drjackbennett.com

What should people eat for health and weight loss?

The most important diet advice is extremely simple:

no sugar
no grains
no seed oils

It matters more what you get rid of than what you add. "Superfoods" are more about marketing than health. As long as you stop eating the foods and "food-like-substances" that destroy health, you're moving in the right direction.

Sugar (principally fructose) is linked to a range of significant health problems for people: fatty liver disease, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease. If you do literally nothing but eliminate the consumption of added sugar, you're taking a major step toward better health. And likely toward weight loss as well.

Grains are highly problematic for human health because they are full of anti-nutrients and deliver a massive dose of unnecessary carbohydrates. As predators and carnivores, we should eat meat, not grass. Remember, the total requirement for carbohydrates in the human diet is zero. Our liver manufactures all the glucose that the body needs (gluconeogenesis). Highly-processed grains (aka "white flour") are especially bad because they have their few nutrients stripped out in processing. Flour is finely ground so that it digests rapidly and spikes blood sugar faster. The fiber that might help slow down the blood sugar spike was removed in processing. However, this doesn't mean that whole grains are much better. They are just "less bad". Better to avoid grains entirely. People eat grain-based products out of habit. They are convenient, cheap, and versatile; they aren't the best foods to eat for optimal health.

Seed oils are implicated in a number of major health problems like heart disease and metabolic syndrome. They are also completely unnecessary because better fats are available. They only exist as products because they are very cheap and profitable for the industries that manufacture them. The industry has branded them "vegetable oils" because everybody knows that vegetables are good for you. However, they are all highly-processed seed oils. The irony is that they were originally promoted as the "heart-healthy" alternative to saturated fats like beef tallow or coconut oil. That experiment has not worked out very well.

These ingredients - refined sugar, processed grains, and seed oils - tend to come together in the form of highly-processed, convenience foods. These products are a perfect storm of toxic, food-like substances. They provide a quick spike of energy and almost nothing else.

We should avoid these foods as much as we can. But what should we actually eat instead?

Meat. Eat mostly ruminants (beef, goat, bison, etc). You can add fish, poultry, pork, and other meats for variety, but most of your meat should come from ruminants. Preferably grass-fed and pastured in all cases. Eat "nose-to-tail" if you can.
Eggs. Get your eggs from free-roaming chickens if possible.
Non-starchy vegetables. Make sure you cook them with plenty of natural fat and salt to make them taste good. Generally, if a vegetable grows above ground, it may be a good idea to eat it; if it grows below ground, avoid it.
Fermented dairy products. Natural cheese, yogurt, and butter are good. Full-fat yogurt is especially healthy because of its beneficial bacteria. However, avoid plain milk because of the high natural sugar (lactose) content
Lower-carbohydrate fruits. Examples include avocado, berries, tomato, olive, etc.

A canonical healthy meal is "steak and eggs". If you like it, add some beef liver - it is perhaps the most nutrient-dense food in existence. In general, eat as much as you need to stop feeling hungry (i.e. to the point of satiety).

If you did nothing else other than follow these steps, you would likely avoid most of the "diseases of civilization" that plague the wealthiest countries of the world.

Other articles

One year keto-versary

Published: Mon 17 February 2020
By jack

In blogpost.

As of February 15, 2020, I've been following a ketogenic diet for a full year. The results to date have been good.

[caption id="attachment_544" align="alignnone" width="3840"] Body weight versus time.[/caption]

The data reveals that I've reduced body weight by approximately 40 pounds, year-over-year. Both the mirror …
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We knew how to reverse type II diabetes in the 50s

Published: Sun 10 November 2019
By jack

In blogpost.

Before the low-fat-diet insanity of the 1970s onward, sanity about diet and obesity was fairly common among the medical associations of the world.

Shown below is the abstract of an article published by George Thorpe, MD in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) in 1957 [1]. This article predates …
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Taking the red (meat) pill

Published: Thu 07 November 2019
By jack

In blogpost.

As so many others have said about low-carb eating, I can't unsee what I have seen or un-experience what I have experienced.

I can't pretend that I didn't drop 40 pounds with minimal effort, discomfort, or hunger.

And I certainly can't pretend that I didn't do this while eating foods …
read more
Updates after 8 months of LCHF

Published: Thu 24 October 2019
By jack

In blogpost.

