Favorite passages from Gary Taubes' new book

[PlaneCrazy]

I thought it would be interesting if people who are reading Gary Taubes' Good Calories Bad Calories would share favorite sections. I have many already and I'm only on page 185. This will give those who haven't read the book, perhaps more reason to buy it and read it.

Consider the porterhouse steak with a quarter-inch layer of fat. :yum: ... {then he describes how that fat is comprised of different types of fats, like monounsaturated, saturated and polyunsaturated, and their effect on LDL and HDL cholesterol}... In sum, perhaps as much as 70 percent of the fat content of a porterhouse steak will improve the relative levels of LDL and HDL cholesterol, compared with what they would be if carbohydrates such as bread, potatoes, or pasta were consumed. The remaining 30 percent will raise LDL cholesterol but will also raise HDL cholesterol and will have an insignificant effect, if any, on the ratio of total cholesterol to HDL. All of this suggests that eating a porterhouse steak in lieu of bread or potatoes would actually reduce heart-disease risk, although virtually no nutritional authority will say so publicly. The same is true for lard or bacon.

Feel free to add your own favorite sections. I'll be adding more as I have time.

Plane

[Wifezilla]

Oh cool!!! I just ordered mine today. I can hardly wait! (Sqqeeeeeeeee!!!)

[probiotic]

I have been underlining my favorite passages throughout as I read it (I'm about two thirds the way through it now), but because it's so dense with great material, I sometimes end up having to underline more than half a page. Stars and tick marks all over the place. Taubes quite simply rocks. The amount of research he put into this tome is phenomenal.

Every time I see some nitwit RD or nutritionist attack the book by attacking Taubes, I want to puke, because he is so much more objective and fair than any of them, and he is no propagandist- he is simply asking us all to step back and look at how shoddy most of the consensus on diet and health has been in the past few decades.

[PlaneCrazy]

Here's another one that points out that the huge studies, and reviews across huge studies still showed no effect from what is the current "wisdom" of lower heart disease risk. This is often called "multiple-risk-factor intervention" where we try and lower blood pressure, cholesterol and weight to prevent heart disease. According to what is published by every "authority" out there on nutrition, this is the recipe for reducing the risk of heart disease, right?

page 84
In 2006, the Cochrane Collaboration published a review of multiple-risk-factor interventions - including lowering blood pressure and cholesterol - for the prevention of coronary heart disease. In this case, thirty-nine trial were identified of which ten (comprising over nine-hundred thousand patient years of observation) included sufficient data and were carried out with sufficient rigor to draw meaningful inferences." The pooled effects suggest multiple risk factor intervention has no effect on mortality," the authors concluded. Although, once again, a "small" benefit of treatment, perhaps "a 10 percent reduction in CHD mortality," may have been missed, they added.

They always have to stick in there that, despite the evidence, there's still something in our study that must have supported the conclusions that everyone has already drawn, we just must have missed it.

Plane

[PlaneCrazy]

All right. One more for the morning.

Here, Taubes is talking about the Nurses Health Study. Run by Harvard epidemioloist Walter Willet, it tracked nearly 89,000 nurses around the country beginning in 1982 looking for a connection between fat and breast cancer. What it found has not gotten a lot of press.

p. 73
In 1999, the Harvard researchers published fourteen years of observations. By then almost three thousand nurses had contracted breast cancer, and the data still suggested that eating fatty foods (even those with copious saturated fat) might protect against cancer. For every 5 percent of saturated-fat calories that replaced carbohydrates in the diet, the risk of breast cancer decreased by 9 percent.
(emphasis mine)

This is then followed by Taubes' typical dry understatement.
This certainly argued against the hypothesis that excessive fat consumption caused breast cancer.
Plane

[Rissa6247]

I ordered mine, it should get here next week! I can't wait to read it and make everyone I know aware of it. :D

[manger]

Here is one:

Reactive oxygen species are generated primarily by the burning of glucose for fuel in the cells, in a process that attaches electrons to oxygen atoms, transforming the oxygen from a relatively inert molecule into one that is avid to react chemicaly with other molecules...One form of reactive oxygen species is those known commonly as free radicals..

[fujiwara]

My favorite passage will be when the library passes the book from "newly acquired" to "in circulation", since my name is first on the list to check it out!

[PlaneCrazy]

Here's one as he's building the case for the "Significance of Diabetes."

page187
Another way to look at this is to consider that metabolic syndrome and Type 2 diabetes lie on a continuum or a curve of physical degeneration. This curve is marked by ever-worsening disturbances of carbohydrate and fat metabolism - high insulin, insulin resistance, high blood sugar, high triglycerides, low HDL, and small, dense LDL.
Showing how the science keep warping the conclusions around the conventional wisdom of Keys' original fat-heart disease theory that's never actually been proven
First the National Cholesterol Education Program published its revised guidelines for cholesterol testing and treatment. {in 2002} This was followed in 2004 by two conference reports: one describing the conclusions of a joint NIH-AHA meeting on scientific issues related to metabolic syndrome, and the other, in which the American Diabetes Association joined in as well, describing joint treatment guidelines. Scott Grundy of the University of Texas was the primary author of all three documents. When I interviewed Grundy in May 2004, he acknowledged that metabolic syndrome was the cause of most heart disease in America, and that this syndrome is probably caused by the excessive consumption of refined carbohydrates. Yet his three reports - representing the official NIH, AHA and ADA positions -all remained firmly wedded to the fat-cholesterol dogma.
Until this dogma can be challenged, we'll continue to get these spurious conclusions.

One last one for anyone who knows someone who drinks sweetened soft drinks. These are full of High Fructose Corn Syrup. Even regular sugar is still half glucose and half fructose.

page 200
The more fructose in the diet, the higher the subsequent triglyceride levels in the blood.
Get the book!! It's really great.

Plane
Who's telling so many people about it, he should get a commission.

[Nancy LC]

I've been dog-earring my copy. Gosh, there's just so much in there that is good.

The thing is, this book has me so upset that we're in this phase of stupidity amongst scientists and doctors and the lot. Here we're looking at health care possibly swamping the country with a huge burden of cost yet promoting programs that'll simply increase it.

It also upsets me that this book is so complex because I realize that'll keep people from reading it. But, like Taubes says, part of the entire reason we're in this state of foolishness is because people keep trying to oversimplify and make easy to follow rules rather than understanding that things are complex!

Now we've got people horribly addicted to carbohydrates and how would we get them off that form of crack anyway? This would be like promoting that cigarette smoking cures heart disease and cancer for 50 years then telling everyone after they're addicted that oops... did we say cure? We meant "cause".

[probiotic]

It also upsets me that this book is so complex because I realize that'll keep people from reading it. But, like Taubes says, part of the entire reason we're in this state of foolishness is because people keep trying to oversimplify and make easy to follow rules rather than understanding that things are complex!

Both very true, and very good points, Nancy!

The book is chock full of wonderful passages, but Taubes has a relentless tendency to repeat himself by piling on the data and quotes from those scientists who did see the light. The irony though is that for all of his amazing effort at documenting his assertions (one could go to the epilogue and skip all the reading, but the tour de force is worth every second in my view), he still gets labelled as an "Atkins nut" by most reviewers. (Never mind that Atkins was right- he is now used as an epithet by mainstream, I think partly because he is now dead and can't defend himself, and partly because much of the media has declared "Atkins" as a "fad diet" that has come and gone, as indicated by food chains dumping their Atkins-approved menu sections.) It was good to see that both the NY Times and Wall Street Journal recently gave favorable reviews of Taubes, however.

Anyway, here is a favorite Taubes quote of mine, from pages 76-77, where he both quotes and paraphrases Francis Bacon:

Good science... is rooted in reality, and so it grows and develops, and the evidence grows increasingly more compelling, whereas wishful sciences remain 'stuck fast in their tracks,' or 'rather the reverse, flourishing most under their first authors before going downhill ever since.'

Wishful science eventually devolves to the point where it is kept alive simply by the natural reluctance of its advocates to recognize or acknowledge error, rather than compelling evidence that it is right.

What is frightening, I find, is that the mainstream tends to assess validity of a theory based on the volume of pubmed studies or citations rather than by an objective assessment of the evidence. On the Charlie Rose episode, for example, Ornish said he will be a convert the day there is published evidence. Well, there is plenty enough published evidence out there already, superior in quality, but it just loses out by sheer volume.

[deirdra]

Ornish said he will be a convert the day there is published evidence.Until then, he will keep describing the LC diet as "silly" (making HIM sound silly and desperate).

[Nancy LC]

..he still gets labelled as an "Atkins nut" by most reviewers. (Never mind that Atkins was right- he is now used as an epithet by mainstream, I think partly because he is now dead and can't defend himself, and partly because much of the media has declared "Atkins" as a "fad diet"
I think that's pretty much a huge red flag warning that they haven't read the book. How you can dismiss all the research for the decades that research has been done linking carbohydrates to heart disease and diabetes and call him an Atkins nut? He's a Yudkin, Reaven, Cleave nut, and all the other scientists whose names I don't remember.

[NewRuth]

The thing is, this book has me so upset that we're in this phase of stupidity amongst scientists and doctors and the lot. Here we're looking at health care possibly swamping the country with a huge burden of cost yet promoting programs that'll simply increase it.

I had to purchase my own copy because I can only read a couple pages at a time. If I read more, I just get too angry!

My already low opinion of public health authorities isn't being helped by this book. :mad:

[probiotic]

I have to toss in another favorite Taubes quote of mine, in keeping with this thread, having just finished the epic.

From pp.451-452:
The urge to simplify a complex scientific situation so that physicians can apply it and their patients and the public embrace it has taken precedence over the scientific obligation of presenting the evidence with relentless honesty. The result is an enormous enterprise dedicated in theory to determining the relationship between diet, obesity and disease, while dedicated in practice to convincing everyone involved, and the lay public, most of all, that the answers are already known and always have been - an enterprise, in other words, that purports to be a science and yet functions like a religion.

[Nancy LC]

This explained a lot to me about why I get a rapid, pounding heart when I eat carbs

Taubes, page 151.

