Your confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance is showing - that's not what Alan or James are saying, and if that's what you get from them, you're reading them wrong.
Taubes' claim has always been that obese individuals gained fat mass on a diet that included fewer calories than equilibrium level for their metabolism but too many carbs, which would require that the energy stored in the fat mass of obese individuals came out of nowhere. I really can't help you if you believe Taubes' hypothesis that it's even possible for a human to gain weight on a hypocaloric diet as long as that diet includes carbs - and you you want to read up on a more detailed descriptions of the factors that go into the calorie balance equation, you should start here: : http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-energy-balance-equation.html
Asked and answered upthread- ASP stores fat in the complete absence of insulin which came as a rude surprise to Taubes, Eades, Wolf and several other carb-phobes who keep trying to reduce a complex problem with complex causes to a single cause-and-effect variable to justify their disordered eating pattern. Satiety effects and protein metabolism are separate issues that goes to the psychology of dieting, but as metabolic ward studies have repeatedly shown, macronutrient composition of diet is completely irrelevant to weight loss, only calories in and out matter.
Asked and answered upthread- ASP stores fat in the complete absence of insulin which came as a rude surprise to Taubes, Eades, Wolf and several other carb-phobes who keep trying to reduce a complex problem with complex causes to a single cause-and-effect variable to justify their disordered eating pattern.
Asked and answered upthread - Acylation Stimulating Protein http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10355026 which is about two-three orders of magnitude more potent driver of fat storage than insulin is and stores fat in the complete absence of insulin in your system came as a rude surprise to Taubes and the assorted carb-phobes who subscribe to the single-cause-of-all-disease fallacy common to all pre-scientific guesswork that ends up with a Dr. Atkins, Dr. Eades, or Dr. Lustig ascribing assorted problems with a myriad of complex explanations to a single explanation for everything.
As I said upthread: Taubes was of course taken by complete surprise by the existence of Acylation Stimulating Protein http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10355026 which is about two-three orders of magnitude more potent driver of fat storage than insulin is and stores fat in the complete absence of insulin in your system, and he also failed to take into account that protein stimulates more insulin release than carbs do, which leaves both parts of his hypothesis falsified.
But that isn't what Taubes' hypothesis in "Good Calories, Bad Calories or anything he's ever written is.
His claim has always been that calories in/out doesn't matter, that you can consume 2500kcal of mixed carbs/protein/fat and grow obese or consume 3000kcal of protein/fat with 0 carbs and grow lean which is a violation of thermodynamics and completely off-base to how human metabolism actually works.
When I was 250 (okay 253) pounds I was for damn sure obese. Now that I'm around 185lbs I'm still overweight by BMI standards but since I'm hovering around 12-15% body fat depending on where I am in my training and dieting cycles I'm not too fussed.
The difference? Diet. Entirely diet - I increased exercise and it didn't do jack, I started counting calories and the pounds just melted off; and I didn't have to turn into a carb-phobe, a lipid-phobe or cut out any macronutrient to do it, I just had to learn what actual food was and what a portion really looked like.
Re:Alan Aragon is complete bullshit
on
Is Sugar Toxic?
·
· Score: 1
Aragon,Bsc, Ms,= Alan is a continuing education provider for the Commission on Dietetic Registration, National Academy of Sports Medicine, American Council on Exercise, and National Strength & Conditioning Association and guest lectures at various universities: http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2011/02/23/ive-had-my-hands-full/ -
Beef stimulates as much insulin release as brown rice: http://www.ajcn.org/content/66/5/1264.abstract (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9356547) - The acute effects of four protein meals on insulin, glucose, appetite and energy intake in lean men:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20456814 - James Krieger did a write-up of this and a few other studies that excerpted the relevant graphs for anyone who doesn't have full-text access to clinical journals at http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=319
Underestimating of intake is proportional to level of obesity if you look at some of the studies I posted links to - which makes a lot of sense to me; when I was 250lbs I honestly didn't think I was eating that much or that many calories but when I actually started to run the numbers using The Hacker's Diet I discovered why I was screwing myself over with my portion sizes. Now at 185lbs and a 1.5x bodyweight squat (15% body fat after my last bulk, cutting down to about 12% for summer) my calorie intake is in line with my expenditure because I don't rely on guesstimating intake by eyeballing - I am as unreliable as the next person so I do need to measure my portions to actually control intake.
