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Episode 9 - Nutrition myths
14 Plays8 days ago
In this episode, LCW founder Russ Harris and LCW consultant nutritionist dive into the world of nutrition myths — from the ones that just won’t die to the ones that contain a surprising grain of truth.
Where do these myths come from? Why do they spread so easily? And most importantly, how can you make sense of all the conflicting nutrition advice you find online? We break it all down with straight-talking clarity, giving you practical tools to separate fact from fiction and make smarter choices for your health.
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Transcript
Introduction and Overview
00:00:01
Russ Harris
Hello and welcome to Episode 9 of the LCW Straight Talking Wellness Podcast, the no-nonsense podcast that cuts through the clutter to bring you clear, actionable insights into your health and wellbeing. I'm Russ Harris and today we're tackling a topic that's all too common in the world of health, which is nutrition myths.
00:00:22
Russ Harris
So from fad diets to miracle foods, the world is full of conflicting advice that can lead us leave us more confused than informed.
Origins of Nutrition Myths
00:00:32
Russ Harris
So to help us separate fact from fiction, I'm joined by Dan Price.
00:00:39
Russ Harris
a qualified nutritionist and consultant with London Corporate Wellness. Together, we're going to be discussing where these myths come from, explore why they persist, and most importantly, share how to assess whether nutrition advice that you're hearing is actually reliable and true. So if you ever wondered what is true, what's hype and what to believe, then this is the episode for you. Let's dive into it. Let's maybe start, Dan, with I suppose These sort of fat diets or these popular diets is maybe a less leading name to give them and I suppose where they come from and and what do we what do we sort of make of them.
00:01:22
Dan
Yeah. So I've really come a bit full circle on this topic. When I first got into the industry, probably 10, 10 or slightly more years ago, a lot of what I was doing was debunking fad diets and all of this kind of stuff, because it was quite a, the idea was to try and take away the confusion of, of these types of diets. And you've got to do it exactly this way. And this is myths. Actually you don't need to do it like that. Here's more of what the mechanisms are.
00:01:49
Dan
And so from that, I mean, we can go through some of them today. There was that period of time, there was lots of different nutrition myths around, as there still are. But what I've come to accept, probably a bit more from coaching lots of people over that time, is that the intention of some of these myths, where these things come from, if you actually follow them, the outcome you get is often positive. So it's not so much that the kind of what they're saying is almost scientifically accurate or in of itself is the thing that's goingnna going to be useful. But actually, if you do it, the associated impact of that is something that that can be, you know, one that I often use as an example for this is there was a big, a big thing back in the day about this don't eat carbs after 8pm or even just generally don't eat anything after 8pm is this kind of this kind of cut off window. And
00:02:44
Dan
You know, you could sort of debunk that and say, you know, people often say that nothing magic happens at 7.59 that suddenly the body's going to start treating these, uh, these foods differently. that's absolutely true. So it doesn't matter if you eat your dinner a bit later or a bit before, particularly for things like weight loss and those kind
Myths and Practical Benefits of Eating Timings
00:03:00
Dan
of things. But when you actually think about it in practice, 8PM, 9PM, whatever that cutoff is being claimed to be, by that point in time, someone should probably have had their dinner.
00:03:12
Dan
which means they should have had the last good nutrient-dense meal of the day. They've had their lunch and breakfast and snacks in there. If you think about the kind of foods that are gonna be consumed after that point in time, so this might be going through the cupboards, sabbins and biscuits, maybe a hot chocolate or something like that before bed, glass of wine, or you know these kind of things. The kind of foods that are maybe happening at that point in time are not ones that are gonna be conducive overall to either a healthy diet or calorie control.
00:03:38
Dan
So for that reason, if you had that as a bit of a rule, would you change nothing else but just brought that rule in? You might find that that helped you reduce calorie intake in a way that's really easy to know if you're doing it or not, right? The floor would be if you just took the hot chocolate and biscuits you were going to have at 10 p.m. and brought it forward to 7 p.m. Of course, there's going to be no benefit to it. But I think in the real world, people are probably better at going, my habit is that I snack before bed, I'm going to stop stacking before bed.
00:04:08
Dan
if what you're snacking on is poor quality nutrition is adding calories and causing weight gain, then actually that's a useful tool. But you see my point about it's kind of following that advice may bring about an associated effect. And I think previously I was very focused on what is that associated effect, which in that case was eat less cookies, eat less calories, even try to lose weight. Whereas maybe now I'm a little bit happy to go with it. Let's just follow that piece of practical advice and see where we go with it.
