13 Weeks Extra: In Which We Do Arithmetic
I’m doing a low carb Gary-Taubes-like diet and adding high intensity training for 13 weeks to see how it works. This 13 Weeks series is my diary of the experiment; you can also follow me day to day at my Facebook page.
Yeah, yeah, I know it’s not Sunday, But I noticed something so interesting I decided to do an extra post; I’m still planning to talk about high intensity training this Sunday. I’ve been doing a food diary at LoseIt!, and tracking my weight in a spreadsheet and at Physics Diet. So I’ve got a pretty solid diary of what I’m eating and its nutritional contents. Now, Physics Diet is pretty solidly devoted to the traditional thermodynamic “a calorie is a calorie” model of weight loss. When you enter your weights, it computes some interesting statistics and charts them; it also computes how many calories you have been under (or over) your needs based on the rate of change in your weight. So, without further adieu, here are some charts.
First, a chart from Excel showing my weight and fasting blood sugar, both taken immediately after awakening every day. (Click to enlarge the charts.)
Weight and Glucose including linear best-fit trend lines
Notice that both trend lines are going down quite nicely.
Now, here are my charts from Physics Diet. First, here’s a chart for the whole time since I started watching carbs on 19 October.
Now comes the arithmetic. Nominally, a pound of weight is 3500 kcal; you have to cut out 3500 kcal to lose a pound, and if you eat 3500 kcal too much, you gain a pound. As of today, I weighed 278.6; I’ve lost roughly 23 lbs since 19 October, when I weighed 301.5. That means by the “calories are calories” model, I had to have cut 80,500 kcal over that month and a day, or about 15,000 kcal a week — 2515 kcal a day — under my metabolic needs in order to get an average weight loss of 4.25 pounds per week. Honestly, that seemed unlikely.
But then if we look at the chart for just the time I’ve been really running the experiment, it gets even more interesting.
That first graph clearly shows that you’ll have lost all your mass by next year!
(What? If the CAGW folks can do it, so can I…)
… and I’ll be hypoglycemic sometime in December.
The “calories are calories” model assumes the body is a linear machine and that food is simply fuel with no other interactions.
3500 calories deficit is a pound of fat OK so could it be the lipid is bound to water? Lose the fat, and lose some water as well. That would account for the difference.
Well, not as lipids — think of oil and water. But the theory of these “ketogenic diets” is that a lot of the fat is converted to ketones and flushed through the kidneys, so effectively yes.
Don’t forget the bulk of the tissue which held the fat is also water laden, and that water is no more needed than the bulk of the tissue whent he fat is burned.
This is kind of a terminology issue. The “but that’s just water, you’ll gain that back instantly” bit refers to a change in the general water balance caused by diuresis. There is also a lot of water absorbed by lipolysis of triglycerides; it takes 3 molecules of water to break down one triglyceride molecule into three fatty acids and glycerol. So yes, fat metabolism uses up water, but that loss is permanent assuming you continue to empty the adipocytes.
Thanks for the mid-week update, don’t apologize for doing so! I’ve been following your 13 Weeks posts with fascination, and think I’ll try this myself (after I finish the turkey stuffing this weekend!). Your “…in which we do” subtitles get a laugh out of me, also.
The objection I have to Gary Taubes is that he’s exaggerating a thing true in a minor way to sell books as if he’s saving the world. It is true that you have to reduce your calorie intake by about 3500/week to lose a pound in a week, if your weight and intake had been stable and your metabolism was healthy. I have observed this personally, and I’m far from the only person to do so.
Taubes’ argument seems to be, that because this is hard and many people don’t have healthy metabolisms, that this simple rule of thumb is not true.
I think he’s lying by omission and exaggerating to sell books, the same as every other diet book scam.
Are there people who benefit from a ketogenic diet, by making their metabolisms more healthy, getting them out of “survive starvation by accumulating fat” mode? Sure–but this only restores them to the usual rule of thumb, that taking in about 3500 calories fewer in a week than they use loses them about a pound a week-at least until their body fat drops below a certain minimum…most people don’t want to start metabolizing their own muscle tissue.
