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If this is at all interesting to you, I highly recommend Gary Taubes' Why We Get Fat and What to Do About it (http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/030

by gxs 14y ago

If this is at all interesting to you, I highly recommend Gary Taubes' Why We Get Fat and What to Do About it (http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307272702 http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307272702) which is a more accessible version of his more rigorous book Good Calories, Bad calories. I've been on a bit of a health binge since the beginning of the year and have been doing lots of research into these things. In a nutshell, not all calories are the same the some can wreak havoc on your system (grains, it turns out, aren't that good for us). The Paleo Solution, by Robb Wolf, is another great book - he goes to great lengths to discuss the science and biochemistry behind the points he is making. Highly recommend.

heretohelp 14y ago
Taubes isn't taken seriously by most dieticians and nutrition researchers we talk to (I work at a nutrition startup). I'd say that if there is any value to Taubes, it is this: Different foods, given the same calories, will fill you up or nourish you at varying degrees. 300 calories of oreo cookies isn't the same as eating a banana and some chicken. The main practical benefit people get from low carb, paleo, etc is that they're eating less sugar and junk, and thus eating healthy food with better overall satiety. As a result, they lose weight because they're eating fewer calories. You can lose weight eating twinkies, it's just hard to do because it's bad for your health, not nutritious, and leaves you feeling hungry because it's all carbs. A more scientific and less paleo-obsessed way to think about carbohydrates is this: Carbs are fuel, if you're an athlete, you have a use for them. If you live a sedentary lifestyle, excess fuel isn't going to do you any favors. Adjust accordingly. In the end: calories in, calories out. Humanity hasn't defeated the laws of thermodynamics. It's just a question of how easy and healthy it is to maintain a sub-maintenance caloric intake. Edit: Okay people, I just got done saying low carb made sense if you weren't an athlete, what exactly are you arguing against? I agree with you guys, I just think the reasoning and rationale should be taken in the context of current nutrition research and not some demagogue's book that is obsessed with a dietary aesthetic rather than data.
- joelrunyon 14y ago
  >In the end: calories in, calories out. If you're just talking about "weight loss" then yea, that's right, but you don't address body composition at all here. If you just wanted to "lose weight", then you could chop off an arm and BOOM, you just lost weight. What MOST people want to do is to burn and lose fat, NOT weight - they just express it differently. If it was just calories in vs calories out, I could drink 3000 calories of vodka a day and still be okay as long as I burned off 3100 calories, and we all know that's not the case.
  - will_work4tears 14y ago
    Yikes, that'd be nearly two fifths of vodka. I'm could be naive here, but I'm not sure the hardiest of alcoholics can put that away in one day. I get the point, mind you, just shocked by how much alcohol that is...
- joelrunyon 14y ago
  Not to mention, counting calories is just painful. Have you ever really tried to do this? Frankly, it just sucks. Has any other culture in history EVER counted calories? I'm betting "no" considering the calorie is a relatively new concept (1842). And yes, somehow they managed not to have the obesity problems we have today. >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie
  - tedunangst 14y ago
    Counting calories is a great way to lose weight actually. Every time you go to eat something you think "Do I really want to record this in my food log?" Then you say no and don't eat it. I ate drastically less as a direct side effect of trying to count calories.
    - UnFleshedOne 14y ago
      I wonder if can affect variety of the diet though? "I have no idea how many calories this salad is, let me eat that well measured donut instead and be done with the paperwork" would totally be my train of thought...
jeremyw 14y ago
Also, Zooko and Amber Wilcox-O'Hearn are reviewing the science related to ketosis and diet here: http://www.ketotic.org/ http://www.ketotic.org/
malbs 14y ago
Another book recommendation:- Girth Control: The Science of Fat Loss & Muscle Gain - Alan Aragon This is the bible, it has absolutely no fluff/filler content.
js2 14y ago
I've read GCBC and initially found it quite persuasive. But it seems that Taubes isn't really correct. The best refutation I've seen is from obesity researcher Stephan Guyenet. From http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate-hypothesis-of-obesity.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate-h... I hope you can see by now that the carbohydrate hypothesis of obesity is not only incorrect on a number of levels, but it may even be backward. The reason why obesity and metabolism researchers tend not to take this idea seriously is that it is contradicted by a large body of evidence from multiple fields. I understand that people like ideas that "challenge conventional wisdom", but the fact is that obesity is a complex state and it will not be shoehorned into simplistic hypotheses. Carbohydrate consumption per se is not behind the obesity epidemic. However, once overweight or obesity is established, carbohydrate restriction can aid fat loss in some people. The mechanism by which this occurs is not totally clear, but there is no evidence that insulin plays a causal role in this process. Carbohydrate restriction spontaneously reduces calorie intake (as does fat restriction), suggesting the possibility that it alters body fat homeostasis, but this alteration likely occurs in the brain, not in the fat tissue itself. The brain is the primary homeostatic regulator of fat mass, just as it homeostatically regulates blood pressure, breathing rate, and body temperature. This has been suspected since the early brain lesion studies of the 1940s (47) and even before, and the discovery of leptin in 1994 cemented leptin's role as the main player in body fat homeostasis. In some cases, the setpoint around which the body defends these variables can be changed (e.g., hypertension, fever, and obesity). Research is ongoing to understand how this process works.
- fhoxh 14y ago
  Many obesity researchers find Guyenet to be quite the joke. For example, Peter over at HyperLipid recently ripped him to utter shreds: http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/2012/06/confused.html http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/2012/06/confused.html http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/2012/06/insulin-un-dead-and-coffin-nails.html http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/2012/06/insulin-un-de... Not to mention, Taubes countered Guyenet with a 6-part series refuting Guyenet's widely mocked food-reward/palatability hypothesis: http://garytaubes.com/2011/09/catching-up-on-lost-time-ancestral-health-symposium-food-reward-palatability-insulin-signaling-carbohydrates-kettles-pots-other-odds-ends-part-i/ http://garytaubes.com/2011/09/catching-up-on-lost-time-ances... The thing is, there's a lot of infighting; These guys are always going back and forth. They both have their camps. Those both have their arsenal of studies. It's almost a sport... The simple fact of the matter is that we're not really going to actually know conclusively and incontrovertibly one way or the other for at least another decade.
cliftonk 14y ago
I'd just like to say that my athletic performance, body composition and mental clarity have been far, far better on paleo than any other diet. I'd also recommend the two books gxs mentioned. Of course, not all digestive systems are created equal and YMMV. For instance, wasn't until after eating paleo for a while I discovered I had a mild gluten and dairy intolerance (most people develop the latter).

