Magic Pill Obsession
“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished”
- Lao Tzu
Homo sapiens have had refrigerators for approximately 0.04% of our existence. Can you think about living or raising a family without one? I certainly feel deeply grateful to my ancestors who somehow persevered without this modern staple.
What conditions are humans optimized for?
While humans are remarkably adaptable, when it comes to nutrition, our bodies have not evolved for an age of abundance. Rather, we are more optimized for the cycle of nature – in other words, periods of abundance and periods of scarcity.
Scarcity can mean very different things. It can mean a lack of overall calories, a lack of a certain type of food, a lack of warmth, or even a lack of exercise. Scarcity drives diversity and experimentation. If we don’t have access to X, well let’s try Y and Z.
For example, any single food, consumed to an extreme, can be toxic. A casual online search of “Is X healthy?” will quickly devolve into controversy. Broccoli? Too many oxalates. Red meat? Cancer. All this prognostication completely misses 4 important elements of a nutritional diet:1
Quality - the cornerstone; it will likely make any changes on #2-4 below much easier and enjoyable. Discussed at length in my initial several posts at Taste is Personal.
Frequency (e.g. time) - consuming how often?
Diversity - consuming with what other items?
Quantity - consuming how much?
The problem is these 4 dimensions can make day-to-day decisions too complicated or annoying. Most humans feel time-deprived and want “the magic pill”.
What is the 1 thing that will solve all my problems (in the long-run)?
“The magic pill” may be erroneously sought in the form of a certain restrictive diet (e.g. low-carb, carnivore, vegan). A food documentary on Netflix even has that term as its title. The magic pill may be sought via a certain supplement, a form of exercise, or even hot & cold exposure.
Magic pills may actually deliver results in the short/medium-run. What a lot of people miss though is that, in the long-run (e.g. years), they rarely work unless they are part of a broader approach to balance the 4 dimensions above.2
2 fancy nutrition terms for 2 real-world long-run problems
Compensation and Attenuation.
Compensation is the body’s natural response to a short-term imbalance. It is the most common explanation for why a particular crash “diet” may work for a few weeks or months but the results cannot be sustained over years. While short / medium-term noticeable results like weight loss are common, the body may gradually build up a counter-mechanism to reverse course. Over time, the body pounces on any voluntary or involuntary relaxation of habits (e.g. unavoidable cravings) to return to homeostasis. If such reversals are not planned for, then it often leads to a sense of helplessness.
Attenuation is the diminishing impact of an initially strong signal in the body. Said another way, the rate of change experienced will slow down – and what used to work will no longer work. For example, superfluous sugar intake may gradually result in the attenuation of insulin receptors. At a certain point, this may cause “insulin resistance” and the body compensates (see above) by over-producing insulin, which may impair metabolic functions or even cause metabolic disease. Even excessive protein or fatty acid consumption, without breaks / cycles, can drive attenuation in various systems.3
Apart from consuming high-quality inputs, adjusting for the frequency, diversity and quantity of nutrition is key to mitigating compensation and attenuation.
How can you effectively implement changes over the long-run?
Small, intermittent, diverse yet consistently applied changes (see Trial And Error) compound into a long-run impact.
Put simply, the body is an extraordinarily complicated machine and will quietly work to make any abrupt and sizable habit change hard. Dramatic changes will be resisted without you knowing it.
Cycling changes day-to-day can mimic the scarcity and abundance our ancestors regularly experienced. For example, it can be as simple as a very light or zero breakfast the day after a deliberately large, protein-rich dinner (and then 3 meals the following day). Or to cycle more diversity, one can creatively include more fiber in your breakfasts and lunches (see Carbs Are Confusing).
Scarcity does not mean depriving yourself of enjoyment. In other words, it does not mean some overly rigid popular “diet” or a severe quantity restriction. To start, it means some minor planning of day-to-day meals with some considerations for time and diversity. Per the list above, if #1 quality, #2 frequency and #3 diversity are gradually adjusted, then #4 quantity usually takes care of itself.
In many European countries, these elements are already hard-wired into culture. Pride in ingredient quality, a relative lack of ultra-processed food snacking, stricter meal times, and seasonal dishes unheard of in the US are prevalent, particularly in France and Italy.
Is the January Effect a net positive?
I define the January Effect as the tendency for many to adopt some scarcity in January after an abundant Q4 holiday season. My view is this pattern is a double-edged sword. It is a positive because I love the awareness that it brings to people about their daily choices. It is a negative since most people forget about their New Years’ resolutions by mid-February.
It is unfortunate that many people view the January scarcity period (dry Jan, fewer desserts, meatless Mondays, etc) as a punishment for the excesses of the Q4 holiday season.
My position is that people should not sign up for any habit change in January unless they can legitimately sustain it for the rest of their lives (at least the next decade). If that is too tall of an order, then scale back back the change to something that is more enduring. Otherwise, the chance of sustaining it is extremely low.
Magic pills abound in January, be wary.
In technical nutrition terms, 1), 2) and 4) are often referred to as a dietary restriction, time restriction, and caloric restriction, respectively. I deliberately list ‘quantity’ as #4 since I believe people overly focus on it at the expense of #1-3.
See Trial and Error for a longer discussion on testing and iterating to find the optimal individual diet.
The Way: The Immunity Code Diet by Joel Greene (2023)