The important things are simple, the simple things are hard–eat less and you’ll lose weight. That’s all there is.
Help Taubes retire sooner if you must.
Insulin is the primary regulator of fat and carbohydrate metabolism, so a disorder in how it works would logically tend to lead to all sorts of interesting metabolic issues.
Oddly enough most people who are seriously overweight have all sorts of interesting metabolic issues. Typically they have or are at least rapidly heading for metabolic syndrome (manifesting 2 or more of the four disorders than mark it), if not already showing symptoms of pre-diabetes or full-blown type 2 diabetes. Perhaps the weight gain is not the cause of the issues with insulin but instead a symptom?
The second is that it’s been shown in animals that you can get subjects to put on 6 times as much weight as control animals fed the same amount if you introduce hormonal disruptions to the subjects. “They are not getting fat because they are overeating; they’re overeating because they are getting fat. It’s not a trivial difference. The causality is quite different.”
You’re missing Taubes’s point and misrepresenting his claims.
Nowhere does Taubes claim it’s impossible to lose weight by eating less. Yes, it’s possible. What he claims is that it’s healthier to do it by eating the foods we’re designed to eat, as opposed to eating less.
I’ve never been overweight by any standard measurement. I’m a 37-year-old Army Officer, and athletically above average when compared – not to the average American couch potato – but to other Soldiers, including ones 10-15 years younger than I.
Yet I follow Paleo/Primal model of eating. Why? It improves my athletic performance. Maintaining a fat burning state and drawing your carbohydrate intake from vegetables and fruits is simply healthier than burning sugar and drawing carbohydrates from grains and starches.
“Nowhere does Taubes claim it’s impossible to lose weight by eating less. Yes, it’s possible. What he claims is that it’s healthier to do it by eating the foods we’re designed to eat, as opposed to eating less.”
He also claims it’s easier, and I’ve heard him claim eating less doesn’t work for most people. It works for everyone.
I do not dispute that a high protein, high fat diet–a ketogenic one–is best for most people. I dispute the notion he has shown that 3500 = 1# is false. It’s pretty much basic thermodynamics. Of course we don’t get any metabolic benefit from eating charcoal, although it is high in calories, but I’m not saying that either.
“He also claims it’s easier, and I’ve heard him claim eating less doesn’t work for most people. It works for everyone.”
It does?
OK, yeah, for a while.
Then — inevitably — they fall off the wagon.
“Then — inevitably — they fall off the wagon.”
No they don’t. I didn’t I don’t think I’m special.
Also, this is a criticism of Taubes you are confirming you agree with–he claims that because it is hard, it doesn’t work. You’re claiming because it’s hard, it doesn’t work. So’s he.
“Inevitably” may be too strong. Actually, it’s only approximately 19 of 20 — 95 percent — according to my handy Merck’s. “Successful weight loss maintenance.” (Wing and Hill Annu Rev Nutr 2001;21:323-341) found as high as 20 percent, but that was unusual and apparently included bariatric surgery patients.
Tom, it’s obvious you’ve never carefully read Gary Taubes books and that you haven’t kept up with the controlled studies from the past 10-years (or so).
Taubes is very clear that this isn’t a new idea and goes to great pains to point out supporting evidence going back over a 100-years. He’s taken that and added the new research.
As for the thermodynamics comment,I’ve heard that before but it’s irrelevant as that assumes a closed system which the human body isn’t.
It IS easier. It’s far easier to stick to a diet with satisfying, tasty meals than a diet with small, unsatisfying, bland meals. That’s why calory restriction doesn’t work for most people.
“It’s pretty much basic thermodynamics.”
Except you’re not taking into account the fact – and it is a FACT – that our bodies can burn calories as fat OR sugar (glucose). If you only burn glucose, you won’t lose any fat. So, rather than the simpler…
E(in) = E(out)
of a non-biological system; in a biologica system you have to account for the difference in glucose and fat.
