It’s the Context, Not the Diet

As
some of you may know, I’m a big fan of the saying “The more you know, the more
you don’t.”  I’ve often said this in
regard to strength and conditioning, but after “getting my nerd on” during the
past few months with nutrition, it really applies to that world as well.

So
what do I mean?  The more you learn about
a subject, the more you realize how much is simply built upon assumptions, and
sometimes, how much of the field is yet to be discovered.  How this applies to my world can often be
seen with strength and conditioning terms like concurrent or conjugate
periodization (I think I just heard a few of your snore while reading those
words).  For those that are unfamiliar,
these simply describe certain ways to progressively advance people’s
workouts.  But, the reason these methods
are used are simply because we think they work, or that they have worked with
people in the past.

Let’s
apply all this fancy mumbo jumbo to an actual weight room scenario. For
instance, someone could probably get pretty big and explosive by working on
their squat for 6 weeks, then decreasing their squatting frequency and
increasing the frequency they perform an Olympic lift, like a hang clean, for
another few weeks.  According to the
periodization theories, they would be developing more strength in the squat,
then increasing their ability to rapidly display that strength (i.e. increasing their power) by going to
an Olympic lift such as the clean. 
However, common sense will tell you that the more someone squats, the
more strength they’re probably going to display in every other activity.  And, that this whole “periodization” thing is
just a way to make us sound smart.

The
same is true with diet and nutrition. 
Often times, our culture looks for a secret ingredient that’s in or out
of favor (fat, carbs, protein, omega-3’s, etc.) as the magic bullet to a
healthy life.  Yet, there’s a reason why
multi-vitamins and supplements just don’t work as well as eating a balanced
diet, and it’s because we’re taking our
nutrients out of their natural context.  For
instance, there are thousands of compounds in a piece of kale, and we have no
idea how all of these interact with our body. 
But what do we know?  That people
who tend to eat a ton of kale (and other fruits and vegetables) are probably healthier than those that don’t.  Food is simply more than the sum of its
parts.

This
video does a great job explaining how of the science behind nutrition is yet to be discovered.  I know I’ve linked to this video at least twice before, but if you haven’t seen it yet, set aside 18 minutes to give it a look.

Often
times, we just have to use our heads to live a healthy life.  It’s when we try to take shortcuts, or try to
make “convenient changes” that we ignore the greater context of what can make
us all really healthy.