Diet musings

In addition to the reading and research I do as I maintain and enhance this blog, I've taken to consulting a few fitness blogs lately. I've bumped into a fair amount of discussion of diets on these blogs, and generally I find this discussion a little frustrating. I'll explain why in this entry.

To me it's frustrating because, while I'm interested in maintaining a healthy diet and reading about nutrition, these discussions inevitably turn to weight loss questions and debate about how well or poorly this or that diet reduce fat. I can understand in a certain respect why this is the case: diets, as we all know, are most often formulated for and followed by, those who are obese or otherwise unhealthy.

For me, the discussion becomes frustrating at this point because I don't need to lose any weight. Plus, I already eat a fairly healthy diet (long-time pesco-vegetarian, don't eat fast food with any regularity, love fruits, vegetables, and whole grains). So when these dietary discussions start to turn to weight loss--as they invariably do--I feel that my attempts at gleaning useful information are being subverted: I just want to know how foods might benefit or harm an already healthy body, not how they might make me lose weight.

For the sake of furthering this discussion, a few more words about myself. I have no idea what my bodyfat percentage is, but I know it's on the low side. I have a pretty athletic build--as you might gather from the photos in the heading of this blog. I am a little thicker around the mid-section in the 2009 photo than in the 1984 photo, so I definitely have more bodyfat now than I did then (is it 2, 3, maybe 4 percentage points?). But comparatively (to other 50-year-old males), I nonetheless now have pretty low bodyfat.

Could my bodyfat be lower? Undoubtedly it could. I doubt getting it lower would improve my overall health, but I could certainly lower it further. So far as I can tell the impetus for doing that would probably be vanity rather than health. And thus far I've found that, during cycling season when we're putting in plenty of long, hard rides, I do shed about 5 lbs. and get down around 200, give or take a pound or two. So I do see some seasonal variation in weight and thus, I would guess, variation in bodyfat.

Getting back to the dietary material I've been reading. I'm left in a state of confusion about it. My weight is pretty good and I don't see a significant health gain in lowering my bodyfat any further. Moreover my most recent cholestrol readings approach magnificence (see my "vital stats" for those). So does that mean my diet is fine? Should I just ignore all this dietary information I'm finding, or are there things I need to change about my diet? Perhaps I should leave well enough alone?

Is there any source that aims to help people who are already fairly trim and not eating a lot of trash food, adjust their diets? I'm still looking . . .