Oh for Gods’ sakes. Did you even look at my data? I’ve had a sustained loss for a month of 3 times the 3500 calories a day prediction.
Oh for God’s sake. I didn’t see where you documented either that you had a normal metabolism previously, or that you’re only shorting yourself 3500 calories per week over your previously stable equilibrium.
You not only not thinking carefully–let alone like a scientist–you and the other commenters to my post are thinking like fanbois.
Taubes isn’t saving the world he’s just saying trivially true things in a loud huckster’s voice to sell books.
“or that you’re only shorting yourself 3500 calories per week over your previously stable equilibrium”
IOW, where are you documenting your previous and present burn rates? Deficits don’t only come from intake.
You claim you are affecting your metabolism in some way Taubes best explains (or most recently, or most notably, or something–you claim Taubes has something to with it, his name is prominent in your post). Are you affecting your basal metabolism? Was it normal before? Were you previously tabulating your average body temp vs surroundings?
Are you actually being careful at all? Or is this series one big fap to confirmation bias?
There isn’t thing I’ve heard either fans or detractors say about Taubes and his claims, that I hadn’t heard 20 years ago.
Of course, he to sell books now.
Which is fine.
But he gets no points from me.
Well, if he doesn’t get any points from you, clearly it’s a bunch of hogwash!
Have you looked into the research he cites? Or are you simply attacking the messenger?
(And multiple replies to yourself? Chill, dude. No one’s going to force you onto a low-carb diet if you don’t want it.)
Frankly, Tom, if anything this looks like a fap for a sort of normal arrogant troll who knows what he knows and don’t need no actual evidence.
“Have you looked into the research he cites? Or are you simply attacking the messenger?”
What do you think I’m saying? I’m, saying his research is true and trivial–just sales hackery to sell diet books.
Every one of them boils down to eats less and lose weight, fewer calories in than out equals weight goes down.
But he can’t put that in the bank.
Which is to say “No, I didn’t actually look at his books.”
Which is no reply to what I’m telling you.
Well, you didn’t reply to Rob’s question either. But everything I’m seeing suggests you’re really angry that we’re not taking you at your word. That’s not uncommon, but I still want your citations, and a straight answer to whether you’ve read Good Calories, Bad Calories
Look, if you can’t be troubled to read this stuff, why are you bothering to complain about it? IF you were to follow this back, you’d find that I discuss keeping a careful food diary using the online LoseIt! site, which also allows me to track protein, fats, and carbs, as well as calories. That’s mentioned in the second sentence of the second paragraph.
IF you were to follow this back, you’d also find that I make no claim to have a “normal” metabolism — in fact, I assert rather the opposite, noting my history of hyperglycemia on at least the borderline of type II diabetes (there’s some dispute about whether a A1c of 7.5 percent is really quite enough for a a diagnosis of type II diabetes). not to mention starting at 301 pounds; I actually think that is in itself a sign of abnormal, or at least suboptimal, metabolism.
If you had ever read Taubes’ books, you’d also know that he doesn’t prescribe any diet at all — he’s rather more interested in why the common recommendations for diet continue to push a high carb low fat diet in the face of hundreds or thousands of contradictory studies.
And if you had read the second page of this article — and you didn’t clearly — you’d have seen that I look at several of the counter-arguments.
Could it be that I’m not keeping an effective food diary? Yeah, it’s possible, but when I know I’m recording everything and even taking pictures of much of it, it seems unlikely.
Could it be that I’m really managing a 2100 kcal/day deficit? Well, when I’m averaging something in the neighborhood of 2100 kcal/day eating, it seems pretty unlikely; as I say, on a day when I consciously splurged just before starting the careful tracking, I still only ate about 3100 kcals. In order to have a 2100 kcal/day deficit, it would suggest that my normal metabolic requirements are up around 4200 kcal/day. Now, I’m just doing about a half hour of exercise a week total, albeit carefully chosen, very intense exercise. That number isn’t wildly implausible in itself — using the 15 kcal/lb rule of thumb, my TEE (total energy expenditure) at 301 lbs should have been around 4200 kcal/day. The problem there is that I’m quite confident that when I was struggling with my weight before, I was never eating 4200 kcal a day.
