Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes

Has anyone read Gary Taubes Good Calories, Bad Calories? It came out of a New York Times Magazine article. It blew my mind. I have been writing about healthy eating for years and this book really has called into question everything I believed about food and fat and carbs...and now that I am eating according to what the science says (Taubes book is NOT a diet book, it's a science book about how we have been mislead about food) I am losing those frustrating "last 20 pounds" easily and quickly. I would like to know if anyone else has read this book and what they think.

Original Post by valtorpublic:

Gary Taubes' book has already changed (I should say corrected) the views of a lot of renowned nutritional experts since 2007.  Now in 2009 the experts are wondering how they will go about correcting the current guidelines to fit the actual real science.  Truly interesting times are coming regarding nutrition and the obesity epidemic.  Things are going to change big time in the coming years.

When the new guidelines are published by our governments, web sites like this one will have to adapt.  I mean let's face it, it truly looks like we are completely wasting our times and efforts here.

What do you think ?

I *hope* that our government would have the foresight to realize that there is too much variation among individuals to be able to prescribe a single set of dietary guidelines that would apply to everyone.

But I *know* that our government is eaten up with lobbyists and moneyed interests of every kind.  So I will be amazed if anything like a real scientific basis for nutrition guidelines comes out of any government entity.

Even what I wrote above about starches and sugars being problematic, that only applies to people who have insulin resistance.  If you took a football player or some other athlete and deprived them of carbohydrates, you would not be enhancing their health, and you might be jeopardizing it.

But the good thing about this web site is that it doesn't just count calories.  It also gives you your macronutrient ratio, nutrition levels, and lets you enter recipes to get that information on those foods that you make at home too.  Our fitness information might need to adapt more than our diet information.  But we'll see.  :)

Original Post by valtorpublic:

When the new guidelines are published by our governments, web sites like this one will have to adapt.  I mean let's face it, it truly looks like we are completely wasting our times and efforts here.

What do you think ?

I sure hope not!  I think that general attitude of people on this website is to promote physical activity.  Our nutritional goals may need some tweaking though.

Good thinking !  You're right, we are still going to need the tools provided on this site.  I was just saying that the advice we give to people around here might change or at least become more specific.

A couple weeks ago, I was around here saying that we can lose weight even while exclusively eating highly processed food, as long as you create a caloric deficit.  But now I do not believe that anymore, I think it is a lot more complex than that.

I would like to know what people think about the other metabolism hypothesis.  The one that inverses the thermodynamic equation and says that: "It is not because we eat too much that we gain weight.  It is because we gain weight that we eat more."  Meaning that your body, for yet unknown reasons, decides to store energy, thus robing you of the energy you need so you eat more.  And supposedly this hypothesis explains the observations better.

I find all this fascinating and think it warrants looking into it.  If science cannot disprove this better hypothesis then we will have to change our way of thinking about nutrition.

What do you think?

Read today of a year long study comparing those on a high carb diet versus on a moderate (not high) protein diet.  The average year long weight loss was similar - carb 19, protein 23.  Something was different though.

"However, the moderate-protein former group lost more fat mass, and had greater improvements in both HDL and triglyceride levels."

The lead researcher said the extra protein at each meal helps dieters:
>>  preserve "metabolically active" muscle mass
>>  lower levels of the blood-sugar-regulating hormone insulin so the diet encourages the body to shed more stored fat.

ALSO he concluded the lots of small meals approach isnt one size fits all. That it benefited high carb/ low fat dieters because theyre hungry more often but didnt apply to mod protein/ mod carb dieters.

LINK

I wish I had a diet plan with high protein and low carbs written by someone else so I wouldn't have to think about it, and just eat what I'm told to eat.

I thought bodybuilders were doing the high protein low carb diet thing for decades.

In this video of Taubes, he sounds like he is promoting the Atkin's diet.

Here Taubes talks some smack about low calorie diets.

fortius,

if I understood the book Good Calories, Bad Calories correctly, Taubes makes the case that we've been duped into thinking that fat calories are bad, when really sugar calories are more problematic (for people who tend to gain weight).

He doesn't advocate any specific diet.  But he says that for people who have struggled to lose weight, restricting starch and sugar will be more effective than restricting fat or protein.

You want me to tell you what to eat so you don't have to think about it?  ::giggles::

We've known for centuries that excessive consumption of carbohydrates causes weight-gain.... because we've been fattening animals on them all that time.   Cattle are fed grain.    Where Atkins went horribly wrong was when he over-simplified that basic truth and concluded that 'no carbs' (or next to no carbs) is the answer.  Of course someone loses weight if they don't eat many carbohydrates because it reduces their total calorie intake more often than not.

