Taubes' Ten Inescapable Conclusions

Roger Zoul wrote:


6. Excess calories don't make you fatter. Excess energy use doesn't
lead to weight loss in the long term. It does lead to hunger.


I think the research is either not solid on this point or Taubes is wrong.
Note that a carb intake which might drive hormones out of balance can be
fixed by appropriate / heavy exercise. That's why people can lose weight on
a low-fat, high-carb diet. Too much food intake can create an anabolic state
within the body, as too little food intake can create a catabolic state
within the body. Insulin will follow those states. Exercise can affect
those states as well, either by lessening the anabolic state or by
increasing the degree of catabolism within the body.

If Taubes doesn't believe that excess calories don't make us fatter over
time, then he must point to evidence of significant human food energy
existing within our poop.


Remember that Taubes told the stories of the fat Japanese wrestlers,
with diets as high as 80% carbohydrates and fats below 15%. These guys
were over 300 pounds and consumed over 5,000 calories a day of "pork stew".

He told other stories.

The secret to excess calories piling on the pounds in his examples was
attributed to the high carbohydrate content (possibly the refined carb
content) of the excess calories. So, at least, is what I seem to have
read today.



7. Fattening is caused by an imbalance in the hormonal regulation
of fat tissue and fat metabolism. Fat creation and storage outpace fat
use. To get lean, you must get your hormones back into balance (i.e.
your insulin under control)


No problem there.


8. High insulin = fat goes into storage. Low insulin = an
environment where you can move fat out of fat cells.


No problem there.


9. Carbs stimulate insulin secretion, which leads to fat storage.
Fewer carbs = leaner us.


Where is exercise in the equation? It is well known that exercise can
influence this balance.


10. Carbs also make us hungry. If hunger/cravings are signals that
cells need nutrition and insulin is putting everything into storage,
you can imagine what chronic hyperinsulemia can do to your
"willpower". Carbs also make us move less, through the same fat
storage story. If you are chronically elevated, and your food is going
into storage, instead of use, the use cells will be starved and not
feel like doing anything. It's the same story, and it's the
explanation of why people have it backwards.


Well, I can buy this too, to a degree. He does say "chronically elevated"
though.


For the folks who maintain that it's the quantity of macronutrients
rather than the quality or that dietary fat is the enemy of
weightloss, I would like to see an alternative model that accounts for
the role of insulin vs. all other hormones in fat accumulation/fat
loss. I would like to see a hole punched in these "inescapable
conclusions" by Chung, Kaz, and all the other volume/calorie/fat
watchers out there who dismiss low carb, either as a calorie limiting
mechanism or as inferior to any other approach to weight loss.


Well, I don't see why one must use this as a reason to justify low carb.
This explains why we get fat : we generally eat too many carbs for our
activity level. Carbs aren't evil. They have a place. We engineer food to
taste good and we generally like to eat carbs and we slow down as we get
older (many of us slow down must quicker than others, too). We end up
getting fat. I can buy that too many carbs (relative to activity level)
creates a situation that makes us lazy, too.


For the rest of us, can we make this the Low Carb Equivalent of Martin
Luther's 95 Theses? The kind of thing we tack to the doors of our
local branches of the USDA, the AHA, both ADAs, local fitness
celebrities, etc? I live in the residential half of a complex that
houses the Diabetic ADA. I work about half a mile from USDA
headquarters. Are they in need of Martin Luther thesising?


No. It's about controling (or adjusting) carb consumption relative to your
activity level {What Atkins referred to later on a "controlled carb"
nutrition.}. It should be tacked to the doors of the ADA for sure however,
and perhaps the AHA since they seem to think fat is dangerous. They do have
it wrong, by and large, IMO, but a flat out "carbs are evil" statement
{which is what the above sounds like} is no better than "fat is evil". The
question about what is a healthy diet is critical here, though. Too many
carbs and too little activity is unhealthy. But so is too many calories and
too little activity. The latter may not be so easy to do compared to the
former if the calories are really low carb calories, but it is still more
true than false, IMO.

Thanks for the post.

Jackie Patti wrote:
Roger Zoul wrote:

"Jackie Patti" wrote in message
...

