Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It
Ratings45
Average rating4.2
Pretty good on the topic. It was very interesting for me to learn about the history of dietetics and how the concept of ‘why we get fat' evolved. The second part of the book reiterated on things about the influence of insulin and your sensitivity to it as the main factor of fat accumulation in the body. Can't judge this, as I am not a scientist, but the research seems sound ;) For those who did not hear about how insulin shapes us, this is definitely a valuable read.
One of the original Keto proponents. I saw a study on my Facebook feed about the backgrounds of authors of bestselling nutritional books: in the top 100 bestsellers, out of 83 unique authors, 33 had a MD or PhD - which doesn't even mean they specialized in nutrition or exercise science or wtv. Taubes for example has a Master's in aerospace engineering, a Master's in journalism, and worked for science magazines like Discover and Science.
Food stuff seems real baked into our hard opinions. I think the pendulum between low fat and low carb is fascinating. Low carb might work for folks but you'd have to do it forever which, honestly, sounds like it would get a bit boring. Like many diets it's the long-term adherance that gets you in the long run.
Anyway! Taubes explains the history of the American low-fat craze, how insulin works to deal with carbs that you eat and why insulin resistance is bad. Lots of mice studies. He posits that it's all the “bad carbs” in our diets that are making us fat and tired and causing metabolic disease from the Western Diet. He claims that those traditional diets that are healthy for populations but include much more carbs work because they are low sugar in comparison to US diet. He advises a strict Keto diet to start and then phasing in “slow carbs” to see what your body will tolerate without gaining weight. Or maybe you'd have to give up coffee? Who knows.
One interesting theme in the text was being fat was still bad, but bad in a symptom kinda way vs a personal morality and willpower kinda way. Fat is the fault of bad carb vs inability to “just eat less!” Which I can see would be much more appealing.
I've never done Keto or Paleo or low carb, but a few of my friends have (I think more of them are veg) and nobody still is (except for one who just started so we'll see in a few years hey?) The veg people are mostly still veg depending on the underlying motivation.
Really great follow up to Good Calories, Bad Calories from the same author, where this Book acts as an easier and less technical version.
After fighting with type 2 diabetes, I started feeling better after starting to lose weight, but I wanted to learn more about why. I thought this book sounded like it might help, but I had no idea how much. Reading this introduced me to a whole new way to think about food and has changed my life ever since. This was the first book that introduced me to the role of hormones with obesity. This book was comprehensive and did a great job explaining his case. This book should be required reading for anyone who eats.
This book is changing my life. I read it slowly, a few pages at a time, at breakfast every morning for several weeks in an attempt to absorb the message. The book includes a lot about human biology and especially metabolic balance and the endocrine system. Fortunately, however, the basic message is quite simple. Humans are not well adapted to the high carbohydrate load of the modern diet. Continued heavy consumption of refined carbohydrates and sugars causes us to get fat. It can also lead to a condition called metabolic syndrome which is associated with a cluster of diseases including diabetes and heart disease.
The solution, restrict consumption of refined carbohydrates and sugars. That means avoid foods such as bread, pasta, potatoes, and sweets (especially sweet drinks).
This is the quicker version of Taubes' “Good Calories, Bad Calories.” It's hard to say that I “enjoyed” it, given how depressing the subject matter is, but it was certainly very enlightening. We eat food that encourages insulin production, insulin promotes fat storage, and voila, you have a worldwide obesity epidemic. This book, and its predecessor, have completely altered the way I look at what I eat, not to mention how I look at most dietary guidelines from the government and various other health-related organizations.