Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It

So, Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It by Gary Taubes is my second foray into a health book, the first being Pandora’s Lab. That one was more about weird health and how science has fucked up, health wise. This one may be continuing the trend. Actually, I think it is continuing the trend. In part one, author Gary Taubes has done a pretty solid job laying out why what we think we know about obesity and weight loss may be wrong.

The traditional belief is calories in needs to be less than calories out. Which certainly makes sense, right? I mean, it’s what we’ve been told all our lives and has been the accepted science for over 100 years. SO much so, that when obese people seek treatment, they are apparently shunted to mental health care versus a doctor specializing in metabolism. How does that make sense? Well, we have figured out that if you are unable to stick to an extreme caloric restricted diet, then your overeating must be mental.

Taubes, in this section, has carefully dissected all the usual explanations of traditional diet culture, and the problems with increasing your exercise (ever hear the phrase “Work up an appetite?” Well, that plays a part too.) I think, based on the intro, that this book is the beginners guide to the author’s book, Good Calories, Bad Calories. Which is funny, because Good Calories, Bad Calories was written first. But as Taubes points out, that book has a lot of dense, scientific information. While this one also has scientific information, it is condensed down for the average reader. And I am finding the information easy to digest (no pun intended).

I think, although this has not been discussed too much just yet, that the point is the quality of calories most people are consuming are nutrient deficient. So, we eat highly processed white bread, which causes insulin to spike. And there is a ton of evidence that obesity causes insulin to climb, which can cause type 2 diabetes.

So, the first part of the book is only about eighty pages long, so this post is also not very long. But I think that is the point he’s making. And I think for a significant chunk of the population, he’s right. Is he right for EVERYONE? I don’t know. I’m trying to think of some of the fitness influencers I follow and watch, and they all recommend the calories in/calories out. But then I started looking at the type of calories they are consuming. And the calories they eat are nutrient dense, leafy greens, lots of protein, moderate fat consumption. I mean the nutrient composition of fat/carbohydrate/protein is there. But the carbs they eat are those leafy greens.

So, I’m curious to see how part 2 plays out, see if the foreshadowing in part 1 bears out in part 2.

Yep, I got it right. Author Gary Taubes is positing that the quality of carbs we eat is what is responsible for weight gain and the inability to lose weight. And I don’t think he’s wrong. He systematically lays out some pretty compelling evidence to this effect.

Basically, insulin is the hormone that regulates our fat. And the highly refined sugars and starches that compose a western diet overloads our system with insulin. This is how insulin resistance forms. Too much sugar forces the body to produce more and more insulin, which results in resistance to the insulin, and more weight gain. Push it much further, and the body develops type 2 diabetes. Which means you lose the ability to produce insulin at all. One might think this is a good thing, and sudden unexplained weight loss is a symptom of type 2 diabetes. But it is not a good thing.

Insulin is a vital hormone that regulates blood sugar. When your body loses the ability to create its own insulin, your blood sugar climbs and climbs. This causes excessive thirst, sudden weigh loss, and if you don’t realize what’s going on, can drop you right in to a coma, leading to death. So, insulin actually needs to be carefully balanced and regulated.

And by eating a carbohydrate dense diet full of complete empty calories like sugar and refined starches, you are forcing your body to produce more insulin than it should be. And weigh gain ensues, because the insulin directs those excess sugars into fat cells. Stop spiking your blood sugar, and insulin levels drop naturally, resulting in weight loss, without the problematic diabetes (if your lucky) or as a result of diabetes if you’ve pushed your metabolism too far.

All of this is broken down in part two, in detail. Taubes covers not just the development of diabetes and the clear links between insulin production, insulin resistance, and diabetic development, but also the host of conditions known as metabolic syndrome.

Ideas covered start with why anyone gets fat:

“The way the experts typically see it is that fat storage works as a kind of long-term savings account—like a retirement account that you can dip into only in dire need. The idea is that your body takes excess calories and stashes them away as fat, and they remain in the fat tissue until you someday find yourself sufficiently underfed…that this fat is mobilized. You can then use it for fuel. But it has been known since 1930s that this conception is not even remotely accurate.” (p. 113)

And then he breaks down exactly why this is not accurate. And he does this over and over again, shooting down many of the commonly held beliefs that have been deemed scientifically sacrosanct, and highlighting some of the rebels who break with known science to achieve frankly stunning results.

And I think that the reason people say low carbohydrate diets don’t work truly does come down to willpower. Throughout the book, part one and part two, he goes over why traditional diets fail. And it has nothing to do with the dieters not following the diet, but rather what the diet consists of. Cutting out the fat when the fat is not the problem leads to dietary failure. And what happens when people try restricting carbohydrates is what happens when someone tries to quite smoking, drinking, or doing drugs. They think “Oh, this isn’t so bad, I can handle this.” Then they might go to a party and have a piece of cake. The sky doesn’t fall. The earth does not tremble. They don’t immediately balloon back to their pre-diet weight. And so, they think that maybe it wasn’t the carbs that made them fat…. despite rapid weight loss when they cut carbs. And so, they start eating the carbs again. The weight comes back. And they make the conclusion that diets don’t work.

So, I am more or less convinced by this book. At least convinced enough to try it for six months. And while he says very specifically you don’t have to track your calories with this, just cut out carbs that are not leafy greens or non-starchy vegetables, I am going to track my calories. Mostly because the calorie tracking app I use will ALSO tell me what the protein/fat/carb ratio of my food is. Which will help me to cut those carbs out.

There is a lot more information in this book than JUST the trouble with diabetes. This hit home for me because my dad is diabetic and because I just lost my goodest doggo after years of insulin injections to manage his diabetes. So that is one disease I do know something about, and what Taubes said resonated with me and made sense to me.

I especially liked his comparisons of sugar and refined starches to tobacco, drugs, and alcohol. It’s apt. It’s a solid comparison. You do not, in fact, need carbohydrates to survive. And the carbs you ingest from leafy greens and non-starchy vegetables will provide you with the required carbs for nutrients. Sugar and starch are nutritionally deficient…as in, they hold no nutritional value at all. And so, they are not needed. He did an amazing job breaking down the low-fat vs low-carb conundrum, pointing out that heart disease basically skyrocketed when we cut animal fats from our diet. And it really is not removing something to which you are addicted. And sugar has all the addictive properties of heroin, complete with the endorphin rush when you consume it.

This book was really good, a quick read, which left my mind spinning on the matter of what the government says is good for us, versus what actually exists and can be shown to be true. And as I often say, since when has the government actually given a damn about we the people?

This review was originally posted on YouTube on December 5, 2021, but is now available on Rumble and PodBean.