I’ve been advocating a low carb, high protein, high fat diet for the last 8 years.

My bad.

It’s extremely satisfying, but it’s extremely unhealthy for me, as it turns out. It hasn’t resulted in any appreciable fat loss, and it hasn’t done much for my strength training performance.

Dietary cholesterol matters.

I finally went in for a long-overdue lipid panel, specifically to be able to have the numbers for a before/after comparison upon switching my diet. I wasn’t surprised, and I’m glad I’m turning 180 degrees immediately:

• 219 mg/dL total cholesterol
• 159 mg/dL LDL
• 41 mg/dL HDL
• 97 mg/dL triglycerides

All of these numbers are “borderline high” according to current recommendations. I’ve considered myself pretty healthy for years, but that’s easy to do until a first heart attack. By contrast, I recently watched an interview with a 98-year-old surgeon who’s eaten a plant-based diet for the last 50 years and whose total cholesterol is 140 mg/dL.

The “canary in the coal mine” for cardiovascular disease – the restriction of blood flow due to the formation of plaques within blood vessels – is erectile dysfunction. I’m not particularly interested in signing up for that, either.

UPDATE: About a month after this test, I had another test, and my total cholesterol had dropped 45 points.

A triumph of marketing

We love to hear good news about our bad habits. – Dr. John McDougall

I got on the Paleo train in late 2011, elated to hear that I could eat as much meat and cheese as I wanted and that it would actually be good for me. I skipped the part about eating the vegetables that were available in the Paleolithic era, so I can’t say that my experience was representative of someone “doing Paleo right.” From what I’ve seen of those following the Paleo diet as its popularity rose over the years, I’m not alone.

I’m now convinced that this trend is setting us up for an epidemic of cardiovascular, autoimmune, and degenerative diseases. If I don’t update my priors when I encounter new evidence, I’m not being intellecutally honest.

Ctrl-Z

A whole-food-plant-based diet is the only diet proven to prevent and reverse:

• Atherosclerosis
• Cardiovascular disease
• Hypertension
• Obesity

I’m genetically predisposed to hypertension and type II diabetes, so this is an easy choice.

Plant-based eating can also help with inflammatory and autoimmune pathologies like allergies, and I’m pretty tired of sneezing my way through every spring despite taking Zyrtec.

It might lower my blood pressure, and it might help my skin.