3 ms·

> This seems intellectually interesting to me but it's frustrating because I feel it takes what is a relatively simple issue and makes it needlessly complex. Ye

> This seems intellectually interesting to me but it's frustrating because I feel it takes what is a relatively simple issue and makes it needlessly complex. Yes, maybe there is some amount of optimization you can do with your diet, but the simple fact is that there is a not a single study in the history of science which has been able to demonstrate eating at a caloric deficit and gaining weight. Show me an obese person not eating significantly too much. Taubes would say that an obese person eats too much precisely because he is fat, not the reverse. The arrow of causality has been flipped. His body is demanding increased caloric intake (via insulin, leptin, and ghrelin) to maintain fat stores. Those fat stores can't be liberated when insulin levels remain high. If this hypothetical obese person keeps eating carbs and has become insulin resistant, those fat stores aren't going anywhere without a fight. A calorie restricted diet will help some, as less food produces less insulin, but it's far easier to restrict insulinogenic foods. This allows the fat stores to be utilized, and weight loss is the natural result. It sounds counterintuitive at first, but this theory states that the human body knows how to maintain caloric intake. That's what hunger is for. But it can only do this if we allow the endocrine system to function normally. Before dismissing the idea, listen to Taubes's talk: http://youtu.be/ywRV3GH5io0 http://youtu.be/ywRV3GH5io0

tbrownaw 12y ago
Taubes would say that an obese person eats too much precisely because he is fat, not the reverse. The arrow of causality has been flipped. His body is demanding increased caloric intake (via insulin, leptin, and ghrelin) to maintain fat stores. That "arrow" of causality is more of a messy tangle. Everything (appetite, eating habits, body fat, environment, mental state, exercise/lifestyle habits) affects pretty much everything else. In particular the environment can have a rather strong effect on eating habits. So be unreasonable, and adapt the world to support your goals.
wdewind 12y ago
But if a fat person simply eats less, no matter the macronutrient content, he or she will lose weight. This is well documented, and even Taubes doesn't disagree with that. There may be ways to lose weight more quickly, but my point is that the challenge here is how to make people who are on terrible diets consistently stick to any decent diet with a caloric defecit, not the optimal diet. If someone can't comply with a low carb diet it quite frankly doesn't matter if it's more optimal that a high carb (though I disagree with Taubes generally and think his analysis misses the forest for the trees).
- bollockitis 12y ago
  > But if a fat person simply eats less, no matter the macronutrient content, he or she will lose weight. This is well documented, and even Taubes doesn't disagree with that. A low-carb diet doesn't have to be intentionally low calorie. That's the point. Eating very low carb allows the body to adjust hunger levels to match existing fat stores. If you're fat and you allow your body to do its job, you won't be as hungry because you have plenty of energy stored up and the body is eager to use it. In other words, we've evolved to survive times of plenty and times of famine, and our modern diet with extremely high carb intake throws this system out of whack. Low calorie is just forced starvation and although you will always lose weight this way, it's an uphill battle because you're fighting the body's fat regulation mechanism. You might be eating high-carb but low calorie, causing insulin spikes, extreme hunger, and protein wasting. It's not an easy diet to follow and it might even be counterproductive. This is the theory anyway. This queston has been posted to Taubes many times over though, and he himself can explain it a lot better than I can. If you're interested in the topic, this is definitely worth a read: http://garytaubes.com/2012/11/what-would-happen-if-thoughts-and-thought-experiments-on-the-calorie-issue/ http://garytaubes.com/2012/11/what-would-happen-if-thoughts-...
  - wdewind 12y ago
    > Low calorie is just forced starvation and although you will always lose weight this way, it's an uphill battle because you're fighting the body's fat regulation mechanism. You might be eating high-carb but low calorie, causing insulin spikes, extreme hunger, and protein wasting. It's not an easy diet to follow and it might even be counterproductive. This is based on a false dichotomy of dieting sustainably low carb or unsustainably starving yourself. Let's say we have someone who is 6' and 260lbs. To get to that state you need to consistently eat a diet of around 4000 calories. If that person eats 2000 calories of ANYTHING for the rest of their life, which should be completely sustainable, they will not only lose the weight (down to about 180 lbs), they will keep it off. On the other hand, if that person continues to eat 4000 calories but they change their diet entirely to a ketogenic diet, guess what: they will still be fat. The point is that when we are dealing with the 30% of Americans who are now obese, the low hanging fruit is in simply eating less. There may or may not be a suboptimization in macronutrient composition, I'm not saying that's definitely wrong. I'm just saying there's more low hanging fruit than that.
snowwrestler 12y ago
Most obese people have not been obese their entire lives, so obesity can't be a root cause of their obesity. At most, Taubes' writings might help explain why some obese people have trouble managing their over-eating.

