Kathleen and BrightAngel's Discussion on Why We Get Fat

[Over43]

Gary Taubes brings up an interesting "situation" when he brings up German research regarding individuals who looked emaciated from the waist up, and obese from the waist down. Almost selective obesity. Personaly I look quit V Shaped from the front: wide shoulders and a tapered waist. But from the side I am very barrel shaped and that is how I carry my weight. It is almost an optical illusion. Not like a curve ball though.

I don't think Reinhard is wrong by virtue of people needing to be responsible for what the shovel in their pie holes. Where it has gone wrong is after WWII, as Taubes suggests, when everyone became anti-German and all the research from the 1880's through the 1930's was lost because people hated the Deustch. (Not "lost" per se, but ignored.)

Whether you eat three meals a day, or a low carb approach, it still takes discipline. I have also know enough people who have lost weight reducing calories to believe that not everyone who gains weight is metabolically disadvantaged. But, I do not disagree that some people are. (I hope that made sense...)

[Graham]

I don't think Reinhard is wrong by virtue of people needing to be responsible for what the shovel in their pie holes.

Whether you eat three meals a day, or a low carb approach, it still takes discipline. I have also know enough people who have lost weight reducing calories to believe that not everyone who gains weight is metabolically disadvantaged. But, I do not disagree that some people are. (I hope that made sense...)

Must disagree here - my skinny friends are mostly making no effort to be skinny at all - there's no discipline or virtue in it, they follow their own desires and interests and that's all. To suggest that people who also follow their desires but end up fatter are somehow less disciplined or virtuous than thin people makes no sense. I think our ancestors were mostly kept slim by circumstance, not "responsibility" and appeals to it are therefore mistaken.

It is true that some thin people will be thin because they are making an effort, holding themselves in check, but overall the "be responsible" message to obese people has been a failure. There is plenty more guilt, but obesity continues to increase. Taubes approach is to use the science to let us both eat to satisfaction and be slim - discipline not required. Hooray for him.

[BrightAngel]

Gary Taubes brings up an interesting "situation" when he brings up German research
regarding individuals who looked emaciated from the waist up,
and obese from the waist down. Almost selective obesity.

Personaly I look quite V Shaped from the front: wide shoulders and a tapered waist.
But from the side I am very barrel shaped and that is how I carry my weight.
It is almost an optical illusion. Not like a curve ball though.

In fact, in Chapter 5, Taubes talks about
how localized fat genetically differs between people and aminals,
and he discusses the "normal" fat distribution differences between people...
the type of genetic differences between people such as you and I.

Personally I have more of an hourglass shape
...which is fairly symetrical here at normal weight,
but as my weight increases that hourglass becomes quite bottom heavy.
Additional fat accumulates in the top of my hourglass as well,
unfortunately this is not merely an increase in breast size,
but includes fatter arms, midsection, and shoulders.

Taubes' example was not "almost" selective obesity...but was definitely selective obesity.
that occurs in a rare disorder known as progressive lipodystrophy.

("Lipo" means fat; lipodystrophy is a disorder of fat accumulation.")

His book includes a picture of the woman he describes,
and clearly...this is no ordinary situation.
Her top half is totally emaciated,
while her bottom half is clearly obese.

Taubes says that if this woman had a few more pounds of fat on her upper body,

"just enough to soften her features, and round out her curves,
and if she were to see a doctor today,
she would be diagnosed as obese and promptly told to eat less and exercise more.
And this would seem perfectly reasonable"

He continues:

"With the extra pounds her condition would be blamed on overeating,
on the difference between calories she consumed and expended.
Without those extra pounds, with the full lipodystrophy revealed,
this explanation becomes nonsensical."

[BrightAngel]

I don't think Reinhard is wrong by virtue of people needing to be responsible for what the shovel in their pie holes.

Whether you eat three meals a day, or a low carb approach, it still takes discipline.
I have also know enough people who have lost weight reducing calories
to believe that not everyone who gains weight is metabolically disadvantaged.
But, I do not disagree that some people are. (I hope that made sense...)

Over43, If I understand you,
you are saying that people are responsible for their eating behaviors,
and if they don't want to be fat, they shouldn't overeat.

I believe what Taubes is saying is
that people...due to their genetics...
vary in the way their bodies process carbohydrates,
and that this variation runs through the entire spectrum of possibilities.

Some people have bodies that regulate fat properly;
some bodies tend to avoid storing fat;
and some bodies tend toward fat storage.

My summaries don't do justice to the underlying details
of how this works in the individual body.
Those who find the concept interesting shouldn't reject it without
carefully reading the technical explanation...which was simply too difficult to summarize.

The Theory is People can begin with bodies in the "normal" spectrum,
and over-time, in the process of aging,
their bodies can cease regulating fat accumulation as well as it did in their youth,
and this change in their body is what CAUSES them to eat more and move less..
thus..middle-age spread.

Taubes' Theory is that YES...people who gain weight overeat and/or underexercise;
however, this overeating and/or underexercising is CAUSED by
the inner, unconscious, prompting of their bodies due to its disfunction,
and not simply due to the lack of discipline and character.

Taubes agrees that those people WITH enough discipline and character
to reduce their food intake and/or exercise more,
(or as Taubes and pre-1960s doctors called it --semi-starvation)
can offset their bodies disfunction of fat regulation.

His position, however, is that such behavior is exceedingly difficult..
as one is actually consciously fighting one's body (and not just one's mind).
And of course...the more severe this disfunction is,
the more difficult it is to sustain this behavior long-term.

As a "reduced morbidly-obese" person, who has now maintained her body
at normal weight for the past 5 consecutive years,
with a low-calorie..normal balanced diet.. (i.e. semi-starvation)
I can tell you that it is even harder for me now, than it was 5 years ago.
even though I have developed many helpful behavioral techniques into Habits.

I'm not a scientist, and I don't know enough to know whether Taubes
Theory is correct or not.
However, carefully studying the basis of it, I think it's worth experimenting with.

I feel that if there's any other way to maintain my weight
which would reduce or eliminate my physical hunger and cravings,
it would be foolish of me not to see how it works in my own body.

[BrightAngel]

Interesting invitation - "to join in the discussion" -
but what to say?
I am not familiar enough with this complex subject matter
to be confident about having an opinion on it.

What I do know, trawling cyber-space, is that Gary Taubes has his critics,
who explain themselves with even more recondite prose than he uses.
I am so out of my depth I've no idea who is right,
or how much it matters
- the only critiques I read were by people who were still low-carbing,
they just didn't agree that all Taubes' science was sound.

I really like this about his work - that it lifts a lot of blame off people.
I never did like Reinhard's admonition "Don't be an idiot"
If Taubes is right, the issue isn't idiocy, or a lack of self-discipline
so much as carbs actually being addictive in their action on susceptible people.
A question might be - are carb handling issues the only cause of excess weight?

If Taubes is right, it will mean a lot of us can be much more effective
in dealing with our weight issues, perhaps succeeding more and suffering less.
I have certainly been influenced by what I've read on this thread,
it coincided with a growing conviction that heavy starch meals just messed me up
and I am moving towards a lower carb intake.
It is fun to experiment with that,
and hopefully find my way to a yet more peaceful place with food,
beyond what No S has already brought me.

Thanks, Graham for your above-quoted comment.

It looks to me as though you have carefully considered the subject,
and are processing it in a thorough manner.

[Over43]

I think that is what I am saying.

[BrightAngel]

Copying an Update here.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011:
I'm reading in Taube's book Why We Get Fat.
My job is done in three days, and I can hardly wait.

I'm reading the book to try to understand if fasting is a good approach,
so my read isn't exactly unbiased.

It's too bad because the timing is bad,
but Taubes is actually here at the University of Minnesota to promote his book.
I'd love to go but can't.
If he'd been here next week, I most certainly would have gone.

As you've probably noticed,
I've completed posting my Summaries on the book.

I'm hoping that after you finish carefully reading the book,
you will then read over my posted Summaries,
in order to "get-up-to-speed"
I'm looking forward to resuming our Discussion in a few weeks
after you've done your reading, and caught up with your household duties.

Hi BrightAngel, It will be next week!

I am reading ahead,
but I want to go back and go through the book chapter by chapter.
It is a very interesting book.

I haven't been reading the posts in the book discussion thread
because I need to get things wrapped up at work
and want to think through what you say.

I do admit a bias right upfront:
my main focus will be on trying to determine
if intermittent fasting can accomplish what carb restriction accomplishes.

[kccc]

BA, I expect to have some time this weekend and am planning to read through your summaries.

In the interim, I have had some superficial exposure to Taube's book (a Readers Digest article at my parent's, some of your YouTube links, a quick look at the Amazon reviews). Based on that admittedly superficial look, I have a few questions. (If they are answered in your summaries, just tell me and I'll look for them... If they aren't, I'd appreciate your take.)

1) How does Taubes' work differ from the usual low-carb diets? From what I see, it's a re-hash of Atkins, drawing on more recent research, but with much the same recommendations.

2) As a more-personal corollary, what attracted YOU to his work? I'm assuming that with your diet-hobby background that low-carb ideas are not new to you. What made this particular iteration catch your notice?

Things I'll be looking for as I read:
- Does he look at ALL the new research, or only that which supports his position?
- Does he fall into the usual nutrition-advice trap, which is the logical fallacy of going to extremes. ( Think about the research on vitamins, for example. "If none of X causes disease, lets eat LOTS of X for health... oh, wait, lots of X causes its own problems.")
- Does he violate what I think of as the "Einstein rule" (from a quote by Einstein that said "Everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler" [italics added]). This goes along with the "extremes" above. Nutrition is complex, and involves multiple factors, many of which we are only beginning to discover. Does he over-simplify?
- How directly are his recommendations supported by the research he cites?

Thanks in advance for any consideration of these questions - and I will read your summaries before commenting further.

[BrightAngel]

Thanks in advance for any consideration of these questions
- and I will read your summaries before commenting further.

KCCC, I look forward to your future comments.

1) How does Taubes' work differ from the usual low-carb diets?
From what I see, it's a re-hash of Atkins, drawing on more recent research,
but with much the same recommendations.

First, as you will see as your read the summaries, this is not really a "diet" book,
but is rather, a book about dieting.

Taubes work, Good Calories Bad Calories (2007) is unique
in that he is a respected science journalist,
highly eductated in scientific matters, who exhaustively researched
and cited two centuries worth of research in nutrition.

As a result of this study, he came to the conclusion
that none of those recommendations is supported by science
because the fundamental theory on which they're based is wrong.

Why We Get Fat (2011) is an updated summary of that earlier work,
much quicker and easier to read, with some significant points clarified.

2) As a more-personal corollary, what attracted YOU to his work?
I'm assuming that with your diet-hobby background that low-carb ideas are not new to you.
What made this particular iteration catch your notice?

First, in all of my years of personal experimentation,
I have never found a way-of-eating that I can live comfortably with forever,
which will also allow me to maintain at "normal" weight.
Part of my dieting hobby is a search to see if such a thing exists.
Also, in that hobby, I simply enjoy reading
a great many diet books and books about dieting.

As a part of this I'd previously read the "biggies" in the low-carb world,
like Atkins, and Protein Power, and a few others,
but was never impressed with the idea of low-carb.

In fact, I've always been rather anti-low-carb.
Many, many years ago while still morbidly obese,
for a couple of weeks I experimented with the Atkins diet,
didn't like it and decided low-carb was not for me.

In my DietHobby reading, I kept coming across references to Taubes' work in GCBC,
and I was very impressed by the compliments he received from some of
my own personal calorie-counting, low-fat heros.
Across the board, they said Taubes' has done incredible work,
thorough research, the book is well worth reading, etc. etc.
however, that said, it didn't mean that they agreed with his conclusions.
This intrigued me. So, of course I got the book and read it.

Although I have a doctorate in law, and extensive experience with legal research,
my medical knowledge is average, and I had a difficult time following
the lengthy, dense, heavily annotated book that is filled with medical terminology.
Taubes wrote it directed to medical and science professionals
while saying that he didn't want to ask any of them to take his theories on faith.

Even though there was much in the book that I didn't understand,
Taubes' concepts and research were enlightening to me.
At the my first reading, I didn't agree with his conclusions either.
However, over the next several years, his ideas would occur to me
as I dealt with my own body's failure to fall in line with the "conventional wisdom".
Then I would out get that massive book and struggle through it again,
reconsidering, and wondering if and how those concepts might apply to me personally.

I ran across some University lectures Taubes' gave at prestigious medical schools,
and watched them on YouTube.
As I became more impressed,
AND the normal "scientific rules" in which I had always believed continued to fail...
.........No matter what traditional techniques I tried,
i.e. My cravings became worse, and I became more hungry
while my weight began creeping up,
despite drops in my carefully monitered food intake,
and a clear bill of health from my health professionals.

This led me to decide to do my best to completely invesigate low-carb.
So late last spring through the summer, I read 30 or so low-carb diet
books, including some newer ones I hadn't bothered with,
and some old ones I'd missed previously.

I re-read GCBC and I thought some more.
I tried out low-carb eating for a week or so, two or three times.
I pre-ordered Taubes new book, hoping that it would simplify and clarify
the issues for me.
It convinced me enough to cause me to personally commit
to a longer-term low-carb experiment...
which I am now 30 days into.

In Taubes new book, I was especially struck by the connection
he made about how all calorie restriction results in reducing carbs,
and how applicable that was to my own dieting history.

Things I'll be looking for as I read:
- Does he look at ALL the new research,
or only that which supports his position?

Remember, you will only be reading MY summary of HIS summary.
The major details of his underlying research is contained in his prior book.

- Does he fall into the usual nutrition-advice trap,
which is the logical fallacy of going to extremes.
( Think about the research on vitamins, for example. "
If none of X causes disease, lets eat LOTS of X for health...
oh, wait, lots of X causes its own problems.")

Taubes has drawn personal conclusions from his research,
and as he shares those with the reader, he also shares his basis for those conclusions.

- Does he violate what I think of as the "Einstein rule"
(from a quote by Einstein that said "Everything should be as simple as possible,
but no simpler" [italics added]). This goes along with the "extremes" above.
Nutrition is complex, and involves multiple factors,
many of which we are only beginning to discover.
Does he over-simplify?

Yes, I believe he follows the "Einstein rule". In fact that is something Taubes quotes, and (I think) clearly believes.
Considering its purpose, I don't think he over-simplifies in WWGF.(2011)
Certainly, one could not say that he does in GCBC. (2007)

- How directly are his recommendations supported by the research he cites?

Taubes is not adament about specific individual recommendations,
and what he does recommend appears to be sound.

One of Taubes' book reviewers said it well:

For a lay audience, this book is as good as it gets,
if you want to read actual science about health and nutrition.

If you're of scientific or technical bent, read Good Calories Bad Calories first,
then give Why We Get Fat to your parents

[BrightAngel]

Note:
I just finished listening to the 1/27/11
Gary Taubes interview on Jimmy Moore’s LLVLC show.
It is a rare, candid interview with Gary Taubes discussing this book,
Why We Get Fat.

http://www.thelivinlowcarbshow.com/shownotes/

This is Part 1 of a section two-part episode (#439)
where Gary talks about the process of writing a book
like the 2007 New York Times bestseller Good Calories, Bad Calories

and contains a direct response from Gary to those who question his integrity.

Part 2 is scheduled for tomorrow, 1/28/11.

[Kathleen]

Hi BrightAngel,
I just finished listening to Part I and will have to wait until Monday before I listen to Part II. It was good to get the summary that insulin regulates fat and carbohydrates regulate insulin. I'm wondering if the reason why I don't feel hungry when I fast is the lack of carbohydrate intake. You've put much more into undetstanding Taube's concepts, but what do you think? Can fasting even for a short time work like carbohydrate restriction works?
Kathleen

[BrightAngel]

I just finished listening to Part I
and will have to wait until Monday before I listen to Part II.