"Since the late 1970s, investigators have demonstrated the existence of other hormonal mechanisms by which insulin raises blood pressure--in particular, by stimulating the nervous system and the same flight-or-fight response incited by adrenaline. This was first reported by Lewis Landsberg, an endocrinologist who was then at Harvard Medical School and would later become dean of the Northwestern University School of Medicine. Landsberg showed that, by stimulating the activity of the nervous system, insulin increases heart rate and constricts blood vessels, thereby raising blood pressure. The higher the insulin level, the greater the stimulation of the nervous system, Landsberg noted. If insulin levels remained high, so Landsberg's research suggested, then the sympathetic nervous system would be constantly working to raise blood pressure. "

[zedgirl]

From Chapter Seven
Fiber


"I don't hold the cholesterol view for a moment," Cleave said, noting that mankind had been eating saturated fats for hundreds of thousands of years. "For a modern disease to be related to an old-fashioned food is one of the most ludicrous things I have ever heard in my life," said Cleave. "If anybody tells me that eating fat was the cause of coronary disease, I should look at them in amazement. But, when it comes to the dreadful sweet things that are served up....that is a very different proposition."

[Locarb4mee]

I thought it would be interesting if people who are reading Gary Taubes' Good Calories Bad Calories would share favorite sections. I have many already and I'm only on page 185. This will give those who haven't read the book, perhaps more reason to buy it and read it.



Feel free to add your own favorite sections. I'll be adding more as I have time.

Plane


So far that's my favorite too. I may find another once I get further into the book. I read that one last night and actually got out of bed at 1:30 am to find my yellow highlighter :D

[Locarb4mee]

I've been dog-earring my copy. Gosh, there's just so much in there that is good.

The thing is, this book has me so upset that we're in this phase of stupidity amongst scientists and doctors and the lot. Here we're looking at health care possibly swamping the country with a huge burden of cost yet promoting programs that'll simply increase it.



I like that analogy about the cigarettes!

I'm beginning to think the answer to your first comment is Job Security. Can the medical establishment be this ignorant? It makes me nuts. Reminds me a little of when I first read about Essiac, the treatment for cancer and how the medical establishment shut down the nurse who was curing people with the formula.

I don't think they want their cash cows to disappear. Cynical, aren't I?

[Wifezilla]

I am on page 131.

I am so pissed off I think my head is going to explode.

All I can say to all the people who promoted, encouraged, reported and supported wrong BAD information is "YOU BASTARDS!"

[kaypeeoh]

Pages 394-397:

I didn't copy them but what I read is that in response to a high carb meal the muscle cells can become resistant to insulin while the fat cells never become resistant. Meaning only so much carb can enter muscles to be used for energy while any excess is always able to be shunted to the fat cells.

He says the body switches easily from fat-burning to sugar-burning. The moderator is insulin. Even small amounts of insulin will inhibit fat cells from releasing fatty acids. As a runner that suggests to me that post-workout carbs might do more harm than good.

[rightnow]

You know, over the last year I've done a lot of thinking -- and to be fair, "waffling" -- about the "ultra (very) low carb" which is really what constitutes what most people call low-carb plans. I've made several attempts to shift from an either lowcarb or standard (highcarb) dietary plan into a "carb cycling" plan that would be VLC interspersed with a few days every couple weeks of more. I've read enough about bodybuilding nutrition the last 12 months to pretend expertise on the subject. I've worked pretty hard on finding a way to rationalize why some degree of carbs are ok, either in general or cyclically (by 'some degree' I mean say 100 a day). I react to gluten, and gluten-free stuff is only highcarb, which is so exasperating it makes me want to stomp my feet like a three year old in a tantrum about it. So I've been trying, trying, to find something that I consider a "sane middle ground."

But books like Taubes's being quoted here (keep them coming, I can't buy it right now but really want to and will eventually, but love the quotes!) make me realize there's a sort of fundamental fallacy about my logic on this one:

It's like on some level, my brain's been thinking that the highcarb 'norm' of our culture is 'bad for me, though maybe it's ok for others' and lowcarb is 'good for me', so gosh, if only I could find something somewhere between the two, how much easier eating with others would be, how much more convenient my food choices would seem, even if they were perhaps 'less perfect' from a VLC standpoint.

But I think maybe carby eating isn't just bad for me. It's just deadly, period.

The idea that I want to be able to feed my kid fairly carby stuff because it's easier/faster, more fun for her, and I'm not trying to make her ketogenic (and what she eats elsewhere doesn't support LC anyway), I've been thinking, despite her weight gain over time (mostly from her dad feeding her mac&cheese and McD for 18 months--she seriously needs to lose 1/3 her body weight at this point), that I shouldn't be "forcing my lowcarb on her" because it's "not normal" as anyone in my family would remind me.

But maybe all the carby crap is what is not normal. Maybe measuring norms by today's marketing-driven society rather than "human biology" is the problem. Maybe thinking mondo carbs are ok "but just apparently not for me" is the real problem if cancer and heart disease etc. are killing off huge swaths of our population.

Maybe the link to obesity is that the carbs create metabolic syndrome which in turn has a huge effect on disease. So people aren't more likely to have a disease or heart attack because they are fat, one could just as fairly say, they are fat because they are prone to things like greater risk of health issues -- both the fat and the health issues being based on the same core problems -- and those problems being based on the same core nutrition.

So maybe I just can't find my way out of it. I keep looking for a path to Why I Can Eat Some Kind Of Bread and Stuff and I just... can't seem to get there from here. The more I read about the effect of substantial carboyhydrates on the body, the more I'm frankly amazed that our entire society isn't dying off at twice the speed it already is.

Gary's book seems to bring this home. The quotes posted so far are great.

[Wifezilla]

The more I read about the effect of substantial carboyhydrates on the body, the more I'm frankly amazed that our entire society isn't dying off at twice the speed it already is.

Exactly!!!!

Within the last 2 years, my father and three close friends have all been diagnosed with high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes. While my dad is 65, my friends are in their mid 40's to early 50's. I even have a tiny, skinny friend who has been diagnosed with high blood pressure and my husband's buddy is on statins to lower his cholestorol...and he is pretty thin too.

They aren't dropping dead yet, but they are all on a bunch of pills designed to keep them alive. Of course, none of them were told their symptoms are very likely to disappear if they stop eating so many carbs. But what fun would that be for the doctors and the pharmaceutical companies?

[fujiwara]

I have many friends with "sugar diseases" (I'm gonna call them that, because that's what breaks us), almost all of my girlfriends have either 1)high fasting blood sugars, 2)a lot of excess body fat, 3)high blood pressure, or 4)female troubles like PCOS. All of us range from 30 to 36! At this age we should be out there turning heads instead of being fat and exhausted at home!

Out of them one realized that she can do something about her health and has changed her eating habits. She's not gone low carb, but she's gone less carb and seen results.

Three of them are operating on bad advice from the medical community and no amount of me telling them what I've learned is going to change their minds, so I don't. It's not up to me to impose my lifestyle changes on others, it's something they have to do for themselves.

One of them has decided that there's nothing she can do about her health, that it's all just random. I predict a very miserable life her for in the future, and that breaks my heart.

The other thing all of us have in common is a sugar addiction. And until that is cured, nothing much will change. I'm slowly conquering mine, and learning what sets off cravings has been really helpful. But since there is no social stigma against eating sugar there is no outside pressure to stop, and more and more people are going to be getting fat and miserable younger and younger.

I broke down and bought the book. It is packed so dense with information that I can only read about 10 pages at a time, and then I have to wait a few hours to digest it all. I'm somewhere in the third chapter. One of my favorite quotes was showing that feeding rabbits oil gave them signs of heart disease, and that other scientists scoffed at those findings because rabbits don't eat oils and fats.

[Barb F]

Hi All,
I'm at work so can't post my favorites at this minute but I wanted to remind everyone who is reading the book to post a review at Amazon. There are a number of low ratings obviously posted by Ornish or PETA ppl. I can see them now like little apes with their fingers in their ears chanting la la la, Don't want to hear this.

[Nancy LC]

Maybe the link to obesity is that the carbs create metabolic syndrome which in turn has a huge effect on disease. So people aren't more likely to have a disease or heart attack because they are fat, one could just as fairly say, they are fat because they are prone to things like greater risk of health issues -- both the fat and the health issues being based on the same core problems -- and those problems being based on the same core nutrition.
He traces the problem to excess insulin. Body builders are all pursuing moments of excess insulin because it also helps build muscle. But the chronic high sugar levels in the blood also lead to generating lots of AGE's which... age you. They make your skin old, make your heart stiffen (something both my parents had in the 70's, neither were diabetic), makes tangled plaques in the brain, the make the lenses of your eye harden and go opaque, they basically make you old and crippled.

If you want to eat carbs and stay healthy, you have to calorie restrict, like eat 20-30% fewer of the calories you'd normally eat to maintain your weight.

Another thing is, body builders are not fat. I used to try to use those eating techniques too but the difference is, I'm not a body builder. I'm a fat, middle-aged woman. I personally don't think they're people I'd like to emulate at all really, too many of them do risky things like take steroids or abuse drugs. And playing with your own insulin is probably pretty self-abusive too. I know whenever I had a high carb meal when I was "carb-cycling" I felt horrible with the pounding heart and everything else.

Oh yeah, what I originally was going to say was, we're fat for the same reason we're sick, not sick because we're fat.

[Wifezilla]

We're fat because we're sick, not sick because we're fat.

I think I need to put that on a sign....and then when someone says something stupid like "you just need willpower" or "cutting carbs is dangerous" I can beat them over the head with it :D

[LCivility]

Taubes, pages 339:

Look at this another way. When Bruce Bistian and George Blackburn instructed their patients to eat nothing but lean meat, fish and fowl, 630-800 calories a day of fat and protein--half of them lost at least forty pounds each. That success rate held true for "thousands of patients" from the 1970's on. Bistrian said, "It's an extraordinarily effective and safe way to get large amounts of weight loss." But had they chosen to balance these very low-calorie diets of fat and protein with carbohydrates--say, by adding another 400 calories of "wonderful fruits and vegetables," as Bistrian phrased it--they would then be consuming the kind of semi-starvation diet that inevitably fails: 1200 calories evenly balanced between protein, fat and carbohydrates. "The likelihood of losing forty pounds on that diet is one percent." Bistrian said.

[rightnow]

I'm always saying I want to document my daily weight in a thick book so everytime someone spouts 'the calorie lie' at me I can whack them upside the head with it.

