A 2024 Nutrition and Fitness Review

• Take any topic in nutrition such as red meat consumption.
• Assemble all studies that were performed and collect all the data which should be available.
• Extract the analytical strategies that were used on the data in every study.
• Use specification curve analysis to randomize the strategies over the same data.
• You will have completely different yet fully justifiable outcomes.

Add to the above that there is an ongoing replication crisis and credibility crisis in all research not just nutrition. Today the scholarly misconduct is so blatant and ridiculous even the world's most prolific psychology researcher on honesty was exposed for dishonesty. Google Scholar itself has a credibility crisis because citations to refuted papers still exist on the search engine and continue to be cited more than the papers who refute them.

This doesn't mean we throw away all papers it just means we have to beware the modern practice of shoddy study promotes X, discourages Y, and the author holds a TED talk while shilling some product or book based on the study.

Calories in must equal calories out or else you will get fat right? This is called the Energy-Balance Theory (EBT) and is used for all forecasting of weight loss/gain but the conservation law that describes body weight dynamics is the Law of Conservation of Mass and not the First Law of Thermodynamics (EBT).

Read the paper Serious analytical inconsistencies challenge the validity of the energy balance theory that uses a mass balance model to replace EBT. This paper contains all the formulas needed to forecast your own weight loss including accounting for reduced salt mass as your body will reduce water intake and thus it's overall mass. Macros of 60% Fats, 30% Carbs, and 10% Protein were forecasted to reduce mass injestion by 96g per day, resulting in 35kg of body mass removal in a year.

"For instance, the absorption and retention within body cells of 1 gram of fat, carbohydrate or protein will increase body mass by precisely 1 gram. This observation is independent of the macronutrient kilocalories; according to the Law of Conservation of Mass, the absorbed nutrient mass cannot be destroyed and hence it will contribute to total mass as long as it remains inside the body. Such contribution clearly ends when the macronutrient is eliminated from the body either as oxidation products or in other forms (e.g., shedding of dead skin cells fill with keratin protein)"

FAT_max is the theory that there is an optimum oxygen uptake somewhere between low intensity and VO_2max or in other words an interval of intensity for aerobic exercise eliciting maximal fat oxidation. A better model is using heart rate instead of hooking yourself up to one of those silly masks.

A good background paper is here. A 2023 systematic review found that relative heart rate rather than relative oxygen uptake should be used for establishing FAT_max reference values especially in patients with obesity. This is an interval from 61-66% of HR_peak or peak heart rate if obese. If you want to check your heart rate during exercise take your pulse for 15 seconds and multiply by 4 and either look up a chart by age of peak HR or take your own VO_2max by gradually increasing speed and resistance every minute while exercising until these increases result in a HR increase of less than 5 bpm per minute.

The only benefit of the med diet is certain kinds of extra virgin olive oil.

EVOO is superior in the management of clinical biomarkers including lowering blood pressure and LDL-c, increasing protective HDL-c, improving glycemic control, and weight management. The protective effects of EVOO are likely due to its polyphenol content rather than the monounsaturated fat content. It is therefore important to promote the regular use of EVOO

There is of course a major caveat only fresh EVOO olive oil has these benefits which only people who live near olive farms or have some kind of trusted vendor can enjoy:

The phenol content of extra virgin olive oil is highest in olive oil made close to the harvesting of the olive and will decrease with age and storage. Thus, for maximum health benefits the EVOO should be produced and consumed as close to harvesting the fruit as possible.

Another problem with olive oil is the entire global industry is rife with fraud and counterfeit EVOO. There are small importers in most countries that do quality tests on the phenol content or try to buy directly from some olive farm. If you have money you can buy EVOO from trees that are over 1,000 years old in Castellón Spain.

High-intensity interval training (HIIT) has no universal standard on session duration and consists of moderately intensive continuous training (MICT) or 65%-70% HR_max mixed with intervals of repeated short bouts of high intensity or 80-90% of HR_max

Going through the systematic reviews of previous research they agreed that HIIT resulted in a significant boost in testosterone and cortisol levels immediately after a single 30m session, which disappeared after 24 hours back to baseline levels meaning you should only ever do it every 2-3 days to not continuously run dangerously high cortisol levels.

Scraping for other papers that tout HIIT benefits, the average I found was HIIT done for 15-30m 3 days a week, for as little as 6 weeks, preserves VO_2peak for up to 4 years in inactive older adults, meaning even if you stop you retain your peak oxygen uptake. It also was shown to improve 8 indicators of cardiometabolic health compared to 3 for steady state cardio such as blood pressure and total cholesterol. HIIT 3x a week was also found on average to have reduced impulsivity, and improve short-term memory in a bunch of systematic reviews of HIIT psychology studies I found.

