6 Signs That You're Taking Your Diet Too Seriously

No matter how much time you spend online arguing with people about diet/nutrition, it's too much time. Rarely do these interactions have any worth. Take, for example, the vegan guy who trolled my YouTube channel this week (read the comments). He left several ridiculous comments, like "Oh Eggs, Yummy! One of the cheapest ways to insure you get cancer and/or heart disease!" and "Well there is actually nothing out there that beats the scientific research that was done on the China Study (a popular vegan book)." He really has no idea how much of a jerk he was being. He takes his diet ideology, veganism, far too seriously and personally.

Unfortunately, this kind of thing has become very common... diets are becoming religions... I don't care if it's vegan, vegetarian, paleo, raw vegan, low-carb, low-fat, or anything else, what you eat should not take over your life and turn you into an ignorant zealot. Sometimes we need to check ourselves. Here are 6 signs that you're taking your diet too seriously.

Elliott Hulse: The Meaning of Strength

If you've never heard of Elliott Hulse, it's time to listen up. It was about four years ago when I first found Elliott Hulse's YouTube channel, strengthcamp. Like most of his fans, I started watching for the exercise/nutrition/supplementation info. He had some cool stuff going on, and that's exactly what I was really into at the time. That's what drew me in. But what really hooked me was something much deeper. It was his life philosophy, which was much the same as mine, although I'd never heard it put so succinctly: Become the strongest version of yourself. It became clear very early on that Elliott was far more than just your average strength and conditioning coach... he's a philosopher, a truth-seeker, a father and husband, and a master in conveying his ideas through words.

Elliott's videos have had a profound impact on my thoughts and my experiences. I'd like to just talk about a few of my favorites and why they've meant so much to me. Hopefully, through sharing how they've affected me, I can pass this information on to others and broaden their horizons as well.

Stay Humble: We Don't Know What We Don't Know

I've used this pic before. I don't care.

I'd like to share a story with you. The other day in one of my classes, we were discussing the history of vitamin D. My professor told us a fascinating story about the early research on vitamin D and rickets, the bone disease children get as a result of a deficiency. This particular researcher, Leonard Findlay, had performed experiments with dogs, and he was convinced that rickets could be cured simply by exercising. In 1908, he published a paper detailing his experiments: "The Etiology of Rickets: A Clinical and Experimental Study".

What Findlay did, essentially, was induce rickets in dogs by keeping them sedentary. He would keep them locked up indoors in cages, providing them food of course, until they would develop symptoms of rickets. Then, as an experimental treatment, he would take some of the dogs outside and let them run around. Allowing the dogs to run around outside cured their rickets, and so Findlay assumed that exercise was the reason why.

Why I Ditched Paleo

It was a little over three years ago when I first heard of the concept of the Paleo Diet. I was introduced to it through a podcast on Underground Wellness interviewing Mark Sisson, the author of the Primal Blueprint. I had never thought about diet in the way that Mark did, and I was immediately fascinated by his approach. You mean we were healthier before we adopted agriculture? And we didn't eat grains, legumes, and dairy?? Interesting. I had just finished reading Gary Taubes' "Good Calories, Bad Calories", so the low-carb approach was firmly in my radar. Things seemed like they were beginning to come together.

In the next few months, I would dive head first into this Paleo/Primal diet concept... I found Robb Wolf's podcast, I read Dr. Cordain's original Paleo Diet book, I discovered several paleo-related blogs... I began to immerse myself in the paleo world. I even wrote a research paper for a class I was taking in Italy in my study abroad experience, called "The Health Benefits of Eating a Paleolithic Diet". No question, I became a paleo machine. I even started this here blog soon after; it all began as a place where I could express my contrarian opinions thoughtfully and back it up with scientific research. I felt like I needed to prove I was right, because everyone in my world thought I was wrong. (I never took on the "paleo" name though... it's as if I knew my position might change some day)

Diet Myths: If a Little is Good, a Lot is Better

In the modern diet world, there are so many different theories and ideas on nutrition that it can sometimes be overwhelming. We have diets that don't allow carbs, diets that restrict fat, diets in which you eat exclusively fruit, diets in which you can't eat animal products, diets based on "superfoods"... whatever that means. Whichever food or food group is targeted, most of these diets fall victim to the same fallacy: if a little is good, more is better. Or, in many cases, if too much is bad, then none at all must be best.