When I shop, I sometimes feel like I'm badly representing lowcarb because I'm so fat and people see all this eggs cheese meat veggies in my basket. I'm sure they're thinking, "Look at all that FAT, no wonder she's fat!" They don't know I've lost a lot of weight, a lot of medical symptoms, have vastly more energy, etc. I sometimes wonder if I should wear an obnoxious pin (remember those "I found it!" pins in the 1970's?) on my purse or something that says, "I lost 100 lbs, lost acid reflux, asthma and more! GO LOW CARB!" but then... that would be too evangelical even for me. ;-)

I think a book like Gary's is super important not just because of people reading it because the reality is, most the people who read it, are already open to the topic. What's useful is that all those people have his book as reference material, so when they talk to others, post on message boards etc., now they have actual ammunition against all the false, misleading, etc. stuff and they can combat it better. It might, in a longer-term way, contribute to better communication on the internet, which can contribute to at least a few people onlooking getting a clue.

[Locarb4mee]

I've read enough about bodybuilding nutrition the last 12 months to pretend expertise on the subject. I've worked pretty hard on finding a way to rationalize why some degree of carbs are ok, either in general or cyclically (by 'some degree' I mean say 100 a day).

But I think maybe carby eating isn't just bad for me. It's just deadly, period.

Maybe the link to obesity is that the carbs create metabolic syndrome which in turn has a huge effect on disease.
So maybe I just can't find my way out of it. I keep looking for a path to Why I Can Eat Some Kind Of Bread and Stuff and I just... can't seem to get there from here. The more I read about the effect of substantial carboyhydrates on the body, the more I'm frankly amazed that our entire society isn't dying off at twice the speed it already is.



Several of your comments resonate with me, RightNow. I deliberately ate a quite carby meal last weekend for my birthday dinner. I didn't go crazy but I had what I wanted, which included BangBang Shrimp (a tempura fried shrimp with very spicy sweetish curryflavored cream sauce on it), Lobster with butter, Fried Calamari with Thai dipping sauce (it was full of sugar, think spicy duck sauce), and finished with a Creme Brulee. Can you say Sugar!!!!

About an hour after eating this meal, I was having hot flashes, my heart was pounding, I felt sweaty all over and I would bet my blood pressure was up 10 points. I had a slight headache and just overall could tell my metabolism was just flipping out. This continued for several hours. I used to experience this after a large meal but always blamed this particular type reaction on the couple glasses of wine I usually would have with this sort of meal. Uh...guess what. It ain't the wine, kiddo. Note, this was the first such meal I've had in about 3 months.

I'm being my own Weird Science Experiment, admittedly, but I'm of the opinion that refined carbs will kill me if I give them enough chance.

I would say absolutely YES to this>>>> But I think maybe carby eating isn't just bad for me. It's just deadly, period.

I don't know about you, but I ALREADY have Metabolic Syndrome! I'm absolutely doing everything in my power to reverse it as quickly as possible before I develop full blown coronary disease or diabetes. No help from my stupid doctors (whole 'nother story there).

I think we need to understand fully that we are playing with fire when we allow high glycemic carbs into our meals. Perhaps weightlifters and bodybuilders can do it. I'm not one. I suspect you are not either. They likely don't have the kind of screwed up metabolism I have and carb loading may work just fine for these guys.

What sets most of us apart from bodybuilders and why I do NOT attempt to subscribe to their practices at this time in my life (and I'm an old BFL vet), is that I do not currently possess a healthy metabolism and I think eating carbs is like playing Russian Roulette with my health.

Another amazing thing. I weighed 191.4 on Sunday morning after that meal. Up almost 4 lbs overnight. I have lost it this week, in just 4 days by eating a great deal of FAT. Yes, fat. :cool: How strange is that?

As always, the standard disclaimer: just MY two cents worth.

[Galliard]

Page 294: "For every calorie stored as fat or lean tissue, the body will require that an extra calorie either be consumed or conserved. As a result, anyone driven to put on fat by such a metabolic or hormonal defect would be driven to excessive eating, physical inactivity, or some combination. Hunger and indolence would be side effects of such a hormonal defect, merely facilitating the drive to fatten. They would not be the fundamental cause."

Page 295 "What may be the single most incomprehensible aspect of the last half-century of obesity research is the failure of those involved to grasp the fact that both hunger and sedentary behavior can be driven by a metabolic-hormonal disposition to grow fat, just as a lack of hunger and the impusle to engage in physical activity can be driven by a metabolic-hormonal disposition to burn calories rather than store them."

Page 295: "This notion that fattening is the cause and overeating the effect, and not vice versa, also explains why a century of researchers have made so little progress, and why they keep repeating the same experiments over and over again."

This whole chapter -- chapter 17 -- really changed the way I think about weight-gain, although I've been a believer in low-carb for a long time.

Another favorite, page 451: "institutionalized vigilance,'this unending exchange of critical judgment,' is nowhere to be found in the study of nutrition, chronic disease, and obesity, and it hasn't been for decades. For this reason, it is difficult to use the term 'scientist' to describe those individuals who work in these disciplines, and indeed, I have actively avoided doing so in this book. (take that, Ancel Keys!)

[Nancy LC]

About an hour after eating this meal, I was having hot flashes, my heart was pounding, I felt sweaty all over and I would bet my blood pressure was up 10 points. I had a slight headache and just overall could tell my metabolism was just flipping out. This continued for several hours. I used to experience this after a large meal but always blamed this particular type reaction on the couple glasses of wine I usually would have with this sort of meal. Uh...guess what. It ain't the wine, kiddo. Note, this was the first such meal I've had in about 3 months.
Think "nervous system":
"Since the late 1970s, investigators have demonstrated the existence of other hormonal mechanisms by which insulin raises blood pressure--in particular, by stimulating the nervous system and the same flight-or-fight response incited by adrenaline. This was first reported by Lewis Landsberg, an endocrinologist who was then at Harvard Medical School and would later become dean of the Northwestern University School of Medicine. Landsberg showed that, by stimulating the activity of the nervous system, insulin increases heart rate and constricts blood vessels, thereby raising blood pressure. The higher the insulin level, the greater the stimulation of the nervous system, Landsberg noted. If insulin levels remained high, so Landsberg's research suggested, then the sympathetic nervous system would be constantly working to raise blood pressure. "

[PlaneCrazy]

Rightnow's comment about shopping struck me as particularly appropriate since I'm going grocery shopping this evening.

I also experience Rightnow's sense of self-consciousness when eating this way in public. I feel like I have to justify to others why a 230 pound man is eating a hunk of meat with butter, or buying meat, butter, cheese, sour cream and some veggies, but none of the "whole grains" or fruit that we're supposed to eat. You're buying a huge chuck roast but no granola?

Well, I'm tired of feeling guilty or furtive, like I'm doing something bad.

As of this moment, I don't give a flying $&#~ what anyone else thinks! This is about how I'm going to save my life!

As of this moment, I have no more room for shame. This is my body, my struggle, and my life.

If others want to stare and judge, good for them, it gives them a hobby. As for me, I'm going to eat the way my body works best. I'm going to spend the money to make myself healthy by eating good foods, even if they do cost a bit more.

Just imagine how much I'll save over the years in doctor bills when I don't get high blood pressure, when I don't get diabetes, and when I don't get heart disease? I'm worth it, and those who judge, can all go jump in a lake of dry, fat-free pasta.

As for me, pass the butter.

Plane

[Wifezilla]

Go Plane!!!

I just went shopping yesterday. When people stare at my shopping cart, I know it's just because they are all so jealous :D

[glennette]

Rightnow's comment about shopping struck me as particularly appropriate since I'm going grocery shopping this evening.

I also experience Rightnow's sense of self-consciousness when eating this way in public. I feel like I have to justify to others why a 230 pound man is eating a hunk of meat with butter, or buying meat, butter, cheese, sour cream and some veggies, but none of the "whole grains" or fruit that we're supposed to eat. You're buying a huge chuck roast but no granola?

Well, I'm tired of feeling guilty or furtive, like I'm doing something bad.

As of this moment, I don't give a flying $&#~ what anyone else thinks! This is about how I'm going to save my life!

As of this moment, I have no more room for shame. This is my body, my struggle, and my life.

If others want to stare and judge, good for them, it gives them a hobby. As for me, I'm going to eat the way my body works best. I'm going to spend the money to make myself healthy by eating good foods, even if they do cost a bit more.

Just imagine how much I'll save over the years in doctor bills when I don't get high blood pressure, when I don't get diabetes, and when I don't get heart disease? I'm worth it, and those who judge, can all go jump in a lake of dry, fat-free pasta.

As for me, pass the butter.

Plane

:agree: I also felt self conscious when shopping at first. But the last time I was in the check out line at Costco I noticed a few ppl looking into our cart and actually felt good about it. I knew there was no garbage in it, no sweets, no bread or bakedgoods, no canned or boxed items with lists of chemicals in them. Just lots of wholesome steaks, salmon, chicken, pork, butter, and eggs. It also bothers me less bc both the DH and myself are now a bit thinner :D

[Daryl]

Well, I'm tired of feeling guilty or furtive, like I'm doing something bad.

As of this moment, I don't give a flying $&#~ what anyone else thinks! This is about how I'm going to save my life!

As of this moment, I have no more room for shame. This is my body, my struggle, and my life.


Plane

Good for you, Plane :agree:

[Aeryn]

:agree: I also felt self conscious when shopping at first. But the last time I was in the check out line at Costco I noticed a few ppl looking into our cart and actually felt good about it. I knew there was no garbage in it, no sweets, no bread or bakedgoods, no canned or boxed items with lists of chemicals in them.

Exactly. I think you might be surprised by what people are thinking when they look into a shopping cart filled with meat, eggs, cheese, butter, and veggies. Back in the day before I discovered this WOE, I would certainly look at carts filled with those items, and then look at mine (filled with granola and veggies, but also popcorn and ice cream and chips and frozen dinners) and think, "God, I really need to learn how to cook. That person's cart looks so wholesome."

That's really what it came down to for me: carts filled with whole foods never registered to me as "unhealthy." Quite the opposite, in fact. (That said, I would have been equally impressed, at the time, by a cart filled with granola, bananas, and whole-grain bread, so there you go: I had a lot left to learn back then!)

[Locarb4mee]

Think "nervous system":
"Since the late 1970s, investigators have demonstrated the existence of other hormonal mechanisms by which insulin raises blood pressure--in particular, by stimulating the nervous system and the same flight-or-fight response incited by adrenaline. This was first reported by Lewis Landsberg, an endocrinologist who was then at Harvard Medical School and would later become dean of the Northwestern University School of Medicine. Landsberg showed that, by stimulating the activity of the nervous system, insulin increases heart rate and constricts blood vessels, thereby raising blood pressure. The higher the insulin level, the greater the stimulation of the nervous system, Landsberg noted. If insulin levels remained high, so Landsberg's research suggested, then the sympathetic nervous system would be constantly working to raise blood pressure. "

I just saw where you posted that the other day. I must have breezed past it the first time on this thread. Perfect explanation.