Here is a 2015 documentary about sprint interval training (SIT). In a survey of papers on SIT the methods were (on a bike) 2 min warmup at normal pace, 3 x 20 second (sometimes 30 second) 'all out' intensity intervals interspersed with 2 mins of recovery normal pace cycling, then a 3 min cool down at normal pace. In total 12.5m or so of cardio done in 28 sessions over 12 weeks resulted in 21% increase in VO_2peak oxygen uptake and 6% increase in peak cardio output. 'All out intensity' is defined as pedaling or sprinting like your life depends on it. This is basically just HIIT but with more frequent bursts of intensity for less duration.

Does it work? In a systematic review of previous studies to 2021 they found all the SIT studies except for 2 were so low quality they weren't even worth the paper they were printed on. The idea of SIT to me seems like pointless micro optimization in computer science whereas HIIT is a proven optimization.

See various studies on combined MICT and HIIT training (COMB) on obese men:

• 5m warmup walking at 50% VO_2peak
• 3 repetitions of 2m intervals at 95% VO_2peak
  • Seperated by 1m of walking at 50% VO_2peak
• 30m of MICT at 60% VO_2peak

This is repeated 3x a week for 12 weeks but since HIIT increases your VO_2max you have to monitor this and keep increasing intensity. The COMB control group lost 9 lbs of fat (not water/muscle but actual fat mass) in 36 sessions or over 3 months.

This is what we should probably do.

Anytime you go to a doctor they seem to want to get you on the monthly plan where you are taking some kind of cocktail of blood pressure and cholesterol drugs. A 2023 systematic review of 11 years of studies found that exercise in older and middle-age groups showed 'efficient improvement' so yes it is possible but you'd have be routinely tested you don't want to be the fool who has a stroke because you went off blood pressure meds and BP spiked dangerously high a few weeks later.

There is a simple review of studies answering all questions about caffeine but they didn't do any kind of systematic review protocols like PRISMA or the Cochrane Handbook so this is merely a collection of previous studies taken at their word. There is a systematic review here if pre-exercise caffeine intake increases fat oxidation while in a fed state.

Scooby1961 is a body building retired engineer who teaches everything cheap about meal planning. He advocates nutrition should not look and taste appealing or else you'll be tempted to eat way too much of it. Instead he will eat a can of refried beans and argue everyday eating shouldn't be social you consume nutrients in 10 minutes and go on with your day.

Read his 'A thousand fat loss videos summarized in 10 sentences' here

There's a few assessments of removing heavy metals like arsenic, lead, mercury, cadmium and of course pesticides in spinach, carrots, and all fruit except wild berries. Taking the average of all recent papers any leafy greens in particular spinach had one of the highest levels of arsenic, cadmium, and lead. Fish that consume other fish had the highest levels of heavy metals where sardines had less heavy metals due to them being on the lower end of the ocean food chain.

A few 2021 and older studies found that washing leafy green vegetables with tap water removed most of the pesticide and metals and washing with basified water/sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) removed almost all of the pesticides and metals.

Pet food has no legislation guaranteeing the content and was found to have high heavy metals content in dry pelleted food. Imagine what else is filled with untested heavy metals poison like live stock feed.

An August 2020 microplastics in sardines study by a Queensland U researcher who in their methods describes going to a local Australian market and buying fresh seafood claimed sardines have the highest concentrations of micro plastics. However a month earlier, a Western Australia U study that only analyzed local sardine populations found they contained relatively low concentrations of plastic so completely contradictory. Turns out Australia is a net importer of 70% of their edible fresh seafood preferring to export their good resources and relying on cheap sardine imports from the South China Sea to sell in local seafood markets.

In other research on average microplastics have been found everywhere including freshwater samples in the highest elevation lake in North America leading to the conjecture that microplastic dust exists in our atmosphere and contaminates everything but this was described as 'potentially a problem'. It is still inconclusive the effect on humans who eat microplastics as they are typically passed by the body undigested however the primary concern of breathing and injesting microplastics is the fact they pick up nasty toxins in our environment that cling to them.

Supplements like fish oil could also be filled with microplastics.

There is zero conclusive systematic reviews that IF does anything as all data is self-reported and most studies don't pass the basic Cochrane tests for review standards so are discarded. You will only ever find conclusions of 'more studies need to be done'. If anything intermittent fasting likely cuts down on mass consumption as you have less opportunity to overeat.

There is systematic review that 5 days of fasting repeated every 3mos+ in regular intervals has many metabolic benefits and in animal models leads to significant autophagy meaning your cells repair themselves. Since glucose and insulin levels drop considerably you cannot do this if diabetic or with other certain metabolic conditions you will drop dead unless consulting a doctor. The methods used are either Buchinger method (250 or less calories of soups) or the fasting mimicking diet method (FMD) restricting calories to under 750 for at least 4 days and 1100 for the first day. Of course you could always water fast. The 5 day FMD diet is detailed in this book and in the papers released by the USC longevity institute. In brief summary (read the book/papers) the FMD purports in human trials to reduce visceral abdominal fat, promote muscle growth, and in animal models works just as well as chemotherapy to destroy cancer cells by promoting body maintenance. Note the diet is repeatedly done usually once every 3 months though the authors claim every month it could be done if obese.