My understanding is that Taubes book is primarily a review of the
stuff we've known for a long time about carb, fat, insulin and
glucagon; it sounds like it's primarily just a typical explanation of
low-carb, though much more well-organized than most. No one posting
about it has said anything unfamiliar or new yet. But I'm not into
it very far yet, so don't know if there will be more useful info or not.


I think his book is more about how we've come to this point of
understanding...with "researchers" having tunnel vision and all...not
seeing (or trying to see) the full picture and blindly slaving (or
getting rich) at finding prove for what they want to believe.
Well, at least in the first chapter....


I'm not yet sure if there's anything actually *new* or even relatively
recent.

Taubes isn't a medical researcher, so he is at his best if he doesn't
produce anything " N E W ".

He is giving a very nice documentation of a hellovamess that evolved
over about 50 years. This is what Taubes does, and nobody has done this
that well so far.



Maybe, the mainstream hasn't "got" the whole carb thing just yet, but
the relationship of sugar and insulin was well-established back when I
was in college a couple decades ago. And it goes back even further -
farmers have known to feed lots of corn to fatten pigs for one heck of a
long time.

He says this in the book too.


It seems Taubes is largely preaching to the choir; selling a book to
low-carbers to justify why they do what they do. Is anyone besides us
reading this thing?

The average low-carber ain't gonna read this whole damn large exposition
of the medical research and the average low-carber ain't gonna care
about the logical errors and oversights so many prior "medical
authorities" have made.

This book is no way directed to the low carb audience at large.

You fail to see it because it doesn't meet your expectations, or your
"wish list".


Most people who mistake Cocoa Puffs for a heart-healthy whole grain are
not exactly gonna be the sort to work their way through a book of
research, so I'm not sure what good this book will do.

Alice Faber wrote:
In article ,
"Roger Zoul" wrote:


"Jackie Patti" wrote in message
...

Roger Zoul wrote:

It seems Taubes is largely preaching to the choir; selling a book to
low-carbers to justify why they do what they do. Is anyone besides us
reading this thing?


Well, that's going to be extremely hard for us here {LCers} to know.
However, I'd guess that since he has had some press that he might get some
non-LCers to read his book. Jim posted a "response" that some low-fat guy
wrote almost the day Taubes' book hit the stands.


There was a really nasty response in my local paper this morning, by a
Yale Medical School "expert" on obesity (an MD, no less). It really
amounted to him saying that he didn't *like* the book, because it
contradicted everything he'd been recommending, both to patients and in
popular columns.


Hi Alice,

You got it !!!!

The book is a public massive exposition that says "Don't Trust You
Doctor Blindly On Diet".... and probably not to trust them blindly on
more than just diet either.

Thanks for expressing it so well.

Jim

"Jim" wrote in message
...
Roger Zoul wrote:


6. Excess calories don't make you fatter. Excess energy use doesn't
lead to weight loss in the long term. It does lead to hunger.


I think the research is either not solid on this point or Taubes is
wrong. Note that a carb intake which might drive hormones out of balance
can be fixed by appropriate / heavy exercise. That's why people can lose
weight on a low-fat, high-carb diet. Too much food intake can create an
anabolic state within the body, as too little food intake can create a
catabolic state within the body. Insulin will follow those states.
Exercise can affect those states as well, either by lessening the
anabolic state or by increasing the degree of catabolism within the body.

If Taubes doesn't believe that excess calories don't make us fatter over
time, then he must point to evidence of significant human food energy
existing within our poop.


Remember that Taubes told the stories of the fat Japanese wrestlers, with
diets as high as 80% carbohydrates and fats below 15%. These guys were
over 300 pounds and consumed over 5,000 calories a day of "pork stew".

Well, it take some calories to be a 300 lb wrestler! I doubt one could be
successful in that endeavor for long on a 20 carb / day diet with similar
calories.


He told other stories.

The secret to excess calories piling on the pounds in his examples was
attributed to the high carbohydrate content (possibly the refined carb
content) of the excess calories. So, at least, is what I seem to have read
today.


I simply cannot accept the notion that 5000 calories a day of beef won't
make the normal person fat.
I do think that the carbs will pile the weight on quickly, though,
especially if they aren't burned. Heck, if you don't burn those carb
calories, you'll get lazy. Once the intake starts to exceed the burn, and
the fat starts piling on.

