A Review of "Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It"

I just read Gary Taubes "Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It". My roommate had read it and he and I were arguing about basic nutrition. The two main points of the books argument are thus:

-The calories in/calories out concept is deeply flawed
-We get fat because of carbohydrates

The author admits that yes you cannot use more calories than you physically possess, because that would be magic and this author is not a big believer in magic. However, he says, not all calories are treated equally by the body.

For starters this concept recommends both constricting your diet and getting more exercise. The author rightly points out that after a good work out you are hungrier than you would have otherwise been and you eat more because of it. Exercise expends calories but your body is not fooled and gives you all the signals to take in more calories to compensate.

Further the author says, if we operated strictly according to a calories in/calories out model the margin of error we would have to achieve daily in our calorie intake and our exercise is excruciatingly small. Essentially maintaining a stable weight is virtually impossible in the long run using this model.

Speaking to the carbs cause weight gain the author shows that carbohydrates cause an insulin reaction. Insulin is the chemical responsible for sequestering fat and glucose (blood sugar) into fat cells. Thus anytime you eat carbohydrates your body is hoarding those calories in fat cells. The author notes that the link between carbohydrates and insulin is so well established that the medical community uses the presence of insulin as an indicator of the prevalence of carbohydrates in the patient's diet.

The author also shoots down my own personal complaint that diets that say cut out X from your diet are dangerously foolish. The author points out that carbohydrates provide no significant nutrients. Carbohydrates are almost purely calories, thus when you cut them from your diet you lose no nutritional content.

My complaints with this book start with a sense of scope.

I can accept his science, and his reasoning seems straightforward but that being said this book suffers from the same problem all books porporting to tell you what to eat do, they lack a sense of scope. Is eating one potato going to kill me? Is one bowl of pasta going to spell an early death from diabetes?

More seriously he goes on about how carbs trigger an insulin response and that that is essentially what you want to avoid, things like white bread, pasta, and the like are all bad, but what about whole grains? How much of an insulin response is triggered by eating whole grains and how bad is that for me compared to the processed stuff?

Another problem I have with his recommendations is that it says I can eat anything I want, just watch out for the carbs. What about deep fried foods? Maybe it is just all the negative press fats have gotten in popular medicine but I have a hard time believing that someone that gobbles down deep fried butter (yes, this exists and here is how to make them http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/paulas-fried-butter-balls-recipe/index.html) isn't going to have to pay for it later.

This doesn't even take into account my own personal experience. You ever eaten a Big Mac? because I have and afterwards it feels like a grease bomb exploded in my stomach. I am extremely skeptical that simply removing the buns would take care of that and suddenly I would feel like sunshine and rainbows.

One thing I will give the author credit for is disabusing me of the calories in/calories out concept. He proves to my satisfaction that it is a crock of shit and is really a moral argument. Fat people are fat because they make poor decisions that is within their power to change. The same still holds true even with his revelations about carbohydrates but they are doing it unwittingly; because neither they nor the doctors advising them know any better.

The thing is though I believe that there is a moral component to exercise. I do believe that exercising makes us better as people. I have only newly discovered that I hold this belief so I am unable to expound upon it much further but I found his de-emphasis of exercising to me personally. I realize that this belief may well make me something of a fringe thinker.

All told the science was good, the arguments convincingly and soberly made. I encourage anyone who wants to start looking into nutrition to read this book.

The People I Will Invite to the White House. . . When I am President

 Leonard Susskind: Professor Theoretical Physics Stanford
 The man is simply amazing. I cannot begin to say how fascinating I find this guy.





Stephen Hawking: Director of the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology, Cambridge
Iconic figure in physics because of ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) which has confined him to a wheel chair and is slowly choking off his ability to move. He has had all kinds of crazy theories that I haven't even read yet. From what I gather he and Susskind have been having an intellectual dog fight and his intellect is on that kind of level I would love to talk to him.








Robert Sapolsky: Professor of Biological Sciences, Neurology and Neurological Sciences, Stanford
I don't know that I can pinpoint one area of Sapolsky's research I am interested in. He just seems to pop up in anything interesting.
















Philip Zimbardo: Professor Emeritus Stanford
Truth be told I haven't thought of Zimbardo in a while but his past research (Stanford Prison experiment) was brilliant and I would love to just get his opinion on what has been happening in the field and if he is researching anything presently.






Neil deGrasse Tyson: Director of the Hayden Planentarium
Outspoken advocate of science and how it can make the world a better place, of course I want to talk to this guy.








Michio Kaku: Professor Theoretical Physics, City College of New York
Self proclaimed popularizer of science, he has a way of reducing complicated subjects to approachable matter. He also built an atom smasher in his parents garage for his high school science fair project.






Of the Non-Scientist Crowd:

Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich: hosts of RadioLab Podcast
A show about the intersection of science, reality, and belief. If you have to ask why I would invite these two you clearly have never listened to RadioLab.














Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman: Hosts of Mythbusters:
Legitimate science in popular form is just as important as the esoteric science.












