[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/llvlcshow/llvlc436-carbsane.mp3[/podcast]
Low-carb blogger and GCBC-skeptic CarbSane is today’s guest on The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore!
CarbSane is the Nom De Guerre of a blogger who has some rather radical ideas about low-carb diets and how/why they work/don’t work. Many will be surprised to hear the kind of foods she chooses to include in her eating plan. But regular listeners will, no doubt, be most startled by what she has to say about New York Times science journalist Gary Taubes and his book Good Calories, Bad Calories. CarbSane not only believes that Taubes is wrong and that the research he cites does not back his assertions, but that Taubes is aware of the fact and is “in it for the money” in her words (describing him as Taube$ frequently in her posts).
Regular listeners should be well aware of this fact, but it bears repeating: Jimmy Moore invites many people with many perspectives on this show, and he does not necessarily endorse their viewpoints. Gary Taubes has been a frequent guest and friend of the show for years, and will be making an upcoming appearance here on January 27, 2011 in Episode 439 in which he will likely rebut the views of CarbSane.
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LINKS MENTIONED IN EPISODE 436
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– CarbSane bio
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– “My Carb Sane Chronicles” blog
Thanks Jimmy, I also like to stay open-minded and listen to all sides of any discussion… it’s the scientific way! If Gary Taubes is wrong (or right) I’d like to know why.
It’s a real shame she was so nervous… you are a master at relaxing your interviewees and I could tell you tried your very best to ease her into the discussion but it was hard to focus on the content with so much hesitation. I’ll have to give it another listen and read some of her blog for me to make more sense of it š
First thing that stands out is her view on the 1st Law of Thermodynamics — of course it can be applied to humans in a metabolic ward where *everything* in and out is carefully measured BUT I don’t live my life in one of those things and for me — in the real world — I am not a closed system. Of course calories count at some level, but it is at the cellular level, not a simple application of counting what goes in my mouth vs how many sit-ups I do! We are not so much “what we eat” as “what our body does with what we eat”.
I am particularly intrigued by the apparent conflict between her eating low Carb but arguing against the idea that the macro-nutrient content is key?? Again, I’ll need to follow up more to understand her reasoning.
From what I’ve seen/heard so far she focuses on finding fault with Gary Taubes’ interpretation of the biochemistry research but I’d love to hear a rational explanation for the obesity paradoxes such as the Pima Indians or Starr Co. Texas.
Thanks again Jimmy
Cheers
Frank
I thought this interview was pretty good. It was interesting to find out a bit more about CarbSane’s own diet – suprizingly low carb. For me Gary Taubes’ main contribution has been to un-demonise dietary fat, though perhaps he goes too far by demonizing carbs in the process.
I look forward to your upcoming interview with Paul Jaminet. I have just finished reading Perfect Health Diet which presents some pretty compelling reasons for including safe starches in the diet.
Carbs drive my hunger. While I am not sure Taubes is 100% right about the reason we get fat, it was his book “Good Calorie Bad Calorie” that got me to kick my high carb addiction and for first time in my life I lost weight without hunger and have kept the weight off for two years now.
Also, even Taubes admits it comes down to calorie in calorie out, but he tries to explain why it is so much easier to lose weight on low carb diet. He believes the over production of insulin is the major cause of fatness.
Notice I said the over production of insulin and not proper level of insulin. No one is saying humans do not need insulin to be healthy, Taubes is just saying too much of a good thing isn’t healthy and he is right.
In his interview with Tom Naughton, Taubes goes into total calorie denial. He contradicts himself on calories because on the one hand he acknowledges energy balance just says the arrow of causality is the other way (fat accumulation drives eating more and/or moving less). He also talks of “excess” a lot. But on the other hand he’s said that one can engage in protein and fat gluttony, that fat consumption has no impact on body weight, etc. I’ve quoted the relavent exchange below.
Fat Head: In Why We Get Fat, you wrote that some people might have to give up dairy products and nuts to lose weight. Dr. Mike Eades has also mentioned that nuts and cheese seem to inhibit weight loss in some low-carb dieters. What is it about those foods that can stall weight loss? Is it just that theyāre so calorically dense, or do they produce a higher insulin response than their low carbohydrate content would suggest?
Gary Taubes: I think the caloric density thing is nonsense. Remember, Iām trying to get every last one of us away from thinking in terms of calories as the variable of interest. What we want to know is whether these foods stimulate insulin secretion, or cause insulin resistance, or have some other effect on the storage of fat in the fat tissue or the oxidation of fatty acids by other tissues in the body. So nuts still have carbs in them, and for some people they might contain too many carbs. Same is true for nut butters.
Dairy products can stimulate insulin secretion beyond what you would expect from the carbohydrate content. I donāt know if this is true of cheese because Iāve never seen data on this, but it is possible. And some cheeses could be better than others ā hard cheeses, for instance, may be better than soft cheeses.
I do not see anything you posted above which disagrees with anything I posted. And I see no proof Taubes is a liar from anything you wrote or posted. Is Taubes 100% right on why we get fat? No, but is he a liar?
Again No, and he is closer too the truth than you IMHO.
You lost me when you called Taubes a liar instead of pointing out areas of disagreement. I do not think anyone knows the complete truth on why we get fat, but we need people like Taubes to state their theories and then defend them without the name calling, so we can get closer to the truth.
You’re going in for the same tired fallacy about calorie theory, that the body has to EITHER use a calorie as fuel OR must store it as fat.
But you forgot something. Not everything you eat is used for fuel. And the fats that go into your nervous system and hormones, and the amino acids that go into your organs and muscles, have every bit as much caloric value as the fatty acids and glucose you burn for fuel or store.
Taking X grams of amino acids and putting them into muscle equals calories out. Taking X grams of saturated fat and turning them into cell membranes equals calories out.
And of course if you turn fatty acids into ketones and don’t burn them all the way, you can’t store those ketones again. You’ll sweat, breathe, and pee them out. That is also calories out, and it didn’t involve exercise OR fat storage.
I respect Jimmy’s tendency to listen to multiple points of view. That doesn’t mean you aren’t wrong.
First, Jimmy did a wonderful job in this interview. He did not let it devolve into something too combative, as is what usually happens when people discuss a topic, from nearly diametrically opposite perspectives. I think it really demonstrates the great deal of faith Jimmy has in his listening audience, that he doesn’t see the need to argue so stridently against the person who he is interviewing, because he doesn’t presume to speak for his audience, and he knows that his audience is well educated and well read to the point that they can analyze the truth or falsity of what the interviewee has to say. He allows for the interviewee to demonstrate the validity of what they are claiming or hang themselves by their own words.
With that said, I think Carbsane hangs herself at the opening salvo of her argument against Taubes when she characterizes Taubes’ thesis, in “Good Calories, Bad Calories”, as one where he claims that carbohydrates turn into fat. Having read “Good Calories, Bad Calories”, currently reading his new book “Why We Get Fat”, and having watched many of his lectures and listened to many of his interviews, he doesn’t make such a claim at all. So Carbsane is committing one of the biggest logical fallacies, in that she creates a straw man of what Taubes thesis really is. What Taubes does do is demonstrate that the reason why many get fat is because carbohydrates induce certain hormonal responses – namely involving insulin, leptin and glucagon – which make a person more prone to storing fat in the fat tissue. That is quite different from what she is claiming he is saying.
Granted, I can’t substantiate whether everything she is saying is false or true about Taubes, but I don’t think she debunked his central thesis. At most she proves, even if all of the interpretations of the references she cited were correct, is that Taubes may have jumped to conclusions on a FEW of the references that he used to corroborate his case. But finding a few leaps of logic, from a few references, doesn’t discredit the entire book, which consists of more than just a few references, but hundreds of references that backup his point. It would be the equivalent of stating that the entire system of higher education is worthless, because we could point to a small percentage of students who didn’t learn anything, while ignoring the vast majority of students who did.
Carbsane seems to subscribe to energy balance model, and while it may be true in theory, we know on practical terms following that paradigm for most people is next to impossible, as evidenced by the great recidivism rate of dieters who return to their obese state. Her dogmatic adherence to this calories in/calories out model also doesn’t explain how people, like our very own Jimmy Moore, as well as plenty of others, were able to lose weight faster and with greater ease, on a restrictive carbohydrate diet, WHILE SUSTAINING GREATER CALORIC CONSUMPTION THAN THEY DID WHEN THEY TRIED A LOW CALORIE DIET.
I think Carbsane’s very disorganized rant on this show is not merely the result of her nervousness. I think her very flustered way of presenting her case stems from the fact that that she knows her contention against Taubes isn’t too strong, and so she does what most people do when their case is weak – she throws a lot of information out there at once, and then tries desperately to connect the dots, and does it so fast in the hopes that no one will scrutinize her assertions more closely.
I hope Jimmy takes a closer look at her biochemical assertions, and also confronts Taubes on those assertions in the upcoming interview he has with Taubes.
I really do appreciate Jimmy’s generosity in giving Carbsane some exposure. Good scientific information is based on scrutiny, and solid scientific theories can withstand such scrutiny. Taubes, being a man of science, I am sure will welcome this challenge.
It’s on p. 402 of my Sony ebook version of GCBC (Carb Hypothesis II: Insulin chapter), where Taubes states that some of our stored fat comes from dietary fat, the rest is from de novo lipogenesis. He also states that as much as 30% of carbs in a meal are converted to fat. Mark Sisson quotes this on his blog when making his excess sugar turned to fat claims.
