Gary Taubes on “Why We Get Fat”

Yes, Yes, Yes.  Eating the crap foods creates cravings for more crap food — and you are living in a vicious cycle.  That’s why I think eating a Paleo like diet is key. Cut out most carbs and eat whole, clean food —  not processed – you are good to go. Look into the science more and see what you think —

Taubes challenges the conventional wisdom that says if we just eat less and exercise more we will lose weight. He contends that carbohydrates – sweets, breads and fruit – and not fatty foods are to blame for our nation’s rising obesity rate.

We’re not fat because we’re gluttons with no willpower who sit around watching too much TV, he says. Instead, we become couch potatoes because we are getting fat by eating too much pasta and rice, and too many cookies. That diet brings on a vicious cycle of craving more of the same carbohydrates that sap our energy and pack on the pounds.

“It’s the most important issue in medicine today,” argues Taubes, a fellow at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health. Being fat increases our risk of heart disease and diabetes, he says, as well as cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. Diets that require a steep drop in caloric consumption only allow us to drop pounds temporarily but are not a cure for obesity, he says.

…DeVane and Taubes agree that exercise alone is not the answer because people dramatically underestimate how much exercise is required to burn off pounds. And, Taubes says, exercise will just make you hungrier.