I am in the middle of Gary’s book GCBC so obviously haven’t finished reading it to fully understand, however I am a little confused by what i have read above here, and by what Gary has said himself.. a post above says he recommends no-carbs, yet in one of his interviews he says he eats plenty of veges.. yet veges contain carbs too!

secondly, would you give an example of what a typical week of your food intake was like in order for you to have lost weight? Did you eat veges? Did you eat to hunger only or a specific number of meals?

Look forward to any insight!

From what I understand, Taubes doesn’t recommend an Atkins-like diet as the optimal diet–in fact, he doesn’t recommend anything specific at all. The best we can go is follow guidelines to help us eat better. Especially today where the power of social media could convert thousands to a new fad diet overnight, misinformation could be a big problem if an author is not careful.

In any case, we’ll only have to wait a few more months for his new book and then we’ll find out exactly what Taubes’ specific diet recommendations are:

Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It

None of this matters. What matters is that he at LEAST has a point that should be SCIENTIFICALLY analyzed, but even then I can be selfish and proclaim that it worked for me – I lost 25 pounds in about 2.5 months.

Bravo GT! Thanks for the GOOD advice!

I should say that I’m now eating lower-carb than the typical American, but not no-carb as Taubes recommends. I’m keeping to a range of around 100g of mostly complex carbs (including what I get from e.g. vegetables) per day. This strategy comes from some input from Diana Schwartzbein’s books, which I may review at some point in the future. My understanding was that carbs act as a catalyst for your body to process the fat and protein. You need some for structural building, but too much results in excess body fat and other health problems.

There was a sequel called The Superfoods rx Diet, which advocates eating lots of whole natural super foods (good) and strict portion control (not so good). It is definitely not a low-fat diet and even recommends avoiding low-fat versions of foods, which can have unnatural properties, but it doesn’t go so far as to ok foods with saturated fat like butter or beef.

A couple thoughts:

• If he understood that there really aren’t negative health effects from saturated fats and dietary cholesterol, I think that Pratt (Superfoods author) might have considered red meat, butter, and whole eggs as superfoods.
• Whole grains, pumpkin, and oranges may pack a punch in terms of nutrients but they have to be eaten in moderation to keep the carbohyrdate count down, and they are particularly vulnerable to processing – orange juice, for example, really hits one with a lot of fructose and other sugars.