Gary Taubes on Why We Get Fat and The Process of Changing Popular Myth

Recently I have been writing a lot on topics related to home workout programs and how they can help you reach 1 of the 3 universally desired body outcomes.

Although I am absolutely a supporter of many exercise programs on the market (mostly because they supercharge your results), they are not the primary thing which drives us towards a lifetime of good health and general fitness. The biggest determining factor in whether we stay lean, healthy, youthful, and feeling great is actually what we eat. The rest, as they say, is trivia and detail.

The American Diet For Years Has Been Based Upon Flawed Premises

The United States of America is one of the leaders in the industrialized west in incidents of diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and cancer. These are the big 4 preventable diseases which also cause the most pain, discomfort, and in many cases death. The important point is that advancing knowledge acquired through research is showing two things. First, research is revealing these conditions to be related. In other words, being obese increases your risk of heart problems, type 2 diabetes, and some forms of cancer. Second, if we eat more of some things and cut out some other things (which we sadly think are good for us), we can go a long way in preventing these sad health outcomes.

What people like Mr. Taubes are essentially saying is that we don't know what we thought we knew and it is wrecking our health and in many instances killing us before our time. The big culprit in all this is eating too much sugar, especially processed sugar found in highly processed foods. Worst of all, many times these foods are labeled as low-calorie or healthy.

Gary Taubes' "Why We Get Fat" Is One Very Important Resource For Us In Getting The Diet Portion Of Our Lives Right

I have talked previously about how much I liked the concepts and how they are laid out in Mark Sisson's book "Primal Blueprint". The crux of the book is that not all calories are created equal. Some foods, while low in calories, cause us to gain weight because of the effect they have on our internal body chemistry. This is mostly true when you are talking about packaged or processed foods which contain sugar or processed sugar in the form of corn syrup. These are foods which have not been adequately exposed for the dangers they pose to our health and fitness.

Mr. Taubes' more recent book referenced above sheds even more light on the myth of "low-fat" and "low-calorie" foods in a highly readable manner. If we can come in contact with more resources which talk about the issue of what actually makes us fat in our diets, we'll see a change in the dialogue and with time, the current ideas will evolve to having us choosing more wholesome foods. A great place to start to change your understanding is Mr. Taubes' website. Spend 5 or 10 minutes a day there just browsing around. If you care about health and fitness, this will represent time well spent.

Your goal is not to be an expert on the subject he writes about. Your goal is greater understanding and an increased ability to ask the right questions before you choose certain foods.