Neither of Taubes’ claims is true:
http://carbsanity.blogspot.com/2010/07/nutrient-fates-after-absorption.html
http://carbsanity.blogspot.com/2010/06/excess-carbs-coverted-to-fat.html
Please do not cite yourself to prove you are right.
Lawrence, energy balance is not invalidated by the recidivism rates of any diet. I’ve not seen any indication that recidivism on low carb diets is any better either. It is difficult to maintain weight loss because for many compliance with any diet over the long term is difficult … old habits die hard. In the “it’s not fair” department, one’s reduced XX pound body requires less energy as it becomes more efficient than had one just weighed XX all along. http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=415
If someone is able to eat significantly more on LC it is because the diet makes them feel better and they increase NEAT or they probably have some degree of fat malabsorption. I believe most people just think they’re eating a lot because they eat high calorie foods.
I think I may have read it on Taubes’s blog, though I’m not going to look right now, but Taubes has stated somewhere recently that he thinks some of the information in GCBC is now outdated and needs to be updated. If I’m not mistaken, his latest book goes into some of that but as it’s written for laypeople, I wouldn’t expect a lot of obsession about that. Perhaps he’ll do an updated edition of GCBC eventually.
In my opinion you provided Carbsane an ample opportunity convince the listners that Taubes purposefully misled, she failed to do so. For us non scientists we ultimately have choose who to believe, as their is so much conflicting “science”. While Carbsane may have found and is hammering on some inaccuracies, Her findings hardly discredit Taubes or the ideas in GCBC.
There is a tidal shift in the nutrtion community toward implicating high carbohydrate diets in many chronic diseases, not only because of Taubes book but because of a host of other research and data including the Nurses Study.
So to me, splitting hairs over whether it’s impossible or just damn hard to get fat without carbs, misses the point.
I didn’t find her ideas “radical” in the least bit. From what I have taken from this podcast and her blog, she believes that ultimately, low-carb diets work because calories are reduced (knowingly or unknowingly). If you listen to her meal plan it’s not surprising she lost weight on it. No breakfast, a salad with tuna, NSV, oil, vinaigrette, burger, and more NSV. Oh, and a chunk of cheese and some nuts. That’s not a whole lot of calories.
But, it is filling. There is plenty of protein and fat in what she eats and that provides her with more satiety than let’s say a cup of brown rice, which is quite caloric for it’s size. Ketosis further suppresses the appetite leading to less consumption. No blood sugar highs then lows, which tend to stimulate the appetite (although she did say VLC may have caused hypoglycemia). I completely believe that low-carb is an excellent way to lose weight, but I don’t think it’s because carbs are magically (or scientifically) fattening. I think low-carb diets work because they are satiating, which leads to less consumption and because they don’t give you the high then crash, which can cause hunger, but also a host of other health problems. I also think low-carb diets can be a powerful tool for disease prevention and treatment. I definitely do not think they are appropriate for everyone though.
You got it Terri! And my voice went up a bit so many may have missed that some days that tuna salad was all I ate! Especially early on, I have even forgotten to eat for an entire day.
Meanwhile I’ve had the experience of making myself eat two or three meals a day on LC and tracking the calories, and I have found that I can eat almost 3000 calories a day and still lose weight. Mind you, I weigh over 200 pounds at 5’6″, I’m female and not terribly muscular. I also don’t exercise beyond usual daily movement. Where do the calories go?
If weight loss is strictly calories in/calories out, how would CarbSane explain the increased pace of weight loss on a low-card diet as compared to a low-fat diet (in her own dieting experience)?
Does she believe that a low-carb diet results in a greater reduction of calories compared to a low-fat diet to account for this observation?
I haven’t counted calories in the past, but I am fairly confident that my calorie intake on a low-carb diet is sufficiently greater than what would be allowed on a low-fat diet…
See Terri’s comment above. For me, protein is key to satiety and, especially early on there were many many days where I ate well under 1000 cal/day. Most “responsible” CRD’s for women are 1200-1500, and <1000 is usually referred to as a starvation diet. So I rode the spontaneous deficit wave while I could! I could never adhere to a conventional CRD of <1000 cal/day long enough to lose the 80-100 lbs I lost.
I can't for the life of me understand why low carbers are so resistant to the "magic" of spontaneous reduction in intake without hunger.
Actually, the satiety macronutrient is fat, not protein.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18840358
Researchers have observed specifically that the small intestine releases a satiety-inducing chemical in response to fat intake.
Protein is certainly *filling*, but you don’t just want filled, you want satisfied. There are people who say fiber’s filling, but my experience with that is I’m starving in half an hour, if I’m depending on the fiber to fill me up.
Gave it a second listen and I’m still puzzled… all the biochemistry she presents (carbs are less calorie dense, carbs promote a thermodynamic effect, dangers of NEFAs etc…) suggest that the “metabolically intelligent” person ought to be eating HC/LF.
So why does she eat LC/HF?
Because apparently it IS all about the calories and LC/HF leads to us spontaneously eating fewer calories!
So why do we spontaneously eat fewer calories? Seems to me that Dr Lustig had a neat biochemical explanation for that, relating to the level of Fructose in our diet — that would be a carbohydrate.
As a person with Metabolic Syndrome (including Type 2 Diabetes) trust me that I have tried any number of diets over the years and not only has LC/HF helped me lose significant weight, but also regain decent Blood Glucose control on minimal medication (including injected insulin) and greatly improved lipids.
She can nit-pick the details of the biochemistry with Gary Taubes — and I guess Dr Lustig as well? — but from all outward appearances it is working for me AND GCBC makes sense of what I have been through in recent years.
Cheers
Frank
I puzzled over the same contradiction, Frank. I don’t think she ever explained it.
However, I’m surprised that so many are so quick to write her off. I think she had some very interesting points. And I do hope Gary will address them at some point. I find it disturbing to see things yanked out of context and mischaracterized. I thought she did a very nice job of laying out the context and how she felt he was violating it.
Finally, I was left a bit unclear about the consequences of her disagreement. It seems that she was most concerned for those with diabetic and insulin-resistant. But she said she was not diabetic…so who, exactly, needs to be watchful of underconsumption of carbs?
She was obviously not experienced at being interviewed, and it was a bit distracting. But I still really enjoyed the interview…and will be visiting her blog to hear more.
Thanks Jimmy!
c-
Hi Chuck, I would recommend Paul Jaminet’s site (and book which I will post my review of soon) http://www.perfecthealthdiet.com. If you search on Dangers of Zero Carb diets he raises a number of concerns.
For me I also did that cheating thing. Ya know, whatever the health risks of it in retrospect, I would do it again, because I’m FAR healthier now not lugging around probably 100 excess pounds. But I do wonder if long term consistent VLC doesn’t make us insulin resistant/deficient to where the body is robbed of insulins many beneficial effects on it (e.g. anti-inflammatory, vaso-dilation, etc.). So if one is never again going to eat carbs, that’s one thing, but what of those who eat some here and there? I’ve seen where VLCHF IF’ers report feeling “wired” on their fasts and wonder over the health implications of this state that the body perceives as stressful. I also wonder if those for whom LC doesn’t work particularly well for weight loss if they aren’t making matters worse. Those NEFA are a huge deal for me. Despite my nervous laughter, sudden cardiac death does not sound all that funny to me!
There have been studies demonstrating that LC/HF seems to work better for those with IR, but LF/HC works better for the insulin sensitive folks. Perhaps once one has lost sufficient weight so as to restore insulin sensitivity, what was effective and optimal for weight loss is not for the long run.
I don’t know for sure but we’ll never get those answers if we keep spinning tales and encouraging folks to research down the wrong path.
Many diseases are associated with particular carb foods, not the carbs themselves. I have a veggie relative who lost 30 lbs by cutting dairy from her diet so the only animal protein she got was from eggs. The rest from nuts, grains, etc.
The fact remains that I can look around and find hundreds of examples of non-obese carb consuming cultures and we have only the Masai & Inuit to guide us into believing LC is healthy and safe. Not sure those odds are so great.
You’re right, I’m not used to being interviewed. I’m not used to phone conversations on the computer with a headset either. I’ve not done this sort of thing more times than I can count covering the same information over the course of four or five years.
Y’all should try it sometime and see how you do š
For some reason I just re-read your and Frank’s post and realized I didn’t answer to one point which was the whole “to the metabolically literate” thing.
I was reading from Keith Frayn’s Metabolic Regulation there … that would be one of Taubes’ references, not *mine*. So I’m not endorsing Frayn’s position here so much as I was highlighting that in that text and chapter from which Taubes pulled a single simplistic quotation (“dieting is difficult”), Frayn discusses in great length the role of positive caloric balance in the development of obesity, the requirement of a deficit to reduce fat mass, and his interpretation of the way to accomplish this changing what we eat.
The other issue I have with Taubes and Frayn, other than his mischaracterizations of what is said in the book, is that Keith Frayn is a veritable goldmine when it comes to research on fat metabolism: insulin resistance, ASP, you name it! Taubes claims to follow the research forward in time (supposedly to where EVERYONE went wrong but he’s the only one who sees it), but he didn’t, or he ignored and failed to report what he found. Because following Frayn forward you discover that ASP, not insulin is the main “hormone” involved in esterification and that chronic insulin resistance begins in the “full up” fat cells not the other way around.
