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Author Topic:   Why We Get Fat by Gary Taubes
Phat
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Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 10 of 49 (661517)
05-07-2012 10:39 AM
Reply to: Message 3 by Percy
09-11-2011 6:56 PM


Re: The Big Question
Percy writes:
Let's compare two diets that are equal in calories. One diet is low fat, the other is low carb. You try the low fat diet and do not lose weight. You then try the low carb diet and you do lose weight. For the low carb diet, where did the calories that were not used to maintain your weight go?
Let's look at this in just a little more detail. You try the low fat diet. The food you eat is turned into nutrients in the bloodstream. These nutrients are sufficient for maintaining your weight, so you do no lose any weight.
Now you try the low fat diet. The food you eat is also turned into nutrients in the bloodstream. These nutrients are not sufficient for maintaining your weight, so you do lose weight, but there were an equal number of calories in the food, so where did those calories go?
Many people report being more energetic and less hungry on a low carb diet, so one possibility is that the extra calories were consumed by additional activity. Whether true or not, I don't believe there's any compelling research for or against this.
I think that the main difference is in insulin production. Insulin encourages calories that would otherwise be burned to be stored...as fat. The low fat diet would hypothetically generate more insulin and thus more stored calories, whereas the low carb diet would encourage fat to be burned rather than stored.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3 by Percy, posted 09-11-2011 6:56 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 13 by Percy, posted 05-08-2012 8:01 AM Phat has replied

  
Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


(1)
Message 17 of 49 (816464)
08-04-2017 8:48 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by Percy
05-08-2012 8:01 AM


Re: The Big Question
Percy writes:
The little detail is where you say, "Insulin encourages calories that would otherwise be burned to be stored...as fat." This is true, but insulin also encourages energy to be stored in all other types of cells as well, including muscle cells. All cells need energy.
The low carb diet encourages ketosis. The cells are fueled by ketones rather than strict glucose.

Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain "
~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith
"as long as chance rules, God is an anachronism."~Arthur Koestler

This message is a reply to:
 Message 13 by Percy, posted 05-08-2012 8:01 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 18 of 49 (816528)
08-05-2017 3:35 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Percy
09-11-2011 3:13 PM


Taubes Confirms my earlier reading of Rosedale and Fung.
Cat Sci writes:
Ran across this and was reminded of this topic, if anyone wants to read an interview with the author:
Gary Taubes, the Man Who Knows Why America Is Fat | GQ
Taubes mentions that a study is being undertaken that will answer many of Percys questions.
He wrote an article in the Scientific American titled What Makes You Fat: Too Many Calories, or the Wrong Carbohydrates?
A key initial experiment will be carried out jointly by researchers at Columbia University, the National Institutes of Health, the Florida Hospital—Sanford-Burnham Translational Research Institute in Orlando, and the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La. In this pilot study, 16 overweight and obese participants will be housed throughout the experiment in research facilities to ensure accurate assessments of calorie consumption and energy expenditure. In stage one, the participants will be fed a diet similar to that of the average American50 percent carbohydrates (15 percent sugar), 35 percent fat and 15 percent protein. Researchers will carefully manipulate the calories consumed until it is clear the participants are neither gaining nor losing fat. In other words, the calories they take in will match the calories they expend, as measured in a device called a metabolic chamber. For stage two, the subjects will be fed a diet of precisely the same number of calories they had been consumingdistributed over the same number of meals and snacksbut the composition will change dramatically.
The total carbohydrate content of the new diet will be exceedingly lowon the order of 5 percent, which translates to only the carbohydrates that occur naturally in meat, fish, fowl, eggs, cheese, animal fat and vegetable oil, along with servings of green leafy vegetables. The protein content of this diet will match that of the diet the subjects ate initially15 percent of calories. The remainder80 percent of calorieswill consist of fat from these real food sources. The idea is not to test whether this diet is healthy or sustainable for a lifetime but to use it to lower insulin levels by the greatest amount in the shortest time.
Meaningful scientific experiments ideally set up a situation in which competing hypotheses make different predictions about what will happen. In this case, if fat accumulation is primarily driven by an energy imbalance, these subjects should neither lose nor gain weight because they will be eating precisely as many calories as they are expending. Such a result would support the conventional wisdomthat a calorie is a calorie whether it comes from fat, carbohydrate or protein. If, on the other hand, the macronutrient composition affects fat accumulation, then these subjects should lose both weight and fat on the carbohydrate-restricted regime and their energy expenditure should increase, supporting the idea that a calorie of carbohydrate is more fattening than one from protein or fat, presumably because of the effect on insulin.
The research that I have read about so far shows that Taubes is on the mark and that he, like Ron Rosedale and Jason Fung know the truth about the low carb diets and are waiting for conclusive research to solidify their claims and confirm the wisdom.

Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain "
~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith
"as long as chance rules, God is an anachronism."~Arthur Koestler

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Percy, posted 09-11-2011 3:13 PM Percy has not replied

  
Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 20 of 49 (816547)
08-06-2017 2:12 AM
Reply to: Message 19 by Faith
08-06-2017 1:26 AM


Re: And now for something completely different
Im guessing that the main benefit of that diet is fiber.
It may work for some body types, but most definitely not for mine.
Here is a good synopsis as to why the Low Carb diet works so well.
Dr. Mercola Interviews Dr. Jason Fung (Full Interview)

Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain "
~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith
"as long as chance rules, God is an anachronism."~Arthur Koestler

This message is a reply to:
 Message 19 by Faith, posted 08-06-2017 1:26 AM Faith has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 21 by Minnemooseus, posted 08-06-2017 2:40 AM Phat has replied

  
Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 22 of 49 (816584)
08-07-2017 2:50 AM
Reply to: Message 21 by Minnemooseus
08-06-2017 2:40 AM


Re: For whatever it's worth, Dr. Mercola has an entry at "Encyclopedia of American Loons"
Perhaps Dr.Mercola is eccentric and, like Dr.Oz, one to jump on multiple bandwagons in order to sell stuff.
The bottom line, however, is that low carb diets are not a fad. the science behind them is sound. Dr.Jason Fung is respectable, moreover.
Finally, I am not impressed with the website of the author of that encyclopedia...after all...what has he notably accomplished?

Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain "
~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith
"as long as chance rules, God is an anachronism."~Arthur Koestler

This message is a reply to:
 Message 21 by Minnemooseus, posted 08-06-2017 2:40 AM Minnemooseus has seen this message but not replied

  
Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 25 of 49 (816587)
08-07-2017 9:41 AM
Reply to: Message 24 by Faith
08-07-2017 8:33 AM


Re: why do we need all these special diets?
Faith writes:
I sometimes think about the diet my English-Scottish grandparents and their eleven offspring ate on their ranch in Canada. Was it the extremely hard work they had to do to run the place, feed the animals, milk the cows, gather the eggs, weed the garden, kill the chickens and pluck them, can it all for overwintering and so on, or was it that the food itself was natural that explains why they were so skinny and tough and lived into their eighties and nineties? Maybe both. They ate all the "bad" things including white bread they made themselves, butter they made themselves, etc etc etc.
In my opinion, the answer is both. Active people don't really need the low carb diet if their bodies are in balance and they have an active lifestyle. The low carb diet is one answer that addresses our cultures overindulgence of carbohydrates and the resulting increase in Type II Diabetes. Once the body is in balance, "starches" or carbs if you prefer can be eaten in reasonable moderation---provided that your lifestyle is active enough to burn them off as they are consumed.
Let me use an analogy. Picture a roaring fire in a fireplace. The fire feeds primarily off of the logs in the fire, correct? Newspaper and bits of wood are used to get the fire started. Imagine the logs to be the stored fat. Imagine the kindling and wadded newspaper to be the carbs. In the modern diet, too many people are living off of kindling and eating too many carbs. Additionally, they are not active enough to provide the movement necessary to stoke the flames.
Joseph Mercola may well be a borderline crackpot in regards to easy cures, but he jumped on the right bandwagon with the low carb approach..(sold another book about it too!) Low carb is the answer to the sales pitch of excess carbs sold to us by the food industry, who makes a lot of money on junk food.
Edited by Phat, : No reason given.
Edited by Phat, : added

Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain "
~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith
"as long as chance rules, God is an anachronism."~Arthur Koestler

This message is a reply to:
 Message 24 by Faith, posted 08-07-2017 8:33 AM Faith has not replied

  
Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 30 of 49 (816671)
08-09-2017 10:07 AM
Reply to: Message 28 by Faith
08-09-2017 2:16 AM


Emotion = Energy In Motion
Faith writes:
I haven't been motivated enough to bring God into it, I just don't care.
I'll keep you in my prayers. You are being honest and open about your feelings about yourself, and you have also indicated that this is a topic that needs to be discussed. I for one would like to see you live a long and healthy life, so I encourage you to invest some of your passion and intellectual curiosity into your own health. You will feel so much better and be mentally sharper.

Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain "
~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith
"as long as chance rules, God is an anachronism."~Arthur Koestler

This message is a reply to:
 Message 28 by Faith, posted 08-09-2017 2:16 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 31 by Faith, posted 08-09-2017 11:45 AM Phat has seen this message but not replied

  
Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 46 of 49 (831354)
04-16-2018 4:08 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Percy
09-11-2011 3:13 PM


Gary Taubes and Dr.Oz
I know that some will say that this is bad science and sensationalized, but I found this video clip quite interesting.
Gary Taubes on Dr.Oz
Gary should have emphasized good fats more, agreed with Oz regarding saturated fats, and brought up the point that being on the diet one day would not improve fat burning readings...it takes at least 3 weeks to get started.
Oz brings up a good point regarding saturated fats.
By the way, Gary now has a third book out, The Case Against Sugar
Edited by Phat, : No reason given.
Edited by Phat, : added link

Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain "
~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith
Paul was probably SO soaked in prayer nobody else has ever equaled him.~Faith

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Percy, posted 09-11-2011 3:13 PM Percy has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 49 by Phat, posted 11-13-2018 11:13 AM Phat has not replied

  
Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 47 of 49 (831355)
04-16-2018 9:33 AM
Reply to: Message 24 by Faith
08-07-2017 8:33 AM


Re: why do we need all these special diets?
Faith writes:
I think we need a thread like this because the American diet has been CAUSING us to gain weight and have all kinds of health problems, so unfortunately we need some guidelines to get us out of the situation. We aren't getting fat just because we overeat good natural food, though that may be the case for some, we're getting fat because there's so much processed stuff out there with so many bad things in it. Even the meat we eat is full of alien substances like hormones that affect our metabolism. Read some labels on packaged things in the market, to find out how much sugar is put into all sorts of foods you wouldn't think needed it, and different forms of sugar too so you have to know what all the chemical terms mean. And then there are the long lists of completely undecipherable chemicals in some things.
There's nothing natural about this problem, at least in America. Maybe South Africa doesn't have the same problems we have. Exercise is always a good thing of course and maybe it would do it for most of us -- not me though, too many joints down to bone on bone, but there are some forms of exercise I could do with my upper body if I could get motivated.
I sometimes think about the diet my English-Scottish grandparents and their eleven offspring ate on their ranch in Canada. Was it the extremely hard work they had to do to run the place, feed the animals, milk the cows, gather the eggs, weed the garden, kill the chickens and pluck them, can it all for overwintering and so on, or was it that the food itself was natural that explains why they were so skinny and tough and lived into their eighties and nineties? Maybe both. They ate all the "bad" things including white bread they made themselves, butter they made themselves, etc etc etc. I do doubt any of them had a self-indulgent moment in their lives, too many of them, too few resources for starters.
I've been reading a lot of varied opinions on low carb vs balanced, low fat vs low carb, starches vs proteins, etc. This is my tentative conclusion:
  • One diet does not fit all. For myself, being insulin resistant, I need to lower my insulin, resensitize my cells to insulin, and balance out my overall diet.
    Perhaps for you, Faith---the plant-based approach is best. You may not have a hormonal imbalance (insulin sensitivity) problem, but rather an immune response arthritic one. The ideal combination of foods in which to restore your imbalance differs from the solution regarding mine.
  • A balanced diet is the ultimate goal. Tangle brought this up in declaring that faddish approaches are unsafe. My only comment would be that an extreme approach is often initially necessary in order to restore balance to the system.
    The problem in America diet wise is that our bodies are imbalanced. We eat too much, get too little activity, and take too many medications.

    Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul
    "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain "
    ~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith
    Paul was probably SO soaked in prayer nobody else has ever equaled him.~Faith

  • This message is a reply to:
     Message 24 by Faith, posted 08-07-2017 8:33 AM Faith has replied

    Replies to this message:
     Message 48 by Faith, posted 04-16-2018 2:19 PM Phat has seen this message but not replied

      
    Phat
    Member
    Posts: 18262
    From: Denver,Colorado USA
    Joined: 12-30-2003
    Member Rating: 1.1


    Message 49 of 49 (843118)
    11-13-2018 11:13 AM
    Reply to: Message 46 by Phat
    04-16-2018 4:08 AM


    Re: Gary Taubes and Dr.Oz
    Gary Taubes, who self admittedly is no Doctor, has advocated the ongoing "battle" between the traditional medical established "wisdom" and the low carb approaches. After Dr.Oz gave him a thumping on the syndicated Dr.Oz Show, which I showed a clip of earlier:
    Gary Taubes on Dr.Oz
    Now, however, Dr.Oz is relaxing his stance regarding ketogenic diets.
    Tim Tebow Explains Ketogenic Diet to Dr.Oz

    Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul
    "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain "
    ~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith
    You can "get answers" by watching the ducks. That doesn't mean the answers are coming from them.~Ringo

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 46 by Phat, posted 04-16-2018 4:08 AM Phat has not replied

      
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