Yeah, eat those carbs, they're JUST so good for us.

[PlaneCrazy]

I'm now up to 341 and I'm becoming a zealot. I can't stop reading.
page 340
If we add 400 calories of fat and protein to 800 calories of fat and protein, we have a 1,200-calorie high-fat, charbohydrate-restricted diet that will still result in considerable weight loss. If we add 400 calories of carbohydrates to the 800 calories of fat and protein, we have a balanced semi-starvation diet of the kind commonly recommended to treat obesity - and we reduce the efficacy by a factor of fifty. We now have a diet that will induce forty pounds of weight loss in perhaps one in a hundred patients rather than one in two.

If this book does not confirm you in this way of life, then you didn't understand it, or you're in denial. Especially for those of us here who know that we must do something, and nothing else has worked. If you are obese, read this book. If you care for someone who is obese, read this book. Of all of the books I've read or glanced at regarding carbohydrate restricted diets, none have been nearly as important as this. Even with all of my self-education about the importance of low-carb eating, this book has changed my life.

Now my only problem with Dr. Atkins is that he didn't go far enough. :)

Plane
Who thinks everyone should buy a copy for your doctor.

[Nancy LC]

One thing... wonder if anyone else has picked up on this.

He talks about kids who are being born to Mom's on this high-insulin continuum that leads to diabetes. I wonder if perhaps this is the REAL source of the epidemic. Kids like that are probably already set up with a body ready to store fat. We've probably been edging our way to the point where nearly everyone will have been born from a Mom with too high insulin levels.

I wonder if perhaps this is the reason I can't lose weight without starving myself. My body is already wired and isn't going to change at this point. That passage about endomorphs getting skinny really hit home to me. They're emaciated fat people. That is exactly how I get when I drop below a certain weight. Still overly fat in many areas but skeletal in others.

[PlaneCrazy]

I saw this as well. It made me give a mental "hooray" since my wife ate almost exclusively a low-carb diet when she was pregnant. Her "morning" sickness was so bad that she couldn't even stand water. She could only tolerate meat and veggies, but only if I cooked out doors. It IS possible to make just about anything, including meatloaf on a grill. I always got no-hormones meat, and grass-fed as often as I could. (we had a lot of steak)

That may help explain why our son has always been long and lean, no matter how much he eats. I'm hoping his genetics takes more after my wife than my side of the family. At least by the time he gets old enough for his system to not process carbs so well, I was about 28 when it happened to me, medical science will have moved on from this low-fat crap. If not, I will definitely let him know.

Plane

[Nancy LC]

Actually, what amazing timing! I just saw most of the Nova special on Epigenetics and how what your Grandparents ate influence your genetics. Wow... So this stuff is cumulative. Since all our parents, grandparents,etc have had so many carbohydrates it could really snowball.

[Citruskiss]

Exactly. I think you might be surprised by what people are thinking when they look into a shopping cart filled with meat, eggs, cheese, butter, and veggies. Back in the day before I discovered this WOE, I would certainly look at carts filled with those items, and then look at mine (filled with granola and veggies, but also popcorn and ice cream and chips and frozen dinners) and think, "God, I really need to learn how to cook. That person's cart looks so wholesome."

That's really what it came down to for me: carts filled with whole foods never registered to me as "unhealthy." Quite the opposite, in fact.

This is funny - because I sometimes actually get asked by the cashier what I'm making. They'll be scanning my purchase, and the abundance of meat, fish and produce is noticed. (um, this never happens at Wal-Mart by the way..)

When I say, "Oh, I'm making salmon with dill and maybe some roasted asparagus" I get this look...as if I'm doing something really unusual. Thing is, I'm in there every week - and they (the regular cashiers) see that I'm continually buying whole foods. "What are you making tonight?"...and I'll say, "Oh, tonight I'm making baked pork chops with oregano and some spinach sauteed with lemon and fresh garlic".

It's kinda fun actually. :D

I'm out of town right now, and don't have my "Good Calories, Bad Calories" book with me, so can't put in my favourite passages, but am certainly enjoying this thread ...looking forward to reading more about what people are finding and liking in the Taubes book. My copy is filled with these little hot-pink post-it flags...lol!

[Nancy LC]

I liked the part in the book about obesity and overeating and the crazy circular reasoning involved.

He used this illustration. Lets say you have 2 guys, same age. One eats 3000 calories a day and is thin, the other eats 3000 calories day and is fat. Why would we only accuse the fat one of overeating?

He cites lots of studies that show that fat people quite commonly eat less than their thin counterparts, yet we attribute all sorts of terrible personality issues to the fat ones: Slothfulness, overeating, laziness, undisciplined, no willpower. When in fact, the reverse might be true. The overweight person might be exercising daily, and doing as much as they can to *try* to control their weight.

Anyway, this is something that obesity researchers keep rediscovering and forgetting about for the last 100 years or so. :p

Foot note, page 286

"That the toxic-environment hypothesis is deeply immersed in moral and class judgements is evidenced by the observation that few or none of the condemnations of fast-food restaurants include a coffee chain such as Starbucks, despite the copious excess calories it peddles. ...

The same judgements are made when discussing physical activity: If we sit around all day watching television, we're condemned as couch potatoes, and our obesity is only a matter of time. If we sit around studying or reading books, this same accusation is rarely voiced."

[Locarb4mee]

Nancy, you beat me to it!!

I read those sections over the weekend. The one that really resonates with me is the value judgement one about sedentary activities. Sitting is sitting no matter what you're doing otherwise.

My husband will sit and read half a novel in a day's time, but woof on me for spending an equal number of hours re-working my store site, ordering inventory, moderating forums, doing research, or answering my daily avalanche of Help Me Please! emails. (I run several online forums, 2 online businesses and I sculpt and reborn dolls). Not a lot of time to get up and away from it and out of the house, doing all that--not if I want to continue to be successful. But to others it looks like I'm wasting time and being too lazy to exercise.

I don't even HAVE time to watch TV most of the time. I have to write House and Grey's Anatomy on stickies by the computer so I at least can watch my 2 favorite shows :lol:

There is just ONE thing about Gary's comments about exercise that I have a personal issue with.

About 7 years ago, I took a job as Stocking Manager at a local petfood warehouse. My job entailed singlehandedly unloading bulk pet foods from the truck twice a week and making sure they were stacked in the steel racks. I estimated at the time that I moved approx. a ton of pet food each week, by myself.

When I began the job I weighed about 180. Within 2 months, I weighed 150. I ate pizza and all kinds of fast food and the weight FELL off me. That's the only time in my life anything like that has happened. So for me, I know that serious constant exercise will take the weight off with no dietary restrictions, but I will likely never again in this life ever have a job like that again. Oh, and yes, the weight came back after I moved into a management position. :D

[serrelind]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think Gary Taubes said for many people, not everyone, exercise works up an appetite, and you eat more to compensate for the extra calories burnt through exercise.

[mike_d]

I can attest that digging ditches all day long, if you are fit enough for it will keep you trim and very HUNGRY.

His point is well taken that most voluntary training or structured exercise plans are just counterproductive when applied only for weight control on a normal American diet. Building muscle does burn a few more calories, but I think the sum effect is overrated.

[Locarb4mee]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think Gary Taubes said for many people, not everyone, exercise works up an appetite, and you eat more to compensate for the extra calories burnt through exercise.

I agree, it absolutely does work up an appetite, no doubt. I ate everything in sight when I had that job and the weight still fell off me. Many times I've *almost* wished I had to work that hard again every day. I felt marvelous. I also used to sleep like a baby but it was really almost too hard, if you know what I mean. I was useless at home after a 10 hr shift of that kind of physical labor. I didn't stay in that position long either.

[K Walt]

I agree, it absolutely does work up an appetite, no doubt. I ate everything in sight when I had that job and the weight still fell off me. Many times I've *almost* wished I had to work that hard again every day. I felt marvelous. I also used to sleep like a baby but it was really almost too hard, if you know what I mean. I was useless at home after a 10 hr shift of that kind of physical labor. I didn't stay in that position long either.


I can't help noticing that the people who actually do hard physical labor, carpenters, masons, construction workers, and the like aren't especially lean. They are fit, and strong as hell. But they aren't any leaner than the rest of us.

[Angeline]

I agree, it absolutely does work up an appetite, no doubt. I ate everything in sight when I had that job and the weight still fell off me. Many times I've *almost* wished I had to work that hard again every day. I felt marvelous. I also used to sleep like a baby but it was really almost too hard, if you know what I mean. I was useless at home after a 10 hr shift of that kind of physical labor. I didn't stay in that position long either.


I have a similar story that happened to my ex-brother in law. He used to deliver pizzas for a living. One of the perks of the job was that he could eat on site for free, including lots of, you guessed it, pizzas. Also he would take pizza home fairly frequently.

Well when I saw him one Christmas, the fat has melted away from him. He used to have a huge gut and now he was slim. When I asked what happened he told me he had a new job, operating a forklift. He and my sister attributed his weight loss to a more physical job, although delivering pizzas wasn't exactly a desk job. I think it would be fairer to attribute the weight loss to loss of free (carby) meals

[rightnow]

As a teen I briefly worked at a donut shop. They had a great business model: they told the employees, 'eat everything you want. just only do it on breaks, and you have to ring it up as employee food so the computer knows where the food went.' So for the first week, new employees eat themselves sick, and then just smelling the donuts, they never want to look at one again. :lol: That worked really well until I made friends with the girl at the pizza parlor several doors down. Past that point, her pepperoni and my eclairs traded daily and I bet we both gained weight. :lol:

When a job involves lifting things, I think it should be seen as resistance training, not aerobic exercise. I used to run several shipping/receiving warehouses. I know what it's like to run around in a hardhat, drive forklifts, and lift more overheavy boxes by hand than anybody should be asked to. But in my view this often amounts to an entire day of doing squats, lunges, and a half-version of both. In other words, it's a really intense muscle building exercise, not just for the arms but literally the entire body (muscles "you didn't even know you had" LOL). You probably couldn't get a person to "work out" as hard as having a job like that requires. I would expect any person not used to doing that, who began doing so, to drop weight. The added muscle, combined with the intensity of it, would likely be a noticeable shift in body composition before very long.

