Why Deny the Obvious?

Updated 7.22.2014; reformatted 8.22.2015
I said I'd write a series on "getting back" to maintaining (meaning I have resumed my habits of eating for my size and not being sedentary) and the effect on my weight, but it doesn't make sense to write much until there's something to report. After all, I've said what I'm going to do. I'm doing it, and so far two pounds of the three to four (I know I said three in the first piece about this, but the reality is it was closer to four) have "gone". Which means it was mostly water weight anyway.

For anyone keeping track (only me) I restarted my habits on the day after our return. Three days later, the scale read two pounds lighter.

It's how much we eat

Dr. Michael Eades has a blog. He's the author (along with his wife) of a low carb diet book called Protein Power. I own this book; I bought it after my in-laws had brief success on a low carb diet. We also had brief success with the diet, but found it wasn't sustainable and dropped it. It was the only time that I broke the resolve made in my 20's never to diet.

I used to tell people that the first three letters in the diet were "die" and so I wouldn't do it. Gotta love the certainty of youth.

Anyway, the good doctor is looking to rewrite (and likely self-publish) his book (I will not be purchasing it this time). I never bought into the mythology of low carb, it works as long as you follow it because it precludes a lot of calorie dense items and involves eating a ton of protein, which is satiating. Eat less (fewer calories), lose weight, so long as you adhere to the diet.

But that factual statement is an anathema to most low carbers. It's not the calories they insist, it's the carbs. Just don't eat carbs and you can eat as much as you want. My reason for highlighting the blog post above though is because Eades attempts to demonstrate this point, but fails utterly.

In the post, he points to a video of a doctor who correctly notes that it's NOT genetics causing the increase in obesity rates, it's the fact that we eat too much. From here Eades points to a studies that show that most correlations conflict with the rise in obesity. Funnily enough... the correlation between caloric intake (which tracks very nicely with increasing population obesity rates) isn't mentioned in any of the links he chooses.

No need for complication.

There's no need to complicate things. We are fatter because as a race we are eating more. Why?

Low carb zealots will argue it's the carbs, despite the fact that populations ate carbs for generations without becoming obese. (I use the population here deliberately, this isn't a argument about individuals). Others will argue that it's food companies fault, or it's pollutants, or socioeconomic factors. Or some other possible excuse for it.

Very often in science the simplest answer that is the most elegant. In nutrition this definitely is the case. As a population we are fatter because we are eating more, depending on the source between 400-550 calories per day. That's the ugly truth, and that's your obesity epidemic explained.

I also think that we are more sedentary (more desk jobs) and that contributes as well. According to the "debunked" correlations people are (as an average for the population) exercising a whopping FOUR minutes more than historically. In now way will FOUR minutes more offset sitting on your seat all day.

But the reality remains, you can't be obese unless you eat more than you expend. Weight doesn't materialize from nothing. We are fatter because we're eating more (on the population level).

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