Now, being conservative, let’s assume that I was actually consistently eating 3000 kcal/day when my weight was hanging around 290-300. I’d bet against it, but I’m pretty certain that’s at least an upper bound. Since my weight was stable in that area — stubbornly, maddeningly stable — my TEE would have to have been around 3000 kcal/day as well. So, to account for this, something I’m doing has raised my TEE by 40 percent. I can account for between 600-700 kcal a week from exercise; something else must account for the other 7700-7800 kcal/week.
The point here is that the 3500 kcal/lb model with no other rate constants or forcings fails one way or the other: either it doesn’t account for the weight loss, or it doesn’t account for the weight gain.
Now, with that in mind, you might also have a look at “What is the Required Energy Deficit per unit Weight Loss” by Kevin D Hall (Int J Obes (London). 2008 March.) The author finds that in fact for obese patients, it appears to require more that 3500 kcal/lb in a traditional diet.
“IF you were to follow this back, you’d also find that I make no claim to have a “normal” metabolism ”
So you are aware that if your are an inadvertent self cherry pick, you don’t know it or to what degree.
” Now, I’m just doing about a half hour of exercise a week total, albeit carefully chosen, very intense exercise.”
So you’re telling me you aren’t documenting your calories out in any way–just that you’ve deliberately undertaken an extra of about 100 calories a day in added output to whatever you unknown total out was, and are using a rule of thumb which may have no applicability to you to fudge the rest.
“If you had ever read Taubes’ books, you’d also know that he doesn’t prescribe any diet at all — he’s rather more interested in why the common recommendations for diet continue to push a high carb low fat diet in the face of hundreds or thousands of contradictory studies.”
I don’t know of many diets that do any such thing, except the USDA, and I don’t think anyone who cares about their health has listened to them by choice for 30 or 40 years. I think I remember Stossel exploding the “fat = bad” BS 20 years before I remember hearing of Taubes. Why pay the man to replough well ploughed fields?
“The point here is that the 3500 kcal/lb model with no other rate constants or forcings fails one way or the other: either it doesn’t account for the weight loss, or it doesn’t account for the weight gain.”
And I’m telling you thermodynamics works, and that you aren’t beginning to be careful enough for your anecdote to be anything other than example of how not to claim a diet works with any universality or insight into human health.
I am an anecdote to the contrary. I weigh 50 pounds less than I used to–have for 50 years–and all I did was eat less, still ate bread and pasta, and potatoes–just less of it.
Please take note I have never opposed the Cave-man or any other ketogenic diet–they make sense, and have for decades–I am opposed to someone selling facts old enough to be tautologies with flashy advertising and jazzy endorsements.
Save your money for healthy food, and look at the research that’s been out there for decades already.
“have for 50 years” should read “have for 5 years”
So, if I’m getting this right, you’re saying that this approach does work, you’re just offended because Taubes wrote a book?
Well, that along with the fact that you seem to have trouble with pronouns (which “you” are you talking about?) and anger management.
Oh, and reading comprehension, since you say “So you’re telling me you aren’t documenting your calories out in any way” when I’ve been fairly pointed about suggesting you read some of the other articles in this series, in which I talk in some detail about eexactly the exercise approach I’m using; oh, and logging and recording that too.
“…just that you’ve deliberately undertaken an extra of about 100 calories a day in added output to whatever you unknown total out was, and are using a rule of thumb which may have no applicability to you to fudge the rest.”