(As a comparison, my sister taught spinning and aerobics nearly full time when managing a big Holiday Spa health club, and only eating like a rabbit with no taste buds was able to retain her figure. Which IMO, now that I know a lot more about bodybuilding, was never impressive. It failed to be fat, but never actually achieved anything muscle-wise. Now that I look back on her life of salads and dry toast, yogurt and wheat bran, and constant aerobics, I'm not surprised.)

[Angeline]

Hey thanks for the more inside view of operating a forklift. I had a vision of operators just sitting on their machine and letting them do all the hard work. lol. Shows how much I know.

Still, cutting out the pizzas did not hurt his weight loss I bet.

Funny you should mention donuts, because I used to work in a donut shop too when I was young, and they had a similar policy of free food. Then a new manager started and changed the policy to employees pay half-price. It was greatly resented and I would "forget" more often than not to pay. Well it didn't take me a week to get sick of the donuts, but I never quite got over liking the fresh chocolate croissants still warm from the oven. yum. When I walked past the rack of cooling pastry, I'd snatch one up and eat it in a few bites. And croissants were baked every shift, so that happened frequently.

It will come as no suprise that I gained about 10 lbs in the 6 months I worked there.

[LCivility]

I can't help noticing that the people who actually do hard physical labor, carpenters, masons, construction workers, and the like aren't especially lean. They are fit, and strong as hell. But they aren't any leaner than the rest of us.

Unless they eat right. My brother is a glazier and has only ever eaten meat since he was 20. One meal per day, one steak per meal. That's all. He is 52 and looks 30 except that he is almost bald. Bald maybe, but ripped.

I used to nag him about his "bad" diet. Meanwhile, he was never sick and could pose for any bodybuilding magazine he wanted to. Dang if he wasn't right and now I am the one eating my words.

[Wifezilla]

Finally Done!!!

Damn! My brain hurts!

[Daryl]

Hey thanks for the more inside view of operating a forklift. I had a vision of operators just sitting on their machine and letting them do all the hard work. lol. Shows how much I know.



Well, that is all some of them do. :lol:

My current job is the first sedentary one I've ever had. When I roofed houses for a year, I was lean and extremely fit. When I worked at a plastics plant, I did a lot of heavy lifting, but not constantly, unlike the roofing, and I put on a lot of fat.

I would dearly love to work out now... it seems to bother my eyes/kick in migraines, though.

[mike_d]

Unless they eat right. My brother is a glazier and has only ever eaten meat since he was 20. One meal per day, one steak per meal. That's all. He is 52 and looks 30 except that he is almost bald. Bald maybe, but ripped.So he is doing LC and IF 23/1 that's the gold standard of dieting in my opinion. I am almost bald anyway, so maybe I should give it a go. I would do meat, eggs and fish though you need EFA's.

[K Walt]

Originally Posted by K Walt
I can't help noticing that the people who actually do hard physical labor, carpenters, masons, construction workers, and the like aren't especially lean. They are fit, and strong as hell. But they aren't any leaner than the rest of us.


Unless they eat right.


Precisely Gary Taubes's point. Exercise, in itself, doesn't do much for weight loss.

[Wifezilla]

It sure never helped me...the gym, hiking, water aerobics, dance...I did it for 2 YEARS and never lost a pound. Now I walk once or twice a week and still do my dance class just because it helps with toning.

[Nancy LC]

Did anyone get to the part discussing WHY vitamin deficiencies come about only when eating carbohydrates? That was interesting!

Heavily edited because there's too much text!

"Because it is still common to assume that a meat-rich, plant-poor diet will result in nutritional deficiencies, it's worth pausing to investigate this issue. The assumption dates to the early decades of the twentieth century, the golden era of research on vitamins and vitamin-deficiency diseases, as one disease after another--scurvy, pellagra, beriberi, rickets, anemia--was found to be caused by a lack of essential vitamins and minerals.
...
it dictated that the only way to ensure that all the essential elements for health was to eat as many types of foods as possible, and nutritionists still hold by this logic today. "A safe rule of thumb," as it was recently described, "is that the more components there are in a dietary, the greater the probability of balanced intake."

This philosophy, however was based almost exclusively on studies of deficiency diseases, all of which were induced by diets high in refined carbohydrates and low in meat, fish, eggs, and dairy products.
... Text about various sailors getting sick on foods consisting of stuff like gruel sweetened with sugar, puddings, biscuits, barley, rice (causing scurvey). Pellagra associated with corn-rich diet, beriberi eating white rice instead of brown. Pelagra was cured by adding in fresh meat, milk and eggs.

"Nutritionists working with lab animals also found that they could induce deficiency diseases by feeding diets rich in refined grains and sugar. Guinea pigs were given scurvy in a series of laboratory experiments in the 1940s when they were fed diets of mostly crushed barley and chickpeas.

This research informed the conventional wisdom of the era that fresh meat, milk and eggs were what the Scottish nutritionist Rober McCarrison called "protective foods" (which is how they were known before Ancel Keys and his contemporaries established them as the fat-rich agents of coronary disease), but it also bolstered the logic that a "balanced" diet, with copious vegetables, fruits, and grains, was necessary for health. "

So the actual problems were caused by diets rich in grains and sugar but it was deduced by the fat-head experts that it an high meat diet would do the same. Yet animal foods contain all of the essential amino acids and 12 of 13 essential vitamins in large quantities.

"The 13th vitamin, vitamin C, has long been the point of contention. It is contained in animal foods in such small quantities that nutritionists have considered it insufficient and the question is whether this quantity is indeed sufficient for good health. ... [text about the discovery that scurvey can be cured by fruits] As a matter of logic, though, this doesn't necessarily imply that the lack of vit. C is caused by the lack of fresh fruits and vegetables. ...

"If the Inuit thrived in the harshest of environments without eating carbohydrates and whatever nutrients exist in fruits and vegetables, they, by definition, were consuming a balanced, healthy diet. If they did so solely because they had become evolutionarily adapted to such a diet, which was a typical rejoineder to Stefansson's argument, then how can you explain those traders and explorers, who lived happily and healthfully for years at a time on this diet?
[more history about nutritionists beliefs, the Steffanson experiment where he lived in a hospital for a year, under observation eating nothing but meat, and was fine, no vitamin deficiencies]
The really interesting part
Perhaps these carbohydrates block the absorption of vitamins?

"B-vitamins are depleted from the body by the consumption of carbohydrates. "There is an increased need for these vitamins when more carbohydrate in the diet is consumed,".

A similar argument can be made for Vitamin C. Type 2 diabetics have rougly 30% lower levels of vitamin C, which suggests that vitamin-C deficency might be another disorder of civilization. One explanation for these observations--described in 1997...-- is that high blood sugar and/or high levels of insulin work to increase the body's requirements for vitamin C.

[Nancy LC]

I used to nag him about his "bad" diet. Meanwhile, he was never sick and could pose for any bodybuilding magazine he wanted to. Dang if he wasn't right and now I am the one eating my words.

And he wouldn't have been making all those AGEs from eating carby foods, causing wrinkles, stiffening of the organs and so on!

[serrelind]

That is very interesting, Nancy. Thanks for posting it.

[MandalayVA]

When I began the job I weighed about 180. Within 2 months, I weighed 150. I ate pizza and all kinds of fast food and the weight FELL off me. That's the only time in my life anything like that has happened. So for me, I know that serious constant exercise will take the weight off with no dietary restrictions, but I will likely never again in this life ever have a job like that again. Oh, and yes, the weight came back after I moved into a management position. :D

A few years ago I had a very physical job and the same thing happened.

[LCivility]

The interesting thing about my bother--I mean brother is that he never set out to define a "diet". He has eaten this way for 30 years based simply on ignoring all advice on diet and eating what he likes. He has never had a weight problem (I hate him) and just eats what he wants when he wants to. He is only hungry once per day, and he only wants to eat meat. He used to eat 3 square meals a day and lots of cookies and cake when he was at home. I know cause I made them for him. But when he got out on his own he just wanted to make things easy and this is how his diet evolved.

His wife otoh, eats a normal diet and has had health problems all her life.

[Daryl]

The interesting thing about my bother--I mean brother is that he never set out to define a "diet". He has eaten this way for 30 years based simply on ignoring all advice on diet and eating what he likes. He has never had a weight problem (I hate him) and just eats what he wants when he wants to. He is only hungry once per day, and he only wants to eat meat. He used to eat 3 square meals a day and lots of cookies and cake when he was at home. I know cause I made them for him. But when he got out on his own he just wanted to make things easy and this is how his diet evolved.

His wife otoh, eats a normal diet and has had health problems all her life.

So, he simply eats one steak, each day? How many ounces, I wonder? Well done, rare?

[PlaneCrazy]

Hey, Nancy

I also found that section on vitamins one of the most intriguing parts. I remember when I first read about Steffanson's experiment I wondered how they could do it and not get scurvy or one of the other "dietary deficiency" diseases?

I think this is a very interesting avenue for research. Too bad no one can really profit from it, except everyone who eats, so it probably won't get done.

Actually, if I were the cattleman's association, I'd partner with the pork producers and lamb producers and egg board, and dairy producers and fund the study. I volunteer to be one of the participants as long as they agree to supply me with plenty of pastured beef, pork, lamb and eggs. Ok, you can throw in some chicken too, but I would prefer to be in the read-meat-egg-and-dairy-only control group. :yum:

I've actually stopped taking my vitamins and haven't noticed any difference. I may be missing something, but six weeks with minimal sources of vitamin C and no scurvy yet. (I did have a few slices of red pepper in a salad a couple of weeks ago, and a handful of spinach a few days ago, but not much else) We'll see.

That's a refinement to this way of eating that could be very helpful to know. If you eat this many carbs of this kind you have to make sure you take vitamin supplements. If you get your daily recommended amounts of protein and fat, with a low-carb ratio, then you can avoid having to take them.

Plane
Who's currently deep into insulin, the Krebs cycle, etc... at the moment and seeing why the way I'm eating is working at continuous weight loss.

[rightnow]

I finally got the book today! Yay. Can't wait to start on it.

I hope he sells a decent number of books. I would really like it to be successful because I see that as providing the biggest chance of reaching people (a paperback followup, library stock, possible reprint, other languages).