by gxs 14y ago

heretohelp 14y ago

Taubes isn't taken seriously by most dieticians and nutrition researchers we talk to (I work at a nutrition startup). I'd say that if there is any value to Taubes, it is this: Different foods, given the same calories, will fill you up or nourish you at varying degrees. 300 calories of oreo cookies isn't the same as eating a banana and some chicken. The main practical benefit people get from low carb, paleo, etc is that they're eating less sugar and junk, and thus eating healthy food with better overall satiety. As a result, they lose weight because they're eating fewer calories. You can lose weight eating twinkies, it's just hard to do because it's bad for your health, not nutritious, and leaves you feeling hungry because it's all carbs. A more scientific and less paleo-obsessed way to think about carbohydrates is this: Carbs are fuel, if you're an athlete, you have a use for them. If you live a sedentary lifestyle, excess fuel isn't going to do you any favors. Adjust accordingly. In the end: calories in, calories out. Humanity hasn't defeated the laws of thermodynamics. It's just a question of how easy and healthy it is to maintain a sub-maintenance caloric intake. Edit: Okay people, I just got done saying low carb made sense if you weren't an athlete, what exactly are you arguing against? I agree with you guys, I just think the reasoning and rationale should be taken in the context of current nutrition research and not some demagogue's book that is obsessed with a dietary aesthetic rather than data.