Tom, that rule of thumb is based on extensive population studies; it’s used medically all the time. It goes back to the Harris-Benedict equations I learned about at Duke, and has stood up nicely for nearly a hundred years. Now, you’re absolutely right that I’m not living my life in a calorimeter but one of two things has to be happening: either I’m burning something like 40 percent calories than I was a month ago — in other words, I’ve almost doubled my metabolic rate — or I’m losing fat much faster than would be predicted. Either one is interesting.
Now, actually I’ve read an awful lot of the literature myself — this has been an interest of mine since I did my PhD work at Duke Medical School 30 years ago. Taubes’ Good Calories, Bad Calories has an extensive literature review and an extended summary of the traditional model. Had you read it — it’s clear you haven’t, since you persist in misstating his findings — you’d have a good bit of the literature to read as well.
So, have you actually got any citations?
And yes, people do control their weight by calorie restriction. Generously, maybe as much as 1 in 5. Congratulations if you have done so, but I’ve got to say, an awful lot of those people I’ve met seem to do it by an obsessive, nearly pathological concern about everything they eat, about extensive exercise, and seem to get angry whenever anyone suggests perhaps their lifetime of sacrifice produced a result that could have been more easily achieved.
“So, if I’m getting this right, you’re saying that this approach does work, you’re just offended because Taubes wrote a book?”
I am offended that like every other diet huckster, although he’s doing nothing I haven’t known of for a very long time–come to think of it, I think Stossel did his piece in the ’80′s–he’s getting plaudits from, for example, Glenn Reynolds and you–as if he actually is saving the world.
“Well, that along with the fact that you seem to have trouble with pronouns (which “you” are you talking about?) and anger management.”
A) You see smart people who ought to know better, it seems deliberately, not address your arguments concerning something you care about and see how calm you stay perpetually.
B) Figure out what you wrote wrong here and then talk to me about pronoun trouble “either I’m burning something like 40 percent calories than I was a month ago” I think you’re missing the word “more”. I could be wrong.
“Oh, and reading comprehension…and recording that too.” & ” I’m not living my life in a calorimeter” And to be claiming to what you’re claiming–which as I understand it is you are backing up Taubes claim that a fat calorie is not equal to a sugar or simple starch calorie, yes, you’d need to be living in a calorimeter, and you’d have to have documented you had a standard metabolism before and after.
“Tom, that rule of thumb is based on extensive population studies; it’s used medically all the time.” And it backs up the notion that 3500cal/week equals 1#. So to be clear, you are saying it works for calorie expenditure per pound of body generically, until and unless you use a Taubes type diet (which predates Taubes’ book by decades), and then it goes out the window?
“Congratulations if you have done so, but I’ve got to say, an awful lot of those people I’ve met seem to do it by an obsessive, nearly pathological concern about everything they eat”
What, counting calories? It has to be done if you are going to budget them. After all, if you aren’t obsessively counting them now and weighing what you eat, you don’t know your calories in, do you?
“about extensive exercise”
Barely exercise at all, myself, and probably need to address that since some is better than none. In fact, once or twice a week of intensive short exercise is probably the best approach with respect to health and longevity.
“and seem to get angry whenever anyone suggests perhaps their lifetime of sacrifice produced a result that could have been more easily achieved.”
And if you ate all you wanted of other than simple carbs/starches/sugars, you think you’d lose weight? Because those calories are magically more fattening? You think to the tune of 66% more fattening? Are you saying that’s what Taubes claims, or just what you are finding with really inadequate measurement of calories in vs out, and not much in the way of a metabolic baseline before or now?
What Taubes says about insulin has been known of for a long time. He’s not the first to say it, and I don’t think he’s even said it best.
Tom, frankly, I’m not interested in pursuing the discussion with you until you answer at least one question: have you read Good Calories, Bad Calories? Or, what other background to you have in the scientific literature on the topic?
Or admit you have neither read GCBC nor the primary literature.
