Saturday, January 21, 2012

Interesting Historical Article on Diets

Europe has been sticking to this Calories-In Calories-Out / Calorie counting theory since 1850, even though it works against human psychology and requires people to starve themselves to work.  William Banting wrote a book that would have stopped this mandness, but unfortunately for obese people everywhere, the calorie counting theory had gained traction and even though Mr Banting lost weight easily on his low-carb diet without needing to exercise, he was just dismissed without getting the attention he deserved.  Gary Taubes recently took up the banner and put some better science behind it.  I agree with Gary on a basic level, but his diet just doesn't seem very balanced.  His obsessive avoidance of carbs results in very little vegetables, and we need that fiber to keep going (sorry, bad pun).  However, his basic point that obesity is linked mostly to insulin and over-indulgence of carbohydrates seems to ring true to me.  True, calories-in does match calories-out, but that assumes the body has no control of this.  For myself, when I eat extra fat, I get hotter, and when I eat less, I put out less heat, so my body seems to have a set-point weight. 

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