So the MR book was not my reference or point of reference to decide my strategy to lose weight. I knew that LC had worked in the past … I just needed to fashion a plan that was (a) less obsessive over the carbs and (b) that I could follow for a lifetime.
āin it for the moneyā
LOL!
by the way I think Gary Taubes works for the magazine ‘Science’ not the New York Times.
It makes me wonder, if she thinks it’s really all about the calories, why does she choose lowcarb? Because it’s more satiating and therefore easier to eat less calories?
When she herself said something along the lines of adding a “little” more carbohydrate into her diet to fix the tingling in her fingers, and her weight crept back up? Is that because she was eating more calories, or just more carbs?
Other than the biochemistry talk I didn’t understand too well =P
To me and a lot of people who have chosen to eat a low-carb or who promote a low-carb diet (not all low-carb authors use the pseudoscientific insulin argument) it is only about calories.
I choose a low-carb diet because it’s indeed easier to eat less calories, feel more satiated, have less hunger pangs and get more proteins. Controlling calories on an high-carb diet is hard for me because too much carbs and I can’t stop eating them, they stimulate by appetite and trigger my cravings. Also if the diet is hypocaloric and too high in carbs, protein intake might be too low. It’s actually proteins that curb hunger not fat.
If the insulin argument is pseudoscientific, how do carbs induce hunger?
Yes, the satiety of protein works magic to reduce my intake. It is key to my maintenance now as well. First and foremost I make sure my body gets its protein.
I regained all the weight after stint two because I basically went off low carb. At the time I didn’t see there being any middle ground.
I would add that around 6 months ago I started eating more carbs on a daily basis. Mostly rice, wild rice or potatoes, and the very occasional beans, corn or pasta. I have, if anything, lost a pound or two.
Good interview Jimmy. I think she has presented some interesting information but I’m not convinced on any level that Taubes is a fraud or set out to lie.
Although I do feel that Taubes gets down on carbs a little too hard (God put all these food groups on the earth for us to eat after all) I still think he is correct on the main point – refined carbs, or carbs in general is what makes so many people so fat. I think highly processed oils and refined sugar play a large part as well.
Perhaps Taubes may need to update some of the info in his book or come out with a revised edition but his work still stands in my opinion.
All life forms on this planet are food for something or someone. That doesn’t mean everything is meant for us human beings to eat.
I know of a berry that is so appealing to birds that by the time its parent plant is harvested for Christmas decorations, the berries must be replaced with plastic fakes because the birds have eaten them all up. You wouldn’t want to beat them to the feast. Mistletoe is poisonous to humans.
Goats eat poison ivy. Doesn’t mean that’s a good idea for us.
Even amongst the foods we’ve decided are fit for human consumption, the record isn’t good for some of them. Seed foods in particular, we seem to have trouble with. Most of us in the developed world don’t know how to process them correctly anymore, how to predigest them to make them safer for consumption. So now they are making us sick.
The plant kingdom is particularly nasty if you don’t know how to make nice with it. Unlike animals, plants can’t run away. They have to defend themselves chemically. If you don’t know how to shut down those defenses, you can make yourself sick, either acutely or chronically.
It is possible to eat carb foods and be healthy. It’s even possible to eat over 50 percent of your calories as carbs and be healthy. The trouble seems to be more in the realm of industrial foods versus artisanal/natural foods. Unfortunately, most industrialized foods are also carb foods. I doubt we’d be seeing the same obesity epidemic now if the only carb foods we had to choose from were of the artisanal or natural variety.
Even then, you have to be careful. The study of paleopathology seems to show that since we adopted large-scale grain agriculture, average human height has dropped, brain size has shrunk and we have become more prone to both chronic and infectious disease. (In the latter you have a causative agent, yes, but how susceptible you are to it may depend greatly on how well-nourished you are.) The evidence says to me that we need certain foods in order to be properly nourished, and eating too much of certain other foods can have a displacing effect that destroys our health.
Miss CarbSane’s advice to watch calories to the extent of preferring pasta over butter could have disastrous consequences. Butter, at least, contains saturated fats which are vital to our health. Displacing it with pasta means less saturated fat, less vitamin A and a lowered capacity for absorbing bone-building minerals. No thank you.
Jimmy, you were once again the gentleman and host but I couldn’t quite get through the entire interview. It was all about her, it seemed, and she seemed to be going in circles.
Thanks for putting another point of view out there, but I still am not sure what it is.
Kem:
I agree absolutely; I had to bail half-way through.Besides her ramblings,her personality struck me as very unpleasant,as well.
My bad first impression of her was only reinforced when I went to her blog, My Carb Sane-Asylum and saw the following:
“WOW, thanks (not) Jimmy for your characterization of me as a low carb skeptic. I’m not. I’m a skeptic of the so-called science. I don’t really appreciate how Jimmy characterized me as anti-low carb on his blog either:”
I thought this was both snotty and ungracious to Jimmy, who was open-minded enough to have her on his show and treated her with respect. There are not many hosts who would have even let her air her point of view; it’s a shame she doesn’t realize that and have some gratitude for having the opportunity to have a forum.
I tend to agree as well.
While she raises some interesting points, when I went to her blog to learn more her response to GT’s email was simply embarrassing to read, as it came across as coming from a snotty kid instead of an adult who had an opposing view. Who wants to spend their time reading anything else on there?
As to her remarks on Jimmy at her website, he gave her an hour to talk without interrupting her at all, and to a really wide audience. Her response was to make snide remarks. Wow. She should have been publicly THANKING Jimmy for having her on the show, but, whoops! she perceived a slight! so can’t have that! Let’s bash Jimmy, instead!
How rude.
It’s too bad as she’s obviously smart and has things to say. I just wish she would back up and take a look at her approach and see if she can change the way she confronts others. Might not be possible for one of her “ilk”, though. Time will tell.
Thanks for having her on, Jimmy. While not exactly entertaining it was certainly educational in a disturbing way.
I didn’t bash Jimmy. I do feel a bit “thrown under the bus” by his characterizations of me and my beliefs and what I’ve said. It’s obvious that some of it led listeners who may not have read the blog before even to prejudge me and what I had to say.
I have thanked Jimmy. Did you miss it at the end of the interview Ms. Jennifer? I also thanked him in an email so may have forgotten the public thanks in my blog post.
GT’s email to me was unsolicited and rude to begin with. His follow-up that I didn’t share even moreso. His snide remarks about bloggers in interviews don’t go unnoticed either.
If I weren’t hitting at the truth he wouldn’t protest so much, he would address the science as the “bigger man” and ignore the rest. That he doesn’t should tell you something being as you are such an astute analyzer of human behavior.
While I had asked for an opportunity to discuss my personal story a bit so as to dispel this notion that I’m not a low carber, I had not expected as much of the interview to be about me. That was Jimmy’s doing. It threw me a bit to do the personal stuff first and then the science/Taubes stuff which was the impetus for the interview.
My impression — having listened to many of Jimmy’s interviews — is that he was simply trying to put you at your ease by asking about your own experience.
I didn’t take it to be anything else Frank. After the interview I posted some thoughts on my blog and one of them was that he’s very engaging and puts a person at ease … I think I lamented perhaps a bit too at ease. I was, however, thrown just a bit by the order of things is all. No biggie. I don’t think Jimmy was trying to throw me off my game or anything like that.
Jimmy, you’re the best. I admire your openness and patience and your unfailing grace.
While it was a challenge to do so, I listened to the entire podcast and frankly had a lot of trouble following the line of reasoning of your guest. When countering insulin’s role in triggering fat formation, she simply says she doesn’t believe it in, but doesn’t offer an alternative explanation (other than to repeat the ‘calories in/calories out’ maxim).
Not much here to work with that counters central premises of the dietary carbohydrate restriction.
If only it were the case that a 1 pound bag of cookies would not cause more than 1 lb of fat gain, but she forgot the cascading effect of resistance, then hypoglycemia, then the catabolic effect on muscle to convert the amino acids to sugar for the brain. Maybe these people still don’t understand the difference between total mass gain and total fat gain. Thanks for the interview, great job and patience.
The cascading effect of resistance??
Insulin resistance. My point however would only be valid in a damaged metabolism. You can catabolize lean tissue and create more fat with the same amount of mass. It’s all about what the body does with the food you eat, not necessarily just what you eat.
If you catabolize lean tissue and turn it into fat (not sure when the body would do that but OK) you haven’t added mass now have you? You haven’t gained anything.
That would have to be one hell of a damaged metabolism. Probably someone on their last leg. You have 100% conversion of the carbs from the cookies to fat, amino acids from muscle providing much of the glucose for the brain (not the usual liver glycogen), and all the energy for the DNL and amino acid-to-glucose conversion (which is costly) coming from something other than fat. Still not sure where the extra fat is coming from to make the gain > 1 lb. (muscle amino acids release run amok and then being converted to fat – again with the obligatory caloric cost?). I don’t think this metabolism would be compatable with LIFE…
I don’t know why you’re hyped on taking my twist on the original example so seriously when the original example is also pretty extreme. It’s only to make a point that the calorie paradigm is still wrong. I also freely admitted just two posts down that I hate talking in absolutes and find this to be an unlikely immediate situation. However, it is illustrating the outcome of chronic insulemic eating, especially of high glycemic foods.
SLS, please do this experiment:
http://carbsanity.blogspot.com/2010/11/mass-must-be-conserved-v-20.html
Our bodies cannot magically turn 1 pound of mass into more than 1 pound of mass.
