Eating And Exercise Are Strongly Linked

By Michael Anchors, MD, PhD

Posted by Michael Anchors, MD, PhD 
Thursday, November 03, 2016 9:32 am  Email this article 
 ​Last week I read Gary Taubes’ wonderful book How We Get Fat and What To Do About It (2010). The book taught me nothing new, but I admired the clear way Gary expressed things. In particular he reminded me that it is impossible to lose weight by eating less or exercising more. Because of insulin, if you exercise more, you WILL eat more. If you eat less, you WILL move less. You cannot overcome it with willpower.
Pause for a moment to consider how much of what most people and doctors “know” is bullcorn.  I continue to be amazed by it. Science and math, reading, are the only things on which you can rely. What people only tell you is worthless.
Gary reminded me that as people age, they gain weight and there’s little you can do about it. Under the influence of insulin, men increase the amount of the enzyme LPL on the surface of fat cells in the upper body. Women, same thing, but lower body. LPL increases the share of dietary fat going to fat cells to be stored, less going to muscle as fuel.
What you can do about it is to decrease insulin by eating less sugar, sweeteners and white flour. Type 2 diabetics on insulin shots should change their diet to get down to as low a dose of insulin as possible.
If you get Gary’s book, ignore everything he says about cholesterol in the later part of the book. The book was written in 2010 and Gary was not yet up to speed on that issue. I wasn’t either, but we are now. Fat and cholesterol have nothing to do with heart attacks. There you go—another example of the nonsense most people “know”.