Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It

Taubes' book is one of the most important books ever written on nutrition. There are thousands of books written on diet and obesity, and the overwhelming majority of them are deeply flawed at best. The so-called advice offered (and now even forcibly mandated by public and corporate powers) is also dead wrong, as will be most of those who trust said advice. There are many thoughts on why this is the case, and many "conspiracy" theories as to how it came about, some with substantial evidence and outright smoking guns. This area of health is rife with disinformation, misinformation, ignorance, and outright lies. Taubes does not deal with any of that directly. He does something quite different and important: he uses solid research from the hard literature to make his case in a very precise and focused way. The case he makes is airtight and irrefutable, even from the most hard-nosed skeptic's viewpoint. The first thrust of this book is to show that the old "calories in - calories out" steam engine view of obesity is not only mildly incorrect, it is so very obviously wrong on so many levels as to completely defy rational thought. While he does not deal with the reasons behind this deadly myopia in the professional, corporate, and governmental world, he does systematically dismember this superstitious silliness with glorious logic and hard evidence. From the misunderstanding of the application of thermodynamic "laws" in biological systems to the research on obesity and disease connections, he deftly leads the reader to a greater understanding of what the real research on obesity actually says, and what that means in terms of personal health and public policy. His main concentration is on fat metabolism versus carbohydrate metabolism, and how carbs disturb the delicately balanced fat storage mechanism and cause obesity. He describes the research which backs this up, and has for decades and decades, while being totally ignored by most medical and public health officials. He discusses how long some of this research has shown these things and mentions how it has been consistently ignored. That's right - carbs. Not dietary fat, not sloth, not moral weakness, not any other of the fad social mythology which passes for "evidence" driven policies and public stances. He details the increased understanding from more sensitive and better done research which essentially proves that our great-grandmothers had a better sense of healthy food than almost all the scientists, dieticians, health agency spokescritters, and gurus who have filled our heads with lies for at least 60 years. (And been accessories to the pain and death of millions of wrongly informed people, I hasten to add.) His focus is completely on the science, and he does not venture into the politics or economic pressures which created this stupid state of affairs (the vitriol here is mine). While he does not discuss it directly, his book does point out the dangers of trusting science to give hard answers to questions of diet and health. As I point out in my review of Weston A.Price's "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration," science will not be able to give us solid answers to dietary questions for at least another 1,000 years, at the snail's pace and myopic style of current research, some of which is clearly discussed in this book. I do have some quibbles with him: his statement about being about to get adequate vitamin D from exposure to sunlight is over-simplified to the point of being incorrect. He also advises people to use artificial sweeteners instead of sugars, which is extremely bad advice, given the dangers inherent in most of them. He does not mention the impact of MSG on obesity (it causes obesity - MSG is reportedly used to fatten lab animals for obesity experiments). He does not mention experiments on farm animals in the 1940s which showed that the diet which fattened mammals most quickly was one of grains and vegetable oil. He does not go into the differences in saturated fats, and how medium-chain fatty acids are handled differently in the body. He also does not mention that animal fat is a dense source of critical nutrients, and that saturated fat is crucial in triggering satiation, hence limiting appetite, cravings, and overeating. Given all that, his work is still ironclad and irrefutable even in its narrow focus. Add in all the rest and you have a overwhelming body of evidence which is more than compelling enough to warrant a major investigation into the reasons why this information has been forcibly withheld from the public (causing untold suffering and death). I gave it 5 stars, not because it is perfect, but because it is so powerful, so right, and so necessary. Bottom line: everyone should read this book, period. The information here can literally save your life and that of those you love. Doctors, other medical people, dieticians, and others involved in the public sector dealing with nutrition should read this NOW, before they kill any more people through their ignorance. As Weston A. Price once responded to a question about how to deal with the disinformation around the subject of a healthy diet; "You teach, you teach, you teach." Get it and spread the word.

