Every Diet Plan Works – What You Need to Know about Fad Diets

Keto

Keto is the new-wave revamp of the Atkin’s diet – except now it’s cool (apparently).

Keto is all about dropping carbs. The point of this diet (at least in the scientifically-credible Jeff Volek version³) is to reduce carb intake so your body keto-adapts, becoming more efficient using fats as a fuel source.

As it so happens, this is an actual thing and the research is starting to focus on it, showing that this process does happen, but it can take a few months to really get rolling.

How Do You Use It?

The keto diet is actually pretty good for endurance athletes and has been growing in scientific support since 2015 with a few studies discussing the positive effects⁴.

It might also be a good way of dealing with the risks of brain disease that come into play during advanced aging. This is especially true if you focus on your poly-unsaturated fats and the super-awesome Omega-3 fats EPA and DHA, in particular⁵.

For healthy people who don’t like running marathons (I fulfill at least one of these criteria), it’s a decent method to dealing with a diet that’s jam-packed full of sugar.

Behavior change is one of the biggest, most-important aspects of dietary change, and keto can be a good way of bashing down those sugar cravings – even if you’re only using it for 3-6 months.

Paleo

Paleo is definitely more of a fad than keto. It suggests that you should eat what cavemen ate, to which I have some general criticisms:

1. Who cares what they ate? There’s no scientific studies in cavemen, and they had a weird tendency to die all the time. This is a weird choice.
2. Archaeological/anthropological evidence suggests that they ate a whole bunch of grains.⁶
3. Stop cutting out pulses and wholegrains⁷ – they’re awesome plant foods.

Once I’m past my personal hang-ups with it, paleo actually isn’t a bad idea in practice. It advocates for more unprocessed foods, a reduced intake of refined carbs (especially sugars) and promotes the consumption of lean meats and veggies.

While it restricts some great foods, it also pushes some other great foods on you. Where I come from, we call this swings and roundabouts.

How Do You Use It?

The point of paleo is dropping out highly-refined foods. This has some overlap with keto, primarily in the fact that you don’t get to stuff your face with twinkies. Imagine how that might affect your health!

Unlike keto, however, it’s not going to drop carbs entirely (even if it has arbitrary limits on what is “paleo” or not). It also means that you don’t get the same kind of pro-fat diet you get in keto, which is important for dropping out things like heavily-processed pink meat (like sausages and bacon).

Paleo is going to be really useful for you if you tend to snack on sugary crap and processed fats. Basically, it’s a good way of giving yourself a black/white framework for dealing with your bad habits.