You are either mis-reading or not properly conceptualizing what I said, and that’s twice now. I said there is a difference between total mass gained and total fat gain. I of course agree that we cannot spontaneously add mass. I am saying that we can convert lean mass to fat mass. We (animals) do this constantly! Your body catabolizes protein for amino acids for all sorts of reasons, but especially for immuno-regulation and for blood-sugar balance. This is one reason proper consumption of protein is important, especially BCAA’s.
Insulin resistant, often obese, people and animals catabolize their lean body mass to a much greater extent due to the damage to their metabolism and insulin sensitivity. A VMH (ventromedial hypothalamus) lesioned rat will consistently gain fat even while restricting its calorie intake because you have lesioned the area of the brain sensitive to insulin and important in the regulation of fuel use and disposal. Muscle wasting is a huge problem in diabetics and the obese. Their adipose tissue consumes the majority of calories they eat while their brain and lean tissue still require fuel. The body will consume itself and still preserve fat mass.
So, I will explain this once again: you can conceivably eat a 1 lb box of cookies and gain more than 1 lb of fat in a damaged metabolism because not only have you turned the cookies into fat, but you have also catabolized some of your lean tissue in the process of feeding the rest of your organs. While this is a poor model and I hate to talk in absolutes (100% lipogenesis is a bit ridiculous), I’m trying to make a point that even on restricted calories, you can maintain total mass but still gain fat mass.
So you’re claiming eating a pound of cookies can cause you to convert it to a pound of fat and make even more fat catabolizing muscle to turn to fat? That’s pretty out there. This doesn’t happen in anyone I’ve ever known. Knockout rats are useful to ascertain certain pathways and functions but they aren’t very applicable to real life.
You can’t gain more than a pound of fat mass FROM THE COOKIES than the mass of the cookies. Period!
Your initial assertion is just as flawed (in reality) as my particular spin on it. Yes the example is completely inane if you suddenly want to be pedantic but I thought simplistic examples were simplistic for the sake of simplicity, no? Do you not understand the chronic effect of insulin resistance? How can you continue to argue as if metabolic response is compartmentalized in singular points of time? This is a chronic and cumulative effect!
Also, are you saying that thermodynamics works different in a mouse model than it does in a human model? Interesting.
First the thermo: Holds for all living beings.
Second: Insulin resistance may influence partitioning of intake over time, but, again, it cannot create mass. Extreme examples can lead to things like the fat rat that starves to death (note that last part), but they are not applicable to what is going on in obese humans, most of which continue to live on. IR definitely leads to a shift of fat mass from subQ to visceral even in non-obese people (e.g. rather lean HIV patients receiving antiviral therapy), but will not cause net mass gain absent a caloric surplus.
Why are you turning something so simple and obvious into something unnecessarily convoluted?
You cannot eat a pound of cookies and gain more than a pound of real body weight. That’s all I said. That is indisputable!!
For the last time, I never once said anything about mass gain. I’m not going to argue with a closed mind.
Wow, you really don’t listen.
Say you’ve got a guy who’s 150 pounds, and 20 pounds of that is fat. That means 130 pounds of lean mass. Fair enough?
So he eats the pound-bag of cookies in one sitting. He gains a pound of fat. So now he’s 151 pounds. 21 pounds of fat.
Then his body’s all deranged and he goes and converts a pound of muscle to a pound of fat. Guess what? He’s still 151 pounds! He just happens to have 129 pounds of lean mass and 22 pounds of fat.
Do the math. Is that difficult?
Keith nails it with “unfailing grace”.
I was curious enough to take a look at her website and she was trashing you whilst linking to the interview.
What’s the exact opposite of unfailing grace?
I suppose carbsane could have been more gracious on her post, but then Jimmy’s intro undermined her before the interview even aired. It’s one thing to see other people’s heroes criticized (many of us enjoyed the scrutiny Colin Campbell got recently) but when it comes to scrutinizing our heroes…..
How exactly did Jimmy undermine her? He was very respectful and kind throughout the interview. He didn’t intoduce her by saying “Now here’s some kook to entertain us by saying retarded things”. He called her a skeptic and pointed out her caustic pet name for GT, but if truth undermines someone’s argument or credibility what does that say about them?
I was referring to the written caveat/disclaimer that you can read above. That’s what Carbsane was taking exception to on her blog. I agree that Jimmy was gracious in the interview and I enjoyed listening.
OK, let’s look at that:
“Low-carb skeptic blogger CarbSane is todayās guest on The Livinā La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore!”
Alright, she’s a low-carber (sorta), a skeptic, and a blogger. All true so far.
“CarbSane is the Nom De Guerre of a blogger who has some rather radical ideas about low-carb diets and how/why they work/donāt work.”
To this audience, anyone saying that Gary Taubes’s ideas are not only wrong, but willfully so, is radical. Radical is not necessarily a bad thing, just very different from the common understanding among the group.
“Many will be surprised to hear the kind of foods she chooses to include in her eating plan.”
Obviously, she eats things that other low-carbers tend to eschew.
“But regular listeners will, no doubt, be most startled by what she has to say about New York Times science journalist Gary Taubes and his book Good Calories, Bad Calories. CarbSane not only believes that Taubes is wrong and that the research he cites does not back his assertions, but that Taubes is aware of the fact and is āin it for the moneyā in her words (describing him as Taube$ frequently in her posts).”
No part of that is untrue.
The one thing I’ll concede is that in the first sentence, the addition of a comma would have been clearer:
“Low-carb, skeptic blogger CarbSane…”
Kevin, on my blog I objected to the characterization of me as anti-low carb. I’m also not a low carb skeptic. I’m a skeptic of the bad “scientific” theories of why and how low carb diets work and the misinformation Taubes perpetuates.
OK, I understand your concern about the phrasing “low-carb skeptic” and out of respect for clarity I have edited the show notes to read “Low-carb blogger and GCBC-skeptic…” Thank you for the specific feedback.
For those who don’t know, yes I am the show’s producer, and I write most of the copy in the shownotes, so please blame me, not JM.
Thanks for the clarification Kevin. I have some issues with Jimmy’s lead ins on the podcast too, as well as how I’m described as a taunter on his blog so it’s a combination of things at this point as well. It’s not something I’ve got my panties bunched up about, but I don’t see why so many here need to pick on my post announcing the interview at my blog!
Boy, I couldn’t quite follow her reasoning (if that’s what it was – far too scientific for me) … but I DO know, that low carb keeps my BS numbers down where they should be, otherwise UP they go.
Didn’t hurt to hear her point of view though. And yes, very interesting that she basically eats low carb.
Hi Jimmy,
I just want to say I thought she was nervously talking in circles and laughing quite a bit. Why would someone spend all that time trying to prove someone else wrong when they are not wrong? Sounds like a big waste of time to me.
I think Gary Taubes is brilliant and love both of us his books. There are quite a lot of people that I know that love his books as well. I, along with numerous others do not think he is lying just to make money! I think he is a brilliant writer that is trying to get the medical establishment, along with many other doubtful americans to realize that the low carb, high fat way of eating is the best way to go.
I try not to get swayed by one persons opinion and go with my gut. My gut tells me that I have been unsuccessful many times with a HCLF diet. I never could do it long enough to get statistics on how it effected my H1ac levels. Now into my 5th month on a LCHF lifestyle all of my blood markers have improved. I am no longer diabetic and feel great. Only occasionally when I eat out do I feel a desire to eat some starchy stuff, but that is about it. 99% of the time I don’t even want it.
I am amazed that low carb sane could keep up unending verbosity as I always use an economy of words when I speak at business events. People with the gift of gab always make me envious. Being technically adverse, I found her diatribe almost unintelligible. I will give her site a look, but will certainly stick with my gut.
Come on “Low Carb Cheater” or whoever you are, I’d like to hear more of what you have to say, albeit with your real face on. Stop hiding if you’re going to
trash other people’s efforts to try and open up the why’s & how’s of the rampant obesity problem. At least Gary Taubes has the balls to own his statements. Can we say the same for you who hides behind cartoon bunny ears? Seriously.
Thanks for another interesting podcast Jimmy, but this one left a nasty taste in my mouth.
How goes the battle Deedles? Perhaps rather than focusing over meaningless details such as my real name and face, you can find something in my telling of my real life struggles that helps. Or just tune out. If this podcast left a nasty taste for you, why do you want to hear more? Makes NO sense.
Jimmy!
Love your show but this time I have to disagree with you on your decision to interview “carbsane”. I’ve followed her blog for a while and she strikes me as someone who seems imo obsessed with Taubes. She has made a lot of very strong defamatory statements about him but at the same time refuses to even share her first name and remains anonymous. The fact that she is trashing you on her blog is just par for the course, after Gary tried to correspond with her she got even nastier with him too.
Gary’s carbohydrate hypothesis may or may not be 100% right but his book has helped A LOT of people.
I want to say again, I really like your show but I think if you are going to invite someone on and give them a stage to make defamatory statements against someone like Taubes you should at least require them to give their names.
I did not make any defamatory statements or attack Taubes in any way in the interview except in response to one question. That was after discussing the inconsistencies with this Newsholme & Start when Jimmy asked me if Taubes lied. (http://carbsanity.blogspot.com/2010/11/mass-must-be-conserved-v-20.html)
I do not use that term lightly, but that reference said exactly the opposite of what he wrote about glycerol phosphate in GCBC and lectured everyone on. As such I cannot see this as merely an error.
