By the time I finally got home I was so behind on work that I had to spend the last couple days trying to get caught up on emails. One of the emails I received had a really great question asking whether it’s carbs or calories that causes weight gain. I’ve copied the question and my answer below…

Hi Brad,

I’ve read your book Eat Stop Eat and I’m wondering whether you would have written it differently now that you’ve read “Good Calories, Bad Calories” by Gary Taubes. I mean, in your book you still write as if the amount of calories matter and as if you shouldn’t differentiate between them. What Taubes has found is that the only thing you really can say is that too many Carbs are unhealthy.

George

And here is my answer:

Hi George,

Thanks for the email and for the excellent question.

I have read “Good Calories, Bad Calories” and was very impressed with its content. I believe that Taubes has accurately pointed out the health issues surrounding a high sugar intake. However, I do not believe that he accurately analyzed the data regarding the correlation between total calories and obesity.

Taubes examined studies containing diet record data and concluded from this research that the obese do not eat any more calories than non-obese people. Unfortunately, we have learned from the work of Brian Wansink that obese people tend to under report their caloric intake by as much as 30% when using diet records. This phenomena has been noticed by other researchers, and has been written up as an extremely important confounder in weight loss research. (For a great write up on this point you can see a Trial by Steven W. Lightman et al. published in the New England Journal of Medicine, volume 327 (37), 1992.)

For this reason I would not have changed any of my recommendations in Eat Stop Eat if I had read “Good Calories, Bad Calories” before I began writing.

I think that the points that Taubes makes about sugar are accurate, and I do believe that one or two 24 hour periods of complety no sugar (like during the Eat Stop Eat method of fasting) is beneficial to human health, yet I also believe that the only way to reduce body weight is through a negative caloric balance, and the best way to ensure that the majority of that weight loss is fat is by using the combination of caloric restriction and resistance exercise (the two keys to Eat Stop Eat’s success).

I hope this answer helps,

Brad

To learn more about the benefits of short periods of flexible fasting for weight loss, visit http://www.eatstopeat.com

I am sure that a hundred years from now, schoolchildren will laugh at the principles we currently believe to be absolute scientific truths, just like how we now laugh at what was once “truth” centuries ago.

Take for instance the doctrine of signatures, which states that resemblance is a good indicator of effectiveness. If a particular plant resembles a human ear in its shape, then according to the doctrine of signatures this plant would have some sort of useful relevancy to the ear, perhaps being able to cure an earache.

While this now seems very arbitrary and somewhat unreliable, the doctrine of signatures still could be found in mainstream medical texts well into the 19th century and today is still the main principle of homeopathic medicine.

In fact, the doctrine of signatures can still be found in some nutrition myths that are still popular today. I know it’s hard to believe that we would still use the doctrine of signatures with all of the research and scientific advancement that has happened in the world of nutrition, but take for instance fat, protein and cholesterol.

Many people still believe that eating fat will make you fat, that you need to eat large amounts of protein to build large amounts of muscle and that eating dietary cholesterol will make your blood cholesterol levels go through the roof.

Even though many of these “facts” are now largely disputed within the research community, people still believe them.

Why? You ask.

I think the reason is that these days science outdates itself so quickly that we no longer know what to believe. However, don’t blame the scientists for this.

You see, the job of science and scientists is to add to the existing body of research – To do their small part in answering the big question. However, most mainstream journalism and media need quick answers and they needed them yesterday! And this is where the major mistakes happen.

While scientists look at their work as something that helps answer a small piece of the puzzle, media looks at it as “THE ANSWER”.

This “jumping to scientific conclusions” can have dire consequences, as illustrated by one of my favorite articles, written by Gary Taubes and published in The New York Times back in 2002.

I think this is a very important piece of work that everyone should read, so please check it out by Clicking Here and let me know what you think of Gary’s take on the last twenty years of nutrition research and policy.

BP

Fasting Diet, Circuit Training