Diet: It Just Doesn’t Matter
Long-time readers probably know I love using quotes from movies. One of my favorites is a Bill Murray line from the movie Meatballs. Although it’s part of a much longer rant, the key phrase is, “It just doesn’t matter!” That’s what I want you to remember from the study that examined the percentage of energy nutrients in the paleo diet. They found a significant difference in the range of nutrients, but the ranges are wide enough to incorporate the ketogenic diet as well as the Mediterranean diet.
Looking at the diets of hunter-gatherers in different parts of the world showed that the types of carbohydrates were dependent on what was available. In some cultures, digging up root vegetables and tubers was critical to the diet. But eventually, we learned to grow and process grains, and now we have an abundance of refined carbohydrates such as breads and pasta, often to our detriment.
What are the lessons?
Personalization
In one of the many commentaries I read on the merits and downfalls of the paleo diet, one researcher said this:
Ultimately, the best way to eat for your health is the change you can keep up with. Most people know what they need to do: limit calories, eat fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins. The challenge is how to do it. There are lots of ways people can achieve this. The key is figuring out which is best for you as an individual that you can keep up with.
That uses a whole lot more words, but the message is the same as always: eat better.
When It Comes to Weight, It’s All About the Calories
Whichever way you decide to eat—and there are many ways to eat a healthy diet—losing weight is always going to be about how many calories you eat versus how many calories you expend. You can eat the carnivore diet, which is essentially all meat, although I wouldn’t recommend it. Or you can become a vegan. You can follow the DASH diet that I talked about a couple weeks ago, or you can eat the paleo diet. It just doesn’t matter. As long as you control the number of calories you eat, you can get to and maintain a normal body weight.
I believe you have to have vegetables and fruit as the foundation of your diet, but there’s a difference between maintaining a normal body weight and sustaining a healthy lifestyle. What we eat does matter. But quality aside, as always, it is and it will always be about the calories. Nothing else matters in controlling what you weigh. Eat less.
And if you can, eat better.
What are you prepared to do today?
