The fourth Week In Review post. Whole grain edition.

People seem to be enjoying these so what the hell, I'll keep pumping them out!

This past week... well! I thought the previous week in social media was wacky but this week was off the chain. Let's take a look real quick.

Facebook Drama Of The Week, On My Page At Least:

I made a little post about ketogenic dieting for weight loss and all hell broke lose. Obviously some people do well on ketogenic diets. It's beyond my scope of practice or area of expertise to speculate on what the long term health implications of this might be, but as for weight loss, as always it comes back to whatever approach an individual can stick to in sustaining and maintaining a "not inappropriate" total energy intake.

• Would I recommend keto? Nope.
• Do some people do well on it though? Yep.
• Does that prove keto is the only approach that works though? Of course not.
• So since it works shouldn't I still present it as a valid option? No. Although some people do seem to take to it like a duck to water, I see a lot of people struggling and making themselves miserable needlessly, and failing to see results even though they do stick to all the necessary restrictions. 

Of course if people aren't interested in my advice and choose to do keto all the same, that's their choice so good luck to them. Just stop trying to convince everyone else that there's some reason no other approach can work and extreme carbohydrate avoidance is required for health and weight management, because that's a load of garbage.

More Interesting Stuff In Case You Missed It:

The Dietitian's Pantry shared this post about how great bread is. You might be aware that I've had a bit of an issue for a long time now with random idiots and social media "experts" getting on people's backs with unsolicited advice and relentless pressure to give up bread, cereal, grains in general and gluten in particular.

This week I noticed a couple of new articles on the subject and so here they are:

• Myths Busted: The Whole Grains Council.
• Intake of whole grains is associated with lower risk of myocardial infarction. 

Exposed Scam Diet Of The Week:

The Bulletproof Diet and related nonsense should probably be scam of the week every week, to be honest.

Most epic ensuing drama of the week goes to: 

That study from Melbourne Uni, reported in the press as "paleo food fad results in weight gain" but more accurately (as best I understand it) showing the result of a high fat approach with sedentary subjects, due to reduced energy expenditure. The response from certain high profile markters of LCHF and paleo diets who THINK they are health experts was quite ironic to say the least.

And finally...

A little shout out to Nuts For Life.

I'll tell you why real quick. A while back I made a post about trainers giving out crap meal plans which have instructions such as "none of this stuff ever but as much of this other stuff as you want".

Now, even if that "other stuff" is all really, really good choices that you probably should include... "as much as you like" (of all but the most energy sparse choices of foods) can still put you in excess of a total energy intake that you can put to good use. Regardless of where you're sourcing that energy from there's only so much you can put to use, whether it's from a really wholesome source or a more frivolous choice.

So a while back I made that post and I had in mind a particular meal plan I'd see that had almonds as one of the things you could have in unlimited quantities. Maybe it came across like I was suggesting nuts weren't a great choice (which wasn't my intention), because Lisa came and hit us with a bunch of good facts about the benefits of nuts, of which there are many. As a result I started including 40g of mixed nuts into my plan almost every day, and it has been one of the best and easiest things I've ever done to improve my every day dietary habits. So if you LIKE nuts and obviously if you don't have any medical reason to avoid them... I do recommend 30 to 40g a day within the context of meeting but not exceeding all of your requirements.

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A wacky week in review, the third edition.

What a wild and wacky week of social media it has been the last 7 days or so. Lawd have mercy, where do I even begin?

The SIRT Diet apparently was in the news and as usual, for all the wrong reasons. I actually missed this one at first but Emma at Broccoli & Blueberries has covered it nicely. As usual, it's one more of these diets that claims to be "different", claims to not be about starving or restriction, but rather is about wonderful special properties of certain foods... but then goes and restricts you a 1000 calorie per day starvation ration all the same. SIGH.

