The advice I give for sustainable behavioral change, including diet, is that you make one change at a time.
Everyone is going to binge on a diet, for instance, so plan for it, schedule it, and contain the damage.
The Slow-Carb Diet succeeds where other diets fail for many reasons, but the biggest is this: It accepts default human behaviors versus trying to fix them. Rather than say “don’t cheat” or “you can no longer eat X,” we plan weekly “cheat days” (usually Saturdays) in advance.
People on diets will cheat regardless, so we mitigate the damage by pre-scheduling it and limiting it to 24 hours.
Outside of cheat days, slow carbers keep “domino foods” out of their homes. What are domino foods? Foods that could be acceptable if humans had strict portion control, but that are disallowed because practically none of us do. Common domino foods include: Chickpeas, Peanut butter, Salted cashews, Alcohol
For me, startups are a domino food. In theory, “I’ll only do one deal a month” or “I’ll only do two deals a quarter” sound great, but I’ve literally NEVER seen it work for myself or any of my VC or angel friends.
I believed for a very long time as an athlete that low-fat, high-carbohydrate was an optimal diet. And I think there’s a decent amount of evidence, circumstantial or direct, to suggest that low-fat diets create a host of issues ranging from joint problems to amenorrhea, like the cessation of menstruation. I mean, I think entirely unnatural for sedentary people or for athletes.
Optimal meal, I would say, would be grass-fed steak with vegetables, maybe some lentils for fiber.
On fasting: There is also evidence to suggest – skipping the scientific detail – that fasting of 3 days or longer can effectively ‘reboot’ your immune system via stem cell-based regeneration.
On fasting: Fasting doesn’t need to make you miserable and weak. In fact, it can have quite the opposive effect.
On fasting: I will regularly, three continuous days per month minimum, practice fasting. I will do that from early Thursday dinner to an early Sunday dinner to simply expose myself to the rather, often unfamiliar, sensation of real hunger.
I travel with boxes of sardines, oysters, and bulk macadamia nuts.
On fasting: I now aim for a 3-day fast once per month and a 5 to 7-day fast once per quarter.
On fasting: I allowed trace amounts of BCAAs and 300 to 500 calories of pure fat per day on my “fast”.
