BY CHARIS TORRANCE
THE CHALLENGE
VOLUME 31 LOSE IT! 23had to be revived several times
in my life.’ At one stage she was
taking 17 scripted drugs, which,
she believes, led to her forming a
panic disorder that plagued her
for 13 years. She credits holistic
medical doctor Robbie Simons
with saving her life. ‘I had heard
of a holistic doctor who was able
to cure his asthma just through
better food choices and nutritional
supplements.’ With his help,
Sally-Ann weaned herself off all
the medication she was on within
a month. ‘After three months, I
had lost 35kg – but it wasn’t just
that. For the first time in my life
I felt normal.’
That was 26 years ago. Today,
she’s made it her life’s work to
study nutrition and spread her
message of health and wellness.
She’s taken everything she’s learnt
about nutrition and put it in her
latest book, 63 Days to Optimum
Health, a step-by-step guide to
‘forming new, healthy habits and
to ditch those old destructive
ones in 63 days’. Why 63 days?
Well, science tells us that it takes
21 days to make or break a habit
(because that’s the time it takes
to form a new neural pathway in
the brain) and another 42 days to
entrench and establish it. ‘When
you develop good habits and are
able to throw out the bad ones,
you can actually change your life.’
Although 63 Days to Optimum
Health follows some of the
low-carb, healthy-fat lifestyle
principles she’s most known
for (Sally-Ann co-authored The
Real Meal Revolution), she says
her latest offering is much more
forgiving than straightforward
Banting. ‘There have been a lot
of changes since The Real Meal
Revolution,’ she says. ‘There’s
new information coming out all
the time, so we need to adapt.’
Instead of a set of rules on what
you can or can’t do, Sally-Ann
created an eating and lifestyle
plan that can be adjusted to suit
your needs. ‘You do have a choice,
and you’ll find what works for
you.’ It all depends on the state
of your health, how much weight
you want to lose and where you
are in your life cycle.
When it comes to good
and bad habits, Sally-Ann says
that for decades we’ve been fed
the traditional ‘healthy eating
guidelines’: eat five
fruits and veg a day,
choose low-fat or
lite foods over full
fat, avoid animal
fats and eat six to 11
servings of grain a
day. But this simply
isn’t working.
In Australia, for
example, obesity as
well as thyroid and
liver cancer have
tripled (on top of
myriad other health problems)
within just a few decades. ‘We’re
putting emphasis on all the wrong
places and it’s causing problems
in the long run.’
Sally-Ann’s answer is a lower-
carbohydrate lifestyle (no refined
sugar, carbs, wheat or dairy- apart from butter). ‘But we
also need to take into account
what our ancestors ate before
industrialisation forced processed
foods on us.’ For her, the actual
key is to eat ‘real’ food and to
avoid the ‘cemetery aisles’ at your
local supermarket. (Anything that
comes in a packet or a box is dead
food, she says.) ‘Real food is food
that has not been interfered with
and that is in its natural state, and
above that, it is locally grown and
sourced and ethically produced.’
We need to learn to become
hunter-gathers who hunt for good
food, gather it and then treat that
food in the correct way.
She also stresses the importance
of superfoods. ‘Superfoods are
all highly nutritious and have
important nutrients that you
simply can’t find anywhere
else.’ And they aren’t luxury
items either (you won’t find any
açai or goji berries here); Sally-
Ann’s favourites are foods that
you probably already eat. Some
examples: butter
(inhibits the
growth of breast
tumours and
cancer of the
lung, skin and
colon), onions
(protect cells
from free-radical
damage), garlic
(a natural
antibiotic used
for its medicinal
properties for
centuries) and broccoli (blocks
and targets mutant genes that
are associated with cancer).
Then there are some that you
probably don’t eat every day:
pasture-fed animal meat (full of
conjugated linoleic acid, which
boosts your immunity and keeps
cholesterol in check), bone broth
(reduces inflammatory conditions
and infections, improves gut
health and much more) and organ
meat (the most nutritious part of
an animal). She emphasises that
it’s important to eat them often,
but also, that they’re nutritious
enough to eat on their own. ‘For
example, an egg has almost every
nutrient you need, except vitamin
C – but you can have an orange
afterwards,’ she laughs.‘Real food is food
that has not been
interfered with
and that is in its
natural state,
and above that, it
is locally grown
and sourced
and ethically
produced.’