Report names the best and worst diets for 2020

Discussion in 'Health and Fitness' started by Frederick Foresight, Jan 5, 2020.

  1. destriero

    destriero


    I hear that you people lose LBM when neutered.
     
    #31     Jan 9, 2020
  2. The longest-lived people run on a high-carb diet, and it's a big part of their secret to living to 100:

    https://www.insider.com/blue-zones-diet-is-high-carb-healthy-for-longevity-2020-1


    Dan Buettner grew up in Minnesota during the 1960s, where he was fed a high-carb diet of bright yellow macaroni and cheese and sweaty red hot dogs wrapped inside flaky croissants.

    "We didn't know better," he said.

    But when the cyclist and storyteller started traveling around the globe, and into the homes of people in locations where elders routinely live to see their 100th birthday in good health — the world's "Blue Zones," as he calls them — he noticed something distinct about the ways that they were all eating.

    The fare was nothing like his Midwestern childhood diet of processed foods, but Buettner noticed that each Blue Zone kitchen did have a few staple ingredients in common. Like his own meal plans, they were all fairly high in carbohydrates, but these Blue Zone diets centered on carbs of a different kind.

    "The four pillars of every longevity diet in the world are whole grains, greens, nuts, and beans," Buettner said. "When you crunch the numbers, it's very clear that it's a 90% to 100% plant-based, very-high-carbohydrate diet. About 65% carbs, but not simple carbs like muffins and cakes — complex carbs."

    Buettner's chronicled some of his favorite recipes from each of those regions in a new Blue Zones cookbook, featuring dishes from Ikaria, Greece; Sardinia, Italy; Okinawa, Japan; Nicoya, Costa Rica; and Loma Linda, California.

    Whether the cuisine is from the sandy western shores of Costa Rica or industrial church kitchens in California, it is loaded with beans.

    Beans are a high-carbohydrate, high-fiber food that many dieters have recently criticized, as they're nearly impossible to eat on high-fat, low-carb diets like the trendy keto plan.

    "You can get very successful with a diet if you tell people they can eat what they like to eat — meat or cheese or eggs and all that," he said. "I draw from people who've achieved the health outcomes we want. And I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt that they're eating about a cup of beans a day."

    His favorite bean dish is a Greek "longevity stew," loaded with fennel, black-eyed peas, olive oil, tomato, and garlic.

    The diet plan lines up with much of the scientific research suggesting that people who eat more vegetables and other plants while consuming little to no processed or red meat are less likely to die earlier (and more likely to have healthier hearts) than people who routinely fuel up on animal products.

    Blue Zoners don't go to the gym, and they rarely eat meat
    In the Blue Zones, there are no banned foods. Instead, the environments people live in promote their good health almost effortlessly. There's no weighing ingredients or worrying about the amounts of carbs, protein, and fat to include in a day's meals.

    Yet there are certain things that people in Blue Zones don't eat very often. Chief among the rarities are dishes high in saturated fats and sugars, including meats, dairy, and desserts.

    On average, people living in the Blue Zones eat meat about five times a month. It's usually a three- to four-ounce cut of pork, smaller than an iPhone.

    When it comes to bread, Blue Zoners tend to favor fermented varieties like sourdough over plain white yeasted slices, and they pair small amounts of pasta and grains with other staple ingredients like fresh greens or beans.

    "When you combine a grain and a bean, you get a whole protein," Buettner said. This means that, much like any meaty dish, a plant-based meal can feature all the essential amino acids that help the body grow and repair itself, but "without the saturated fat, without the hormones," he said.

    In addition to focusing on plant-based foods, people in the Blue Zones also tend to cherish the importance of lifelong friendships, move around consistently each day (every 20 minutes or so), and live with purpose. These built-in support systems are key components of longevity too, Buettner believes, and just as important as the good food.

    "We keep beating this dead horse of diets and exercise and supplements," he said. "It's Einstein's definition of insanity."

    If you'd like to try the Blue Zones eating routine, Buettner suggests finding a few plant-based recipes that you really like and making it a habit to cook them for yourself again and again. None of the recipes in his book include any meat or eggs, and most shouldn't take more than 30 minutes to prepare.

    "The secret to eating for 100 is to find the plant-based foods heavy with beans and grains and vegetables, and learn how to like them," Buettner said. "If you eat a Blue Zones diet religiously, it's probably worth eight to 10 extra years of life expectancy over a standard American diet. You take those years and you average them back into your life? It gives you about two hours a day to cook."
     
    #32     Jan 13, 2020
    speedo likes this.
  3. Pekelo

    Pekelo

    #33     Jan 13, 2020
  4. Then why bother with the supplements you often report on and swear by?
     
    #34     Jan 13, 2020
  5. Pekelo

    Pekelo

    Because:

    1. It still can help.
    2. Maybe I don't have the BZ enviroment and I need to balance it out.
    3. I like to tinker.
    4. There are certain things I would like to avoid.
     
    Last edited: Jan 13, 2020
    #35     Jan 13, 2020

  6. Diet is probably the single most important thing in a healthy lifestyle to be honest. Many disease that make the top 5 stem from diet and lifestyle choices with genetics being a single digit %.

