I used to dismiss Atkins as a crank and assume it was all nonsense, despite those around me who actualy tried it doing well on it. Then Gary Taubes started writing about obesity (and salt, and cholesterol, and fat, and carbohydrates) and I perked right up. Back in the early 90s, Taubes had written a great book on the cold fusion debacle, so with me he already had a ton of credibility as a science journalist.
Meanwhile, it was getting harder and harder to ignore the increasing numbers of people I knew who had gone low-carb and shed fat like they were slimming down for the rapture. I'd gone through weight-loss cycles before, always focusing on exercise. It never lasted. Once the exercise stopped, for whatever reason, I'd find myself eating more ice cream, say (or beer). Last year I was incapacitated for a while after foot surgery, and tried cutting back on carbs. Even without being able to walk around, I lost weight. I forgot about it at the time and focused on trying to get back to running.
I still like exercise for the sake of exercise, and have fitness goals that (now) have nothing to do with weight, but I recently decided to go whole hog with the low-carb thing. After eight weeks, I've lost twenty pounds. And I feel really good. And it's all the fault of Gary Taubes.
I heartily recommend Good Calories, Bad Calories (in the UK it's got the better title, The Diet Delusion). It's not a diet book or a weight loss book. It's a fantastic piece of science journalism, and works as both a fascinating history and a study of the subject. It might be a daunting read (I admit it took me a while to get through the whole thing.) You can start with one of his lectures. He did one at Berkeley, which is sadly only available on RealPlayer, which blows goats, but here's one at the Stevens Institute of Technology. Well worth watching.
6 comments:
wow. Interesting. you lost 20 pounds with the low carb thing? Perhaps the slow creep of 15 pounds in the last 15 years hasn't been grad school, lack of enough exercise or hormonal changes. Maybe it's been my fondness of bagels and pasta, even in moderate amounts! I've focused on exercise and total number of calories consumed and at most I lose 3 or 4 pounds. I'll have to give the low-carb thing a try.
blows goats! LOL!
Calorie counting (aka "the semi starvation diet") does not work. There is an ever-growing body of evidence (so to speak) showing they don't work, going back over a century.
It's worth a try. My advice is to adopt the in-for-a-penny, in-for-a-pound approach. I think some people half try it: i.e. they try to stop eating (some) carbs, but can't get over the low-fat doctrine so don't eat enough fat, and end up with a high-carb diet anyway (although arguably a better one if it's all lower glycemic index carbs).
If you do cut out all the wheat, starch, and sugar, you'll probably feel like shit for a few days, better after that. If you try it, I'd be curious as to how it works out.
does this mark the end of Reduce-A-Moose?
Yes, it was a clearly flawed approach. "Eat less and exercise" sounds great but doesn't actually work.
But "reduce a moose" works - mostly!
and I thought it was "Eat less - exercise more"
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