Allow me to elaborate. Eating too many carbs can be detrimental, so restrict them all... too much dietary fat can be bad, so get it as low as possible... eating fruit is healthy, so let's eat nothing but fruit. You see the pattern? I don't think I need to go on. None of these diets get at the foundation of a healthy eating plan, and none come close to establishing a healthy relationship with food. What they lack is a sense of balance. Along with a misunderstanding of how biology works.

Are We Living Too Long?

Let's talk about death today! Sorry, just trying to make it seem exciting. If you know me well, you may know that I live with my grandparents, who are 90+ years old. If you know me really well, you may also know that my grandfather is losing his mind... some sort of dementia, maybe Alzheimer's, who knows. Regardless, much of the time he doesn't know who I am, nor where he is, and from time to time, he still thinks it's the 1940s. He also has a hard time taking care of himself. He seems to forget how to perform even the most basic tasks, like brushing his teeth or shaving. Every day is a struggle for him and for those around him.

Essentially, his quality of life has diminished to the point where I question why he wants to keep fighting. Lately I've been thinking hard about some of this stuff... yes, we're living longer lives, but are we really living?

How to Choose the Best Junk Food: 5 Easy Fixes

Nobody's perfect. In a food world like ours, it's near impossible to stick to a healthy, real-food diet 100% of the time. Eating healthy tends to put you in a bubble... a bubble full of kale, grass-fed beef, home-made sauerkraut, and herbal teas. And while I love that bubble, and you may love that bubble, society does not. Nope, our society doesn't value health and food quality like you and I do, and sometimes it's tempting to give in. So there are bound to be times when you feel like you want to indulge in some junk food, whether it's at a party, at a summer picnic, or maybe you just want to celebrate the new Backstreet Boys album! (Only part joking.)

But whenever it happens, whenever that craving comes upon you, I think it's important that you know how to eat junk food properly. You don't have to completely fall of the wagon and binge on a family size Doritos... there are compromises that can be made here. Rest assured, it IS possible to make choices that will satisfy your craving for junk food AND STILL allow you to fit in with your peers.

Recently, I took a trip to Stop & Shop, my local conventional grocery store, to awkwardly remove items from their places just to take pictures of the ingredients. So here you go... 5 junk foods, along with their healthy counterparts!

Silly Adults... Even Kids Know it's Wrong to Eat Animals! (VIDEO)

As I was browsing Facebook the other night, just about to go to bed, I came across an interesting link that fired me up and kept my up far past my bedtime... an article called "Vegetarianism Demystified by a Toddler". It links to a YouTube video, which I'll just embed here for your convenience... voila!



The video has received overwhelmingly positive feedback from YouTube users. Nearly every comment praises this child for being an irresistible, sweet little boy with a big heart...  See?? He's only 3, even a TODDLER knows it's wrong to eat animals!! What an inspiration!!!

Okay. Fine. That's your opinion. I, on the other hand, saw it differently. Here is how I interpreted his message...

Little Luiz Antonio is just sitting down to eat his octopus gnocchi, when he begins to question the ethics of eating an animal. After a little back and forth with his mother, Luiz decides we shouldn't be eating animals because they're cute, and because every living thing deserves to be a winner in life... all of them all at the same time. If there's one thing Luiz is sure of, this is it. It would just be so great if we could all live forever and ever, and we could all live with the animals and pet each other and cuddle. Everyone could be friends. Everyone in the entire world. We'll be pen pals and Skype friends and tweet each other and eat grass and we'll never have any reason to fight. For ever and ever.

Put the Phone Away and Live Your Life

Living in the moment is something most of us struggle with, and it's only becoming more difficult with modern technology. No matter where we are physically, it's becoming increasingly easy to be elsewhere mentally. Step into any crowded public place... there are people talking on the phone, listening to music, playing games on their iPads, updating their Facebook statuses. Our bodies may be present, but our minds certainly are not.

I'm just as guilty as anyone else. Any time I find myself with nothing to immediately occupy my mind, my first instinct is to take out my phone... check Facebook, check email, check Instagram, play Candy Crush. At times, I'll even do this when I'm with people. Not proud of it. If I have a long walk ahead of me and no one to talk to, I'll call a family member... god forbid I have nothing to do for 15 minutes. Thankfully, my affliction hasn't yet advanced to the point of walking around in public with headphones on. If I ever get to that point, please punch me in the genitals. I'll thank you later.