During WWII when rationing was in place in Britain the basic weekly adult ration was roughly (it changed as the war went on)  4oz bacon or ham,  1 portion of fresh meat costing 1 shilling and tuppence (not a lot), 1 egg, 2oz butter, 2oz cheese, 3oz sweets, 2 - 3 pints of milk, 2oz tea .... but unlimited (according to availability) bread, vegetables and any fruit that could be got hold of.   The British population is generally accepted to have never been healthier (and they certainly weren't overweight) than at that time.... on a diet of mostly vegetables, carbohydrates/starches, a little meat and fat and a tiny amount of sugar.   With the added benefit that all of that food was pretty simple stuff, not extruded through a factory with extra flavours and preservatives added.

I think that's the kind of model we should get back to, personally... Wholefoods (includes cooking the wholefoods), portion-control and a good dash of physical activitiy.  We shouldn't need books to tell us that.

...Taubes makes the case that we've been duped into thinking that fat calories are bad, when really sugar calories are more problematic (for people who tend to gain weight).

He doesn't advocate any specific diet.  But he says that for people who have struggled to lose weight, restricting starch and sugar will be more effective than restricting fat or protein...

That is right, Taubes is exposing the non-science that led to our current thinking.  I, like most people, always thought that nutritionists were basing their recommendations on scientific facts, but no it's just suppositions and they admit it even!    I get angry just thinking about it!   And yes real science points to carbs and not fat as being the root of the problem.

The real interesting prediction science makes out of this is:  If you do not consume carbs at all, you just cannot get fatter!  Taubes and others are currently trying to convince peer scientists to do the actual experiment to at least try to disprove this.

But the "experts" are not interested because they say they already know what will happen, people will get fatter.  I find this reaction shocking.  If science predicts something, as a scientist it is your job to prove that it is wrong, you can't just say it is.  You need to do the actual experiment.

Now I have read forums where, you see people testing this themselves.  They eat 4000 to 5000 calories per day, 80% fat and 20% protein, without doing any exercise at all.  After two weeks they actually lost weight.  That I think is evidence enough to get some "scientists" to actually test it properly in an experiment.

Because if it is indeed true then the whole calories in vs calories out goes right out the window.  And we will have to deal with the fact that it is more complex than what most people think right now.

Would you agree that this needs to be properly tested?

Valtor

Original Post by valtorpublic:

.  They eat 4000 to 5000 calories per day, 80% fat and 20% protein, without doing any exercise at all.  After two weeks they actually lost weight. 

 Where are these people?.....  It may work in lab-rats but  I don't see many people sitting down to packets of butter, or even wanting to for that matter.   And even if they did lose weight, isn't '80% fat' just another mono-nutrient fad diet that they can't keep up with afterwards?   (The reason fad diets normally get abandoned is that it they are impractical and/or restrictive)  Isn't weight-maintenance and liveability more important than short-term results?

When archaeologists dig up cooking pots in ancient sites they find grains and fruit-pips and animal bones and fish bones.... and other evidence of a wide diet of the natural foods available.  That's what h ealthy, happy human beings eat... isn't that more normal?

Original Post by valtorpublic:

...Taubes makes the case that we've been duped into thinking that fat calories are bad, when really sugar calories are more problematic (for people who tend to gain weight).

He doesn't advocate any specific diet.  But he says that for people who have struggled to lose weight, restricting starch and sugar will be more effective than restricting fat or protein...

That is right, Taubes is exposing the non-science that led to our current thinking.  I, like most people, always thought that nutritionists were basing their recommendations on scientific facts, but no it's just suppositions and they admit it even!    I get angry just thinking about it!   And yes real science points to carbs and not fat as being the root of the problem.

The real interesting prediction science makes out of this is:  If you do not consume carbs at all, you just cannot get fatter!  Taubes and others are currently trying to convince peer scientists to do the actual experiment to at least try to disprove this.

But the "experts" are not interested because they say they already know what will happen, people will get fatter.  I find this reaction shocking.  If science predicts something, as a scientist it is your job to prove that it is wrong, you can't just say it is.  You need to do the actual experiment.

Now I have read forums where, you see people testing this themselves.  They eat 4000 to 5000 calories per day, 80% fat and 20% protein, without doing any exercise at all.  After two weeks they actually lost weight.  That I think is evidence enough to get some "scientists" to actually test it properly in an experiment.

Because if it is indeed true then the whole calories in vs calories out goes right out the window.  And we will have to deal with the fact that it is more complex than what most people think right now.

Would you agree that this needs to be properly tested?

Valtor

 I do agree.

