Good Articles From Around The Web (Fish Oils/Paleo/Vegan) …

Hope everyone is having a good week.  I’ve been busy with training at the new location, giving basketball lessons, and hangin’ with the family.  If you haven’t already heard… if you live here in the Rockton area, I’ve started running a cardio-based, fat loss bootcamp every Saturday morning at 7:30 a.m.  If you haven’t attended yet, but are interested, just let me know if you have any questions.  Ok, on to today’s post…

Omega-3 Madness

A recent mainstream media report called into question the benefits of supplementing with fish oil.  This caused some of my friends and family members to say this kind of thing to me; “Danny!  When you told me to supplement with fish oils 5 years ago, I haven’t missed a day.  Now this report tells me that they are not beneficial.  What’s the deal!?!?!?!  You’re a liar, a loser, and you should be locked up for life!”

Well, Eric Cressey had a great blog post in which he had Dr. Hector Lopez in to make a guest post.  If you saw the fish oil report and are starting to think that maybe you should stop supplementing with fish oil, give this a read.

The moral of the story is, to always be skeptical.  Just because you read something in a newspaper or hear it on the news, it doesn’t mean it’s true.  Among other things, this report was a classic case of “cherry picking.”

In other words, they took a bunch of information and only used the information that fit into their agenda… to have a controversial headline that got many people to visit their website, even if it is full of misinformation.

A cherry picking analogy: let’s say that 1000 people graduated from Harvard this year, and 994 of them went onto run successful businesses (I know, “success” can be defined in many ways, just go with it), and 6 of these Harvard graduates went on to become drug dealers.  If I were to report that those that attend Harvard are likely to become drug dealers, I’d be cherry picking in order to meet my agenda (presumably to sell more newspapers), because I conveniently didn’t mention the successful 994 individuals.  I didn’t tell the whole story, because if I did, that would be boring and wouldn’t support my stance that Harvard grads like to slang cocaine.   Anyway, onto the next one…

Oh, and by the way, I exaggerated about what some of my friends and family members were saying about me.  No one really called me a liar, a loser, and wants me locked up for life.  At least not that I know of.

Paleo vs Vegan

Talk about a heated debate!  Like usual, there is a middle-ground.  Here is a good read to discuss some of the potential pros and cons of each side of the fence.  In case you are interested in my personal view (and I’m assuming you are, since you are visiting my website)…

Too often vegetarians say that “their way” is way healthier.  That is the case MAINLY because they are comparing a vegetarian diet to a typical diet that consists of Burger King, Pizza Hut, oreos, and beer.  OF COURSE a vegetarian diet is healthier than THAT.  Although I think a vegetarian diet can be healthy, I don’t think it is ideal.  I recommend eating meats, plenty of veggies, fruits, and healthy fats.

Carbohydrate sources can be mixed in there, and depending on the goal, increased or decreased to match this goal (as a general rule, consume more carbs/calories when trying to add a little size, and reduce [but not necessarily eliminate] carbs/calories when trying to drop some weight).

I want to say one more time, ALWAYS be skeptical when you hear about a new report that comes out.  If doesn’t mean it is not true, but it certainly does NOT mean that it is true.  Do a little investagating on your own.  And if you don’t know what to look for, just ask me.  Since I’m not very smart, I probably won’t know the answer either… so I’ll just ask those that are smarter than me, and get back to you.

Have a great week.  Work hard, but make sure to mix in a little fun!