But I can't help but wonder... what are we missing out on? We all walk by hundreds, if not thousands of people each day. We sit next to them on the subway. We see them in the grocery store. Yet we don't say hello. Our minds are off in another world. Our own little world is comfortable that's for sure... we stick to the people we like, the things we know... it's easy and comforting. We're smitten by that. But, as I'm understanding more and more, closing ourselves off like this misses the bigger picture. Every time we choose to be absent, we pass up a chance to enhance our personal relationships, or to meet someone special who could have an impact on our lives. How do we know what we don't know if we don't even know what we're missing? (What???.)

How Pandora and Spotify are Ruining Music

Today's topic has nothing to do with health, nor cows. Rather, it's concerning one of my other passions... music. I've always felt a special connection to music. It's not something that I can quite put into words, but the right music just has a way of speaking to my soul. It's been the one constant in my life that never fails to make me feel alive. To quote Stephen Jenkins of Third Eye Blind, "the four right chords can make me cry."

But despite my love for music, I've been unsure how I feel about the direction music is heading... with Pandora and Spotify leading the way, the modern internet culture is taking over the music industry. All of a sudden, for the first time ever, we have instant access to every song ever made. We have the ability to make a playlist based on our personal preferences, without even so much as a thought. These all seem like great things on the surface, but they just don't appeal to me.  Am I old fashioned?  Just resistant to change and new technology?  Maybe.  But there's something else going on here.

Why There's So Much Conflicting Info in Nutrition, A Snarky Rant on Conventional RDs

I really wanted to title this post "Moving Beyond Black and White: Real Life is Gray", or something to that effect.  I liked that title.  But in the interest of attracting more readers, I chose this one.  Yup I'm a sell out.

After a conversation with my friend Amanda the other day (Inspired.), I had a bit of a revelation... not everyone thinks the way I do.  It should be obvious, of course, but sometimes you just need a little kick in the pants.  We were talking about conventional registered dietitians and the trends we see as we work our way into the profession.  Unfortunately, we've noticed that many RDs are closed-minded and resistant to hearing anything that challenges their beliefs... the precious "facts" they learned in school, the gospel that comes out of the USDA dietary guidelines... when in fact they haven't put any real thought into it themselves.

I guess I just tend to have faith in people.  I assume that someone who went through the 4-5 years of school and 1200 hours of supervised practice to become a nutrition professional would have learned, somewhere along the way, to think for themselves, instead of taking every word of what someone else says to be the absolute truth.  Isn't that what we go to school for??  To learn how to think for our fucking selves?  To become adults with conviction who actually stand for something, instead of being sheep and following the pack???  Is that not what education is all about?

It just absolutely kills me when I meet someone who is a grown adult and still thinks in such a naive manner.  If you disagree with something I say that's fine.  There's room for disagreement in nutrition.  Just don't be a fucking moron about it and come back with "that's not what we learned in school".  Nutrition isn't as clear as black and white, it's mostly gray... everything exists on a spectrum. 

Voting With Your Food Dollar: A Story of Three Foods

Just a quick rant today. I've been thinking a lot lately about the concept of "voting with your food dollar". Voting with your food dollar is just what it sounds like... when you buy a particular food, you're essentially "voting" for it. You're telling producers that you like it and you want more of it. But beyond that, you're supporting the entire process that made that food available to you at your local grocery store. This is obviously true of anything you buy in a free market system. You have the opportunity to vote every time you buy anything. Anything at all. Whether it's fitness equipment, a new leather purse, or the new Justin Timberlake album, your dollar essentially votes for what you buy. Just think of the consequences if nobody bought JT's new album (which I know isn't true since I already bought it)... Justin would end up a complete failure. He'd likely enter a downward spiral involving drugs, Taylor Swift, and his first emo album, until he's finally relegated to neighborhood bar gigs opening for Good Charlotte.  But worst of all, nobody would adopt his new hairstyle.

Okay a little off topic there.  Where was I?  Oh yes, when you buy a food at the store, you support everything that went into putting that food on your grocery store shelf.  In addition to supporting the food itself, you support the production methods, the processing, and the transportation costs.  I'd like to take this opportunity to go through a few different food options and talk about what it means when you choose to buy them.

