My Thoughts on Food and Diet

As a trainer I often get asked about diet. This is what I’ve learned about food and diet, and how I think about how I fuel my body, not medical advice. There’s probably a source for everything I write here but I’m just writing this off the top of my head so if you want a source feel free to search for the sources for the things your interested in.

• Eat enough

  • We are very focused on eating too much, and that is often true but also many people aren’t eating as much as they think they are. Depending on activity level 2-3 thousand calories is required every day.

  • We also may be eating too much of the wrong things (junk food, etc., read on)

• Prioritize Protein

  • Protein is very satiating. So once you’re eating enough or if you’re eating too much, by prioritizing protein you will feel full with “less” food and for longer. It’s also required to keep your body running. Interesting fact, there are essential amino acids (proteins) and essential fatty acids, but NO essential carbohydrates.

  • General recommendations for protein intake seem to vary between 0.7 grams and 1.0 grams per pound of lean body weight. So a person who is in decent shape and weighs about 150 pounds should aim for eating 105 and 150 grams of protein each day. Some variation is expected.

• Macro and micro nutrients

  • Macro nutrients are fats, proteins, and carbohydrates. Micro nutrients include vitamins and minerals as well as many other nutrients that are harder to categorize.

  • Select food that is full of micro nutrients. This mostly means opting for unprocessed and whole food over premade and processed foods like cookies, protein bars, and other snacks.

• Bioavailability

  • There’s a lot to say about bioavailability but I bring it up mostly to mention that not all nutrients are created equal. Protein from animal products is generally more bioavailability that protein from plants. Meaning that you would have to eat more plants to digest and have access to the same amount of protein you would in a steak. This holds true for many other nutrients.

    • Plants also have what is known as “anti nutrients” which block the absorption of other nutrients. Common anti nutrients are phytic acid and oxalates both of which interfere with the absorption of calcium and other nutrients.

    • There are many other "anti nutrients" and negative effects such as Oxalate dumping.

      • I write this not to say that plant foods are bad, there are also many beneficial nutrients in plants. I write this to highlight that not every food is for every person. See "metabolic typing" as well as "rotation" and "elimination" diets below for thoughts to consider along these lines.

• Water and minerals

  • We all know we “should” be drinking more water. It is also possible to drink too much water. Especially if your water is low in minerals, which most are. If you’re water doesn’t have enough minerals in it then the water you drink will remove minerals from your body, which are necessary, especially to the function of your nervous system.

    • This is simple enough to fix by adding a pinch (or more) of a high quality mineral or sea salt to each cup of water you drink.

    • Another great source of minerals is sea moss. I put it in a blender till it becomes a powder then add that powder to drinks and foods.

  • It is also good to drink filtered water especially if you are on a public water supply that has been treated. And in some cases even if you are on well water.

• Whole Foods vs Processed

  • In general whole unprocessed food will be a better choice than processed. A snickers is probably better than starving but most people are days or weeks or longer from starving (even without eating anything, the body can run pretty long on it’s own body fat).

  • Unprocessed foods will be fresher and likely have more nutrients available and they will also have much fewer additives that have questionable safety at best.

  • Levels of processing

    • There are different levels of processing. Technically cutting up vegetables is processing them. Even that I recommend doing at home. The more a food has been cut up and or stored on a shelf the longer it has been subject to oxidation and other processes of decay.

      • Industrial processed foods are also made to be hyper-palatable. This makes it hard to stop yourself once you begin eating, think Oreos or potato chips. They also have lots of preservatives in them to keep them “fresh” longer. Plenty of people have filmed processed food NOT decaying despite being left out of any packaging.

    • Certain types of processing can actually improve the quality of the food. Various types of fermentation will increase nutrient availability and in some cases allow for longer storage. This includes sauerkraut, sourdough, and yogurt and there are countless other vegetables and other foods that can be fermented. Fermentation also increases the diversity of bacteria in your gut which is generally regarded as a good thing. It is also fairly easy to do yourself at home.

  • Nutrient Density

    • Unprocessed foods are generally more dense in micro nutrients which helps with satiety and health.

• Ketones and Glycogen

  • Your body has the ability to “burn” fat to produce energy in the form of ketones as well as the glycogen produced from glucose and other carbohydrates. However, many people continually have a supply of sugar so their bodies have gotten worse at burning fat.

    • A ketogenic diet will restore that ability to burn fat. There are many guides on how to do this properly.

  • Fasting is a another way to improve the body’s ability to burn fat. This can be done anywhere from a few extra hours a day to days or weeks at a time. There are also various types of fasting, such water and dry fasts. Intermittent fasting and time restricted eating.

    • Fasting has numerous health benefits as well.

• Elimination Diets, Rotational Dieting

  • Elimination diets, most simply stated, consist of eliminating a food from your diet for a time (usually a period of weeks), seeing how you feel without it, then reintroducing that food back in to your diet and again seeing how your body reacts.

  • Rotational Dieting can be a less extreme type of elimination diet where foods are eaten once for a day then not eaten again for at least three days. Every food you eat will be continually “rotated” in and out of your diet. Over time this will have a similar effect as an elimination diet as an elimination diet and expose you to the effects certain foods are having on you.

  • Food sensitivities

    • These types of diets will expose you to any food sensitivities you may have. Symptoms of sensitivities are varied but include inflammation, bloating/gas, brain “fog”, and many other chronic conditions.