It was good to get the summary that insulin regulates fat and carbohydrates regulate insulin.

I'm wondering if the reason why I don't feel hungry when I fast
is the lack of carbohydrate intake.

You've put much more into undetstanding Taube's concepts,
but what do you think?
Can fasting even for a short time work like carbohydrate restriction works?

You wonder if the reason why you don't feel hungry when you fast
is the lack of carbohydrate intake.

My answer is: Probably not when you only fast for 24 hours.......,
because it takes several consecutive days for the body to adjust to carbohydrate restriction.

Your other question is whether fasting for a short time will work like carbohydrate restriction.

My answer is yes....because during a period when you are eating nothing,
you are also restricting carbohydrates.

Taubes makes it clear that there is no dispute between experts
that insulin is the primary regulator of the storage and release of fat.
Nor is there any dispute that carbohydrates raise insulin levels,
and the absence of carbohydrates lowers insulin levels.
These appear to be well-accepted medical facts.

Although Brad Pilon, writer of the e-book, Eat Stop Eat, lacks the extreme
intelligence, knowledge, experience and education of Gary Taubes,
his simple book is probably the best around on Intermittent Fasting.

Pilon's limited education in nutrition was based on the "conventional wisdom",
and he knows and understands little or nothing of Taubes' Concepts,
however, since the insulin issue is universally accepted,
I think that what Pilon says about insulin and 24 hr fasting has merit.

Pilon says that

"fasting for as little as 24 hours has been shown
to drastically reduce your insulin levels.
This is especially important because in order to burn body fat,
insulin levels must be very low...:

He relates that

"in research contucted on people who fasted for 72 hours,
insulin levels dropped dramatically,
reaching a level that was less than half of its initial levels
....70 percent of this reduction happened during the first 24 hours of fasting."

However, I think that Pilon's personal conclusion is wrong, when he says

"a 24 hr fast has a more dramatic effect on reducing insulin than all of the insulin based diets
like low carb,or frequent meal timeing could ever hope to have.
If you actually want to bring your insulin levels down, the best tool you have is short term fasting."

because it is not based on any research information,
but is merely his uninformed opinion based on the "conventional wisdom",

I know from my own study of Pilon's work
that he knows almost nothing about low-carb diets;
that he isn't familiar with Taubes' concepts;
and although he may have seen or even browsed through Good Calories Bad Calories.
he hasn't really read it, or read this new book by Taubes.

What appears to be true is that not eating at all,
OR not eating carbohydrates reduces insulin levels in the body.

Of course this makes sense because when you are eating nothing,
you are not eating carbohydrates,
therefore your insulin would be reduced. Even if your diet is very very low-carb,
it would contain more carbohydrates than when you were eating zero food,
so during fasting periods, your insulin would be lower.

However, with intermittent fasting...unless it is accompanied by low-carb eating...
during the majority of the time, one would be eating carbohydrates "normally",
which would raise insulin in the body.

Even if one fasted 24 hours for 3 days a week, and ate carbs on 4 days a week,
their insulin average would be higher than in someone
who didn't fast, but ate very low-carb all of the time.

Then, there is the insulin resistence issue,
where some people have such a high amount of insulin circulating all of the time,
that a drop from 24 hours of fasting might still not bring it back down to a normal level.

So, what I'm saying is that yes, it appears that fasting
will reduce insulin levels during the fasting period,
but this might not be effective for some because
it might not be enough of an offset
to accomplish much fat release from storage.

Also, the more severe one's fat regulation problem is,
the longer time of eating low-carb it may take to get it to re-regulate itself.
This would mean that 24 hours of fasting once or twice a week,
and eating carbs the rest of the time,
would probably accomplish very little to re-regulate the body.

For those who are extremely insulin resistent,
intermittment fasting...when combined with a consistent low-carb diet...
might be especially effective for those people who simply can't drop weight by low-carb alone.

During the period when you are eating nothing, you are starving your body.
Therefore, you will take in no carbohydrates and no calories during that time.
Starving and semi-starvation will cause weight-loss. ...if you do it enough.

[Kathleen]

BrightAngel,
Very interesting. I am going to experiment with intermittent fasting and no carb restriction other than no sweets except on Sundays and two Exception Days and see where that gets me. I'll start chapter by chapter on the book beginning Monday.
Kathleen
PS. My meal at Ruby Tuesday was Parmesan chicken pasta with 1,418 calories, 77 grams fat, 7 fiber, 8 protein, and 104 net carbohydrates. I have no means of judging the numbers other than 1,418 calories. I'll be looking at your tracking charts.

[BrightAngel]

I'll start chapter by chapter on the book beginning Monday.

Kathleen,
I look forward to it.

[BrightAngel]

Any comments from any member
who has either read the book or the 19 chapter summary?

[Graham]

Yes, but I keep writing and then deleting. The mix of the impact of Taubes' ideas and my brief personal experience with trying to apply low-carb along with No S and IF in my disorderly life is creating turbulent thoughts and contradictions.

Part of my reaction goes like this - "If what Taubes says is correct, then I and many others have been steered away from sounder dietary practices by those who ought to have known and behaved better." This would be putting it mildly. If millions have followed doomed dietary approaches for lack of sound advice, some even dying needlessly early because of it - why wouldn't I be angry? I don't know who the guilty parties are, who should have known, who should know now - but now it exists, Taubes' work must be taken seriously as it's implications are massive.

For me personally, Taubes' work as summarised here and explained by him on recorded lectures and interviews I've heard gives me a new way to understand my own difficulties with weight-loss and to plan a way ahead. I'm one of the people for whom vanilla No S hasn't been a solution - I've had to add intermittent fasting to make any headway and I'm wondering now if low-carbing mightn't be a more comfortable and effective way to address my weight/waist issues.

Trying to figure out what an S day is or should be in the context of a low carb approach is a new challenge. S days have been a problem for me all the way through anyway. For them to fulfil their proclaimed "safety valve" function I've had to feel free to eat as I felt inclined, and the loosening of N-day discipline has led to me regaining in 2 days much of what took 5 days discipline to shed.

One area I'm curious about, does Taubes cover, in any of his writings, the mental and emotional impact of carbohydrate assimilation problems? It seems to me that in my own life a certain quality of unsteadiness in feeling and purpose might be attributable to the lifelong highs and lows in blood sugar attributable to mishandled carbs, with the added complication of caffeine and, for many years, nicotine, added to the mix.

Another question - how many of the food supplements I've valued over the years served me by counteracting carb-issues? How much better off might I have been if I had identified and removed the source of the problem rather than spending so much time and money on palliatives?

Enough comments to be going on with for now. Thanks BrightAngel for bringing Taubes work to my attention.

[connorcream]

Gosh yes. My head is spinning from yesterdays lecture, listening to the two podcasts on WWGF, and talking with DH about plotting cals (x axis) (y axis) holding weight values constant.

Graham, if you wish to wade through my checkin, you can see my difficulties with Nos as well.

[Kevin]

And if you a person that tended towards fat storage ate a "normal" amount of food, that person would not have a "normal" amount of energy for day to day activities, because their body would be storing it as fat?

That does make an unfortunate sense.

...
and some bodies tend toward fat storage.
...

[Kathleen]

BrightAngel,

OK, I'm ready to step through the book. I went back to chapter 5 and thought that location of body fat might be a bit more important than I first thought. When I was single and about 132 or so, I had a 24" waist. I still have a bright blue silk skirt and matching top from back then hanging in my closet. If I were to drop to 132, would I be able to have a 24" waist again? Doubtful. Also, it was really annoying to get belts with dresses and have to pin them because the belts were so darn long. I'd have to pin them because they would wrap so far around. I didn't quite realize just how unusually small a waist I had.

Four kids and twenty years later, it's not a problem to have to pin belts on dresses! In fact, I don't much favor any clothing with belts because that waist is now 37".

Why was my waist so small? Was it just my weight? No. I wasn't particularly thin. Of course, the most obvious example of differences in fat distribution in women is in the size of the breast.

I would say that there has to be a genetic component to all of this. It's not just calories in and calories out. It's not just exercise. It's not even just age.

It's also not just the unusual cases cited in Taubes' book.

I am going to go through this book very thoroughly, and I'll start tomorrow with my thoughts on Chapter 6.

Kathleen

[TexArk]

I have to chime in here to say that any skeptics should read Good Calories Bad Calories first. Taubes lays it all out, even though it is difficult to plow through. He doesn't prescribe a diet, but explains why we get fat. You cannot help but put together your own personal plan if you believe his thesis. I almost wish he had not put in the sample diet at the end of his new book, because people wanting a short cut just say, "Oh, it is just the Adkins diet." I am an intelligent person who through a lifetime of battling weight issues has never followed a crash, fad diet, or the latest "magazine" diet. I have applied the "conventional wisdom" for over 40 years. Like Bright Angel, I am an over 60 female who was finding it harder and harder to keep weight off without gritting my teeth and holding tight. When I understood the insulin carb theory and began to try out a low carb approach, I finally became free of cravings and hunger. I don't want to discourage anyone from trying NoS, but the S days just did not ever settle down for me. I tried for 2 years! I would undo my N Days and gradually gained lots of weight. Now I have abstained from grains and sugar for a month and I am amazed. I have absolutely no desire to eat all those foods I saved and waited to savor on S Days. I am not saying that I am abstaining for life. But I will say that I have no desire to eat these and am feeling great, eating good food, all while losing weight. I don't really see any reason to add sugar and wheat back. I may experiment after I have lost my weight, but I will need a good reason.

[Kathleen]

Chapter 6: Thermodynamics for Dummies, Part I

page 75: Why do we overeat?

This is the heart of the matter for me.

Those portion control diets answer the question: How do we stop overeating? They don't answer why we overeat in the first place.

My father has preached at me countless times: "You cannot deny the First Law of Thermodynamics." True. I wasn't denying it, and Taubes isn't denying it. He's just saying that it's not helpful.

I suppose at one point people figured out how much they ate affected how much they weighed but that would have occurred a long time ago!

Taubes seems to be doing a set up here: setting up to explain why we overeat so that a better way to lose weight than calorie counting can be found.

Kathleen

[Kathleen]

TexArk,
I think that we older females are finding that vanilla No S doesn't work for us. I love that Reinhard welcomes us to figure out what does and write about it here. What I have found, in observing one sister in law in particular, is that you can reduce carbs for a period of time but it gets harder and harder. Long term weight loss with an Atkins type approach is not great. Take a look at Gina Kolata's book [u]Rethinking Thin[/u].
Kathleen

[Graham]

TexArk,
I think that we older females are finding that vanilla No S doesn't work for us.

It's not just older females - vanilla No S didn't work for me either.

What I have found, in observing one sister in law in particular, is that you can reduce carbs for a period of time but it gets harder and harder. Long term weight loss with an Atkins type approach is not great.
Kathleen

This sounds unduly pessimistic to me. I've just spent hours trawling the net for low-carb recipes/resources/book recommendations and came across some things to lift me out of despair: one was a reminder about the Inuit diets - they were living carb free for virtually their whole lives. I'm wondering what is the hard part of long-term low-carbing for your sister-in-law - Is it perhaps low-carbing surrounded by a world that isn't low-carb? Constantly seeing stuff you can't have that everybody else can have?

There seems to be some thought necessary for long-term low-carbing, to have enough variety in the diet, using different foods to recreate familiar pleasures in a low-carb way - but if the Eskimos can live happily low-carb, why can't we?

Post Script: TexArk, what you wrote today anticipates where my own thinking is taking me, after another weekend of weight regain and despair, you are restoring my hope.

[Kathleen]

Graham,
I think it is environment. We have a lot more options of what to eat.
Kathleen

[TexArk]

Kathleen,

Why do you think it was "harder and harder" for your sister in law to reduce carbs after a period of time? I really cannot see why sugar and flour are necessary for health and well being. What about her vegetable and fruit consumption? Do you know what her average carb grams were? I think it would be harder for me to try to have "just a little" sugar and continue a reduced carb diet. I am convinced that the sugar derailed my S Days and would likely derail my reduced carb program as well. That is why I probably will have to be an abstainer.

[Kathleen]

TexArk,

I don't talk much with my sister in law if I can help it because she has berated me in front of my kids about how poorly behaved my kids are and how terrible it is that I can't manage a full time job. What I can say is I never tasted anything as terrible as her low-carb cheesecake, and the reason for that I think is that real cheesecake is one of my favorite foods. There was no way I was going to try low carb. I did, in actual fact, try it back when I was in high school or college but then it was known as The Scarsedale Diet.

My own prejudice against it is that I think the body has some inherent wisdom. Once, when my youngest was still a toddler, she found a bottle in the van and had a taste. She immediately decided against continuing to drink the old milk.

I told her that story just a few days ago because she had some Kraft American cheese product. I usually won't buy cheese product but needed American cheese as my contribution to ski club and that was the only type of American cheese that Costco had. Since it was a name brand, I figured it would be OK. I ended up throwing all four pounds in the garbage and going to another store to buy real American cheese. Why? Because both my younger two daughters had it and said it was terrible.

I want them to learn to respect their bodies. Of course, my daughter asked me why she shouldn't have sweets if she wanted them. I told her that I don't want her to eat what she doesn't want but she may need to not eat what she does want.

The premise behind low carb is that you need to eat what you don't want. No thanks. I don't want to live that way and don't want my children to live that way and don't want that philosophy to carry over into other parts of their life. For example, I tell them that they must volunteer but it is up to them to choose what to do in volunteering. Now that I'm home, I'm volunteering several days per week reading with the first graders. My sixth grader volunteers in the nursery, my daughter just played the oboe for Christmas Mass, my son volunteers through Boy Scouts... They all have their talents and interests.

I think it's critically important to find a way to allow yourself to eat whatever you want at least on occasion, and I've found restriction of sweets to Sunday is working for me now that I've added intermittent fasting to the basic premise of No S which is that restriction should mostly be about when you eat and not what you eat or how much.

Kathleen

[vmsurbat]

TexArk,
I think that we older females are finding that vanilla No S doesn't work for us. I love that Reinhard welcomes us to figure out what does and write about it here.
Kathleen

I think this may be true for many older females, but I've successfully lost my weight enjoyably as a post-50, hypothyroid issues female following vanilla NoS. I may not have lost as quickly as others, but I have lost 40 lbs and continue to lose weight (on the order of .5-1lb/month).....

I do ABSOLUTELY agree that NoS provides the ideal platform for "figuring out what does work" for each of us.... With its limiting inputs via 3 (or other preset number) of meals daily, NoS makes it easy to adapt our choice of foods optimally for ourselves and our families.

I've read all of Bright Angel's summaries and other articles on the webs, but will record my thoughts and questions in another post.

[TexArk]

TexArk,



The premise behind low carb is that you need to eat what you don't want.



Kathleen

I strongly disagree that this is the premise behind a restricted carbohydrate diet. I would never eat yucky, fake food and something I did not want, and that is not the low carb way of eating as I understand it. Your sister in law must have had some foul tasting food going on. And, if I could handle sweets once a week I would do that also. I just have not been able to do that without setting off cravings.

[Graham]

The premise behind low carb is that you need to eat what you don't want. No thanks.

If I thought that was what low-carbing meant, I wouldn't want to do it either. I see your sister-in-law also doesn't add to the appeal of the low-carb approach.

Seriously though - If I have sausage and eggs for breakfast, how is that "eating what I don't want"? I am experimenting to find substitutes for problem foods like bread or potatoes, and especially sugar - so the issue isn't eating what I don't want, but not eating some things that I do want. It isn't convenient to do, but I also wanted cigarettes for a long time - you wouldn't be suggesting I should have gone on smoking would you?