1) Doritos
One of my favorite childhood foods.  I could eat an entire bag of this stuff as a teen.  Of course they're yummy, but let's talk about where Doritos come from.  Here's an ingredients list...

Nutritionism: Food is More Than the Sum of its Nutrients

In a nutshell, "nutritionism" is the idea that the healthfulness of a food is based on the sum of the nutrients it contains.  I learned about this concept from Michael Pollan, who you may have heard of... he wrote "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and "In Defense of Food", both phenomenal books that I highly recommend.  Pollan makes the argument that this is a reductionist philosophy that assumes we know more about the composition of foods and the inner workings of the human body than we really do.  I couldn't agree more.

Take the carrot, for example... we all know carrots are good for us.  You've probably heard that they're high in beta carotene.  Well, when researchers have taken beta carotene out of the carrot and given it to people in pill form, it turns out it doesn't do jack shit.  Is beta carotene useless?  Or is it just useless outside the context of the food it comes from? Context matters.  We're not as smart as we think we are, and we don't have it all figured out.  Studying individual nutrients outside the context of a real food tells us very little about what we should eat, and sometimes it just makes things more confusing.  We don't eat nutrients, we eat food.

If we want to learn how eating a carrot affects our health, then we need to study carrots.  Yet, as obvious as that may sound, we don't often study nutrition in this way.  We study the nutrients on their own, and then decide whether a food is good or bad based on which nutrients it contains.  There are plenty of examples where this paradigm has led us astray... here are just a few.

The 80/20 Rule: The Essence of Holistic Health

A few years ago, I was first introduced to the Paleo diet concept through Mark Sisson's book The Primal Blueprint.  It's a great introductory book for anyone interested in learning about the basics of an ancestral diet.  One of Mark's key concepts in that book was called "the 80/20 rule".  The idea is that if you eat healthy and stick to the diet 80% of the time, you can have some flexibility for the other 20%.  As Mark says in a 2009 blog post on the topic, "If you align your life with the PB principles 80% of the time, consider yourself on course."  In other words, 80% adherence to the diet is good enough to get results.  I guess I sort of glossed over it at the time; my mentality back then was to go all out on this Paleo thing.  Why would I hinder my results by cheating 20% of the time?

But today, being three years older and just a little bit more mature, I understand the value of this 80/20 rule.  Perhaps I misunderstood the intent, but Mark makes it very clear in the article referenced above... "Even though 100% compliance isn’t the exact everyday expectation, 100% commitment is the intention."  Commitment is key.  If you're committed at the core to living a healthy lifestyle, if that is who you are and who you want to be, then eating like junk once in a while is perfectly okay.  The next day you'll hop right back on the wagon and keep on being you.

But beyond just the 80/20 rule being "good enough", I would argue that in many cases, the 80/20 rule is BETTER than adhering 100% to a diet.  Why??  Holistic health.

You've probably heard the term before.  "Holistic".  When we talk about holistic health, we're normally talking about using food as medicine... allowing the body to heal itself by giving it the proper raw materials... eating an ancestral diet fits right into this paradigm.  But I think we tend to forget what holistic health really means.  According to Merriam-Webster...

How to Treat Acne and Clear Up Your Skin

Ever since I was a teenager, I've always struggled with that damn acne on my face.  Sometimes it'll be really bad, other times it'll clear up and I'll finally think I'm growing out of it.  But it never fails to return.  Over the years, I've experimented with just about everything under the sun to treat it (including the sun itself actually).  Just off the top of my head, and remember that this goes all the way back to the late 90's...

Stridex pads, Oxy pads, Swiss apricot scrub, probably 5 different types of Clearasil, all varieties of that white spot-treatment cream you put on at night...

More recently I've tried the hippy route and experimented with different combinations of castor oil, grapeseed oil, jojoba oil, coconut oil, the cod liver oil / butter oil blend...

I've tried washing it once a day, twice a day, after each meal, every other day, two days a week, once a week on Mondays at 8:00 am sharp... 

I've also tried for as long as I can remember to find a dietary connection to acne.  First I thought it was dairy, then gluten, then alcohol, then carbs, then vegetable oils.  There were several occasions when I would eat super healthy for weeks and struggle with acne, then go out and party one night, stay up late and drink alcohol, and wake up the next morning with a face clearer than I'd seen in weeks.  What gives??

