"High fat or 'ketogenic' diets could prevent, reverse heart failure"
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-10-high-fat-ketogenic-di...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1768013/
Correlational studies are inherently flawed when you have something as complex as diet. It's probably quite true that in a random sample of 80,000 health care workers in America, the people with more grease in their diets drop dead faster. It doesn't happen in France, Spain etc etc. Meaning it probably has nothing to do with saturated fatty acids, and probably much to do with whatever goes along with it. Who knows what it actually is? Soybean oil, wonder bread, dunkin doughnuts, HFCS, diet coke, being disgustingly overweight, never walking anywhere, granola, fruit juice (bleh -sugar water), dietary iron, twinkies, nacho "cheese," brined ham, trail mix, marshmallows, potato chips, microwave popcorn, soy protein -any number of things the Frogs and Spaniards don't eat or do, but fat Americans do. Using linear regression, grease/saturated fat probably correlates well with all this other garbage, and with dropping dead sooner, assuming you censor out other world populations with different national diet tendencies. Of course including Spaniards in the data set, you get a different answer.
The "French paradox" isn't the only one indicating the statistics are horse shit on saturated fat: consider the Israeli paradox.
In at least one study (can dig it out if wanted) the result was that it looked as if moderate drinking was associated with better cardiovascular outcomes than no drinking at all (as well as drinking too much) because the people who didn't drink at all had stopped drinking on doctors' orders, essentially.
More recent studies have excluded participants with underlying heart conditions and the effect disappeared. Again, I can dig out the links if required (but it'll take me a bit of work).
We're spending more collective time as a society sitting on our butts than ever before, so many people drive everywhere instead of walking or riding a bike. We can get everything delivered to our homes instead of having to go to a store, walk around and pick it out ourselves. So much more happens purely online now, even something as simple as going to the corner store to rent a movie is a thing of the past.
All of these things used to add up to at least some physical exercise. Perhaps not ideal amounts, but it got people moving at least. Obviously this is not universal, a lot of people still do get their movement and fresh air, but my thinking is that it's less than ever before, combined with access to high-calorie food that is also easier than ever before.
So in that sense, physical activity, or the lack of it, is the force multiplier in regards to one's diet. I try to get at least 30 minutes of some sort of activity in every day, and preferably more. Just a walk outside or cleaning the apartment or doing a project. Most days I walk to the stores to shop, as a conscious choice to get my physical activity covered.
Sauce béarnaise is supposed to be served in rather small amounts, being an extremely rich and flavorful sauce when made in the traditional way, so a small amount provides the desired amount of taste to a dish.
It's all a matter of savoring small amounts of high-quality and extremely flavorful food, as treats rather than everyday snacks or baseline meals.
They are not fat if anyone wonders nor are some super great exception as far as I know.
A cup of wine (assuming a literal cup, so 280ml) is probably on the higher end of what is advisable, but not horrible.
I also assume they're not snacking constantly outside of meals, which makes a huge difference.
I did not said I see any of that horrible. AFAIK, cheese is good thing to eat. I don't know why you insist on minimizing it.
Quality over quantity.
In any case, when faced with a large body of literature with some conflicting results the thing to do is to look at reviews or meta-analyses. From my reading there is no argument that the majority of meta-analyses show a strong correlation between high levels of saturated fats in the diet and high incidence of cardiovascular disease- and if I remember correctly, even the so-called "French paradox" is not observed in high-quality reviews and meta-analyses, but only in smaller studies.
Note also (from the linked paper):
>> The French paradox concept was formulated by French epidemiologists3 in the 1980s.
In a similar manner, you can find many studies showing benefits from the consumption of olive oil, but the majority of them are from Spanish, Greek and Italian research teams (I'm Greek. Perhaps not everyone has the same context as me but the number of times I've heard Greeks say how healthy olive oil is... And how red wine is good for the heart. Greece, of course, produces both).
There are sources with high fat content but low amount of saturated fats like like salmon or olive oil. Animal fat with high saturated fat content is not the only alternative.
For example, salmon or egg has 3% content saturated fats. Beef has 6%, and as ground beef with delicious fat added to make the burger patties more delicious, the content can go up to 10%.
Butter has saturated fat content of 50%.