I think refined carbs can be addictive, and for some people they are problematic. If they are a problem, then the addictiveness makes dropping them an effort, but hopefully not forever. If low-carbing leads to sustainable weight/waist loss, I certainly want to give it a try. The promise of a way to reduce weight whilst maintaining good energy levels is of particular interest to me.

[BrightAngel]

Hi Guys,
I spent yesterday dealing with a family emergency,
and it was such a pleasure to return here this morning
to find the informed and thoughtful comments
of those who've entered this discussion.
Please continue posting your comments in this discussion.
I plan to add some responsive comments later today.

[Kathleen]

Graham,
I had to laugh about what you said with my sister in law and low carb. Yes, I see that some of the reason for not liking the idea of low carb might have to do with not liking a sister in law to take it upon herself to spank my child for misbehaving when I was in her house at the time! Or for accusing her of breaking a speaker! Or for mocking me for being concerned that the kids were outside in the snow at night. Maybe I should be more open to low carb... Sausage and eggs don't seem too bad, but fake cardboard candy... ugh!!! vmsurbat, it's great to hear that vanilla No S did work for you. It didn't for me, and I gave it a full year after I got adjusted to the idea. However, I never did restrict portions even to one plateful, so it's really not appropriate for me to say it didn't work for me. I guess it's more appropriate to say my modification didn't work for me, so I'm trying another one.
Kathleen

BrightAngel,
I see from your thread that things are looking up with regard to your family emergency, and I'm glad.

[kccc]

I did read the summaries this weekend, and have some thoughts... but don't have time to post now.

Later.

[kccc]

Okay... some random thoughts...

First, I'm really glad I read through all the summaries. I was initially quite put off by the diet recommendations at the end. As someone said, it leads people to think "this is just a re-hash of old low-carb diets" and that's exactly what I thought.

Here are the premises that I find quite reasonable, and compatible with the prior research that I've read and with my own experience/observations:
1) A calorie is not a calorie (more on that later)
2) People process food differently. We have different genetic tendencies.
3) Refined carbs are an evolutionarily-recent development, and rarely found in nature.
4) The body has an intricate mechanism for regulating weight. Once thrown off, that mechanism may try to regulate inappropriately. (That is, holding on to fat in an unhealthy way.)

Here are the premises I question:
1) Meat-based diets are good.
2) All carbohydrates are created equal (I don't think he actually says this, and I may be doing him a disservice in inferring it. But from what I've read - not just from BA's excellent summaries, but other sources, it's not an unreasonable inference. I truly believe that there are MAJOR differences in how the body reacts to complex carbs, refined carbs... and perhaps even refined-carbs-with-chemicals-added.)

I think both the above statements represent fallacies in thinking, or inappropriate extrapolations of data. And I found a very nice critique of Taubes's work that echoes those same concerns, written by someone who does have scientific training as well as an interest in nutrition. Though she is very complimentary about his synthesis and the quality of his review of research, she questions his conclusions. I agree with what she wrote 100%, so will point you to her article and just pull out a few items to comment on more.

http://summertomato.com/book-review-goo ... -calories/

Some excerpts, with bold added.

...But although there are few sources you can trust, some books do stand out as valuable for understanding the basics of health and nutrition. Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes is by far the most thorough I’ve found, and is essential reading for anyone who has an honest desire or need to understand how diet impacts health.

Taubes makes a detailed and compelling case that refined carbohydrates are the primary cause of weight gain and “diseases of civilization†such as heart disease, hypertension and diabetes. In my view, any honest and opened-minded scientist would have to largely agree with him.
...

...The logical conclusion from his analysis is that all calories are not created equal, despite what we are told daily by the nutrition community and the media. Understanding the logic behind this argument can fundamentally change the way you approach food and is the best reason to read Good Calories, Bad Calories.

...
Another reason I resist recommending this book as nutrition advice is that it doesn’t offer much in the way of actual advice. Taubes certainly provides compelling evidence that carbohydrates are best avoided and that dietary fat is safer than presumed, but how much of this knowledge can be translated directly to daily life isn’t clear. For practical advice, I prefer Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food (based largely on the same data).

Scientifically I also have a few issues with Good Calories, Bad Calories. First, the vast majority of the experiments Taubes cites are early diet studies, many from the turn of the century. While these experiments are clearly important, most of them do not reflect long-term (more than 6 months), real life dietary habits. These studies were also almost entirely dependent upon self-reported dietary intake, which is known to be quite inaccurate.

...
My final issue with the book is how the data was presented to seemingly support a diet of almost entirely meat and animal products. While Taubes does not come out directly and say “the healthiest diet is 100% meat,†people without a knack for thinking like a scientist can easily come away with this impression (I’ve seen it).

...
My own interpretation of the data presented in this book, however, is not that all carbohydrates are the enemy, but rather that quickly digesting (processed) carbs are the real problem. Taubes never refutes this as far as I could tell, though he does glorify meat-based diets (again remember the Inuit) as the best for optimal nutrition, while belittling the case for a balanced diet. But there is an important difference between saying “meat is good†and “all plants are bad,†which he never directly asserts.

Things I wonder about...
1) The diet he recommends allows artificial sweeteners. Does he look at any the research around them? I gave them up because I became convinced that on a biological level, they were very bad for the body... confusing that intricate mechanism for weight regulation. (And I have the same concerns about a lot of stuff added to heavily processed foods, which is why I try to avoid them. Whether my hypothesis is generally correct or not, I know it makes a difference to ME.)

2) Based on my own experience, I wonder if there are not multiple intervention points in the processes he talks about. Again, for ME, exercise made a critical difference in initially maintaining weight loss. If I don't exercise, I become sluggish. If I do exercise, initially it is draining... but if I stick to it, I get energy from it and feel bad when I miss it. It's like my body makes a shift of some kind, once I get over the initial adjustment.

3) I admit that I'm now curious about my own carb consumption, and may check it. During the week, I tend to do the "plate divisions" mod - one half fruits/veg, one fourth protein, one fourth carbs (preferably complex). I almost never have "two breads" at a meal. I'm now wondering if No-S has also led to low-carb for me, and I never cared enough to notice.

The same author I quoted above also has an article on "breaking sugar addiction" (today's article, which caught my eye, and serindipitously led to the GCBC review). Some items there also resonated:

http://summertomato.com/how-to-break-a- ... eedfetcher

Cravings exist in both the body and the mind, and you will have the best luck overcoming them if you address both simultaneously.

The first step is good nutrition. A nourished body is a happy body, and permanently kicking a sugar habit requires healthy food.

...Healthy eating will not squelch cravings overnight, but it is essential for permanently cutting sugar because it ensures your body has everything it needs. Once your muscles and organs are taken care of, you can address the cravings in your brain.

I'm struck by how much No-S "gets right" just from the basic vanilla structure - cutting sweets cuts a lot of refined carbs, limiting eating to mealtime allows your insulin levels to drop, etc. But I am wondering if the people who've been most successful in the long run are those who also attend to WHAT they eat.

(Whew! That was long. And took too much time... )

[ChubbyBaby]

I just started listening to the book CD of "Why We Get Fat" and I have read BrightAngels summary. This is a fascinating discussion and I hope you don't mind if I pop in once in awhile.

I hope that this doesn't divert from the book discussion, but I just wanted to comment on possible reasons why people can't stick to a low carb diet, since it was being discussed. I've eaten low carb for 15 years and recently "fell off the wagon" myself. I believe the reason that I couldn't eat low carb anymore was twofold: boredom and over-restriction. Boredom because I fell into the trap of eating the same thing, day in and day out...intelligent dietary defaults to the extreme. Over-restriction because I never allowed myself to expand the types of carbs I was eating. The version of the Atkins diet that I was following only allowed me to add different types of carbs as I added more carbs back into my diet. Since I wasn't losing weight very quickly I didn't add more carbs back, so the types of carbs I ate continued to be very limited...basically vegetables. It was bad enough knowing that I could never eat cake or chips or icecream, but I just couldn't handle the thought of never being allowed to eat "good" foods like fruit or oatmeal or bread or yogurt. It just became too cruel.

I also think that a person need to be properly motivated to stick to a low carb diet. Personally, I need a very strong, compelling reason to make it sustainable. I need burn it into my brain that I need to eat low carb because of health reasons. Don't get me wrong, I need to lose weight too, but sometimes it's too easy for me to blow that reason off when faced with the choice between a bag of chips, or a good day on the scale. It's not so easy to blow it off when I know that indulging in bags of chips will mean developing diabetes. It's my own personal scare tactic.

Even though I've struggled with sustaining a low carb diet I cannot abandon it. I've decided to go back to low-carb eating along with following the S Diet rules, but this time I am making an effort to expand my dietary choices. I recently bought several new low-carb cookbooks and am trying to come up with several new intelligent dietary defaults. I've also switched to Protein Power which doesn't restrict the types of carbs I can eat, only the amount. So far it's going well.

[BrightAngel]

I see some more great comments here.
Family issues are taking more time than usual right now,
but as soon as possible, I'll add some thoughts to the discussion.
Meanwhile, thanks for everyone's input.

[Kathleen]

Chapter 7: Thermodynamics for Dummies, Part II

The basic idea here is that caloric restriction leads to energy conservation. That certainly has been true for me in the past: When I'd diet, I'd be less energetic and grumpy! What's interesting is that, for some reason, this does not apply to fasting, at least the short term fasting I'm doing now.

I totally agree with Taube's view that it's not a matter of calories in/calories out because we can't gauge calories out very well. If we decided to exercise, we would balance out the exercise with more sedentary behavior when we are not exercising.

Kathleen

[Kathleen]

Chapter 8: Head Cases

I did think weight was a matter of willpower because I managed to stay reasonably thin from after college until I got pregnant for the first time at age 35 and gained 60 pounds! My appetite was insatiable, and I had to wonder if it wasn't from all those years of dieting.

Now I think of the very obese people I know who are some of the most giving and caring people I know. Three in particular stand out for me: the woman who runs the church's youth group and the husband and wife who run the Scout troop even though their only child, a son, is now in college. These people have full time jobs and yet also give of themselves to help others. There is no way these people are slothful or selfish.

What I have come to believe is that the obese tend to be naive and trust in authority and follow what the authorities say is the right way to do things and that way is wrong. The current philosophy for weight control is frequent eating with portion control. I just saw in the last few days a recommendation to eat at least every four hours so that you aren't ravenous. Ravenous? Really? I have now had an adjustment to fasting that makes it easy to not eat for 24 hours. I did believe that you would be in trouble if you didn't eat frequently, and the adjustment to No S was traumatic.

So here's my theory: we've bought into a bunch of lies, and those of us who are obese were naive enough to follow the advice and it led straight to obesity. Now I'm doing the opposite of conventional wisdom: infrequent meals with no portion control -- none at all. It's easy to wait several hours to eat if you know you can eat as much as you want when you do eat.

[BrightAngel]

My Summary of Chapter 8 - Head case is at the bottom of page 1 of this Thread.

Taubes' position is that the CAUSE of obesity is in the BODY,
but in the 1960s, it became the conventional wisdom that the CAUSE of obesity is in the MIND.

By the 1970s Behavioral Medicine emerged to treat people with "behavioral therapies",
and that today, most of the leading authorities on obesity are psychologists and psychiatrists...
which are people with expertise in the ways of the MIND not the BODY.

Taubes says

"So long as we believe that people get fat because they overeat,
because they take in more calories than they expend,
we’re putting the ultimate blame on a mental state, a weakness of character,
and we’re leaving human biology out of the equation entirely.â€

What I have come to believe is that the obese tend to be naive and trust in authority
and follow what the authorities say is the right way to do things and that way is wrong.

My own belief is completely different.
I've spent my lifetime being one of the obese, and I was far from naive,
and my own particular mindset has always been to have little or no trust for Authority.

I don't think those personal characteristics distinguish the obese from those who are "normal weight".
There are too many of both categories in each type for this to be true.

The current philosophy for weight control is frequent eating with portion control.

I just saw in the last few days a recommendation to eat at least every four hours
so that you aren't ravenous. Ravenous? Really?
I have now had an adjustment to fasting that makes it easy to not eat for 24 hours.
I did believe that you would be in trouble if you didn't eat frequently,
and the adjustment to No S was traumatic.

Now I'm doing the opposite of conventional wisdom:
infrequent meals with no portion control -- none at all.
It's easy to wait several hours to eat if you know
you can eat as much as you want when you do eat.

I think you are misinterpeting what Taubes means by "conventional wisdom".
Conventional wisdom ...as defined by Taubes... is the BELIEF
That obesity is caused by a mental state, a weakness of character,
instead of by a physical problem of the body.

What comes from following the Conventional BELIEF is...
That obesity will be cured when the obese get their minds right,
and to fix their defective minds ...

the obese need to work through their mental problems,
develop more emotional maturity,
and learn new behavioral techniques that will result in eating less and moving more,
and that THIS will turn them into "normal" people.
What is commonly accepted as the appropriate Meal size or the
appropriate Meal timing (and fasting is an issue of meal-timing)
are merely "sub-sets" of the above-quoted basic conventional wisdom.
These are simply differences in behavioral techniques of eating, (issues of the mind)
not a difference in the Basic Philosophy as stated by Taubes.

Sometimes it can be a difficult distinction,
because our bodies and our minds are always both involved when we eat or move.
However, Taubes' issue is NOT HOW MUCH or HOW OFTEN we eat...
which are behavioral..involving primarily the MIND.

His issue is WHAT we eat....which is physical...involving primarily the BODY.
What we eat involves how a physical food substance reacts chemically inside the body.

Note that Behavioral techniques..including fasting...can still be valuable mental tools,
even if the BODY is the primary problem, rather than the mind

So here's my theory: we've bought into a bunch of lies,
and those of us who are obese were naive enough to follow the advice
and it led straight to obesity.

I agree with this statement.
However, the problem here is......
We Still need to make certain we understand exactly what the "lies" are,
and be able to actually discern and distinguish what is true,
in order not to continue on in our naivity, and simply follow DIFFERENT incorrect advice into obesity.

[Kathleen]

BrightAngel,

I agree with your assessment of my assessment of the chapter! I agree with Taubes that it is inappropriate to judge obese people as either gluttons or sloths. That's why I cited examples from my own life of people who are about as unselfish and energetic as they come.

My current assessment is that the problem has to do with the body never feeling satisfied (portion control) and too frequent eating (meal-timing).

This is my acknowledged bias as I read the book.

Tabue's summarized Newburgh in this way: "Fat people are unwilling to make the effort, they lack the willpower, or they're simply unaware of what they should be doing."

I would agree with Newburgh that fat people don't know what they should be doing. I think fat people do make the effort, and I think fat people do have tremendous willpower. Several years ago, I worked with a woman who was on Weight Watchers for the third time to lose the same forty pounds. That takes tremendous willpower.

I am open to reading Taubes to understand what more he has to say, and I am listening to podcasts featuring him.

Kathleen

[kccc]

Some further thinking, excerpted from my personal thread...

I finally did read BA's summary of Taubes - plus some other online reviews - and commented on it.

My short form reaction:

Why We Get Fat (the research) - A+
What To Do About It (the recommendations) - C-

Debated on a D for the recommendations, but decided that the all-meat route probably does work for some people, if not for all (and certainly not for me!). However, I do think his reasoning doesn't "follow" logically from his evidence, so no better than a C. (I am not a scientist, but I do know a bit about statistics and I'm naturally logical... in fact, I made a perfect score on the logic section of the GRE when I took it back in the dark ages.)

