Tags health  self-experimenting  feeling better  Jack LaLanne  Ancel Keys  USA  ca  San Francisco  94107  Who can you trust? 

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There is so much noise in the diet/health space that it is hard to know what is real. When I talk with people about it, they are burned out.

By Tim Lundeen  Beginning Noozer
Published: 17 November 2007 02:16 pm

- A typical response is "My friend dropped dead of a heart attack and he was thin and he was doing everything right -- how can we have any idea what works and what doesn't?"

We've also had 50 years of changing, conflicting advice. First fat was unhealthy, but you were supposed to eat high levels of polyunsatured fat (no butter: margarine!) to keep your cholesterol down. Then it turns out that high levels of polyunsaturated fat are correlated with increased cancer rates, so you shouldn't eat so much, and butter is OK. There is example after example along these lines, with radical changes in what is supposed to be "healthy" coming out on a regular basis. So how can we trust anyone, how can we know what is best?

Dr Eames had a recent post that touched on this. Here are the pictures he posted of Jack LaLanne and Dr Ancel Keys:

















Above: Ancel Keys at 100

Left: Jack LaLanne at 94

So, looking at these pictures, it seems pretty clear that Jack has better ideas about how to take care of himself

Jack's advice is to get lots of exercise and eat natural foods, take lots of natural supplements, and everything else will take care of itself. And I think he's right: if you keep your muscles pumped up and exercise 2 hours per day, you won't have to worry much about your weight or your blood sugar! (If only I could do this, btw.)

My advice is to trust yourself. Try things that you think will make you feel better and be healthier, but measure the results. If they aren't working, stop or change. Here are the measurements that I use:

• Blood sugar level in the morning, I use a cheap Accu-check meter. It takes a drop of blood via a spring-loaded lancet, and you hardly feel it. Of all the things I've tried, this is the single most helpful thing you can do.
  
  Your fasting blood sugar level is directly tied to your weight and how good you feel. If you work on lowering this by a combination of reduced carbohydrates, more exercise, and less stress, your weight will drop automatically. Your fasting blood sugar should be in the range of 70 to 85. Any higher than 85 and you need to keep working on it.
  
  
• Weight. A check on how your blood sugar management is working
  
  
• Waist size. If your belly fat is going down, that is a good sign that you are managing well. If not, then weight loss could be muscle instead of fat
  
  
• Mental performance. I do a math set from Train Your Brain every morning. They take less than 2 minutes, and are a good check whether you are really clear-headed, or just think you are.
  
  
• Mood. The whole point of living is to enjoy life, and to help make the world a better place. If you are not in a good mood, then things aren't working. For example, there is a concern that practicing calorie restriction can cause depression. So, if you try something and don't feel good, by all means stop. (This is one of the reasons I think every-other-day reduced carbs might be the best of all worlds.)
  
  
• Blood tests and blood markers. There are a number of blood markers that correlate with risk for disease. Periodic blood test can make sure that you are doing well in terms diet/exercise, and that you don't have some emerging problem.

I try to read both the popular press and the scientific papers behind it. Google Scholar is a great resource for finding the original papers and what they actually say.

Seth Robert's site is an inspiration for this process, of trying things, measuring the results, and figuring out what works for you. Seth has discovered a lot of interesting things, including some of the very fast (same day) mental benefits of omega-3s and exercise.

Best of luck!