This study seems to focus on one variable, but there may be all sorts of bias in that those who consume a lot of saturated fat also have poor nutrition otherwise and lead unhealthier lives overall.
That might just be that together they are particularly palatable. You would have a hard job eating a bowl of sugar or a bowl of cream but mix them together and it's much easier.
I'm Over 40 and my body is showing it. I've done quite a lot of health research over the past few years. My personal metric at the moment is to lower my cholesterol and have been moderately successful without medication, so I think I'm doing something at least partially right.
I think the beneficial geeky rules of thumbs for healthy living that are simple rather than perfect, are:
1. One needs in ones diet 1.1 Protein 1.2 Fiber 1.3 Carbohydrates 1.4 Fats 1.5 Vitamins
2. Prefer foods with: 2.1 Unsaturated fats like olive oil, salmon, etc 2.2 Fibers
3. Generally avoid food with: 3.1 Fast sugars 3.2 High inflammatory index 3.3 High saturated fat content
4. Don't eat more than you consume.
5. For exercise, as the bare minimum, try to walk at least 8000 steps per day or equivalent. This will statistically reduce mortality considerably.
6. Sleep enough
7. Don't stress about the above rules! Pay attention, but don't judge - yourself or others.
8. Look into other stuff that's probably good for you like stretches, breathing exercises and strength exercises.
These are not hard and fast rules. But things that one can pay attention to, and through self observation perhaps make slow adjustments.
So don't stop eating burgers, but pay attention to the number of calories you eat, and of what the calories are composed of. Eat what you like, but don't delude yourself.
For geeks metrological devices may offer motivation. I have a bracelet that measures my steps and my sleep, and I feel it as a successful facilitation tool. But don't treat the device as a life coach, or the numbers as something that you should strive to optimize.
In my 20s I would eat ~1000 calorie meals with an entire pizza, salad, rich dressing, and a big slab of chocolate fudge cake. I was never slim, but I wasn't obese either.
If I tried that today I'd be breaking the scales in a few months.
Having to cut down on food a lot has been one of the hardest adjustments to make. Quite a few of my friends have never managed it and they're now dangerously beyond a reasonable weight.
However, it does also have an air of "this one trick will solve obesity!", which should be viewed with skepticism.
Going from three meals a day to a 16:8 eating pattern (16 hrs fasting, 8 hrs eating window) isn't too bad. It's basically skipping breakfast. Shortening the eating window until you're eating one meal a day is tougher. Then extending the fasting period > 24 hrs is tougher still. You can't just jump into this stuff while you're carb-addicted and your body is screaming for glucose. Getting used to a keto-style diet, even if your carb intake is just low but not keto-low, helps a lot.
I stand by that most people should be able to do it, as long as they can get over the hangry phase.
Check out these two things that come to mind, both cite an extensive list of studies:
Very quickly I'll go from eating a huge number of calories in a bulk phase, start cutting, and watch as over ~10-12 weeks as I need fewer calories each week to achieve a steady fat loss. After about 12 weeks of cutting fat I've gone from needing X calories to lose a pound a week, down to needing only 0.5X. At this point, I'm eating very few total calories. So I stop, and spend another 10-12 weeks slowly adding calories back in along with vigorous exercise until I'm gaining a steady half pound a week (maybe 50/50 fat/muscle). I'll rise up in weight about half of what was lost in the cutting phase, but ideally only about 1/4 of the fat lost. Once my total calories is back to a very high starting point, I'll start the cut again. This is the "secret weapon". I've lost a huge amount of body fat since starting this program, and my shoulders and legs are starting to stretch seams.
I came to this program after ~10 years of trial and error, but it works wonders.
If you need a starting point, Renaissance Periodization has some very expensive templates that can help a person get started with this. Or, just buy a scale, measure and weigh everything, and start cycling cut and bulk cycles every 10 weeks or so. Always aim for a pound lost a week, continuously dropping calories to maintain that rate, then bulk for 10 weeks, aiming to gain 0.5 pound a week along with strength training, adding calories each week to achieve that goal. Also, when cutting, long slow calorie burning like rucking, hiking, cycling, or swimming is perfect to help keep the daily calorie levels high. If not for those, I'd find my total daily intake to be unpleasantly low.