Caveat: The 5 day fasting mimicking diet became a grift where you have to pay $300 to ProLon the company started by the longevity institute director but their original control group studies are freely available to create your own FMD.

Many of the other recommendations of this diet comes from taking surveys of long-life communities, which seems to originate from the book The Blue Zones which studies 5 of these communities, one which turned out to not be long lived like Okinawa and has no more longevity than the rest of Japan on average. This Blue Zone book spawned Blue Zones Project LLC which is a heavily marketed, ideological (operated and owned by a vegetarian religious sect) kind of lobbyist group. Going through their marketing this is a forced diet, pushing it's way into hospitals and nursing homes, school cafeterias and large corporations who offer employee catering.

We can do our own anecdotal surveys of centenarian diets here is an old man in Lebanon claiming to be 117 years old (Lebanon did not keep official documentation until 1972, so take with grain of salt… but he's clearly old as dirt so probably no very far off) and is still having kids, his youngest is 5 and oldest is 75, walks anywhere between 10 and 40km per day, still doing hard farm labor and chopping wood, and he chain smokes tobacco. This guy is a beast. Here he is @0:38 power walking up an incline while smoking. His longevity advice:

“The secret is in the type and quality of food and eating discipline. I eat as much as I need, don’t go near food that contains ingredients that I don’t know and stay away from manufactured oils sold on the market. Pure olive oil, honey and goat ghee are an elixir for good health and long life and should be at the heart of all meals. Beef meat is harmful but cow milk and yogurt are a cure to all ills, whereas goat milk and yogurt are an effective medicine while sheep’s meat is good but their milk is bad. This is the rule that I follow”

Goat ghee is clarified butter to become a pure fat they call Samneh. A popular breakfast dish there is meat in dough a meat pie dipped in yogurt. This real Mediterrranean diet of tons of dairy products, animal fats, homemade honey filled pastries and meat consumed daily is very different from the other Med diet being touted.

Famously lost 106lbs in 3 months to qualify for the SEAL requirements. There's a lot of misinformation floating around how he did this and you don't want to do this if you watch his interviews he ended up seriously injuring himself because of too rapid weight loss.

Anyway I've read Goggins book so you don't have to and here's what he really did: he made sure he was constantly moving at all times doing interval training on a stationary bike twice a day, and going out to swim/run/lift very light weights but in hundreds of reps. He claims the countless low weight reps he lifted prevented loose skin while losing 100 lbs that fast. He did this every single day for 3 months basically starving himself the whole time, claiming to have only ate 1 banana for breakfast and 'a sauteed piece of chicken, vegetables and a thimble of rice' for dinner. He was too fat to run or do pull ups at first so started out on the stationary bike until he lost enough weight he could do the other exercises.

He recently came 2nd place in the MOAB 240 but Kerry Ward was 50 years old and placed 11th in the MOAB 240. He films all his runs and doesn't do any extreme diets or insane amounts of Goggins tier daily running.

A professional boxer who lost 100+lbs. He ate what he calls a 'dirty keto diet' of hamburgers without buns, sausages, cheese and eggs for 3 months while running up a mountain in Spain on a regular basis and training boxing. He claimed his weight gain was from drinking 12 pints a day and eating takeout.

The director lost 80 lbs claiming he simply swapped the food trays on set that were filled with junk food and replaced them with natural foods. He did no exercise and was working every moment he was awake grazing on the food trays whenever he was hungry. Since he had a nutrient deficiency before eating crap he was constantly hungry but once he switched to nutrient dense foods he presumably ate less as you are more easily satiated with 'real food'.

The comedian lost 200 lbs eating steamed broccoli and chicken while doing an insane amount of exercise, which was way too fast and required surgery to fix his loose skin. If you do a controlled weight loss you won't have this problem.

In the media they tout the 'potato diet' he supposedly used but if you read his book he only very briefly consumed yams/potatoes and the majority of his diet is the one meal per day meme diet where you only eat in a 1-3 hour window every 24 hours. Since we know calorie content doesn't matter he lost weight because presumably he couldn't have eaten his previous daily intake in just 2 hours ergo the mass consumed was less than the mass oxidized and he dropped weight. His diet would still have worked if he took the daily meal he ate (described in the book as a massive amount of salad, chili on rice and berries for dessert covered in cayenne pepper) and split it up into intervals throughout the day.

He joined a weight watchers meal delivery service that significantly reduced the mass he ate and started daily exercise losing 50 pounds in 6 months there was no special secret.

