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What Is Your Health Fad History?
Paleo. No sugar, Turmeric. Gluten-free. CoQ10. Omega 3. Resveratol. Non-GMO. Drinking vinegar to balance out the body’s pH. And endless variants and chelations and super-duper-brain-activity goodies later … these are the fads of today. The fads of yesterday are endless, marching back into history. Remember low sodium? Macrobiotic diets? A tablespoon of bran a day? Garlic? Anti-oxidants? Cod liver oil? Yum!
I was remarking to @susanquinn that health-fad lovers all share the same gullible desire to believe the “experts,” to believe that there are shortcuts to long and healthy lives. And that, of course, anyone promoting a fad today has a history of promoting fads in the past — fads that clearly were not, in the end, supported by data. Which means that the vast majority of people (yes, even good people) do not choose to learn from their own experiences.
So let’s have it, Ricochetti! What are the fads you have tried in the past and then abandoned? Here’s my list: Omega 3s. Immunocal. Resveratol.
Let’s hear it!
Published in General
It seems the government and medical experts aren’t terribly expert when they release one study saying “eating X is bad” one year, then next year come out with “eating X is good”:
Coffee
Red wine
Butter
Salt
Red meat
Eggs
Trans fats
My wife’s grandmother had this advice:
“Eat real food, small portions, mostly vegetables.”
Things that didn’t work so great:
-The USG food pyramid (as mentioned above). It is a sure roadmap to Type II diabetes.
-All fat-burner supplements.
-All weightlifting regimes from Muscle & Fitness. Improperly conflates hypertrophy and strength, and all the “athletes” (bodybuilders) whose workouts are published. All those dudes are pharmaceutically enhanced.
Things that worked pretty good (for me):
-Vinnie Tortorich’s “no sugar/no grains” diet. He’s stated that he’ll never publish a diet book; it’s just those four words. Also, his technique of a pat of grass-fed butter in my morning coffee.
-Matt Furey’s two rules of thumb: All walls & no “P”s. When you go to the grocery store, everything you want to eat (veggies, fruit, meat, fish, dairy products) is almost always along the walls. Don’t go down the aisle unless you need something that you know is not Packaged, Processed or Preserved.
-Kettlebells. Kettlebells. Kettlebells.
I’m on board with this. My sweet tooth vanished a long time ago (thank goodness). That’s the good news. The bad news is it was replaced with a beer tooth . . .
Yes. None of the things you are trying are outrageous or likely to cause you more harm than good.
That is good advice, but personally I would go with “less” rather than “no.” If eating cauliflower crust pizza will add 15 years to my life, I’m good with dying sooner.
I have a neighbor who is 97, happily married to his child-bride in her mid-80s, and living independently. They both credit their home-made borscht for their longevity.
I had it for lunch. With sour cream. Quite tasty. Mrs. iWe tells me I am going to be awfully lonely.
Whose avatar used to be a picture of a tombstone with the epitaph “I can’t believe I ate all that kale for nothing?”
Erma Bombeck used to keep people in stitches with her columns about the Weight Watchers group she joined. She once described taking off her nail polish before the weekly “weigh-ins.” :-) Another time she wrote, paraphrasing, “I know the day is going to come when iceberg lettuce will be declared harmful to my health. I know that’s coming because iceberg lettuce is the only thing left I can eat now!” :-)
I used to take glucosamine/chondroitin before I got into weight training. I’m not sure whether it had any effect. Weight training does, however – my knees are quiet now, no more creaks.
I did Atkins with mixed success. It works, but it’s difficult to sustain for me.
I did low-dose aspirin, but stopped a while ago. My BP, xDL, and glycerides are excellent without it.
I’m currently eating low carb/high fat with the occasional pastry and beer pretty much when I want it. I’m nowhere near ketosis but still dropping a little fat and keeping constant weight from recreational biking and weight training.
I take Niagen (nicotinamide riboside, an NAD precursor) daily. I’ve quit it a couple of times and went back on it when I realized it really does make me feel physically better.
Used to take resveratrol, later switched to pterostilbene. I’m less certain of the effects, compared to Niagen.
I’ve been taking 50 micrograms D3 (2000 IU) for a while, although I’m not entirely convinced the supposed benefits of that are real. I get reasonable amounts of sun.
I take a lutein (zeaxanthin) supplement and I’ll freely admit that’s down to voodoo. I fear macular degeneration.
I don’t take CoQ 10 since I don’t take statins.
And when I start my winter weight training cycle I’m planning to include creatine.
Keto, been on it since April and dropped 80 lbs so far. Much better than other diets I have tried.
I’m on the “eat Costco chocolate cake (buttercream and mousse) with a large glass of cold, whole milk” diet. Along with high protein foods. I’m weight deficient. I eat my fruits and vegetables in season.
During my hydronephrosis episodes, my dear mother-in-law, tried to get me to drink a tablespoon of Apple cider vinegar in warm water. Instant migraine and pain where I had surgery days before.
Or a full quart of freshly juiced apples immediately after I came home from having my first child. Did. Not. End. Well.
Cod liver oil. Sensitive gag reflex.
Glucosamine chondroitin. Nada.
An obscenely long list of things suggested for migraine and arthritis.
I don’t diet unless it’s doctor recommended.
