The Best Diet

If you don't eat right, well, you do it to yourself:  snotty, sore throat, etc.  Too too often you do it to yourself.    Didn't eat right, didn't get enough sleep, trained too much or too little.   Even if it's just a bug, you've been brought low like a grotesque tentacled Martian by a mere microbe.   Not perhaps very low,  not much of a sickness, but even so.  So sad.

The focus should always been on health, with a minor in fitness. You can always get fit, if you're healthy. Being fit won't cure cancer.  The biggest and most controllable element of health is diet. The most healthful diets will include the most plant nutrients. If that's a bias, a non-Paleo-fad bias, well, bias can also be correct. That being said, this:


Isn't he a mild-mannered fella? A vegetarian nutritionist who's concluded that Atkins is most effective at fat loss and weight-maintenance. He will of course be right. We mean of course, "Atkins."

First, note that it's about fat loss, not health. Note also that fat-loss leads to health benefits -- the numbers get better: triglycerides, LDL to HDL, etc. This happens with any fat loss, but if Atkins does it most reliably, then Atkins has a solid claim to be the best fat-loss diet. So if you want fat loss, think about it.

Of course something like Dr Fuhrman's "Eat to Live" diet -- nutrient rich and calorie poor, fibrous and leafy vegetables, no refined carbs -- has a similar fat-loss record, with the bonus of health benefits accruing from more than just those that come via fat loss.  Just saying.

Gardner, in the video, around min. 42 says that with insulin resistance -- which means with obesity, virtually all obesity -- low carb diets are significantly more effective than low fat diets (which here would mean high carb). Then he says that with better insulin sensitivity, high carb diets do better. Paraphrase.

So here's the point. It's not Atkins, it's not protein or fat, it's controlling insulin by eliminating the industrial carbs, and to a lesser degree the calorie carbs. It's that idea behind glycemic load. Atkins has the lowest glycemic load of any of the tested diets. With severely insulin-resistant people, the single greatest factor is glycemic load. Therefore of the tested diets, Atkins is most effective in remediating high body fat.

It's a whole different thing than health. Obesity is a pathological condition. It requires a heroic intervention. What about when health is regained, though, or when it's never been lost? What then? The power lifters, strength athletes, will affirm from experience and with good cause that high-protein works best for their goals. Who can  argue with success?  Meat works best. For them. For their very specific practices. Meat, or high protein. Power lifters however are not about health. They're not even about fitness. They are about achieving a specific competitive result. Indeed, there are diets that will give you prize-winning bulls. Not healthy bulls, but really big and strong. Sort of the way there's such a thing as mad-cow disease. Manipulate diet for specific reasons, and you get peculiar results. In any case, if you want your fires to burn hotter, eat hard-to-digest foods.

Ah well.  There are no guarantees. Even if someone's diet were better than it is,  sickness may loom.   There is no perfection, and the best is the enemy of the better. We do what we can, and take what comes. Some youngster may think that no bad thing can happen. Would that it were so.  Best practice yields best outcome, no matter what that outcome is.

Be excellent.


FW
CrossFit Burbank