Defining Diet – Which One is BEST for You
It’s quite interesting to see what propagates when you type the simple phrase “Diet Definition” into the ol’ Google machine.
- Food and drink regularly provided or Consume
- A particular selection of food, especially as designed or prescribed to improve a person’s physical condition or to prevent or treat a disease
- Habitual nourishment
And courtesy of Urban Dictionary…
4. A word used by large food corporations to decieve old/fat women and men into believing their product is actually remotely healthy.
As I scanned though the different meanings (and spent a little too much time on Urban Dictionary), a common parameter seemed to be unaddressed – Time. Could it be that all these reputable sites are missing the mark? Or have we taken the word Diet and spun it in every which way until we almost synonymously associate it with deprivation, restriction and….
How often to you hear people yell in pure adulation “Today, I GET to go on a diet!!!!“? Take your time, I’ll wait…. They Don’t! It’s always “I have to“, and it’s often said mid-bite at Wendy’s, accompanied by a side of self-assurance that the road to health (Losing 10lbs) begins tomorrow. Diet, when spoken on the level of the individual is almost always surrounded by a negative context, it’s a consequence of one’s current state, and it typically comes with physical and psychological discomfort.
Build an Operating Model, Not a Diet
It you haven’t already heard, you’re a high powered Chief Executive Officer who’s responsible for millions of employees and even more partners (see what I’m talking about here). Your main job is to instill policy and procedure that works for your organization. For the most part, the performance of of the company is a direct reflection on the work you’re currently doing. If you suck at your job, the rest of the team is slow, inefficient, and eventually even toxic.
A diet shouldn’t be looked at as a short hiatus from your day-to-day habits. A six-week, four-month, year-long, miserable retreat to the land of bland tastes and constant hunger is not sustainable or enjoyable. We need to look at this from a different perspective, one that views diet in its holistic forms – Habitual Nourishment, An Eating Lifestyle, one which evolves with time , adapting with new information, and driving the the mission statement of health and happiness.
Your diet is the culmination of the foods you eat most, a 12-week program does not negate 35 years of eating garbage (Don’t get me wrong, it helps). The talk and rah rah around dieting in the western world has never been greater, yet the obesity pandemic continues to grow. The food landscape has never been more confusing, figuring how to decipher the good from the bad can take countless hours of research in itself (trust me I know). Diet Foods, Processed Foods, Frozen Foods, Fast Foods…..
The noise has never been louder….
The BEST Diet
I get it, people today like to be delivered a services by the click of a mouse, it’s a preferred model that’s quite common and successful (ask Jeff Bezos). We gravitate towards the “Just tell me what to do“, “Give me the plan to make these love handles go away” consumption model naturally. Ready for the ultra super secret revelation….Of all the fancy modern diets, there is NO best one, at least you won’t get an answer out of me.
Humans have been shown to respond positively to diet interventions in controlled environments (meals and macronutrients provided and monitored), but that’s not real life. In the wild, we’re out there battling the flickering lights of Mickey D’s, stress at work, and the constant lack of time. Oh yeah, we’re also fighting evolutionary biology’s signals to load-up on these highly palatable, fat and sugar processed combinations, every time we walk by.
Here’s a little known fact, there are essentially No foods from nature (milk and some nuts being exceptions) which are both high in fat and high in sugar (or carbohydrates). However, these foods fill up the majority of food store shelves. Taking a look into the biochemistry (from a 10,000 foot view), we’re biologically wired to release the reward neurotransmitter dopamine when we consume these foods, facilitating that euphoric feeling when we bite in. Remembering this pleasure, we continually want more, and each time it take’s a bigger dose to give us our fix (aka tolerance). The long term results of the typical diet described above (highly processed) is metabolic syndrome, and we’re seeing the results first hand.
So when it comes to BEST diet, it really depends. If there was a cut-and-dry answer we’d all be able to alter our physical and mental state in a snap. But there’s Not! Unfortunately to make things even more complicated we have the weight of genetic predisposition, environment, epigenetics, microbes, and food availability (to name a few) adding to the load. Experts, researchers and doctors continue to disagree on the best eating protocols, but they do seem to generally agree that the ideal diet is one:
- High in : Vegetables and Non-Processed Whole Foods
- Low In: Processed Meats, Added Sugars and Refined Carbohydrates
So whether it’s following a Mediterranean, Paleo, Keto, Vegetarian, Vegan diet that gets you there, it’s your call. All have shown to be successful, if done right.
How to do it Right
To be successful in your new operational model you have to adapt the right mindset, this isn’t temporary, it’s gotta be lifestyle. A lifestyle of continuous growth and adaptation, because every fact has a half-life! We just simply do not have enough information to claim with utter certainty that one way of eating is best, but we do know that doing nothing is not a viable (or wise) option.
