Eggshonerated

Coupla quick things this morning:

First, nice video by fellow fitness blogger Josh Hillis. Hillis has had good success getting his clients what he calls "Rock Star" lean, and in this brief video explains one of his major strategies for improving his clients' diets. Essentially--start small. The temptation this month (and you'll see it in your local gyms as well) is for people to do too much, too soon, and to jump into a top-to-bottom lifestyle revolution, including two hours of exercise a day, no coffee, alcohol, or desserts, no white bread, rice or pasta, and, let's face it, no fun. Most people will last about two weeks on such a program and totally burn out.

Hillis suggests a cool method for adjusting your diet gradually towards clean food, one piece at a time, and he explains it passionately -- albeit somewhat discursively -- here: Don't change what you eat. Start keeping a food journal. During the first week of your 'diet,' change things by just 5%: drop the two sodas a day in favor of water or green tea. Have a salad instead of fries with that. Eat a piece of fruit with breakfast instead of the muffin or doughnut. 

Over six months or so, your little changes will add up until you're eating pretty darn well. And as Hillis says, your diet doesn't have to be perfect (Apologies: Can't find his video. But above is the basic idea, and here's another one of his in case you're interested.)

Second: There's a Men's Health article this month that I outlines some science I suspect will be gradually seeping its way into the mainstream, if it hasn't started to do so already: essentially, total cholesterol--one of the most commonly-used indicators of heart health--is pretty much meaningless. A high level of HDL ("good" cholesterol) is associated with heart health, as are levels of smaller, denser fat particles which aren't easily measurable with widely-used technology. But the usual "LDL" measurement--which lumps together those small, dense particles with much more harmless fat cells--is far less of an indication of health than was previously thought: your LDL levels could be fairly low or fairly high and it wouldn't really make a difference as to the health of your heart. In coming years, expect the standard-issue blood lipid profile to undergo a pretty substantial overhaul.

Parenthetically, dietary saturated fat is seeming like more and more of a red herring as far as health goes, and processed carbs are seeming more and more like the real enemy. So now maybe I'll up my egg consumption from 15 to perhaps 20 eggs a week.

I likes eggs. And the Oreos Cookies.