  • Reintroduction

    • I recommend reintroducing foods slowly, especially if you have eliminated them for a while. I have personally struggled with eating many plant foods but have been able to increase the amount of plants that my body tolerates by reintroducing them in a fermented form, which would populate my gut with bacteria necessary to digest the plant matter.

      • Many people also tolerate raw dairy much better than pasteurized most likely because of the beneficial bacteria present in raw dairy that is killed in the pasteurization process.

• Down the Rabbit Hole

  • Carnivore diet

    • The carnivore diet is one of the most extreme elimination diets I have heard of and the most extreme that I’ve tried. I don’t recommend it lightly but I do recommend it. It is tough to do though myself and many other find alleviation from a vast variety of chronic ailments as well as improved weight management and overall health.

      • Dr. Shawn Baker, and Dr. Paul Saladino are the two people who I have taken the most advice from regarding the carnivore diet.

  • Ayurveda, food combining, and meal order

    • Ayurveda is a broad field of ancient medicine. My interest in it was mostly limited to their guidelines on food combining. Some claim it is unnecessary and other find it crucial. I’m somewhere in between. It can be fairly restrictive though I find when I follow the guidelines for combining foods I feel better and seem to digest my meals better.

      • The guidelines make sense from a biological perspective too. Calcium and magnesium compete for absorption, meaning in the presence of calcium your body will absorb less magnesium and vice versa. Ayurveda and kosher guidelines on food combining state that meat and dairy should not be eaten together. Meat is a great source of magnesium and dairy is a great source of calcium. So if you wanted to get the most out of you meals it makes sense to have them separately.

      • I also wonder about the enzymes required to break down our foods and if our body digests better when it needs to produce fewer enzymes. At least one different enzyme is required to digest each of the macronutrients and there are likely more that we (or at least I) don’t know about. This also brings to mind some of the success had with elimination diets such as carnivore and how much of the success is from the elimination of foods vs the elimination of poor combinations.

    • Meal order is another topic that I’ve tried applied to my diet with success. The principle behind this is that different foods digest as different rates and because of that they should be eat in a certain order. The one I stick to most often is that fruit digests quickly and should be eaten early in the day before slower digesting meals.

  • Metabolic typing

    • In a nutshell metabolic typing proposes the idea that people from different parts of the world are better able to digest different foods. For example, people from equatorial parts of the world would naturally (before refrigeration and grocery stores) have had plant foods year round and because of that could expect to digest plant foods better. People from northern parts of the world would have had to endure winters where plant foods would be limited if available at all and because of that may have more trouble digesting plant foods and tolerate fattier foods and meats better.

  • Fermentation

    • I have personally found fermentation to be very valuable in my ability to digest plant matter. There are many other benefits that I’ll come back to another time or you can find out for yourself.

  • Food sources and quality

    • There is much debate about the differences between organic and not, GMO and not, and many other sources of food. Non organic GMO food is probably better than starving but many people also point to the environmental destruction caused by these farming practices. And many people claim numerous benefits from eating organic and non GMO food. There are also lots of wealthy companies very invested in producing studies that “prove” the safety of pesticides such as Roundup/Glyphosate much like the evidence that cigarettes weren’t harmful. Personally, I recommend eating local food grown without industrial chemicals. But I’m one of those people who feels better when I do. I also worked for a water treatment company as an engineer so I’ve been exposed to the environmental impact industry has had on our water supply and the rest of the environment. I also worked for a sterilization company and we only had contracts to sterilize big food treatment facilities that had outbreaks of disease never the small, local place. Maybe that’s because of the volume of food the big guys produce they are just more likely to have an outbreak or they’re the only ones who can afford it. Who knows. Like everything else I wrote about here, it’s what worked for me. Be skeptical, try things out for yourself, and good luck.

• 80/20, 95/5, 99/1, and and and

  • This is less about diet specifically though is often applied to diet and I have some thoughts about it so here they are.

  • Many people propose sticking to a diet 80% of the time and eating what you want 20% of the time. If you eat three meals a day that amounts to four meals a week where you eat what you want. You can do a lot of damage in four meals. 80% also amounts to a B- if we were to grade your diet. Your diet is a huge influence on your health so I propose aiming for at least 95/5. Sticking to your diet 95% of the time. That roughly amounts to one meal off your “diet” a week. You can still do some damage in a meal but it will be much less and you will also be more aware of it because it will stand out more.

  • Personally I believe we should go beyond and stick to healthy choices 99% of the time or more. Why not go for an A+ as far as your health is concerned. I have found, and others have told me, that as healthier choices are made the “junk” food doesn’t taste as good. So by going for a more “extreme” choice you may actually end up enjoying that food more ON TOP OF the many health benefits.

    • This leads in to my last point. I don’t care for the way many people use the word “diet”. It often implies a drastic change in food choices, made temporarily, to achieve some drastic result that almost never sticks (an extreme example: a juice “cleanse” to lose 30 pounds two weeks before vacation). A better option is to gradually make better choices and stick with them with no intention of quitting. We all know the places where we can make better choices. Start with the easiest one or the most obvious one. Stick with it. I gave some very restrictive options here. They work, but only if you stick with them, and going for too extreme of a change can end up discouraging you from making any change. So instead, make gradual changes a few weeks at a time and you’ll be amazed at how much better you feel and you won’t want to go back.