Life, Diet, Time on the Bike

By Kevin Kolodziejski 

They All Require ‘Constant Readjustment’ If You Want to Get Them Right

It may not make sense to you that a book titled The Book of Tea is as much about Eastern philosophy as the drink made by infusing the dried crushed leaves of Camellia senensis in boiling water. But a key takeaway found therein certainly does make sense and certainly does apply to you. Read more.

It’s that the true art of living life lies in making “constant readjustment” to it necessitated by changes in your “surroundings.” Interpreted liberally and applied to cycling, it means that for you to become a pedaling Picasso — or even one of the peloton’s many accomplished house painters — you need, when given good reason, to be willing to readjust your views on a wide variety things, including diet.

But how do you know when you’ve been a given a good reason to readjust your diet?

For if anything else has been made absolutely clear about nutrition in the last 50 years — besides the fact it plays a significant role in athletic performance over both the short and long terms — it’s this. That while our knowledge of it’s currently expanding at an astounding rate, it’s still in a state of infancy.

The Science of Nutrition Is Still in Its Infancy

While we now know, for instance, there are about 39 trillion (that’s right, trillion) microbes in your microbiome and that they are affected by your choice of foods, we’ve also found that so many are so personal to you that you need to be seen as a unique entity. A unique entity, by the way, that’s also a perplexing mystery since neither your surroundings nor your diet fully explain why you are a one and only. Talk about a pretty good reason for why we’ll never find a single diet that suits everyone — and a pretty good reason to write about your need for constant dietary readjustment. For the subheading above cannot be stressed enough.

The science of nutrition is still in its infancy.

And as anyone whose surroundings have included a newborn knows, the need for readjustment that infant creates is constant. To wit, let’s review the belief many held 50 years ago as to why you need to severely limit your consumption fat, especially saturated fat, a belief that for a good part of a decade created what many now sardonically call the Fat-Free Craze.

The Belief Behind the Fat-Free Craze

That the ingestion of fat makes you fat, which leads you down a road headed toward obesity, and cardiometabolic diseases, such as heart disease, stroke, heart failure, diabetes, kidney disease, and what was then called non-alcoholic fatty lever disease. So for a good part of a decade many were eating cookies, cakes, and ice cream aplenty — as long as they were free fat — and gradually packing on the pounds. This created a backlash, a demonization, so to speak, of carbohydrates and all sorts of high-fat diets.

Many of these high-fat diets rejected the prior hierarchy where saturated fats were low man on the consumption-of-fats totem pole. And though there was no single low man for the longest time, in these recent times of X, Instagram, and social influencers, the low men are the seed oils, most notably soybean, corn, and canola oils. How low? Even though there’s something in seed oils essential for human health, omega-6 fatty acids, one online influencer still refers to them as “the most destructive force in the world today.”

While I’m sure you see that statement as pure hyperbole, still: All the negative talk about seed oils has probably affected you to some degree. So you could very well need a dietary fat-intake readjustment. It’s a consideration based not only on the sagacity found in The Book of Tea, but also the key takeaway from a study presented at this year’s annual American Society for Nutrition meeting. That the omega-6 fatty acid linoleic acid in seed oils may actually lessen the risk of heart disease and diabetes.

Could Seed Oils Lessen Disease Instead of Lead to It?

In an interview with Medical News Today about the study, lead author Kevin C. Maki, PhD, adjunct professor in the School of Public Health-Bloomington at Indiana University and chief scientist at Midwest Biomedical Research, acknowledges the “great deal” of controversy surrounding seed oils while presenting his group’s findings — which he calls “the opposite of what would’ve been predicted.” That consuming a diet higher in omega-6 fatty acids, in essence linoleic acids, may actually support cardiometabolic health to such a degree that it lowers the risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

Maki and his colleagues arrived at this conclusion after analyzing medical data from 1,894 adults who were part of an observational study where the primary focus was on the effect of COVID-19 on the participants. When the researchers focused on the amount of linoleic acid found in the serum in the blood of the participants, however, they found those with a higher concentration of it had lower levels of two important inflammation biomarkers, one being C-reactive protein. In many prior studies, Maki explains, higher levels of C-reactive protein “have been associated with an increased risk for heart attack and stroke.”

Equally as important, the researchers uncovered a link between higher serum linoleic acid levels, better blood sugar levels, and better glucose homeostasis, as well as lower BMI readings. Maki stresses, however, that because the study’s observational in nature (which is typical for practical as well as ethical reasons), it doesn’t prove cause and effect.

What it certainly does prove, though, is that seed oils are far from “the most destructive force in the world today” — as well as that to eat optimally requires constant readjustment.

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Kevin Kolodziejski began his writing career in earnest in 1989. Since then he’s written a weekly health and fitness column and his articles have appeared in magazines such as “MuscleMag,” “Ironman,” “Vegetarian Times,” and “Bicycle Guide.” He has Bachelor and Masters degrees in English from DeSales and Kutztown Universities.

A competitive cyclist for more than 30 years, Kevin won two Pennsylvania State Time Trial championships in his 30’s, the aptly named Pain Mountain Time Trial 4 out of 5 times in his 40s, two more state TT’s in his 50’s, and the season-long Pennsylvania 40+ BAR championship at 43.