I've read other books than Taubes (try Gina Kolata's Rethinking Thin - she debunks a lot of "accepted wisdom" as well) and I believe that metoblism research is still in its infancy -- it was only discovered in 2007 (i think) that fat cells do a lot more metabolically than was previously thought (and we still don't completely understand all of the biochemical signals they emit and receive) and may be considered the largest endocrine organ, in the same way that skin is the largest organ of your body.

GI-Jane, all due respect.  I don't agree with a one-diet-fits-all approach.  I've now lost 97 lbs.  The first 40 lbs, I lost excruciatingly slowly from 2005-2008 (or less than 1 pound per month) by trying to use various calorie restriction plans.  The last 57 lbs I lost in the last 6 months (9.5 pounds per month) by eliminating starch and sugar (except for small amounts of fruit eaten with fat and protein, not alone).  Additionally, people like to criticize Atkins' original diet, which cut out almost all veggies.  He revised his diet to include non-starchy veggies - but people like to ignore that.  I'm not following Atkins per se.  I avoid gluten because I'm sensitive to it and it causes digestion problems.  I avoid extremely fatty meals because I had my gallbladder out.  I avoid sugar because my muscle cells have a tendency to be insulin resistant.  I get moderate exercise because it improves the insulin sensitivity of my muscles, improves my mood, and I only do exercise that I enjoy.

I believe we need to help people work with their body - not try to make their body conform to what we think ought to work.

...Of course someone loses weight if they don't eat many carbohydrates because it reduces their total calorie intake more often than not.

I thought that too before.  But Taubes actually presents all the scientific evidence that says this is not why they lose weight.  Scientists needs to look into this because Taubes is not saying stuff just like that in the air.  He shows to whole picture and all the data completely unbiased.  Taubes is just a journalist and he is astounded that "experts" just ignored the actual science for 40 years!  I'm shocked too !  He exposes all the reasons why they ignored it.  Truly a good read.  And what's more, researchers are beginning to come out and admit that their research agrees with Taubes findings.

...Wholefoods (includes cooking the wholefoods), portion-control and a good dash of physical activitiy.  We shouldn't need books to tell us that

Of course removing sucrose, highly processed starches and HFCS would solve a lot of the problem.  But when we say just create a caloric deficit and you're good to go, we are in fact lying.  It's more complex than that, you also have to at least reduce the simple carbs, removing sucrose, highly processed starches and HFCS like you say, is easy enough to do and should do it for most people.

But what I'm saying is that we don't need to guess anymore, we can do the actual real science and put forward the whole mechanism of metabolism.  Then people will be able to base their diets on the real thing.  Why are we still guessing?

Valtor

.  They eat 4000 to 5000 calories per day, 80% fat and 20% protein, without doing any exercise at all.  After two weeks they actually lost weight. 

 Where are these people?.....  It may work in lab-rats but  I don't see many people sitting down to packets of butter, or even wanting to for that matter.   And even if they did lose weight, isn't '80% fat' just another mono-nutrient fad diet that they can't keep up with afterwards?

I agree with the fad thing but that is not my point.  My point is they lose weight while maintaining a big big caloric benefit.  If verified, this shatters our hypothesis and sends us back to the drawing board.  Don't forget that if society had based its diet on the right stuff, right now diets like moderately-low-carbs would not be a fad it would be our recommended way of eating and low-fat would be fad.

Here is the link to the forum you asked for.

By the way I'm actually testing this myself.  I am too curious to wait so... :)  I stopped counting calories and instead I watch my macro nutrients closely.  Yesterday I ate about 3000 calories, way above my 2140 BMR.  I'll come back here after a couple weeks with my findings :)

Valtor

Original Post by nomoreexcuses:

 I don't agree with a one-diet-fits-all approach. I believe we need to help people work with their body - not try to make their body conform to what we think ought to work.

 Yes of course, when someone has a catalogue of medical conditions, allergies and other long-range problems such as you describe then they need a specific diet to be worked out for them.   It would be the same if you had throat surgery and needed everything pureed.   I'm talking about the mass populus, 99% of whom are medically 'normal' but overweight because they simply eat too much, don't move around enough and have a nutritionally poor diet.   It is about eating better and moving more rather than 'eating less' of the same old rubbish... I accept that.  What I don't accept is that the majority need to be trying to follow dietary rules that are such a quantum leap from the traditional norm of the last millennium  e.g. 80% fat.... How would that have gone down with your gall-bladder I wonder?

When I say 'traditional norm' I'm talking about home cooking foods rather than eating out of packets  .....  less meat more beans ... sweets kept for special occasions rather than a dietary staple.... serious revision of portion-sizes .... not confusing 'the car' or 'the desk' with 'the dining table'.   That kind of thing.