Wrong link: http://carbsanity.blogspot.com/2010/11/gcbc-reference-check-part-iii-of-is.html
if spelling his name with th $ symbol isn’t a low blow attack I don’t know what is lady…
I bet Taubes is right that the effect of carbs on health has been way underestimated. He does make it sound like it’s the only process involved in weight gain, and I’m always skeptical about any idea that purports to be the whole story. I wonder, for instance, about all the healthy cultures that eat high carb yet people don’t get fat or diabetes or heart disease.
They had a post a few days ago at Science Based Medicine about Taubes latest book. In her critique, Dr. Hall makes a pretty strong point in one regard. Taubes spent all this energy demolishing the Lipid Hypothesis and talking about how we jumped the gun in demonizing fat without looking at all the studies, then Taubes, even while admitting we need more studies on carbs, goes ahead and demonizes and does the exact same thing to carbs that he just showed that everybody did to fats without waiting for better support from the science.
There’s better support for the notion that an overdose of carbs causes health problems, even in Taubes’s book, than there has ever been for the notion that fat intake in and of itself causes disease. You can break down the different types of fats and tease a couple out as being causative of chronic disease, but they’re fats you wouldn’t find in nature or fats that human beings wouldn’t have thought of eating. The rest? You’re healthier with them than without them.
Probably, you will be interested then in the book “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration” by Weston Price. It is available for free on-line http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200251h.html. He described a lot of “uncivilized” cultures and not all of them avoid carbs like Inuits.
I didn’t get convinced by Carbsane myself. I wish people wouldn’t mix too much passion into scientific argument, it is counterproductive.
From what I have read, traditional diets tend to be high-fat diets. More specifically, the healthy fats, since they’re not going around eating lots of polyunsaturated seed oils (as opposed to, say, a saturated oil like coconut) or Crisco or what have you.
They also tend to NOT eat wheat. Their carbs tend to come from tubers as often as not. Of those few who’ve taken up farming enough to grow their own bread, they tend to use a long sourdough fermentation process rather than a quick-rise technique. And even then, if you’ve ever read Dr. Weston Price’s works, the traditional cultures using sourdough bread or oat cakes had a higher rate of cavities than cultures that didn’t eat grain at all. The lowest incidence of caries was among the might-as-well-be-carnivorous Inuit.
I seem to recall running across mentions of studies showing that saturated fat in particular helps blunt the blood sugar/insulin response when someone *does* eat a high-carb meal.
I also seem to recall running across supposed evidence that type 2 diabetes is connected with certain mineral deficiencies. Traditional diets tend to be high in both fat and fat-soluble vitamins, both of which are vital in the assimilation of minerals. (I KNOW I’ve read that fat intake is associated with greater calcium absorption, whereas higher fiber intake reduces that absorption.)
They tend to get more sunlight, which means more vitamin D in the system, which is *associated* with less chronic disease. (Correlation, of course, is not causation.)
I could go on and on about this. But we don’t live in any of those cultures. We live in this one, and this one’s profoundly unhealthy. I’ve come to think of low-carbing as a medicinal approach to several serious health problems. Keeping carbs relatively low when you can’t afford better foods might be a good preventative as well. But it’s not a sure thing that if you eat carbs you must become fat or sick. You have to look at the total context of your life and how you behave generally, and whether that behavior is conducive to or anathema to continued good health.
The Paleo folks have some great info on this, particularly Dr. Kurt Harris at the PaNu blog, but there are lots of others. He’s a good place to start, I recommend his blog highly.
I am an avid believer in Dr. Bernstein because it works and unlike many people in this field- he has enormous credibility. While I like hearing other viewpoints I don’t like hearing ones that don’t have credibility. Low carb has a mountain to climb. All people need is one tiny shred of “evidence” to dismiss the whole concept. I think interviews like this one do a disservice to “the struggle”. Credibility is paramount to any kind of serious acceptance.
I was actually looking forward to this interview. I saw her website before I heard she was coming on the show and to be honest, I found the science part very hard to follow and the rest of her criticisms being ad hominem attacks about him lying for money.
If CarbSane really wants to be heard, she should really learn to explain her point susinctly and clearly as Taubes is able to do. Granted he’s a writer and she claims to be a researcher. I found her rant on the show once she started talking about Taubes to be incoherent and impossible to follow. She obviously was nervous and desparate to get out her point but, if she does have a point, she does herself a disservice by rambling and not slowing down.
I may be wrong but I got the impression that her objection was more of a nit picky objection to a small bit of science she things Taubes got wrong and as a result she rejects his whole thesis. Given the acidity of her rant, she seems to have something personal against Taubes….
If CarbSane really wants to be heard, she should really learn to explain her point susinctly and clearly as Taubes is able to do.
Yeah, like that short easy reading material known as GCBC?
Gimme a little break here folks. Imagine yourself on an internationally aired, highly listened to podcast, being interviewed on this topic (or ANY) for the first time. Not to mention this was the first time I ever used Skype and a headset!
I was thrown a bit off by the starting off about me, my cell phone went off, and while it doesn’t seem that dramatic on the tape, when that happened my mini-laptop went flying when I tried to shut the thing off (wired headset) so I lost my place with the few notes I had regarding specific references and quotations.
I did NOT attack Taubes personally in the interview. I read passages where Taubes says one thing in GCBC and from the reference that says just the opposite. So Jimmy asked if he lied, and I even hesitated on that one, and I ask each of you to tell me what one is to conclude. Pretend it’s not your life-changing low carb super hero. Pretend for a minute this was Ornish or (the much mocked by GT) Jillian Michaels. Would they get the “well (s)he’s done so much for …” pass? Would you defenders be falling all over yourselves to find an innocent explanation? I don’t think so!
When I read Newsholme & Start I about fell off my chair. He claims the texts got it wrong. But his own text did NOT. He claims the science circa 2005-6 supported his claims, but it did not.
I am amused by the continuing description by so many that these are minor details. They are not. They are the basis of his hypothesis. He’s down to just the insulin now which is holding up poorly in his various interviews on the net. He’ll claim he left that G3P stuff out of the new book because it’s just too technical for all you dummies to understand that we have fats in two forms in our bodies and that 3 FA’s + glycerol makes a triglyceride. Sheesh. He had to leave it out of the most recent lectures and the book because he’s been figuratively dragged kicking and screaming to admit it was wrong all along.
He made the following claim in his latest interview with Jimmy (not the upcoming one): “… but the point that the two NIH biophysicists were making is, you know, insulin so fundamentally determines fat accumulation that it doesn’t really matter. You, still the more carbs, the more alpha glycerol 3 phosphate, the more fat you can store, that’s all still true …” Perhaps folks here can explain to me how that could the case when insulin is not even considered in Hall & Chow’s The Dynamics of Human Body Weight Change. Then more recently Taubes relates in an interview that H&C told him that there’s basically always enough G3P to go around. See a pattern here YET?
2003 Reshef paper in your GCBC references Mr. Taubes. Newsholme & Start Mr. Taubes. Massive works by Keith Frayn Mr. Taubes. Explain these.
“Graduates” of The Biggest Loser have wound up with physical damage and eating disorders. Dean Ornish has been quoted as saying that even if low-carb/high-fat results in better lab values than HC/LF, and just as good of weight loss, and I quote, “then what?” What do you MEAN “then what,” Doc? Isn’t that what you’re aiming for? Weight loss and improved lab values?
Meanwhile, people who’ve been inspired by Gary Taubes have found themselves healthier, some have seen their diabetes symptoms disappear, they’ve lost weight and kept it off.
I think I know who I’d rather listen to.
THANKS for all the comments everyone! Should be interesting to hear what Gary Taubes has to say about these criticisms in my interview with him coming up on Thursday, January 27, 2011 in Episode 439. š
Hey Jimmy,
Like most who post here I’m skeptical about Carbsane. I do appreciate that you gave her the opportunity to make her case against Gary, but her manner is such that I have trouble taking her as seriously as she takes herself.
I would love to hear the same views from someone who can make a more cohesive and eloquent point.
Well said, Rob! My thoughts exactly.
A question for those who claim that Taubes’ insulin argument is pseudoscientific: if it’s easier to eat fewer calories on a HF diet than on a HC/LF plan and still feel satiety, what is the reason for that? Is there a biological/hormonal explanation for not being hungry or maybe HF diet, as opposed to HC/LF strategies, simply induces spiritual transformation and increases one’s strenght of will to slash calories and cope with persistent hunger?
Protein baby, protein!
Even if its high-fat low-carb low-protein like Kwasniewski “optimal diet” quite widespread in Europe where I’m from? People keep their protein intake to necessary minimum and don’t walk around hungry despite having 1-2 meals a day.
Fat doesn’t do it for me except maybe psychologically. My strategy these days is to get in my protein and let the rest work itself out. Seems to do the trick and seems to coincide with results of several studies I’ve seen. I don’t doubt that some do well with VLC/RLP/HF but its not me. Perhaps in combo with IF it works, I did do that for a while a while back and was successful to a point.
How do you mean “Fat doesnāt do it for me except maybe psychologically”?. I thought we’re talking about how certain foods affect our metabolism. Otherwise we come back to my initial question at the top: if it’s not biology/hormones (eg. Taubes’ insulin hypothesis) then what is it? Is it that “HF diet induces spiritual transformation and increases oneās strenght of will to slash calories and cope with persistent hunger?” Is that what you mean?
