Good Calories, Bad Calories: Idiots Guide to Carbohydrates
I remember a not to long ago I caught the movie remake of Born Yesterday with Melanie Griffin and Don Johnson on TV. If not aware the movie is a tale of a "dumb" girl trying to smarten herself up so that she can stand along side her shady loads of wealth businessman (John Goodman) of a boyfriend. Goodman has brought them to Washington with dreams of putting in his pocket even more wealth and hopefully not in just currency but in dirty politicians. This is to be fiction correct….
Don Johnson job is to tutor Griffin and one of her first assignments is to read Alexis DeTocqueville's "DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA". The purpose of Griffin reading the book is it is expressed that if you can get through the book and understand it then you have to be, by some men's judgment, an intelligent person.
What amuses me most about the movie is when she starts to read the book she chooses to discuss the book with a local Washington radio personality, if memory serves. Radio or not this women is a who's who, a highly vocal critique, a mind to be reckoned with by the eyes of most politicians on capital hill. Griffin expresses her reading of Tocque and asks her “what her favorite part was”? The woman tosses aside the question in this manner of 'what kind of simpleton are you?’ ‘To think it is the kind of book to have a favorite part’. Griffin shoots back with her favorite part and the women is left speechless and states that and I am paraphrasing here, that "no one has actually read Democracy In America, they just say they have".
So the end point here of course is the "dumb" girl accomplishes a literary feat of reading and understanding an American classic that those who should understand it don't. It also presents the fact that intelligence is really pretty relevant and in the eyes of the judger.
I bring this all up, my long intro about a flop of a mid 90's movie, because I feel that Good Calories, Bad Calories is one such book. At 460 pages plus100 pages of notes and a bibliography, this isn't a hard read persea but a long read. It is full of thought provoking material and opinions that stretch outside the norm. Am I saying it is a new American classic? Absolute not, not even close, not one bit but in a way yes, yes it is.
It shouldn't be a classic because it is a masterpiece of truth. It shouldn’t be a classic because it breaks some new ground and hits upon this world never before traveled. It shouldn't be a classic because it's the clever, exciting, or gripping!
It should be considered an American classic because just like most of Americans we can say it so wrong and do so much bad in such a short format. It is a classic example of just another guy with a one sided point of view, a cherry picker. Our society would not be what it is if not for the classic cherry picker.
Okay so I ruffled your feathers. Before I rip apart Taubes for what he did wrong, and there is a lot to pick apart, please allow me to point out what he did right. At the same time this is precisely why this book angers me so much because Taubes, by his own account, if he would have just read his own book, should have known better.
If the book was called “Good Studies, Bad Studies”, and Taube would have stuck to giving it to the government and companies for their complete unethical method of changing our society based on some very sketchy rulings and findings then I would be standing beside Taubes patting him on the back for a work well done. Not that it is anything new anyway, but certainly a great collection of material that shows how full of holes or research and guidelines in this country are.
This book was incredibly well written and easy to follow, especially considering the topics of information. If any of you have ever actually tried to read studies you know that they are a headache even for the smartest of individuals. Studies really are written like stereo instruction or much like I imagine the “Handbook for the Recently Deceased”. It is really a different language, a geek one. The average person, with a lot of effort, could understand but will unlikely take the time to do so.
To compile this information into a book for the average Joe to understand, to explain to them these technical things in this manner, he really did a top-notch job. He also didn't skimp on the references or notes. This man did not just draw up some opinions here, he dug and read and dug and read some more. There are 100 pages alone of just notes and references, which is why I really want to shake him and just say "Gary, you have been staring at this big boat for hours but still can’t tell me the color of it". Perhaps there will be a 2nd edition and those mistakes will be rectified as there is little to no reference on exercise physiology, and here in lies one of the big problems, the other of course is the witch hunt on carbohydrates. It was so close to being a masterpiece, but just in classic American form, he messes it all up. Again, an American classic.