[Nancy LC]

Plane, I was fascinated because in my reading about grains I read about phytates, which are found in grains and legumes and they actually bind to vitamins and calcium and prevent you from absorbing them. I think there were other chemicals found in grains that did the same, so this all kind of clicked in my mind.

I read similar things about dairy, that eating dairy actually prevents you from absorbing calcium, or ups your requirement for calcium, can't remember which right now. :)

[LCivility]

Daryl

One steak, rare, not sure how big it is. He doesn't drink anything but coffee and unfortunately, he smokes. But it has done him minimal harm so far. He tries to quit. I don't nag him about that--he knows.

Addictions are powerful.

[Daryl]

Ah, I see. Thank you for the info, LC :)

[Wifezilla]

Actually, if I were the cattleman's association, I'd partner with the pork producers and lamb producers and egg board, and dairy producers and fund the study. I volunteer to be one of the participants as long as they agree to supply me with plenty of pastured beef, pork, lamb and eggs.

I am sure all these places have email. Send one and tell them you know several others who would also like to volunteer! :D

(Seriously...send them an email.)

[Nancy LC]

I'm getting towards the end of the book, think I'm just about to start the last chapter. Wow, I've learned so much. But what I never thought about before was how obesity is due to the body prefering to store fat over using it, and how it continues to use anything except fat when it is starved.

The mice that are fat yet emaciated when starved, their body breaks down their own internal proteins rather than releasing the fat from the fat cells.

And how a body that doesn't correctly use stored fat, if you try to starve it, or exercise it... it is going to respond with lethargy and hunger. Cells need to run on something!

Wow... just wow.

[Wifezilla]

You said it Nancy....wow.

I think I will take some time to digest what I read, then go over it again in a month or so....with a highlighter in hand :D

[rightnow]

I'm hoping that reading this doesn't make me feel like just HEARING ABOUT that 'rethinking thin' book made me feel, like, "Oh my god, what's the point??"

Or as Joy Nash said in her fabulous YouTube FAT RANT video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUTJQIBI1oA), something like, if 95-98% of people who go on diets fail, succeeding basically makes you a freak of nature. LOL!

[mike_d]

obesity is due to the body prefering to store fat over using it, and how it continues to use anything except fat when it is starved.That just underscores how very important it is not to ever get fat in the first place; reversing it is so very difficult. The mainstream information on diet needs to be corrected for the benefit of our next generation before its TOO LATE.

[Nancy LC]

I'm hoping that reading this doesn't make me feel like just HEARING ABOUT that 'rethinking thin' book made me feel, like, "Oh my god, what's the point??"

Or as Joy Nash said in her fabulous YouTube FAT RANT video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUTJQIBI1oA), something like, if 95-98% of people who go on diets fail, succeeding basically makes you a freak of nature. LOL!
Well, I think the only hope is low carb right now. Eventually, if they stop believing the wrongness that they've brain washed themselves into they'll start researching the real underlying metabolic issues and we'll get REAL answers.

[Nancy LC]

I'm almost to the end, savoring the last chapters on obesity. I am so refreshed and renewed with hope by this book. I wrote this on another forum:


The book really tells some amazing tales of how people end up knowing what they know. I'm reading the parts on obesity. Basically most of the obesity expertise was in Germany and Austria before WW2 and most of the science was being published there. But everyone hated Germany so much after the war that they discounted everything that had previously come from Germany.

So they sort of started fresh in the US. A bunch of experts on obesity, none of whom had any actual hands on experience working with obese people or doing any research on obese people, lead the way in this area. They decided on the phrase "a calorie is a calorie" without really understanding the underlying endocrine functioning and how insulin causes calories to be stored as fat and not burned, and how long-term the muscles become insulin resistant while the fat cells don't, and how that upsets the homeostatic system that should keep us thin.

Anyway, since these bozos were the experts they published the text books and educated the next bunch of experts and so on. And they promoted the idea that obesity was due to excessive intake of calories and/or not expending enough calories. Although the question is posed, if two men eat 3000 calories a day and one is skinny and the other is fat, why do we only say the fat one is taking in too many calories? So there's a moral judgement. Actually, there are lots of bizarre social and economic judgements made about obesity. Why is it that we scoff at lazy fat people sitting in front of the computer or television, but we don't call people lazy who read or study? :p I tell you, this book questions EVERYTHING!

Taubes book walks you through all the research that suggests that the cells in obese people are starving, which drives the intake and causes lethargy. The whole amazing thing in how the body decides whether to burn or store fat is controlled mostly by insulin. So if your insulin levels are elevated, your fat cells are constantly trying to store fat. Imagine the average person munching on chips and carby snacks and drinks all day long. There's a constant flood of insulin with the surges in blood sugar. He also talks about how fructose is particularly insidious.

I felt frustrated and angry through much of this book but getting to the end of it I feel hope! Taubes has blown the lid off the prejudices, arrogance, pride and brain-washing that has gone on in the psuedo-scientific realm of medical science. His book has exposed how popular ideas became popular because powerful individuals made fun of and tried to ruin the careers of anyone that published contradictory hypothesis. How they got funding from special interest groups and prevented other researchers from getting funded.

If, as Dr. Weil says, he's going to have his students and collegues get this book, I think it'll spur do some interesting things down the road. It should be the hard shaking that is needed to get some fresh thinking going and stop hand-wringing over people "eating too much" and get us to a point where people have useful options of dealing with their obesity other than trying to starve themselves (which even the obesity researchers know doesn't work).

Wow, I just look at this book and I hope it spurs others books that look into the ridiculous way that science gets decided upon.

Anyway, I feel good because I think the Internet is going to bring a lot of transparency to how bad science gets promoted, and probably a book like this would have been incredibly hard to put together even 10 years ago.

[ValerieL]

To hijack the conversation just a tad... I feel kind of bad for Gina Kolata and her book "Rethinking Thin". I actually thought it was good. I think I was able to think that because I'd already succeeded when I read it, I was already at goal, so it didn't discourage me.

I never read her book at "there is no hope", I read it as "there is no hope if you keep attacking the problem in the same way as we have done so far". I'd hoped that her book would open a dialogue where people said "okay, dieting doesn't work, what will?"

And for the segue back to the topic... I think Taubes book provides a missing link to that discussion. He takes the premise that Kolata's book drives home, that the current solutions don't work, and shows us how & why we've been barking up the wrong tree for so long. He then points us in the right direction (or at least a direction, we assume it's the right one, it's certainly better than the current one).

[serrelind]

Good summary, Nancy. I still have a long way to go with the book. It's not an easy read at all. I hope the average reader will not stop reading because it's not easy to read.

But I hear you on being angry. I feel angry many times as I'm reading this book. I try to be understanding and unbiased of people who take us down the wrong path, but I am finding it difficult to remain indifferent. I see them almost as killers. I know that is too strong a word, but when I think about all the innocent people that suffer, that have died, due to the wrong advice, I just get very pissed off and feel hopeless. It's not like the good research is not out there. It's all out there. We rely on the experts to do their homework, give us sound advice, not make us sicker and kill us. But in a way, they are killing us.

Sorry for the rant. Just want to get that off my chest.

I can't write like Gary Taubes can, but I will finish the book and tell other people about it.

[Wifezilla]

Anyone want to chew over the calorie restriction info in this book? Doesn't it throw a big wrench in to the CRON lifestyle? If all the good stuff that people think is due to calorie restriction is only a result of a lowered carb intake, why even bother with CRON?

I mean really...obsess about every single calorie that passes your lips...or just eat some butter....hummmm :lol:

[Angeline]

I finally got the book today! Yay. Can't wait to start on it.

I hope he sells a decent number of books. I would really like it to be successful because I see that as providing the biggest chance of reaching people (a paperback followup, library stock, possible reprint, other languages).


I haven't read the book yet, it's still on order. But from hearing many people's impression of it, I think it will never been the kind of book that everyone has read like that piece of junk "the secret". It's not accessible enough (read dumbed down). People interested in the subject will have the motivation to read it and understand it, but your average joe won't. However I don't think that matters. I think this is the kind of book that has the potential to overcome entrenched thinking in the influential people, the "experts" of the field. Popular books can create "fads" that will wax and wane. But if all the "experts" poo-poo it, the idea will never make it into respectability, therefore in policy and recommentations.

Having Andrew Weils call it important and a must-read is really encouraging. Although, from my brief perusal of his site, he always appeared to me as holistic and alternative, not quite mainstream. But it's a good start.

[Nancy LC]

Almost done... I'm reading the epilogue which is still quite a lot of info to digest. But the epilogue made me so proud of Gary Taubes.

"The institutionalized vigilance, "this unending exchange of critical judgment," is nowhere to be found in the study of nutrition, chronic disease, and obesity, and it hasn't been for decades. For this reason, it is difficult to use the term "scientist" to describe those individuals who work in these disciplines, and, indeed, I have actively avoided doing so in this book. It's simply debateable, at best, whether what these individuals have practiced for the past fifty years, and whether the culture they have created, as a result, can reasonably be described as science, as most working scientists or philosophers of science would typically characterize it. Individuals in these disciplines think of themselves as scientists; they use the terminology of science in their work, and they certainly borrow the authority of science to communicate their beliefs to the general public, but "the results of their enterprise," as Thomas Kuhn, author of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, might have put it, "do not add up to science as we know it."

Later he says:

"The urge to simplify a complex scientific situation so that physicians can apply it and their patients and the public embrace it has taken precedence over the scientific obligation of presenting the evidence with relentless honesty. The result is an enormous enterprise dedicated in theory to determining the relationship between diet, obesity, and disease, while dedicated in practice to convincing everyone involved, and the public, most of all, that the answers are already known and always have been--an enterprise, in other words, that purports to be a science and yet functions like a religion."

I just went "Way to go, Gary!" when I read that. It summed up everything that has been bottling upside me for 452 pages.

[waywardsis]

I
"That the toxic-environment hypothesis is deeply immersed in moral and class judgements is evidenced by the observation that few or none of the condemnations of fast-food restaurants include a coffee chain such as Starbucks, despite the copious excess calories it peddles. ...

The same judgements are made when discussing physical activity: If we sit around all day watching television, we're condemned as couch potatoes, and our obesity is only a matter of time. If we sit around studying or reading books, this same accusation is rarely voiced."

This was my absolute favorite part. I laughed out loud. Never thought of it that way before.

[waywardsis]

Anyone want to chew over the calorie restriction info in this book? Doesn't it throw a big wrench in to the CRON lifestyle? If all the good stuff that people think is due to calorie restriction is only a result of a lowered carb intake, why even bother with CRON?

