Good Calories, Bad Calories

The above title of this post is also the title of a book published in 2008 by science writer Gary Taubes, full title Good Calories, Bad Calories, Fat, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health.** At 609 pages (counting bibliography and index), I guess we could call it a tome. However, I found it hard to put down.

We had moved to Colorado, and sometime prior to 2011 we went to Boulder to hear Noam Chomsky speak. We got probably the last two tickets and were at the very back of the balcony. I remember it well because I had a hard time squeezing my fat ass into my seat. Some time after that I told my wife that I had to change my eating habits. I had read Taubes’ book, and it made sense to me. Here’s a partial list of the things I gave up:

Pizza, cookies, ice cream, spaghetti (all pastas), bread, beer, pizza, donuts, candy, candy bars, chocolate, potatoes, pizza, onion rings, French fries,  … man I love pizza. Also, many fruits and vegetables have high carbohydrate value. Here’s a link to a site that lists good low-carb fruits and vegetables. Strawberries are always in season at our house. White wine is a safe bet over red.

You might suspect that a diet like that, eating primarily meat, cheese, and eggs, would be unsustainable. Not too long into it I found that I was rarely hungry. I also knew from experience that it is easier to do completely without something like cookies or candy bars than to occasionally indulge. So I was not suffering. I was losing weight, feeling lighter on my feet, and never suffered hunger pangs or the shakes as I had before with a sugar/starch-based diet.

Taubes is now on Substack, and I left the following comment on his first entry:

Mr. Taubes, so good to be reading your work again. I started out with Good Calories Bad Calories over a decade ago, and changed my way of eating. I eliminated almost all carbs and stuck to fat and protein. Recently I had to fill out a medical history for a dentist, and the assistant called me over and ask if I had done that. Yes, I had, I said, and sent it to you. I was just wondering she said, as her hand passed over all of the conditions they list, and I have none of them. I credit my health to my diet, and though I lost weight in the process while following your advice, I take personal credit for reading the book and then being convinced by my own evidence that it works. I am now 74, by the way.

Regarding journalism as a whole, your work reminds me to some degree of Noam Chomsky, long a critic of the field. He studied the influence that control journalists, and came up with what is called a “propaganda model”, I think implying that by its very structure, as you assert, it cannot do its purported job. My own experience is that truly good journalists tend to leave the field, even if only to paint houses, as to have been broken in by editors on their knees before publishers.

He answered me, advising that I be cautious about anecdotal evidence, which is what I had presented. I answered that in addition to dieting, I also do not take prescription drugs or vitamins or vaccines, and that I am a gym rat, so it could be a lot of things. My parents lived long lives, Dad’s truck often littered with candy-bar wrappers. Genetics must have something to do with it, though at 74 I have outlived my brothers, who died at 56, 68 and 69. I also know that low-carbing is not as effective for women as men. That has something to do with estrogen that I do not understand.

It has been well over a decade now since I read the Taubes  book, and I am slowly gaining weight even as I adhere to low-carb, or KETO eating and exercise regularly. That must have to do with aging, oh, and one other thing: When we are at someone else’s home for a meal, I think it might make them uncomfortable to have to worry about someone who is dieting. So I assure them in advance if they ask, “If you put it  in front of me I will eat it.” That includes desserts. A day off never hurts. But these days as I walk down the aisles of grocery stores, I find it discouraging that most the store is devoted to sugar and starch, entire aisles of chips, cookies, sugary sodas, candy, and of course, bread. If we have obesity and diabetes epidemics, look no further.

A confession: I drive to nearby Evergreen, Colorado for my monthly haircut. To get there, I go through a tiny town called Marshdale. There they have a gas station/convenience store that sells Hunts Brothers pizza by the slice. One slice is maybe a quarter of a small pizza. I have a slice going, and one returning. I really look forward to haircut day.

While still in Bozeman, we went to a lunchtime meeting, and the lead speaker was a trained dietician. I wanted to wring her neck, but sat quietly through the entire presentation. She assured everyone that the key to dieting was to count calories and make sure that you burned more than you took in. That is nonsense. I used to run five miles on a treadmill two or three times a week, and gained weight the entire time. I wanted to suggest to her, but would have embarrassed both me and my wife, that in addition to calories out and in, there is also the matter of calories contained in excrement. I suspect Keto encourages a lot of calory dumping (so to speak) via that route. Taubes suggests to people, controversially, that exercise, while a good thing, is not an effective weight loss tool.

More and more people support KETO now, even the professionals. It is not calories, but rather the type of food we eat that leads to better health and weight loss.

We used to subscribe to Consumer Reports, and again it was neck-wringing time – their chief dietician was reviewing fast foods, and recommended some of her favorites in terms of good eating habits and health. One of them, I’ve long forgotten which, was a lunch entry that contained 87 carbohydrates. That’s as many as I ingest in three months! She had no clue that the key to health and weight loss was to count carbs, not calories. I thought that if the magazine’s dietary advice is that bad, what about the rest of their stuff? I dropped them.

One more anecdote. We had a friend in Bozeman with a weight problem, though not morbid. We met with her in 2020 when Covid had just gotten underway. She insisted that we meet outdoors, and we agreed. We did not wear masks, she did, and was quite upset with us that we did not. In addition, she was on a costly limited-food intake diet, trying to lose weight by starvation. Between fear of the virus and starving herself, she had had what I regard as a psychotic break. Starvation diets do not work, as people cannot live like that! And there was no virus. I didn’t help myself by suggesting that. We are no longer friends.

There are quite a few questions surrounding KETO, good ones. How do the Chinese maintain good health on a rice (starch) based diet? The Italians with so much pasta? Obviously there is more to this subject than I comprehend. However, I do want to link to the Taubes’ blog, called Uncertainty Principles and give him a round of applause for helping to change the direction of my life, weight and health.

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**Taubes has written a shorter version of the book, called Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It.