The brilliant thing about science is that when something is disproved once, it's disproved forever. The not-so-brilliant thing about public health policy is that it has little to do with science. Everyone in the developed world knows what's causing our obesity epidemic. BBC nailed it: "We eat too much, and too much of the wrong things," and Michelle Obama tells us "We have to move more." Clearly what we need is a balanced diet of lean meats, some good fats, and complex carbohydrates like fruit, vegetables and whole grain bread, and exercise of 30 to 90 minutes per day. Their prescription is completely reasonable and makes intuitive sense. It is neat, plausible, and wrong. It has in fact been disproved, as nearly as "disproof" can exist in nutrition science. In his previous book, Good Calories Bad Calories, respected science journalist Gary Taubes exhaustively researched and cited two centuries worth of research in nutrition. He came to the conclusion that none of those recommendations is supported by science, because the fundamental theory on which they're based is wrong. Why We Get Fat is an updated summary of that earlier work, much quicker and easier to read, with some significant points clarified. The most important point of the book is that all those public recommendations -- the food pyramid, the "eat food, not too much" approach, everything we know about a balanced lifestyle -- is founded on the premise of Calories In vs. Calories Out. That we get fat because we eat too many calories, or we don't burn enough of them through movement. But this is nonsense. It's not just wrong, it is actually not a statement about what causes obesity at all (or heart disease, cancer or diabetes, for that matter.) It is, in Taubes' words, a "junior high level mistake," because it tells us nothing about fat accumulation. If we get fat, by definition we have taken in more calories than we've put out -- but WHY we took in those calories, or didn't burn them, is the key point. Taubes reviews the scientific literature (rather than the popular press) and presents a conclusion that was common knowledge before WWII, and heresy afterward: we get fat because our fat cells have become disregulated and are taking nutrients that should be available to other tissues. Like a tumor, the cells live for themselves rather than in balance with the rest of the body. And since those nutrients aren't available, we become hungry and tired. Therefore we eat more, and move less. For the chronic dieters among us, one passage about animal models will explain decades of frustration. Rodents with a particular part of the hypothalamus destroyed would become obese and/or sedentary *as a consequence* of their bodies putting on more fat. "After the surgery, their fat tissue sucks up calories to make more fat; this leaves insufficient fuel for the rest of the body...The only way to prevent these animals from getting obese is to starve them...they get fat not by overeating but by eating at all." Sound familiar? The problem isn't one of gluttony and sloth, as Taubes refers to it, but of hormone balance. Simply put, some people are more sensitive to the hormone effects of insulin, cortisol, and a few other -ols, than other people are. The more sensitive you are, the more you're likely to get fat, and the more fat you're likely to get, in the presence of even small amounts of carbohydrate -- and in the absence of enough fat. That's right, this book advocates eating fat. Not just moderately, but as much fat as possible, up to 78% of calories. Not lean meats, not Jenny-O 99.6% fat-free turkey, not skinless chicken breasts, but lard. Yes, lard. The healthy way of eating, according to Taubes, is moderately high protein and high fat. Yes, high fat. About a 3:1 ratio of fat to protein, and almost no carbohydrates. (Telling people to eat a balanced diet containing carbohydrates is, he says, equivalent to telling smokers to include a balanced serving of cigarettes.) And he demonstrates exactly why a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet is the most heart-healthy approach, as borne out by several dozen recent studies. While Taubes acknowledges that exercise seems to be good for us for a variety of reasons, weight control isn't one of them. Study after study conducted by proponents of exercise have admitted that they see no compelling evidence for exercise as a weight-loss tool. And it makes sense if you throw out the calories in/calories out model of why we get fat. If we're fat because our fat tissues are starving the rest of our cells of fuel, exercise is just going to make us hungrier and more tired, not leaner and more fit. (It's worth noting that according to Taubes, in the 1930s obese patients were treated with bed rest.) [This review was edited to clarify the following point.] The main thrust of Taubes' argument, however, surrounds sugar and to a lesser extent any carbohydrate. Insulin is the primary hormone that fixes fat in the fat cells. This is why Type I diabetics lose weight: they're not producing enough insulin. Since insulin is manufactured in direct response to carbohydrates, if you don't eat them, you won't have a mechanism by which to store fat. (Taubes notes that this mechanism is not controversial; it simply hasn't had an impact on nutrition policy.) Taubes argues that any success in standard diets can be attributed directly to the dieter's reduced intake of carbohydrates, especially sugars and particularly fructose. Once the underlying cause of obesity is understood (hormone balance, not gluttony/sloth) the recommendations on what to do about it are surprisingly simple and therefore brief. This is a book about the science of nutrition, not a diet book, but there is a list of recommended foods in the Appendix. The book does not tell you how to eat in a restaurant. But it does tell you that the issue isn't in your brain, your willpower, your character, your job, your environment or even (except to the extent that you're sensitive to carbohydrate) in your genes. The problem with fat is in your fat cells. For a lay audience, this book is as good as it gets if you want to read actual science about health and nutrition. If you're of scientific or technical bent, read Good Calories Bad Calories first, then give Why We Get Fat to your parents.