Never mind the hair... focus on the acne.  It wasn't excessive, but it was just enough to be a problem.  I can remember this night specifically... it definitely ruined my confidence.  No one wants to deal with that.

In the end, after all those years of experimentation and wasted money, I ended up right back where I began... frustrated, confused, and clueless...

...until recently.  I've been experimenting with something for several months now, since early November, that has worked extremely well for me.  It hasn't cleared up my skin completely, but it's made a big difference.  I rarely break out anymore, but even when I do get the rare pimple here and there, it'll be gone in just a day or two.  It's pretty incredible.

New Year's Resolutions: 3 Things You Can Do to Be Successful

So I've been thinking a lot lately about New Year's Resolutions, and why they so often fail.  I see it every year in the gym... As soon as January 2nd hits, that place turns into a mad house, a clusterfuck if you will.  A clusterfuck full of everyday, hardworking people who have been neglecting their health all year long, especially over the recent holiday season, and are now determined to get in shape and lose weight.  But this clusterfuck never lasts.  It slowly ebbs away as the winter months go on, finally reaching a low in the Spring and Summer when the weather is nice and people return to their normal lives.  Hey, at least it gives people something to focus on other than the harshness of post-holiday Winter.

Of course not everyone fails in their New Year's Resolutions; about 12% of us succeed, according to a 2007 study (1).  That's right... just 12% succeed...  88% fail.  This year, 9 out of 10 of us will fail with our resolutions.  And what do we want?  No surprise, weight loss tops the list (2).

Why the horrible success rate?  Why do we fail at our goals to begin with?  And how can we be successful?  After some serious reading and thinking, I've come up with the following:  three things you can do to succeed in your New Year's resolution this year!

Prop 37, Labeling GMO Foods, and the Evilness of Monsanto

Okay that's it.  I've had it up to HERE with Monsanto and their shenanigans.  Who is Monsanto, you may ask?  The giant biotech company producing most of the genetically modified foods here in this country (and probably the world).  Yes, genetically modified foods, or GM foods, or GMOs.  Any of those.  Those franken-foods created in a lab and fed to the United States citizens without their knowledge.  If you're slightly confused and need a basic education on GMOs, look through my previous blog post here.

In case you haven't been paying attention, the state of California had the opportunity this past week to vote to have genetically modified foods labeled.  Seems like common sense, don't the people have a right to know what they're eating?  Shouldn't you and I have the right to know if what we're eating came from nature, or if that tomato was created from DNA found in a maggot eating the feces of a retarded sloth?  I'd like to know.  But they voted NO!  They voted to allow Monsanto, Dow, and the big food producers to feed YOU genetically modified foods, and NOT tell you about it.  This makes me very angry.  Which makes my writing significantly more interesting to read.  So read on.

Why on earth, you may ask, would anyone be opposed to labeling GM foods?  It seems like an obvious right-to-know case.  And quite frankly, it is.  Unless... somebody has a shit ton of money lying around to change that.  Somebody who would lose a great deal of that money if Californians happened to vote yes on that ballot.

Meatloaf Enhancer and the Tragedy of Nursing Home Food

Lately, I’ve had the pleasure of doing some internship hours at a local nursing home.  Or "long-term care facility"; it seems like the term nursing home is frowned upon and/or avoided.  Not sure when that changed.  But anyway, I’ve been learning the ins and outs of nursing home food service.  As you know, elderly adults living in these long-term care facilities get nearly all of their food from the kitchen there.  And now that I've spent a few weeks in the dietary department, I can safely say that I'd rather be dead than subsisting on this non-food garbage for my last remaining years.

Exaggeration?  Absolutely not.  This shit isn't even food.  Example #1...  My first day in the nursing home.  I'm watching the cook prepare some meatloaf for that night's dinner.  He opens a 10 pound package of ground beef and dumps it into the big mixer.  Next, I'm expecting to see some chopped onions, garlic, bread crumbs, eggs, carrots, butter, etc.  You know, the stuff you put in meatloaf.  But NO.  Nothing could have prepared me for the abomination that came next.  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Meatloaf Enhancer...