Low carb calories are very different, IMO. It will be very hard to
consistently eat 5000 LC kcals/day, IMO. {Usually, overeating on LC does
means carb creep, IME, which might make things different!} And while they
won't make you lazy per se, they won't allow you do lots and lots of
exercise, or significant high intensity exercise (relative measures that
depend on the person's weight and muscle mass).

Roger Zoul wrote:
"Jim" wrote in message
...

Roger Zoul wrote:


6. Excess calories don't make you fatter. Excess energy use doesn't
lead to weight loss in the long term. It does lead to hunger.


I think the research is either not solid on this point or Taubes is
wrong. Note that a carb intake which might drive hormones out of balance
can be fixed by appropriate / heavy exercise. That's why people can lose
weight on a low-fat, high-carb diet. Too much food intake can create an
anabolic state within the body, as too little food intake can create a
catabolic state within the body. Insulin will follow those states.
Exercise can affect those states as well, either by lessening the
anabolic state or by increasing the degree of catabolism within the body.

If Taubes doesn't believe that excess calories don't make us fatter over
time, then he must point to evidence of significant human food energy
existing within our poop.


Remember that Taubes told the stories of the fat Japanese wrestlers, with
diets as high as 80% carbohydrates and fats below 15%. These guys were
over 300 pounds and consumed over 5,000 calories a day of "pork stew".


Well, it take some calories to be a 300 lb wrestler! I doubt one could be
successful in that endeavor for long on a 20 carb / day diet with similar
calories.


He told other stories.

The secret to excess calories piling on the pounds in his examples was
attributed to the high carbohydrate content (possibly the refined carb
content) of the excess calories. So, at least, is what I seem to have read
today.



I simply cannot accept the notion that 5000 calories a day of beef won't
make the normal person fat.

Nobody ever said that.

You haven't gotten to the part of the book where he talks about how
other published researchers have tried to force normal subjects into
massive weight gain with overfeeding..... and haven't been all that
successfuyl, have you.

Well, maybe you shouldn't accept it, as it fails to meet with your
preceptions..... like happens with medical experts.


When you read more, you might slow down the standard "shooting from the
hip of familiar biases".

You can be successful at forcing the massive weight gain, apparently,
with a high carb diet, but not a "balanced" one.




I do think that the carbs will pile the weight on quickly, though,
especially if they aren't burned. Heck, if you don't burn those carb
calories, you'll get lazy. Once the intake starts to exceed the burn, and
the fat starts piling on.

Low carb calories are very different, IMO. It will be very hard to
consistently eat 5000 LC kcals/day, IMO. {Usually, overeating on LC does
means carb creep, IME, which might make things different!} And while they
won't make you lazy per se, they won't allow you do lots and lots of
exercise, or significant high intensity exercise (relative measures that
depend on the person's weight and muscle mass).

I've concluded that you aren't doing that much of a service with the
paraphrased rehash as given below. Too far out of context, especially
for those who haven't read much of the book at this point.

I do understand your desire to have tried to be helpful.

Jim

Hollywood wrote:
In his concluding chapter of Good Calories, Bad Calories, Taubes comes
to ten inescapable conclusions based on his five years of research and
his attempt to put it all together. I'll paraphrase, but you can find
the actual ones around about page 427 or so.

