When science journalist Gary Taubes released his long-awaited book Good Calories Bad Calories in September 2007 some five years after penning his infamous New York Times Magazine column entitled “What If It’s All Been A Big Fat Lie?”, that 600+ page book bucking conventional wisdom on diet, fitness and health quite literally rocked the nutritional science world to its core as deeply entrenched axioms regarding the way obesity and chronic diseases are treated was seriously questioned for the first time in a long time with the historical science to back it up. Taubes was lauded by many respected professionals in the medical community (like Dr. Andrew Weil) for his simple thesis that excessive carbohydrate consumption leads to higher blood sugar and insulin levels which is what is making people fat and sick. Even still, trident defenders of the low-fat, high-carb diet laughed at this assertion that carbs are to blame and they strenuously attacked Taubes for daring to speak out against what they think is an essential fuel for the body. Taubes remained undeterred and was invited to speak at medical conferences and universities all across North America.
However, there was one major problem with Good Calories Bad Calories that most laypeople like myself who read it universally agreed–that book was extremely dense and much too difficult for the general public to comprehend. And Taubes will be the first to admit that book was not necessarily intended for the consumer, but it was specifically written for doctors, nurses, nutritionists, registered dietitians, and other medical professionals to arm them with the scientific evidence supporting the use of carbohydrate-restriction as a therapeutic means for treating their patients with obesity and chronic disease. In hindsight, it was definitely the right book to put out first because those medical personnel who are working on the front lines of health are in desperate need of education about the detrimental impact that excessive carbohydrate consumption is having on the health of the tens of millions of patients dealing with excessive weight, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and so much more. But the time has definitely come for Taubes to offer up a more simplified book that would convey the concepts of Good Calories Bad Calories without all the confusing medical jargon and scientific overtones that may have muddled the message for those of us who are not science-minded. That’s precisely why he wrote Why We Get Fat And What To Do About It.
Honestly, I’ve been begging Gary Taubes to write this book for the past four years! The readers at my “Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb” blog were flooding me with e-mails stating how much they appreciated Good Calories Bad Calories but they couldn’t share it with their Aunt Suzie or Grandpa Joe because the book would never get read. I passed along this feedback to Gary who I have had the privilege of befriending the past few years and after several hundred requests I think he finally got the message. Thankfully his publisher Knopf also agreed it was a good idea and decided to give Taubes a sequel to his 2007 bestseller! And Why We Get Fat was certainly worth the wait.
For those who read Good Calories Bad Calories and understood it, the information in this new book will be old hat to you–but shared in a more user-friendly style that will reach a much wider audience with the same message intact. Why We Get Fat is split into two distinct books–”Book 1″ in the first 80 pages of the book is all about why obesity exists and explains how we got into this crisis to begin with while “Book 2″ over the final 120 pages gives a little more practical instruction on what makes us fat (or not) and what people who carry around a few extra pounds can do to eliminate the excessive weight. My favorite chapter in the book is Chapter 18 “The Nature Of A Healthy Diet” where Taubes brilliantly counters the three main arguments we hear from physicians and so-called health “experts” about why low-carb diets are not an optimally nutritional way to eat:
1. They’re a scam because they promote weight loss without eating less.
2. They’re unbalanced because they cut out an entire nutrient category (carbohydrate).
3. They’re high-fat diets, especially saturated fat, which causes heart disease.
If you believe that any of these statements are true, then simply turn to page 173 in Why We Get Fat to see how Taubes slices and dices these common myths about livin’ la vida low-carb as only he can. As my friend Tom Naughton who created a fantastic documentary film on this subject called FAT HEAD would say, “We’ve all been fed a load of bologna!” Indeed we have and Taubes is doing his part to expose this farce so that those who struggle with why they got fat can figure out precisely what they need to do about it once and for all.
And therein lies the beauty of this amazing book that is the must-read health book of 2011! We asked for it and Gary Taubes has delivered. The really cool thing about Why We Get Fat that was noticeably absent in Good Calories Bad Calories was direction about how to eat the way he’s prescribing. That’s where the “Following Through” chapter in the back of the book along with sample menus comes in especially handy. Although Taubes says “this is not a diet book,” you can’t really leave people hanging without some measure of instruction. So he enlisted the assistance of several medical practitioners and researchers using carbohydrate-restriction with patients like Dr. Eric Westman, Dr. Jeff Volek, Dr. Mary Vernon, Dr. Stephen Phinney, Dr. Jay Wortman, Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades, and others to provide helpful tips to make this low-carb lifestyle change a permanent one. It’s these kind of lessons that helped me personally shed 180 pounds in 2004 and to continue eating this way ever since to make me healthier than I ever thought would be possible on a high-fat, moderate protein, low-carb way of life! Let go of the “fattening carbohydrates” in your diet if you want to experience similar success for yourself.
