This is an interesting piece and Peter Attia is an interesting fellow. Having graduated as an aeronautical engineer he went back to school to pursue a career in medicine.
I dont fall completely into the camp that carbohydrates are totally evil (I like chocolate too much) and I have also found that a ketogenic state is not good for my lifting or my hitting. I suffer an extreme loss in power. But my observation of friends and family is that they would function a hell of a lot better on a lower carbohydrate diet. It seems to me that just the mere act of cutting out refined foods would make a tremendous difference to the health burden they impose upon themselves and by extension the community at large.
In my view it’s the high GI crap one really has to worry about – Personally I don’t eat much that doesn’t come in it’s original form to begin with
So no manufactured foods which cuts loads of Sugar, Salt and a pharmacy full of chemicals out of the diet. I make my own sourdough bread out of spelt and so on
My one weakness is that I like white rice but even then Basmati Rice is lower GI than some of the others
I also like Ice Cream so I have two weaknesses – White rice, Ice cream and Morella jubes
No I have three weaknesses….Chocolate, White rice, Ice cream, Morella jubes and – holy crap – what’s going on here?
Peter Attia is a disciple of the very impressive science journalist Gary Taubes. I came across Taubes 3 years ago and have watched and read everything he’s done. He just seems to make so much sense and I have put into practice what he preaches, with much success. Along with Taubes, Attia founded the NuSi initiative, which incidentally is funded by the hugely successful hedge fund manager John Arnold. These guys may not have all the answers (yet) but I love their approach to what have been previously accepted norms in our society re diet and obesity. Attia has a recently posted TED talk which you may be interested in.
I have to admit the thing that impresses me about Attia is not only his obvious intellect but also his reasoned and thoughtful approach. He understands that this is not a one size fits all problem.
Much of the material I have come across on nutrition seems to be written by Nutritional Nazis who are completely intolerant of any other pattern of thought other than their own. It is not so much a discussion about the relative merits of various scientific stances but rather an argument between churches of nutrition which seems to descend into a strange form of my guru is better than your guru.
It also seems that like most churches, the churches of nutrition are completely impervious to any evidence to the contrary.
Look out pigeons here comes the cat… the only problem here is that N=1… and the rest is largely conjecture… but I agree with CT that current nutritional advice is determined by an inflexible nutritional doctrine that, not infrequently, does not deliver the desired results… in fact in the 12 step programs for food addiction it is largely the mental aspect that is of import not the Krebs cycle… but I digress… loved the video.