1. Dietary fat doesn't cause obesity, heart problems, or other
chronic diseases of civilization.
2. Yes, carbs are the real problem. It's in how they work with
insulin and therefore the entire hormonal regulatory system.
3. Sugar is the worst. We're talking table sugar and HFCS here. And
it's the duality of glucose+fructose that's the real killer (OJ
Simpson's quest for the real killers not withstanding).
4. Carbs cause coronary heart disease and diabetes. They are the
most likely dietary causes of cancer, Alzheimer's, and other chronic
diseases of civilization.
5. Being overweight/obese is a disorder of excess fat accumulation,
not overeating and not couching around. The "too much to eat and too
little movement causes fat folks to be fat" crowd has it backwards.
Being fat makes you couch around and overeat.
6. Excess calories don't make you fatter. Excess energy use doesn't
lead to weight loss in the long term. It does lead to hunger.
7. Fattening is caused by an imbalance in the hormonal regulation
of fat tissue and fat metabolism. Fat creation and storage outpace fat
use. To get lean, you must get your hormones back into balance (i.e.
your insulin under control)
8. High insulin = fat goes into storage. Low insulin = an
environment where you can move fat out of fat cells.
9. Carbs stimulate insulin secretion, which leads to fat storage.
Fewer carbs = leaner us.
10. Carbs also make us hungry. If hunger/cravings are signals that
cells need nutrition and insulin is putting everything into storage,
you can imagine what chronic hyperinsulemia can do to your
"willpower". Carbs also make us move less, through the same fat
storage story. If you are chronically elevated, and your food is going
into storage, instead of use, the use cells will be starved and not
feel like doing anything. It's the same story, and it's the
explanation of why people have it backwards.

For the folks who maintain that it's the quantity of macronutrients
rather than the quality or that dietary fat is the enemy of
weightloss, I would like to see an alternative model that accounts for
the role of insulin vs. all other hormones in fat accumulation/fat
loss. I would like to see a hole punched in these "inescapable
conclusions" by Chung, Kaz, and all the other volume/calorie/fat
watchers out there who dismiss low carb, either as a calorie limiting
mechanism or as inferior to any other approach to weight loss.

For the rest of us, can we make this the Low Carb Equivalent of Martin
Luther's 95 Theses? The kind of thing we tack to the doors of our
local branches of the USDA, the AHA, both ADAs, local fitness
celebrities, etc? I live in the residential half of a complex that
houses the Diabetic ADA. I work about half a mile from USDA
headquarters. Are they in need of Martin Luther thesising?

"Roger Zoul" wrote:
"Jackie Patti" wrote:

The problem with focusing on insulin is that there is no such thing as
just one hormone; the endocrine system is incredibly complex and operates
on feedback loops that change everything else in the system. It's not
about just insulin or just cortisol or just thyroid or just
estrogen/progesterone imbalance... it's all one system and you can't
change any individual bit of it without changing ALL of it. There is no
simplistic cause-and-effect in the endocrine system; everything is a cause
and everything is an effect and it goes on like that, wheels within
wheels.

I think the reason Taubes focuses on insulin is that's where most fo the
research has been done at the time of his work. It probably catches a good %
of the T2DM & obese out there, but certainly not all.

Note that glucagon and leptin weren't discovered until the 1990s.
Insulin
has been know for a very long time.

The hormone feedback loop has level after level with some of the
hormones
unknown only a decade ago. Reduce insulin to drive the whole low carb
thing by not moving fat into storage. Increase glucagon to pull fat
out of
storage. Maintain T3 to maintain resting metabolism. Maintain leptin
to
keep the T3 from falling. Maintain cortisol to control the
motivations that
drive the behavior. It goes on level after level and the
intereactions are not
well known - Because scientific studies are reductionist so they study
one piece at a time.

"Jim" wrote in message
...
Roger Zoul wrote:
"Jim" wrote in message
...

Roger Zoul wrote:


6. Excess calories don't make you fatter. Excess energy use doesn't
lead to weight loss in the long term. It does lead to hunger.


I think the research is either not solid on this point or Taubes is
wrong. Note that a carb intake which might drive hormones out of balance
can be fixed by appropriate / heavy exercise. That's why people can lose
weight on a low-fat, high-carb diet. Too much food intake can create an
anabolic state within the body, as too little food intake can create a
catabolic state within the body. Insulin will follow those states.
Exercise can affect those states as well, either by lessening the
anabolic state or by increasing the degree of catabolism within the
body.

If Taubes doesn't believe that excess calories don't make us fatter over
time, then he must point to evidence of significant human food energy
existing within our poop.


Remember that Taubes told the stories of the fat Japanese wrestlers, with
diets as high as 80% carbohydrates and fats below 15%. These guys were
over 300 pounds and consumed over 5,000 calories a day of "pork stew".


Well, it take some calories to be a 300 lb wrestler! I doubt one could
be successful in that endeavor for long on a 20 carb / day diet with
similar calories.