As far as Taubes’ book not having anything new, well, duh. Surveys don’t. Taubes, in fact, makes a point that this sort of diet traces back to (at least) Banting’s Letter on Corpulence from 1864. That is only one of the citations in the roughly 130 pages of bibliography in GCBC. Of course, I also made that point back when I started this series almost a month ago — but you wouldn’t know, because you’ve neither read what I’ve written in the series nor read Taubes (the latter being clear because you persist in insisting that Taubes wrote a “diet book.”)
As to this not being useful data since I’m not living in a calorimeter, well, don’t be an ass. Damn little of the literature on human metabolic rates has been done with people living in a calorimeter — although there has been some very interesting stuff with closed-chamber studies, eg, the Pima Indian studies. But they’re just not practical, which is why extensive experimentation has been done using indirect methods, such as food and activity diaries. I also infer you’re not familiar with the primary literature, or even with surveys, because you’re apparently unaware of that.
So we end up with this: I’m presenting data, admittedly with an n of 1, That data is consistent with one of two explanations: either something about this low-carb, but not dramatically low calorie, diet does lead to consuming body fat at a significantly faster rate than predicted by the fixed 3500 kcal/lb relationship; or, that something about the combination of the low-carb diet and the addition of less than 30 minutes exercise a week, albeit high-intensity exercise, has resulted in a near doubling of my total daily energy expenditure.
Either interpretation is interesting at the least; if it continues, it will start to look like a result.
Or, of course, you can just deny that I’m capable of weighting myself or keeping a food diary accurately enough to give useful numbers. But the problem with that is that you simultaneously insist that you believe this kind of diet can lead to rapid weight loss, and that the things about insulin that Taubes has reported are well known. So, then, somehow, you’re saying that even though I can’t take accurate data, my results are expected, even though they’re actually in conflict with the traditional model of dieting.
At this point, you’re pretty much painting yourself into a corner. You’re criticizing Taubes although you clearly haven’t read his books, and you show no signs of being familiar with the primary literature either. You insist that what I’m observing is expected, even though it conflicts with the standard simple thermodynamic model; at the same time, you insist that what is, after all, a very standard medical protocol for figuring caloric intake and expenditure is so fatally flawed that my data isn’t worth considering, even accepting the obvious sources of error; and you’re objecting to me reporting that in fact a low-carb diet does what much of the literature says, and which you insist you believe.
Frankly, we’re getting to the point where I’m tempted to reply “run along little boy, I think your mom is calling.”
So, let’s take another pass at this. You tell me, in calm and measured tones, just as if you were a scientist, what your objection is to me reporting what my actual weight loss and indirectly measured caloric intake is, and observing that it’s inconsistent with the standard model; and what your objection is to Taubes, who is after all a science journalist (and a very respected one who worked for years as a reporter and editor at Science), reporting what you admit is in the literature already.
Give it a try, or go comment on someone else’s post; repeated content-free flames will only get on my remaining nerve. You might also want to review the last paragraph of the comments policy directly above the comments section.
I went on a diet similar to Charlie’s for medical reasons, not weight loss. Weight loss was just a happy consequence. I only read Taubes months later.
Tom, your first post lays out your main argument – a personal dislike of Taubes. You challenge Taubes’ motives (…to sell books…), challenge his veracity (…I think he’s lying…), and now implying he is a huckster (…he’s just saying trivially true things in a loud huckster’s voice…). OK, we get it. You don’t like Taubes.
You are not addressing Charlie’s data.
(…you’re only shorting yourself 3500 calories per week over your previously stable equilibrium…) The graphs show him losing almost a pound a day. Believing the ‘Calories are calories’ argument that would imply a 3,500 kcal per day difference, not 3,500 kcal per week.
Either he is eating 3,500 kcal per day less (seems unreasonable given the description of his current diet), or he is burning through an extra 3,500 kcal per day (roughly, spend all evening on a stairmaster). Neither extreme seems reasonable. Presumably, his posts would mention such efforts.
I read Taube’s book, and found the science rational, though I know enough about biology to know that these processes are overwhelmingly complex. That said, I am going to try to replicate Charlie’s experience, of not his exact experiment.
