What I Eat

Overview of my Theory

Everyone has their own theory about health and losing weight, and this is mine 😆.

Humans have evolved to be slim - evolutionary pressures demanded it. The Thrifty Gene Hypothesis is complete nonsense. We have a natural mechanism to keep us slim that acts via our appetite. Where people are not slim, it is generally because they have broken the mechanism. The solution is to fix the mechanism. The solution is not to starve yourself when you are hungry or force yourself to exercise when you are lethargic. These approaches are unsustainable. If you fix the mechanism, your body will make you slimmer gradually over time by reducing your appetite and making you feel more energetic. You can't fight your body, you have to work with it.

Calories are interesting, and fewer is generally better, but focusing too much on them is not the route to being slim. If the mechanism is working correctly, calories do not make you fat, they make you less hungry and more energetic.

There have been more changes in how we source our food in the last 50 years than in the 5,000 years before that.

These changes are responsible for breaking the mechanism. It is not known exactly which changes have been the most damaging, but in my opinion they are probably:

Dramatic increases in dietary histamine and other amines.
Factors that damage the gut microbiome (which includes pesticides and refined carbohydrates).
Artificial additives (and this includes things like 'yeast extract' and 'natural flavouring' which in my opinion are a 'clean labelling' scam and every bit as bad as the old E numbers).
Insufficient micronutrients.
Excessive saturated fat.

Unfortunately, most foods available in supermarkets, restaurants and takeaways nowadays break the mechanism. Non-organic foods are generally high in both histamine and pesticides. Tinned, vacuum-packed foods and foods packed in a protective environment (particularly meat and fish) are generally high in histamine. Ready meals are generally a nightmarish amalgam of everything bad. In practice, in my opinion, the sad fact is that you can really only fix and maintain the mechanism by preparing food yourself from mainly organic single ingredients.

A very high-level guide to what you can and should eat (cooked where appropriate)

dry organic whole grains and legumes (flour or kernels).
organic potatoes
organic sweet potatoes (or carrots) (for the vitamin A)
organic fresh or frozen vegetables and fruit.
organic leafy greens including rocket, watercress, cabbage and kale (for the vitamin K and calcium)
organic or wild-caught, very fresh or frozen, salmon or other oily fish.
live, very fresh or frozen prawns or other shellfish, especially live oysters (but you can cook them; for the zinc) (it's hard to get these organic unfortunately).
organic nuts and seeds (roasting them is fine, even preferable).
organic eggs (for the choline)
organic brewed coffee, tea and other infusions.
organic dried and fresh herbs and spices.
occasional dried seaweed (for the iodine).
a small weekly amount of very fresh or frozen chicken livers (for the vitamin K2 mark 4). (I've only recently added this to my diet after cutting out dairy.)
limited chicken and very limited or no red meat.

Diet types

I'm a fan of the Mediterranean Diet. It has the best health outcomes in studies. Hunter-gatherer and low carb diets have the worst outcomes (apart from the Standard American/British Diet of course which is really bad) and should be avoided.

I'm also a fan of Dr Denmark's theory that every meal should contain a good source of protein and a good source of starch. I try to mostly comply with this, and also try to add a good source of calcium too. Note that whole grains and legumes are a good source of protein and starch, and sometimes of calcium too (e.g. amaranth or mung beans). Dr Leila Denmark was an American doctor who was still practicing medicine at the age of 100 and lived to 114.

When I eat whole grains and legumes, I almost always soak them first. I soak the grain kernels at least overnight and the flours for up to a day. This has a lot of theoretical benefits: the enzymes phytase, amylase and protease are activated and a small amount of fermentation occurs in the flours. This is supposed to make the food more nutritious and better for the gut microbiome without generating too much histamine.

A note about my food diaries

I don't actually weigh salt, herbs, spices etc, I just put them in my food log at an arbitrary amount e.g. 0.1g. So the weights for these aren't accurate.

Note also that although I mostly put the raw weights into the nutrition software, I do cook my food.