals essential to our bodies are depleted in the soil and therefore we do not get the same benefit out of our food that we once did. Therefore he was more open to taking supplements to sustain the vitamin deficiencies that we have through the lack of poorer quality food available to us.

Colin also believed that fats were hyped too much as being bad for us because fat is one of the main nutrients for our bodies and that we have lost some of the good fats for our health, for example butter being one of them. Butter is a good food, especially butter that is not liquidised and put into a tub to make it spread better.  Similarly, a diet with fish would be a healthy diet but where are the fish sourced from and what is the mercury content within them?

One of the questions from the floor was that even with good quality supplements to complement our diet; do they lose some of their potency as soon as they are opened to the air? Colin recommended that the higher quality supplements which were based on natural foods and plants were better at being able to retain their potency.

Colin delivered a talk that challenged the complacent attitude we can have to our nutrition, another helpful resource to our BiG seminar repertoire.

Steven Watson of Stepwell Consultancy Ltd managed to squeeze a huge amount of fascinating information into his talk on stress issues. He was full of wisdom with lots of practical suggestions as to how to begin to tackle this universally experienced and sometimes crushing phenomenon.

He began by pointing out that stress has replaced backache as the number 1 reason for absence from work. This does not trivialise the problem but highlights how difficult and important it is to manage stress well.

He led the group in trying to define stress but we all had different answers, depending on our experiences and the situations that generate stress in each of us. Steven pointed out that stress itself, although it is perceived as negative, can be a vital motivator when it is within comfortable, managed limits. The real problems come with chronic stress – living for years with a constantly clenched fist, as our flight/fight response is continuously triggered.

He asked us to look at the factors that cause stress, helpfully categorising them as external factors (environmental, social, economic), pressures that come from around us, e.g. pressures from global competition, business slowdown, from family relationships or colleagues, or from the place we live or work. There are also internal factors (psychological, emotional, behavioural) that come from our make-up and grow from within us. These can be hidden but are no less real to the individual’s experience of stress.

Steven suggested that it is important to be aware of our personal thinking errors so that we can gain some sort of control over them. Our perception of difficult or unpleasant events can heighten our experience of stress when our thinking is negative. He gave some examples of ones that often are not only a response to stress but are contributing factors:

1. All or nothing thinking – “If I don’t get it right I’m a total failure”
2. Jumping to conclusions – with no real evidence “the boss has got it in for me!”
3. Mind reading – assuming what other people think without checking
4. ‘Should’ statements – “I should have … “ leads to unrealistic expectations and guilt
5. Labelling – “I am a complete failure”
6. Magnification – “It’s the worst thing that could happen to me”
7. Fortune telling – “She ignored me, we’re not friends anymore”
8. Generalisation – “No point in applying, I’ve already been turned down by five employers”

If we are experiencing chronic stress – it is important to take action now. He gave us eight points to help stimulate a re-balancing in life and work:

1. Recognise how the world of work has changed. We cannot just do what we used to do.
2. Evaluate our relationship to work. Fatigue, family, friends, expectations, what can be changed?
3. Assess our personal drivers. Our personal identity, value system, parental influences, our success criteria all need to be looked at on a regular basis.
4. Be aware of the impact of other people’s expectations. Peer pressure, herd mentality, hidden agenda and unrealistic goals are often other people’s heavy loads, which we do not have to carry.
5. Discover your boat. Create real space, learn to say no, fight the guilt, practice rest and learn to say, “No” Even Jesus made time to sleep in a boat!
6. Invest in your private world. Slowing, solitude, spirituality, soundproofing the heart all take time, effort and determination but they pay off hugely.
7. Look after yourself properly. Just because we all know this but rarely do it – doesn’t mean to say that it does not make a difference. Recreation, sleep/eat well, protect your days off, train ourselves to relax, write it out, trust a friend with your stuff, seek professional help.
8. Remain positive. Stop negative thought patterns – get off the tram lines, put things in perspective, re-frame your thinking, it’s OK to learn from mistakes, break up the monotony, laugh more, be thankful!

By now we were almost out of time but Steven had struck a rich vein of wisdom for us. He didn’t have had time to point us to ten growth areas, but hopefully he’ll come back and tell us about them another time. He finished with emphasising the importance of identifying key actions and doing them now so that stress does not become an issue.