He told other stories.

The secret to excess calories piling on the pounds in his examples was
attributed to the high carbohydrate content (possibly the refined carb
content) of the excess calories. So, at least, is what I seem to have
read today.



I simply cannot accept the notion that 5000 calories a day of beef won't
make the normal person fat.

Nobody ever said that.

Well, it does say this:

"6. Consuming excess calories does not cause us to grow fatter, any more
than it causes a child to grow taller.
Expending more energy than we consume does not lead to long-term weight
loss; it leads to hunger."

I think the first statement could mean that we all have a certain
genetic-programming built in which to a large degree determines what we look
like, ie, men in my immediate family then to be around 6' tall. Now that I
think about what Taubes could be saying, the second part probably means a
similar thing: Our ability to be lean is also to a large degree determined
by genetic coding. It could explain why considerable levels of leanness are
much easier for some to achieve while virtually impossible for others.


You haven't gotten to the part of the book where he talks about how other
published researchers have tried to force normal subjects into massive
weight gain with overfeeding..... and haven't been all that successfuyl,
have you.

Well, I decided to fast forward to reading about the straving fat rat in the
chapter on paradoxes.


Well, maybe you shouldn't accept it, as it fails to meet with your
preceptions..... like happens with medical experts.

Absolutely. It's part of the human condition whether any of us like it or
not.



When you read more, you might slow down the standard "shooting from the
hip of familiar biases".

Well, oversimplified statements invite "from-the-hip" responses.


You can be successful at forcing the massive weight gain, apparently, with
a high carb diet, but not a "balanced" one.

Ok, so you're telling me that somewhere in here he presents research results
where those being overfed on high-carb diets always gained massive weight
whereas that didn't universally happen when subjects were overfed on a
"balanced" one. If so, I haven't found that as of yet. I've found where
some would gain nearly 3 times the amount of others (some not gaining any),
but the diet was not specified.





I do think that the carbs will pile the weight on quickly, though,
especially if they aren't burned. Heck, if you don't burn those carb
calories, you'll get lazy. Once the intake starts to exceed the burn, and
the fat starts piling on.

Low carb calories are very different, IMO. It will be very hard to
consistently eat 5000 LC kcals/day, IMO. {Usually, overeating on LC does
means carb creep, IME, which might make things different!} And while they
won't make you lazy per se, they won't allow you do lots and lots of
exercise, or significant high intensity exercise (relative measures that
depend on the person's weight and muscle mass).

Roger Zoul wrote:
"Jim" wrote in message
...

Roger Zoul wrote:

"Jim" wrote in message
...


Roger Zoul wrote:



6. Excess calories don't make you fatter. Excess energy use doesn't
lead to weight loss in the long term. It does lead to hunger.


I think the research is either not solid on this point or Taubes is
wrong. Note that a carb intake which might drive hormones out of balance
can be fixed by appropriate / heavy exercise. That's why people can lose
weight on a low-fat, high-carb diet. Too much food intake can create an
anabolic state within the body, as too little food intake can create a
catabolic state within the body. Insulin will follow those states.
Exercise can affect those states as well, either by lessening the
anabolic state or by increasing the degree of catabolism within the
body.

If Taubes doesn't believe that excess calories don't make us fatter over
time, then he must point to evidence of significant human food energy
existing within our poop.


Remember that Taubes told the stories of the fat Japanese wrestlers, with
diets as high as 80% carbohydrates and fats below 15%. These guys were
over 300 pounds and consumed over 5,000 calories a day of "pork stew".


Well, it take some calories to be a 300 lb wrestler! I doubt one could
be successful in that endeavor for long on a 20 carb / day diet with
similar calories.



He told other stories.

The secret to excess calories piling on the pounds in his examples was
attributed to the high carbohydrate content (possibly the refined carb
content) of the excess calories. So, at least, is what I seem to have
read today.



I simply cannot accept the notion that 5000 calories a day of beef won't
make the normal person fat.

Nobody ever said that.


Well, it does say this:

"6. Consuming excess calories does not cause us to grow fatter, any more
than it causes a child to grow taller.
Expending more energy than we consume does not lead to long-term weight
loss; it leads to hunger."

