THE SEARCH FOR THE PERFECT DIET: The World's Most Controversial Eating Plan?

It’s become painfully clear that not everyone is a fan of The Search for the Perfect Diet. And you know what? I don’t blame you. After all, most people have become so tired of “diet talk” that they do everything to avoid the topic altogether. Why believe yet another expert's take on a played-out topic? You shouldn’t. Instead, I’m suggesting that you approach this in a different fashion: Just listen and learn. Agree or disagree. But be open to the thoughts and opinions that will be shared.

 

I’m not offering anything other than information—and hopefully a little bit of entertainment. I’m not telling you to support the methods I try. And I’m not suggesting that you follow my eating plan. All I want to do is offer unbiased, research-backed, expert critiques of different food options and dietary approaches.

In my search for the perfect diet, I’m not necessarily looking for one eating strategy that I will endorse as the answer to all eating problems. Instead, I want to assess styles and patterns and see if they work for me. In the process, I hope to uncover if what I find is supported by research. I want to analyze diets and know why they work (or don’t).  Because in the end, the variability and unpredictable nature of your lifestyle is really what dictates how you eat and—at times—what you eat. And my day is just as chaotic as yours, which is why I’m embarking on this journey.

The truth is any diet can help you lose weight. In fact, a university professor ate Twinkies and lost 27 pounds. (That sentence is not a typo. Twinkies = weight loss…but I wouldn’t recommend it)

If you want the simplest diet approach, here are what years of reading research, working in university labs, and interviewing nutritionists and researchers has taught me: Eat greens (veggies), drink water, consume fruit, limit your consumption of processed foods and try to eat protein at every meal. Oh yeah, and exercise and make sure you sleep well. 

If you follow those guidelines, you’re probably going to live a healthy life. 

But if you’re looking for something else, then stay along for the journey. Are you interested in going vegan or consuming more fat in your diet? Want to see if you can eat more carbs and still stay lean? (A good sandwich can be tough to give up) Or maybe you just want to see what happens when one guy tries to tackle everyone's least favorite four-letter health word.

 

So as I start the process, I’m doing the one thing that seems counterintuitive on an eating journey: I’m fasting. 

(You still there?)

I’m trying a dieting strategy called intermittent fasting (IF). To me, it’s always come across as the most extreme of eating behaviors, but a recent review of literature has me believing that a staggered approach to eating might benefit my health more than it seems.

 

Here’s how I’ll approach intermittent fasting: I’m going to not eat for 16 hours a day (8 of which will ideally be spent sleeping), and then have an 8-hour feeding period. A similar technique has been popularized by Martin Berkhan.

 

This means that I’ll break three of most common diet “rules:”

*No breakfast (gasp)

*No pre-workout meal

*And lots of carbs at night

You might be wondering why I would do such a thing to my body. It's primarily because I want to test out if 3 meals a day is any different that 5, 6, 7, or 8. After grazing on multiple meals for the past 10 years, I want to try something different. (Ignore the fact that I could just eat three square meals. This seems like more fun).

I’ll provide more details and research behind the madness in my next post, and let you know how I survived the first day of my new eating approach. Until then, feel free to discuss or post your questions. I’ll be listening.