With the variety of people and eating habits exercise habits success and failures with fat-gain/loss, it is easy and normal for the discussion to lapse into "we're all different," because in so many obvious ways we ARE that. The hope that Taubes offers is based on how we're all similar...and evolution has seen to it that in many ways, we are all similar. One way is that excess insulin, in all of us, makes us gain weight.
What constitutes "excess" for you might not be excess for me, and that's where some honest-to-goodness differences come in. Different ethnicities tend to respond differently to sugar and insulin, and a reasonable explanation is that their ancestors have had more time to adapt to it. Israelies tend to be insulin-sensitive, TEND to tolerate carbs better than...most Native Americans (who "got" agriculture late) do. (You WANT to be insulin-sensitive...it means you produce less insulin in response to high blood glucose, because a little insulin does a lot) Insulin-resistance may not be the only thing that leads to fat gain, but it is certainly a key factor for many. Insulin resistance can start in the womb (as Taubes notes...let me make it clear that I am reiterating, not making this up and not speaking from knowledge gained in the lab). Obese women (who are insulin-resistant) can pass on their insulin-resistance to the gestating baby, making it easier for the baby to become overweight as an adult. Exercise helps weight loss not because it burns calories, but because muscle is more insulin-sensitive than fat. Calorie restricted diets help weight loss because they reduce your carb load....so while the calories are cut back some, the carbs are cut back hugely. You can count the pre- and post- calories or carbs, and see the diff. Most people attribute the loss to the cut in calories, when there's plenty evidence that it's the carbcut that should get the credit. One quick story, then I'm outa this (interesting) thread. Robert Bailey, the Riv-guy who got his legs chopped off by the tractorish thing, was gaining weight and getting fat and not (as you can imagine) getting a lot of exercise. In the last 6 months or so, he's lost 50 pounds. He has 25 more to go. His 50 pound loss cannot be the result of burning off the excess calories through exercise, because (although he recently completed RAGBRAI), he is not, by any standards, a vigorous/hard exerciser. He says he cut way back on carbs. It's not EASY, but restricting carbs offers hope based on science. Losing weight by overexercising and undereating has a lousy success record. Although I have never been (by most standards) overweight, I have the normal adult male concerns and struggles, and my own standard---which, I understand---does not win me much sympathy, when I "feel fat" when I don't look it. But we ALL have a standard, and most of us are keen to our own bellies. For me, the only way the unsympathy-engendering amount of fat comes off is by not eating grains. If you can do it by exercising hard and long, and will power, and calorie restriction--- and you can maintain that without feeling like the fat-wolf is at the door---that's great. If it doesn't work for you, read the Red book and get inspired by the science of fat accumulation. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
