Woah, wait! What about all the scientifically backed health benefits of intermittent fasting? Skipping breakfast daily or even not eating for a 24 hour period once a week can have profoundly positive effects on hormonal function, longevity, and energy levels. I've switched over to a ketogenic diet (<30g of carbohydrates, all from veg) on a daily 16 hour fast (similar to leangains without the carbohydrate cycling) and my energy levels have increased and become more consistent than they ever were before. My workouts suffered slightly during adaptation, but I'm now beating my old personal records for weight lifting in the gym and I can last hours doing moderate intensity cardio without any fatigue. My diet's pretty radical and might not work for everyone, but damn have I been loving it!

Take this sort of stuff with a grain of salt! Everyone has to find what works best for them individually.

People over-exxagerate the "bad" things, you need to equalize what youre eating. Take music for example, you don't just cut the bass and treble and have a good sounding track.

Carbs are the brain's fuel source. Not fat. It's why low carb diets make it hard to concentrate. The body itself prefers carbs as a fuel source. Low carb diets make people lethargic. Carbohydrates also play a role in the production of serotonin. Look at people on low carb diets. They are mopey, tired, irritable, forgetful, spacey, sad, and most still have high body fat if not higher.

This is complete, COMPLETE BS. Haha.

.

For the past 6 months, 95% of my carbs have come from non-starchy vegetables and berries. The other 5% comes from sushi rice. The rest of my energy comes from aforementioned veggie carbs (hardly breaching 100g per day and that's mostly fiber), avocados, pastured or wild-caught animal / fish protein / fat, and--I admit it--the caffeine from a 12 oz. cup of coffee 5 of 7 days out of the week.

Yet I have never had a midday crash or needed to run out to get an afternoon coffee or 5 hour energy or "snack". In fact I'm simply NOT HUNGRY more frequently than every six or seven hours, and often when I am, I'm not starving. When I wake up in the morning, my eyes are groggy but my mind is not. These are things that used to be problematic for me beforehand, but not now.

And yet... ... ...

"Our bodies run on carbohydrates," says Zerner. "It's too bad they've gotten a bad rap."

I don't even... how... *facepalm*

whome: very good: have established these eating guidelines mostly: but have not encountered true health until I added important supplements.

I think that we are not able to utilize many of the vitamins and other needed elements from our daily diets.

"Energy, thine enemy is a sugary breakfast: pancakes, white toast, muffins and the like. Instead, start your day with soluble fiber (found in oatmeal, barley and nuts)."

Cheesus. Does anything depend on our age AND level of physical activity, etc. We still have people on earth who do manual labor, and what they 'need' is very different than 'desk pilots', same as 20-something vs. a 50-something.

Hard working, 250 lb man needs steak and eggs for breakfast, protein, for long term energy, and pancakes, etc. for short-term. They won't eat again for 5 hrs, but won't need anything for energy if they have a varied breakfast.

Love these writers paid for doing 'nothing' of substance - represents the civilization they write for?

You will also have 'better energy' with properly oxygenated and ionized air (i.e., fresh air) as opposed to breathing urbanized and otherwise hideous air. see "sick building syndrome" too. etc.

Wow. I wonder how my 71-year-old partner and I (age 60) managed to bike over 3000 miles this summer on HFLC diets? That includes multi-day long distance rides and a recent century ride where we ate once at the half-way point of the 7.5 hours even though we didn't need to. We each had the toppings off of 2 pieces of sausage/black olive pizza and had not eaten breakfast or anything in the course of the ride and drank only plain water. In case you don't know the answer, I'll put it in one word: ketones.

As many different comments as there are different answers. The title of this story probably just sent 10 people to McDonald's.

Fair enough, since the "advice" given in the comments will send at least 10 more to the hospital.

Here we go again. "Boilerplate" answers for people as diverse as our own faces.

Funny, that. I've been on an almost-no-carbohydrates (<10g/day) for nearly two years, and am more awake and energetic than I've been in twenty years. And the weight just keeps falling off.

Can you please add some suggestions that are specific to men as well.

Avoid anything that you can eat without leaving your car.

Prairie oysters and duck fries are nature's viagra.

So much wrong information, what a terrible article. Cut the carbs, up the protein, live happy.

Carbs are great energy. People just need to cut unhealthy carbs like white flour.

Humans have been making and eating white flour for centuries.....don't get me wrong, there are issues with some of the things people choose to eat, but the problems can't be solely place on the foods....it is that many people now reside in an office chair all day long, or don't have a good exercise program in place, etc...etc...Everything in moderation is the key.

