Challenge conventional wisdom

Last weekend we introduced you to OurHealthHabit.com.  Thank you all for the amazing outpouring of support and encouragement—it means the world to us!  Each week we plan to bring you our thoughts and musing on a variety of topics related to health—from food to fitness, sleep to supplements, and even personal finance and ideas for family fun.

But this week I wanted to bring things back to the beginning, where it all started for me in 2008.  I had just graduated medical school and my good friend Matt Smith gave me a copy of Gary Taubes’ Good Calories, Bad Calories. To say that the book was life changing is an understatement.  Through 600 pages and countless references, Taubes lays out compelling evidence that challenges everything you thought you knew about diet (warning: you may need a PhD to understand some of that book; his later book Why We Get Fat is a little easier read).  As a budding physician, I thought I knew it all.  After all, I had just made it through the rigorous curriculum at a top medical school; surely I knew more about diet than some crazy journalist.  Boy how I was wrong.  And so are almost all doctors and public health officials, most of whom have never dared to challenge the mainstream dietary dogma or experiment on themselves.

The bottom line is that much of what we’ve been taught to believe about diet, food, and fitness over the past 75 years—lets call it “conventional wisdom”—is flawed and broken.  How do I know?  Just take a look around, its no secret: people are getting fatter and sicker.  But whose fault is it?  As a nation we’ve spend billions on public health initiates to combat diabetes, obesity, and cancer over the past few decades.  What do we have to show for it?  Record rates of diabetes, obesity, and cancer.

I’m not pretending to know the perfect diet or the cure for the “diabesity” epidemic.  But anyone can see that what we’re doing now isn’t working, and we shouldn’t wait for the correct advice to be handed down to us by the “experts” who have failed us thus far.  Leonardo da Vinci described himself as a disciple of experience; I challenge you to be the same.  If it hasn’t worked for you in the past, heed that experience.  In diet/health (as in many other areas of life) keep an open mind and dare to try new things—you may find success in unexpected ways.  I know I have.

What do you think?  Have you tried something outside of the mainstream dietary advice that worked?  Did you stick with it?  Share your thoughts below or leave a comment on Facebook!

~Brendan