Why We Get Fat
by Gary Taubes
Taubes' shorter version of Good Calories, Bad Calories: the carbohydrate-insulin hypothesis, that refined carbohydrates drive fat storage via insulin and that calories-in-calories-out misses the mechanism. The hypothesis is contested and later trials have been mixed, but the book is a clear argument and a useful challenge to the calorie-only view.
Read it if…
you want the low-carb argument made rigorously.
Skip it if…
you want consensus; this is a thesis under debate.
Three things you will actually use
- Hormones, not just calories, regulate fat.
- Refined carbohydrates are the first suspect.
- Question the conventional wisdom; it has been wrong before.
Do this first
Cut refined carbohydrates for a month and track how you feel and weigh, without changing calories deliberately.
Our verdict
Rigorous argument, contested thesis.
Compare with other Health books
The China Study
T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell II · Health
Influential advocacy.
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