I thought we were talking hunger. I started plateauing out weight-wise when I drifted from lower fat proteins to higher fat ones and just switching from H&H to HWC in my coffee was not a positive experience for me. It’s really easy to eat a lot of fat of certain types if you don’t watch it, and that doesn’t seem to tamp the appetite. For instance, took me a while to learn that veggies with fatty dips or sour cream were not sating, while veggies with cottage cheese were.
http://carbsanity.blogspot.com/2010/03/protein-satiety-i.html
http://carbsanity.blogspot.com/2010/04/high-protein-diet-induces-sustained.html
I have no problem maintaining an intake of around 1600 cal/day on average which maintains my weight loss because my macros are probably something like 20% carb/25-35% protein/45-55% fat these days. They were probably more like 5-10% carb/ 35-40% protein/ 50ish% fat during my rapid losses (keep in mind my absolute intake was quite low, perhaps even like 800 cals many days NOT by design but because that’s how LC worked for me). I don’t lose weight VLC’ing anymore, although perhaps after the higher carbing for a while I may experience “the magic” once more.
* Many (most?) sources of real whole food contain a natural mix of both Fat and Protein so I rarely eat one without the other.
* Lean Protein is usually more expensive to buy than Fat
*The body only needs a relatively small amount of Protein each day
*Speaking as someone who *does* have Diabetes I am all too aware of the fact that Protein (Amino Acids) can be converted to Glucose and will impact my Blood Glucose levels
*AND as there are only 3 macronutrients (Carbohydrates, Fat and Protein) if you increase one you have to reduce one or both of the others to remain isocaloric. So increasing Protein leads to reduced dietary Carbohydrates.. as Gary Taubes recently blogged about here: http://www.garytaubes.com/2010/12/calories-fat-or-carbohydrates/
Mine seems to need a bit more than others. I think that especially for women, the problem with 15% protein CRD’s is that the protein content is insufficient to produce adequate satiety. In that Shai study GT blogged on, you might want to check out the results in diabetics. The best improvements were obtained for the Mediterranean group. If dietary logs are to be believed, this was the group restricting both calories and carbs the least.
No. As I commented above, it’s not the protein.
If you doubt me, go on a high-protein, high-carb, no-fat diet for a week and see how full you stay. Don’t bother telling *me*… I have a nasty feeling you might not be totally forthcoming. Just do it for your own knowledge.
While many have objected to her apparent “drubbing” of Jimmy on her blog, consider this:
– is it possible that she simply felt he was inaccurate and took it personally? I found her relatively personable during the interview…and that was AFTER she had heard the intros.
– she seems to be a woman of science…a researcher. She’s probably more at home reading research papers than talking to people. I can imagine that might lead to a bit of prickliness.
In reading a bit of her blog, I think she seemed fair-minded overall and simply interested in clarity and truth to the extent that she understands it. I agree that Jimmy was extremely gracious and she may have been a bit self-absorbed overall…but I didn’t find her mean-spirited. Also, writing is Taubes’ livelihood…whereas hers is in the field of science. It’s quite likely that she doesn’t want to endanger her own career by becoming to closely associated with her antagonistic emphasis toward Taubes’ claims. I don’t find that an unreasonable position, either. I still say it was a worthwhile interview, and I continue to be impressed with Jimmy for taking on all comers…whether they see eye-to-eye or not.
c-
Actually Chuck, one thing that bothered me is that Jimmy’s intro citing my Shai-ster thing was not part of our interview, and I could swear he played a different intro prior to our exchange. Other than that Jimmy is super personable and that goes a long way to relax a person. However I was caught a bit off guard by the first part as I wasn’t expecting as much in the way of discussing my personal journey.
I do not feel he has accurately characterized me in the various lead in’s and headlines here, at the podcast page or on his forum. But that’s OK. I have thanked him for this opportunity several times. It was wonderful and I’m grateful for it.
Lots of people are antagonistic toward Taubes’s claims. I don’t notice it’s harmed Dean Ornish’s career any.
Jimmy, I don’t recall ever calling GT a “Willful Fraud”. It’s possible, but I don’t recall that. I’m also not anti-low carb … that’s just silly, and I’m not even an LC skeptic unless one thinks there’s only one way to *believe* in a low carb lifestyle or why they work. Lastly, why “Taunter”?? I do not blog to taunt anyone. Taubes is a prominent “expert” voice on the “science”, so it shouldn’t surprise people that I spend time debunking his theories. There’s much much more to the blog that some may find helpful.
Sadly, if the fact that the major reference for an entire prong of his Adiposity 101 theory – that he repeated in his lectures – states exactly the opposite of what he wrote/lectures is not enough to cause some followers to see how Taubes misrepresents science, they’ll never be convinced. I ask those people, were this Ancel Keys or Colin Campbell would you be jumping so quickly to their defense? Really??
I do hope you asked GT specifics on the references we discussed here but somehow I doubt he’ll address the science.
To all those for whom a little nervous laughter and passion offends, please go to my blog and read the reference checks. And perhaps you could cut me just a little slack as this is the first time I’ve ever done anything like this. Just a thought.
It is not little minutia that Taubes gets proveably wrong, and if I was having a whimsical day and put bunny ears on my cartoon avatar it doesn’t change those facts.
Don’t we all want this lifestyle to “go mainstream”?? I would like to be able to tell my doctor how I eat and not get the scowl. This won’t happen perpetuating gimmicky theories. Indeed it will ultimately undermine the effort in much the way Atkins did with his deliberate “in your face” attitude about his diet and wild claims. I don’t know if it will ever be possible for Atkins to not be synonymous with “fad diet” and that’s a shame. But if it gets there it won’t be by replacing his claims with “science based” claims that are not very scientific at all.
Calories in, calories out does not explain how an insulin resistant person such as myself, after ingesting during six hours of Thanksgiving afternoon, fruit, cheese and assorted appetizers, four cosmopolitans, 2 glasses of merlot, half pound of turkey with gravy, 2 portions of both bread stuffing and green beans in heavy cream, mash potatoes, all topped off with pecan and chocolate cream pie slices, all while seated on the couch or at the table. Talking, laughing, not much moving around.
I got on the scale the next morning and lost .8 lbs.
I had planned for the meal. Not by fasting or going super low carb, or restricting my eating prior to the meal in any way. I simply told myself that this happens once a year and I was going to enjoy it and be present with my family.
I think a lot of what we see on the scale is affected by attitudes and emotions in ways we haven’t designed measures for yet.
Yahoo News and other Internet sites always go on about how people ingest as much as 5000 to 10,000 calories during Thanksgiving. That means if it were always about calories in versus calories out, the scale should have shown a one to two pound increase.
By the way, I never gained back the .8 lbs!
Jimmy, I just discovered your podcasts recently and I have been enjoying them.
I have always been a believer in calories in-calories out, but have recently begun to think that may not be all there is to it.
For the last 3 years, I have diligently logged my food and worn a bodybugg (a device that measure calorie expenditure) daily. I upload each day into the bodybugg website. This year, in August, I started on Atkins, while last year, I was doing low fat/high carb – calorie counting. I decided to compare October 2009 to October 2010 and see what I found. The results are interesting and I have no explanation.
Oct 2009 – Avg daily calories burned were 2,265
Avg daily calories consumed were 1,856
Projected weight loss based on a 409 calories per day deficit is 3.62 lbs.
Actual – I gained 2 pounds that month.
My macro percentages were 15% protein, 67% carb and 18% fat per day on average.
Oct 2010 – Avg daily calories burned were 2,140
Avg daily calories consumed were 1,834
Projected weight loss based on a 306 calories per day deficit is 2.71 lbs.
Actual – I lost 7 pounds that month
My macro percentages were 23% protein, 17% carb and 60% fat per day on average.
So, in reviewing this, I have to say that I am questioning the calories in-calories out model. It seems that something else is going on. I have never been diagnosed with fat malabsorbtion issues and my health is the same this year as last (except my triglycerides are now 65, LOL).
I appreciate the fact that Gary Taubes has opened this up for discussion and more research, since it does not appear to be a done deal scientifically. I’m sure there is more to discover in this arena.
Thanks for your wonderful podcasts.
Well the carb/insulin hypothesis sure doesn’t explain that either now does it?!! Sorry to say but if you ingested surplus calories they ARE stored somewhere in your body unless you’ve subsequently burnt them off — be it in fat tissue or as glycogen. We can never predict how our bodies respond to foods. Perhaps when some of us gorge ourselves we simply get away with a few freebies b/c we don’t absorb all of what we eat (effective calories in were less), and our bodies do have compensatory mechanisms to overeating so we may ramp up metabolism to try to burn off some of the excesses (increase calories out). Perhaps we retain or lose water weight which can fluctuate like 5 pounds from day to day for no apparent reason, moreso in a more obese person.
Try this experiment sometime: http://carbsanity.blogspot.com/2010/11/mass-must-be-conserved-v-20.html
Even GT acknowledges CICO about half the time.
“Calories In vs Calories Out” (CICO) is not disputed by anybody… least of all Gary Taubes — it is a physical law.
The issue come in the *application* of that law: which is based around a “closed” system.
Humans are NOT closed systems… we are open systems and the only way we can become “closed” is by placing us in a sealed metabolic ward where *everything* in and out (including breathing for example) is captured and carefully measured.