Darya Pino of Summer Tomatoes IS a scientist, and identifies the logic gap better than I. I quoted her extensively in my post on the Taube's discussion thread...

The part of her critique that particularly struck me is that Michael Pollen (one of my nutritional heros) is working from the same data. Not really surprising, but nice to hear.

I do think attention to WHAT you eat will make a difference in the long run. And I've been an advocate of Michael Pollan for some time. Both Taubes and Pollan (and most nutritionists, lol!) advise cutting/eliminating simple carbs as much as possible.

I think No-S naturally helps with this goal, even though it doesn't prescribe particular foods at ALL and takes the perspective of just limiting excess. First of all, the prohibition against sweets on N-days is, for most people, a massive cut in consumption of refined carbs. "No snacks" also makes a noticeable dent - most snacks, if not sweets, tend to be carbs, and usually highly refined ones at that (there are exceptions, of course). Meals just tend to be "better food" for most people than snacks.

After that initial cut, it's an individual thing... but a LOT of people on the boards report becoming "pickier" about what they eat, looking for what will sustain them, etc.... and again, simple carbs tend to be replaced by more complex ones, there's a little more protein/fat in the meals. All in line with the insulin-control-thinking, even if we still eat our veggies. And a lot of us are good enough with that balance that an occasional dish of pasta just isn't a concern.
(Some are more cautious, and rightly so - the sort of health issues that connercream describes in her family, for example, require greater attention to "WHAT". There's a wide range of individual variation in operation here.)

[BrightAngel]

My current assessment is that the problem has to do with the body
never feeling satisfied (portion control) and too frequent eating (meal-timing).

This is my acknowledged bias as I read the book.

Being aware of a bias is a really good thing.

What you appear to ACTUALLY be saying is
that you agree with Taubes that the issue of obesity is not merely an issue of character;
and that somehow it involves more...
however, at this point, you do NOT agree with Taubes
that Obesity is caused by a defect in the body,
which involves its chemical reactions to the food substances eaten (WHAT you eat).

You are still in agreement with the Conventional Wisdom of calories-in/calories-out.
However, within the framework of that Conventional Wisdom,
you think that the behavioral technique of portion control--which is HOW MUCH you eat,
is not helpful to you...
maybe because of emotional (mind) or maybe because of physical (body) reasons,
and that the behavioral technique of meal-timing (fasting)
is helpful to you...
maybe because of emotional (mind) or maybe because of physical (body) reasons.
I'm still keeping an open mind on Taubes' concepts,
however, I can see how the Basic Cause of Obesity COULD BE
a variable defect in the Body involving hormones and the chemistry of food substances.
However, even if this is the case,
I also see how behavioral techniques...of the mind...including
both meal-amount and meal-timing could be still helpful.
I am not put off by the fact that these MIGHT be secondary,
to the basic Body issue of WHAT we eat.

It MIGHT be that meal-timing has a chemical effect on the body,
due to the insulin release issue.

It also MIGHT be that portion-control (calorie-restriction) has a chemical effect on the body,
because cutting out calories also results in less refined carbs equalling less insulin.

Taubes better deals with this issue in later chapters.

[BrightAngel]

I do think attention to WHAT you eat will make a difference in the long run.
And I've been an advocate of Michael Pollan for some time.
Both Taubes and Pollan (and most nutritionists, lol!)
advise cutting/eliminating simple carbs as much as possible.

I think No-S naturally helps with this goal,
even though it doesn't prescribe particular foods at ALL
and takes the perspective of just limiting excess.

First of all, the prohibition against sweets on N-days is, for most people,
a massive cut in consumption of refined carbs.
"No snacks" also makes a noticeable dent - most snacks, if not sweets,
tend to be carbs, and usually highly refined ones at that (there are exceptions, of course).
Meals just tend to be "better food" for most people than snacks.

After that initial cut, it's an individual thing...
but a LOT of people on the boards report becoming "pickier" about what they eat,
looking for what will sustain them, etc.... and again, simple carbs tend to be replaced by more complex ones,
there's a little more protein/fat in the meals.
All in line with the insulin-control-thinking, even if we still eat our veggies.
And a lot of us are good enough with that balance that an occasional dish of pasta just isn't a concern.
(Some are more cautious, and rightly so -
the sort of health issues that connercream describes in her family, for example,
require greater attention to "WHAT".
There's a wide range of individual variation in operation here.)

Exactly so. The reason I'm still here at No S...after 3 years...
and why I hope to refer people here from the new Website I'll soon be starting at DietHobby.com
is because I think it has some great concepts that can benefit everyone,
despite their individual body differences.

In Chapter 13 Taubes says a crucial point is that not all foods containing carbohydrates are equally fattening.
The most fattening foods are the ones with the greatest effect on our Blood Sugar.
He then discusses Blood Sugar issues, and refers to the Glycemic Index.
A main point Taubes reiterates...people have considerable genetic variations,
and these individual physical differences cause their bodies to handle food substances differently.
People with a natural tendency to be extremely lean
are different from "normal" people...who are different from heavy people,
who are different from morbidly obese people.

Taubes thinks at all of these types of people will be physically better off
by eating less sugar and refined carbs than is common in civilization...
...and most nutritional experts think the same thing.

That said, Taubes is very clear that some people are far less affected by these types of foods than others,
and that there are varying degrees of tolerance for carbs,
depending on how well each person's body regulates fat storage.

My observation this past 3 years is that this principle seems to hold true here at No S.
Some people do very well on vanilla No S, and some must make quite a few modifications.

It is not uncommon to see people here who simply never "get a handle" on bingeing during "S" days,
and those people usually leave, or they make extensive modifications to their No S plan.

I've seen the same thing when I've ventured onto low-carb forums.
There is an enormous variation between what they eat,
and how many grams of carbohydrates they can individually handle to lose or maintain weight-loss.

I've said again and again that each of us is an Experiment-of-One,
and I think this is yet another example.
Just because something works for me, doesn't mean it will work for everyone.
and...the reverse is also true.

[Kathleen]

Chapter 9: The Laws of Adiposity

p. 104 - 105: "Eating in moderation and being physically active...(are) he metabolic benefits of a body that's programmed to remain lean. If our fat tissue is regulated so that it will not store significant calories as fat, or our muscle tissue is regulated to take up more than its fair share of calories to use for fuel, then we'll eat less than those of use predisposed to be fat... or we'll be more physically active...or both, because of it."

This is a stretch, in my opinion. Taubes has said there must be some reason why people eat in moderation and are physically active naturally in order to be lean whereas others are not. I agree with that. I think that there is something that drives people to overeat that is not about character but rather is about a misunderstanding of what actions they can take to reduce their weight without feeling like they are starving all the time.

Taubes, in my view, seems to slip in his idea that the difference has to do with whether fat is floating around in the bloodstream or is in fat cells. Where are the experiments that show there is more fat floating around in the bloodstream of the rats?

Regardless, I would agree with Taubes that there is something physical that is occurring which drives some to overeat and others to eat in moderation. Personally, I think the worst thing you can do is use portion control as a solution to the problem since that solution exacerbates the underlying problem that the person feels hungry, incessant insatiable hunger.

Do I care what is the difference? Not really. I care if there is some way to eat less and not experience that incessant insatiable hunger. I'll follow his argument that there is a difference in the disposition of fat, but I don't buy that this is what makes one rat overeat and another not. The studies only look at remaining fat. If a very obese person gets no food for a period of time, I would think they could still die of starvation and still have fat on their body.

Of course, I listened to the podcast of the blogger who thought Taubes wasn't very scientific in his approach, so this has made me more skeptical as well.

Kathleen

[BrightAngel]

Do I care what is the difference? Not really.
I care if there is some way to eat less and not experience that incessant insatiable hunger.
I'll follow his argument that there is a difference in the disposition of fat,
but I don't buy that this is what makes one rat overeat and another not.
The studies only look at remaining fat. If a very obese person gets no food for a period of time, I would think they could still die of starvation and still have fat on their body.

It doesn't appear that you understood the experiment with rats, and
I don't really know how to respond to your comment,
other than to simply say that here, Taubes says the reason.....
...........WHY we overeat........
is due to a defect in the way our body regulates fat,
and that this physical defect,
makes us more hungry and also makes us less active.

He says that "gluttony and sloth" are only side-effects of the basic
physical problem.
He understands that people who become obese eat too much, and are sedentary,
but says this is BECAUSE of physical reasons...rather than emotional or character issues.

He says that people with this fat regulation problem are naturally more hungry and more tired
than the people who do not have this physical defect in fat regulation.
In Chapter 9, Taubes says…

“those who get fat do so because of the way their fat happens to be regulated
and that a…consequence of this regulation is...
the eating behavior (gluttony)
and the physical inactivity (sloth)
that we..assume are the actual causes.â€

[Kathleen]

BrightAngel,

I agree with him that people gluttony and sloth are the result of a problem of some sort and not the result of the character flaw of gluttony and sloth. Where I don't agree with him is in the theory that this is due to a problem with fat storage. I accept that this might be the case but don't think he's proven his case very well because he hasn't evaluated the amount of fat floating around in the bloodstream of fat and lean rodents. I am willing to conjecture he has the correct answer but just hasn't proven it to my satisfaction. A scientist I am not.

I do agree with his basic premise that cause and effect are reversed but am skeptical that he has proven what is the true cause.

Kathleen

[connorcream]

Another article explaining fat regulation.

http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/ ... ying%20fat

[connorcream]

The accuracy of how our bodies work is extremely important to me and my family. It has made weight loss and maintenance quite easy and it has helped with inflamation with various tissues in other family members. By keeping food and symptom journals, we have already identified food triggers, relieved nasal congestion, and acne has been reduced with the teenage son. Our son with the Crohn's is feeling better though too soon to tell. I expect 6-9 months to determine the long term damage.

The effect of carbs on ones overall health is so much more than just weight loss. I like the interview where Taubes was asked about lean men eating carbs. They tended to develop diabetes more readily than over weight women.

I cannot post as often as I would like, as I am involved with reading the papers and studies Taubes and others have used. I have another book coming to the house on this topic. As my time is limited, I focus it on discussions that promote healing for my family members.

There are detractors for any position, including Taubes. I have read some of them and am horrified by the lack of civility and reasoning both common sense and scientific. I think the limited positive value from them is to conduct ones own experiment. Sugar is an incredibly addictive substance. Something I underestimated in the past during maintenance. For some individuals, they can manage it with careful control (I am hoping to be one of these). For others, it really should be treated like alcohol and alcoholics. Only time will tell.

[BrightAngel]

BrightAngel,

I agree with him that people gluttony and sloth are the result of a problem of some sort and not the result of the character flaw of gluttony and sloth. Where I don't agree with him is in the theory that this is due to a problem with fat storage. I accept that this might be the case but don't think he's proven his case very well because he hasn't evaluated the amount of fat floating around in the bloodstream of fat and lean rodents. I am willing to conjecture he has the correct answer but just hasn't proven it to my satisfaction. A scientist I am not.

I do agree with his basic premise that cause and effect are reversed but am skeptical that he has proven what is the true cause.

Kathleen

Kathleen, I believe I know which detractors you are speaking of.
There are several negative psuedo-intellectuals active on the web
who...with no valid credentials....appear to be stalking Taubes for their own self-promotion.
I have had some brief contact with them on Taubes own blog,
and was personally appalled by their hostility and lack of knowledge about the subjects they claim an expertise in.
The attacks, of those specific people, on the scientifc expertise of Taubes is ridiculous.

I, also am no scientist...but I'm bright enought to spot rude and arrogant ignorance.
It seems obvious to me that the two personalities I'm thinking of are too stupid
even to realize that they ARE ignorant.
Knowledge can eliminate ignorance, but it can't fix stupidity.
I found my attempted communication to be a waste of my time,
so I'm not surprised that Taubes came to the same conclusion.

I think that a discussion of fat in the blood should take place
when we are discussing a chapter that deals more specifically with that issue,
because this actually involves the detailed way that the hormone insulin works in the body.

Until, and unless, one gains a better understanding of that chemical process,
one cannot understand the technical aspects well enough
to make any kind of informed judgment on the correctness of the concept.

[TexArk]

Here are 2 excerpts from the links connorcream shared that are quite clear. I am saving them to my thread, but thought some might find them instructive.

This quote is from Hyperlipid - a brilliant blogger from the UK who gets pretty deep into the science, but is worth the effort:

insulin, at levels way too low to do anything related to glucose, stops the release of fatty acids from fat tissue. So anything which raises insulin levels blocks fat break down. Carbohydrate raises insulin levels. Insulin blocks fat breakdown. Carbohydrate blocks fat breakdown. (Hyperlipid)

And this from an interview with Gary Taubes:

Are you saying that any diet will help you slim down if it cuts down on all carbs and includes only low glycemic carbs?

G.T.: The question is what is the dose of intervention you need to solve the problem? The effective intervention is restricting carbs and lowering insulin levels. For some people, only a mild dose of intervention is required and a low-fat, low-calorie diet will work as long as you get rid of the sugars (sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup) and the other high glycemic impact carbs. If you can tolerate the hunger on a low-fat, low-calorie program, you don’t need the Atkins Diet, which is not to say that it wouldn’t work better. However, the heavier you are or the more predisposed to be obese, the greater the dose you need. The functional intervention is always the same: lowering the quantity and/or improving the quality of carbs. Only the level of intervention changes.

[BrightAngel]

TexArk, Thanks for those excellent exerpts.

[Kathleen]

BrightAngel,

I am very aware of my ignorance! I haven't read the entire book, so I think I should wait to see what more proof he provides than what he provided by this point in the book. Also, I'm not entirely sure that it's just a matter of chemical or hormonal imbalance.

Here's where I definitely agree with him: The interesting question is why we would want to overeat in the first place.

Kathleen

[BrightAngel]

Here's where I definitely agree with him:
The interesting question is why we would want to overeat in the first place.

For me, the first step to wisdom is knowledge of my ignorance.
So you're doing good.

WHY we overeat is the question Taubes begins to answer in Chapter 9.

Taubes says that it isn't because we are gluttons and have no character.
He says that, due to genetic factors, people's bodies handle food differently,
and a larger portion of what those people eat goes directly to fat storage
even though it is needed to nurture muscles and other cells,
and this causes those people to be hungry...
even though they have eaten what should have been...a sufficient amount,
their bodies still need more.

He says it is their body's hunger that drives them to overeat,
so that it can get its necessary nutrients,
because their bodies store too much of what should be used.

He says THIS is what happens ....people overeat...BECAUSE
their bodies are not operating properly to regulate fat storage,
and he talks a great deal more about the way this happens in further chapters.

[Kathleen]

Chapter 10 A Historical Digression on Lipophilia

Here is the Astwood quote I think was most interesting: "Which of us would not be preoccupied with thoughts of food if we were suffering from internal starvation?"

Exactly.

Something is certainly amiss if we are obese and feel like we are starving. The overeating, the binge behavior -- I have concluded, at least, that this is not anything other than some sort of survival instinct, the same instinct that drove me to get to the surface of the water when my brother was holding me underwater in some sort of game.

Astwood is simply speculating on the cause of that voracious appetite as being a "minor derangement" in "the release of fat or its combustion."

From personal experience, I am 100% behind the theory that there is a physical cause, but I don't think Taubes has provided any evidence here for what that physical cause might be. He's just quoted someone who has speculated that it has to do with fat.

By the way, how is your low-carb experiment going?


Kathleen

[BrightAngel]

Something is certainly amiss if we are obese and feel like we are starving.
The overeating, the binge behavior -- I have concluded, at least,
that this is not anything other than some sort of survival instinct,
the same instinct that drove me to get to the surface of the water
when my brother was holding me underwater in some sort of game.

