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The Mediterranean Diet Study: Bad Science, Worse Journalism

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Have you heard the news? An April 2013 study “proves” that the Mediterranean Diet saves lives, reducing cardiovascular events by 30%.

Except the study said no such thing. And the “low fat” diet used as a comparison was anything but.

Caveat comestor! (Let the eater beware!)

Dr Howie Jacobson

This podcast is a labor of love and a way to give back to the world that has given me so much. That's why there aren't any sponsors (except me :).

My day job is helping leaders and their teams master their mindsets to remove all obstacles to heart-centered high performance.

Here are three gigs that I do:

1. Executive and Senior Leadership Mentoring and Facilitation

I work with high performing executive teams in organizations — and executive teams that need to become high  performing. My focus is mindset mastery, because it’s our mindsets that either support high performance or get in the way.

At this level, everyone’s got the skills and experience to excel and contribute at the highest level. What holds people back is mindset stuff: specifically the triggers that get them out of creative engagement and into fight-or-flight defensiveness.

My practice is all about teaching people to respond differently to those triggers by updating old maps — essentially removing the glitches that the triggers grab onto.

2. Executive Coaching: Quick Wins for High Performance

I work with individual executives and leaders, one on one. The program is called Quick Wins for High Performance, and what we do is, we work strategically on one or two areas that are holding you back and keeping you from performing at your best.

We reverse engineer the presenting problems — too much work and not enough time, underperforming employees and teams, maddening organizational inefficiencies, etc — and identify and rewire the suboptimal mindsets that are behind those problems.

The work is all about updating your mental maps so your actions and responses are always appropriate, proportionate, and strategic.

3. High Stakes Conversations for Fast Growing Small Business Teams

I help small business teams have high stakes conversations with skill, humor, and grace. When people feel safe, they can do their best, most creative, most collaborative work.

So that's what I do. If you'd like any of those results, drop me a line and tell me about yourself.

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Well, that's what Peter Bregman and I claim in our provocative book of that title.

What we really mean is, you can bring out the best in the people around you. If you think you're powerless to help people change, it's because you've been going about it the wrong way.

Discover our straightforward, replicable process here: You Can Change Other People.

 

Music

The Plant Yourself Podcast theme music, “Dance of Peace (Sabali Don),” is generously provided by Will Ridenour, a kora player from North Carolina who has trained with top Senegalese musicians.

It can be found on his first CD, titled Will Ridenour.

You can learn about Will, listen to more tracks, and buy music on his website, WillRidenour.com.

Gratitudes

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3 comments on “The Mediterranean Diet Study: Bad Science, Worse Journalism

  1. David Sax says:

    Hey Howard
    Interesting. Amazing what today’s journalism reports.
    I just saw a news video with Dr Kahn on the benefits of The Mediterranean Diet in which he supports it. He indicates it’s “relatively” low in animal products, although the news broadcast, which takes place in a restaurant, shows lots of meat on the grill and the portion it represents on the plate is at least 50%. Sio I’m not sure what the take away is really. Perhaps that it, like the paleo diet, doesn’t encourage processed foods or sugar so it’s a better alternative….

  2. Howard says:

    I agree that the Med Diet is one of the better ones. I’m knocking the sloppy and misleading journalism in this video more than the diet itself.

    Truth is, it’s hard to find a diet worse than the Standard Western one.

    1. David Sax says:

      Right. Agree. I honestly don’t know much about the diet. I just thought the news coverage was interesting along with the plating of the food…

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