Eating Free: My review

I was directed to the Eating Free website by a fellow fitness professional. Here is their online, "free" quiz to see if you need their help:

Eating Free Quiz

Here are my issues, starting with mundane and ending with theory:

1) I have to join to get what they are talking about?


Most website authors who adamantly believe in the information they are trying to put out there don't hide their theories behind marketing jargon and membership sign-ins. Yes, to join this site is free, but if you click around outside the site, no where does it state exactly what they believe and promote. If you look at the websites of Robb Wolf, Mark Sisson, or that Wheat Belly guy (brain fart... ), you don't have to log in, and they explain their stance in no uncertain terms.

I took their FreeQ quiz and...

2) Promotion of lean meats and whole grains?

Pretty much anything below a 180 is considered a risky "FreeQ" and you need their help to get on the right track. I scored a 125. When I went back and fiddled with answers, I found that my score could be brought up if I said I had "carbs with protein", are "lean or very lean meats", and included whole grains and "heart healthy fats" into my diet. What do they consider hearth healthy? It's not really defined outside sources like avocado, salmon, and olive oil. So I can only assume they mean mono-unsaturated fat. That's all and well, but saturated fat isn't the villain it's been made out to be...

If you're reading this, you probably already know my stance on grains. (Bad, bad, bad!)

3) What, you got a problem with IF?


I would have a higher "FreeQ" if only I ate breakfast "within 1 hour of waking every day" or ate "every 3-4 hours." Here's the problem, there is this little thing called "intermittent fasting" that many fitness enthusiasts are adopting and have found great progress with. When someone is eating Paleo or on a ketogenic diet, you don't get the hungry cravings, the mood shifts, and other sugar crash effects, and makes intermittent fasting something easy to do, or even something I've accidentally done for days at a time. The eating every 3-4 hours is needed for bodies dependent on carbs for mood stability or bodybuilders.

So I joined out of curiosity....

4) Just Getting Started!


I'm going to start a list, because I'm getting bored lambasting this site. It's just too easy:

a) BMI is dumb for an athlete. But thanks for telling me what it is. That leads me to...
b) I can't choose a moderate or vigorous activity level for myself. I have to call and discuss it with a "coach". I'm a personal trainer who bikes everywhere. Come on.
c) They prescribed me this macronutrient breakdown: 50% Carbohydrate, 25% Protein, and 25% Fat despite my saying I do weight training 3 to 4 times a week. Dumbasses. 
d) I think if I continue I'll just be going over offenses that are repeats of my nutritional principals. 




So basically this is a website that follows the USDA's "My Plate" paradigm, aka: the same conventional wisdom that is getting western civilization fat and chock full of diabetics and heart disease cases. Plus, the sidebar is telling me that I should cut 500 calories from my diet to lose weight, should I so desire. And its telling me the proportions of food types I should include in my diet. Wait, I thought this site was called "Eating Free"? I thought it said I should eat more, not less? Oh, the horror. 


Finally. 


/rant