There is not one size fits all as far as fitness, diet, and exercise is concerned. This is especially true when referring to what a lot of people consider bizarre diets. I am guilty of having embraced a bizarre diet in the past and while it did work for me, there is a lot of reasons why it wouldn't or could actually be damaging to others.
While we are all so willing to dole out or receive helpful advice a lot of times we gotta remember to keep our BS in check and I refer to myself when I say this.
When I was talking to people that hadn't seen me in a while and they noticed first, that I had gone from the picture of the left to the middle picture in the course of 5 years of terrible diet and almost zero exercise some of my bolder friends informed me that I looked like shit. I did look like shit and I didn't feel much better either. One day something traumatic happened and I dramatically changed my eating and drinking and exercise patterns.
This involved me going on an adaptation of the Atkins diet where i was eating a boatload of fatty meats, cheeses and other proteins, but consuming next to zero carbohydrates. I still drank excessive alcohol but now limited it to low-carb alternatives. In a few years I transitioned from the guy in the middle to the guy on the right.
I was able to lose 50 lbs and became stronger than I have likely ever been in my life. I also felt a lot better because there wasn't a giant fat guy in the mirror. I also simply looked younger once i got rid of the face fat and homeless looking beard.
I did this by eating a ton of bacon, steak, fish, pork, you name it. If it wasn't bread or rice I ate it and a lot of it. This could be extremely damaging to someone that has cholesterol issues. It could actually kill them or if not that, cut some years off their life. I sometimes regret telling other people that they should adapt this lifestyle because I will tell you this, it is a tremendous shortcut in weight loss and one that tastes really good. However, this is not to suggest that it would work for everyone.
To suggest that eating a kilo of bacon every day is somehow good for you is an absurd statement to make yet i did make it, regularly, because I saw real benefits from it.
I think at the end of the day if you truly want to be healthy, you probably need to find a way of eating a balanced diet and this of course is going to involve some preparation and work on your part in order to seek out and consume foods that are not processed at all. Avoiding sugar is pretty universal as well.
I guess what i am trying to say is that there is no universal best plan or a one way to do anything in diet and fitness. There are of course some really bad habits that are universal, one of which i refuse to give up (alcohol).
You gotta find what works for you and ignore the suggestions that anyone has that states that this one specific plan is the only want to get results. There are many ways, and you have to find what that is on your own. Don't listen to anyone that tells you some bizarre sounding program for fitness, especially if they happen to be selling something involved in it.
In a world where we are moving to personalised medicine, it makes sense that the same goes for diet and healthy living.
I mean, there are general rules, but the specific details vary from person to person.
we were just talking about this the other day. There is a guy that I know that lost a ton of weight by switching over to a vegetarian diet and then another that did the Atkins thing. The one that i think is really complicated if not impossible where I live (i'll be honest and say that I didn't investigate it much) is Keto... that seems like so much discipline would be involved that i probably would give up pretty quick.
I think the one thing that does work relatively universally is to simply eat more whole foods and don't consume too much of anything that is kind of well known for being bad like pasta.
oh, and of course exercise a bit :)
Keto is indeed tough, and involves a lot of prep and work on the part of the person who is doing it. I admit I don't know a great deal about it, but those devoted enough to stick it out swear by it so there must be something to it.
well the low carbs thing seems to be quite universal but yeah, i suppose the cholesterol could be bad to older people. But honestly, is everyone going to eat Kale or soemething? Maybe some of us were just meant to die.
well the entire methodology behind "normie fitness" is to accept that you are never going to be entirely shredded but to also be reasonably healthy while still enjoying your food.
I get tons of advice from overweight people about losing weight and just like you have said in the past, a lot of this advice comes at the hands of someone that is polishing off some fries on their 5th beer of the afternoon.