(End Part 1)
(Start Part 2)
Good Calories, Bad Calories: Idiots Guide to Carbohydrates PT 2.
The Holes
Gary’s biggest mistake is not understanding the ability of human error in measurement of calorie consumption. All it takes is 100 extra calories a day to gain 10lbs in 1 year. That is it. Introduce me to 10 people you know that weigh and measure their food (not in measuring cups either because that is largely flawed). You can’t give me 10, even if you are largely involved in fitness and health, you can’t give me 10 who weigh and measure their food. Now Gary says “Lean people will often insist that the secret to their success is eating in moderation, but many fat people insist that they eat no more than the lean-surprising as it seems, the evidence backs this up-and yet are fat nonetheless.”
I call bull. And here is why.
The Genetically Gifted
I have talked about this before and I have gone on and on in the new edition of the Troubleshoot about it. You often hear people talk about, and even myself in the past, about the genetically gifted. Let me explain briefly who that is and why chances are if you are reading this that you are not one of them.
Who we dub “gifted” is the guy with the six-pack abs who just chugged down loads of beer after killing off a 16’ inch pizza. The girl who can eat a burger and fry combo and never gain a pound of fat and has a perky bum. They don’t kill them selves in the gym, yet they are cut and lean and have a general good bit of strength. The men have healthy testosterone levels and a statue like look and the women and bouncing with estrogen features and good beauty. They are the people you hate, they are the gifted.
The reason you hate them may not be the area you think.
They don’t have fast metabolisms, they don’t burn fat faster, this isn’t about being a mesmomorph or about having a hot mommy and daddy…well that could help actually but the point is that it isn’t about how they break down what they eat so much as understanding the fuel they need. The genetically gifted merely understand one thing by INSTINCT that you do not. They understand naturally when they are in a positive or negative energy state and they eat/feed accordingly.
That’s it.
That is what it means to be genetically gifted. You simply understand the energy needs of your body naturally without having to test out activity level, exercise, caloric timing, carb sensitivity, all that crap that the average person doesn’t need to know about. All they really need to know, all you really need to know or do is listen to your body.
Can this function of “hearing” what your body needs be disrupted by a faulty communications system. Yes, it can very much. Can fast acting refined sugars give you a false sense of alarm in this feed system and throw of your internal sensors if you are genetically predisposed to not listening well to your body? Yes. This is where Taubes gets it right, but again he is missing the bigger picture. The problem of fat gain is still excess energy, period. It does not matter what is wrong with your system, it does not matter how bad your system functions, it is still excess energy that is the blame.
Let me explain further.
Let us say that your body should by all accounts need 2000 calories a day to stay the weight you are. That is SHOULD by all accounts because of height, weight, age, etc burn 2000 calories a day. You take some online quiz and it tells you that yes, 2000 calories a day is your limit. Well what if it is really 1800 calories a day you are burning? That is a 20lb gain in 1 year if you ate at 2000 calories a day. Are you getting the picture yet Taubes? It is not as complicated as some study in the deep reaches of Africa may suggest.
Now what slows metabolic rates? This is a whole other story, this is where all the fun stuff comes in from hormone dysfunction to thyroid problems and more. IF and let me state that most don’t, but IF you have a problem then your energy expenditure and burning system is off and your energy level is very low. This could mean that you think 2000 calories is your burn level but in reality it is 800 calories, now this is a extreme, extreme case but if so then that is a gain of 125lbs in 1 year if you consume that 2000 calories a day. So if you have a metabolic dysfunction then yes you can eat the same amount as that of a lean person but still gain weight. How often does someone ACTUALLY have one of these metabolic dysfunctions? It is very rare.
The True Killer of Fat Loss
I make the big bucks not because I am some all amazing guru, not because I understand how a carbohydrate breaks down in the body, not because I understand leptin and hormone production, but because I convince people to go to their local Target and pick up a digital food scale and finally take into account and get hit in the face with how much they eat in a day. That my friends is how come I make the big bucks, that is why I have earned the title of “There is no one I can’t get to lose fat”. I hold people accountable for what it is they put in their mouth.
