So what's up with self-experimentation? Is it dumb or helpful?
I think Kurt Harris was right when he played down the importance of results on self-experimentation, but I also think Richard Nikoley was right when he pointed out that personal results aren't always in line with mainstream expert opinion.
Solid scientific evidence is king, especially when it cautions a certain food item, but where the grey area exists, self-experimentation can be helpful. This is why several weeks ago, I embarked on my own self-experimentation. By no means was this extensive. I just wanted to see how my body reacted to changes in diet, in order to see if the diet could be optimized for my own goals.
The particulars: I gave about two weeks to each type of eating strategy, keeping to it about 80-90% of the time. Some of the categories may seem strange, but they were things that I either came across or dreamt up or heard interesting arguments for and wanted to try them myself. I only noted things that were significant, so no 'this kind of, sort of changed'.
I should note that I was doing more of a pure paleo diet before starting this experiment. That means Cordain-style. No proportions or anything, just eating the right foods whenever I wanted, as much as I wanted, and not worrying about anything. Also, I exercise 3 to 6 days a week, highly varied in different elements of athleticism: aerobic, strength, etc.
Here are some observations of each of my adventures:
Pure paleo. Low fat, low carb, meat, veggies, fruit, nuts, berries.
*High variety in food items eaten
*Great skin tone
*Lean physique (certainly not WeakLean)
*Tremendous appetite
*Sometimes limited mental focus and burnout
*Consistent, sustained energy levels
*Dodgy appetite (always somewhere between hungry and full)
*Improved recovery time
*Blunted binge 'cheat' cravings (cuz I was never starving for them)
*Gains in speed and strength over two weeks
High-carb paleo. Added potatoes and white rice, moderate fat intake, 3 meals a day.
*Energy fluctuated throughout the day
*Digestion issues
*Meals were filling and cheap
*Slight fat gain
*Plenty of energy for exercise
*Increased appetite
Lacto-paleo. Added butter and cheese mostly, little milk and greek yogurt.
*Skin tone went to shit
*More dynamic flavors in meals
*Digestion just fine (unexpected result)
*Low food volume (felt full on less)
*Decreased appetite (butter)
In conclusion, I learned a little and found some gems outside the Cordain-paleo model. I'm certainly going to use more butter, simply because it's palatable magic. Also going to add potatoes every now and again. Red potatoes in particular are delicious.
There's also the fat issue. I found that consciously adding fat to meals was very helpful, and made the meal taste better and quench my appetite more easily. This was true for butter, as well as paleo stuff like avocado, coconut, even olives. It was also helpful to think of each macronutrient relative to others, and I'm still doing that without even trying because it makes cooking easier.
I found that the Zone diet was too frequent of meal timing to be convenient, and I'm the kind of guy that likes to gorge himself, so I'm sticking to three meals and some intermittent fasting. I'm definitely not drinking milk, and I'm leaving cheese for cheat meals because I want my skin complexion back. Also, I found white rice to detract from the flavor of the meal most of the time, and it did weird things with my digestion, so I'm limiting that too.
N=1 might be bad science, but it helped me tweak my diet so that it's more fun and more substantive. I can definitely vouch for self-experimentation.
