All Things in Moderation?

[Warning: Rant]

“All things in moderation, nothing in excess.” Pericles (or some old Greek).

This has to be the most tiresome quotation of all time. None of the world’s great achievements have come from people taking that as their motto. Steve Jobs started creating Apple with the idea of making something “insanely great” – the Apple computer. He continued to be a jerk about demanding products beyond Microsoft’s moderately good. He tried to live every day like it was his last.

Mark Sisson is not going to bring health to a million people by being moderate. He got his credibility by being an immoderately driven athlete. There is nothing moderate about his daily Big Assed Salad. Our ancestors haven’t eaten daily big assed salads since they came down out of the trees. The Primal exercise concept could be called “moderate,” but Mark would probably immoderately spend 60+ hours/week in “play” exercise if he could.

Doctors and other health “experts” infuriate me when their automatic, cover-your-ass reaction to everything is nervous nelly caution. When I am exposed to a virus or feel like one is trying to get me, I take a totally immoderate dose of vitamin D3, like 40,000 IU daily for three days. The “moderate” approach would be to take “a little extra” D. Why? For any scientifically valid reason? No, just because they have a namby-pamby attitude.

True, something like moderation is often the best course. Kurt Harris articulates it well for me in William Munny eats his vegetables. Harris is definitely not namby-pamby. The title of this blog entry comes from him being called the Clint Eastwood of nutrition. “I’ve killed just about everything that walks or crawled at one time or another. And I’m here to kill you, Ancel Keys, for what you done to nutrition.” Hehe. I love it.

Don’t tell me this is “Moderation in all things, including moderation.” Grrrrrrr! That’s a swell namby-pamby slogan for living in 1950s suburbia. Screw moderation. Screw moderation in moderation.

On a practical level, I am thinking about people who would benefit from primal but take the attitude “Sprints are fine, but we shouldn’t get close to our maximum heart rate. Lifting is good  but I play it safe and use the isolation machines at the gym. I take a multivitamin for insurance. Red meat can be part of a healthy diet, just eat it in moderation. Eat bread but watch your calories. And so on.” (Of course, they think it’s fine to eat a vast amount of whole grains, fruits and vegetables, although, if pressed, they would call this moderation.) Ok, these people are going to be healthier than folks pigging out at McDonald’s. But not as healthy as they would be on the “dangerous Primal diet.”

Chose wisely when to be immoderately passionate. But be passionate about some things. I should note that I often see this attitude in Mark’s Daily Apple forum members.