26 oz. of powder, ready to enhance meatloaf on your command.  Just add one packet to 10 pounds of ground beef, put it in the oven, and you're done!  Why use fresh vegetables and real food ingredients when you can get everything you need in a convenient shelf-stable pouch?  Oh god where do I even fucking begin... 

When Eating Junk is Good For You, or, Keeping Health in Perspective

Junk food is good?  Well sort of.  This is something that's been on my mind for a while now, and it's time I put it to paper.  I wouldn't call it a rant.  It can't be, because I had to write it and rewrite it 3 times before it came out the way you see it now. I suppose you could call it a life lesson.  From a wise old man.  I did recently turn 27 after all.  You see I've done a lot of experimenting with my diet.  I've done low-carb diets, low-fat diets, paleo diets, strict autoimmune protocol paleo diets, plant-based diets... all of which had major restrictions on the food I could eat.  It takes a lot of willpower to stay on a strict diet, and society doesn't help either, always pushing junk food on us.  But the hardest part of staying on a diet?  For me, it was the social consequences.  Being on a strict diet has a tendency to make you a weirdo.  And I hate being the weirdo.

But I'll get back to that weirdo thing.  Let me first say this:  if you're trying to optimize your nutrition, there are some foods that you should never eat.  I truly believe that everyone would benefit from eliminating grains, refined sugars, factory-farmed animal products, refined vegetable oils, and processed foods.  But there's a problem.  These foods are everywhere.  In fact, these are the five foods that our American diet is based on.  You don't even have to take my word for it... here's a list from the 2010 USDA Dietary Guidelines of the top 25 sources of calories in the United States.  Give it a looksie, it's a pretty sad list.  In fact, all 25 items in the list are based on one of those five foods mentioned above.  ALL of them.

In my opinion, we would all do better on a diet made up of fruits, vegetables, pastured animal products, wild fish, coconut, tubers, and potatoes.  You can call it real food, paleo, primal, ancestral... whatever floats your boat.  But no matter how you slice it, these foods aren't readily available in today's world.  You can't go to 7-11 and get a grass-fed rib eye, complete with a side salad made of organic veggies and an extra-virgin olive oil dressing.  Chances are you can't go anywhere within a reasonable distance and get that.  In addition, most of your friends don't eat this way, so it might be difficult to eat healthy in social situations.  It takes planning and effort if you're going to eat well.  It's the unfortunate truth... our food culture is set up for ease and convenience, not health.

But these societal norms do exist.  They're real, and they matter.  And it's because of these realities, that I make this statement... sometimes you're better off eating junk.

Crossfit, Bodybuilding, and Getting Girls to Sleep With You

As many of you know, I've been crossfitting for a good while now, and I love it.  It's given me a completely new outlook on fitness; I have a much more performance-based mentality than I used to.  Whereas I used to care mostly about having nice pecs and biceps (curls for the girls), I now concern myself with more worthwhile goals, like lifting heavy shit over my head, doing lots of pullups, and training my body to move the way it's designed to move.  Sure, looking good naked is a nice side effect, but that's not why I do it.  For simplicity, here's a short summary of the differences between crossfit and what everyone else is doing...

Crossfit approach:  Performance oriented.  Get faster and stronger.  Do fundamental exercises like squats, deadlifts, and presses, which will produce strength that translates into real life activities.  Do more work in less time, use proper form, and train your body to be an athletic machine.  Build strength, power, endurance, and athleticism. 

Bodybuilding/general gym approach:  Work out to look good.  Do silly things like bicep curls and leg extensions.  Use the elliptical machine for cardio.  Work your muscles groups individually, in isolation from the body as a whole.  Whack off to yourself in the mirror.  

And now that I have this new crossfit mentality, I have to admit... I'm a little embarrassed.  I'm embarrassed because for so long, my only motive for working out was to look good; I can't believe I was ever so vain.  And this is, in my now older and wiser mind, not the way to look at fitness.  It gives me and everyone else in the performance realm a bad name... including crossfitters, power lifters, track athletes, endurance athletes, and anyone else who has real, substantial goals that aren't rooted in narcissism.  Unfortunately, most avid gym-goers are still stuck in this bodybuilding mentality, only working out for aesthetic purposes, to look good for others.  In other words, they're not doing it for themselves... they're doing it for other people.  And here's what's wrong with it.