I’m definitely not telling you what to eat
But I had a good experience with contrarian health beliefs
When the agenda of RFK Jr. became known, months ago I suppose, his contrarian views on health seemed almost familar. Tom and I were exposed to independent critical/skeptical thought about nutrition as far back as 2004 via our immersion in CrossFit. Together those two things, specific workouts and intentional ways of eating, changed our lives. By 2010 we were giving nutrition talks in our own gym based on what we’d learned and experienced. I had exceptionally good health at age 45, borne out by all measured blood numbers, from eating a “paleo” style diet of unprocessed meats and produce, with almost zero dairy, alcohol, grains, or legumes. This all amounted to true hands-on learning, as I implemented in my own way ideas that were suggested to me (mainly about fitness, but also about nutrition), and then shared them with others because they worked well.
Now that a loud and cynical critic of the health system and the food system is vying for a national leadership role, I’m curious how people’s beliefs about nutrition and health will develop. If people can eat less sugar and less ultraprocessed, hyperpalatable foods, public health should improve. I saw it happen for hundreds of people between 2004 and 2017, so I know that avoiding ultraprocessed foods is good. These principles (added sugar and corn syrup is bad for you; ultraprocessed food is hyperpalatable, semi-addictive, and bad for you) have been in my vocabulary since around 2009; they’re not new and MAHA didn’t originate them.
I don't know if it’s true, as I had come to believe in 2009, that gluten is bad for everyone in terms of gut health, autoimmune disease susceptibility, and systemic inflammation. But—and this is what made me feel okay about giving nutrition talks as a layperson/fitness trainer—there is no harm in eating only whole foods and avoiding processed grains, like the paleo-template diets recommend. Other foods that are more nutritious can fill daily calorie needs. (I’m not telling you what to eat. I’m describing what I experienced, based on what I chose to spend brain cycles and grocery dollars on.)
Some—certainly not all—of the independent thinkers, writers and speakers who influenced me so positively twenty years ago have, I know, turned into cranks—by which I mean somebody who’s an expert in one thing starts talking like an expert in everything. Some of them have endorsed conspiracy theories I think are loony. And the only reason I think this is because of their social media posts or comments. When I was so inspired by CrossFit and got to meet so many of its early proponents, and many people in its offbeat, exuberant ecosystem, social media hardly existed. A comment that takes you aback in a conversation can be brushed off and disregarded, maybe. But if it’s posted on social media, it seems like a written policy statement, and you go, “huh.”
Anyway: the writers and speakers I read or listened to or met between 2004 and 2017 have included these—the ones I found the most influential, personally:
Greg Glassman, founder of CrossFit, which was a radical influence on fitness culture (and on me) in the early aughts;
Barry Sears (The Zone: A Dietary Road Map, 1995, the diet CrossFit promoted for some years);
Loren Cordain (The Paleo Diet, 2001)
Mark Sisson (Mark’s Daily Apple blog and The Primal Blueprint, 2009), the most accessible and effective communicator in my husband Tom’s opinion
Robb Wolf (The Paleo Solution, 2010), for me the most accessible communicator on the topic of the paleo diet template—generically, eat meat and produce, natural fats and spices, omit dairy, grains and legumes, added sugar, and processed foods.
Tom cooked his meals, and some of mine, according to The Zone Diet for quite some time early in our CrossFit years. The Zone was a formula saying you should eat 40 percent (by calories) carbs, 30 percent protein, and 30 percent fat, no matter what the actual foods were. This was the ancestor of “if it fits your macros.” CrossFit promoted this diet. For me, the percentages were hard to figure out (given that most foods contain all three; though the Zone allows for that fact, I didn’t find it usable for myself).
Mark Sisson, author of 2009’s The Primal Blueprint, in those days recommended a diet similar to Cordain’s and Wolf’s meat and vegetables and so on, plus full-fat dairy and fermented foods. One of Sisson’s maxims was, “Lift heavy things; sprint once in a while.” Yes. I was down with that. His book was readable and useful. His blog, Mark’s Daily Apple, seems no longer to exist. I don’t know that Sisson still promotes his “primal” lifestyle concept—I think he went on to promote ketogenic diets instead, and supplements.
Robb Wolf, biochemist, early CrossFit leader, and author of The Paleo Solution book and podcast, was the nutrition writer I followed the most closely. His version of Loren Cordain’s paleo diet, presented in Wolf’s 2009 seminar in the Seattle gym where I worked, was the version of a “contrarian diet” that resonated with me. Simple for me to implement, full of food I liked, and not severely low-carb, it led me to the best health and blood numbers I’d ever had.
The paleo diet—concerned only with food quality, not macro percentages—also happened to be the final puzzle piece that gave me the confidence to open my own CrossFit.
Tom and I knew how to teach CrossFit, at least well enough to get started. I had learned from my employers, Dave Werner and Nancy Meenen of CrossFit Seattle, how to run a gym business. A professional supplier of CrossFit equipment had come into existence (Rogue Fitness) so I knew we could outfit a new gym. But, in 2009, if you were a trainer or a gym owner, you had to be able to talk to people about nutrition and weight loss.
With only the Zone diet to go on, I felt I could not advise on what to eat when you’re doing CrossFit—and nobody would not ask about nutrition then. (Now everybody learns everything online.) The paleo-template way of eating, and my ability to communicate, let me give basic, broad-brushstroke dietary advice with enough friendly fluency to interest people in the 2010’s. Today, I don’t do that at all, and almost no one asks me to. I just teach people to lift, now. (In our garage.) But back then, if I’d opened a new gym and didn’t have an answer to “what should I be eating,” I would have seemed unprofessional.
Other health/fitness/nutrition thinkers I followed:
Gary Taubes (Good Calories, Bad Calories, 2007)
Art De Vany (The New Evolution Diet, 2010)
The Weston A. Price Foundation
Chris Kresser and his Revolution Health Radio podcast
Mark Rippetoe, barbell coach, teacher of seminars I earned credentials from (Starting Strength, 2005)
Pavel Tsatsouline and John Du Cane, creators of the RKC credential I earned as a kettlebell trainer (Enter the Kettlebell, 2006, and many other books)
So what’s the overlap between my dearly held beliefs about my own health, and those of the many independent thinkers who taught me, and those of this gone-too-far MAHA movement?
Despite having written this long post, I’m not sure I really want to know.
I don’t plan on changing anything that I do for myself, unless it’s to renew my old habit of eating whole foods and a little bit less over all. I am quite sure that now, after plantar fasciitis and still something wrong with my foot, and with age-60 problems like a weak bladder, and less of an intrinsic drive towards super-intense exercise, I am never going to be a super-buff CrossFitter again. Writing is sedentary, unfortunately. That makes the healthy diet and my walking and weight lifting only more important.