Dwayne Johnson does hypertrophy or classic body builder style weight lifting where one specific area of the body is targeted per day doing 8 different exercises in 4 sets of 12 reps with a 60 second rest period between sets. He uses classic power lifting techniques like adding chains. He like everyone else claims he doesn't use anabolic steroids which could be technically true he's probably on giga amounts of Hollywood doctor prescribed TRT or HGH doping instead.

He does cardio for 30-60m per day in the evening using an elliptical or stair climber as they don't strain your joints/back. He used to promote getting up at 4am and doing cardio in the morning but switched to evening cardio as there is many other benefits such as better sleep. His diet is of course a typical mass building diet where you eat large multiple meals 5-6x a day that you would never do if trying to lose weight.

She does the exact same thing a professional fighter does outside of camps during 'off season' which is 2 hours of boxing/wrestling practice and some weight lifting during the day then another cardio session at night. Here is an example from AKA gym of what bike night looks like outside of 6 week pre-fight training camp they will alternate between assault bike and some other exercises usually shadow sparring and sprawls then throw in multiple sessions of HIIT going all out on the bike. This is done to preserve their cardio between fights not for weight control and they do this 3 times a week. It would make no sense to copy whatever her diet is unless you were also doing insane amounts of boxing and cardio maxing.

You eat nothing but ruminant (herbivore/grass fed) fatty meat cuts seasoned with salt cooked in an air fryer without oil. The idea is the animal gets nutrients from the plants and then you eat it so get all those nutrients. This seems like something you could do for a month to drop weight but would need to source from a pasture to plate type butcher guaranteeing grass fed live stock.

Vitamin D is stored in fat cells so as you lose weight your blood stream level on any test would show adequate levels of it but pretty soon if not obese you'd be in malnutrition mode I don't see how this is sustainable but it's advertised as an elimination diet to reintroduce foods slowly.

Use the appendix of the Longevity Diet book to construct yourself a micronutrient dense diet.

For an overview of daily micronutrient requirements, The Lancet shills a 'planetary health' diet but it is deficient in micronutrients especially for reproductive aged women who have increased iron requirements so there is a modification here in Potential strategies for filling micronutrient gaps. They increased animal source foods and reduced foods high in phytic acid (beans, nuts, seeds, unprocessed whole grains).

Swap out whatever you don't want for something with similar micronutrients:

The average non-obese adult eats 3-4 lbs of food per day or ~1800 grams and the above is ~1500g or ~3.3 lbs. 80% of those ingredients are in a surf and turf Spanish-style Paella, plov/pilaf dishes, any Japanese lunch, or typical street food stir fry in SE Asia. Can also buy these in a can and eat them like we read Scooby1961 does being careful of the sodium content.

Vitamin intake from natural foods is preferred to supplements in the same paper:

…vitamin A from animal sources, which contain retinol, is on average 12 times more bioavailable than vitamin A from plant sources, which contain carotenoids

Just like EVOO the nutrition benefits of whole grain or seeds like flax depend on when they are ground due to oxidation and storage. If you buy whole seeds and grind them yourself before eating you get all the benefits.

It is important to not be one of those cretins who fanatically follow some diet refusing to eat food prepared for them by family or friends at visits or special events. It will never matter over time that you consumed a large meal at some social function don't be that person everyone hates who disrespects by refusing to eat. It is also important to not tell everyone what you're doing there is nothing worse than a diet zealot who talks about themselves and everyone has their own entrenched food ideology you will just offend them in some way or accidentally invite unwanted advice.

Ivan Vasylchuk a Sambo world champion has some advice here about how food allergies will manifest themselves when you start doing heavy cardio and feel like there is a ball of lead in your stomach or have no energy. He personally had to cut out all dairy and switch his breakfast to an omelette and vegetables or complex carbs to have energy to train later.

There's papers floating around google scholar claiming if you consume 30g carbs, 20g protein and 10g fats pre-workout then consume a meal with 25g protein within 30-60m post-workout you can achieve 25-40% improvement in One-Repetition Maximum (1RM) over 4 months but I couldn't find any systematic reviews.

As per what we read about COMB we need to do 5m warm-up followed by a 9 minute HIIT session then we have a 30 minute MICT session but we can combine learning a skill and resistance training into the 30 minute MICT instead of jogging/walking.

Firhas Zahabi's advice of shadow boxing @5:01 to build cardio. "Do calisthenics (push ups, sit ups, etc) for 1 minute, shadow box for 1 minute, repeat that for 15-20 minutes it will be a killer workout". There is numerous drills with calisthenics examples and full instructions how to shadow box on YouTube. You could mix weight lifting with the calisthenics intervals by making your own weights Youtube is filled with ex-con tutorials about this like a filling a bag with water using a pillow case to lift it.

Now you get the benefit of COMB but you're also building strength at the same time.