joelrunyon 14y ago
>In the end: calories in, calories out. If you're just talking about "weight loss" then yea, that's right, but you don't address body composition at all here. If you just wanted to "lose weight", then you could chop off an arm and BOOM, you just lost weight. What MOST people want to do is to burn and lose fat, NOT weight - they just express it differently. If it was just calories in vs calories out, I could drink 3000 calories of vodka a day and still be okay as long as I burned off 3100 calories, and we all know that's not the case.
- will_work4tears 14y ago
  Yikes, that'd be nearly two fifths of vodka. I'm could be naive here, but I'm not sure the hardiest of alcoholics can put that away in one day. I get the point, mind you, just shocked by how much alcohol that is...
joelrunyon 14y ago
Not to mention, counting calories is just painful. Have you ever really tried to do this? Frankly, it just sucks. Has any other culture in history EVER counted calories? I'm betting "no" considering the calorie is a relatively new concept (1842). And yes, somehow they managed not to have the obesity problems we have today. >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie
- tedunangst 14y ago
  Counting calories is a great way to lose weight actually. Every time you go to eat something you think "Do I really want to record this in my food log?" Then you say no and don't eat it. I ate drastically less as a direct side effect of trying to count calories.
  - UnFleshedOne 14y ago
    I wonder if can affect variety of the diet though? "I have no idea how many calories this salad is, let me eat that well measured donut instead and be done with the paperwork" would totally be my train of thought...

jeremyw 14y ago

Also, Zooko and Amber Wilcox-O'Hearn are reviewing the science related to ketosis and diet here: http://www.ketotic.org/ http://www.ketotic.org/

malbs 14y ago

Another book recommendation:- Girth Control: The Science of Fat Loss & Muscle Gain - Alan Aragon This is the bible, it has absolutely no fluff/filler content.

js2 14y ago

I've read GCBC and initially found it quite persuasive. But it seems that Taubes isn't really correct. The best refutation I've seen is from obesity researcher Stephan Guyenet. From http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate-hypothesis-of-obesity.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate-h... I hope you can see by now that the carbohydrate hypothesis of obesity is not only incorrect on a number of levels, but it may even be backward. The reason why obesity and metabolism researchers tend not to take this idea seriously is that it is contradicted by a large body of evidence from multiple fields. I understand that people like ideas that "challenge conventional wisdom", but the fact is that obesity is a complex state and it will not be shoehorned into simplistic hypotheses. Carbohydrate consumption per se is not behind the obesity epidemic. However, once overweight or obesity is established, carbohydrate restriction can aid fat loss in some people. The mechanism by which this occurs is not totally clear, but there is no evidence that insulin plays a causal role in this process. Carbohydrate restriction spontaneously reduces calorie intake (as does fat restriction), suggesting the possibility that it alters body fat homeostasis, but this alteration likely occurs in the brain, not in the fat tissue itself. The brain is the primary homeostatic regulator of fat mass, just as it homeostatically regulates blood pressure, breathing rate, and body temperature. This has been suspected since the early brain lesion studies of the 1940s (47) and even before, and the discovery of leptin in 1994 cemented leptin's role as the main player in body fat homeostasis. In some cases, the setpoint around which the body defends these variables can be changed (e.g., hypertension, fever, and obesity). Research is ongoing to understand how this process works.

fhoxh 14y ago
Many obesity researchers find Guyenet to be quite the joke. For example, Peter over at HyperLipid recently ripped him to utter shreds: http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/2012/06/confused.html http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/2012/06/confused.html http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/2012/06/insulin-un-dead-and-coffin-nails.html http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/2012/06/insulin-un-de... Not to mention, Taubes countered Guyenet with a 6-part series refuting Guyenet's widely mocked food-reward/palatability hypothesis: http://garytaubes.com/2011/09/catching-up-on-lost-time-ancestral-health-symposium-food-reward-palatability-insulin-signaling-carbohydrates-kettles-pots-other-odds-ends-part-i/ http://garytaubes.com/2011/09/catching-up-on-lost-time-ances... The thing is, there's a lot of infighting; These guys are always going back and forth. They both have their camps. Those both have their arsenal of studies. It's almost a sport... The simple fact of the matter is that we're not really going to actually know conclusively and incontrovertibly one way or the other for at least another decade.

cliftonk 14y ago

I'd just like to say that my athletic performance, body composition and mental clarity have been far, far better on paleo than any other diet. I'd also recommend the two books gxs mentioned. Of course, not all digestive systems are created equal and YMMV. For instance, wasn't until after eating paleo for a while I discovered I had a mild gluten and dairy intolerance (most people develop the latter).