Gary Taubes' book Good Calories, Bad Calories (or 'The Diet Delusion' in Australia) is one of the most important health books I have ever read. The author is incredibly intelligent and that this book took the author more than five years to write, shows. I've read few health books so intelligently written as this one. I thought I was quite well educated about diet and the need to restrict refined carbohydrates (for good health and to stop weight gain) but I learned so much from reading this book. This book gives you a detailed analysis of why low calorie diets don't work and why restricted carbohydrate/high fat diets do and is backed up by compelling evidence and research at every point. We have evolved to eat a diet that contains enough fat and protein to cause satiety, lots of green vegetables and minimal amounts of fruits and starchy vegetables. Our bodies really can't cope with huge levels of refined carbohydrate as have recently been added to the modern diet. Because this book was so good but so very long and complex, I really hoped that Taubes would put out a summarised edition of the book that I could lend to my friends and family. I was so happy to see 'Why We Get Fat' had been released and bought a copy right away. While this 'distilled' book explains the same concepts and comes to the same conclusions as Taubes' previous book, and also explains some concepts in brilliant and remarkable new ways, I am not sure I would have been quite as blown away as I was by Taubes' work if I had read this book first. I couldn't help but think it was somewhat less compelling and made the various points just a little bit less convincingly. Perhaps that is inevitable with a much shorter book and comparing them is unfair? That might well be true. What I would have liked is for each of the main points to be listed one after the other in one chapter and explained using about a half page for each. To make it really simple for everyone to get the main points. Main points would include facts such as: 1. The 'calories in, calories out' mantra is a myth 2. 'A calorie is a calorie is a calorie' is a myth 3. The 'just eat less and do more exercise to lose weight' message seems to be logical but is actually wrong and unhelpful 4. Overweight and obese people often eat no more calories, or even less, than their thinner counterparts 5. Low calorie diets also reduce the amount of nutrients in the diet 6. It is a myth that the brain and CNS needs 120 - 130 grams of carbohydrate as fuel in order to function properly, as the body can use fat and protein equally as well, and these fuels are likely the mixture our brains have evolved to prefer. 7. Restricting calories with a low fat/high carb diet just makes you hungrier and more lethargic and slows your metabolic rate. Weight loss is only maintained if the patients stays on a semi-starvation diet forever, which is impossible for most people and also undesirable. Being far more active just makes you far more hungry. 8. It is a myth that reducing calories slightly or increasing activity slightly will lead to weight loss. 9. It is a myth that we evolved through periods of feast and famine to be very good at holding onto fat. Fat gain is due to excessive insulin levels caused by high dietary refined carbohydrate intake. It is a sign of something in the body going wrong, not a healthy adaptation. 10. Fructose is not much better than glucose and the two together may cause more harm than either individually. 11. The idea of a weight 'set point' is a myth 12. Insulin is the overall fuel control for mammals. High insulin levels cause the body to store fat and stop the body from using fat as fuel. This means that high carbohydrate foods make you put on more fat, and also leave you still feeling very hungry and unsatisfied. 13. Our bodies have evolved to do best on a diet of plentiful fat and protein (including saturated fat), lots of greens and minimal fruits and starchy vegetables. This diet is the best for health and also for losing weight and stopping weight gain. 14. Dietary fat, including saturated fat, is not a cause of obesity. Refined and easily digestible carbs causing high insulin levels cause obesity. 15. To say that people are overweight due to gluttony and slothfulness is just not correct and it is very unfair. Overeating and a sedentary lifestyle are often CAUSED by eating a high carbohydrate diet! This association has wrongly been interpreted as a cause of weight gain, rather than an effect. 16. Hunger caused by eating a high carbohydrate diet (or excessive exercising while on a low calorie diet) is a very strong physiological drive and should not be thought of something mild and psychological that can be overcome with willpower. This is something serious occurring in the body, not the brain! Thus psychological 'treatments' for obesity are inappropriate and cruel. Most people are overweight due to bad medical advice, NOT a lack of willpower, greed, laziness or because they lack 'moral fibre' 17. People have different insulin secretory responses. Even if insulin secretion is slightly off, weight gain can occur. 18. Eating large amounts of a high sugar and high fat food like popcorn is easy because the body will not use most of the carbohydrate and fat for immediate fuel but will store much of it as fat - leaving you able to eat a lot of it and still be hungry a short time later as well. 19. Eating foods with a large bulk or high in fibre wont fill you up, you need the correct proportion of macronutrients and will stay hungry until you get them. 20. Those advocating the low calorie and high carb diets for health and weight loss are not involved in legitimate science. These approaches are not supported by the evidence. I took 6 pages of notes while reading this book. Even though it is short, it does still give you a ton of information and research. It isn't one of those books stuffed with 'filler.' Reading the first book I wished the author had included some sort of basic eating plan that followed his principles. After reading this book, I wish the author had not included the basic eating plan he gives at the end of the book. I realise that it is probably only there for illustrative purposes, but it really is of quite poor quality. Yes, it describes a low-carb diet which will be helpful for weight loss...but it is very far from being a healthy diet with regard to additives, nutrients and so on. This