Astwood is simply speculating on the cause of that voracious appetite as being a "minor derangement" in "the release of fat or its combustion."

From personal experience, I am 100% behind the theory that there is a physical cause, but I don't think Taubes has provided any evidence here for what that physical cause might be. He's just quoted someone who has speculated that it has to do with fat.

By the way, how is your low-carb experiment going?

Your experience of hunger and belief that it is caused by your survival instinct,
appears to agree with the concepts that Taubes is presenting here.

I suggest that you pay close attention to what he says here.
Remember...to be obese means that our bodies have too much fat tissue.
This means our bodies are storing a lot of fat.

So, Taubes...in this, and in the following chapters...explains to us
the way that our bodies work to store and release fat,
.......and while doing that.......
he explains what he believes is causing the problem.

If you don't understand the basic way the body functions to make fat,
you can't understand Taubes' concepts.
We aren't scientists, nor do we have medical training, but Taubes
makes it simple enough to understand, if we pay attention.

Chapter by chapter Taubes presents and builds upon the research history
and the scientific principles that support his concepts.
In Chapter 10 Taubes talks about how before World War II,
the worlds best scientists who studied this area of the body,
believed that obesity was caused by the body's failure
to regulate fat correctly.

Bauer said that fat tissue in obesity is like malignant tumors….

“In those who are predisposed to grow obese,
fat tissue is driven to grow, to expand with fat,
and it will accomplish this goal, just as the tumor does,
with little concern about what the rest of the body might be doing.

The abnormal…fat loving…tissue seizes on food-stuffs,
even in the case of undernutrition…
It maintains its stock, and may increase it
independent of the requirements of the organism.
A sort of anarchy exists; the fat tissue lives for itself
and does not fit into the precisely regulated
management of the whole organismâ€

Astwood said that many enzymes and hormones
have been indentified that influence fat accumulation.
Some of those liberate fat, others put it there.

Ultimately, these competing regulatory forces
will determine the amount of fat to be stored in any single person
or at any single location on the human body.

He said, What if something went wrong it one of these regulatory processes?
Astwood said Suppose that the release of fat or its combustion
(burning for fuel) was somewhat impeded,
or that the deposition or synthesis of fat was promoted;
what would happen?
Then he says this would probably cause the body to be very hungry.

Again and again, I've been reading comments by intelligent people with scientific knowledge
which agree and restate the following review:

Taubes lays out his evidence, and his argument, with compelling precision.
You are not expected to take (nor should you take) anything he says on faith.
Very well written, and a very good balance of enough technical science to be informative,
but not so much that a reasonably attentive reader would get bogged down.

I am still working on my own personal experiment with low-carb,
and I don't have enough data to draw any conclusions yet.
All I have is some day-to-day feelings and variable results
which I find relatively meaningless at this point.
I can't make any valid personal judgments about its effectiveness
without having a lot more experience with it,
and this will require a great deal more time and patience.

[TexArk]

Here is the Astwood quote I think was most interesting: "Which of us would not be preoccupied with thoughts of food if we were suffering from internal starvation?"


Astwood is simply speculating on the cause of that voracious appetite as being a "minor derangement" in "the release of fat or its combustion."

From personal experience, I am 100% behind the theory that there is a physical cause, but I don't think Taubes has provided any evidence here for what that physical cause might be. He's just quoted someone who has speculated that it has to do with fat.


Kathleen

Kathleen, If you want more scientific evidence and documentation from Taubes please read Good Calories Bad Calories especially the chapter on The Carbohydrate Hypothesis. Here is a link from a diabetic online journal discussing this part of GCBC and the carbohydrate, insulin, hunger, weight gain issue.

http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c ... hungry/pf/

I am convinced from reading from many sources (not just Taubes) that there is indeed an insulin effect. The blood glucose youtube videos that connorcream shared are also great at explaining how your hunger is directly related to carbohydrate foods and insulin production.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RE4cXeX7Po&NR=1

Diabetics have known this for ages. And I know from my own personal experimentation that I do not crave or binge if I avoid carbohydrate overload.

[Kathleen]

TexArk,
Thanks for the recommendations. I actually took a full page of notes on the youtube video. I'm looking at this from the perspective of how fasting can help rather than how limiting carbs and help, and it's interesting that the woman in the video said, "When the body starts to predict you are going to have a carbohydrate, your blood sugar would start to rise." My weekly fast makes it so that my body cannot predict when I will have carbohydrates. To my surprise, I don't feel hungry when fasting and my sense of hunger has really dropped overall.

It's not like I'm restricting carbs, either. Last night's dinner was a slice of pizza and two cups of lemonade at the elementary school's Family Fun night. This morning's breakfast was two pancakes with butter and syrup at the local diner.

In fact, I've noticed that I seem to crave carbs more, although the reason might be that I'm reacting to all my reading about restricting carbs! I have noticed, however, something of an uptick in interest in having pop. At the ski lodge a week ago, I had root beer because that's what I wanted. Very odd.

I'm letting my body have whatever it wants so long as I follow my fasting rules and restrict sweets to Sunday and two Exception Days.

Kathleen

[Kathleen]

Chapter 11 A Primer on the Regulation of Fat

OK, I think I'm overdosing on reading about carbs and insulin because it is fascinating. This morning, on the way back from dropping a daughter off at the Science Museum for a class, I listened to a Tabues interview on my iPod. Then I got home and listened to the youtube video and read the diabetes article.

I'm somewhat overwhelmed by the science, so I will focus on what I can grasp from this chapter:

"The more time passes after a meal, the more fat you will burn and the less glucose." (p. 114)

"You secrete insulin primarily in response to the carbohydrates in your diet, and you do so primarily to keep blood sugar under control." (p. 118)

"If we can get our insulin levels to drop sufficiently low (the negative stimulus of insulin deficiency), we can burn our fat. If we can't we won't. When we secrete insulin, or if the level of insulin in our blood is abnormally elevated, we'll accumulate fat in the fat tissue." (p 125).

"Anything that makes us secrete more insulin than nature intended, or keeps insulin levels elevated for longer than nature intended, will extend the periods under which we store fat and shorten the periods when we burn it. " (p. 135).

My personal bias is that there is more to be learned from religious practices than scientific studies but scientific studies can shed light on the wisdom of religious practices. For that reason, I am thinking of the Greek Orthodox policies on when to fast and when not to fast, to the extent that (as I recall) you were excommunicating for fasting on Sundays and holy days!

Why am I thinking this? Because there is a mind game here with the body. The body secretes insulin in anticipation of getting carbohydrates. Constant fasting would mean there is predictability in when food will be eaten. With intermittent fasting, there is no predictability. What does the body do? The body must stay in a state of preparation for fasting not knowing whether or not there will be a fast. It may be that this will keep insulin levels low even after pizza or pancakes!

My father has a Ph.D. in Chemistry, my mother has a B.A. in Chemistry, and I barely got through high school chemistry. I took one science course in college and got a C in it.

I'm really not open to low carb but am intrigued by the possibility that intermittent fasting could produce a low carb effect without my having to restrict my diet to low carb foods.

Anyway, the argument looks pretty convincing to me despite my limited scientific aptitude.

Kathleen

[BrightAngel]

Kathleen I did a really, really long post in response to yours,
but then it was lost in posting, and I don't have energy to re-do
the whole thing again.

Bottom line, fasting is a meal-timing issue,
when you don't eat carbs, your body doesn't release insulin.
The longer the period of time between eating,
the longer the period of time your body has to use stored fat.
Insulin release due to the expectation of eating is a very minor issue.

The Expectation of food creates a very, very small "first wave" release of insulin.
The MAJOR insulin release is after the carbs go through the intestine walls
and into the bloodstream,
and the more carbs (glucose) that enter, the more insulin the body creates.

Sugar and refined carbs enter the bloodstream almost immediately,
complex carbs enter it more slowly,
but all of them enter the bloodstream as glucose and trigger insulin release.

Reread page 122 and 123, specifically the list number 1 through 11,
that shows the chain of events of the operation of insulin.

Also, watch this entertaining little cartoon,
to understand better how this works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNYlIcXynwE

After reading your most recent journal entry,
I'm a bit concerned that you simply do not understand
the basic way that the body operates.
...the simple medical concepts that no one disagrees about.

It's hard to understand Taubes' concepts
without having any basic underlying knowledge of how the body works.

You might want to watch that cartoon several times,
and then go back and re-read Chapter 11 again.

[Kathleen]

Hi BrightAngel,
I ordered the movie Fathead through Netflix, so that may help. I don't see why fasting wouldn't be an effective substitute for carb restriction.
Kathleen

[Kevin]

Just a very minor correction... the body always secretes a small amount of insulin. The purpose of insulin is to enable cells to take up glucose from the blood for energy. That glucose may come directly from carbs you eat, or indirectly from the body's processing of it's own energy stores (fat) into glucose.

At least, that's what I understand. I've been Type I for 32 years, so I've been interested in the topic for a long time.

...
Bottom line, fasting is a meal-timing issue,
when you don't eat carbs, your body doesn't release insulin.
...

[BrightAngel]

the body always secretes a small amount of insulin.
The purpose of insulin is to enable cells to take up glucose from the blood for energy.
That glucose may come directly from carbs you eat,
or indirectly from the body's processing of it's own energy stores (fat) into glucose.

Yes, you are quite correct.
Plus, it is NOT a one-size-fits-all situation.
The goal isn't to eliminate insulin entirely,
merely to reduce it enough to counteract a regulatory disorder of fat metabolism.

[Kevin]

Absolutely.

I suspect that folks that are very responsive to carbohydrate over-produce insulin, driving blood glucose levels low, decreasing the amount of glucose available for cell energy (making you feel weak and shaky), and increasing the amount of energy stored as fat.

Now because your blood glucose is low, your body will demand more energy - and believe me, it knows how to demand carbohydrate when your blood glucose is low - then produces *more* insulin... the classic feedback loop.

Hence, lower carbohydrate, lower glycemic-load diets result in better energy levels, less energy stored as fat, and less craving of carbohydrate.

Before I started back on No-S, I was using about 55 units of insulin a day. Now I'm using about 35 units a day, have much more energy, and I'm much less hungry.

the body always secretes a small amount of insulin.
The purpose of insulin is to enable cells to take up glucose from the blood for energy.
That glucose may come directly from carbs you eat,
or indirectly from the body's processing of it's own energy stores (fat) into glucose.

Yes, you are quite correct.
Plus, it is NOT a one-size-fits-all situation.
The goal isn't to eliminate insulin entirely,
merely to reduce it enough to counteract a regulatory disorder of fat metabolism.

[BrightAngel]

Hi BrightAngel,
I ordered the movie Fathead through Netflix, so that may help.
I don't see why fasting wouldn't be an effective substitute for carb restriction.

It is an entertaining documentary that I enjoyed very much.

During the period you fast, you will not be eating
and so (in essence) you will not be producing insulin.

However, when you eat,
if you eat a high carbohydrate diet,
you will produce high amounts of insulin.

If the idea is to reduce your overall levels of insulin via occasional fast times/days,
it seems like a mathematical problem similiar to reducing your overall calories.

However, an additional problem would be that...
.......occasionally reducing your insulin levels via occasional fasts...
might not be enough to re-regulate your fat metabolism.

[Kevin]

Ezekiel 4:9 - Take also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and spelt, and put them in one vessel, and make bread of it...

The original low-carb bread recipe. It's delicious and quite filling, especially with peanut butter.

Chapter 11 A Primer on the Regulation of Fat

...
My personal bias is that there is more to be learned from religious practices than scientific studies
...
Kathleen

[BrightAngel]

I'm fond of Ezekiel bread,
especially with peanut butter...

I think it's one of the best breads,
but I find that I can eat a whole lot of it,
and still want more.

So during my present low-carb experiment-of-one,
for right now....I'm avoiding or strictly limiting it.

[Kevin]

I'm sure that is wise, BrightAngel. I'll try not to be a smart alec.

I'm fond of Ezekial bread,
especially with peanut butter...

I think it's one of the best breads,
but I find that I can eat a whole lot of it,
and still want more.

So during my present low-carb experiment-of-one,
for right now....I'm avoiding or strictly limiting it.

[Kathleen]

Chapter 12 Why I Get Fat and You Don't (And Vice Versa)

I don't think I've heard the term "insulin resistance", and it's interesting to read an explanation for why eating problems tend to get worse over time. This chapter was very depressing for me, since my almost 17 year old daughter is getting close to my weight, and I gained 60 pounds when I was pregnant with her.

I cannot go back in time, cannot go back to when my eating went totally out of control because I could not restrict myself to 1,000 calories per day for nine days.

The mistake we have not made is to pressure her into counting calories. She followed The No S Diet for a long time but gave up on it when I was going through all my experiments.

I am focused on figuring out weight management so I can model appropriate behavior to her. She has to make her own decisions. This chapter makes the point that I have saddled her with a disadvantage from before birth.

It cannot be changed now. I need to look forward.

Kathleen

[Kathleen]

Chapter 13 What We Can Do

It was too depressing to read that last chapter again. I'm not going to reflect on how I may well have predisposed that precious daughter of mine to a lifetime of obesity. Instead, I'll go on:

"It's carbohydrates that ultimately determines insulin secretion and insulin that drives the accumulation of body fat." (p. 134).

"The human body, and particularly the liver, never evolved to handle the kind of fructose load we get in modern diets." (p. 137).

I'm completely tangenting off from review of the book to reflect on my limited experience of fasting. First of all, I was very surprised that the word that came to mind for me was "restful." I anticipated it to be painful to fast, but instead it felt like a break. Maybe, just maybe, my body was getting a break from the flood of fructose.

Secondly, I will take to heart the idea that insulin is affected by carbohydrates, and yet I am wondering if a meal timing effect can allow the insulin level to go down. I listened to Jimmy's interview of a doctor who wrote a book called Symptom W and her plan was to have people put off consumption of carbs to evening. I think there might be an impact on the body even with a 12 hour fast (breakfast to dinner) or a 24 hour fast.

Is there any study that shows the impact of insulin levels due to fasting? Maybe there is. Anyway, one thing I have noticed is an increased desire for pop. I seem to want carbs when I am eating. Maybe this is part of the adjustment to lower carbs.

I still maintain that the body's desire for quantity of food consumed needs to be honored, and there should not be a commandment to eat anything. I don't want to be told I need four servings of vegetables per day, which is what this woman who was promoting a Symptom W diet was advocating.

[BrightAngel]

Chapter 13 What We Can Do

"It's carbohydrates that ultimately determines insulin secretion and insulin that drives the accumulation of body fat." (p. 134).

"The human body, and particularly the liver, never evolved to handle the kind of fructose load we get in modern diets." (p. 137).

I'm completely tangenting off from review of the book to reflect on my limited experience of fasting.

I will take to heart the idea that insulin is affected by carbohydrates,
and yet I am wondering if a meal timing effect can allow the insulin level to go down.
Is there any study that shows the impact of insulin levels due to fasting?

I still maintain that the body's desire for quantity of food consumed needs to be honored,
and there should not be a commandment to eat anything.

What Taubes does in this book is present the reason... Why We Get Fat...
showing detail after detail of how the body works.

And then he presents a solution....What We Can Do About It.

He agrees that most obese people can get thin by semi-starvation,
....what you call portion control...
although as he accurately points out, this is difficult for people to continue doing forever.

And he presents an alternative solution,
which does not require portion control....
but DOES require reducing the body's insulin
by limiting, restricting, or eliminating carbs...
depending upon the insulin sensitivity of your individual body.
This has to be determined individually by trial and error.