    Around one third of deaths from cancer are due to the 5 leading behavioral and dietary risks: high body mass index, low fruit and vegetable intake, lack of physical activity, tobacco use, and alcohol use.
     
    #36     Jan 13, 2020
  7. Speaking of sourdough bread, this is my current "dessert" bread:

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    https://premieremoisson.com/en/products/bakery/sourdough-breads/walnut-sourdough

    It's a sourdough walnut bread. Unbelievably delicious. When fresh, the crust can almost makes your gums bleed. I like a bread that fights back.

    Until a few months ago, my dessert bread used to be a multigrain encrusted baguette from the same place, but they changed the grains and some of them now are almost as hard as pebbles. I like my teeth, so I switched. I buy an unsliced loaf, cut it up into ~thick pieces, and then cut those pieces in half and freeze them. I have a half-slice or two each day. Living the life. :D
     
    #37     Jan 14, 2020
  8. Baron

    Baron ET Founder

    When I lived in Montreal, there were several bakeries within a 5-minute walk that sold some of the most ridiculous bread like what you posted. Just walking into one of them would make you instantly hungry. There's nothing like that around where I live now.
     
    #38     Jan 14, 2020
    Frederick Foresight likes this.
  9. I was in Montreal last March (family there) and ate some of the best Almond Chocolate Croissants in the Old Quarter. Not the dense rough crap we call croissants but those flaky fluffy things as big as my hand.

    Then of course being originally from NY I had to try the bagels at St. Viatour and Fairmount. At the store they come out hot, sesame.

    Spent the whole vacation eating (of course stopped in at Schwartz...oh man.)
     
    #39     Jan 14, 2020
    Frederick Foresight likes this.
  10. Keto diet isn’t the answer for weight loss, experts say. Here’s what is:

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...eo-atkins-problematic-doctors-say/4454401002/


    The keto diet. You've probably heard of it by now.

    It's the low-carb, high-fat diet that caught on and spread quickly, leading some to label it as a fad, while others praised its effectiveness.

    The new year brings in an annual flood of personal health goals, and for those trying to lose weight, the keto diet might have come into consideration. Is it effective? More importantly, is it healthy?

    Before making any commitments to keto, it's important to understand what you're getting yourself into. In addition to what the health professionals below have to say about keto, it's important to consult your doctor before embarking on any high-fat diets.

    First of all, what is keto?
    Though there are slightly different versions of the ketogenic diet, it's primarily based on a low intake of carbohydrates coupled with a high intake of fat and protein.

    Generally, this means people on the diet get 70% to 80% of their daily calories from fat, about 20% from protein and about 5% from carbs.

    The decreased intake of carbs forces the body into the state of ketosis, in which fat becomes the main provider of fuel for the body.

    Though similar, keto is not the same as the Paleo and Atkins diets, which also feature low-carb routines.

    Experts say keto diet is not the answer
    The diet has been associated with effective weight loss, but it doesn't necessarily get the approval from doctors.

    "I wouldn't recommend the keto diet to anybody," Jeffrey Mechanick, medical director at Mount Sinai Heart's Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Center for Clinical Cardiovascular Health, told USA TODAY.

    When it comes to dissecting popular diets such as keto, doctors stress the importance of knowing the difference between weight loss and genuine overall health.

    Reducing your intake of carbs, as the keto diet does, goes hand-in-hand with reducing intake of whole grains, fruits and some vegetables, which raises red flags for health professionals.

    "That's where I get a little concerned about the keto diet," Vasanti Malik, adjunct assistant professor of Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told USA TODAY.

    "You want to be mindful, because these foods – whole grains, fruits and vegetables – carry a number of beneficial nutrients – vitamins, polyphenols, fiber – that have been shown time and time again to be beneficial for cardiometabolic health."

    As the keto diet essentially nixes the body's intake of carbs, the body searches for an alternative source of fuel. Before long, the body breaks down fat, muscle and tissues to sustain itself, Mechanick said.

    "In theory, the keto diet basically mimics starvation," Mechanick said. "If you don't eat carbohydrates but you eat an excessive amount of fat and protein, you're still going to waste tissue. Tissue is still going to burn off."

    Yes, you might experience weight loss on the keto diet, but that might not actually be good for you, considering what you give up.

    "I don't feel particularly comfortable telling people to reduce intake of things that we know offer benefits for health," Malik said.

    If not keto diet, then what?
    Diet-driven people might find this part hard to digest.

    Doctors are moving away from what we traditionally think of as a "diet," one with specific restrictions or calorie goals. Instead, they promote a healthier overall lifestyle.

    "The vernacular is changing," Mechanick said. "We try not to even use the word 'diet.' We try to use the phrase 'eating pattern.'"

    There's a "rebound" issue with many fad diets such as keto, Malik said. You go on the diet, lose weight, but what happens after that? Most people struggle to stick with it.

    "Without a realistic lifestyle change, the individual is going to regain the weight," she said.

    The answer might not be a traditional "diet" at all, but there are changes you can make to shed weight while leading a healthy and sustainable lifestyle.

    The importance comes in the quality of the foods you eat, not necessarily the number of calories you consume, Malik said. She favors of eating patterns that don't abide by a restrictive calorie count, because they generally help people stick with the pattern longer.
     
    #40     Jan 19, 2020