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How many books or articles have you read, which just deliver the information and the science, without the over-reach of actually trying to tell you what to do with giving you the information behind the advice?

A book that brings all the hard science into one digestible and highly satisfying narrative without cognitive dissonance sticking in the throat

Do feel as if your ideal, healthy weight and the fashion of today are different? Do you think diets such as Dukan or Atkins that suggest a meat only diet are scary or so boring to render them useless as they are not sustainable?

I just read a book that changed or answered all of that as it treated the reader like an intelligent, knowledgeable person – because it is aimed at doctors and health professionals – instead of uneducated, gullible fad dieters.
Gary Taubes’ book Why We Get Fat (And What To Do About It) does 2 very important things. Firstly, most importantly for anyone to gain proper understanding of a subject, it provides the hard science. Firstly the book explains how the body works and what hormones, enzymes, fatty acids, fat cells, triglycerides, muscle, organs, insulin, LDL and HDL all do in the body. Secondly, it brings together all the research, findings, diets, trials, results and conclusions to the question “why we get fat” into one flowing narrative that would satisfy everyone from an interested dieter (me) up to a doctor or scientist. It provides information that health authorities and national institutions of medicine, health or nutrition should be satisfied by if their egos do not get too much in the way.
One very important point for me is addressed, with proper journalistic context, and that is the “cognitive dissonance” experienced by a reader of information that doesn’t sit right or even two pieces of information given together that seem to be completely contradictory to each other.

Crab is satisfying and filling on its own.

I have been taking various bio-resonance tests by Langton Smith Health (by hair sample) to discover that I have a dairy intolerance, nutrients and vitamins I lack, which toxins I have absorbed and which carbs in particular effect my metabolism. The results of the tests by Langton Smith Health were so much more helpful and digestible for me than the very vague results from DNAfit, which I also tried as I had long suspected that genetics played a part in diets and that they were not “one-size-fits-all”.

This all started last June, when I read something my grandfather had written about asthma and allergies, which led me onto food intolerance. I started reading about how specific foods made us fat and how to eliminate sensitivities to lose weight, while always in the background I thought that my genetics required me to be much more physically active to shed the pounds, which diet alone would not touch.
It seems that most people have reached the understanding that the reason diets or fitness regimes don’t achieve lasting results, as the minute you go back to your preferred lifestyle, the fat bounces back.
I just looked again at all my test results from Langton Smith Health after reading Why We Get Fat and reviewed where they have led me and put them all in a folder (to print out and stick to fridge) as I have just finished the book that brings all the information together into one digestible meal of information.

The vitamin and mineral test led me via magnesium, wild yam (I found some in London but forgot to buy them so got supplements) via ashwanga and fish oils etc to a book, which I’ve just read that brings all the science, research, experiments and conclusions together on weight and health through nutrition.

Previously I’ve read books, such as “fat around the middle” and experienced cognitive dissonance when points contradict each other. I have always thought, whatever I have read or heard, despite all I have read and all my parents read, that: 1. excercise is not to do with weight loss 2. sugar and high GI carbs block the nutrients from leafy greens and protein. 3. fat is not about calories in or calories out but what foods are eaten. 4. that nutrients and vitamins are a last resort 5. that diseases can be avoided through diet. 5. a genetic predisposition for certain diseases means knowing about nutrition is very important to avoid developing these  6. people who are thin and active eat whatever they want whenever they are hungry (except the ones i know who are always skint) 7. we have a genetic natural weight (finding it can be done by the right, information, understanding and nutrition) and some people will be healthy but never skinny, which is fine. (some people will be skinny but not healthy due to the same Gordian Knot of info out there).

My brother shed all his youthful fat with a pasta/bread/rice/potato free diet in 1987 (maybe he got it from Atkins, I don’t remember) and it had always interested me. But he never really told me that it was forever, which again was a bit of cognitive dissonance as I would have loved to have known to stop carbs when I was a teenager but he made out like it was a temporary thing. We both have hunter-gatherer genes and today have a similarish diet.

In London, the transition to the high protein, low/almost non-existent carb diet I can do now very happily would have been some transition and with commuting to work I was scared of having periods of great tiredness and the uncertainty of what would happen, so I’ve slowly changed my diet with a few ? hanging over fruit, veg, eggs, dairy and already cutting out bread, cereal, (oats thanks to Langton Smith) potatoes, tomato, cauliflower etc as I realised if I didn’t feel good or fell asleep afterwards or lacked energy, they weren’t working for me.

It is easy to ask for a full english breakfast without the beans, toast or hash browns

For me, the ultimate feeling of having finally understood it all (and removing my uncertainties of the Atkins diet as I never read the book as eating beef – and it includes dairy, which would have given me personal cognitive dissonance) is due to Gary Taubes’ explanations of insulin, fatty acids, triglycerides, muscles, organs, LDL and HDL, hormones, enzymes etc and how our bodies work. In other words, I wanted the hard science and the whole room, not just the corners of exercise, fasting, nutritients and dietary supplements and intolerances.

So am doing a blog/trip advisor trip on items in restaurants that are free of diary, sugar and high GI carbs (including fruit and veg) without calling them on their intolerance or allergy notice or having to ask for much of an exception to what is listed or resorting to a green salad. My aim is to encourage more places to cater for a paleolithic diet or keto or Atkins, whatever it is best termed as. So many places cater for vegans, gluten free (why not just an alternative to carbs?) vegetarians etc but the idea of being able to choose items such as smoked salmon, bacon, mushrooms, green leaves and avocado could be a restaurant revolution for people eating out who don’t want to eat dairy, carbs, sugar or excess salt.

Thought it may interest you. Just started so will let you know my progress if it shifts a few more pounds as the story so far is I lost about 6lb since i started then plateaued, with a spike after a meal out (forgiving a few naughty bits to not be a trouble or embarrass my companions).

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