is an important failure when one of the main reasons many of us wish to lose weight is to improve our health. Eggs are not even mentioned in the eating plan which is quite bizarre. Even worse, microwaving is recommended and processed meats are allowed to be eaten. (Pork rinds, pepperoni, etc.) The diet allows up to 4 tablespoons of mayo daily, despite the fact this often contains unhealthy types of fat including trans fats. Aspartame, splenda and saccharin are recommended too, I was surprised to see. No mention is made of the importance of choosing grass-fed meats over conventionally farmed meats, if possible, and coconut oil is also not even mentioned. The diet recommends 3 cups of vegetables daily which is okay, but for my preferences, I don't see why one can't eat quite a bit more than that if one chooses green leafy vegetables which are of course very low carb. Choosing what to eat is about weight control, but getting as many nutrients in is also important and this is especially true if you are ill and trying to become more well. I also just like eating lots of nice veggies with my meals, and for me 3 cups is just not enough long term. (Been there done that!) Far better books for giving you practical diet information for weight control and health are Eat Fat, Lose Fat: The Healthy Alternative to Trans Fats and Primal Body, Primal Mind: Beyond the Paleo Diet for Total Health and a Longer Life , among others. Even with the above small quibbles, this is still an impressive body of work. I wish we had more investigative journalists writing about 'controversial' topics to such a high standard. I'm grateful to Taubes for writing his two books. I highly recommend this book or (if you are up to reading a very, very big and dense book) Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health (Vintage) would be even better. Check your library for a copy of one of them, at least! This information is so important. I give the first book 5 stars and this summary book 4.5 stars. Jodi Bassett, The Hummingbirds' Foundation for M.E. (HFME) and Health, Healing & Hummingbirds (HHH)

I am a physical trainer in NYC with 15 years experience. I voraciously read nutrition and exercise science journals and books. I recently read "Why We Get Fat" by Gary Taubes. It is a follow up (and somewhat of a clif notes version) to his tome "Good Calorie, Bad Calorie". The author is a science writer for the NYT, Discover and Science. He has an aerospace engineering masters from Stanford and Harvard and a journalism masters from Columbia. He is not a dietitian or doctor but he has a unique ability to read, understand and objectively explain scientific studies. In his books he does not attempt to "sell" a diet (however I'm sure he wants to sell lots of books) supplements, meal plans etc. He aims to take a skeptical look into why we believe what we have been told about nutrition. Most nutritional dogma stems from our government and/or pharmaceutical backed public health policies. His arguments are detailed (more so in "Good Calorie, Bad Calorie") and backed with a plethora of scientific evidence. The following lists some of the irrefutable scientific evidence that he presents : 1- Just thinking about eating carbohydrates (Pasta, cake, rice, ice cream) raises your insulin levels and makes you hungry, or hungrier. 2- Our hormones, enzymes and growth factors regulate ALL of our fat tissue. 3- Most of the carbohydrates we eat in America were not around for 99.9% of the past 2.5 million years. Only in the last 30-40 years have these things, we call food, been in our diet. 4- Men and women fatten differently (women are more predisposed to gaining fat) due mostly to our sex hormones. 5- Fat is continuously flowing out of our fat cells and being used for fuel....and we preferentially store fat even when we are not eating more caloies than we are expending. 6- Science is not clear what our ancestors, prior to the development of agriculture, ate. 7- Current hunter-gather societies get most of their calories (on average about 85%), from animal protein and fat. However (Taubes does not talk about this) these societies walk on average 7-10 miles per day. 8- Carbohydrate rich diets lower your HDL's (good cholesterol) which has a direct causation to heart disease and shorter life-spans. 9- High insulin levels (blood sugar) are caused by carbohydrate intake which in turn causes your body to store fat. 10- You will not store fat (of any significance) when your insulin levels are low even when you are eating fatty foods! In fact when your blood sugar is low you will liberate fat from your fat cells. Here are some things Taubes states that are controversial (however he supports his statements with lots of relevant research) and quite thought provoking: 1- We do NOT get fat because we overeat. We overeat because we are getting fat. It is more than calories in, calories out. 2- We do not need ANY carbohydrates in our diet (this is a tough one for me to believe, however he provides some good evidence). 3- All exercise makes you hungry and you will replace ALL the calories your burned by eating more. (Obviously, I have some problems with this one too!) 4- Atkins style diet (not the South Beach diet) will lower your risk for heart disease, most cancers, Alzheimer's and diabetes. 5- Eat a diet that is about 3 to 1 ratio of fat to protein and a little carbs if you must. 6- Restricting calories is not a good way to lose fat in the long term. I think this is a fascinating and accessible science book. I have read countless books on the subjects of exercise, diet, disease, and physiology. I believe, "Why We Get Fat" presents devastating arguments against the popular epidemiological studies that taught low-calorie and low-fat diets for health and weight loss. This book just might shift the pendulum (on its head) about what we know about diet, food and nutrition. Almost two years ago I drastically lowered my intake of animal protein (I kept eggs and cheese around because they are sooo good!) due to the bonbardment of evidence I was coming across about the dangers of meat (and the ethical concerns with the way we treat the animals we eat). So as a quasi vegetarian I am having a hard time making amends with this book and its seemingly strong arguments for a high fat, high protein low carb diet. I am not totally convinced, but the more I look into the evidence the more I am being swayed.

