DunbarFit

Are there one, two or three factors that link all diets? Or is each diet just designed to be a new social media trend to boost its creator’s profits and keep you running on the hamster wheel?…until they release the next new diet fad. 

While there are a million short term diets that are Not designed to be sustainable, think the Twinkie Diet or the Cookie Diet or the Cabbage Soup Diet(Yes, this is a real diet), diets designed to be practiced for an extended period of time, decades or a lifetime, do have many commonalities. Uncovering these common traits makes it easier to practice and sustain the diet while also better understanding the pillars that each diet is founded upon. From Low Carb Keto like diets to Paleo, Vegan/Vegetarian to Flexitarian, the DASH diet, to the classic Mediterranean diet, there are 6 key factors that link them all together: 

Anti–Inflammatory Foods: Daily, chronic inflammation and its most appropriate new framing, ‘inflammaging’ is a key determiner of whether you are slowing or accelerating the aging process. The focus of any long running diet is to consistently eat foods that lower systemic inflammation. While there is some debate on which foods are truly anti-inflammatory and whether our genetics play a role, reducing inflammation is key. 

Too much inflammation is the driver for so many diseases and detriments to quality of life. Whether it is diabetes, cardiovascular conditions, general cognitive decline or dementia, all are linked to increased inflammation, especially from our diet. Eating anti-inflammatory foods gives you a healthier today and a healthier tomorrow.

Processing Matters: Take everyone’s go to, hyper-lean diet meal: boiled chicken breast and broccoli…and instead, bread it, deep fry it and you now have completely changed the food’s impact on our health. Raw or steamed/cooked in water is always cleanest but even baking, air frying or pan frying at lower temperatures can greatly reduce the amount of harm from AGE’s(sugars binding to proteins in an unhealthy and disease promoting manner), heat activated toxins like acrylamides or aldehydes and general inflammatory compounds created by cooking your food. Whether it is animal or plant foods, occasional high heat, grilling or frying can be enjoyed but stick to cleaner processing methods as often as possible.

Fiber is King: Healthy Keto dieters consume more fiber than many vegans! The first doctor I heard speak so fondly of a Low Carb diet emphasized vegetable intake(non-starchy of course) more than most diets. Not to say that a healthy carbohydrate filled diet is not loaded with veggies but to point out how without fiber intake, long term success is an anomaly. The carnivore’s won’t love this but the reality is that carnivore diets are not meant for long term practice for most, if not all of us, nor have they ever been studied or used by our ancestors for long periods of time(decades).

Fiber, in particular, from veggies but also from fruits, beans, legumes, nuts and seeds, is key to satiety, gut health, brain health and preventing disease. A comprehensive review from the journal, Clinical Nutrition, examined 64 studies comprising 3.5 million participants and demonstrated that higher fiber intakes reduced all cause mortality by up to 23%!  

Diversity: As the microbiome throughout our body, but in particular in our gut, becomes more and more of a focus, researchers are pointing towards food diversity as a key principle. In particular, the diversity of plant foods. The American Gut Project discovered that eating 30+ different plant foods per week was key for gut microbiome diversity. A more diverse gut microbiome means less inflammation, a stronger immune system, brain and better stress resilience.

In addition, eating a variety of foods is a much more enjoyable and therefore, sustainable approach. Chicken and broccoli is great until you have eaten the same thing day after day and just can’t sustain it let alone enjoy the food. Diversity brings us better gut health as well as a more enjoyable and palletable diet.

Moderation is a Lifestyle: Following the previous four principles makes it much easier to adopt this last one but it still deserves its own attention. You can eat the most anti-inflammatory, minimally processed, fiber rich diverse diet that exists but if you eat too much, you are still likely going to gain fat and deter the health goals you are working so hard for. I intentionally left out the intermittent fasting style of diet as that is more of a timing strategy than an actual dietary guide, but it is worth mentioning here as finding a way to eat in moderation is key for any diet to work long term. Whether you skip breakfast, cut out all calories 4+ hours before bed or you focus on moderate portion sizes, finding a way to balance the energy you put into your body from food is key to maintaining a balanced weight and physique. 

What These Principles Do for Me

The purpose of better understanding how common lifestyle diets overlap is not to muddy the waters so that no particular diet matters but to help you understand that underlying principles that comprise each diet are what actually matters and moves the needle on your health, weight and longevity goals. Most of us struggle with the basics yet spend so much time on the minute details of what a healthy diet is supposed to be. I contend that nailing the shared principles of each diet is far more beneficial to long-term adherence and allows a better understanding of why you are eating what you are eating instead of just saying: I don’t eat sugar, I don’t eat fried food, I eat lots of plants, etc. 

Lifestyle— Knowing that you are aiming for anti-inflammatory foods or diverse plant foods high in fiber allows you to better prepare what to eat at home, at a restaurant or an event. That confidence and feeling of preparation reduces food anxiety and uncertainty that often leads to overly strict adherence that doesn’t last or leads to the opposite, eating too much of the wrong foods because it’s all too much. 

Understanding the principles behind what you eat also allows more flexibility. You can eat the cake at your office party guilt-free knowing that you had a no added sugar, anti-inflammatory lunch that balanced out your office sugar party. Understanding moderation gives you the confidence to have a lower-calorie dinner when you’ve eaten more than usual earlier in the day or enjoyed that piece of office cake—without judging yourself or worrying about others judging you for having a smaller-than-usual dinner. This understanding opens the door to the life your chosen diet is supposed to give you. The life of less food stress, more control, better health, a better physique and more years of it.

My Journey— Personally, I have tried most, if not all, of the popular diets over my years of experimenting and the one take away has always remained the same….I felt great! It didn’t matter the exact dietary protocol I followed, higher or lower fat, more animal or more plant protein, I felt great because I ate diverse whole foods, minimally processed, in moderation that were rich in fiber, water and nutrients. This renewed focus on healthy eating coupled with my workouts and good sleep led me to feel great on all these popular diets. 

This isn’t to say that some diets don’t work better for some than others. That is very true and each individual needs to pay attention to how their body and mind responds to a particular style of eating and eliminate foods that cause brain fog, GI issues, slow you down or just don’t sit right. If you want to go as far as genetic testing, go for it. But keep in mind, the key principles that give us what we want from a healthy diet remain the same and focusing on them yields a much more reliable and beneficial outcome. 

Whether you eat low carb, moderate or high carb, more animal products or less, let these principles remind you that we have more in common than not and that includes the dogma of diet.