00:04:36
Russ Harris
Yeah, so these the methods are really can be really diverse. you know the The methods of achieving these outcomes can be really diverse. yeah A lot of those, I suppose the debunking is often rather than to maybe make things clearer.
00:04:54
Russ Harris
for people searching on the internet to try and find out how they should be you know dieting to whether it's lose weight or whatever it is that people are trying to achieve. Rather than trying to make it maybe clearer for those people, it's almost a ah ah stomping ground for coaches to show how much they know by tearing down another approach.
00:05:13
Russ Harris
by showing its weaknesses as maybe as opposed to promoting some of its strengths and then putting another diet type alongside it to say, well, where this diet fails you know in terms of the methodology, this one is then a little bit better for this. And ultimately you end up with a range of different diet types, all of which have different strengths and different weaknesses, which is probably a more productive place to be in.
00:05:39
Dan
Oh, definitely. And yeah, again, this is a bit of a sore point with me because I feel like i've I've experienced this transition in the industry.
Calorie Deficit and Diet Effectiveness
00:05:48
Dan
There was a big push towards this mantra talking about almost like everyone suddenly realized what a calorie deficit was sometime around 2014 and so at that point it was like let's go and debunk every diet type that's ever existed whether it's low-carb, low-fat, intermittent fasting, veganism, anything else and say all of these diets just work because they create a calorie deficit and that's fine and true but the problem is to say that everything else is a myth apart from a calorie deficit then leaves you with no method for achieving the calorie deficit
00:06:22
Dan
Because even if you want to track calories, that essentially is just a diet type which may or may not result in a calorie deficit. I've worked with plenty of people who are pretty sure that they're tracking accurately in my fitness policy to create a deficit and are not losing weight in and therefore not creating a deficit. So when you just basically say everything is a myth apart from this, you then end up with no method for achieving this, which is is the deficit.
00:06:47
Dan
So that was, that was a bit of ah ah a problem. And I think it led to a lot of this stuff of debunking. And I think and another good example of that could sort of do you want to illustrate the point is the point about the kind of low carb stuff. And this was something that I was quite vocal about again, about 10 years ago, because it was so heavy in the industry at that point was no car, basically carbs are what caused you to gain weight. We've got to reduce those. There was lots of quite like elegant studies done on this that kind of demonstrated that whether a diet if the calories are the same in the diet, calories and protein are the same, it doesn't matter if the additional calories coming from more fats or more carbs effect on weight loss is the same. So it's but carbohydrate insulin model of obesity was kind of debunked in that sense. But then when you actually think about the practice of it, so you may get a coach going, no, it's nothing to do with carbs. You can silly sweets and chocolate and and lose weight as long as you're in a calorie deficit, but it's okay. Well then let's, let's look at it. So there's a certain amount of protein we need.
00:07:46
Dan
for weight maintenance or weight loss where we keep where we're keeping control of the the muscle mass. There's a certain amount of protein we need. There's a certain amount of fats that we need for our health, hormone production, skin, everything like that that's fundamental with dietary fat. And then there's a certain amount of nutrient quality, which is going to come from your vegetables, maybe your whole grains, getting your fiber in this kind of stuff. So by the time you've hit all of that, you've you've had a decent amount of calories just hitting that remit. So then what is left is a layer which I would say now spend this on carbs, which essentially are being used for your energy, for your training, being in the office, moving around, doing all that kind of stuff. So essential, but that's the buffer point where if someone
Carbs: Demonization vs Practical Reduction
00:08:26
Dan
can eat 3000 calories a day, that's going to be bigger. If someone can eat 2000, it'll be there. And then if someone can only eat 1500 calories a day for weight loss, they may not have a lot of space for all of that extra pasta and bread and rice that's just giving them the energy. So then when you kind of actually work through that whole process and go, well,
00:08:44
Dan
Okay, we can eat anything we like as long as we're in a deficit, so therefore you don't need to not eat chocolate and pasta and things like that. But you need a certain amount of protein, you need a certain amount of fiber, you need a certain amount of fat. It might actually be quite sensible to go, maybe the thing that we reduce when trying to lose weight is the surplus carbohydrates. So is it a myth? The myth would be to say, if you have a piece of bread, you suddenly gain weight. That's not true.