I really enjoyed this book. If you're familiar with the Atkins and Protein Power books, you will be familiar with many of the principles in this book. However, when I was done reading this book, I felt like I had a better understanding of the reasons why a low-carb diet works. And when I say "diet", I don't mean a temporary method for losing fat. I mean a life-long diet. I understand better how insulin affects our bodies and the processes behind fat storage vs. fat burning. Mr. Taubes backs everything up with a seemingly endless number of examples and scientific studies. I have been following this diet for the past few weeks, and I have been in pretty heavy ketosis the entire time. (I check this using ketone sticks I bought from my local pharmacy.) Prior to starting this diet, when I was including lots of "healthy" grains and fruits in my diet, I always felt heavy and bloated after most meals. I have not felt that way since starting this diet. It also used to seem that no matter what I did, how much I exercised, or how "healthy" I ate, I just couldn't lose even a single ounce of belly fat. But over the last few weeks, I have lost around 7 pounds with ease. I have also been lifting heavy weights, so it's possible I've gained a little muscle as well. So my fat loss may be even more than that. I certainly feel lighter in the gut, and my pants fit better. Understand, this is while eating as much fatty protein foods as I want. I do not count calories or watch how much I eat. If I'm hungry, I eat. I have completely cut out all grains and sugars (including fruit) from my diet and live primarily on fat, protein, and green leafy veggies. I include a little cheese here and there. Sound crazy? Read the book and find out why this is actually the healthiest way to eat. Another interesting point that Mr. Taubes makes is that exercise does not make you lose fat. You can run and run and run, and you won't lose a single ounce of fat. While he does admit that exercise has many health benefits (increased stamina, strength, muscle tone, etc.), fat loss is not one of them. In other words, you can't just eat whatever you want and hope to lose fat through exercise. It's all about diet. Along with that, he suggests that the conventional wisdom of calories in vs. calories out (the idea that if we burn more calories than we consume, we will lose weight) is not true. This definitely goes against everything we've ever been taught about weight loss, but he makes a convincing argument and backs it up with solid science. While I do feel like the low-carb diet has gained more acceptance over the last decade or so, it still has a long way to go. Many people can't get over the idea that they must avoid fat and include whole grains in their diets. This simply isn't true, and this book will tell you why. Also, most people do not accept the idea that it's okay to eat saturated fat. We've been taught most of our lives that saturated fat causes heart disease. This also is not true if your insulin levels are low. In fact, Mr. Taubes suggests that saturated fat should be a regular part of our diets! Nor can most people accept that grains, even whole grains, are very bad for our health. Even fruit can cause insulin spikes that are detrimental to our health (mainly because the fruit companies are engineering fruit to be much sweeter than it used to be in its natural state). While many scientists and medical doctors support and prescribe this type of diet, it is going to take a major paradigm shift for the masses and the nutritionists to accept these diet principles. But don't take my word for it. Read the book and see what you think.

Every nutrition researcher from Mary Enig to T. Colin Campbell agrees that public nutrition information dispensed by organizations such as the USDA and WHO is faulty and misleading. Unfortunately, that seems to be the only thing these researchers agree upon. The nutrition advice they give individually varies wildly, and it's difficult figuring out who to listen to. Gary Taubes' voice speaks louder than all these researchers. His writing demonstrates scientific rigor, attention to detail, and unbiased scientific reporting that is lacking in other researchers'. Good Calories, Bad Calories (GCBC) was like an anthology of crucial nutrition research that's been tragically ignored over the last century. In 500 pages Taubes tackled public health issues such as the cholesterol hypothesis, chronic disease, and of course, obesity and its treatment. As a big fan of that book, I personally wish Tabues would write a 2,000 page followup to GCBC. I'd lap up every page, so compelling and informative is his writing. But this book, Why We Get Fat, was also a good choice for a follow-up to GCBC. It offers much of the same information that Taubes provided in GCBC, but its content is presented more simply and with less dense discussions of specific studies, researchers, and politics (although there is still plenty of all of that). Some of the content is directly lifted from GCBC, and some of the information is the same but presented in new and thought-provoking ways. Taubes' books can read like novels at times because of the way his passages make you think. Take this one: "The instructions that we're constantly being given to lose weight--eat less (decrease the calories we take in) and exercise more (increase the calories we expend)--are the very same things we'll do if our purpose is to make ourselves hungry, to build up an appetite, to eat more." Taubes pulls from a vast array of sources to arrive at his conclusion. While most nutrition writers are content to cherry pick select studies that support their argument (or, in Campbell's case, to cherry pick select data from one study to support his argument), Taubes looks at the issue of obesity from many angles, which makes his conclusions that much more compelling. His conclusions are: "overnutrition" and lack of exercise do not cause obesity; calorie restriction and increased energy expenditure are not cures for obesity; and that carbohydrates are the true cause of obesity and their restriction necessary for its defeat. At the end he gives a list of advice for anyone wishing to lose weight according to his hypothesis. Taubes is a researcher worth listening to. Could he be completely wrong? Yes, and he even admits it. He's calling for testing of his hypothesis, and his extensive research and skilled reporting makes it clear that the hypothesis is worth testing. Something particularly telling is the fact that there are prominent nutrition researchers who disagreed with the conclusions made in Taubes last book, GCBC, and yet none of these researchers have produced a comprehensive rebuttal. The point is that we need to rethink what we think we know about nutrition and public health, and Taubes' research and conclusions is a great starting point. Why We Get Fat is an easy read that suits everyone interested in proper nutrition and weight loss. Good Calories Bad Calories is the superior overall package (and I'm still hoping for that 2000 page sequel) but this book will serve the niche of people who want to get healthier but need to learn how using a book that's a bit easier to digest.

