56 Why We Get Fat, with National Bestselling author, Gary Taubes

The InForm Fitness Podcast

Gary Taubes’ groundbreaking book “Good Calories, Bad Calories,” is stimulating and challenging , yet requires substantial time and attention to fully grasp. Hence, in 2010 Mr. Taubes wrote national bestseller, “Why We Get Fat” highlighting the key points of his first book and making it accessible to everyone. In this episode, Adam and Mike and guest host, InForm Fitness instructor, Neil Holland, interview Taubes to reveal his simple message: The widespread theory of caloric intake exceeding expenditure leading to obesity is flawed, and instead, our focus needs to be on the amount of carbohydrates consumed. Adam asks the million-dollar question, “Can we live without carbohydrates?” and relative to that, Taubes’ verdict on fruit. Unparalleled in his impact on the field of nutrition and physiology, Taubes’ accolades are too many to list, including degrees from Harvard, Stanford and Columbia. Many fans of his work, including “The Case Against Sugar,” will appreciate how the information presented herein is sound and entertaining, with the unexpected bonus being a sneak-peak into Taubes’ upcoming book! http://garytaubes.com/

Gary’s books:

http://garytaubes.com/works/books/good-calories-bad-calories/

http://garytaubes.com/works/books/why-we-get-fat/

http://garytaubes.com/works/books/the-case-against-sugar-2016/

Gary mentioned during interview, ‘The Physiology of Taste’ by Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin:

https://www.amazon.com/Physiology-Taste-Jean-Anthelme-Brillat-Savarin/dp/160386224

Adam Zickerman – Power of 10: The Once-A-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution:

http://bit.ly/ThePowerofTen

For a FREE 20-Minute strength training full-body workout & to find a location nearest you:

http://bit.ly/Podcast_FreeWorkout

Inform_Taubes 1_April 3 Transcript

Introduction [00:00:01] The inform fitness podcast with Adam Zickerman and co-host Mike Rogers is a presentation of informed fitness studios a small family a personal training facility specializing in safe efficient high intensity strength training on our bi monthly podcast Adam and Mike discuss the latest findings in the areas of exercise nutrition and recovery with leading experts and scientists. We aim to debunk the popular misconceptions and the urban myths that are so prevalent in the fields of health and fitness. And to replace those sacred cows with scientific base up to the minute information on a variety of subjects will cover exercise protocols and techniques nutrition sleep recovery the role of genetics in the response to exercise and much more. On this episode Why We Get Fat. With national best selling author. Gary Taubes.

Gary [00:01:06] In the 60s. Diet books took up this idea that carbohydrates are fattening and you going to lose weight you don't eat them so you remove the carbohydrates from your diet replace it with fat. of all things. The infamous example of this was the Atkins diet and what I'd been doing in my book is just arguing that basically these diet book doctors got it right.

Adam [00:01:31] Hi welcome to the show. I have with me here co-host Michael of course. And I'm really excited to have this next guest Gary Taubes journalist author.

[00:01:40] He is the co-founder of Nutrition Science Initiative and author of The Case Against Sugar Why We Get Fat and the tome Good Calories Bad Calories. He's a recipient of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Award and health policy research and has won numerous awards for his journalism including the International Health Reporting Award from the Pan American Health Organization. He is the first print journalist to be a three time winner of the National Association of Science Writers science and society journalism award. And we have with us today one of our instructors Neil Holland. And he's joining us this episode because as I understand it Neil your Gary is high intensity training instructor for a while so welcome to the program. Thanks Adam. Gary welcome.

Gary [00:02:25] Nice to be here. Thank you.

Adam [00:02:27] We're going to talk about the book that pretty much summarized your tome Good Calories Bad Calories. I assume you wrote why we get fat because well how many people were actually getting through the whole group calories calories.

Adam [00:02:43] Just want to get this message this important message across.

Gary [00:02:46] Yeah I mean this is I spent five years reporting my first book and I wanted to put in most of what I found. It's not even all of what I found. I had to leave stuff out and you end up with a 500 page book with another 150 pages of end notes and bibliography and that was a difficult read. And there were some. What I thought were extremely significant messages that had to be conveyed to you I would. Then I wrote Why We Get Fat. I get a lot of e-mails from people saying Would you please Your book changed my life. Now would you write one that you know my husband could read or my doctor could read or my father could read or so I did.

Adam [00:03:22] That was why we get in my case when I'm training so many people and I want to get your research across to them. I'm not going to hand them Good Calories Bad Calories that I'm losing the list of people that that really welcomes Why We Get Fat which is such an easy read and so on. It's so clear to me. What's come out so that's we're going to talk about let's talk about this but won't you please. First of all maybe tell us the elevator pitch if you will of Why We Get Fat OK.

Gary [00:03:51] Their elevator pitch.

Gary [00:03:53] So I have to preface this as I'm a investigative journalist who became a de facto historian doing this book and I realized that in order to understand what we believe you have to understand what we why we believe it and when we decided to believe in what we might have believed instead. So with that context.

Gary [00:04:12] Since the Second World War we believed that obesity is caused by eating too much. Very simple gluttony and slaw mild or you take in more calories than you expend in the excess are stored as fat. And everything we do to treat obesity is based on this premise. We tell people if you want to lose weight you've got to eat less and exercise more. Got to get into negative energy balance. And the message that came out of my research was that that's nonsense almost nonsensical. And it's the product of some very naive thinking of physicians in the post-World War 2 era who just assume that fat people got fat because they eat too much and that nothing else has been known. And there was always this alternative hypothesis which is that obesity is a disorder of excess fat accumulation and that's caused by a sort of dis regulation and the hormones and enzymes that determine how much fat we carry on our bo...