Countdown to Fitness

Cancer - Lymphoma

I’m dedicating this series of articles to a friend  — who just went through cancer surgery and is undergoing chemotherapy — because much of the mainstream wisdom on diets and their effects on cancer, just like other Western diseases, isn’t true or is so vague as to be useless.  While I couldn’t possibly cover the broad range of information in just a few articles, I will cover a few important areas to look at because I want to help wade through all the confusing and overwhelming information to get to the important topics for people to consider.

My personal philosophy is to understand nutrition as best as possible, so I can make informed choices about my health.  I may know what I should do but am not ready to do it at that time, but at least in the future I have the option to choose the most healthful path as I become ready to accept the change.

High-fat diets, low-fat diets, high-carb diets, low-carb diets, I’ve heard various information about how these diets may contribute or prevent cancer, but how accurate is the information?  (more…)

Raw Sugar

Thank goodness scientists are finally looking at the dangers of sugar consumption!  It sounds counterintuitive: cut back on added sugar if you want to lower your cholesterol levels, but new research is finally supporting what a few people already knew.

For years, mainstream thinking was to cut back on red meat and saturated fat to lower cholesterol because it seemed reasonable to believe that the fat one eats in the diet is directly related to cholesterol.

It also seems intuitively obvious that two objects of different weights will fall at different speeds, or so Aristotle thought.

What do long-held ideas for high cholesterol have to do with Aristotle’s hypothesis of falling objects?  Lack of rigorous experimentation and incorrect conclusions.

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Do you want to lose weight or understand the causes of obesity?  Are you interested in knowing which calories are good and which are bad?  Do you want to know why the mainstream thinking on nutrition may be causing more obesity and other illnesses?  Are dietary fat and cholesterol really causing obesity, heart disease, and other problems?  What is the contradictory evidence, and why is it omitted?  You might be surprised by the history, politics, personalities, and science (or lack-thereof) behind the current nutritional recommendations and by the possibility that the current “wisdom” on nutrition is wrong.  This book is one of the most important books I’ve read in my life, and I couldn’t put it down. (more…)

While Simply Determined talked about why she chose Atkins, I want to make the distinction that I’m not doing Atkins but another type of eating plan: a high-protein, high-fiber, moderate-fat, moderate-carb diet. I want to stress that there is no one-style-fits-all eating plan. You need to find a healthy, satisfying, long-term eating plan that you can stick to and that fits your lifestyle.

Looking for a Life-Long, Logical Eating Plan
Unlike Simply Determined, I’ve not tried various diets to lose weight. First of all, I was homeschooling, so the focus was not on me, although I should have made myself more of a priority. Second, I don’t trust most diets. I’m a scientist, so I need research to show me that the diet is safe. However, it also has to be logical, which may sound strange, but some diets just aren’t logical for the long term, like the grapefruit diet. I was looking for a life-long eating plan. (more…)