Abigail's Reviews > Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It

We’ve been duped. All of us. Well-intentioned people have told us that if we just eat fewer calories than we burn, we’ll lose weight. In fact, I know people who’ve used that technique successfully. But this book explains the science behind why counting calories is pointless, and reducing carbohydrates is the only way to lose weight. (If you’re smart about counting calories, you probably reduce sugar first, which is why it seems to work to reduce calories.) If you’re willing to take my word for it, go buy Dr. Atkins or your favorite high-fat, low-carb diet book; otherwise read this book first.

“Why We Get Fat: And What To Do About It” is the book I was kind-of hoping the author’s “Good Calories, Bad Calories” would be, but I’m actually glad they’re separate books. If you’ve already read GCBC, then you only need to read the last chapter and FAQ section of WWGF; otherwise it’s all the same information, but shorter, with more analogies and fewer researchers’ names, and presented with conclusion first and arguments after. However, I’m what they call a “high convincer,” so I appreciated the detail of GCBC (on both the science and history) that explains how we came to believe things that aren’t, as much as science can say it, true. Most people don’t need that level of detail and will be fine reading this one. Taubes does fall prey a little to the idea that we should get this message out even though more research is going on — the very same notion for which he criticizes the low-fat folks, who did a lot of harm by deciding on an answer before they did the research — but I’ll forgive him because he acknowledges it, and because the science of the body is uncontroversial and the science about diet is both consistent so far and resolves a lot of the seeming paradoxes in the previous research.

On the one hand, I’m glad that I now understand why the Atkins diet works. On the other hand, without bread and chocolate, life isn’t worth living, so I know I won’t be able to go completely carb-free (although most people don’t have to do that except to start out the diet). Back to the first hand, I really would like to avoid cancer, hypertension, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and the host of other “diseases of civilization” that are beyond reasonable doubt associated with the increased intake of white flour, white sugar and white rice that comprises so much of the modern Western diet. Chocolate cake now or Alzheimer’s later? It’s a conundrum, honestly — a test of the conscious mind and delayed gratification over the sugar craving. For me, so far sugar is winning, but at least I feel guilty about the right things now.

I hope people read this book, so that we can stop arguing about things that are pretty well proven false now (e.g., high-carb diets are good for you) and start figuring out how we can turn around the epidemic of diseases that’s plaguing our nation. In fact, this book sticks to its title thesis admirably well. I wish it had emphasized the association of refined carbohydrates with “Western” diseases even more, so that lean folks would know the message is for them, too.