When those who intellectually dwell in a world well above ours come down to earth, so to speak, and take the time to talk our language, it’s good to take note. What’s better still is to actually take notes, to jot down what they say.

Unless you’re a wannabe physicist, you could probably care less what Albert Einstein actually said about the time-space continuum, the photoelectric effect, or even the theory of relativity. But if you wanna be healthier, scribble down this sublunary observation of his: “You can’t solve the problem with the mind that created it.”

I share this gem from a man who was so smart his last name’s now a synonym for “intellectual” because of something I wrote in the last column for all those who wanna be healthier. That riding a bicycle, though helpful, isn’t necessary.

Thinking like a deep-dyed cyclist and becoming what I call a “cycologist,” however, helps. So does ruminating on Einstein’s quotation.

Both urge you to wanna be what the veiled machinations of this world make it more and more difficult for you to actually be. Open-minded and aware of the fact that, as I noted last time, there’s always more than one way to skin a cat.

That’s why someone who’s an Einstein in his field of expertise, Andy Galpin, PhD, professor of kinesiology and the Director of the Center for Sport Performance at California State University, Fullerton, tells Steven Bartlett on a “The Diary of a CEO” podcast that both the ketogenic and the high-carb diets are “great” - even though two diets couldn’t be more different. That, in fact, whatever diet you choose doesn’t even really matter.

“You can do them all [and] they can work for you.”

But for that to happen, Galpin says, you need to possess a singular quality. A quality that, if it were an animal in this day and age, would occupy a spot on the endangered-species list right below open-mindedness.

Adherence.

Galpin contends adherence is the “number-one predictor” of successful long-term weight loss. That adherence to “your” workout and nutrition programs - regardless of the ones you choose - is “enough for most people” to lose unwanted weight.

The “your” receives quotations marks not only because it’s actually what Galpin said but to add emphasis.

Emphasis so you realize there’s no need to stress. The pressure’s off.

That as long as you’re consistent and practical about it, the form or forms of exercise you choose will lead to better health and fitness. Ditto for diet.

Even when your diet is designed not for weight loss but improved health.

Research performed by the National Institutes of Health and published in the January 2024 issue of Nature Medicine provides grist for the Galpin adherence mill by finding both keto and vegan diets enhance your immune system. Albeit through somewhat different means.

In the study, 20 participants were allowed to eat as much as they desired for four weeks.

During two of those weeks, however, they adhered to a vegan diet that was high in carbs, 75 percent, and very low in fat, 10 percent. For the other two, they followed a keto diet that was only 10 percent carbohydrates and 76 percent fat.

Which diet they did first was determined randomly.

That the 20 participants consumed more calories while on the keto diet isn’t germane today - though it may be worthy of its own article later. What is, is that in only two weeks’ time the keto diet bolstered the participants’ immune systems in a manner somewhat similar to receiving a vaccination.

The two weeks of eating the vegan way did not produce the same effect. Yet it did aid the immune system in another way.

It created what the study called a “significant impact on the innate immune system,” part of the body’s frontline defense against the pathogens that can cause disease.

Now I’m not an immunologist, and I recognize that if I was I might feel one of these benefits is superior to the other. But that in no way discounts that two diets far apart on the dieting spectrum created similar health outcomes.

Or, as the authors of paper on this study note, that a “two-week dietary intervention can impose a striking shift in host immunity, superseding genetics, age, sex, ethnicity, race and even body mass index.”

What’s also striking is that you really got the gist on the value of adherence in an article here six months ago.

But Dr. Andy Galpin was never quoted. The word “adherence” was never used.

That article shared Dr. Layne Norton’s belief that the quality called sustainability trumps diet. That it that not only leads to long-term weight control but also optimal health and fitness.

Even though their word choice doesn’t quite match, isn’t it comforting - and motivating - to learn these two experts, who intellectually dwell in a world well above ours, think alike?