I put high levels of trust in my own repeated experience, and even moderately low fat eating leaves me feeling lousy within a day or less. This inclines me to believe that Taubes is on to something. And that people who push extreme low fat may mostly like the drama of aesceticism.
On the other hand, there are people who tolerate low fat diets much better than I do, and my general assumption is that people’s dietary needs vary a fair amount.
My theory (which I don’t follow consistently) is that people will do pretty well if they eat according to what will leave them feeling good three or four hours later. Some people with food sensitivities need to be thinking 2 or 3 days ahead—sometimes it can take that long for a migraine to show up.
I realize that my theory has a bunch of caveats—I seem to notice how I feel more than most people do. I like enough variety in my food that I have a chance to find out how different things make me feel. which, again, isn’t most people’s default.
I’m not going to trust anyone’s theories about food unless it at least has some overlap with my experience.
Agreed. I optimize my diet for effects on short time scales. There seems to be a lot of evidence that the diet I’ve arrived at is also optimized for long term health, but, honestly, I would eat the way I do even if I knew it would reduce my lifespan by a decade. My diet has improved my quality of life too much for me to give it up.
I put high levels of trust in my own repeated experience, and even moderately low fat eating leaves me feeling lousy within a day or less. This inclines me to believe that Taubes is on to something. And that people who push extreme low fat may mostly like the drama of aesceticism.
On the other hand, there are people who tolerate low fat diets much better than I do, and my general assumption is that people’s dietary needs vary a fair amount.
My theory (which I don’t follow consistently) is that people will do pretty well if they eat according to what will leave them feeling good three or four hours later. Some people with food sensitivities need to be thinking 2 or 3 days ahead—sometimes it can take that long for a migraine to show up.
I realize that my theory has a bunch of caveats—I seem to notice how I feel more than most people do. I like enough variety in my food that I have a chance to find out how different things make me feel. which, again, isn’t most people’s default.
I’m not going to trust anyone’s theories about food unless it at least has some overlap with my experience.
Agreed. I optimize my diet for effects on short time scales. There seems to be a lot of evidence that the diet I’ve arrived at is also optimized for long term health, but, honestly, I would eat the way I do even if I knew it would reduce my lifespan by a decade. My diet has improved my quality of life too much for me to give it up.