The breakfast of champions.
When I was cycling regularly, I could eat anything and not gain weight. After that, not so much. Atkins works very well for me, but I love bread, so it is hard to keep up.
On the medicinal front, I had problems with severe pain in my neck several years ago that was so bad, I could hardly lift my head up to get out of bed in the morning. When the specialist saw the MRI of my neck, he said that 9 out of 10 doctors would sign me up for surgery the next day to fuse the vertebrae. (The surgery is through the front of the neck). Fortunately, he was the 10th doctor and suggested I try therapy first. That seemed to help and my neck is still in pretty good shape 3 years later. I also heard that golden raisins soaked in Gin (with juniper berries) also helped with inflammation, so I have been doing that for several years.
I couldn’t prove that it helps, but at this point, I am not going to change anything. Besides, I have enough Gin left over for martinis.
EDIT: Just changed wait to weight! No idea how I made that mistake, but on the other hand, a note to you young whippersnappers, just wait for the weight to come!
I’m hooked on the “have a donut whenever you want” and eat a T-bone steak every weekend diet. And butter is my condiment of choice – it goes on almost everything.
I don’t know if Weight Watchers counts as a fad, but it helped me lose 32 pounds and keep it off for a couple years. Stress took another 8 pounds off at one point. I don’t recommend it. Now I’m eyeing keto because everyone who’s doing it seems to be successful at the weight loss and Jordan Peterson (on a strict carnivore diet) positively glows with health!
Never been a big fan of supplements until recently. Younger’s Integrative MD suggested mushroom supplements for her (makes her nauseated, so I take hers). As advertised, they’re supposed to be brain food and make you live longer, but the actual scientific studies show mushrooms inhibit tumor growth. I still take my Tamoxifen as prescribed for breast cancer, but I figure mushrooms aren’t going to hurt anything.
Postmenopausal, so Calcium with D3 is pretty important. Which reminds me, I have to schedule my bone density test. I’m also aware that strength training is great for bones, but I’ve fallen off the wagon after four weeks in Hillsdale and another three in Ohio with my family.
I can say for sure that Magnesium Malate helps with regularity and muscle cramps. And a B-Complex (extended release to avoid the itching from Niacin?) helps counteract the energy drain from Tamoxifen.
Also blueberries (for antioxidants). I have them every morning (or mixed berries) with my high fiber cereal. My HDL level was half my total cholesterol at my last physical. My doc was impressed.
The whole family takes a lactose defense probiotic on the recommendation of Younger’s GI specialist.
It sounds like a lot, but it’s all come on gradually in response to real conditions.
And when you get into a routine of taking them, it becomes second nature!
My husband lost 60 pounds on Keto and has kept it off (with some ups and down within a range of a few pounds) for nearly 3 years. I’ve been doing it for over a year and lost over 15 pounds. I’m where I want to be. The best part is that I have more energy and don’t suffer the sugar-crashes that I did while eating so many carbs. I never dieted before, but I realize now that I was just eating way too many carbs in the form of bread, crackers and sugar (even in yogurt). Now, it’s actually easy to refuse desserts because they taste way too sweet.
Started using the Keto type diet – lost 20lbs in about 2 months
Hardest thing was giving up beer
After visiting the “Amish buffets” in Ohio and Pennsylvania and their vast expanses of fried and baked food, I heard of the “Amish diet”: Eat all of that you want, and then walk 10 – 20 miles a day behind your horse plowing, planting, and harvesting your fields. :-)
They’s people as put it in coffee.
Which is wierd. Imagine substituting butter for CBD oil.
I just want to point out the awesome sentence construction here.
Here in TN, it would be looked on as grammatically correct.
I started low carb/slow carb/no carb Keto-ish (I guess) a couple of years ago. Weight loss was not so much the issue as I’d been diagnosed as a Type II diabetic (thank you, Government food pyramid!)
At first, my doc said, “just take the pill, and live normally.” Then I got an obvious message from the Big Guy that I needed to do a little more than just take the pill. A couple that is friends with my parents and that I’ve known forever lives near two of my daughters’ university, and so we bunk with them when we go up. One night, our hostess served an incredible shrimp creole. I knew our host had been diagnosed with Type II when he was about the same age that I was diagnosed. I asked our host, “This is awesome, but how do you deal with all the carbs?”
He chuckled like he was getting over on the system, and lifted up his shirt, displaying his insulin pump and said, “I just put this on bolus.”
Message received; I could either clean up my act and be rolling around on the mats at 75 teaching my grandkids Judo throws and joint locks, or I could be hooked up to an insulin pump.
Beat the diabetes (slid back to pre-diabetic) and dropped about 55 pounds. I wasn’t fat, I was prosperous. Like the Buddha. I’ve managed to purposefully put back on about 25-30 (Mongo doesn’t do well when the setting is on “spindly”).
As part of the lifestyle change, I switched from beer to bourbon.
One would think it would be intuitively obvious to the casual observer that one does not drink whisky at the same rate and volume as beer. That was a hard-won lesson, there.
It’s taken me almost 70 years to find out how to spell Home Ec. Thanks.
Me, too.
I wanted to agree with you guys, but my mind’s a blank.
Oh. I thought you meant the donuts.