00:09:11
Dan
But it's probably not, it's probably not a bad piece of advice to someone. Again, if you want it to not end up on my fitness panel every day, tracking stuff, you go, maybe look at just reducing some of the carbs in your diet. So easy to do. you're If you're having a chili con carne for dinner with a load of rice, maybe just scale the rice back a little bit, have a bit of a bowl of chili. You've reduced it by 250 plus calories doing that, which is the ultimate goal.
00:09:38
Dan
you're still getting the protein in there and any quality of the veggies you've thrown in it. So it actually becomes fairly practical advice. It's just, I guess, understanding a wider context as to why it is rather than demonizing carbs.
00:09:52
Russ Harris
Yeah, I suppose it's similar in the sense of understanding why, as you said earlier, why stopping eating at a certain time of day might actually have an impact on one person's diet more than another depends on what that person is regularly doing after the cutoff point at which they can no longer, after starting the diet, can no longer eat after that time. It's like carbs are so readily available. And if we look at what they do to our food behavior, they're very moreish and our brains are and bodies are teed up to go seeking that those kind of those kind of foods. So also that's probably where people run into that
00:10:32
Russ Harris
issue of feeling like it's willpower versus the diet when they try to cut back on carbs completely and eliminate them totally from the diet because actually our brain's really kind of craving and and wanting those kind of foods.
00:10:44
Russ Harris
So by the same token, when you reduce them slightly, you probably you're probably reducing the one macronutrient that's easiest to overeat on.
00:10:45
Dan
Yeah.
00:10:52
Dan
Yeah. 100%. That's a really good point. And I think
Diverse Diet Methods and Their Individual Impacts
00:10:55
Dan
it this is a little bit more what I was speaking about when I was speaking against this this idea back in the day, which is when we hear about cars reduced carbs and we're talking about pizza, pasta, chips, chocolate, all of these things are also high in fat.
00:11:12
Dan
So what what you're really talking about is reducing processed food, which is what you just outlined there as the stuff that we kind of crave and it's very easy to over-consume. No one is accidentally over-consuming protein in their diet. And if they're over-consuming chicken nuggets, I assure you the majority of the calories in chicken nuggets are not from protein. So they are still over-consuming in fats and potentially even carb and problem.
00:11:33
Dan
so the The separation I would make there, because sometimes you get this thing of, oh, I won't eat a banana because that's carbs and I'm trying to reduce carbohydrates. That's where I think something like the low carbs stuff could be looked at a bit more and go, that's when it becomes unhelpful. People worrying about fruits, people worrying about you know they're having their sweet potato and it's too much carbs. All of this could be simplified a little bit to say ultimately, to use the triggering term junk food,
00:12:06
Dan
That's what we're talking about reducing, whether it's a low-carb or low-fat diet. Ultimately, that's the stuff that goes. And and I do think, honestly, having having preached to myself quite a long time that, you know, flexible dieting, it's okay to have your cookies and things like that as long as you're at a deficit and getting enough protein while you're losing weight, which is valid.
00:12:25
Dan
I think there are drawbacks to that for sure. I think it it misses the point a little bit of while it's theoretically possible to do it, there's probably a reason a lot of people really struggle with their diets is because if you're trying to do it that way and your energy levels are terrible and you and you're hungry all the time because you're eating those foods, it's probably why it's very easy to fail on these diets rather than setting up a bit more sustainably. But I think you you kind of hit the nail on the head with your point there about its individual response to these things.
00:12:55
Dan
because that's true with this thing. Some people can do very well eating what might be a and poor quality diet, but if if it's easier for them to stick to that because they're more familiar with those foods and that lifestyle, it might be a good short term intervention just to get some weight off. And if there's someone who's overweight to the point where it's affecting their health, that still might be the biggest window of opportunity to help work for health to start with, right? So that's a little nuanced in that point. But This thing about individual reference and who it suits is so relevant to this this myth concept because it's why you get these conflicts between you've got one thing telling you one thing and something else telling you something else. the classic example of this would be the intermittent fasting versus the breakfast is the most important meal of the day. There's two things that get said, right? So I'm sure you you know you you, as a coach, c
00:13:49
Dan
You hear this from clients, I've got a week breakfast, it's the most important minute of the day. Or I should be intermittent fasting because that's the best way to lose weight. And they're essentially the exact inverse advice. And so the stuff that's good, basically, if you're are someone who functions quite well, but you can get through to 11 o'clock fine, you haven't needed to have breakfast, and actually you can hold out to lunch and you might do very well with intermittent fasting. It might really, really suit you. You prefer to get more calories at lunch and dinner.