October 2015 Update: I have lost 90 pounds so far, only 10 more to go! Still working great!!! I tried every diet in the book. Mostly cutting calories and getting more exercise. Stayed on them for a month or two. Felt like crap. Still ate sweets but counted the calories. But always went off the diets and gained the weight back. Here is my story. Not sure it will work for everyone but it worked for me! I am a very skeptical person. I read the reviews of this book and thought it was a bunch of BS. But when I saw how many reviews where people said it worked I thought I would give it a try. And after 16 weeks I have lost 50 pounds. Half way to my goal weight and it has been easy. Make sure you check with your doctor before starting this or any diet. Make sure they have no worries with your medical situation and a low carb diet. I bought this book, and his other book, Good Calories, Bad Calories and read them fully. I bought a fitbit to track my steps and used My Fitness Pal app to track my calories. Not that calories matter that much on this diet. The first 10 days was hard as my body adjusted to low carbs and no sweets. But after that, no hunger and felt fine. I tried to stay below 20 carbs the first few weeks. Since then I try to stay below 40 carbs a day. The first two weeks I lost 12 pounds but as the book explains, mostly water weight. The first 2 weeks you will go to the bathroom a lot. I eat no sweets at all. And I was a huge sweet person. And I do not crave them anymore. I liked bread before but have not really missed it. This diet is the easiest to follow because you just can't eat certain things. My old diets were only calorie based so I could use a cookie as part of my calories. That was not working. Now I know I can't have sweets or breads/carbs and I just don't eat them. Eating carbs makes you crave carbs. I take a multi-vitamin daily. And then eat mostly protein, fat and veggies. Bacon and eggs for bfast, salad with grilled chicken and balsamic dressing at lunch and meat and veggies for dinner. Eat till you are full. Snacks, if I need them, are nuts and blueberries. Both low in carbs. This diet is not really a low calorie diet, but eating this way makes it hard to eat many calories a day. Most days I am under 1500 calories. Some days I am just not hungry at all at dinner and get maybe 1200 calories that day. I drink a lot of water daily and some bouillon cubes some days to maybe get more salt. This diet I read does takes more salt from your body so some people need to add salt to their diet. If you read this book, it points out that some people have carb issues and I must be one of them, because this diet has been so easy to follow and I don't really feel like I am on a diet. I just can't eat some food I used to love. But I am not feeling like I am not getting enough food. Early on this diet I started trying to get 5000 steps a day. Which was not hard. I am not sure it is needed but it made me feel better. 5000 steps a day is easy if you just do some simple things. I would get up from my desk at work and walk 2 minutes an hour around the office. And then park further away from the door at work. Park further away from the store, etc. After I lost 20 pounds I made it 7500 steps a day. By walking a mile every day around a local school track in addition to my daily normal walks. It takes 20 minutes a day. And made me feel better. Not sure you need exercise on this diet but it helped me. As you lose weight the exercise part is easier also. You feel lighter and it is easier to walk. I have had some bad high carb days. Like 200 one day. That week I did not lose any weight but I got right back on track the next day and the next week I lost 3 more pounds. So needless to say, I am a fan of this book. It changed my life. I know once I reach my goal I just need to keep in mind that carbs and sweets are not good for me and need to continue to keep them restricted forever. I am sure now and then I can splurge and have pasta, or a piece of cake, but then need to get back on this plan quick and follow it for the next week. Keep an eye on my weight and start the 20 carbs plan a day when I gain 5 pounds back. One website I liked was Low Carb Friends, a lot of post from others using this diet. Good advice and a good place to ask questions. If you thought you could never lose weight, this might be a life changing experience for you like it was for me. Good luck!!

It's easy to do low-carb: you just track your food into a log (cronometer.com, livestrong.com, or any other resource on the net). But the hard part about doing low-carb is explaining it to people and yourself. I've known low-carb works for me. Every time I've done it, I felt great, except once I did it eating too many lean meats and felt sick. But so many things on the net tells me that what I'm doing is dangerous so I eventually quit, thinking that I must be wrong and hurting my body. I've read Primal Blueprint, Aktins Revolution and Paleo Solution. After reading Taub's Why We Get Fat, I wish I read this book first. It clears the air for me on some of the general questions I had: "If this works, surely the government wouldn't recommend eating whole grains and a high carb diet? Or at least they wouldn't call low-carb a fad diet if it works," "How long could I really keep doing this low carb thing? Am I going to end up in the hospital with kidney issues? Liver issues?," "What about what Dean Ornish's diet and McDougal Diet" I read both of these to see what the argument was for low fat and little to no meat. Like many, I was really confused. From personal experience, this is what I did in the last year: I went from a high protein/high fat paleo style diet. I didn't feel good because my body doesn't do well with too much protein. I was eating about 1 to 1.5 grams my weight and I work out only about 2x a week. I've done a low carb diet before so I didn't know why it wasn't working this time so I switch diets to the other extreme. I went on a vegan diet: HIGH carbs, little to not fat (some days, I only had 5 grams), and little protein. Initially I felt