Despite decades of preaching at us by dietary “do-gooders” it cannot be applied to us living out in the real World… there are simply too many variables which we cannot control for…
* calories consumed
* calories converted to energy and used in involuntary movement
* calories used for heat generation and in response to external environmental exposures and temperatures
* calories used with inflammatory and infectious processes
* calories used in growth, tissue restoration and numerous metabolic processes
* calories used in voluntary movement
* calories not absorbed in the digestive tract and matter expelled
and more besides…
Plus we do not eat simply to provide the body with energy/calories… We are likely to remain “hungry” until all our nutritional requirements are met. If you disagree with that statement try discussing it at 2AM with a pregnant woman who has a food craving!
CICO may apply at the “cellular level” and that is precisely why Gary Taubes’ argument that our hunger is being biochemically driven makes the most sense. This is the reason that someone avoiding refined/concentrated Carbohydrates spontaneously eats less.
Nobody disputes that intake (or the desire to intake) is hormonally regulated. But Taubes in recent interviews is all over the map on calories, one minute saying that fat accumulates when there’s an energy surplus, the next saying he wants every single one of us to forget about calories entirely.
Perhaps you may find this post of mine of interest: http://carbsanity.blogspot.com/2010/12/of-thermodynamics-complexity-closed.html
If Gary Taubes is suggesting that there is “altogether too much focus on calories”, then he gets my full agreement.
There is not another animal on this planet that counts calories and yet every one of them — when allowed to eat their natural diet — manages to stay in prefect equilibrium… how on earth do they do manage that without kitchen scales?
Even among us human animals it seems that calorie counting only applies to those carrying excess fat mass… everyone else presumably has the magic “self-discipline” or “will power” that keeps them lean and healthy?
Recognising that hunger is driven by biochemistry rather than by “gluttony” has allowed me to work with my body — compared to the past couple of decades where I was struggling against it by starving it and flogging it at the gym… trying to force myself into negative energy balance. Same concept really as: trying to hold my breath until I pass out over and over and over again… doesn’t work too well!
Now I can eat an healthy balanced diet, with no need to be hungry all the time AND I can learn to listen to my body again. Thanks to reading GCBC.
There’s not another animal on the planet that grows its food and procures its food from grocery stores and restaurants either! Even my kitty is at my mercy what I feed him!
Another show notes error is that I think calorie counting is king. I said no such thing, only that ultimately it’s all about the calories whether a particular diet results in gains, losses or stability. I don’t count a thing these days, haven’t counted (only logged occasionally to get an idea) calories in decades and I have been weight stable down around 100 lbs with slight additional losses for two years now. Calorie counting ultimately failed for me because, and I think this is true for many, it had me obsessing over food and calories and my next meal all day long.
I contend that those foods we see as fattening, pizza, ice cream, pastries, pasta and bread (with butter!) are simply easy to overeat calorie-wise.
Most of my lean friends will admit to “watching their weight” however effortless their physiques might seem to be maintained. But I did also note that on my recent vacation it was the heavier passengers piling their plates high at the buffet far more than the lighter ones. And I didn’t see too many overweight folks in the gym. Maybe there’s something to this moving a bit more stuff after all, huh?
Taubes position on calories is clear as mud these days.
“Sorry to say but if you ingested surplus calories they ARE stored somewhere in your body unless youāve subsequently burnt them off ā be it in fat tissue or as glycogen.”
Protein has calories. It winds up in organs and muscle. (Technically, muscles are organs. By “organs” here I mean like your heart and kidneys and so on.) How in the world can you maintain muscle mass and organ integrity if you burn all your protein as fuel?
If you expect Gary Taubes to be perfect, maybe you need to take a look at your own claims too. I call people on this one all the time–if you don’t take into account lean tissue maintenance, hormone production, etc., and just think of food as biological gasoline, of course you’re not going to understand what’s going on. And you’ll keep yelling about the speck in Taubes’s eye while overlooking the beam in your own.
By the way, Taubes doesn’t say that fat people don’t overeat. What he’s saying is that it’s not the overeating driving the weight gain, but rather the weight gain driving the overeating. This sort of thing is why I accuse people of not having read his book.
CarbSane, I read that and it was that was so silly it was embarrassing. Of course if you weigh yourself IMMEDIATELY
after ingestion, you will weigh the same as say, holding a pound of food and a pound of water (16oz). NOTHING has been biochemically altered by the body yet.
It’s what happens after digestion that counts. Do you realize that during last Thanksgiving I consumed several pounds of food and drink, yet experienced a loss of more than 3/4 of a pound less than twelve hours later? I stopped eating at 9:00 pm and weighed myself at 7:00 am–quite a late wake-up for me–I slept two more hours than usual. Do you think something magical happened during those two hours? No, I think something hormonal and biochemical happened during the entire eight hours of sleep. No, I did not eliminate 5-6 pounds of pee or poop, I would have noticed.
As Tim Ferriss observes in his new book, “The Four Hour Body,” it’s not what you ingest, it’s what makes it into your bloodstream that counts. He does some interesting experiments in overeating where he not only does not gain weight, he experiences the loss of body fat already present.
And yes, insulin, glucagon, leptin, etc., ARE the magic wands that affect what gets into the blood stream, and consequently the muscle tissue vs the fat cell. We still don’t know all the processes involved–that Taubes may not be 100% correct right now in his theories is immaterial. Not he or anyone else knows all the processes involved.
That it is still not well understood how all these hormonal processes interact doesn’t allow scientists studying these things to fall back on calories in, calories out.
Sorry, but what is embarrassingly silly is this notion that hormones can create mass in our bodies. It is embarrassingly silly to think the human body is capable of converting a pound of any macronutrient into more than a pound of fat.
Whatever you did on T’giving, your body perhaps didn’t absorb all the calories or you did indeed pee/poop or breath out (metabolize) enough to reflect a 3/4 pound loss in body weight on the scale. Do you think your body vaporized the pounds of food? Are you saying that they were all in your body and hormones just made them vanish into thin air? How silly is that??
Hormones have little impact on what gets into the blood stream. The types of food (e.g. how processed/refined, and not to get too gross but think corn š ), how well we chew, proper bile production, intestinal health, rate of transit (I lose weight when I get the runs, go figure!), all do. Once absorbed though you own it.
Hormones may play a role in partitioning, but if you absorb a pound of macronutrients, your “solid mass” increases by a pound. This is indisputable!!
Even Taubes acknowledges CICO about half the time. Just because we don’t understand every reason why one car gets 25 mpg and another 28 mpg, and just because that car doesn’t get the exact same mileage each time we drive it, doesn’t mean we can’t get a good idea how often we need to fill up at the pump each week.
If folks do not lose on calorie restriction they are either eating more than they think or way overestimating expenditure (the formulas say I should require like 3000 cal/day now, if I ate that much I would gain like crazy — and that may even be more than I ate to maintain my high weight of close to if not exceeding 300 lbs).
We can actually measure basal metabolism, so that may be one piece of information folks should learn about themselves rather than guessing or trying to compare what they eat to their thin friend. Or as Dansinger does on Biggest Loser, the contestants report food logs “before” and they cut consumption by 50%. The key is finding a way to do this with the least misery. Low carb is magic for me in this regard — but it has/had its limits.
Carbsane, my BMR is 2700, AMR 3500 when I work out. On a carb intake caloric level of 1500, I do not lose weight. On 2500 calories of low carb, I do….
I’ve made the mistake of believing an insulin resistent individual can manage carb intake well enough to lose. Following this for a year, I gained 30lbs but did not take in 105,000 excess calories.
How would you explain that? (I used appropriate tools to approximate output and measured and counted my intake…)
Laura
My wife found the same to be true for her. She held her calories below a 1000 a day and only lost 5 pounds until she could not take straving herself anymore. Then she switched to a moderate low carb diet and lost twenty five pounds eating a little over 2000 calories a day. Maybe just maybe bad calories have something to do with fat management.
“It is embarrassingly silly to think the human body is capable of converting a pound of any macronutrient into more than a pound of fat.”
That’s not what that other commenter claimed. He said that if your body’s metabolically deranged it’s possible for it to convert already-existing-in-your-body lean mass into fat in response to certain foods you eat.
Sorry, you just don’t have any credibility with me. Maybe when you learn to listen. I doubt you care, but in case you want people to take you seriously in future, you might want to think about that some more.
Let me try maybe another tack CarbSane… you seem to be trying to discredit Gray Taubes by focusing on the absolute/literal accuracy of his statements and in so doing, run the risk of overlooking their (from my personal experience and perspective) useful principles:
Let’s back up and look again at Calories In vs Calories Out… in this context our most common expression of the “1st Law of Thermodynamics” or “Conservation of Energy”. As in my post above you’ll have no argument from me that this is an absolute/literal physical law BUT when it is applied to weight (excess fat mass) loss it falls down… we are not a closed system and we cannot practically control for all the variables… this is why it does not work “as advertised”.
So it seems your big beef with Gary Taubes is his statement that we “cannot store Fat without dietary Carbohydrates (Glucose)” — please correct me if I misstated?
Taken as an absolute/literal statement I would agree with you that he has overstated the case — BUT this time the application of the principle (for me at least) DOES work… the MORE Carbs we eat the higher he insulin and the MORE Fat we can store… or put another way “eat less Carbs and store less Fat”.
It makes no sense to take his statement as an absolute literal truth (I never did).. one need only look at those poor unfortunates with Type 1 Diabetes prior to the discovery of insulin to see what a body looks like when it is unable to store any Fat…
http://asweetlife.org/sitefiles/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Child-before-after-insulin.jpg
I live in the real world where science has to be “applied” not just an academic exercise.