Here are the questions though:
1) Hawking isn't an American do I care? I don't think I do and everyone else is American so I think I get a pass on that.
2) Do I invite them all as a group or individually? I think I want to do it individually so that way I can actually get some good face time with each one of them.

Rites of Passage

Brushing my teeth before I go to bed, admiring what, for me, passes as a rich carpet of facial hair, I catch a glint out of the corner of my eye.

Funny how something you've worn for the last 8 years can surprise you all of a sudden.

I don't often think about my earring, though I sometimes catch myself tugging at it or worrying it.  Finding reassurance in its cool gleam between my fingers when I am nervous, but this is not a conscious act.  When I dress I never take my earring into account. As far as I am concerned my earring goes well with everything I wear and even when I take the time to preen over what I am going to wear, or if, rarer still I dress and then consult a mirror, I never pause to study the effect my earring has on the outfit.

My earring is simple and without frills.  Rectangular silver with rounded edges it is about a centimeter in diameter, making it slightly smaller than the dime I just wrangled up to my ear for comparison.

Quietly adorning my ear most people don't even realize it is there.  Many is the conversation I've had with people after I've known them for a couple years when they discover it.  We'll be in the middle of a conversation, standing around at a bar sipping our the beers, with dance floor that is still empty but the DJ is dancing around in his little booth like he is mixing for a sold out stadium, and they'll just stop.  The final syllables of what they were saying abruptly clipped off.

"Which is why communism is an eas-."  A puzzled frown and a cock of the head as they realize something try to compare my having an earring to what they knew before.   

Did he always have an earring?  They wonder to themselves. Or did he always have one and I just forgot?

"When did you get an earring?" they ask, still unsure of themselves.  They don't remember seeing it but can't rule it out completely.

"When I was 18."
"Huh.  Wait lemme see that."  After a moment of closer inspection.  "Did you really?  How come I have never seen it before?"
Now, I have never been very good at riddles.  So if any of the more socially adept out there have any idea how to answer this question by all means I would love to hear it.

Of course the very next question after when did you get an earring is why.
"A rite of passage," I'll reply if I am feeling particularly garrulous.

I don't trouble myself with explaining further.  Even those few friends I've tired to explain it to don't get it.  The furrows of their contracted brows deepen as they make an honest effort at understanding and come up empty.

I remember the day I got it done; it was my 18th birthday.

Climbing out of the car I take a moment to adjust my new super awesome leather jacket so that the thick red stripes, racing against the black, poured over my shoulders and down my arms.  Everyone at the mall, though they might not know it, has a deep seated needed to know how badass I looked, and I was not going to disappoint.

Today is a big day.

You can get your ear pierced when you are 16, but you must have a permission form signed by your parents.  Really, I'm pretty sure you can get your ear pierced even younger, you just have to go to the doctor to do it.  And oh yeah, your parents have to consent.

But today.  Today is a new day.  Gone are the days when I needed or cared about parental approval.  I am my own man today and I can do whatever pleases me.  To mark the occasion it just so happens that it pleases me to have my ear pierced.

Truth be told I actually decided I was going to do this a long time ago.  Furtively obtained images from the hip new M.T.V. channel of super cut beach going college guys with tribal tattoos and an earring, impossibly attractive women dripping from their arms, had seared themselves on to my teenage psyche.  I figured I'd grow into the muscles (I was later quite disappointed when I didn't) and I didn't quite know what tattoo design I wanted, so earring it was.

I had mentioned this desire to get an earring to my parents in passing.  They didn't seem to react one way or the other.  Not that I was asking for their approval or permission but I assumed this meant they were neither for nor against it.  Getting your ear pierced did not rate on the parental concern-o-meter.

I walk into the mall.  It isn't that crowded, just another Wednesday for most people, but the people who are there mercifully don't rush me for autographs or ask to take their pictures next to me in my super fly leather jacket.  Good thing because I got an ear to pierce, and afterwards I have to get back to the algebra sheet I still have to do for tomorrow, so no time for photo-ops.

I don't recall what the lady looked like.  I was going to do this but in the shadow of my brisk teenage swagger I was more than a shade anxious about how much this was going to hurt.

I had gone to a pet shop as a kid with my cousins where they let us interact with some of the animals.  When the cantankerous macaw they had perched on my shoulder decided my ear looked tasty and applied its beak to to it much like a set of wickedly spiked nut crackers I was not pleased.  Had I been older the eye watering would have been unmanly, as would the sharply rising cry I gave as I realized exactly what that wretched animal was up to.

The lady at the booth was nothing like the macaw.  Khaki pants and a collared polo shirt emblazoned with the company's logo, no sign of feathers anywhere.  She is nice.

"I'm here to get my ear pierced." I tell her in my most confident voice.
"Well come on in, and step right up."  She said with a flourish, opening a low swinging door in the counter to admit me.  "Lemme get you to have a seat right over there.  Give me one second and I'll grab the paper work."

I take a seat in the high movie director's type of chair she indicated.  She returned with a well worn clip board and a sheet asking for name and address and the like.  At the bottom there was a bit of legalese with two signature lines.  It was the standard fare of if I somehow manage to die getting my ear pierced by them my relatives can't sue the living daylights out of everyone.  The first signature line was for the participant, the one underneath it was for the parent or guardian of the participant should they not be 18.