I think the first statement could mean that we all have a certain
genetic-programming built in which to a large degree determines what we look
like, ie, men in my immediate family then to be around 6' tall. Now that I
think about what Taubes could be saying, the second part probably means a
similar thing: Our ability to be lean is also to a large degree determined
by genetic coding. It could explain why considerable levels of leanness are
much easier for some to achieve while virtually impossible for others.


You haven't gotten to the part of the book where he talks about how other
published researchers have tried to force normal subjects into massive
weight gain with overfeeding..... and haven't been all that successfuyl,
have you.


Well, I decided to fast forward to reading about the straving fat rat in the
chapter on paradoxes.


Well, maybe you shouldn't accept it, as it fails to meet with your
preceptions..... like happens with medical experts.


Absolutely. It's part of the human condition whether any of us like it or
not.



When you read more, you might slow down the standard "shooting from the
hip of familiar biases".


Well, oversimplified statements invite "from-the-hip" responses.



Yes, and that is why I posted to Hollywood that his "simplified
summarization" of Taubes's already simplified summarization wasn't doing
much real good.

This is a hard book to read, for me. I have proven to myself that fast
reading allows me to think I have grasped what he said, and then later
to realize that I had missed much of what he really said.

I also found that skipping ahead is to miss out on points that he has
slowly built up to.

Therefore, the need for slow reading and many cooling off periods to
digest it.

And many review sessions as well.

When I was young and in undergraduate school, I can't recall having to
exercise this much work.... but that was a long time ago, and memories
aren't really all that accurate.

He does mention the published work of others on trying to define genetic
components to weight gain. In doing so, he also brings in the breeding
of domestic livestock for propensity to put on fat.

It was interesting that he missed the pork breeding of the last
generation. Because of the "Fat is Bad" mindset, the pork industry
spiraled down in sales. The response was to breed less fatty pigs for
market. The "new pork" is said to be much less fatty, and some argue
somehow less tasty than the old. Of course, the old way of feeding the
pigstock is no longer followed, and the environment is much different.
The "new pigs" have been written about as having a greater propensity to
being wiped out or hurt by outside infection, if I remember correctly.

At any rate, the published prior work on a genetic component to obesity
is another of the many points that conventional "wisdom" ignores or
seems to try to erase and deny in the weight and obesity war.

The overwhealming medical/social pressure is to entirely blame the obese
for being obese and to blame the obese for not losing weight on the
"official low fat, medically sanctioned and research proven" prescribed
solution.

I am now attempting to rethink my long term shunning of my "fat little
sister" for "weak will".

It takes a while to think this stuff through.




You can be successful at forcing the massive weight gain, apparently, with
a high carb diet, but not a "balanced" one.


Ok, so you're telling me that somewhere in here he presents research results
where those being overfed on high-carb diets always gained massive weight
whereas that didn't universally happen when subjects were overfed on a
"balanced" one. If so, I haven't found that as of yet. I've found where
some would gain nearly 3 times the amount of others (some not gaining any),
but the diet was not specified.

NO, I am not telling you that.

Nice try, though.

You are right that the diet wasn't specified in those few deliberate
fattening studies, at least as Taubes reported them.

These studies seem to break the "3500 calories = one pound" rule as a
universal rule based on "a calorie is a calorie" in the first place.

Ethical treatment of the research subjects would ordinarily require that
the fattening diet be healthy (presumably balanced. The goals of
examining overeating versus finding the optimal fattening approach are
different.

The individual differences noted probably speak of the genetic makeup,
or what we call, YMMV "Your Mileage May Vary".






I do think that the carbs will pile the weight on quickly, though,
especially if they aren't burned. Heck, if you don't burn those carb
calories, you'll get lazy. Once the intake starts to exceed the burn, and
the fat starts piling on.

Low carb calories are very different, IMO.

Yes, an opinion. No reference, so a paper like Taubes's would either
ignore it or mention it as an opinion.


It will be very hard to
consistently eat 5000 LC kcals/day, IMO.

Not really, people hiking the Appalachian trail do something like that
every day after a couple of weeks. Doing the hiking may be considered
very hard.

I know I managed to do this.