Kathleen, one who decides to test out Taubes' theories,
can honor the body's desire for a specific quantity of food..
(i.e. no portion control)
BUT...since carbs are what drive insulin, and insulin are what drives fat....
.....WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT.....requires a reduction or elimination of carbs.

If obese, most people will lose weight if they semi-starve themselves.
Or they can lose weight by reducing the amount of insulin their bodies body produce....
(by reducing their intake of carbs)...

Those appear to be the only valid choices.
Facts are facts....when you say something "should not be",
you are simply saying you don't happen to like that particular fact.

Each of us can do whatever we like,
but we can't simply ignore the way our bodies work
and somehow simply become thin,
through some magical process that takes little effort.

There can be no question that Fasting reduces insulin during the period you are fasting,
because when you are eating nothing, you are not eating carbohydrates.
Restricting calories, also tends to reduce insulin,
because a large part of the high-calorie foods we tend to cut out are carbs.

In the e-book, EatStopEat, Brad Pilon talks about how insulin drops
during a 24 hour fast,
and this information appears to be based on accurate medical data.

So are you ready to go on to Chapter 14?
I think that 14 and 15 are quite interesting.
AND... Remember, after reading each chapter in the book,
go back and read my Summary and comments.
My summary of Chapter 14 is located on page 2 of this thread.

[Kathleen]

BrightAngel,
Yes, I am reading your comments on each chapter and also giving my own views. I think that we can evaluate what is said through personal experience.

Chapter 14 Injustice Collecting

I dog eared the page with the sentence "Even before we begin eating, insulin works to increase our feeling of hunger."

The other key thought in here was a reference to "people who are fat or predisposed to get that way". Taubes wrote about them: "The fatter they get, the more they'll crave carbohydrate-rich feeds, because their insulin will be more effective at stashing fat and protein in their muscle and fat tissue."

Then I went back and read my journal from summer of 2008, when I followed my own diet of The Hunger Satisfaction Diet in which I only could eat after a stomach growled and aimed to eat three meals per day.

What I found was that my body learned to growl on cue. Also, because I never knew when my stomach would growl next, I ate unbelievable amounts of food.

I felt like I was starving all the time. It was a miserable, miserable experience.

Reviewing the journal from that time, I'm trying to interpret that maybe I went down the path of insulin resistance because I was eating so much whenever I ate, and I was eating several times per day.

Something different definitely was going on then compared with today. This morning, I had a bowl of Cheerios with craisins even though I knew I wouldn't be eating until dinnertime. Why? Well, the big differences between this diet and The Hunger Satisfaction Diet are that 1) I'll eat dinner whether or not my stomach growls and 2) I won't eat before then whether or not my stomach growls. There is predictability in when I eat. With The Hunger Satisfaction Diet, I always felt in something of a panic. In fact, this is what I wrote at the end of August, 2008, just a week or so before I started The No S Diet:


"A few days ago, when we took a tour in the Tower-Soudan mine, there were two bats flying around in an area where the tour guide was talking with us. I was terrified, absolutely terrified. If a bat got anywhere near me, I crouched down. The tour guide even commented on my behavior.

Over the last few days, I’ve come to realize that my reaction to hunger is similar to my reaction to those bats. I’m terrified. That’s why I’m bingeing. As I learn to welcome hunger growls, I’ll learn to overcome my terror of hunger. That will take time, which is why I’m still so fat. The root cause of my obesity is the fear of starvation, and becoming accustomed to a hunger growl will take time. I only have to reach one more hunger growl this week, and I’m comfortable now having small meals.

10:40 PM: Another day of eating everything in sight. Tomorrow, I doubt I’ll eat anything, and I may still not reach a hunger growl. I think what I’ll do is start on Monday morning with eating only if I experience a hunger growl. When I reach the goal number of hunger growls for the week, I’ll stop until the next Monday. If I were at four growls today, I’d eat what I want tomorrow. Instead, I already took my break and now have to face hunger tomorrow. I have an obsession or a phobia or an addiction in how I eat. It’s terrible."

BrightAngel,
The reason why I'm so interested in the production of insulin before actual eating is that something was going on when I only allowed myself to eat after a stomach growl, and it was a physical reaction brought on by a mental decision.

That's the case with my diet today as well. I'm not all focused on food because I can eat as much as I want whenever I eat, and there is predictability in when I eat.

There also is a sense of self-control and resiliency. I know I can do just fine not eating for 24 hours, so I can certainly manage to get through today when I had as much as I wanted at breakfast.

There's a calmness to all of this. It reminds me of that beautiful verse from the Bible, "Consider the lilies of the field..."

Life, I am certain, is not meant to be so hard. We've somehow made it hard.

While I only weigh about 10 pounds less than I did when I wrote that journal entry 2 1/2 years ago, there is a world of difference in how I feel. I feel calm and satisfied. I don't feel any terror.

At the end of Injustice Collecting, Taubes writes "The cycle can be broken, although it requires fighting these cravings... but now without constant effort and vigilience."

I'm not exactly thin, so I can't be saying that this approach of intermittent fasting is the answer, but I can say that I'd rather be obese than have to live with "constant effort and vigilence."

Low carb, like calorie counting, means the same thing in the end: the need to constantly restrict what you eat so that you cannot ever feel fully satisfied. If you crave a bagel, bacon and eggs will not satify.

I prefer the approach of intermittent restriction. If it means I'll never be thin, so be it.

Kathleen

[BrightAngel]

Kathleen,
Taubes makes it clear that he is talking about what the BODY wants.
His concept is that...although Conventional Wisdom...now considers
overeating and obesity to be a problem of the MIND.
He considers it to be a problem of the BODY.

Many of your comments do not appear to distinguish between
issues of the Body and issues of the Mind.

Insulin is a hormone within the body, and is an issue of the body.
Carbohydrates are the food substances which activates insulin.
Insulin makes the body physically hungry...and makes the BODY crave carbohydrate substances.
The way to remedy this problem of the body,
is to keep insulin as low as possible

Taubes is talking here about the CRAVINGS OF THE BODY,
which are often interpeted as mental or emotional cravings.
He says these cravings can be reduced or eliminated
with the reduction or elimination of carbohydrates.

Taubes writes:

The foods that make us fat also make us crave
precisely the foods that make us fat.
(This, again, is little different from smoking;
the cigarettes that give us lung cancer
also make us crave the cigarettes that give us lung cancer)

The more fattening they are,
and the more predisposed you are to get fat when you eat them,
the greater the cravings.
The cycle can be broken,
although it requires fighting these cravings---
just as alcoholics can quit drinking and smokers can quit smoking,
but not without constant effort and vigilance."

Low carb, like calorie counting, means the same thing in the end:
the need to constantly restrict what you eat so that you cannot ever feel fully satisfied.
If you crave a bagel, bacon and eggs will not satify.

I've personally discovered, that with a little time and effort,
it is possible for bacon and eggs to satisfy the body far more than bagels.

This concept is where Taubes and you totally differ.

Taubes says calorie-counting or as you call it, portion-control,
means your BODY will be hungry.
However, once your body has adjusted to lower-carbohydrate intake
and insulin is reduced,
your BODY will NOT be hungry...because it is the carbs and the insulin
that is making your BODY hungry.

I think it is important here to distinguish between mental preferences, or wishes,
and the physical cravings of the body.

Physical Cravings for those addicted to Alcohol or tobacco are strong at first,
however, once the body has adjusted to their withdrawal,
those physical cravings stop and don't return unless the body ingests alcohol and tobacco.

However, for most people the mental and emotional Cravings for alcohol or tobacco will always remain,
and those who were previously addicted to those substances
have to use various mental and emotional techniques to deal with their
self-destructive desire to ingest those addictive and unhealthy substances.

Under Taubes concept, it is exactly the same for those people
whose bodies cannot handle carbohydrates.
People who eat a low-carb diet, will lose their physical cravings for carbs,
and will lose weight.

However, the obese will still retain an emotional fondness for carbs,
just like the recovering alcoholic for alcohol or the ex-smoker for tobacco.
AND, like the alcoholic and the smoker,
if they give in to their desire to eat those carbs,
their physical cravings will return, and they will regain their fat.

Taubes believes that HUNGER of the body will drive people to eat for survival.
But residual mental and emotional desire for things we might like
is not a survival instinct like hunger, and those desires can be resisted.

Of course, Kathleen, a great many fat people simply want an "easier and softer way".
they want Magic... Something for Nothing.
and that's why they either stay fat, or they regain it again.

Many smokers say, I'll take my chances with lung-cancer,
I like smoking.

Alcoholics commonly say, I'm not an alcoholic, and I can cut down anytime I want to.

So, it is not surprising that many obese people take that same approach.
i.e. I'm going to find an effortless way to lose weight,
and continue to eat whatever I like.

[Kathleen]

BrightAngel,

I haven't given up on losing weight, but I have decided I want nothing of either an approach which permanently restricts certain types of foods or forces constant calorie counting.

As I was reading your post, I was thinking of my own experience -- vividly recollected by reading my journal from the summer of 2008. I couldn't go longer than a few hours without feeling famished.

Today, I ate cereal with craisins at 6:30 AM, and here I am rushing off to take Katie to swim team having had nothing other than water or black coffee since then.

How did it happen? I needed some time to adjust, and right now I'm still adjusting to giving up lunch. Still, it can be done.

The difference between the approach I am trying and the ones you are trying (carb restriction and calorie restriction) is the approach I am trying is intermittent.

You have a BMI of around 21 or 22, and mine is about 32. What can I say? I'm in a weak position to say this will work! All I can say is it seems like an easy approach, and I sure hope it works!

The book, by the way, is worth a careful read. I'm very glad you suggested I read it. It appears I cannot get Fat Head from either the library or Netflix, but I appreciated the youtube of the trailer.

Kathleen

[BrightAngel]

The book, by the way, is worth a careful read.
I'm very glad you suggested I read it.

It appears I cannot get Fat Head from either the library or Netflix,
but I appreciated the youtube of the trailer.

I understand that Netflix will soon be carrying the film, but
the whole movie, Fathead, is now available for free at Hulu.com
http://www.hulu.com/watch/196879/fat-head

[Kathleen]

BrightAngel,
I started watching Fat Head with my daughter who is 11 and we were both laughing out loud! She had to go to bed, so I'm stopping now. I tend to be skeptical about the advice from weight loss experts, so I am really enjoying this very funny movie.

Meanwhile, I had continued on in the Taubes book, and I am also reading your very personal history of weight loss. Although I have wrestled with weight since I was a teen, it's not as bad as you have had it. Still, it's bad enough that if there is one thing I could pass on to my 16 year old, it would be how to lose weight so you don't feel like you are starving all the time.

On to Chapter 15: Why Diets Succeed or Fail

It's plausible what he is saying: that the way to lose weight is through restriction of carbs. My greater interest is why low carb means less hunger whereas calorie restriction means hunger. If I buy into the idea that insulin production is what regulates where fat is stored and carbs stimulate insulin production, then I think that intermittent fasting could be a way to lessen insulin production and produce an effect like low carb while still allowing pizza and pasta.

It sounds great. Fasting is easy. Time will tell on whether this approach will work for me.

I like the idea of dialing back on weight loss research and just trying this approach through December. What is remarkable is how good I feel, even on days I fast. I tend to be somewhat jumpy, and fasting is making me calmer as a person, which is good.

There is a spiritual effect, too, but I can't quite grasp what it is. It might be that you realize your dependence because even a few hours without food makes a difference. Who knows?

One of the spiritual books on fasting that I read said that it is something which must be experienced, and so I must experience it and not worry too much about anticipating the effect of fasting. While I am eager to lose weight, I'm almost more eager to understand what effect fasting might have on me other than with weight loss.

Anyway, I'll continue on in the book. I appreciate the other resources (including from TexArk) as confirming that this guy isn't just feeding me some bologna.

Kathleen

[BrightAngel]

On to Chapter 15: Why Diets Succeed or Fail

It's plausible what he is saying: that the way to lose weight is through restriction of carbs.

My greater interest is why low carb means less hunger whereas calorie restriction means hunger.

If I buy into the idea that
insulin production is what regulates where fat is stored
and carbs stimulate insulin production,

then I think that intermittent fasting could be a way to lessen insulin production
and produce an effect like low carb while still allowing pizza and pasta.

I found it enlightening to apply Taubes' concept
about calorie-restriction necessarily being carb-restriction as well.
So, I'm really glad you read the comments about my history
at the end of the Chapter 15 Summary (on page 2 of this Thread.)

It is undisputed science that insulin is the primary hormone that processes the body's fat storage,
that it moves glucose (carbs) into fat storage,
and that it blocks fatty acids from leaving fat storage.

The fact that carbohydrates stimulate insulin production is also
a matter of undisputed science. No one questions that point.
Taubes says that some people have a genetic tendency toward obesity;
they have bodies that don't properly handle or regulate the way their bodies store fat;
and that this is the CAUSE of obesity.

Therefore, when one puts the undisputed scientific facts:
which is the way carbs stimulate insulin
and insulin's involvement in the body's fat storage system,

together with Taubes' theory on the CAUSE of obesity,
then the "treatment" of obesity would be to reduce the insulin in the body,
and the ONLY way to reduce insulin is to reduce carbohydrate intake.
Of course, during the periods when you fast,
you are eating nothing. Therefore, during those periods you
reduce your carbohydrate intake (together with fat and protein)
so you lower your insulin levels while fasting.
When your insulin levels are low, your body is able to release stored fat for fuel.
However, as soon as you eat carbohydrates again,
your insulin rises, and the more sugars and refined carbs you eat,
the higher insulin will rise, and the longer it will take insulin to recede.

I have no problem with that concept at all, and at this point I agree with it.

My problem is that I don't feel certain that Taubes' simple explanation
addresses the ENTIRE matter.
Even if Taubes is completely correct in his position
that the reduction or elimination of carbs, satisfies the BODY's hunger drive...
At this point, I still believe that even while doing low-carb eating,
one CAN still CHOOSE to overeat fat and protein,
and, despite Taubes' statement to the contrary, I still believe that this can keep them fat,
and that THIS type of overeating..would then be an issue of the MIND..
and/or the CHARACTER,

and...of course...if one KNOWS that carbohydrates are what is making one obese,
and yet still chooses not to restrict or eliminate them,
this would be the SAME kind of emotional/character/spiritual issue
that is faced by the alcoholic, smoker, drug-addict, sex-addict etc.

In all those cases, the on-point question is:
...Will I choose the pleasure of my addictive substance,
even though it brings me negative results?
Or,
Do I have the Willingness and the Character
to choose to avoid the substances/behaviors that are ruining my health and spoiling my life?
Denial of the truth of the situation is one of the most common
symptoms of alcoholism/drug-addiction/smokers/ sex-addicts.
"It's not really that bad" "It doesn't apply to me"
"I can control myself and have a little of this substance".
One really difficult thing about alcoholism, is that EVERYONE isn't an alcoholic,
a great many people can drink in moderation,
which makes it very difficult for an alcoholic to accept his problem.
It is VERY clear to the families and friends of the practicing alcoholic that he is an alcoholic,
but the TRUTH of that fact is very difficult for him to see and accept.

I think that it must be the same for those people who have bodies that simply
cannot tolerate sugars and refined carbohydrates..
and even more so for people whose bodies can't even handle complex carbs.

Chapter 15 is "Why diets succeed and Fail"
Taubes ends this chapter by stating

“Weight-loss regimens succeed
when they get rid of the fattening carbohydrates in the diet;
they fail when they don’t.

What the regiment must do, in essence,
is reregulate fat tissue
so that it releases the calories
it has accumulated to excess.

