This is a good article but not a great article. Fitness is a major part of health but fitness derived from nutrition and exercise alone does not determine health. Health is determined by nutrition, exercise, AND one's psychological/spiritual outlook. Being involved, committed, and passionate about something is part of that outlook and Mark obviously demonstrates those characteristics with his promotion of his ideas. But one must be careful not to allow enthusiasm, marketing, and media prominence serve as full confirmation of the absolute validity of one's ideas nor should testimonials be considered as full validation since they're basically a dime a dozen..
But coming back to fitness and the nutrition component of fitness, it is one's metabolic type and metabolic sub-types that determine what diet is best for someone. Certainly, the foods that one eats should be pristine, free from unintentional or intentional chemical or biological contamination, and contain the highest level of micro-nutrients possible which only come from healthy soil and from the healthy plants and animals supplied by that soil and consumed by humans. But given that your foods have these qualities, the types of foods you eat and the optimal macro-nutrient ratios (i.e. proteins, fats, carbohydrates) are influenced at a macro level by your metabolic type. Within your metabolic type, gene expression and the resulting isozyme forms can be influenced by both diet and exercise but that range of variation is limited by your genetics. In other words, the up- or down-regulation of various enzyme systems, as described by Mark, has a narrower range of ability to change and therefore limited adaptability as compared to your wider ranging ability to change your diet to match your metabolic type.
Mark has joined the band wagon of condemnation of grains and I would tend to agree with him, for HIS and MY metabolic type. But there are others who will do well with a higher level of grains in their diet IF (and it's a vitally important IFf) those grains are NOT the more modern, higher yield selected grains (due to the gluten factor, among other things) but rather heirloom types and IF those grains are not GMOs. Granted, finding this type of grain in the modern world, especially in the developed countries, is becoming increasingly difficult.
Eating high on the food chain will consistently result in greater concentration of contaminants in your diet. Hence, while meat, poultry, fish, eggs, etc. are excellent sources of nutrition, especially of protein, depending upon the sources of those foods, consuming them virtually guarantees higher levels of contaminants in your body. Thus, one must balance their consumption with the knowledge that you could be increasing your risks of cancers, not from the food itself, but from the contaminants found in the food. Consumption of various plant foods, however, has the capability of negating some of those adverse effects. For example, cilantro is a heavy metal chelator and can be beneficial in reducing levels of mercury absorbed into the body. Also, the cruciferous vegetables are well known for their detoxifying effects (but they also have their own inherent health risk if they are not prepared properly with broccoli and cauliflower, for example, acting as goiterogens if they are consumed raw).
Regarding exercise, just like different individuals respond better to different foods, different individuals respond better to different types of exercise and differing intensities, volumes, frequencies, etc. of exercise. Joint and connective tissue type, muscle type, and metabolic type, for example, all have an influence on exercise selection. In addition (and this also, is a vitally important point), different types of exercise are appropriate for different stages of one's life cycle. What is good for children is not necessarily optimal for teens and young adults and what is good for them is not necessarily good for a geriatric population. In addition, understanding micro-, meso-, and macro-cycles of exercise is important. The body likes variation, in food, exercise, mental stimulation, almost everything. Mark mentioned his past problems with overtraining and even with triathlon participation in 3 different types of exercise, those 3 exercises are all similar types and doing them year round may not be optimal as compared to a cyclically varying exercise routine that phase various types of exercise in and out on a regular basis. Ditto with ANY type of exercise or activity. Variety is the spice of life.
Mark mentioned play type of activities as a source of exercise and that is good. But most of us don't live in Malibu like Mark, nor have his income, nor have his lifestyle. Having to do more traditional work, learning how to incorporate work movements as an exercise form has more practical application for most of us. How you get out of bed, how you stand, how you sit on the toilet, how you make your breakfast, how you clean your house and do laundy, how you get into your car, how you do your job, etc. can all be done in a way that breaks down the body OR builds up the body, depending upon how it is down. We had a 10 inch snowfall the other day and yesterday I had to clean off our 2 cars that were outside, shovel around the cars where our plow person's plow couldn't reach, clean off the front sidewalk, clean off the front deck, clean off the back sidewalk, clean off the back deck, and clean off the trampoline. Doing this simple activity in different ways on both the left and the right side and at different speeds and intensities gave me a decent workout without any localized aches and pains. Plus I chased the dog around in the snow so we had some fun and some play exercise to boot.;-)
In addition, the major physical performance attributes must all be considered with exercise including posture, flexibility, strength, endurance, and balance. For example, if one is training hard and intensely and experiencing the benefits of that but one's overall postural alignment is poor or a joint or series of joints are hypermobile or hypomobile or misaligned, then this hard training which is benefitting your cardiovascular system and your muscles may, on the other hand, be damaging your joints, ligaments, tendons, etc. In addition, one must consider balanced exercise in terms of what I call the hard/soft or yin/yang principle of exercise. Doing exclusively "hard" exercise will eventually burn one out while doing all "soft" exercise will leave one weaker, less challenged, less resilient, and less ... for want of a better word ... tough. But using the two together and in balance can result in optimal utilization of both the development and remedial aspects of exercise. Consideration of what type of exercise is preparatory, what is remedial, what is developmental, and what is maintenance is also important. I could literally write days on this subject because this is what I have done and taught for the better part of my life but time is at a tremendous premium as of late. Writing the post yesterday on 2nd amendment issues took up too much of what little free time I have on weekends but I felt it just had to get out there. This issue is important but not as important as that so one prioritizes to the best of one's ability.