I mean really...obsess about every single calorie that passes your lips...or just eat some butter....hummmm :lol:

I'm getting ready to start my second read, highlighter in hand (I read everything twice bc I read really quickly and don't retain enough the first go round). But this part stuck out to me as well. I actually thought of Whoa...where'd he go, anyway?

I always wondered though if it was more about lowered insulin, etc than lowered calories. Never made sense to me that eating less, in general, would be a good thing. Less junk, less filler foods, less carbs...sure. When Eades' posted about IFing and that it showed the same benefits as CR, many ppl wondered if it was really all about lowering insulin and keeping it low.

[LarryAJ]

I always wondered though if it was more about lowered insulin, etc than lowered calories. BINGO!! Give her a gold star for that thought. :D

You really should read this (http://drbass.com/rosedale2.html) then to confirm your analysis. :agree:

[Daryl]

BINGO!! Give her a gold star for that thought. :D

You really should read this (http://drbass.com/rosedale2.html) then to confirm your analysis. :agree:

Larry, that is indeed a terrific article.

On a side note.... actually, on the side of the page the link leads to, I saw this:

Fruit - Friend or Foe?
He lived on nothing but grapes - By the 32nd day, his gum was bleeding - one of his teeth fell out. He exclaimed: My God, I am detoxicating my teeth

:lol: Again, my sense of humor demands release....

[Nancy LC]

I think IF has benefits above and beyond LC, judging from the way some of our T2 diabetic's blood sugars have come under better control. My theory is that IF might help with insulin resistance in the muscles.

[Simeos]

Anyone want to chew over the calorie restriction info in this book? Doesn't it throw a big wrench in to the CRON lifestyle? If all the good stuff that people think is due to calorie restriction is only a result of a lowered carb intake, why even bother with CRON?

I mean really...obsess about every single calorie that passes your lips...or just eat some butter....hummmm :lol:


On which page(s) is cron compared to low-carb?

Simeos

[Nancy LC]

It isn't really. It just mentions one researcher gave her calorie restricted worms some glucose and their death rates shot up by double, or something along those lines. Anyway, it was enough to convince her to go low carb. :)

[Locarb4mee]

BINGO!! Give her a gold star for that thought. :D

You really should read this (http://drbass.com/rosedale2.html) then to confirm your analysis. :agree:

Holy Cow, that is one excellent article! I'm printing most of it out to take to my doctor next visit! Thank you very much for linking to it.

[LarryAJ]

Holy Cow, that is one excellent article! I'm printing most of it out to take to my doctor next visit! Thank you very much for linking to it. Glad you liked it. I forgot to warn people that what they were about to read was a talk, so it sometimes reads funny. He will start a thought and in mid sentance realize a better way to say his point and go there. But the information is very important. I am beginning to see more often where insulin's power is being discovered to the amazement of the researchers. It has far ranging effects, many I suspect, yet to be discovered.

Dr. Rosdale was an associate of the Drs. Eades in Colorado.

[Angeline]

Locarb4mee your profile "pic" reminds me of my brother's only attempt at dieting. He would have a "delicious" nutri-shake for breakfast, followed by a nice hearty breakfast.

Needless to say, it didn't work.

Now, he's actually much slimmer. He was born with only one kidney and when it started failing, he had to go on dialysis. Finally after all these years of eating fast food, he is taking his diet seriously. Sadly, much too late.

[Squarecube]

Almost done... I'm reading the epilogue which is still quite a lot of info to digest. But the epilogue made me so proud of Gary Taubes.


I just went "Way to go, Gary!" when I read that. It summed up everything that has been bottling upside me for 452 pages.

I couldn't stand it. When I saw there was an epilogue I started by reading that first!!!

[probiotic]

Folks- I was in a waiting room today and caught a favorable review of GCBC in the October issue of Men's Health. It didn't categorically endorse Taubes' assertions but pointed out that his book is not "another diet book", is exhaustively researched and, is getting support from some scientists, plus, in closing, the review suggested that maybe Atkins was right all along.

Good for Men's Health, which had the courage a year back or so to publish an article challenging the low fat/high carb ADA position on diets for diabetes.

[Nancy LC]

Men's Health has been firmly inline with low carbing for awhile now.

[Locarb4mee]

Locarb4mee your profile "pic" reminds me of my brother's only attempt at dieting. He would have a "delicious" nutri-shake for breakfast, followed by a nice hearty breakfast.

Needless to say, it didn't work.

Now, he's actually much slimmer. He was born with only one kidney and when it started failing, he had to go on dialysis. Finally after all these years of eating fast food, he is taking his diet seriously. Sadly, much too late.

Wow, sorry to hear about your brother. I'm fighting becoming a totally obnoxious low carb evangelist. It seems like every day I meet or run into someone I know who is having weight-related issues and I want to sit them down and bend their ears a while. Or buy them Taubes book and lock them in a room til they're done.

I'm glad he's doing better, that's something hopeful, isn't it!

As for my avatar, it's kind of a slam at Kimkins...which not only got me started on the low carb WOE but also brought my metabolism to a total grinding halt and made me anemic. So I'm trying to be good Atkins/Groves/PP style so my metabolism will get better so I can lose more weight.

I'm hoping the day will come when people will ask me "What did you do to lose all that weight????" As it is now, most people notice I've lost some but by now I should have lost a bunch.

[treefrog]

.....I'm fighting becoming a totally obnoxious low carb evangelist. .......
Me too, but it sure is hard. I had thought about buying the book for all my family members for Christmas, but now I'm not so sure. My mom really made it clear that she was getting tired of hearing me "preach" LC, when I visited last week.

And my boyfriend and I had a fight, after we started watching the Larry King Live interview. I just wish I could get him to read the book.

I did give the book to my sister already (knowing she would love it), and I'm hoping to get her feedback on if it's a good idea to give to it to Mom. I think I will still give a copy to my son and dad.

[Wifezilla]

I'm fighting becoming a totally obnoxious low carb evangelist.

I think I am a lost cause. Any day now I will start going door to door with Taubes' book and a copy of "Natural Health and Weight Loss" by Barry Groves.

"Can I talk to you about your carb infested lifestyle?"

::SLAM::

[ReginaW]

I think I am a lost cause. Any day now I will start going door to door with Taubes' book and a copy of "Natural Health and Weight Loss" by Barry Groves.

"Can I talk to you about your carb infested lifestyle?"

::SLAM::

ROFLMAO!

Preach it sister, preach it! LOL ;)

[Squarecube]

I always believed in the thrifty gene hypothesis - the idea that people only gain weight when they find themselves in all this food abundance which isn't the natural state of things. Taubes clears this up myth for me rather nicely in chapter 14..

Apparently, feast and famine is only a product of our agriculture years, and hunter gather types lived "in equilibrium with their environment just as every other species does" Apparently the hunter gatherers that were studied in Aftrica in the l960s (during a drought) worked one day and then rested three -- the rest of the time visited, and entertained neighbors. Hmmm. While anthropologist Lee was studying the Kung Bushmen of the semi-arid Kalahari desert, the "united Nations had instituted a famine-relief program for the local agriculturalists". Apparently, during droughts, the animals gather around the same watering holes in higher concentration than normal. It's a bit like all the hot dogs and bacon, next to the steaks and chops in our modern supermarkets I guess.

[Nancy LC]

Me too, Square, me too. But when 90% of the population seem to have the same "thrifty gene" you start to wonder if perhaps you're just describing something typical.

[pennink]

I'm hoping the day will come when people will ask me "What did you do to lose all that weight????" As it is now, most people notice I've lost some but by now I should have lost a bunch.


well, unfortunately, even when they are so shocked by my losing half of myself, when I tell them Atkins they STILL tell me it's bad.

WTF????????

ya, I'm often tempted to be a low carb evangelist too. Lady here is really getting sick from her woe and she just waltzed by with poutine (fries, cheese curds and gravy). She said she'd rather die before giving up bread and I'm afraid she's trying to prove it.

[Wifezilla]

even when they are so shocked by my losing half of myself, when I tell them Atkins they STILL tell me it's bad.

WTF???????

I work in a print shop. Customers are noticing and asking how I have lost 35 lbs since May. When I tell them "low carb" they go off on a "Atkins will kill you" rant.

Hummm....my blood pressure is way down, and I am getting skinny. You are on blood pressure and diabetes meds and are getting fatter. Let's see who dies first :P

[pennink]

OMG... I love that... let's see who dies first.... HAHAHHHAAAA!!!!

[PlaneCrazy]

Yeah, my wife has already told me that she's had enough of the Taubes book. She's happy that I'm losing, and everything, but she's started to feel that my talking about the book is a sort of judgment against her way of eating.

I've had to really, consciously, keep my talking about my diet to a minimum. I am so excited about the fact that I've lose 23 pounds in 7 weeks, I want to tell everyone, I want to share my joy with everyone, but few want to hear it. They especially don't want to hear that what they're eating is bad. I also feel sometimes uncomfortable telling people what the book says because it sounds so radical that it sounds like I'm some wild-eyed nutrition radical.

Some day we'll be shown to be right. :)

Plane

[Nancy LC]

I've been waiting for that day for about 20 years now. Hurry up galdingit!

[Angeline]

It's not just about the weight. Tell her that you are simply concerned for her health and that you want her to be around for a long long time.

That's what I tell mine. What can they say to that? :)

[Locarb4mee]

I think I am a lost cause. Any day now I will start going door to door with Taubes' book and a copy of "Natural Health and Weight Loss" by Barry Groves.

"Can I talk to you about your carb infested lifestyle?"

::SLAM::

:lol: :lol: :lol: Preach it, Sistah!!

[Locarb4mee]

Plane, that's a good post. I feel much the same way.

I think we just have to become the proof and then they will listen.

I also think that many people need a *wake-up* call before they will really change their dietary habits. Until they get some scary lab work back or have some other bad health evidence, I think a lot of people don't want to hear it.

[Wifezilla]

I think we just have to become the proof and then they will listen.

No they wont. My friends and customers see me losing weight, but still think my kidneys are going to explode or something.

[pennink]

No they wont. My friends and customers see me losing weight, but still think my kidneys are going to explode or something.

yep... same here.

100 pounds (almost) down and people still think it's a fad, or my kidneys will shrivel, or I'm going to keel over from all the fats I eat clogging my arteries.