tbrownaw 12y ago

Taubes would say that an obese person eats too much precisely because he is fat, not the reverse. The arrow of causality has been flipped. His body is demanding increased caloric intake (via insulin, leptin, and ghrelin) to maintain fat stores. That "arrow" of causality is more of a messy tangle. Everything (appetite, eating habits, body fat, environment, mental state, exercise/lifestyle habits) affects pretty much everything else. In particular the environment can have a rather strong effect on eating habits. So be unreasonable, and adapt the world to support your goals.

wdewind 12y ago

But if a fat person simply eats less, no matter the macronutrient content, he or she will lose weight. This is well documented, and even Taubes doesn't disagree with that. There may be ways to lose weight more quickly, but my point is that the challenge here is how to make people who are on terrible diets consistently stick to any decent diet with a caloric defecit, not the optimal diet. If someone can't comply with a low carb diet it quite frankly doesn't matter if it's more optimal that a high carb (though I disagree with Taubes generally and think his analysis misses the forest for the trees).

bollockitis 12y ago
> But if a fat person simply eats less, no matter the macronutrient content, he or she will lose weight. This is well documented, and even Taubes doesn't disagree with that. A low-carb diet doesn't have to be intentionally low calorie. That's the point. Eating very low carb allows the body to adjust hunger levels to match existing fat stores. If you're fat and you allow your body to do its job, you won't be as hungry because you have plenty of energy stored up and the body is eager to use it. In other words, we've evolved to survive times of plenty and times of famine, and our modern diet with extremely high carb intake throws this system out of whack. Low calorie is just forced starvation and although you will always lose weight this way, it's an uphill battle because you're fighting the body's fat regulation mechanism. You might be eating high-carb but low calorie, causing insulin spikes, extreme hunger, and protein wasting. It's not an easy diet to follow and it might even be counterproductive. This is the theory anyway. This queston has been posted to Taubes many times over though, and he himself can explain it a lot better than I can. If you're interested in the topic, this is definitely worth a read: http://garytaubes.com/2012/11/what-would-happen-if-thoughts-and-thought-experiments-on-the-calorie-issue/ http://garytaubes.com/2012/11/what-would-happen-if-thoughts-...
- wdewind 12y ago
  > Low calorie is just forced starvation and although you will always lose weight this way, it's an uphill battle because you're fighting the body's fat regulation mechanism. You might be eating high-carb but low calorie, causing insulin spikes, extreme hunger, and protein wasting. It's not an easy diet to follow and it might even be counterproductive. This is based on a false dichotomy of dieting sustainably low carb or unsustainably starving yourself. Let's say we have someone who is 6' and 260lbs. To get to that state you need to consistently eat a diet of around 4000 calories. If that person eats 2000 calories of ANYTHING for the rest of their life, which should be completely sustainable, they will not only lose the weight (down to about 180 lbs), they will keep it off. On the other hand, if that person continues to eat 4000 calories but they change their diet entirely to a ketogenic diet, guess what: they will still be fat. The point is that when we are dealing with the 30% of Americans who are now obese, the low hanging fruit is in simply eating less. There may or may not be a suboptimization in macronutrient composition, I'm not saying that's definitely wrong. I'm just saying there's more low hanging fruit than that.

snowwrestler 12y ago

Most obese people have not been obese their entire lives, so obesity can't be a root cause of their obesity. At most, Taubes' writings might help explain why some obese people have trouble managing their over-eating.