I want you to take a look at the video below for a rude awakening of the difference that it makes to just measure your food by digital scale.
YouTube - Shocking Fat Loss Tip!
So you can see that it is the high starch, full fat items and your personal denial that bring about the worse miss-measure of your caloric intake. Just that being off, if taken into account over a year, is 34lbs of finger pointing fat gain.
Why Protein is Never the Victim of a Lynch Mob
The reason protein is never the victim of a witch hunt style attack is very simple. If you are choosing lean proteins like chicken, turkey, or egg whites how much can you really mess it up? If you are off by a few grams with protein its nothing, its chump changes in calories. Same thing goes for something like broccoli or spinach. These are very low calorically dense foods, any smart health professional knows that by putting you on a high protein/high veg diet just up their chance of getting you to succeed in your fat loss journey, not because of magical thermic processes and not because carbs are the ultimate of evil. It is because it’s hard for you to mess it up! As a society we lack really basic common sense.
I have reason to believe that Taubes is smart enough to know better and it is this reason alone why I get angry at this book because no matter how you slice it (no carb pun intended) fat loss success always rests in the land of energy in and out. You may not like your in and out, your in and out may have a dysfunction, but that is how the carb finger pointing crumbles my friends.
Let us also not ignore the fact that eating low carb or keto for a long-term basis can do real damage to that hormone and information system that you need to start listening too. It is safe to say that while Taubes and many of his followers and believers want to crucify the use of carbohydrates they do not make clear that extremes on both ends are bad. This is likely to cause worse problems for those who bodies will force them back to eating carbs but now due to absence will have poor enzyme and hormone production. THUMBS UP for that one!
Hunger And Exercise
One of the funniest aspects of the book is Taubes take on exercise and his observation with the fact that exercise increases hunger. Well…um yeah your point being? Exercise is going to increase your caloric deficit, meaning it is going to start you on the track towards burning your stored fuel sources. This is without a doubt going to cause you to be hungry. What you do with that hunger is up to you. If you are in need of losing fat then you decide if you are going to feed that hunger or not. This is will power, simple as that. Perhaps you are ungifted into having a lot of it or you are just apathetic and really don’t want to change, that isn’t my concern and again not relevant to the science of fat loss.
You don’t eat, you get hungry. You exercise, you get hungry. You don’t hydrate yourself enough and it send signals of thirst that are confused for hunger signals. See most of the time you are reading thirsty as hungry. Again you just aren’t gifted enough to know how to read your body. At a point you will (if the body is functioning correctly) start to send out peptide signals that silence the hunger pangs. It is much like those who try to quit smoking, you have to hold out on the 10-15 min stabs of cravings and then you will be fine. Again this is your choice, your fate, it is in your hands. Eating oatmeal or a rice krispy treat isn’t going to do much to change this either way.
The Final Conclusion: Good Taubes, Bad Taubes
• If you are looking for a resource to try and help prove that you are the 1%, then this book is for you!
• If you are looking for a resource to help back up why the government has it all wrong and not shockingly is trying to manipulate you, the general public, then this book is for you!
• If you are looking to learn endless study story after study story about why the “nutritional pyramid” is on crack, then this book is for you!
• If you are looking for another source to blame something other than yourself for why you aren’t losing fat, then this book is for you!
• Finally, if you are looking to have a ride on the hate the carb train even though time and again study after study has shown that diet on high carbs can cause you to lose weight if in a caloric deficit but still carbs are evil then you have found your literal best friend!
Sorry folks, the simple truth is and will always be this…
Excess calories cause fat gain.
I may even hit at a Part 3, 4 and even more. For now this is as simple as it gets and as complicated as it should get.
Good Calories, Bad Calories: Idiots Guide to Carbohydrates
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