I wish I had a diet plan with high protein and low carbs written by someone else so I wouldn't have to think about it, and just eat what I'm told to eat.

I thought bodybuilders were doing the high protein low carb diet thing for decades.

In this video of Taubes, he sounds like he is promoting the Atkin's diet.

Here Taubes talks some smack about low calorie diets.

Taubes is just saying that Atkins looked at the same data Taubes did and found the same evidence.  Then Atkins did 5 trials that confirmed his findings and created a diet based on that.  Atkins at that point was still guessing for the rest of it.

Taubes is not pushing low-carb per se.  He's just showing us the real science and it all points towards insulin being real bad in excess.  And not just for weight problems but for all sorts of other disease too.

Everyone should watch this interview here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoQGRJqGQTs

An eminent nutritionist m.d. Dr Weil, quite simply did a full 180 on his recommendations this his patients after reading Taubes book.

We can't ignore this !

Valtor

Gi-jane, what is truly shocking in all this is that, if Taubes hypothesis is correct then something like a one hour walk per day won't change anything on our weight !  Because our body will compensate to keep the energetic status quo.  That would mean that people lose weight only because they eat more "healthy", because they eat less simple carbs and not because of a simple caloric deficit.  I know it's hard to believe after 40 years of dogma but you should really read his book.

Exercise then becomes a matter of fitness and not weight loss.  We should all still exercise, but I think it is important to know that it might not do squat for our weight.

The scientific community needs to look into this fully.  Right now they are just guessing and everybody is content with that, even though our current hypothesis does not fit all observations.

Valtor

Original Post by gi-jane:

Original Post by nomoreexcuses:

 I don't agree with a one-diet-fits-all approach. I believe we need to help people work with their body - not try to make their body conform to what we think ought to work.

 Yes of course, when someone has a catalogue of medical conditions, allergies and other long-range problems such as you describe then they need a specific diet to be worked out for them.   It would be the same if you had throat surgery and needed everything pureed.   I'm talking about the mass populus, 99% of whom are medically 'normal' but overweight because they simply eat too much, don't move around enough and have a nutritionally poor diet.   It is about eating better and moving more rather than 'eating less' of the same old rubbish... I accept that.  What I don't accept is that the majority need to be trying to follow dietary rules that are such a quantum leap from the traditional norm of the last millennium  e.g. 80% fat.... How would that have gone down with your gall-bladder I wonder?

When I say 'traditional norm' I'm talking about home cooking foods rather than eating out of packets  .....  less meat more beans ... sweets kept for special occasions rather than a dietary staple.... serious revision of portion-sizes .... not confusing 'the car' or 'the desk' with 'the dining table'.   That kind of thing.

 I don't eat potatoes either.

And I think my ancestors ate a lot of fish (scandinavian/british) and perhaps sheep, no doubt lots of veggies, and as many fruits as they could get, but doubt they chowed down on a lot of beans.  (I do eat black beans, but not other beans.)

Valtor, I did a similar thing only less radical.  I experimented with eliminating different foods and logged my mood, hunger, and weight loss.  I think that any 'diet' (or regimen) that leaves you feeling hungry all the time is a diet that is setting you up for failure.  I am rarely hungry now that I eat so little starch and sugar.

Obviously valtor is not advocating a diet of 80% fat.  What are you eating to achieve this ratio, btw?  He's testing a hypothesis.  I can't wait to find out what you learn.  :)

Obviously valtor is not advocating a diet of 80% fat.  What are you eating to achieve this ratio, btw?  He's testing a hypothesis.  I can't wait to find out what you learn.  :)

Well in fact , it is not 80% and don't forget this is just a ratio so the fat grams is not much higher than the protein grams, but the fat is still high.  I mean, there is no other way I can test this, because I must make sure I don't secrete insulin.  Also, all the excess proteins that my body does not need will be converted to glucose, so I must watch that too.

Anyway, here it goes, the following is a typical day.  Menu's calorie ratio was: 74% fat, 4% carb, 22% protein in a total of 3128 calories.

Breakfast:

* Boost: Nutritional Drinks: Glucose Control, All Flavors

Snack:

* Vegetables, Fresh: Celery, raw
* Philadelphia: Cream Cheese: Regular

Lunch:

* Pork: Loin, chops, center rib, lean & fat, pan-fried
* Cheese: Feta
* Salad Dressings & Condiments: Renee's, Greek
* Lettuce, cos or romaine, raw
* Cream: Whipping, Heavy (37% fat)

Snack:

* Vegetables, Fresh: Celery, raw
* Philadelphia: Cream Cheese: Regular

Diner:

* Ground beef
* Mushrooms
* Cream: Whipping, Heavy (37% fat)
* Brie Cheese

The worst case scenario is that I will gain back a bit of lost weight.  I'm willing to pay the price to test this myself.  I think it is worth it.  I'll let you know.