I sign the first line with cheerful superiority.

She takes the clipboard back and looks everything over to make sure I filled out all the boxes.  I want her to look skeptical, to card me, and make sure I am 18, after all not just anyone can walk up and demand to have their ear pierced.

She smiles. "Alright, which ear we going for?"

I am terrified but I am going to do this dammit! And then I am going to show this thing to everyone.  This metal barb that I had had punched completely through my body.  No big deal really.  I mean, I guess it hurt.  The guy before me, a 250 lb biker with tattoos everywhere, he was wailed and sobbed from the pain, the guy before him fainted and had to be carried out by his friends, but I didn't really feel anything.

They would ooh and ahh and marvel at my pain threshhold to have voluntarily endured such a trial.  They would know without the shadow of a doubt that I was now a man.  The girls in my high school would throw themselves at me and the guys would all want to be me.

It looks kinda like a blue handled glue gun.  Or it does before she swings it to my head and I can't see it any more.  I sit totally rigid, sweaty hands griping the knobbed wooden arm rests of the chair waiting for the agony to come thundering down on me.  I wait for the sudden feeling that I just stuck one ear into a particularly angry garbage disposal.


Somewhere I feel a shallow pinch.  "Wait a minute, let me try that again.  It didn't go all the way through."

Another pinch.  "And done.  What do you think?"  She holds up a mirror.

I was in a daze and drenched in sweat.  I had hyped up the pain up in my mind so much that I was barely coherent.  I mumbled something about how cool it looked doing my best to keep my voice from wavering.  Getting up and walking back to the car without stumbling, because newly minted men do not stumble especially not while wearing their leather jackets, was a serious accomplishment.

Candidly speaking my peers were less than impressed by my self imposed rite of passage.  Most didn't notice.

I am ever so sure my teenage self was a bit miffed, but in retrospect I don't care.  Hell, I haven't talked to the people I knew in high school for years, since high school to be exact.

Finished brushing I spit toothpaste into the sink and contemplate if today's youth have any conception of a rite of passage over flossing.

I wonder if they know what it is to derive value and meaning from pain and suffering.  To feel that something has worth because they have sweated and toiled and endured to achieve it.  More precisely I wonder if they they know what it is to do this voluntarily.  If they would actively seek out an experience which demanded that they make a real sacrifice.  Not deciding between getting fast food today or tomorrow, but to try fasting even when their is food in the fridge, it give themselves a greater appreciation of having a full belly.

Done with flossing I gaze silently at my reflection for a moment.

I decide I don't know.

Even in my own experience my high school peers didn't get it, and I was usually too embarrassed to try and explain it to them.  I like to think that I am an articulate guy, but if I couldn't explain it to people what hope is there for the technology softened children accustomed to instant gratification?

Sure, the other half of me concedes.  That is all true but the economy is in the dumps and doesn't look to be going getting any better any time soon.  There are going to be a lot of children born into a world, where every choice is not a decision between two excesses, but between two hardships.  Do I buy the phone I want and need to keep in touch with all my friends and live on Ramen noodles for the next month or do I live without the phone and buy groceries?

Maybe that's what got us into this mess.  The economy was so flush with money we convinced ourselves that we could live in a world without the slightest inconvenience.  An immaculate dream without hard choices or real human cost.

We had no rites of passage to wake us up.

Prevailing Wisdom

I cannot begin to pinpoint from what source this idea came to me but one way or another through my childhood, and into my teens, and then into my college years I firmly believed that one went to college because that was simply as what one does after high school.

One did not attend college for training in some sort of specific vocation, one went to college as to develop one's sense of identity and expand one's mind with all those frivolous arts mankind has produced over the years.  Variety and novelty was what one seeks in college, not information.  Strolling through the garden the decadent blooms of humanity were to be marveled at, their lusty scents deeply inhaled and exalted.

When you leave this greenhouse you naturally do not know the first thing about cultivating such exotic flowers.  How to prepare the soil, how deep to plant the seeds, how much sunlight and how much water, but this is not problem, you will not be expected to soil your primly hands with such manual labor. 

Nay, you will deal only with other like experienced persons.  You need only show them the ticket given you upon leaving the greenhouse and they will admit of you into their elite company.  The specific path you tread through the greenhouse, what flowers you know best, is irrelevant.

This was what I believed.

The truth is that the world is an indifferent place.  That you went to college on the backs of your parents means nothing to the world.  That kind of attitude may have flown when the economy was flush with more money than people knew what to deal with, but when all that money evaporates into the illusion it always was that won't get you anywhere.

Oh?  Did no one tell you that you were expected to do something for your room and board?  That you must produce something people would be willing to pay money for?  You have a very high opinion of yourself, but what have you done to merit such an opinion?  Were you so indescribably arrogant as to believe that the world owed you something? 

Well, here begins your education.  Your real education.

Witness the chronicles of an English major in an unimpressed world.