Deconstructing Diet Hype: Just a Numbers Game?

It’s time for some brutal honesty about fad diets.

Studies have shown that diets which make claims like . . .

• “Restore your hormonal balance;
• Regulate your blood sugar; AND
• Eliminate the symptoms of inflammation”

are best reserved for infomercials, Oprah, or the back pages of a dirty magazine.

Suffice it to say I was skeptical when I first read the Hartwigs’ rather immodest books touting the aforementioned health benefits.

It also didn’t help that Whole30 had a number in its name.

See, unlike Vietnamese restaurants, diets with numbers in them usually increase my skepticism of their authenticity—and their claims.

Don’t get me wrong; I love math, and am a total sucker for empirical, quantifiable tests (after all, I am a “randomista” by academic training). In fact, in looking at the expanding universe of popular diets, I realized there’s a certain logic to many of these programs that can be articulated using simple arithmetic. Take a look, for example, at how Whole30 compares to Paleo and gluten-free diets.

And just for fun, I nerded out with some equations for a few other fad diets:

But math also tells us that about 95% of all diets fail people—and that the ones promising results within a given time horizon are particularly susceptible to setbacks.

On the bright side, one thing going for such fixed-term programs is that they are over pretty quickly. And, much like rolls of toilet paper, they seem to go faster the closer you get to the end.

Just think: if the Muslim world can fast from sunrise to sunset for 30 days during Ramadan every year, what could possibly be so hard about giving up just a few basic food groups for that long?

Perhaps the hardest thing to set aside was the imposed expectation of instant gratification.

Guaranteed to raise serotonin levels in 30 seconds or less (just add boiling impatience).

In all honesty, a big motivating factor for both me and my girlfriend was not so much the promise of rapid weight loss and clearer skin—though these would of course be welcome after-effects. Rather, we both wanted to extract (or at least anesthetize) our sweet tooths and better regulate our blood-sugar levels.

I also wanted an instant eight-pack, so the bar was admittedly pretty high.

The question was what we would have to sacrifice to get there.

In the next post, we’ll look at the toughest foods we had to relinquish, and map out a newbie’s basic guide to surviving the Whole30 diet.

The Start of an Epic(urean) Journey

Recently, on a bit of a whim, my girlfriend and I decided to embark upon a journey of commitment, accountability, and self-abnegation together . . .

That’s right: we decided to go on a diet.

To me, the notion of dieting is a bit like losing one’s virginity: the build-up is exhilarating, but, come game time, both tend to last no more than about two minutes.

Unlike abstinence, however, fad diets are all the rage these days. “Gluten-free” is a billion-dollar industry, and bookstores abound with preposterous tomes promising “four-hour bodies” and “wrinkle-free skin”—simply by imbibing smoothies concocted from exotic ingredients like civet poop coffee beans or the scales of an Icelandic mermaid (my personal favorites are The MILF Diet and Run Fat B!tch Run!).

Cynicism aside, going on a diet did have some appeal. For one, fad diets are practically required in the State of California (where we live)—just like owning a Prius, learning to rock climb, and worshipping at the altar of kale. What better way to return to my native Bay Area roots than by intentionally restricting my caloric intake?

I also thought it would be amusing to see what effect, exactly, one of these diets would have on someone who already had a fairly clean bill of health.

Indeed, my overall health—if I may be so immodest—is pretty awesome, as evidenced by the body composition bloodwork I had done at the start of this journey (see below).

Lipid panel courtesy of WellnessFX.

Not bad for someone whose primary exercise for a year consisted of falling in and out of food comas, right?

The choice of diet was an easy one, too: we selected one that would allow us to eat everyday staples like meat and seafood, while emphasizing health, rather than weight, outcomes to complement our desired lifestyles.

OK, so it wasn’t actually that scientific. We really just jumped on the bandwagon most of my girlfriend’s co-workers were on.

And so it was decided. On June 6, 2016, we kicked off the Whole30 Challenge. Knowing that experiential blogging can be both enlightening and empowering—but also that a low-information diet is often the best diet of all—I launched this site to memorialize our month-long journey together. Over the next few blog posts, I hope to distill this journey (and our results) into useful, humorous morsels—brutally honest tips, tricks, anecdotes, and recipes fit for consumption no matter what diet you happen to be on.

Follow me to add a cup of armchair nutrition—and a healthy dollop of merciless foodie sarcasm—to your day. Bon appetit!