Any changes the dieter makes
that don’t work toward that goal…
will starve the body in other ways…
and the resultant hunger will lead to failure.â€

[connorcream]

My problem is that I don't feel certain that Taubes' simple explanation
addresses the ENTIRE matter.
Even if Taubes is completely correct in his position
that the reduction or elimination of carbs, satisfies the BODY's hunger drive...
At this point, I still believe that even while doing low-carb eating,
one CAN still CHOOSE to overeat fat and protein,
and, despite Taubes' statement to the contrary, I still believe that this can keep them fat,
and that THIS type of overeating..would then be an issue of the MIND..
and/or the CHARACTER,

I agree entirely with this conclusion. This is why I continue to log my food choices instead of relying on external clues from what I eat. I hope to be one of those moderate carb eaters, and so far, with most foods I am. This is the balance I am looking for. However, I have found certain food combinations that I choose to never eat again because of the very strong pull they have on me. I also know this range of cal/carb will shift downwards over time and during moments of high stress. At these times, other strategies must be used or developed from other sources- Nos being one place but so to from other dieting approaches and behavior modifications.The study from all of these areas is a tremendous value.

[Kathleen]

BrightAngel,

I didn't drink milk for about 10 years because I read somewhere that it was bad for my health, and then I later had 400 mg of Vitamin E until I read that that wasn't good for you. In recent years, I read a book called Overdosed America. I also have a mother who is a chemist (as is my father) and that's why she -- unlike most women of her age -- declined to take hormone replacement therapy.

I finished watching Fat Head this morning, and the movie supported my view that you should take scientific findings with a grain of salt. I also have Ancel Key's book on calorie restriction. I grew up in the 60s and 70s and can still remember that potatoes were considered fattening. That's something I haven't heard for a time.

Over time, I have become more trusting of my body and more interested in what religious traditions have had to say about eating. I have a hard time believing that God created man to feel tortured about eating, and Fat Head actually refers to Mother Nature as not being so stupid as to make humans the only creatures who wanted to eat what was bad for them.

The experts said low fat yesterday, there's been the calories in calories out theory for years, and now Taubes and others are promoting low carb. I bunch them all together as experts, and what I need to do is listen to God and my own body.

Ancel Keys promoted the Meditteranean Diet, and I read somewhere that he never looked at the strict fasting rules of the Greek Orthodox faith.

I think it may be that fasting is a gift of faith, that it is a time for reflection and rest from eating which prepares the body to want what is good for it. This is about as far from a scientific evaluation as it could be, but to me the Taubes book and Fat Head point to the possibility that fasting could accomplish the same thing as low carb and be much more pleasant and less expensive to boot.

I eat what I want and as much as I want. This morning, I had oatmeal with raisins, some pistachios, and 2% milk and a cutie. I try to eat what I want but move towards foods listed in the world's healthiest foods by George Mategjan. I want to buy unprocessed foods and make meals.

My 11 year old and I were discussing Aunty Cheryl's low-carb cheesecake the other day. It was memorable! I call food like that "fake food". I want food to be tasty.

On a serious note, dieting ruined much of my life. I can think back to all those times when the focus was on what I was eating and how I was feeling and whether it was socially awkward or not to have something. Why wasn't I focused on my family or my friends?

That is the gift I want my children to have from me: a healthy appreciation for food and its place in their lives. It isn't meant to be the center of their life.

There is a saying from Aristotle that made it's way into the Bible: "Their god is their belly." That was me. There is such freedom in fasting, in making God my God and not my belly my God.

Kathleen

[BrightAngel]

Kathleen,
I'm glad you enjoyed the movie documentary, Fathead.
Are you ready to move forward to Chapter 16?

[Kathleen]

Yes, but it is a longer chapter, and I may or may not have an interview tomorrow. I just let the account manager know that I'm not in a position to work during the summer (real job: Mom), so she is going to contact the hiring manager to let her know that I am not open to extensions to the three month position. Bummer!

Anyway, I also am giving an Art Adventure presentation to fourth graders, so it may be a day or two before I summarize Chapter 16.

It's a very interesting idea that we have addictions to carbs. Fat Head talked about the real problem being inflammation, and I read somewhere that fasting helps with inflammation because the body shuts down all but critical functions.

Anyway, my focus needs to shift to that job interview tomorrow, so I'll be back when I can give this book the attention it deserves!

Kathleen

[FarmerHal]

May I join in? I just finished reading WWGF this morning.

First, some anecdotal evidence:
I've been fat since the 2nd grade. I've been on diets off and on since then. I was told over and over, starting from childhood- it was a personal flaw, I ate too darn much and to have a little will power (meanwhile, my sister, who ate the VERY SAME MEALS as I did was very lean... so what gives??)
I started noS Dec. 2006. It worked, but I was doing intense exercise, 1-2 hrs a day. When I stopped exercising, the weight came back, I got discouraged and left (temporarily) noS. I've been back on and off since then.

Meanwhile, August 2009, I decided to give atkins a try. I was 248lbs by then, miserable, hungry all the time, exhausted (I could sleep 15 hrs and wake up still feeling exhausted). {was this the insulin/fat imbalance robbing the rest of my body of nutrients/energy?}

I decided, what the heck, I'll try Atkins, it was the only diet I had not tried.
the first 2 weeks I lost 16lbs! After 4 days, the carb withdrawal ended (felt almost like the flu) and I no longer craved carbs! Seriously, my DD's birthday was that month, the cake was there, looked wonderful, but I didn't desire it one bit! I was never hungry between meals. If I did get hungry- say a long stretch between meals, I'd have a snack, egg, leftover meat, small amount of cheese, and I was good to go. Water was my only beverage.
In 2 months time, I dropped down to 213lbs. That was 35 pounds and I was never hungry. I had so much energy, I WANTED to exercise! I walked the dogs more, I'd hop on the treadmill and surf the internet, with spurts of jogging just because I "felt" like it! It was not the long, intense exercise I had to do previously. It was wonderful!

But another move and the adjusting to having dh back (after a year of him being deployed overseas) and the carbs creeped back in, and all but 2 lbs of the weight has returned, and it returned VERY quickly.

Now, "purely anecdotal" but writing this down, it's blatantly obviuos to me the role that starches and sugars play in the [my] body.

I read the book over the last few days and now would like to go through the chapters again and go over the points that most interest me.

Bottom line: NO ONE disputes the role of insulin: carbs in = insulin = fat storage. It is fact.

I was doing splendidly on 20 carbs max, and I may start counting carbs again because, you know what? It worked!

I am back on vanilla noS, with some carbs, and do you know what? I have not lost one bit. I AM hungry shortly after meals and the nagging hunger (even though it won't kill me) just doesnt' seem right. It causes me to be anxious, and I get anxious about being anxious... and well, you see the viscious circle here.

In WWGF, Taubes points out that : Sugar/carbohydrates affects the 'reward center' in the brain... you get a release of dopamine whenever you eat starch/sugar, so of course your body is going to 'tell' you that's what it wants.
If you were a cigarette smoker, and were attempting to quit... would it seem logical to you that because your body craves another cigarette that is it appropriate for your body? 'course not. Just because your body craves something does not make it a good thing for your body.

There are more excellent points in the book, but I am going to go back and underline and dog-ear pages and write more about it.

I am SO glad I saw this tread, BA and Kathleen, this book has reaffirmed what really works for my body (it wants to store fat, badly!). Low carb, no starches (grains, potatoes), no sugar.

I am not sure what will become of my S days, perhaps I will enjoy the occassional sweet, however as I recall when I was doing atkins, even a taste of sweets would bring back the urgent hunger and cravings.

Thanks for listening!

[TexArk]

Thanks for sharing your life experience. I remember when you were on board when your husband was deployed and am happy to see you return. I look forward to reading your posts. I, too, am having success incorporating low carb with NoS and have been inspired by Bright Angel and her logical analyses.

TexArk

[BrightAngel]

I was pleased to read your comments.

I don't have the energy to respond in detail because
I'm exhausted learning and doing my part of what it takes to get my new blog operational.
Right now, some of the sections are working and some aren't,
so it's not yet ready.
When it is...I expect it will take me some time to figure out how to work everything,
but right now it looks like it will be sometime next week.

[Kathleen]

Chapter 16 A Historical Digression on the Fattening Carbohydrates

I was born in 1958, and so I am old enough to remember that potatoes and bread were the reasons why people were fat.

Also, I am buying into the argument that "carbohydrate is driving insulin is driving fat." (p. 161)

Here is a summary of the benefits of a low carb diet: "freedom from hunger, allaying of excessive fatigue, satisfactory weight loss, suitability for long term weight reduction and subsequent weight control."

I'm too early in my own experiment of intermittent fasting with no portion control to see how it turns out, but I do think that the reason why it is so easy is that fasting means no carbohydrates means little or no hunger.

On page 158, in a footnote, there is reference to fasting "which succeeded but only as long as the patients continued fasting."

Taubes has not looked at the potential for intermittent fasting to create a low carb effect of no hunger and allow weight loss.

I loved No S and stuck to it for a year after I got down to my low of 196.6, but it did not produce acceptable results. Now I'm trying intermittent fasting, and it's just too early to see if I will get acceptable weight loss results.

I will say one thing, however. I don't accept the list of what not to eat on page 155.

There's a line from a musical that goes something like this: "Life is a banquet and most SOBs are starving to death." Part of enjoying life is enjoying food and enjoying socializing with other around food.

I just think there has to be a better way than the low carb diet, and I am hoping that intermittent fasting produces the same result. Yesterday morning, I had cereal. At night, I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, about four glasses of lemonade, grapes, potato salad, and chips. What do you expect for a Ski Club -- steak and eggs? The problem with food restriction is you shift focus from what you are doing and who you are with to calculating number of carbs. That's enough to sap the joy out of any occasion. I just won't settle for that as a way of life, and intermittent fasting, honestly, seems very easy.

The problem is whether intermittent fasting will work. I'd try something else using the knowledge gained from this book, but I don't think I'd try carb restriction. I think I would increase the amount of time spent fasting.

Kathleen

[BrightAngel]

Kathleen,

I spent the last two hours writing a long response to your
Chapter 16 post,
unfortunately, instead of composing it in WORD
...as I normally do...I did it here online,
but just as I was about to post it,
this web-site erased it, saying the web page had expired.

I just don't have the energy to do it again right now,
but I'll work on it again later.

If you'd like to, feel free to go on to Chapter 17.

[Kathleen]

BrightAngel,
Isn't is frustrating to have technical difficulties? Our PC crashed last year, and we lost everything. I've had to start from scratch on recipes which was quite irritating, and I found my old resume through an email. Oh well... Looking forward to hearing your response on Chapter 16. Since I no longer have an interview on Monday, I think I can relax a little and move to Chapter 17.
Kathleen

[Kathleen]

Chapter 17 Meat or Plants?

"Doesn't it seem a good idea to consider sugar and flour likely causes of these diseases?" (Western diseases).

This is from page 173.

My answer to his rhetorical question is a resounding "No". I don't think he's proved his point at all.

Restoring the Paleolithic diet is not necessary when agriculture began 10,000 years ago, the Industrial Revolution was 10 generations ago, and I can remember when one kid in my class was fat. One.

I had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and milk every day at school. We had cereal for breakfast. We had bread at dinner.

No, I think he doesn't prove his point at all. What interests me is what has changed since I was my kids' age, not since before man started writing. I think one big thing that has changed is the identification as high fat as a problem, which is why I switched to 2% milk.

Another thing that has changed is we had real food. We didn't have these concotions of ingredients loaded up with chemicals.

The discussion in carbohydrates and insulin was much more compelling an argument than what was in this chapter. Men have lived for thousands of years in many different climates which means they ate a lot of different things. The human being is very resilient. You cannot generalize the diet of humans in a pre-agricultural society.

One thing that may be generally true of a pre-agricultural society is that food was intermittently available which means that people learned to accept intermittent fasting as a way of life.

Kathleen

[Graham]

Kathleen: a couple of points you might care to consider:

Identifying the harm done by dietary changes isn't easy. The famous studies carried out by Pottenger on cats showed that the effect of a dietary deficiency could take several generations to take full effect. So, when considering the effect of elements like sugar and flour on human populations, we need to consider both the quantity, and how long the population have been exposed - it might take more than one generation for the full damage to show.

Also, the impact of refined carbohydrate on people would always be counterbalanced by the level of obligatory activity they had to engage in. That would mean that the effect of refined carbs on the population would grow worse as the level of activity went down. There may be crucial thresholds which we've crossed since we are now so sedentary.

PS - I read recently that after the introduction of agriculture, the remains of the ancient Egyptians began to show clear signs of degenerative diseases which earlier generations had been free of.

[FarmerHal]

Kathleen, I couldn't disagree more. Since the introduction of grains and sugars into the human diet, humans' health problems have multiplied.

Grains are so nutritionally poor that it has to be added back in or people get diseases like beri beri and scurvy. Sugar has ZERO nutrients and only serves to raise insulin levels. Not only do high insulin levels cause fat to be stored and locked away, it also causes inflammation to set into the body, manifesting in arthritis, edema, auto immune diseases and more.

I dont' care how many pbj sandwiches you ate (or still eat, along with that rootbeer your body craves) your diet, as it stands, is insulin producing, inflammatory promoting and nutritionally deficient.

Bread: fortified, no doubt, so that you don't develop insufficiency diseases, in addition, the grains are very easily turned into glucose in the body which, again, raises insulin.
Peanut Butter: Sure, you get some protein and fats with this, likely salt (another essential nutrient in excess can cause problems on its own- just ask me!) Peanuts also have high incidence of mold and can worsen allergies.
Jelly or Jam= both have sugar added, which, again raises insulin....
Not a very nutrient dense food.

Along with your rootbeers and other foods of which you will feel deprived (if you were to go low-carb), your body is low in its supply of proteins and nutrients and antioxidants.

I'm not saying "never ever eat another pbj again!" I"m saying, once in a while!

Instead of viewing foods as something from which to gain pleasure (and I sure do! that's a tough one!), view it instead as fuel. Maximize the potential of the food that goes in your body.

All that said, sure, I struggle. My body is a MESS. Thankfully my bloodwork is great (but have been eating mostly low-carb now over the last couple of years, and even with the setbacks {return to grains/sugar} my diet is nothing like it was years ago; the typical amerian heavily grain based diet) . On the standard american diet (and yes, I loved me some pbj's too!) I was chronically iron anemic. I had severe joint inflammation and fibromyalgia. I had psoriasis constantly. My legs and feet swelled badly enough it was difficult to bend my feet at the ankles. I couldn't buy normal shoes. I lived in those ugly crocs.

Fast forward to the discovery of a HIGH VEGETABLE, MODERATE PROTEIN, moderate fruit diet... well.... no pain from the fibromyalgia, my skin looks awesome... yes, the weight is still an issue, but I believe that 30 years of the Standard American Diet (SAD) has done substantial metabolic damage.

Vegetables- full of vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, live enzymes, and lord knows what else has yet to be discovered.
Proteins- muscle building amino acids, vitamin B12, fatty acids, etc.
Fruits- choc full of the same good stuff as veggies, however higher in fructose, so those of us who are prone to gain easily shoudl stick to a fruit a day.
Add in the yummy nuts and seeds, herbs and spices and you can come up with tons of delish recipes and meals that will leave you as satisfied as pbjs and root beer.

As the generations of humans go by, we get weaker and sicker. Look at this generation of kids... Obese, low energy, adhd, add, the ever increasing incidence of autism...
Tell me this, if a mother's body (eating the SAD) is nutrient deficient, bears a daughter, who also eats the SAD, also bears a nutrient deficcient daughter.... do you not see how humans are in trouble?

I hope this makes some sense. You seem to be so addicted to carbohydrates, sugars and grains. They have much the same affect on your brain as drugs, so it is understandable the foothold they can have on some people.