Exposed Frauds & Scammers Of The Week:

This time by "exposed" what I actually mean is "convicted" so chalk this up as a big win for the forces of good in the world. Robert O Young was convicted on two counts of practicing medicine without a license. This is the guy who dreamed up the "pH diet" aka "alkaline diet". As we discussed in this popular post on my facebook page, it's odd to me that others who (one assumes) honestly believe that they are not quacks and charlatans still push this pH nonsense which has absolutely no basis in science, even though the guy who invented it has been charged with multiple offences and convicted of practicing medicine without a license.

What You Might Have Missed Elsewhere This Week:

In response to some of these ridiculous & unrealistic (aka I'm saying they just make up fancy sounding shit thinking everyone is going to be impressed by it for some reason) "day on a plate" things going around, Alex at The Dietitian's Pantry shared her own Unapologetically Boring Day On A Plate with some added commentary.

I did mine too as you can see on the right or on facebook here. I was actually a little disappointed I didn't get more criticism from clean eating types trying to convince me that 16% body fat isn't good enough, and I need to cut out a bunch of stuff that I like and get down to 12% like some other male they can probably produce a photo of. It would have been a good chance to make a point about body positivity.

Speaking of which, this nice piece of news was brought to my attention via Mike from Lean Minded: Acceptance Is Killing The Diet Industry, and also this week Body Positive Australia teamed up with Special K with their #OwnIt campaign.

What Else You Might Have Missed On My Facebook This Week:

• CSIRO looks at low carb diets for type 2 diabetes, usual quacks pretend it proves whatever nonsense they've been selling for however long.
• My thoughts on the 28 minute workout fad.

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Last Week In Review: Second Edition

Selfie Of The Week featuring choice of attire that was
not at all suitable to the warm & humid conditions that day.

This is actually more like "the past two weeks" in review since I missed last week due to some reasons.

I didn't publish any new blog entries, but I did re-share a couple of my best classic entries, from the vault.

Here: 1200 Calories, Zero Results.
And here: Observations On Involuntary Binge Eating.

Those are links to where I shared the links on facebook, and the subsequent discussion.

Also On My Facebook This Week:

The running theme this week was that it's not really that hard to make small but significant improvements to your diet, and that probably the best advice I can give you is to just do your best and don't listen to jerks who want to make you feel like it's still not good enough. That post proved most popular.

The previous week was all ridiculous arguments with people who don't accept that too long and too far into deficit can be a bad thing for fat loss and that it is preferable that we advise people that they will see good results by reducing the level of deficit, rather than going further and further into restriction an attempt to starve weight off. All of which culminated in this video, in addition to some other good posts on the subject here and here.

Elsewhere On Facebook:

This seemed to be my most popular comment elsewhere. Yes, I was being facetious!

We were discussing "the food diary that makes Pete Evans' Day on a Plate look normal". Sigh.


Another Great Article I Recommend You Check Out If You Haven't Already:

• I'm Hungry, So My Body Must Be Broken. 

Great article from Dare Not To Diet, brought to my attention by my friend Joanna at Everyday Nutrition. I've written and talked a lot about this in the past. With my approach, I start people on some baseline fueling targets that are usually more than they're used to, but actually still significantly below their optimal requirements from a sports nutrition for best results from training perspective. We increase from there, and all is well. Better results, less stress about food choices, and so on. But then all of a sudden people find they are getting HUNGRY even though they are eating more than they have in a long long time, and often it seems to scare the hell out of them at first.

The thing is though, your body is adaptable and after periods of restriction people may find that they just don't get as hungry any more. But this does not necessarily mean that they are eating enough and don't have a use for any more. For people who are in training, who have gone from restricting, to adequate fueling, and towards more optimal fueling, hunger is your body's way of letting you know "this is great, but if you give me more I can do even better".

For people in training, hunger is actually a very, very good sign. Your body wants to do better, to produce greater and greater results. You need to listen to the messages it is sending you, and trust and respond to them.

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