Keto diet, Blood Group diet, Paleo diet, High Carb diet, Gluten Free diet, Vegan diet, casein free, sugar free, flour free, bright lines are some of the popular diets. All diets are a play of nutrients only. Mainly they play with macronutrients (carb, protein and fats).
Modern diets can be understood simply. They are high on one macronutrient and the rest is moderate or NIL depending on the diet type. For example Keto is a high fat diet, paleo is a high protein diet and there is high carb diet with many names. Each diet says yes to one and no to the other macronutrient.
Let me start with a fabulous news. All diets work and all diets give results. Low carb, high carb, high fat, high protein whatever. All these diets work. The reason it works is, all diets remove processed food, chemicals, and preservatives unanimously. Just removing a few things from your everyday diet you will feel a lot better.
To understand diets we must understand two things: glycosis (I termed it) and ketosis.
To explain, let me use an analogy. Let us imagine a hybrid car that can run on gasoline and on battery. The primary source is gasoline and the secondary emergency source is the battery. When gasoline is nil, it will switch to battery and can run as long as the battery lasts. This is exactly how our body also works. It has a primary source and an emergency source. The primary source for our body is glucose and the secondary or emergency source for our body is ketones. The carbohydrates provides glucose and when the glucose becomes NIL, ketones take over.
When the car runs normally it runs on gasoline and that is your glucose way of running the body, which i call as glucosis (for fun). When the car runs on battery, it is the emergency route of the body which is when ketosis kicks in.
The first one is glucosis and second one is ketosis. It is easy for our body to break down glucose than breaking down fats and hence it prefers glucosis. Ketosis happens in a state of emergency. When the entire glucose store is depleted, body enters keto. If mother nature had so much intelligence she would have made ketones as a primary source right? Just to ponder.
So the bigger question is what is the best diet for human beings. I would like to answer that question biologically and systemically than otherwise. Biologically we have long alimentary canals (30ft) and a grinding teeth structure (unlike tigers and lions), which imitate the herbivores. So grains, starch, fruits, vegetables and nuts seem to be a good diet for us biologically as they are high on nutrients and are conducive to our biological structure. There is enough evidence to show these aspects biologically. Going by the principle “work with the system and not against it”, the best diet for human beings is a well balanced vegetarian food high on nutrients (so that body gets enough macro and micro nutrients). This way intake quality and quantity is also taken care.
All processed food is bad for us. So remove all things refined and double refined from your diet. This also includes the processed rice and wheat for that matter. We don’t have to give any names to this diet but just something high on nutrition and high on quality (fresh and organic). That is all we need.
I will give you my prescription towards the end of the series but I hope the systemic understanding is setting in.
🥂to quality and quantity!
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