Good Calories, Bad Calories

How does it differ from Atkins?

Or Teh Zone?

Calories are calories are calories.

Ridiculous book making up new ridiculous claims.

Is it really all that bad? When I saw this thread, I poked around to find out more about the book. Taube has credentials and seems respectable. And most reviewers and experts, while sometimes critical, have not dismissed his book so quickly. Right now I'm listening to this NPR program. Taubes has held his own so far. And the programs expert, Ronald Krauss--a medical doctor and senior scientist and director of Atherosclerosis research at the Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute--does not always agree with Taubes but certainly takes him seriously and considers his conclusions viable and worth investigating. I'll probably give this book a read.

While I try to limit my sugars and refined carbs, I think that for the vast majority of people a calorie is just a calorie.

I'm sure there's some people out there that are really insulin-sensitive and may benefit from a low carb diet. Ketosis may also help hardcore bodybuilders and epileptics. If you don't fall into the categories above, I wouldn't think there would be a problem with carbs.

I do, however, believe that for those that have poor self control when it comes to food that it's much easier to overeat with sugary and starchy foods.

Here is an interview and it's pretty bad:
http://www.tmuscle.com/free_online_a...getting_leaner

I read that T-Nation article a few weeks ago... and for the most part since swtching over to an Anabolic Diet, I haven't really put on any weight all while losing weight. I can essentially eat till I'm actually full rather than stop cause I have to watch calories. This is non-scientific to the greatest degree, but I'm pretty sure I'm not the only case.

You are not, and I posted this on an earlier thread to some ridicule. Since then, I have a little more scientific research to back me up, which will be out in the form of a book on food written by a guy named Sinclair, and agronomist. The book isn't out yet, so you'll have to take my word for it. Basically, the "mechanical box" theory of diet has been disproven multiple times. That's not to say that if you expend more calories than you eat, you won't lose weight, because you will. However, for most people this is a bad way to go, as your body will always be telling your brain it needs more food to make up the caloric deficit. It's hard for most people to ignore the messages their brain is sending, so most people cannot maintain a caloric deficit diet. The newer theory, which seems to be panning out, is that the type of food you are eating determines how your body uses the calories. You don't use every calorie you take in, and you don't store every calorie. Your body has the ability to regulate what it takes in, just like it regulates everything else. The problem with obesity arises where cultural evolution takes the place of physical evolution. This is what Sinclair's book is about. Basically, he traces the rise of larger settlements to the domestication of grains. Why were these people banding together to raise grains? To make fermented beverages, pure and simple. Water was largely unsafe to drink - they figured out that fermentation made the water safe. Additionally, as a happy side effect, you got drunk, but that wasn't the primary purpose. Up until fairly recently, very weak beer or mead was the beverage of choice for everyone who could get it. Otherwise, you were taking a chance that you would die of giardia or some other sort of disease. Once grains were domesticated for beer, people quickly discovered that they could make other food out of it, which eliminated the pressure of hunting and gathering to a degree, and allowed larger populations to congregate in one place. However, this was contrary to the evolutionary development of humans, which favored grain-based carbs as an occasional food source, and low-glycemic carbs and protiens as the main food source. While humans are obviously omnivores, they didn't eat grains in large quantities until after domestication. Carbs were obtained through plants, roots, fruits, and vegetables - all things that don't "spike" insulin. If a person was eating unrefined grain, it was because they were about to starve - it was a food of last resort. Thus, the body was set up to store as much of it as possible. Ergo, it caused an insulin spike, ensuring any left over calories were stored as fat. Fast forward to more modern times. Wheat and grain are easy to grow. They become more and more specialized, ensuring easier cooking and processing. They get made into all sorts of stuff that we still eat today. From and evolutionary perspective, however, our bodies haven't changed. Some people tolerate grains well and some people don't, but there is no evolutionary pressure eliminating the latter category (i.e., they don't die out before they can reproduce). Thus, the bodies of some of us are still treating grains as a food of last resort, and still storing as much of this food as is possible, anticipating that starvation might be just around the corner. I just helped edit the book, and it is really interesting (although in final form it will emphasize the grain / beer / organized society angle, and not the obesity angle). Something to think about. Another thing to think about: Every single person I know who has eliminated simple sugars and processed carbs from their diet has lost weight. I know of no exceptions. Anecdotal, but good enough for me. I've gone from 250+ to 170 in about 3 years following the same principals (and not rigidly, believe me)

That isn't what he was saying. Read it again. He was simply saying that the diet idea of operating at a "caloric deficit" is too simplistic

Hard to follow isn't the same as "too simplistic", by the way.

The entire premise is wrong and using ancient cultures as a way of proving facets of metabolic science is completely off-base anyway.

Based on what? This guy is probably the most famous agronomist in the world - he INVENTED crop modeling. I'll take his opinion over yours.

Also, the point is that culture supplanted evolution. That cannot be denied. You see it everywhere - from the number of people wearing eyeglasses to the number of juvenile diabetics who reproduce, etc., etc.