[LessLiz]

I'm such a beotch that I think a lot of people are going to be seriously disappointed when we continue to healthy. I mean what are they going to do if we don't die of exploded kidneys or clogged arteries?

[nicnoc]

This book doesn't seem to be on sale in UK yet. I've just spent an entire evening reading this thread though.

I have found the book at Amazon.co.uk and ordered it. Sounds like it'll take a while to read. I am just re-reading Atkins at the mo and finding a lot of info I'd forgotten about.

I like to have as much information at my fingertips as possible for all those who think my kidneys will explode(LessLiz...LOL) I am not good in arguments and usually shut up coz I am fighting a losing battle.

Will post here later after I've started the big read

Nicola

[waywardsis]

I've just started read #2 - highlighting and taking notes, even.

Originally Posted by Wifezilla
I think I am a lost cause. Any day now I will start going door to door with Taubes' book and a copy of "Natural Health and Weight Loss" by Barry Groves.

"Can I talk to you about your carb infested lifestyle?"

::SLAM::

Have you accepted meat and fat as your saviour?

[Nancy LC]

OH NOES!

My Kidney asploded!

[LessLiz]

That's okay Nancy -- you have a backup. Took you how many years to blow up the first one? Just multiply by two and you have your life expectancy!!!

[Wifezilla]

Have you accepted meat and fat as your saviour?
OH NOES! My Kidney asploded!

You two are awesome. Best laughs I have had all week.

[Mitra]

This book doesn't seem to be on sale in UK yet. I've just spent an entire evening reading this thread though.

I have found the book at Amazon.co.uk and ordered it. Sounds like it'll take a while to read. I am just re-reading Atkins at the mo and finding a lot of info I'd forgotten about.

The UK edition isn't due out until early next year, and it will have a different title (The Diet Delusion). I decided I couldn't wait that long, and order GCBC from the US. It came a couple of weeks ago, but I've only had time to read it this week. I finished it this afternoon. I was very impressed. I think I need to go through again and make notes.

[kneebrace]

No they wont. My friends and customers see me losing weight, but still think my kidneys are going to explode or something.

I think there will be many years during which the health benefits of long term low carb (bodyfat loss being only one) become more and more difficult to ignore. But during that time the resentment of those whose personal and often professional credibilty is based on a lie will reach unprecedented heights. People just hate change, and hate even more being made to look like idiots. Even as the 'high moral ground' they take shrinks from its former continent to a tiny island of denial, the Ornishes of this world will go on defending their ever more tenuous hold on credibility. They simply have too much to lose.

Stuart.

[LarryAJ]

They simply have too much to lose. They also do not know how much more respect they would garner if they admitted they were wrong. It takes a BIG man to admitt an error. To forgo ones ego, is something that is very hard to do.

[PlaneCrazy]

Have you accepted meat and fat as your saviour?

I have a close personal relationship with meat and fat.

Fat is my co-pilot.

If I was a shepherd I should not want (for meat).

Lo, tho I walk through the valley of carbs, I shall not lie down with sugary foods.

Forgive us our dairy as we forgive those who eat Splenda.

Plane

[Daryl]

I don't know if this link has been provided, and I'm not going back through the thread to look.

A condensed version of the Taubes appearance on Larry King: http://www.cnn.com/video

[JL53563]

Here's one of my favorites, page 388-389:

A single molecule plays the pivitol role in the system. It goes by a number of names, the simplist being glycerol phosphate. This glycerol phosphate molecule is produced from glucose when it is used for fuel in the fat cells and the liver, and it too, can be burned as fuel in the cells. But glycerol phosphate is also an essential component of the process that binds three fatty acids into a trygliceride. It provides the glycerol molecule that links the fatty acids together. In other words, a product of carbohydrate metabolism-i.e., burning glucose for fuel-is an essential component in the regulation of fat metabolism: storing fat in the fat tissue. In fact, the rate at which fatty acids are assembled into triglycerides, and so the rate at which fat accumulates in the fat tissue, depend primarily on the availability of glycerol phosphate. The more glucose that is transported into the fat cells and used to generate energy, the more glycerol phosphate will be produced. And the more glycerol phosphate produced, the more fatty acids will be assembled into triglycerides. Thus, anything that works to transport more glucose into the fat cells-insulin, for example, or rising blood sugar-will lead to the conversion of more fatty acids into triglycerides, and the storage of more calories as fat.

[Wifezilla]

I just read this out loud to hubby last night. I am on my second read-through....this time with a highligher and red post-it flag :D

[JL53563]

I just read this out loud to hubby last night. I am on my second read-through....this time with a highligher and red post-it flag :D
That is a good one, isn't it? That is really some powerful information.

[manger]

Here's one of my favorites, page 388-389:

I have read the passage about the fatty acid cycle twice, hoping to gain some clarity on this subject. However, Taubes is not quite consistent so I am still not clear.
At one point he says that the tryglicerades cannot penetrate the fat cell membrane only the FFA can . Further down on the same page he says that the glycerol phosphate forms tryglycerides also in the liver (besides in adipose tissue) and they are then shipped to the adipose tissue. So can the tryglicerades get through the membranes or not?

[Locarb4mee]

People just hate change, and hate even more being made to look like idiots. Even as the 'high moral ground' they take shrinks from its former continent to a tiny island of denial, the Ornishes of this world will go on defending their ever more tenuous hold on credibility. They simply have too much to lose.

Stuart.

They also hate being told they can't have Krispy Kremes.

[JL53563]

I have read the passage about the fatty acid cycle twice, hoping to gain some clarity on this subject. However, Taubes is not quite consistent so I am still not clear.
At one point he says that the tryglicerades cannot penetrate the fat cell membrane only the FFA can . Further down on the same page he says that the glycerol phosphate forms tryglycerides also in the liver (besides in adipose tissue) and they are then shipped to the adipose tissue. So can the tryglicerades get through the membranes or not?
Here we go: Page 387

As triglycerides, the fat is locked into the fat cells, because triglycerides are too big to slip through the cell membranes. They have to be broken down into fatty acids-the process technically known as lypolosis-before the fat can escape into the circulation. The triglycerides in the bloodstream must also be broken down into fatty acids before the fat can diffuse into the fat cells. It's only reconstituted into triglycerides, a process called esterification, once the fatty acids have passed through the walls of the blood vessels and the fat-cell membranes and are safely inside. This is true for all triglycerides, whether they originated as fat in the diet or were converted from carbohydrate in the diet.

[Wifezilla]

Nancy LC's words of wisdom have been immortalized in a cartoon I created for my blog :D

http://wifezillasway.blogspot.com/2007/11/stupid-things.html

[JL53563]

Nancy LC's words of wisdom have been immortalized in a cartoon I created for my blog :D

http://wifezillasway.blogspot.com/2007/11/stupid-things.html
I love it!!!

[Nancy LC]

LOL! That's hilarious! Only one teeny weeny nickpit... it's NOES. Dunno where that comes from, but I see it all over http://icanhascheezburger.com/, seems to be some sort of slang spelling that is popular these days. :)

Here's some examples: http://icanhascheezburger.com/?s=noes

Ok, here we go: Atkinz Cat (http://www.thecheezburgerfactory.com/View.aspx?Atkinzcatsez128390279273593750.jpg)

[Demokat]

LOL! That's hilarious! Only one teeny weeny nickpit... it's NOES. Dunno where that comes from, but I see it all over http://icanhascheezburger.com/, seems to be some sort of slang spelling that is popular these days. :)

Here's some examples: http://icanhascheezburger.com/?s=noes

Ok, here we go: Atkinz Cat (http://www.thecheezburgerfactory.com/View.aspx?Atkinzcatsez128390279273593750.jpg)

I just knew that's where you got NOES! :lol:

I love that website. :D

[Wifezilla]

Fixed it :D

Here is another....
http://icanhascheezburger.com/2007/10/06/atkins-kitteh-is-cheating

[CMCM]

I loved this book. Not in front of me now, and I'm hard pressed to come up with a favorite quote...heck, my book is half pink! I used up several pink highliters in it, I was underlining so much it got ridiculous. I raced thru the book fascinated, then started reading it again. There's so much to absorb.

The whole saga in this book reminds me so me of what is going on with celiac disease/gluten sensitivity, which I have struggled with. I dug deep and got my own knowledge and ended up figuring it out on my own, but again, as with fat, there is HUMONGOUS resistance to accepting the idea that GRAINS, particularly the gluten grains of wheat/barley/rye, just might be something the human digestive system wasn't meant to deal with. The level of medical ignorance in this regard is quite astounding. The information is out there, but no one looks at it. Just like with the research discussed in GCBC. So reading GCBC had such a familiar ring in terms of the resistance to new ideas, new research, a refusal to change old ideas. I wonder how many OTHER medical things are similarly shrouded in ignorance and refusal to consider new ideas???

[Wifezilla]

I wonder how many OTHER medical things are similarly shrouded in ignorance and refusal to consider new ideas???

It scares me just thinking about it.

[LarryAJ]

I wonder how many OTHER medical things are similarly shrouded in ignorance and refusal to consider new ideas??? I can tell you one. It is cancer and its' reliance on high blood glucose to grow.
Read this (http://www.lowcarbluxury.com/newsletter/lclnewsvol03-no04-pg2.html) to understand what I am saying.

[Wifezilla]

Great minds think alike!

http://wifezillasway.blogspot.com/2007/09/low-carb-cancer.html
http://wifezillasway.blogspot.com/2007/09/low-carb-cancer-follow-up.html
http://wifezillasway.blogspot.com/2007/11/ensure-ensures-cancer-cell-growth.html

[KarenJ]

LarryAJ, thanks for that link. I recently learned about Otto Warburg, and how he won the Nobel prize in 1931 for that research ("Cancer languishes with oxygen and thrives with sugar").
Its extremely disturbing to me personally that this information has been known for so long, yet cancer patients are still routinely fed a high carb diet.

In one of my Warburg searches, I found this little gem:
Dr. Warburg discovered the prime cause of cancer almost 50 years ago; namely, oxygen deficiency in living cells, but these prejudiced so and so's at MIT not only silently deny this, but likely have not read a single one of Dr. Warburg's 500+ research papers or the thousands of other papers proving this result. They negligently go down the failed path of genetics, (http://3quarksdaily.blogs.com/3quarksdaily/2006/04/scientific_conv.html)
Scroll down a little, and read the post by Winfield J. Abbe, PhD, physics. Granted, he doesn't mention sugar, but the politics part is right on the money.
Fascin