I remember seeing that red flag on my labs about 10 years ago.
It was about 5 years after my battle with cancer.
You see, after beating my cancer I became obsessed with living as healthfully as I could.
And I knew nutrition was a BIG part of that equation.
But I quickly became overwhelmed and frustrated with the amount of information, mostly conflicting, that was out there in the world of nutrition.
The more I read and the more I poured over the research, the more frustrated I became.
That's when I decided to STOP trying to figure out the science of nutrition.
Instead, I decided to just eat real food.
I also made the decision to NOT worry about saturated fat.
A big no-no if you grew up in my generation (gen X)
But after realizing how much of the "science of nutrition" was inconclusive, and oftentimes corrupted by large corporations, I decided to put all my faith in mother nature.
As it would turn out, my body leaned out dramatically, I had great numbers from my Doc, and my strength and conditioning was reaching levels I never thought possible.
I thought that I must be doing something right? Right?
Then, about 5 years into relying on mother nature and NOT worrying about saturated fat, I was diagnosed with High Cholesterol.
A 237 Total and a 174 LDL.
These numbers were high enough to put me on a statin.
But something was weird about my profile.
I also had...
Very low Triglycerides (good thing)
Very high HDL (good thing)
My Doc didn't know what to recommend, so I decided to just hold my course.
That was almost 10 years ago.
And my Lipid (cholesterol) profile remains mostly the same.
This year, (49 years old) I decided to look at my coronary arteries (The vessels that shuttle blood to your heart) to see if there was any calcification.
I was nervous as hell.
Even my Doctor was curious what would show up.
My score.....
ZERO.
I am going to hold the course.
The lesson...Science does not know the perfect diet.
We have clues...but nothing concrete.
The best thing I've done for myself, my athletes, and my clients is to guide them towards mother nature.
It's not scientifically proven to be the best.
But neither is low carb, plant based, carnivore, keto, Zone, etc.
It's time to accept the fact that the diet you choose to be on is based solely on what you choose to believe.
