Are you guys paying as much attention to shape as to weight? I don't even know my weight, but am aware that muscle weighs more than fat. I just regularly measure my waist and thighs to check that for changes.

A bit of nit-picking here ... muscle DOESN'T weigh more than fat, a pound is a pound! Muscle is SMALLER than fat.

Some people find that they need a few more carbs, basically... Anything up to around 40g per meal can still produce weight loss. And quite a few people find that when they add in a few carbs per meal, they also feel less hungry.

There are plenty of plans out there that recommend around 40-60g per day (Groves), or 72g per day (Lutz) or around 110-130g per day (Schwarzbein). And people can lose weight on these programmes, too, and tend not to feel so hungry as when they go very-low-carb (VLC).

It also seems that long-term VLC dieting can slow down your thyroid, which will make weight-loss even more difficult than it might have already been.

There's more to weight loss than just cutting carbs to a bare minimum. Maybe that's the truth that Taubes is realizing he's going to have to accept.

amanda

I've found that, for me, weight loss and dairy are mutually exclusive. That's hard, since dairy is one of the great things about low carb eating. At 51, I've eaten dairy my whole life with no problems. In short, hidden food intollerances can cause stalls and weight gain. They are also more likely to show up as we get older.

I can't speak for Taubes, of course, but I think it's likelier that the hard truth is that a one-size-fits-all prescription isn't going to appear, whether that prescription is zero carb, 40 carbs, dairy-free, or whatever. For some of us, weight loss is precisely a matter of cutting carbs to a bare minimum. For others, it isn't, and a more paleoish or Atkins-ladderish way of eating will work better. And weirdly enough, some people truly may thrive on something like a raw vegan diet, although for the life of me I don't know how that can work.

It is an interesting puzzle, that our species apparently has such huge metabolic variabilty. I'm not aware of any other mammalian species that has individuals eating such different macronutrient ratios. Very unusual, I think.

I was reading on another website, (I might be able to find the reference) that milk intolerance is often tied to gluten intolerance. That the damage caused by wheat also causes milk intolerance. He also said that cutting out gluten will sometimes allow the gut to heal enough to start eating milk again.




I refuse to believe that. It does not make sense on a physiological level. Veganism is a nutritional dead end. If it wasn't, you would be able to find historical examples of populations that maintained it long term. They might initially feel good, probably because they are either eliminating some things from their diet (and not meat) or they are now eating something new. But long term it's not sustainable.

But I agree that one size might not fit all, but that's probably because we still don't understand enough about nutrition. It might only appear that way because there is so much variation possible in diets. We focus a lot on macro nutrients, proteins, fat, carbs, but I'm starting to suspect that's a gross exaggeration. That while macro-nutrient ratios are important, the specifics of those nutrients is just as important, if not more. We might not need carbs to live, but most people (not all) seem to do better with some. And of course what type of protein we eat, and especially what type of fat we consume is important.

Recently I was browsing through Weston Price's book. I read the section on the Scottish people that lived on remote islands. Nothing would grow there, as the soil would not allow it. Even livestock did not do very well. They basically ate a diet of oats and fish. I'm not sure what percentage of their diet came from carbs but they were very healthy and sturdy, according to Weston Price. Their health started deteriorating sharply when sugar and flour was introduced. Was it the sugar? Was it the wheat. Was it a combination of both?

I went to listen to the podcast to see what had everyone so depressed. I got a 'file not found' message when I tried to listen, and I couldn't download it either.

What gives?

I'm not sure where you are looking. There is a new podcast of a GT lecture and there is also a long podcast interview with GT on iTunes. We are talking about the iTunes interview, which is here


ETA: It's an interview with Jimmy Moore. Second on the list.

Yes, ditto for me, too. I'm just going to stick to the plan as closely as possible to stay healthy and not worry too much about weight.

I read on a few websites that any diet that is followed too strictly may cause the thyroid to produce less T3 but more rT3.
Considering my own blood tests a few months ago (rT3 wasn't measured, but T3 was), I have been upping my carbs a tiny bit since a week or week and a half.
It appears that it's working. Not sure yet if I am truly starting to lose weight again, but at least I am not gaining. I want to give my body time as it has been through a rather rough period the past years.

Yeah, that's absolutely true: all restrictive diets will slow down your thyroid and Atkins admits this quite openly in DANDR.

amanda

Thanks, Turtle. I'm listening to it now. It's long!

I guess I don't find anything depressing here. Or rather he's not saying anything I haven't thought of myself already. (Martin Seligman says, though, that we depressives seem to have a worldview closer to reality than all you cheerful optimists. ) I've given up on the idea that Taubes was going to make the world sit up and admit it's been wrong all along. Even some people on this forum won't read GCBC. And some who have don't seem to really understand it. And some seem to have adopted it as their personal bible, not taking the open-minded, critical viewpoint that Taubes himself would encourage.

My answer to "have some of us gone beyond the point of no return?": yes, I believe I have. Sadly I wouldn't have heard Taubes's message when I was 20ish and lean (and still salvageable). At least I wouldn't have heard him in his current role as "crank." I do remember reading about diabetes at the library several times in college. I suffered from hypoglycemic reactions to sugar long before I started gaining weight. I worried about developing diabetes, so I specifically checked the "experts" as to whether eating sugar would lead to diabetes. What I found in the library reassured me that I was fine consuming sugar, that it wouldn't cause diabetes. Possibly if I'd found a different answer back then from mainstream experts I might have limited sugar in my diet. Who knows?

You know what's frustrating? I read that book Gary mentions, Pure White and Deadly back in the 70's. I remember tossing it aside. I think a the time, I couldn't conceive of living a life without eating sugar.

Yeah, me too, after reading William Dufty's "Sugar Blues" back in the 70s also. I was blown away by the book - but I was young and healthy at the time, and loved all my sweets WAY too much to give them up. And there were not many alternatives back then. <Sigh> no way to turn the clock back of course.

In all seriousness you guys, that thing about being open to the message goes for every topic... not just food... so don't blame yourself. I remember picking up the (allegedly 'feminist') book "Games Your Mother Never Taught You" when I was a very type-A driven 20 year old and I got about 30% of the way through it and tossed it aside, convinced the author was a paranoid man-hating moron. When I was about 35 (with 15 years more experience in the business world) I actually read the book and thought it was very insightful. LOL!

(I usually dislike feminist literature, but I really liked "Who Stole Feminism?" that I read recently. I didn't know there were two completely different 'philosophy camps' about it until recently. That really cleared up a lot for me!)

Anyway the point is that many things in life, I think you just have to have experience to begin to comprehend it. I have a buddy who wrote a how-to book for an art I study, and it's one of those things I find almost useless, because before someone understands, they just don't get it at all, and once they do, they think it is utterly brilliant, but by that time they'd already learned the hard way on their own already!

PJ