“There can be only one.”
It’s the iconic quote from the only good Highlander movie, referring to the eternal battle immortal warriors wage across time to become the last of their kind and gain special powers over all lesser beings. I won’t say there can be only one perfect diet, but it is fun—and illustrative—to compare and contrast the different diets, not so much as a “contest” but as a method for winnowing out the differences and giving readers an idea of what might work for them.
Today, I’m going to compare the Keto Reset (my particular Primal brand of the keto diet) to other popular diet trends.
First, what is keto all about?
Read MoreLongtime readers of the blog are so inundated with the latest dietary research and results from years of personal experimentation that they often take the simple, basic dietary truths for granted. But it’s the simple ones that make the most difference. Today I’m going to sift through the knowledge base to winnow out the dietary truths that, while basic, fundamental, and important, are unknown or misinterpreted in the “normal population.” If you think someone you know or care about could learn from this list, send it along.
What follows are some basic dietary truths that everyone needs to understand.
Read MoreIt appears that we’re well into “outrageous media frenzy over terrible or misleading claims by nutrition scientists” season….
Last week I covered the “low-carb” and mortality study, and for this week’s edition of Dear Mark I’m covering the (latest) coconut oil controversy. A Harvard professor recently launched a dramatic harangue against coconut oil, calling it “pure poison.” Is it true this time? Are we indeed killing ourselves?
Read MoreFor today’s edition of Dear Mark, I’m answering a single, significant question. It concerns the latest “anti-low-carb” study claiming that we’re all killing ourselves by not eating bread. A reader wonders if the study is legit and if we should be worried about eating fewer carbs than “normal” people.
I don’t think we should be concerned, and I’ll explain why in detail. Let’s take a look and break it down.
Read MoreInterest in the ketogenic diet is at an all-time high, and for good reason. It’s a great way to lose body fat, gain steady energy throughout the day, increase fat-burning capacity at rest and during exercise, reduce inflammation, and improve cognitive function. Keto also has a number of promising medical applications, including seizure control, enhanced efficacy of chemotherapy, and abatement of age-related cognitive impairment.
But going keto takes work. You have to overhaul your diet, restrict certain classes of foods, and pay close attention to what you eat. People prefer to avoid work if they can. They like shortcuts. Exogenous ketone supplements promise a shortcut—swallow this pill or mix this powder into your water and see your ketones skyrocket without changing the rest of your diet.
Read MoreFor today’s Dear Mark, I’m answering just one question from a reader. What are we to make of the new study purporting to show that saturated fat is the most harmful substance a liver can encounter? Should we remove all traces of it from our diets? Should we eat pure sugar? Quaff soybean oil? How relevant is an overfeeding study to a community of people dedicated to eating a sustainable, weight-reducing or -maintaining diet that includes saturated fat?
Let’s find out:
Read MoreThe tricky thing about fiber is that it’s not a monolith. There are dozens of varieties. Some of them perform similar functions in the body, but others have extremely unique effects. Some rend your colonic lining to stimulate lubrication. Some turn into gelatinous slurries. But we can’t talk about fiber without understanding that the word describes a variety of compounds. As such, anyone making declarative statements about “fiber” without differentiating between the different types and their effects isn’t being accurate (except for me in that exact sentence).
This leads to a lot of confusion. People make blanket statements that might be true for some types of fibers and incorrect for others.
Read MoreFor today’s edition of Dear Mark, I’m answering four questions from readers. First, should someone homozygous for the FADS variant that increases PUFA conversion eat less or more PUFA? Next, what’s the deal with all the mushroom coffees out on the market? Are they actually beneficial? Third, when looking for a healthy decaf coffee, what should you watch for? And finally, how should a breakfast skipper/intermittent faster deal with increased morning hunger caused by morning workouts?
Let’s find out:
Read MoreMy friend, former co-competitor, business partner, and writing buddy Brad Kearns had been on a “Quantified Self” kick, tracking biomarkers, testing blood sugar and ketone levels, and staying abreast of all the various ways we can quantitatively check our progress. He’s months into a ketogenic experiment and had hoped to marry his subjective impressions to objective measurements to strengthen his intuition and improve his results.
Read MoreConventional wisdom has decreed that “detox” is a myth. They’re not even sure if toxins even exist, as far as I can tell. On the other side, you’ve got detox gurus prescribing cayenne-maple-lemon tea and glasses full of charcoal water as cures for essentially everything. Where’s the truth lie?
First, detoxification does exist. It’s an established concept, after all, with its very own spot in the dictionary. When we come into contact with toxins—compounds that pose a threat to our healthy homeostasis—we must remove or nullify them. That’s detoxification.
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