Not a solution

I work in fitness, trends come and go, wax and wane in popularity. You can use google trends to map the popularity of these trends and even see in real time how things become popular for a time, then less so and then return to the forefront. Social media especially the fitness side, amplifies these trends, we can often subject ourselves to echo chambers. We end up only following “exeperts” that reinforce the view we fell into. Today’s blog is hopefully one of many to come where i just write what I am thinking on a topic and worry less about formatting, flow and research for now. If I make claims, make sure I back them with sources, but for this blog going forward i may just ramble on, who knows.

Veganism is a hot topic right now and has been gaining a lot of popularity the past few years. Believe it or not, interest in veganism is declining. According to google trends available publicly, the popularity of veganism increased substantially in 2015 and peaked between 2016 and 2018, searches related to veganism seem to be decreasing rapidly since then. I’ve always maintained the same view when it came to going vegan, whether you were to talk to me as a fresh PT back in 2008 or talk to me now, you’d likely get the same reply. I believe veganism is deeply rooted in a human need for answers, a community and a goal. I’ve trained a lot of clients who have tried veganism in an attemtp to address problems linked to being hypercaloric and sedentary. Ultimately the lifestyle ends up being problematic from an economical and moral standpoint and scientifically has no added benefit over my favorite approach, learning to eat the good things in moderation and the “bad” things sparingly.

I still believe reasonable/responsible consumption of dairy/meat would be a far better approach than demonizing an industry that provides the only place in nature where appropriate ratios of amino acids can be found.(paired with a reasonable caloric load… yes I know through creative menus, and supplementation we can get enough EEAs… this isn’t a sustainable approach for the gen pop… most of which don’t know what protein is)

My family eats a balanced diet that contains a reasonable amount of protein from meat and dairy, we don’t get sick, are all within a healthy bodycomp and don’t have preventable diseases like obesity,type 2 diabetes or hypertension… so we aren’t relying on our health care system which is full of people with preventable diseases.

The more research that comes out on the importance of EEAs for muscle protein synthesis, bone formation, blood glucose maintenance, satiety, the more we realize we are mostly carnivores for optimal health/performance. Yes… if your goal is purely survival go veg/vegan… most want optimal … Goodluck with that with a vegan lifestyle without supplementation or an unnecessarily high expenditure(if you need to consume 400kcal of beans/peas to get the same protein as 100kcal of chicken… you will need to expend more energy per day to maintain same body composition… this extra energy turnover is wasted energy … what if everyone now had to expend 1200 more kcal per day to stay the same bf% ? That’s a massive amount of wasted energy … again we have this idea that I should be able to eat 3000 calories and maintain no 1500 and maintain… so we end up needing to exercise a boatload more as veg/vegan to offset the extra kcals.

People seem to think that energy from meat is dirtier… it’s likely substantially more efficient than consuming plants only… the problem is the size of our population and our demand for over consumption(most people consume 10–50% more calories than they need per day… so let’s reduce our consumption instead?)

If we consumed less in both food and products(cloths, tech) this would have a much greater impact

If we are a balanced diet high in protein and exercised a reasonable amount, health outcomes would be greater

Problem is no one wants to consume less… so they want to replace what we do consume with less “harmful” sources… guess what people will still be obese, get diabetes and require extra resources.

Imagine if instead of over consuming, then having to burn off the extra energy you consumed through exercise… we just ate a reasonable amount of energy, this would reduce the manufacturing of diet products, exercise equipment, medication, filled hospital beds, medication, over worked professionals, larger sizes of clothing, larger fuel costs for transport etc. I know there is variation in shapes and sizes, I aknowledge we should love our bodies no matter the size. This isn’t meant to shame the overweight but aknowledeg that a population whose weight is trending upward is not sustainable from a public health perspective. Obesesity is increasing especially in children, teaching them to respect and understand calories, macronutrients and activity levels is key. It’s important to teach people there are no magic formulas, no secrets and that fad diets, trendy regimes and sesational results only end up with disappointment.

This Blog was a quick jotting of thoughts I had and I’ll continue to add to it down the road, I’ve been neglecting writing and will start to do more of these where I just write. If i come back to this topic later, all the better.