really good eating a bunch of fruit, a moderate amount of vegetables and a lot of grains and pastas and bread. This was May 2014. I began putting on weight. I thought that perhaps it's just part of the process... I looked at some youtube videos that say it's normal to gain some weight before you lose so I ignore my weight gain. I ended going to urgent care because I had an unbearable pain in my side and I thought I had appendicitis. Turns out my pancreas was completely overworked from pumping out enzymes to break down my high carb intake. The doctor advised me to eat more balance and I should have listened but I didn't. Fast forward early October 2014 I had gain 30 pounds. I felt sick but I didn't know what to do because my paleo diet I thought had failed me (which it didn't. Looking back it was too much protein) and my high carb McDougal-style semi-raw stay vegan diet was failing me. My husband got tired and concerned about all my recent talk about bloat and weight gain so he went out and bought me salad with really fatty/creamy dressing. He said "I think this will help but you don't have to eat it if you don't want to." I broke my vegan vows and ate the salad. And then ate another creamy fatty (we're talking like 70% of the calories of the salad was fat) and I FELT SO GOOD! For two days, my fat intake was 60-70% of my calories from these salads. Soon after, I decided to do research on low carb again but this time looking for something emphasized more fat. I came across a few talks on the youtube with Dr. Peter Attia and Dominic D'agostino. Soon, I started to come across Gary Taubes's name more than a few times. Then I found out about he wrote books on this subject. I decided on Why We Get Fat and I literally read it in TWO DAYS. I've never read a book this quick (The last time I read a book this fast was the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows when it first came out and that was still about 3 days). I did this while taking notes on a computer so I can reference some of the names Taube mentions online when I have time and look into it later. This is what helped me in adapting to cutting down carbs and hopefully it might help anyone that struggled the way I did: 1. lowering carbs is not a binary process. Cut down to as low as you can - experiment with this. Mark Sisson has a graph in his Primal Blueprint and online that says under 150 is weight maintenance and under 100 is weight loss. Shoot for 100 maybe and see if you can go lower. And if you can get into that Keto zone - great! If not, it's ok. I've lost weight in the last two weeks since coming off of high carbs and my tracking says I've been around 60-100 grams a day (less if you subtract the fiber... I don't subtract out fiber usually though). 2. watch your protein intake - I don't work out and everything else I do is ridiculously sedentary. I don't need that much protein. If this sounds like you, you don't need that much protein either. I read somewhere that Tibetan monks only take the egg yolk, not the egg whites. When asked why, they say that the whites are only eaten when hard labor has been done. Interesting isn't it? 3. eat fat. EAT IT! Don't let anyone tell you you can't! EAT IT! But... don't eat weird, unnatural fats like wtf is cottenseed oil? HOW?! and don't eat corn or soy oil. Doesn't make sense. EAT FATS THAT MAKE SENSE: Olive oil, coconut oil, butter, walnut oil, avocado oil... those things are fatty in nature so it makes sense that you can press the oil out of it. And maybe watch your omega 6 to 3 intake. Add a couple of flaxseeds if you're not sure. 4. And if anyone gives you grief, site this book. I'm going to. I'm going to say "but studies show there's no direct link with cholesterol and heart disease" or "but some civilizations eat only meat, like the Inuits and the Maasai" or "but fat and protein are the only essential nutrients our body needs... we can make our own fuel through ketones." For the record, I've adjusted to a vegetarian diet that's high on fat and dairy. My daily foods are: omega-3 organic free range eggs - fried and hardboiled, grassfed butter, avocados, olive oil, coconut oil, grassfed cheddar cheese, couple of tablespoons of flaxseed, almond butter, peanut butter, hemp seed, spinach or kale and I'll have 1 sweet potato with a decent amount of butter or an apple with almond butter. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 6/3/15 Edit: Since my original post, I have NOT followed this suggestion to eat mostly fat anymore. It doesn't make me feel good, I don't do well "running on ketones" and, at my best, I'm lethargic. And then I can't exercise because I lose my energy. In which, is about the time I start abusing caffeine. It just always seems that whenever I do a lo-carb diet, I feel good for a few months at most and it all comes crashing down. I want to mention a few things: Taubes is a good writer. And I'm with him on the calories in DOES NOT equal calories out. And I'm with him with he says excessive insulin makes you fat. But do I think the answer is to eat only fat and no carbs? No. I do not. I don't think carbs are bad, I don't think I'm better running on ketones, none of that. There are plenty of high-carb societies (Okinawa/Kitavins/Tarahumara) that are free from diabetes and other modern diseases. What I think is the issue is insulin resistance, not insulin itself. And the more I go into the "rabbit hole" about this issue, the more I am beginning to think that we can't tell our bodies what to do by artificially tricking it to lose weight via low-carb or calorie counting (or whatever methods). We have to figure out the "psychology" of our body. I'm with him when he says, we're gaining weight because our body wants to get fat, not because we arbitrarily eat too much. But it's time to really look into this: why does our body want to get fat? Is it missing a nutrient? Is it inflamed? Is it stressed? etc. I am beginning to think that every person that gets big isn't triggered by the same factors that make them big except that their body wants to gain weight. Time to Re-evaluate.