As shown in the plot above, I've been doing this practice and lifestyle for about eight months. During the past few days, I've attempted to update and enhance my representation and visualization of body weight data.

In the plot, the red vertical bars represent individual daily measurements. The solid black …
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Lipid measurements after eight months on LCHF
Published: Sat 19 October 2019
By jack

In blogpost.

Lipid measurements after 8 months (242 days) on low-carb, high-fat (LCHF) eating.
- Total Cholesterol: 242 (mg/dL)
- Direct LDL: 191 (mg/dL)
- TC:HDL Ratio: 4.75
- HDL: 51 (mg/dL)
- Triglycerides: 93 (mg/dL)
- TG:HDL Ratio: 1.82
These numbers have come in largely where I expected them …
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Subtraction > addition

Published: Fri 04 October 2019
By jack

In blogpost.

Several months before my recent weight loss (starting in February of 2019) I began the habit of eating a healthy low-carbohydrate breakfast: an omelet with egg whites, ground sausage, and spinach.

However, this new habit did not cause weight loss. Why? The answer is simple: I didn't change my foods …
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Weight loss through simple data science

Published: Sun 15 September 2019
By jack

In blogpost.

I presented a technical talk at the PyOhio conference this year, describing applications of elementary data science techniques to weight loss. (As I described here, I generally prefer the term "body fat reduction", because it's more specific, but most people are more familiar with the term "weight loss". So it …
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CodeMash Lightning talk - Personal Journaling

Published: Fri 24 May 2019
By jack

In blogpost.

The CodeMash staff posted my recorded lightning talk on Personal Journaling.

It's the same subject as my earlier post - the exciting difference is that it was a much bigger stage with a bigger audience that was sipping beer and whisky.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIM_QIr_VHc
read more
Did you get my message? - comparing three modern messaging frameworks

Published: Thu 02 May 2019
By jack

In blogpost.

The screencast of my Stir Trek 2019 talk.

Official conference videos will follow, with live speaker action as well as screen recording. However, I had a glitchy radio microphone, so the audio quality of this presentation is likely to be better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlF9x1MGbSw
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Recent updates on diet and body composition

Published: Mon 29 April 2019
By jack

In blogpost.

[caption id="attachment_355" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Body weight measurements from Feb 2019 to April 2019. 5 day moving average with +/- 1 sigma channels to estimate measurement error.[/caption]

I had a "goal weight" of 190 lbs, and I crossed that milestone recently, as the plot above shows.

My revised …
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DogFoodCon 2019 CFP is open!

Published: Mon 01 April 2019
By jack

In blogpost.

DogFoodCon (DFC) is a popular conference that draws speakers and attendees from the Great Lakes region and across the nation. DFC has experienced sustained growth and popularity since the inaugural conference back in 2008.

Taking place in Columbus, Ohio on the weekend of October 3-4, 2019, DFC is a two-day …
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Lightning talk - Journaling for personal well-being

Published: Fri 29 March 2019
By jack

In blogpost.

[video width="1920" height="1080" mp4="http://jackbennett.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/ImprovingU-LightningTalks-JackBennett-1.mp4"][/video]

Thanks to Christopher Sauer for recording the video!

Slides for the talk (pdf).
read more
Some thoughts on body weight and body composition
Published: Fri 15 March 2019
By jack

In blogpost.

For the first time in quite a while - since April, 2018 - my body weight has dropped below 200 lbs. I'm pleased with this milestone and wanted to make a note about what techniques appear to be working:
- Intermittent fasting. A minimum of 16:8 but usually closer to 18:6 …
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A healthy morning routine
Published: Mon 25 February 2019
By jack

In blogpost.

In the morning, right after waking up drink this:
- 24oz water
- 2g sodium ascorbate (non-acidic Vitamin C)
- 2g ascorbic acid (Vitamin C)
Drink it before coffee or anything else.
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What is the optimal diet for humans?
Published: Fri 15 February 2019
By jack

In blogpost.

I've accumulated a lot of body fat over the past 15-20 months. I am aiming to get back to a healthier body shape (lower body fat percentage, more muscle).

I'm thinking about what the optimal diet, or range of diets, would be:
- Emphasis on foods in their natural state.
- Emphasis …
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