“Hormones have little impact on what gets into the blood stream.”
This is a blanket declaration, not science. Nobody can say that this has been studied thoroughly enough to make such a statement.
“Hormones may play a role in partitioning, but if you absorb a pound of macronutrients, your āsolid massā increases by a pound. This is indisputable!!”
Absolutely disputable. For one, is it the weight or the calories? One pound of beef is going to be about 825 calories, zero carbs.(One 3oz serving of top sirloin is 158 calories) A pound of Girl Scout Samoas, are 2400 calories, 288g of carbs!(Based on one serving of 2 cookies, 29g, 150 calories, 18g carbs) The human body will process each pound of these foods very, very, differently.
You were the one who claimed hormones alter absorption. Burden of proof is on you. The “insufficient studies” is not an out here. We’re remarkably consistent absorbing nutrients over the long haul. Lots of hormones stimulated in response to nutrient availability/absorption, not much in the way of them being involved in absorption. Those mechanisms are pretty well characterized.
As to if it is weight and calories, look at my initial argument: You can’t gain MORE than a pound eating a pound of anything. I didn’t say anything about weight gain from a pound of this or that. You will gain more from a pound of cookie vs. beef. Your point? Calories!
Looking forward to Gary’s podcast and replies.
I simply don’t picture Gary in a situation where he would on purpose misquote a study or report. Surely if he missed it, his publishers, sub editors etc. would have picked it up.
Let’s hear what he has to say, he has been doing scientific journalism for many years and I just don’t see him of all people making this mistake especially not on purpose.
I still think his ‘theory’ on how alpha glycerol phosphate works in the fat tissue is 100% correct. So what even if he misquoted the report or study, who says the stupid report or study was right in the first place ?
You might want to check with GT on that. He has since admitted it was wrong. What I discovered, however, is that any even cursory reading of his own references – Newsholme & Start and the Resef 2003 paper – would never have supported it in the first place. I’m sure it’s far more likely that ALL the scientific studies are wrong though and none exists to support it, right?
Thank you Mr Moore for your podcast!!
As a new low carb lifestyle practicer it was very difficult for me to listen to this woman!!!
She sounds like a low self discipline ,low self esteem person looking for a justification to have Chinese fried rice with her husband without feeling self-guilt.
I felt very disturbed after listening this particular show.
Looking forward that the next one will cheer me up!!
CarbSane, you were the one who got me to questioning the wisdom of eating a high fat diet due to possible insulin resistance. I eventually threw out the idea of low carb entirely!
Think about this:
Take 1000 Calories of apples and cook them down and refine all of the energy from them. You are left with 1000 Calories of sugars, fats and proteins. Do you really believe that it takes exactly as much energy for your body to extract 1000 Calories from raw apples as it does for your body to absorb 1000 Calories of the refined components?
When you were losing all that weight at first eating salad, were there raw components?
Were the Pima indians eating just as many raw components after being put on a reservation?
Do you believe eating 1000 Calories of celery is going to produce EXACTLY the same metabolic balance as eating 1000 Calories of butter?
Do you think the increased energy requirements of having a large brain might have demanded an efficient means of obtaining energy (i.e. via cooking)? Is it possible that we have become SO efficient as to actually have bypassed our body’s adaptability to our new extremely efficient foods? If so, then reversing the process would simply mean to incorporate more raw foods into the diet. At least enough raw food to get back to a lean and insulin sensitive state.
Love ya CarbSane!
Finally got around to seeing this Frank. I’m going to address your last point first. Do you suppose I live in a different reality than you? I mean really now. What does the fact that any of us lose weight low carbing have to do with the validity of the theories as to why? This post links to a BBC broadcast I think everyone should listen to: http://carbsanity.blogspot.com/2011/01/must-see-tv-for-those-suffering-from.html
The totality of my experiences in my life, as I shared in the interview, was that I never had trouble losing weight. The issue was keeping it off. Had I not tried to maintain a bodyweight that was too low for me after my first attempt to diet off a few puberty + some fast food lunches I would probably never had a weight problem to speak of.
The principles work? How about the billions of people in hundreds if not thousands of cultures consuming high % carb diets where obesity is virtually absent? Sounds like that principle works too.
The evidence needs to be there to support the theories for the purveyor to have credibility. It’s simply not there, therefore the theories are not credible. That the evidence has been contrary since before the publication of GCBC is an issue for me. Apparently others prefer a more blind following approach. That’s the only way I can describe it.
The internet provides a level of anonymity which some take as allowing them to step outside societal bounds using rudeness, sarcasm and personal attacks… rather than rational, adult, reasonable discussion. Perhaps by hiding behind a pseudonym you feel even less constrained than others… for me the result is simply that you have lost all credibility. You might note that up to this point my comments here to you for the outset have given you the benefit of the doubt and I thought were respectful.
If your reasoning is sound it stands on it’s own without need to resort to hyperbole and vitriol.
Frank, I feel very much the same as you and the many others who have echoed these thoughts.
“CarbSense”, it was interesting to hear what you had to say, but it might serve you well to take a step back, exhale, and really hear what people are saying. The way you present your information, especially on your blog, comes off as spiteful and unprofessional. It is your very presentation that discredits the information you are trying to share, not others unwillingness to hear you.
It’s your right to remain anonymous and to question science, but the disrespectful and defensive manner in which you address people really makes you come across as small and bitter. Perhaps a refinement in the delivery of your message will open more ears, instead of having people tune out.
Just when I think I’m beginning to understand things, I listen to this podcast. Thank you JM for doing this great show! I think it says a lot about you that you invite people on to the show who disagree with you…and that you do it in a way that is not disagreeable. I think CarbSane sounded extremely intelligent and raised very serious questions, despite her awkwardly nervous laughing. I give her a lot of credit, especially considering that this is just a hobby for her! I very much look forward to hearing GT respond to these serious charges/questions. I will reserve my opinion until I hear his reply this Thursday.
Keep up the good work Jimmy and Carbsane! Both of you are doing a huge public service!
From one opened mind to another, I totally agree with you, Zuckdawg!
Jimmy, you have really outdone yourself this time. She certainly seemed normal and stable in the beginning of the interview but spiraled down about when she started talking about how you canāt gain more than a pound of fat eating a pound of cookie dough. (Is it about calories or is it about weight of food? Nevermind, I donāt want to know what she thinks.)
The woman (she’s certainly no lady) was civil enough on the podcast but geeze her attitude in the comments here and on her blog where she can hide behind anonymity is atrocious. The condescending tone is bad enough, but throw in the nasty and itās just too aggravating to read. IF anything she says is accurate the message canāt get through because of the messenger. No wonder sheās adamant about remaining anonymous.
I tried to check out her blog but became appalled when she called Gary Taubes schizophrenic and bipolar. Sheās the one who sounds schizo – she chooses to go low carb to lose weight but talks all about the calories.
She could take lessons from Denise Minger on how to actually analyze information put out by someone – document the inconsistencies or errors – debunk conclusions and still maintain dignity, grace and professionalism.
I also tried to read the e-mail from Gary to her and commend him on his attempt to reason with an unreasonable woman. She really seems like someone who grasped a straw attempting to draw attention her way. Well, sheās done it, but it aināt looking good. Everything she said contradicts not just Gary, but also Dr. Bernstein, Robb Wolf, Dr. Eades, etc. etc. etc. Why on earth should we listen to her? People will argue with her just for sport but I donāt see anyone with half a brain taking anything she says seriously. Rude people like her arenāt worth my time. If I never see her name again itāll be too soon. Pity, it would be fun to play a drinking game on every time she says, āOkay?ā or does that laughter thing.
Even here in the comments, people keep telling her it’s possible for someone to eat a pound of cookies and wind up gaining more than a pound of fat BECAUSE THEY CONVERTED LEAN TISSUE INTO FAT and she went nuts on them, ranting about how you can’t gain more than a pound from eating a pound. That’s not what the original claim was about. The original claim was about converting lean tissue to fat in response to metabolic derangement.
By the way, come to think of it, since someone who is metabolically deranged in response to carbohydrates also tends to put on water weight in response to carb intake, YES, it IS possible to gain more than one pound even if you are talking about maintaining the same amount of lean mass. If some of that weight is water, it doesn’t matter, you’re still gaining it and you’ll hold on to it til conditions in your body change and allow you to let it go.
I suffer from edema periodically, have since I was 18 and slender. That’s weight gain. Water weighs something. If eating more carbs means you take on more water then it IS entirely possible you’ll gain more in weight than you ate in weight.
I have yet to hear of someone packing on water weight in response to eating lard, by the way. I suppose it’s possible, I just don’t hear about it. And you’d think I would. I “hang out” online with a LOT of high-fat eaters now.
p.s. Those Quest bars are awesome!! I’ve already gone through one box! š
Why have the comments for CarbSane been scrubbed?
Well, one person was being very obnoxious, so we banned that one person’s IP address. It just so happens that about 15 “different people” (who posted only in conversations about CarbSane) just happened to be coming from the exact same IP address.
For those not tech-savy, that means that someone was setting up “sock puppet” accounts claiming to be multiple people in order to make it seem like there were a lot of people discussing a certain topic. This technique is also sometimes called “astroturfing.”
There were other obvious signs that this was all one person, but I’m not divulging them in hopes that this person will not learn from her/his mistakes.