This book has totally changed my view of food and what to eat. It is well written, concise, informative and supports its conclusions with detailed reference sources. Certainly the best book on food and weight control I have ever read. I am over 60 years of age and have tried other weight control regimes with success, however at the expense of feeling hungry most of the time and having to eat things that I don't really like. I now really understand the physiology of all this and realize that it is not simply a matter of calories in and calories out. This has been quite a revelation and has assisted me in focusing on the key elements of weight control. I am presently reading his other book "good calories, bad calories" which is much more detailed and harder to read. If you want the quick and dirty read "Why we get fat" as is summarizes everything one needs to know in an easy to read and factual manner. I now eat what I like, am not hungry, feel great and am able to easily keep my weight where I want it to be. Highly recommended.

Sehr empfehlenswert. Das Buch ist nicht in "easy english" geschrieben, man (ich) muss sehr aufmerksam lesen, aber ist spannend wie ein Krimi. Ich kann es nicht fassen, dass, nach all den nutzlosen Diät-Jahren (genützt haben sie nur zum stetiges Zunehmen und seelische Fress-Trauma), zu der Weisheit kommen muß, was meine Mutter mir beigebracht hat, und die immer funktioniert hat: "Brot und Kartoffeln blähen. Finger weg!". In dieses Buch lesen wir, unter anderem, das diese Weisheit schon Jahrhunderte da ist und hat immer funktioniert, bis irgendwann einer gesagt hat (in den 1960-1970) "KH sind gut, wir sollen Fettreduziert essen" ... Was für ein Zufall, daß genau da ('70-'80) ging die Fett-Epidemie in den Staaten los! Wir erfahren auch, wer hat die Ernährungspyramide erfunden: die USDA (US Department auf Agriculture-Landwirtsschaftsministerium der USA)! Hier möchte ich Byron J.Richards's Buch zitieren: "EAT LIKE A PYRAMID, LOOK LIKE A PYRAMID". Davor waren alle einig das es die KH sind, die uns dick machen. Das Buch enthält sehr viel Information, hervorragend recherchiert und, wenn ich nicht schon seit drei Monate Zucker und Getreide aufgegeben gehabt hätte, würde ich es jetzt, auf der Stelle, tun. Dieses Buch hat mich nur verstärkt in meine Entscheidung. Wird einleuchtend erklärt warum "Weniger essen, mehr Sport machen" keine dauerhafte Resultate bringen kann. Jetzt habe ich verstanden warum, trotzt jahrelangen, intensivsten Training (wie Box-Schule z.B) niemals meine 5 (nur 5,damals...) lästige Kilos losgeworden bin.. Wenn wir jetzt uns alle so ernähren würden, wie vorgeschlagen (im Grunde das ist eine Steinzeitdiät), würde die ganze Lebensmittelindustrie einbrechen, die Bäckereien würden zumachen müssen, viele Arbeitsplätze würden gefährdet. Also, lieber nicht weiter sagen... ; ) Weitere Bücher, die für Sie interessant sein könnten: The Paleo Diet: Lose Weight and Get Healthy by Eating the Foods You Were Designed to Eat von Loren Cordain Das Paläo-Prinzip der gesunden Ernährung im Ausdauersport von Loren Cordain Die Steinzeit-Diät: So kriegen Sie Ihr Fett weg - natürlich fit, schlank und gesund wie vor 200.000 Jahren von Arthur de Vany MASTERING LEPTIN: YOUR GUIDE TO PERMANENT WEIGHT LOSS AND OPTIMUM HEALTH By Richards, Byron J.

This book is essentially a shorter and more focused version (layman edition) of “Good Calories, Bad Calories”, which is exhaustive in documenting the research and politics related to obesity, fat in the diet and cholesterol, and how the health establishment consistently has ignored the research in favor of their own preconceived pet theories. This has led to decades of official health organizations giving wrong health and diet advice to the public. “Why we get Fat” presents the argument-supported both by examples and research-that obesity is mainly a function of an imbalance in how calories are used in the body, with the idea that fat people have a strong tendency to automatically direct calories into stored fat, while correspondingly depriving the body of usable energy. Thus fat people are hungry and tired because the bulk of their calories are going into useless fat storage, and not to support the active body. While the individual gets progressively fatter, the body is starved of energy, hungry and tired. To counter this Taubes recommends a meat/fish heavy diet, while eliminating sources of carbohydrates and sugars. Taubes cites many examples of successful weight loss on this diet. It was even common knowledge for centuries until the 1970s, when the establishment bought into the fat phobia theory. Taubes also talks in detail about cholesterol and triglycerides. Whether you agree or not, Taubes stands conventional dietary recommendations on their head. In any case the book is detailed and makes many good arguments. The first half of the book goes more slowly as Taubes lays out the groundwork for his ideas. The second half is better at summarizing his arguments, and providing advice.

I was 80 kg in 2007, but November 2012 I was 95 Kg. I read the “Why we get fat and what to do about it” book and followed the diet very strictly. The first month I lost 7 Kg and the month after 3 Kg with no hunger at all. The following months I lost around 1.2 Kg per month. Now I am 76 Kg :-) The book is fascinating, full of intellectual reasoning and contains the pure truth about why we get fat and what to do about It. A must for all who wants to lose fat. The author is the number one. Thanks Gary Taubes!

Inusitado, instigante e com humor. Agora também em versão traduzida para o português. Uma das melhores publicações sobre o tema.