Should you make decisions based on Netflix documentaries?

Week of 1/8/24

One of my clients recently watched a documentary on Netflix called “You Are What You Eat”. The premise behind the series is a study done on 22 sets of genetically identical twins consuming different diets. One twin in each group eats as an omnivore and the other as a vegan. The goal of the study was to observe the health outcomes of each group after an eight-week period. I am not going to summarize this documentary or study for you because I did not watch and only know what I learned from a brief search. What I do want to comment on is how to react to documentaries like this and what decisions you should make once you have finished watching. If you can’t tell, my BS detector immediately goes off whenever I am told to watch a documentary on anything revolving around diet-culture.

You should make NO IMMEDIATE CHANGES to your nutrition after watching a show on Netflix. Instead, you should do some research on what you watched. What are the criticisms? Where does the funding come from? Are there studies that support the opposite claim? This is where I know that first-principles thinking is of the utmost importance. As a general rule, the more complicated the issue, the more easily we can all be fooled. To be clear, I am neither for or against veganism but find that most of the time the arguments in favor of it revolve around climate-change, cholesterol and other blood markers, health longevity, body composition, and morality. People write entire books and PHD level research papers on these things. I don’t think that a Netflix series can do these topics justice. If you do not understand the underlying topic then do you really think you should change your life from a few hours of TV?

The area I feel qualified to comment on is body composition and I want to use this opportunity to remind you of the first principles that I use to inform my decisions. If you understand these, you can use them to aid in your decision making and hopefully make the best and most meaningful changes for you. The list below is in no particular order and depending on where you are in your journey, you may need to focus on one area more than others.

1.     Calorie balance – Your body requires a certain amount of energy (calories) to be at weight equilibrium. This number of calories depends on numerous factors including everything in this list below. On average, consuming more calories than you use will lead to weight gain, consuming less calories than you use will lead to weight loss, and being in balance will lead to weight maintenance. More info at the links below:

a.     https://mytugofwar.substack.com/p/without-calorieswe-die

b.     https://mytugofwar.substack.com/p/are-carbs-bad

2.     Daily activity – You must use the energy that you give your body if you want to move it through the system so that it is not put in storage for a rainy day. Without going deeper on the mechanism, if you do not use the calories you eat, that energy needs to go somewhere. Your body will use some amount of energy at rest, however without exercise and daily movement it is very hard to be in balance.

3.     Protein intake – If you want to build and maintain muscle mass, you need to eat enough protein to support that goal. The range varies person to person but a safe goal is .8g-1.2g per pound of bodyweight. A 150lb individual would want to consume 120 grams – 180 grams of protein daily. More here:

a.     https://mytugofwar.substack.com/p/ws36-protein-and-bicep-curls

4.     Resistance training & exercise – If you want to build muscle, use calories, and create a healthy cardiovascular system then you need to be utilizing resistance and aerobic training. There are so many options here but one thing to understand is that training needs to be progressive over time and at intensities that create change. Hint: weights that my one-year-old can lift will not help here.

5.     Stress and sleep – Your body needs to recover. Simple as that. If you are not getting adequate sleep and are chronically stressed, you cannot recover. That is a deficit that will accumulate. We have only begun to scratch the surface of what chronic stress can do to us. Prioritize sleep and recovery if you want a chance at being healthier. Start here to learn about chronic stress.

a.     https://www.amazon.com/Why-Zebras-Dont-Ulcers-Third/dp/0805073698

b.     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Zebras_Don%27t_Get_Ulcers

TLDR

I do not recommend making decisions that greatly impact you and your family if you have limited knowledge on the topic at hand. Instead, it is better to spend some time on the underlying issue, learn on your own, consult with someone who knows more, weigh the pros and cons, and then make a decision. Always have some level of skepticism when consuming information. If you do, you will be much harder to fool.

-Matt