00:14:19
Dan
Great. If you're someone who's really cranky after, you know, can't get into the day without your food in the morning, then don't do intermittent fasting. Make sure you have your breakfast. They're both just controlling calorie and food intake throughout the day.
Media Influence on Extreme Diets
00:14:33
Russ Harris
It is very confusing when you don't have a nutritionist to chat to about these things because it is very hard to get that assurance, isn't it?
00:14:34
Dan
Yeah.
00:14:45
Russ Harris
ah ah Let's talk talk a little bit because I think it will move it will come full circle back round to your point there about the social side of these diets and how they perpetuate. hound did these How do they go viral? How do they catch on? and sort of almost the Social proof is such a powerful tool to get people to um have a certain impression of how popular a diet is. If it's being talked about in the media, if it's being talked about on social media, if it's prominent, and and people are hearing about it, the assumption is, loads of people must be doing this diet because it must be working on some level. And I think that is so potentially a falsehood ah ah in some regard, because sometimes you have
00:15:33
Russ Harris
research that will show that the diets that that are more extreme will have poorer adherence because simply because they are more extreme they're therefore more difficult to stick to therefore you do get people dropping off these diets and of course if you drop off a diet that's a certain way of making it not work so even if the diet works in principle if it's too hard to stick to in practice it won't work in terms of achieving its aims, because you simply won't be able to stick to it. And so the more extreme the diet, the bigger the promises of the more weight loss and the more effective it is, the more it's likely to go viral, the more people are likely to think that other people are going to be doing it and getting success from it. And these things seem to catch fire. And they might be terrible ideas. And some some of them have more merit than others, you know, in that space. But but why do they perpetuate? I mean, I've given a couple of reasons there. But
00:16:26
Russ Harris
what what are we What are we clinging on to that we want so badly that that makes us want to believe?
00:16:32
Dan
so there's two main points for this. The first one is a practical point, which is that, and with sadly, as as always, this ends up being about weight loss. And that is the stigma of our our industry, basically, which a large part of our industry, about what we talk about, we end up really talking about weight loss, because that's what people's goal is, rightly or wrongly, you know, that's that's what the goal is. So when we're talking about fad diets, it's very rare that someone is doing a fad diet,
00:17:01
Dan
for an outcome that isn't weight loss. Is that fair?
00:17:05
Russ Harris
Yeah, I think that's probably fair.
00:17:07
Dan
I mean, there are some there will be some exceptions to that, but usually it's that.
The Complexity of Weight Loss
00:17:11
Dan
And just as a segue, ironically, the opposite, weight gain, when people are trying to build muscle, there's not, you don't get too many named diets. There's a couple, gallon of milk a day diet, go mad diet, that was one, back in the day. There's a couple, but not really, the premise is just eat more.
00:17:27
Dan
That tends to be the message, you know, in bodybuilding circles that you want to feel like eat more. That's it. The same is not applied to weight loss. Eat less. If you say that, you kind of, okay, yeah, get out of that. You know, we want something a bit more, a bit more. So this is my theory as well. The first pillar is, it's just very difficult. It's very difficult to lose weight. It's very difficult to do We all know what to do to lose weight, eat less processed food, eat more vegetables, eat more lean meats, do more exercise. That's the premise of it. It's very difficult to do that. And it's very boring and very counterintuitive for the body to really lose weight. So that's the first reason. So because of that, we are always looking for something that isn't that. So if you can look at something that isn't just doing that, we will gravitate towards it every time.
00:18:14
Dan
So that's the first thing. So that's why we're already in a susceptible position with this. Something can be different to just eating salads. We'd like to do it. Then the second pillar of this is just that we love brands, a brand identity of something, right? So whether that's clothing or what gym you go to,
00:18:34
Dan
Or even, ah know, just not too much of a segue. I think there's with exercises as well. When you train clients, everyone wants to know the name of the exercise. what a yeah When you're doing it like a core exercise, they're like, well, what's what's this one called? It's like, I don't know what it's called. You know, i'm I'm making it up. I'm asking you to flex and extend the spine to get to get the contraction of reticulum dominance, just say, right? So that that that's what I'm doing. And it doesn't need to have, it's probably called something, if you Google it.