Now... let's compare metabolisms in individuals... My sister and I, 3 years apart, raised on teh same diet as our mom provided our first 18 or so years. She was always lean, active and healthy. Never once did she have a weight issue. Me? Same diet, recall. Overweight since I was in the 2nd grade. Battled weight issues since then. Quickly "out grew" clothes and was told I had no will power and must be cheating on my diets somehow because I was eversofat. None of this was true.

Different people, different metabolisms. I cannot eat much carbohydrate, it's obvious to me now. I also (mentally) feel 100% better, it's hard to describe but I had a terrible brain fog, irritable, exhausted all the time.

I will end this very long post. I encourage you to re-read this (and other) books on the subject with an open mind this time. Consider trying a low-carb diet for just 2 weeks, no more, no less and tell me how you feel. It could be lifechanging, as it was for me. I may not be lean and slim, butmentally, emotionally and healthwise (edema, fibromyalgia, depression) I am a different (HAPPY!) person.

<3 All of this is said with an open heart.

[FarmerHal]

Restoring the Paleolithic diet is not necessary when agriculture began 10,000 years ago, the Industrial Revolution was 10 generations ago, and I can remember when one kid in my class was fat. One.

I had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and milk every day at school. We had cereal for breakfast. We had bread at dinner.

I was the fat kid in class by the way.
when we were kids, we also walked to and from school. We walked to the park to play, we walked to the grocery store with our wagons, we were encouraged to play outside- in fact, I recall pleading with my mom... "please! 30 minutes more!"
We had NO computers, video games, tv was limited (we didnt have cable until I was a teen), "exercise" was known as "playing" when we were kids.

Now le'ts take a look just ONE generation ahead to my own kids:
We have to take turns with computer time, they have wii, tv, movies, dvd players (in teh car too, no less). While I homeschool (and kids have no need to walk to school or ride bus), the community children ride buses or are taxi'd in mom's minivan to school (even though it's a short walk!)

Instead of wanting to play outside with friends, they sit inside with their electronic entertainment.
Kids today are also bombarded with permasnacking- kids gotta have a snack midmorning, after school, during soccer activities. This is most notably sugary/carby/grainy stuff like cereal, granola bars, goldfish crackers and let's top that off with some high-fructose corn syrup "juice."

Do you not see the demise the human race is facing?

some days, I have to ban the use of electronics and send the kids out to play. It's funny how I would beg and plead to be able to stay outside and play, my kids beg and plead to stay inside for more minutes on the computer or wii or one more episode of their favorite show.

The difference in the last 2 generations is astounding.

Sure you at pbj's and cereal and all that, but it was not loaded down with sugar, much less high-fructose corn syrup, which reaks its own special kind of havoc on the liver.

Now also, we ahve artificial colors (some of which in use in the US today, are banned in Europe) artificial flavorings (with side effects of their own, nitrates/nitrites, msg, etc; and also preservatives- let's make sure these food-like substances we feed ourselves and children can survive shipping and sitting on shelves now!

It's all about perspective. Sure, our kids are eating cereal and pbjs now, but they are completely different than they were when we ate them.
It cannot be compared at all, imho.

I offer my kids meats, veggies, fruits, nuts, they do get the occasional (gluten free/organic) breads for sandwiches. I avoid food colorings, flavors and preservatives as much as possible. Sweets are for the weekend, maybe Friday night and Saturday.

I am the "mean" mom because I don't allow Lucky charms, "Fruit" snacks (ok, arent' these just glorified candy??), chips, and dessert after lunch and supper. But I can onlyhope their health does not go the way mine did.

Anyway, 2 long, very passionate posts from me. I am off to do something other than sit on my bum

[Kevin]

Grains are so nutritionally poor that it has to be added back in or people get diseases like beri beri and scurvy.

Not all grains are created equal. But I agree that refined wheat flour might as well be sugar. Certain types or white bread are actually higher on some glycemic indexes than table sugar.

Peanut Butter: Sure, you get some protein and fats with this, likely salt (another essential nutrient in excess can cause problems on its own- just ask me!) Peanuts also have high incidence of mold and can worsen allergies.

Perhaps the worst thing about most peanut butter is the high percentage of hydrogenated vegetable oil which is the other big suspect in the vast increase of cardiovascular and inflammatory disease.


I'm not sure if this is still the current thinking, but a lot of researchers hypothesize that prolonged fasting puts the body into a famine mode, such that calories consumed after a fast are much more likely to be stored as fat.

[Kathleen]

shamrockmommy,

We're trying technology free time Sunday until 6 PM. I had our youngest at the Mall of America for her birthday party, the second youngest was sledding with a friend, and the older two went shopping with Dad. If technology is limited, other things will be found that can be enjoyable to do.

I make the improbable analogy to diet. I think that Taubes is right that sweets are a special case. There is something about sweets that makes us crave them. I now limit them to Sundays and two other days per month. What I am finding is that I cannot eat as many sweets as I could.

As for other food, I trust my body to know what is good for it. I am somewhat skeptical of scientific findings. Reinhard has a bit of the skeptic in him, too, when he talks about those who create diets and then sell diet food for it as having quite the scam.

Kevin,
We use the natural peanut butter except on summer camping trips. Now that I'm skipping weekday lunches, I'm not having as many.
Kathleen

[BrightAngel]

Kathleen,
I will respond to your comments on Chaptes 16 and 17 tomorrow,
because I spent the entire day dealing with my new Blog at DietHobby.com

www.DietHobby.com

[FarmerHal]

As for other food, I trust my body to know what is good for it. I am somewhat skeptical of scientific findings

From a scientific stanpoint, in WWGF, Taubes states that carbohydrates (starches- grains, potatoes, and sugar) head to the same pleasure-giving area in the brain as does heroin, cigarettes and the like. Your BRAIN "likes" it because there is a release of the pleasure hormone, dopamine.

Sometimes, at least in my case, the (my!) body does NOT know what is good for it. If I gave into my cravings, I'd live on lattes, bread with butter and crackers. Do you think that would be smart? LOL.

[Kathleen]

shamrockmommy,
The entire premise of Intuitive Eating is that you can trust your body. The first week that I tried this approach, I must have had 20 bags of Brach's chocolate peanut clusters. I think that your body does indulge in what you have denied yourself but only for a time. Sweets, however, are a special case. I do restrict myself with sweets except on Sundays and my two self-designated Exception Days per month. Look -- the diet has not yet resulted in significant weight loss, but I can tell you that I feel A LOT calmer and happier in following it. If I had to choose between my weight now feeling the way I do now and my old way of calorie restriction with binges out of the blue, I'd choose now.
Kathleen

[Graham]

I cannot recall the source, but a study I recall from 40 years or so ago stated that children were able to choose a balanced diet for themselves so long as they hadn't been exposed to significant quantities of dietary sugar Once regular sugar-eating had been experienced, instinctive mechanisms failed, and I don't know if they ever recover (that was beyond the scope of the study)

Being able to trust one's instincts about food might work if we only chose from amongst the things those instincts were designed to encounter. Factory food is so different from what nature offers, is it any wonder if our instincts can't evaluate it correctly?

I believe it is legitimate to draw comparisons between human reactions to factory food and our reactions to alcohol and other drugs - we can't all use those things without excess and harm. We may wish we weren't carboholics or whatever you'd call us - but if you are carb-susceptible the first step is to admit it, then find the most suitable ways of dealing with it. Denial is ineffective.

[kccc]

I cannot recall the source, but a study I recall from 40 years or so ago stated that children were able to choose a balanced diet for themselves so long as they hadn't been exposed to significant quantities of dietary sugar Once regular sugar-eating had been experienced, instinctive mechanisms failed, and I don't know if they ever recover (that was beyond the scope of the study)

Yes, I remember reading that as well. Given the option of eating sugar, kids (and adults) will do so. But when only "real food" is offered, then what they will choose is reasonable.

Because of that study, I was really strict with my son about NO refined sugar the first few years of life (before he knew any better, lol!). At that age, it wasn't that hard to manage - he wasn't being exposed to outside influences enough to matter.

He's 10 now, and I've eased up a lot - not much choice in today's environment, alas! (I still fall into "mean mom" territory in terms of nutrition, though.) BUT... over and over, I have seen him push away a dessert he was clearly enjoying, saying "this is really good, but I'm full." Sometimes he asks to save it for later, sometimes he just lets it go.

I hope he retains that ability... and I try to emulate it.

[Kathleen]

Graham and KCCC,
That's very interesting. In my own experience with restricting sweets, I am finding a difference in how much I want. When I first started The No S Diet, my son decided to wake me up at midnight so I could go eat sweets, and I actually thanked him for it. Not anymore! I'm finding more and more that I forget to buy sweets ahead of time. There's something about knowing that I won't miss out if I just wait to next Sunday: I'm not in such a panic anymore. Before, I would eat and eat and eat because I was about to go on a diet and these foods would become forbidden foods. Now they are reliably available every Sunday all Sunday long.
Kathleen

[BrightAngel]

Just checking in here briefly to see how things are going.
Kathleen, I know I've committed to reply to your comments
on Chapters 16 and 17, and I will do that as soon as possible.
Hopefully, that will be later today.

I made a long post in my personal check-in Thread about some
basic start-up issues I'm dealing with at www.DietHobby.com ,
and I would greatly appreciate having my friends read it,
and then see what they can do to follow up.

Happy Valentine's Day.
I cannot even begin to express the fondness
and gratitude I feel for each one of you.

[BrightAngel]

Chapter 16 A Historical Digression on the Fattening Carbohydrates

I was born in 1958, and so I am old enough to remember
that potatoes and bread were the reasons why people were fat.

Also, I am buying into the argument
that "carbohydrate is driving insulin is driving fat." (p. 161)

Here is a summary of the benefits of a low carb diet:
"freedom from hunger, allaying of excessive fatigue,
satisfactory weight loss, suitability for long term weight reduction
and subsequent weight control."

I will say one thing, however.
I don't accept the list of what not to eat on page 155.

Page 155 contains specifics about the typical diet that was used to treat
obesity in the 1940s and 1950s, published independently by doctors at

• Stanford University School of Medicine,
  Harvard Medical School,
  Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago,
  Cornel Medical school and
  New York Hospital

and also published in the 1951 Textbook “The Practice of Endocrinologyâ€
written by seven prominent British doctors.

That list of what NOT to eat is:

• Sugar, honey, syrup, jam, jelly or candy, sodas…All Sweets,
  including cake, cookies, pie, puddings, ice cream.
  
  Starches like flour, cornstarch, cereals…including breakfast cereals,
  pasta, dried beans, potatoes (sweet or Irish) and other white root vegetables
  
  Fried foods

All those things are carbohydrates, including most of the foods that are frequently fried.
Every Diet in existence, those before 1960 and since that time, either
limits or restricts the amounts of these foods (portion control), or eliminates them..

You say “I don't accept the list of what not to eatâ€.

That list contains foods that are limited or eliminated on every Diet.
That rule follows whether one uses the conventional wisdom
of calories-in/calories-out or Taubes’ low-carb hypothesis.

Of course anyone can choose to disregard any rules.
Anytime I want, I can choose to jump out of a 10th floor window of a skyscraper;
however, my choice will not change the law of gravity,
and I will wind up splattered over the pavement below.

I can also choose eat the foods on the list above without portion control,
but that choice won’t change the way my own body operates,
and I will become very fat.
This fact is not disputed by any existing nutritional expert..

Taubes has not looked at the potential for intermittent fasting
to create a low carb effect of no hunger and allow weight loss

I just think there has to be a better way than the low carb diet,
and I am hoping that intermittent fasting produces the same result.

The problem is whether intermittent fasting will work.
I'd try something else using the knowledge gained from this book,
but I don't think I'd try carb restriction.
I think I would increase the amount of time spent fasting.

Every imaginable dietary subject is not covered in “Why We Get Fatâ€.
Taubes briefly refers to fasting a couple of times in the book, but it is not relevant to the issue.
A study of how insulin works in the body shows that less insulin means less hunger…
….during the period of time that there is less insulin….
However, as soon as insulin becomes high again, hunger returns..

The only way fasting will cause weight loss….
whether it is a matter of calories-in/calories-out,
or a matter of eating some form of low-carb…..
is...... IF…you don’t overeat during the periods that you don’t fast.

Of course, during a period when one eats no food, one loses weight.
However, in order to live, one has to eat food eventually,
and What and How Much you eat THEN is still the important issue.

No matter how long a fasting period, this rule applies.
It applies whether you fast 40 days straight; on alternate days;
once a week; skipping a meal; or not snacking between meals.

This isn’t only a low-carb issue….it is true under EVERY theory.

Intermittent fasting can easily become Binge-Fast eating.
This is a common behavior by many who are morbidly obese,
which I think proves the point that fasting intermittently don’t
change the body’s hunger permanently…when food returns
so does the hunger.

That said, some people who eat low-carb all the time,
report having an easier time with intermittent fasting (less hunger) ,
than is common for people who eat a “normal†unrestricted food plan.

I don’t know if there is a better way than low-carb or not,
but I am certain…(without applying Taubes’ low-carb theory)
….in order to lose weight, an obese person
must eat an overall average of less food than their Body physically demands,
and probably less than their Mind desires as well.

Part of enjoying life is enjoying food
and enjoying socializing with others around food.

The problem with food restriction is you shift focus from what you are doing
and who you are with to calculating number of carbs.
That's enough to sap the joy out of any occasion.
I just won't settle for that as a way of life.

I’ve now been restricting food by counting-calories for more 6 years,
and I’m currently involved in an experiment where I restrict carbs AND count calories.
My use of a computer food journal to do this makes it simply and easy for me.
sometimes I do it in as little as 5 minutes in a day.

During the past 6 years I’ve participated in many social occasions,
and have greatly enjoyed socializing with others around food.
This doesn’t shift my focus away from my activities or friends,
or “sap the joy†from the occasion.

I’ve discovered that for me, the opposite is true.
Consistent commitment to a specific eating plan
reduces my cognitive dissonance, and frees me
to put more focus on activities and others.

For those who aren’t familiar with the term, cognitive dissonance:
Cognitive dissonance is defined as “psychological conflict resulting
from incongruous beliefs and attitudes held simultaneouslyâ€.
The dissonance is from the mental inconsistency or disagreement

The term, Cognitive, is involving conscious intellectual activity…
The term, Dissonance, is a lack of agreement; especially inconsistency between
the beliefs one holds or between one’s actions and one’s beliefs.
Dissonance can also mean a mingling of discordant sounds,
like a clashing or unresolved
musical interval or chord.

[BrightAngel]

Chapter 17 Meat or Plants?

Another thing that has changed is we had real food.
We didn't have these concotions of ingredients loaded up with chemicals.

The discussion in carbohydrates and insulin was much more compelling an argument
than what was in this chapter.
Men have lived for thousands of years in many different climates
which means they ate a lot of different things.
The human being is very resilient.
You cannot generalize the diet of humans in a pre-agricultural society.

One thing that may be generally true of a pre-agricultural society
is that food was intermittently available which means
that people learned to accept intermittent fasting as a way of life.

Kathleen,
Some responsive comments have already been posted to you
regarding this chapter, and I have little to add to the comments
that I originally made under the Chapter 17 summary.

I do think you have a valid point about having “real food†in the past,
and in the present many of us now eat foods loaded with added chemicals.

I’ve always had trouble applying dietary causes to diseases,
….I guess I’m a bit closed-mined on that issue….
and although Taubes makes a convincing argument, I’m not yet convinced.

I don’t know if it’s the Cause or not, but
there does appear to be a clear Association between the addition of
white sugar and refined flour to a society, and the “diseases of civilizationâ€.
So… On to Chapter 18?