I am a calorie-restrictor/exercisor who had great success – for at most a year or so. Doing the same thing the same way and expecting a different result is not science.
Keep up the good work.
Keep citing the science and the source documents.
I went down the ‘nutrition rabbit hole’ about 18 months ago and have not looked back. G. Taubes, Zoe Harcombne, C. Kresser, C. Masterjohn, M. Sisson, R. Wolf, and others are great guides through the monolith of unexamined assumptions of diet, nutrition, health, fitness, and how the body uses caloric energy.
Keep examining the narrative looking for the source documents based on science (random controlled studies).
Might I suggest a Zoe Harcombe article.
http://www.zoeharcombe.com/the-knowledge/energy-in-does-not-equal-energy-out/
And Dr. Lustig’s Sugar: The Bitter Truth from Youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
Interesting to read the exchange between Charlie and Tom Perkins. It’s amazing to me that this issue has become such a polarizing controversy. Anyone who thinks this exchange was, well, spirited should google the debate between Taubes and Michael Fumento.
All I can say is, Taubes has changed my life. What he gave me was knowledge — that I might be one of those people for whom insulin simply doesn’t signal that enough has been eaten. If this isn’t news, exactly, then where are the experts in the popular media explaining that this was a possibility? Why were the experts insisting we eat a low-carb diet when the fact of the matter is, for people like me, that’s simply a life sentence of obesity?
And why besmirch Taubes’ efforts by dismissing him as a glib huckster? I hope he *has* made millions with his books. He’s earned it as far as I’m concerned.
Nobody is saying that the laws of physics don’t apply. In fact, that’s the problem. Restricting carbs can increase the number of calories you burn simply by making you work harder to wring the energy out of your fat reserves. I’ve seen estimates of burning an additional 250-300 calories a day by sustaining ketosis.
But to me, the real contribution of the low-carb approach is the way you feel: you feel more alert and energetic, and it curbs your hunger. It makes you feel full. That’s huge. I was ravenously hungry for my entire life until I started the low-carb thing last March; it’s great to not feel hungry anymore, and actually losing the weight is a bonus.
The portion-control Weight-Watcher’s-style approach works for some people and nobody is saying otherwise. It worked for my wife. She dropped sixty pounds on the Weight Watcher’s diet, and has kept it off for three years. Portion-control even worked for me when I was younger. I took off about 80 pounds in high school and kept it off for most of my adult life. But I was hungry my whole life. All. The. Time. Ravenously hungry. Like a reformed alcoholic at a whiskey factory, I would break into a cold sweat in the presence of cake. Or pizza. Of chocolate chip cookies. Finally, my willpower broke when I was in my mid-forties and I simply could not stop the weight gain.
The Taubes approach made willpower irrelevant. I don’t have to think to myself, how am I going to get through the holidays without gaining seven pounds? All I have to do is avoid sugars and starches, and otherwise eat all I want, and everything will take care of itself.
There is an interesting theological discussion in here, as well. The Bible speaks against gluttony, which our culture defines as overeating. But eating to satisfy hunger is not gluttony. So if someone is overeating because he feels hungry, then, how does that qualify as gluttony? Someone gains a hundred pounds because he either he can’t, or won’t, control what he eats. Seems to be it’s the “won’ts” who are the true gluttons. In ancient Rome, they’d gorge and then vomit so they could gorge some more. That’s gluttonous. But if someone’s insulin isn’t doing its job of telling him he’s full and he eats more, it seems awfully glib to just throw him in the glutton category.
My two cents, anyway.
Thanks for doing this, Charlie.
> Why were the experts insisting we eat a low-carb diet when the fact of the matter is, for people like me, that’s simply a life sentence of obesity?
Sorry, correction: I meant to say, “low-fat” diet here.
> Why were the experts insisting we eat a low-carb diet when the fact of the matter is, for people like me, that’s simply a life sentence of obesity?
Sorry, meant to say, ‘low-fat’, not low-carb.