You can't tell the damage of a poor diet (or other maladies), simply by looking at videos.
You're also fairly young. A poor diet wrecks your health in a cumulative way.
I'm not saying your diet is poor (I have little data about your diet), I'm just saying it's up in the air with knowing that you eat, "plenty of sugar", and you IG yourself doing calisthenics. Would you agree?
Not that you CAN'T see differences, in some instances. I look at former classmates from college and they look horrible when I compare myself (and they know it) - but it's mostly from abuse of alchohol, which I think we can all agree will age you.
> There are forums of people who follow Ray Peat's ideas, and some do consume large amounts of sugar, and do really well.
How are their teeth?
This.
Here's another article that explains the alternative view point on this: http://digestiblekitchen.com/2013/10/confused-about-sugar-on...
Note that I'm not recommending processed foods either. I actually think it's much harder to eat lots of sugar, if you are only consuming it in non-processed foods.
But then is it sugar itself that is the problem?
Sorry, but this sounds like a personality cult. How about following the state of the art dietary advice?
Sure, consensus scientific advice can change over time, and be conflicting at times. But it will always be better than following some individual's opinions.
A an upcoming documentary an alternative theories related to this: http://perceivethinkact.com/
Also checkout the forums yourself, and then decide if these people are unreasonable:
That is assuming you are not suffering from a bias towards authoritarian sources. ;)
There's already consideration for different viewpoints inside the scientific consensus -- that's how it's formed. Yes, it's not perfect but better than its absense.
So, unless those different viewpoints follow the scientific method and are part of the scientific discussion, they are basically either kooks (like Willhelm Reich) or snake-oil salesmen (like, too many to mention).
>Main stream advice should always be questioned.
Usually mainstream advice on pragmatic issues is exactly what works and has been tried and true. (Not to be conflated with mainstream opinion -- on flakey matters, such as personal, political, aesthetic, moral etc subjects).
>Also, different diets work for different types of people, and there are 10000 other factors. You can't simply isolate one variable, complex systems don't care about your linear ideas.
All those are things that the scientific community knows already. So I don't see their relevance here.
Plus, while "different diets work for different types of people", they are not that different in the end, unless someone has a specific genetic condition. At best, some diets are easier, as a habit, for some people to follow than others (some can count calories, some can cut some specific food more easily, etc). But the ways they work (nutritionally) are the same, and the principles are the same. People are not unique snowflakes.
>That is assuming you are not suffering from a bias towards authoritarian sources. ;)
It's precisely the single person that's the "authoritarian source", and the scientific consensus, formed in a discussion, and under experimentation across the globe, that's the flexible and non-authoritarian source.
Scientists are subject to the human condition, just like anyone else.
I agree there are many snakeoil salesman, or kooks around. But I don't agree that the mainstream has the most optimal advice. In my personal experience I have been much more successful, in all my pursuits (health, programming, movement) by not following main stream advice, but rather seeking the minority that makes sense to me. In the words of Mark Twain, "The majority is always wrong, and the minority is sometimes right". I think the secret is finding the minority that aren't kooks, or snakeoil salesman. They do exist. I have found a few of them. Take the Ray Peat example. He didn't even know he had forums of people discussing his ideas. He doesn't even actively promote himself, or his ideas at all. I respectfully disagree that main stream advice is the most pragmatic.
I don't think the scientific community embraces the holistic nature of the world enough, as we tend to be dominated by linear thinking. If what you said were true, then we wouldn't have fields like Systems Thinking. It's definitely a niche area in research.
I also disagree about your comments on different diets. I have personally seen people religiously follow different diets, and do very badly on some, and well on others. I also prefer not to make statements like "People are not unique snowflakes" since I don't think we know enough at this stage. We are only beginning to understand the role of organisms in our gut for example, on overall health. I think your arguments here are too simplistic, and do not give a complex system like a human body enough credit. You should know that any simple answers to complex questions tend to be wrong.
Scientific consensus tends to be attached to formal institutions, not so? Formal institutions are then an authoritarian source. It comes from a position of authority. What you're essentially saying is something Government decreed for example, is not authoritarian, became it was enacted by a group of people. Obviously not true. Private individuals are generally less authoritarian, but they no doubt can be too. In this case, I am not aware of Ray Peat at all expressing his opinions as fact, but rather as something to be considered and questioned, like anything else.
I'm not actually that young, I'm 33.
If you take cancer rates by age as an indicator you can see age 33 barely registers: https://canceraustralia.gov.au/sites/default/files/statistic...
Or diabetes: http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/statistics/age/fig1.gif
However, evidence is pretty high that we could cut sugar and have zero negative effects. The largest cut would be in what people are drinking nowdays. (It is truly baffling to see how much sugar the average person consumes from soda.)
Consider, unless you are drinking multiple glasses a day of coke, you are probably actually quite low in your weekly intake of sugar compared to the average.
There are forums of people that take the opposite viewpoint, and do very well too. It's best to be open minded. We don't have everything figured out yet.
Parent is referring to people who think polyunsaturated fats are bad for you, though. And what I'm taking issue with is the argument that because there exist 'entire forums' of people who have accepted a claim, their views should be given credence.
However, if you are in position to measure other items, I'd highly suggest it.
What exactly is an "empty calorie"? What metric is it low on? It has calories. What is it empty of?
Proteins have specific uses, and some of them can't be produced by your body, so that would be an example of a "non-empty" calorie. Same thing with lipids. Carbohydrates are, essentially, sugar. (Once they're broken down). Obviously you can use them for energy, and they're useful in that regard, but once you have "enough" carbohydrates to fuel whatever activity you're doing adding more just causes your body to convert them into fat. So, that's why they're considered "emtpy" -- they have no nutritional value other than being converted to glucose.
I do however take issue with this:
> but once you have "enough" carbohydrates to fuel whatever activity you're doing adding more just causes your body to convert them into fat. So, that's why they're considered "emtpy"
That's true with any calorie. By that definition any calorie you're not using is empty.
I'd say the primary for survival is energy. Sugars (carbs) are very high on that. There are of course secondary nutrients like eg amino acids in protein that are very important.
What is in your opinion "nutritional content"?
That said, it is trivial to find primary items for survival if we just discuss things you would die without. Consider, water has zero calories, but you would die without it.
Are they worthless? No. They do provide caloric value. But they do not provide any nutritional value. This isn't even really at debate, is it?
I'll say it again: Talking about "empty calories" is in my experience always when masking a lack of real nutritional knowledge. Because when I hear it it's always comparing one sugar with another carb (eg flour), or sometimes even better comparing sugar with honey, as if that is any better.
If what you mean by "empty calories" is foods with only carbs and no proteins or fats, then I agree it could be a useful term. If you mean something else I'd like to know more about your reasoning.