I definitely agree with that. I eat white flour here and there. I'm mostly talking about avoiding products like donuts and cupcakes.

I do agree with the "terrible article/wrong info" part.

Everyone knows more than everyone else.

Three days a week I eat one meal a day. I normally run 5-7 miles 4+ times a week (even on one-meal days). I've had more energy and my mood has been better since I've been testing out the intermittent fasting thing compared to back when I was having multiple snacks throughout the day.
Not that I'm knocking the frequent snack thing. Different strategies work for different people based on their personalities.

I remember singer David Bowie and his better half promoting this. He said at the time they fasted completely food free every other day. Processed foods especially are damaging to our hormones according to the Naturopathic Doctors I've been reading. That and "stuff" accumulating in our intestines.

The thing that
turned me on to it was a PBS Special for Michael Mosley's "Fast and Live
Longer". Supposedly it's great for longevity, lower risks of cancer, and
maybe even preventing cognitive decline.

Beef might give you some energy in the short run, but it's associated with all kinds of long term health problems. It's ridiculous to recommend consuming it, when almost all doctors tell you to avoid it whenever you have anything going on health wise.

My Doctor recommends at least one serving of red meat every day. There is no evidence that suggests that 1 serving of red meat daily causes any long term health problems.

As someone who is frequently anemic, I’d rather eat beef than pop a pill.

Doctors aren't exactly diet experts. It's pretty obvious actually. I think they would rather write a scrip for you.

If that's the advice you've been getting from your "doctor," then you need to put "doctor" in quotes, as I have.

Animal fat clogs the arteries. Common knowledge.

"Common knowledge" is not always right. This particular "common knowledge" is based on faulty, fraudulent even, science that has been perpetuated for 4 - 5 decades. But if you look at populations that eat a lot of animal fat as part of a traditional diet, they do not have clogged arteries or get heart attacks. So no, animal fat is not what clogs arteries. It's actually sugar, refined starches, and trans fats such as one finds in junk food that has never been part of a traditional diet.

Saturated fats are the problem.

This is old thinking based on faulty (and perhaps coerced) analysis and conclusions from older studies.

No, actually, they're not. If saturated fats were the problem, in and of themselves, then the many cultures that eat a diet high in saturated fat--the French, cultures that eat a lot of coconut, for example--should be suffering from epidemic heart disease. They're not. In fact, in Europe, contries with the highest consumption of saturated fat have the lowest death rate from heart disease while the countries with the lowest have the highest. Please explain how that could be if saturated fats are problematic.

So go lean, but don't go over board. The best protein you can put in your body comes from animals, such as chicken. Humans are omnivores.

I've been vegan for 23 years now and in very good health. I'm getting all the protein I need.

good for you!I have been vegan for 3 years now and my sugar has gone down, I have lost 20 lbs,no cholesterol problems at all . I LOVE it!So many delicious options out there too!!

FYI, fat is good for you, just not in conjunction with high simple carb intake. It is no wonder people are confused.

Complex carbs get turned into simple carbs before your body uses them. A complex carb is just a chain of simple carbs.

Complex carbs don't cause the rapid insuline spike simple carbs do. Simple carbs elevate appetite and cause fat storage.

I'm no expert, but I know that I eat pretty much just chicken, turkey or fish, with red meat maybe once a month or two. My salad usually consist of half a tomatoe (it's a big tomatoe), half an avacado, purple onion, olives, non-salted soy nuts, dried red cherries, lettuce, cabage, spinach, carrots and balsalmic vinegeret salad dressing and I feeeeeel great. I think the key is whole foods, lots of raw veggies, and most important, variety.

"5 ways a healthy diet is making you tired." Fasting? White bread? Avoiding red meat? Avoiding carbs?

How the heck is this a good diet? It's a poor diet, and that's why you're tired.

It should have said: 5 ways a "healthy diet" is making you tired.

The point is that people glom on to all kinds of silly, irrational fads and think they're improving their health. Any attempt to bring actual facts to the table is welcome.

this is extremely bad advice for most people

It's far better than what most people do when they glom onto the latest fad diet.

An unhealthy diet leads to fatigue… a healthy diet leads to fatigue. Fish oil is good for you… fish oil has no benefits. Calcium supplements prevent osteoporosis… calcium supplements don’t help prevent osteoporosis and in fact, probably clog your arteries.
I’m so sick of health and diet articles. It’s hard to take any of them seriously anymore.

And where does the egg stand nowadays? Good or bad?

Depends upon who is pimping what product of the moment. No wonder folks throw up their hands and just say F it .