{Usually, overeating on LC does
means carb creep, IME, which might make things different!}

It was too much trouble to try to find 4000 calories of low carb food
for each day, at least low carb food that was easily carried and cooked
while being in the mountains. So, I ate am awful lot of starch foods
like PopTarts, Pasta Dishes, Rice Dishes and even Mashed Potatoes for
breakfast, lunch, dinner and sometimes as a snack.

And while they
won't make you lazy per se, they won't allow you do lots and lots of
exercise, or significant high intensity exercise (relative measures that
depend on the person's weight and muscle mass).

Now you seem to be defending low carb, for some reason.

Did you notice in the discussion of forced weight loss from calorie
deprivation that the subjects appeared to complain of being cold.

The correct application of the first law of thermodynamics would argue
that this being cold may be just a manifestation of a disturbance of the
lack of normal heat generation resulting from the decreased energy
input.... somewhere there have to be compensations of some kind.

There is no mention of excess heat being generated by excess intake of
calories. But that is a compensation allowed by the law of conservation
of energy - AKA the first law of thermodynamics.

The inefficiency of conversion of chemical food energy into mechanical
work, such as exercise, is demanded by the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
This inefficiency of energy conversion results in heat, just like heat
is generated in your horribly ineffient automobile engine.

Not all engines have been created equal in efficiency, and not all
bodies have been created equal either.

Moderate physical activity can easily double the human body heat
generation from the typical 100 or so watts to 200 watts. This is what
keeps me toasty and warm when riding my bike in near zero degree winter
weather. Burning off calories (heat generation)by exercise may be the
most accurate statement of exercise.

Overeating may simply result in food energy being dissipated as heat,
not necessarily showing up as one pound of fat for every 3500 excess
calories.

The standard dietary discussion of "Thermodymanics" is largely buzz
words intended to be bullets of truth, instead of the puffs of sonic
wind that they are.

On Oct 15, 8:36 pm, "Roger Zoul" wrote:
"Jim" wrote in message

...



Roger Zoul wrote:

6. Excess calories don't make you fatter. Excess energy use doesn't
lead to weight loss in the long term. It does lead to hunger.

I think the research is either not solid on this point or Taubes is
wrong. Note that a carb intake which might drive hormones out of balance
can be fixed by appropriate / heavy exercise. That's why people can lose
weight on a low-fat, high-carb diet. Too much food intake can create an
anabolic state within the body, as too little food intake can create a
catabolic state within the body. Insulin will follow those states.
Exercise can affect those states as well, either by lessening the
anabolic state or by increasing the degree of catabolism within the body.

If Taubes doesn't believe that excess calories don't make us fatter over
time, then he must point to evidence of significant human food energy
existing within our poop.

Remember that Taubes told the stories of the fat Japanese wrestlers, with
diets as high as 80% carbohydrates and fats below 15%. These guys were
over 300 pounds and consumed over 5,000 calories a day of "pork stew".

Well, it take some calories to be a 300 lb wrestler! I doubt one could be
successful in that endeavor for long on a 20 carb / day diet with similar
calories.



He told other stories.

The secret to excess calories piling on the pounds in his examples was
attributed to the high carbohydrate content (possibly the refined carb
content) of the excess calories. So, at least, is what I seem to have read
today.

I simply cannot accept the notion that 5000 calories a day of beef won't
make the normal person fat.
I do think that the carbs will pile the weight on quickly, though,
especially if they aren't burned. Heck, if you don't burn those carb
calories, you'll get lazy. Once the intake starts to exceed the burn, and
the fat starts piling on.

Low carb calories are very different, IMO. It will be very hard to
consistently eat 5000 LC kcals/day, IMO. {Usually, overeating on LC does
means carb creep, IME, which might make things different!} And while they
won't make you lazy per se, they won't allow you do lots and lots of
exercise, or significant high intensity exercise (relative measures that
depend on the person's weight and muscle mass).

I recall a study in Taubes (cruelly left at home, again... the damn
thing weighs
my bag down something fierce) where people were losing weight on
limited carbs
at 3800 carbs a day. Now, 38 is not 50, and it might've been the early
stages, but
it begs the question of what happens to a calorie of fat when there's
nothing to
put it into storage and nothing to burn it.