00:18:59
Dan
Or ill we now I'm holding a dumbbell. So what's that called? It's like that, that in a way is a brand identity. An exercise name is almost a brand with you. Oh, I love squats. I love, oh, I don't want to do Bulgarian split squats because maybe they're girly. It's like, that's, you're just adding subtext to something, right? To make it either more interesting, more appealing to you, less appealing to you. Ultimately, we're just moving the body around when we're excited. With nutrition, it's similar.
00:19:24
Dan
but we are so attached to brands that if you can say, oh, I'm doing the Keo diet. Oh, what's that? More interesting. Oh yeah. Well, I know this person does it and I follow this person who does it. And then actually it becomes really important to me that what I'm doing ex exist is exactly Keo. I don't want to be, I want to go, the bars I get now at lunch need to say Keo on them. Right. So then what we do is we start missing the, again, the mechanism, which is essentially eating, where it's eating a bit healthier.
00:19:52
Dan
for the ideology
Impact of Diet Branding
00:19:53
Dan
of the thing we're trying to do. Intimate and fasting, in my opinion, shouldn't have a name. you know It's just not eating for for a period of time, but but then people get really on you about that window. Was it eight hours, seven hours? But but you see the appeal of that. It's true true with everything, not just nutrition, but we love a brand and we love to belong to something.
00:20:14
Russ Harris
it gives it It gives it a concrete concept in your mind, doesn't it? If you if i if I think about a field in which I'm less familiar you know outside of the exercise and wellbeing remit, where I've got you know more knowledge to back up,
00:20:30
Russ Harris
how I conceptualize a certain thing or or how I synthesize a new idea with existing knowledge in my head. If I go to somewhere that I don't know as well, it's ah ah it's an anchor point, isn't it, to say, okay, that particular diet type is ah ah is a thing, it's got rules, it's got boundaries, and that makes it more accessible to me without having to delve into the world of nutrition and and spend hours on that. I'm doing my day job,
00:20:56
Russ Harris
I'm spending my time in my office. That's how I earn my money. And then what I'm trying to do on the side is I want an easy solution that I don't have to put much time and energy into understanding that's simple that I can just implement. And it's a nice idea. It's a lovely idea because it's a much more relaxing idea to go like that whole area of health and nutrition that I'm going to just master, I'm going to do with this broad brush stroke.
00:21:23
Russ Harris
simple to understand, easy to implement plan. It's a really attractive idea. And sometimes it works, of course, sometimes it it does really work.
00:21:29
Dan
so look
00:21:30
Russ Harris
But often it's it's maybe underselling, you know, be like me going into into the world of finance, and and just picking up the first sort of approach to investing that I found and going, well, that's that's probably cracked that then.
00:21:44
Dan
Yeah, well, yeah, I think exactly think Your point about it sometimes works is any name diet that we are all familiar with has worked for thousands and thousands of people
00:21:58
Dan
and not worse, presumably, for for a great percentage more. not Nothing wrong with the diet, just because a lot of people are trying to lose weight all the time, which probably gives some indication that not all of them are successful, or else that number will be going down. so right So people are always trying to lose weight. And if a great number of people try a method that if you follow its parameters is likely to create a calorie deficit, then a lot of them will lose weight. The question becomes,
00:22:27
Dan
Were they suffering more than they needed to potentially? And so therefore was the dropout rate higher than it needed to be, right?
Customizing Diets to Individual Needs
00:22:35
Dan
And that's what I'm always trying to do with clients is I'm trying to not necessarily give you the easiest option, but give you the most compatible sustainable option with yourself. So you're not taking on any things that are challenging your willpower that you don't need to be because willpower is already pretty stretched when you're trying to lose weight by any method. So I'm trying to make it something where you're not unnecessarily cutting things out. you know good Just a good example of this, sugar, it's good probably to reduce sugar as a general rule for weight loss. If you have one coffee a day and you love having a teaspoon of sugar in it and yet you're having to not do that because you really you know you need to reduce your sugar, I mean that's 20 calories and if I can say to you, just keep that.