Valtor

...Obviously valtor is not advocating a diet of 80% fat...

And no I am certainly not advocating anything here people.  I'm just bringing interesting facts to your attention.  Facts that might change the way we see nutrition in the not too distant future.  Or not   But it's worth looking into it.

Valtor

Taubes is retarded. His best evidence is a nutrition book from 1930 and a self-reporting diet study that even the autor says is useless and doesn't prove what Taubes thinks it does, namely that obese people can macigally violate the laws of thermodynamics by consuming carbs.

 It's nonsense.

Yes, nutritionists who generally get exam questions like "What are the ingredients in a lemon meringue pie?" rather than "The product of enterokinase reactions is:......" have little to no actual science to back up their recommendations when you look closer at where they actually got their numbers.

 But that doesn't mean that you can take a study that the authors actually rectracted because they came to the conclusion that the results were nonsense and reject the laws of thermodynamics because of it, declaring that insulin is magic phelbotinium that can cause mass to appear from nowhere.

 Or that De novo lipogenesis (adding fat to fat stores) can't occur without insulin in the system which is also complete nonsense; it's a very well understood mechanism that allows for free fatty acids in the blood stream to be re-estrified into triglycerides in the fat cells absent the presence of insulin. Dietary fat gets processes into FFA's through the process of digestion and then released into the blood stream, where they as per usual get captured by your adipocytes and deposited into storage.

 And of course he neatly bypasses the fact that certain proteins (Leucine, f.ex) are a more potent insulin stimulant than pure sugar. Or that ASP is a more potent stimulator of fat storage than insulin is. So even on a zero-carb, 30/70 PRO/LIP diet you'd have insulin spikes whenever protein is consumed. If insulin was the problem he makes it out to be, you'd have to go on a 100% fat diet to avoid insulin or ASP presence in your system.

 The single study from 1980 Taubes bases his whole inverted pyramid of theories on from George Bray, M.D.(the Boyd Professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center and author of over 500 papers in the field of obesity research) was in fact retracted by Bray because it was based on self-reporting of calorie consumption without the study's participants measuring or weighing their food. since humans are notorisouly bad at this and some of Bray's own later studies showed that obese individuals would typically underestimate their own calorie intake by about 50% he found that the data in his own previous study based on self-reporting were in fact invalid.

 Hmm.

Basically, when you look closer at the science, there's nothing there.

Melkor: Taubes has very meticulously demonstrated that the few researchers that tried to refute their own findings were completely biased.  Taubes is a very well respected science journalist.  After reading the book the first time I agreed with you.  I thought that he had lost his touch.  But then I figured all experts would say he's crazy all over the place.  So I went on the web to get a good laugh.  I listened to interviews and read others and what I found was shocking.  Only a very few biased people were still against him at the end of each, and their bias was showing like crazy!  They were on the defensive big time, and not using the language of science at all.  So I looked at the scientific data myself and was forced to agree with Taubes interpretation of that data.

You say "lipogenesis (adding fat to fat stores) can't occur without insulin in the system".  My friend, you need to look at the science.  "Insulin stimulates lipogenesis in three main ways: Malonyl-coenzyme A, Pyruvate dehydrogenase dephosphorylation and Acetyl-coA carboxylase" (ref)  And I know ASP needs looking into it, just like the rest of metabolism.

But all this is beyond the point I am trying to make !  Science is about finding an hypothesis that fits your observations and which also makes predictions that you can test.  Then you try to disprove your own hypothesis.  You think of all the tests you could do to prove you are wrong.  If it is still not false after you can't think of any new tests that could make your hypothesis lie.  Then you publish your findings so that peer scientists might find and try new tests to disprove your hypothesis.  This last step insures an unbiased review which has not been done properly for nutrition.  If after all this your hypothesis survives, then it can become a theory, even gravity is still in 2009 just a theory.  And right now there are no theory of human metabolism, there are only a couple hypothesis.  What's more, the one we base all current advice on is not only not properly reviewed, it does not even explain all observations!  In science we have an expression for this, we say "It's not even wrong", because it is not even worth working on.  We should work on one that, at least, tries to explain all the observations.

So current guidelines are not based on science.  I find it shocking!  There is NO reason for this to go on.  At least and in fact, more and more nutritional researchers are seeing this and some real science will come out of it.  I think it is about time !

Valtor