Diets are probably the most controversial of all the health topics.  It’s where the zealots come out and the media loves to grab headlines.  Perhaps only politics and religion can be more polarizing topics.  The most important thing to realize is that this aspect of health, more than any of the others, requires personalization in individual, time, and place.  As we’re all different human beings with different genomes and in different environments and lifestyles, our responses to food and diet can vary greatly and change over time. Because I am often asked, I’ve posted my current (2021) personalized nutrition here.

It has often been said that just picking a diet and sticking to it is more important than which one you pick.  In part I agree, because action and proactivity are always better than fretting about what is best (the pursuit of perfection often impedes improvement…).  However, we all have different abilities to conform, and different levels of compatibility to diets, so finding the approach you can be most compliant may be even more important.

Two Primary Approaches–Click on each of the links below for more details, ideally after reading the three paragraphs that follow.

There are two basic strategies that I will suggest, which should work for 80% of folks (digression—you may notice that everything I put in these main four pages very much follows that Pareto’s 80/20 principle, e.g. getting 80% of the results from 20% of the effort, or 20% of causes resulting in 80% of outcomes, or covering 80% of what’s important with 20% of the content…deeper digression—this is sometimes even more like 90/10 or 95/5 or greater).  In this instance, the 80% doesn’t cover 10% or so of folks who have very specific dietary requirements because of health problems (type I diabetes, allergies, Celiac, etc.) nor the 10% who are interested in optimizing performance as high as possible.

If you are the type of person for whom the biggest challenge to dieting is compliance, then I really think Tim Ferriss has nailed the best solution in what he calls the ‘slow carb diet’.  The basic premise is that for six days per week you will restrict your dietary choices toward low glycemic index food and macronutrients that resemble paleo-ish composition.  The seventh, ‘cheat’ day is key to the diet, as it both makes the long-term compliance easier and also serves to some degree as a ‘re-feed’ day to keep your metabolism and food tolerances high.  Personally I would suggest incorporating some amount of TRE (see next paragraph) into this regimen, but the results without that speak for themselves.  Here is the whole description, also found in his ‘4 hour body’ book: slow carb diet

If you’d prefer to exert a bit more control over your eating schedule, but not necessarily the composition of your food (initially), I would recommend working toward a time-restricted-eating (TRE) or intermittent fasting approach.  In fact, no matter what diet you prescribe to, whether it’s vegan, carnivore, or you name it, I would recommend TRE due to all the health benefits that come with it, particularly autophagy.  Click here’s for the best way to get there in a month.

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More advanced dieting practices

For the hardest core amongst you, either seriously determined to improve your body composition or see how far you can take athletic performance, there are a variety of options out there that have shown success for many individuals. Click here for the advanced dieting page.

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To avoid any conflicts of interests I will stay away from advice on supplements for the moment, but eventually will add some information on that to the resources page. In the meantime contact me and see my favorite recipes.