00:23:19
Dan
And let's work on these, you know, not eating in restaurants three times a week. Let's change the snacks from this thing to a nice yogurt bowl. I'm winning massively on what I'm trying to achieve here by reducing the calorie intake. And at least at 11 o'clock when they have their coffee, they get to feel like they're still doing what they want to do normally. Rather than going, I can't even drink the coffee the way I like it when it's having a negligible impact. That's the kind of thing I'm trying to do with when you create a um diet, a spoke diet.
00:23:45
Dan
But yeah, to to to your point, though, about these these things generally, and your ah your your example there about investing and things is, this is why I don't think it's bad because it's basically like a starter kit. It's almost like this is something that you, or buying a suit off the rack, as they say, rather than getting one tailor made, is you can go buy a nice suit and it it will do the job of being a suit. If you have it tailor made, it will suit you a bit better.
00:24:13
Dan
And that's the difference between a diet where you actually take into account the way you eat and what your specific barriers are to address those, rather than just going, if I take this diet off the shelf, it's probably going to address a lot of the things I need to address, might not address some of the main ones. You know, for example, it doesn't matter how low carb you go if you're drinking a lot of alcohol.
00:24:37
Dan
So that's not going to help someone as much who who's still trying to, ok okay, well, I'll just, see if I just have straight vodka and stuff, but you know, vodka and soda water, that gets around the carb aspect. Like that is not really going to do the same as if someone who say didn't drink and did eat a lot of carbs, took on a low carb diet, obviously. So when you basically pick a diet off the shelf, which is, this is, there's a opportunity that it may or may not work based on who you are, basically. But then I think on top of that, there is a lot of strength in it because the The ideology of some of these things are a bit like you say about, I mean, I like this with everything. If I'm new to something, I just want to, what's the mainstream brand? Let me just go for it and let me just try it. It's good enough for most people, it's good enough for me. And I do think that, I think that most people could do most diet types and do well. It's just, as I said, there are some really extreme ones out there that aren't quite problematic maybe.
00:25:33
Dan
And again, we could ramble on this ah about a about it forever in terms of why, but I think that one's quite straightforward is. There's a lot of people trying to sell stuff on social media and there's only so many ways you can tell someone eat more vegetables and do more walking and things like that. Whereas if you can say something different and you look great,
00:25:53
Dan
then you're gonna get someone's attention, go, oh, I haven't heard that before and they look great. So again, it appeals to that thing of, I don't wanna keep doing this. That person's telling me if I live up an animal organs, then I'm gonna get it. I'm gonna put my lot in with him for a bit.
00:26:10
Russ Harris
Yeah, no, I think it made me the way you explained it made me rethink my final question because my last sort of question was almost more around how do we tell, you know, fact from fiction, how do we assess diet type, but actually listening to talk there and describing diets off the shelf diets as more like starter packs.
00:26:30
Russ Harris
sort of answers it in a way because you don't don't put all of your eggs in the basket of the first diet type you try, see it more as a learning exercise, as a base camp to start from and then and then modify that that sort of frame from that framework around the things that did and didn't work for you. Keep the things that worked and slowly over time get rid of the things that didn't work for you and maybe be prepared to try a couple of different
00:27:02
Russ Harris
diet types as as part of the exploration, if you're gonna be doing it solo without coaching, rather than I'm gonna do i'm going to put everything into the next three weeks of this really extreme diet.
00:27:13
Russ Harris
And then if it doesn't work, that's it. just it Weight loss is not for me, diet's not for me. you know is i You've then going to go back onto a sort of diet, but just one without rules again, which push you back when you started.
00:27:19
Dan
yeah
00:27:28
Russ Harris
So it's like having those boundaries, even if they're not perfect. borrowed from a named diet might be a good place to start.
00:27:35
Dan
Yes. if we know I think that's a really good point you've might you've made there as well because all the the power of the brand and the ideology to get you to do the diet is the same power for why it's very easy to stop doing it. Because as soon as you've had one meal that isn't keto, you're then out of the club and you feel like, oh, I failed, now I'm off it. You can't just go back to some normal healthy eating habits. So it's kind of a easy and easy out when you've got this kind of cult-like aspect of diet.
