So I’m 44 at the time of this post, down close to 70lbs from my all-time-high weight and look and feel better than I ever have in my adult life. The discovery that lead me down this path seems nothing short of miraculous considering it was contrary to everything I’ve known about diet to date. I would have never thought, “do the opposite of what everyone has told you to do” to lose weight and I’ll succeed. When one makes such a head-scratching realization, it’s almost impossible not to rethink everything at that point. I think it’s then completely normal to have considerable doubt about the status quo and the sources of that information.
Like many others I think, I especially love mysteries and conspiracies, they are exciting which makes the feeling of having uncovered something like this all that more exciting. Then the alarm inside goes off, enticing you to want to share your discovery, to warn others. It actually takes some effort not to get on a soapbox and start preaching. I’ve done this to some extent already but I’ve decided to pull back a bit and do my best to apply as much rational thought to why I succeeded this time, especially doing the opposite of what I had been told my whole life.
So what is the status quo? What is the default advice for diet and health? The status quo is a low-fat diet with calories predominantly from fruit and vegetables. The status quo to lose weight is simple energy balance, eat less calories than you expend on a daily basis, generally avoiding the types of foods one should be eating with a few unusual exceptions. Meat, especially red meat, is something to be avoided. Why red meat? I think originally it was simply because it was a common delivery vehicle for saturated fat but now it supposedly causes every disease known to man, from cancer to gout to diabetes. Saturated fat is made out to be the villain for a perceived “causative” role in heart disease and is recommended that it be avoided entirely if possible. This has been in place in official government guidelines since the 70s. The cause of this change in recommendations was due to the results of an epidemiological study of people from various countries. As I learned, the Seven Countries Study by Ancel Keys, the study that gave birth to the Diet Heart Hypothesis and status quo, wasn’t exactly on terribly sound foundations. To understand this, one needs to understand what epidemiology is and how data capture is actually very hard.
Epidemiology is a study of trends of data. It is entirely useful and can offer critical information. The CDC (Center for Disease Control) uses epidemiology as an early warning system or a way to stem infectious disease by gathering trending data on infections around the US and the World. Outbreaks can be stopped with this information and many lives saved. It’s important not to regard epidemiology as some useless tool used just by people who want to shape results to their own ends. However, what epidemiology does NOT do, is show cause. When such surveys are applied to slow progressing diseases, there is way too much room for confounding factors. A confounding factor may be socio-economic status, smoking or smoke emitting heaters in igloos as possible reasons an epidemiological study might show heart disease higher in a certain population that say also eats a lot of red meat. Another epidemiological flaw may be the reliability of the data’s source. An example would be basing results on self-reported data on food eaten. Expecting thousand of individuals to accurately report on what they ate yesterday, or even weeks before is highly unreliable. How do you single out a particular food without a control group? How do you single out meat when most of the meat in an American’s diet is consumed together with bread or with chips, fries and soda? How can you develop a reasonable conclusion from a set of data like this? I think the answer is, you can’t. The big problem is, many are running with the results of data obtained in this way and making sweeping generalizations about food and health. Would it surprise you to hear that the Diet Heart Hypothesis data (still a hypothesis btw), which was used to erect the current US Dietary Guidelines, was obtained in this way? Would it also surprise you that data from certain countries that would have confounded the results were left out entirely? This is true and yet you have unknowingly based the entire premise of your diet and health on this one study.
The important part to realize is that this one epidemiological study by Ancel Keys is what started it all, this is the Ground Zero event that led to official government guidelines, based on extremely weak foundations. Once it had the government stamp of approval, all other possibilities were then ignored, until recently. When I say ignore, what I really mean is demonized. You may not think that the government really has control over what you eat but they have an enormous influence. Think about what the guidelines do. They create the menus for food served in schools, in prisons, in the Armed Forces. The guidelines have pressured medical institutions to conform to the guidelines and most doctors will not deviate from these guidelines without leaving themselves open to scrutiny or even tort or loss of job. Just think about the lock this puts on further nutrition studies. If official guidelines determined what is healthy, where does that put a scientist trying to study foods not on the “healthy list”? An argument could made that if guidelines say ‘saturated fat causes heart disease,’ intentionally feeding a human saturated fat would thereby be considered unethical! What scientist or organization would take up a study that would have that possible liability? Luckily there are now plenty of brave scientists and doctors that have opened their eyes and are supportive.
So when I lost weight and shed health problems doing the opposite of the guidelines, by eating more red meat, more saturated fat and limiting intake of certain fruit and vegetables, did I just shorten my life by decades? The status quo says I did. My weight-loss success and the way I now feel tells me the opposite, in volume. They only way I can convey the change is my appearance, my word and to show the old prescriptions I don’t need to refill. My quality of life right now has improved immensely. Less sickness, less pain, more energy, smaller food bill, smaller dental bill, less need for healthcare but “You hear that Elizabeth? I’m coming to join you!”