Assessing Health Outcomes of Diets
00:28:05
Dan
But your point The point about how do you identify what's good and what's bad maybe. And I think what all I would say for that is this, as I mentioned before, these diets are good when they have an associated effect, which takes you closer to a ah health improving outcome. So these are, let's start with those. So if the fat diet or diet approach that you're following is moving you towards reducing processed foods,
00:28:33
Dan
eating more plants and more variety of plant-based foods, potentially eating more protein. And if the goal is weight loss and general reduction in calories, then that's positive. And if you, let's take some examples and then go, how do you misuse this diet? So even something like veganism. So is veganism pushing you more towards eating less processed food? potentially If you're eating lots of plants, as you should be, fruits, veggies, all that kind of stuff, your nutrient quality is going to go way through the roof and you're going to be full, energized, all that kind of stuff. You can still get a good amount of protein. If you're being conscientious about it, push yourself towards that and do it with, and you're vegan and trying to eat more proteins in the right way, chickpeas, lentils. Well, you're also getting a ton of fiber and good quality as well. This is all great. The way of doing it wrong perhaps would be
00:29:25
Dan
I'm going to live on crisps or I'm going to live on a lot of like kind of fake meat substitute things that are all heavily processed foods. So it's like, well, I'm vegan now, but I'm living off fake sausages and crisps and chips. That hasn't moved you closer towards eating a wide variety of whole plant-based foods, right? Unless processed foods moved you the wrong way. And then equally with, say, say just, like a kind of the opposite, so kind of a carnivore diet, but like a kind of meat heavy, a heavier meat diet. Like if it's pushing you towards eating, you know, your grass-fed steaks and yeah and yeah your eggs and, you know, chicken, fish, salmon, all this kind of stuff, and you're still having some vegetables and things like that in there and your processed foods has really come down, then that's a massive improvement.
00:30:20
Dan
You might, yeah, some people might have some question marks around maybe the red meat aspect of it, but still, on the whole, that's a vast improvement to be eating lots of proper meat, cuts of meat from the butchers, you know, this kind of stuff, still some veggies in there. It's similar to the vegan approach where you're just eating less processed food, more proper food. Now, if you took the meat-heavy approach and went the other way, as I've seen, people doing keel, carnivore things, going to McDonald's and just ordering five of the beef patties, it's taken you further away from the principles.
00:30:50
Dan
that we're after. And we could do this for every single one, we just wouldn't want to run on for too much time, intermittent fasting. Even when you look at intermittent fasting, you go, wow, so by doing that, I don't have that croissant in the morning and the frappuccino in the morning. Great. That's amazing. i'm now having to I'm really hungry when I get to lunch, so I'm having a big portion grains and veggies and protein, right? Great. Even if I'm so starving by the time I get to lunch, I just go to McDonald's and pick out on a huge thing and I'm It's not working, is it? So it's just look at what are those what are the principles of trying to move towards, which is not a long, complex list. It's not. Less processed food, more plants, protein, and calorie appropriate. Which again, calorie appropriate, you don't have to lean into that too much. If you're eating less processed foods and more whole foods, it will be more calorie appropriate.
00:31:40
Russ Harris
nothing further to add. I think that covers it.
Conclusion and Audience Engagement
00:31:44
Russ Harris
I mean, obviously, yeah, when you open up an episode with we're going to debunk nutrition myths, you know, you're putting the task, setting the task quite high in half an hour. But I think we've done a good job of covering a few of the key points that people should be paying attention to, for sure.
00:32:01
Dan
I agree because you know we we can either go down the route of just bring up a myth and let's say why it's not exactly right for how it could be useful or we can try and do what we've done here which is kind of set that that table a bit which is like this is what is useful and all of these other things can be useful tools to help you do that that's it something and you this is what I mean if you have that anchoring of kind of what you fundamentally know is the right place to be going with your diet it's easy to spot if something for you is not going to help you do that
00:32:32
Russ Harris
Yeah. and and And please do send us your wildest nutrition stories and the sorts of diets that people have tried to promote as well.
00:32:41
Dan
One quick, the best one is on my plate is some program I saw once someone was following a red food diet, which is where you're only allowed to eat red foods. She was eating like a bowl of just the red gummy bears. The doctor thought it was great because that's the external. I sometimes wonder with these programs, they set people up with this stuff, but that you can find that in a nutshell. That is not far from the bloke order in five Big Mac patties without the bun at McDonald's. You know, that's that's a similar
00:33:11
Dan
you Thank you, mate.
00:33:12
Russ Harris
Yeah, so please do send us in your stories. We'd love to know what's the what's the weirdest and most wonderful diet type you've ever come across. and Thank you very much, Dan. This has been another good one. Until next time, see you.