His hypothesis is "Eating carbs stimulates insulin which drives fat storage which makes you fat, excess calories has nothing to do with it and eating carbs can cause fat gain in the absence of excess calories"
Taubes was of course taken by complete surprise by the existence of Acylation Stimulating Protein http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10355026 [nih.gov] which is about two-three orders of magnitude more potent driver of fat storage than insulin is and stores fat in the complete absence of insulin in your system, and he also failed to take into account that protein stimulates more insulin release than carbs do, which leaves both parts of his hypothesis falsified.
He's also claiming that obese individuals will add body mass in absence of excess calories based on self-reporting of calorie intake. Which would leave you with mass appearing from nothing, or you'd go with the alternate explanation which is that people will under-estimate and under-report their intake in proportion to their level of obesity:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9312790
Taubes was of course taken by complete surprise by the existence of Acylation Stimulating Protein http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10355026 which is about two-three orders of magnitude more potent driver of fat storage than insulin is and stores fat in the complete absence of insulin in your system, and he also failed to take into account that protein stimulates more insulin release than carbs do, which leaves both parts of his hypothesis falsified.
Re:It's complete bullshit
on
Is Sugar Toxic?
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Taubes claim is that obese individuals don't consume excess calories or more calories than lean individuals, but that the percentage of carb intake is higher and that the source of calories causes fat gain.
His primary support for this is studies using self-reported calorie intakes, which is utterly useless since people will typically under-estimate their calorie intake by 20-60% http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7985624 , http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10745278 and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9312790 combined with vastly over-estimating their energy expenditure: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21178922
Taubes' theory requires that there are magic insulin fairies that come in the night and add fat mass to innocent overweight and obese individuals who accidentally had some carbs. The alternative hypothesis - that people lie to themselves and don't know how much food they actually need or what's in the stuff they're eating is much simpler, neh?
It's complete bullshit
on
Is Sugar Toxic?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Lusting has been extensively debunked by Alan Aragon http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/02/19/a-retrospective-of-the-fructose-alarmism-debate/ and James Krieger, amongst others; and Gary Taubes' carb hypothesis requires that obese individuals are capable of violating the laws of thermodynamics and the laws of conservation of mass so he's just reaching for something, anything that can vaguely support his bullshit claims.
Mmm, you're forgetting warehousing costs, storage, inventory, breakage, rent for the store, shipping costs, and a whole host of other expenses associated with running any business. The usual retail profit margin is around 3-5% on that 150% markup on account of these costs - you can quite easily go bankrupt if you only operate on a 100% markup.
What's considered acceptable profit margins vary a lot from industry to industry of course - Microsoft with their 80% profit margin and the drug companies with their 18%-24%(ish) profit margin are quite different from your neighbourhood grocery store with a 4% profit margin.
It depends partly on volume - if your turnover is 50K items a day you can have a much lower margin per sold item and still wind up with an acceptable living - if you sell 3-4 stereos a week you damn well better have a solid markup on each just to keep the store open in the slow season. Typical gift-type retailers (ex. toy stores, flatware) make most of their 'profits for the year during the run-up to Christmas, and to make sure they don't miss out they typically stock up a lot - something that requires you to tie up a lot of capital in stuff sitting in the back room. Cutting that "Stay-in-business"-margin during the post-holiday season to make sure you get whatever money is available in the market at a lower price point for the post-holiday season makes good business sense - you need to get your capital back out of the stock that didn't sell out before christmas, and make room for the next season.
It's not getting ripped off though - either before or during the sale. But it's also why you're never going to see significant MegaSales prices before Christmas - retailers are banking on you and your friends/family buying gifts before Christmas, and stocking up on personal stuff on the sale afterwards.
So, you support the Microsoft Tax on Email (Bonded Sender) where even non-profit mailing lists like the Linux developement lists have to pay IronPort/Bonded Sender to be able to send mail to people who've asked for the mail?
I think the consequences of that are likely to be far more unpleasant than the current spam situation....
Probably not - that was just a "Poison Pill" to make the takeover/buyout completely unprofitable for Oracle and their stockholders.
Poison pills are almost never in the stockholder's best interest - they're mainly used by entrenched boards and management who see their jobs threathened by any takeover, be it "hostile" or "friendly".
Since Oracle launched a lawsuit challenging that particular little gem, I think it's unlikely that anyone can take advantage of it before Oracle gains operational control and cancels the offer.
Slashdot Mirror
Leon Lederman started out calling it "The goddamned particle" but his editor wouldn't let him so it got shortened to the "god particle" : http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/jun/30/higgs.boson.cern and the media then ran with it ;)
Your confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance is showing - that's not what Alan or James are saying, and if that's what you get from them, you're reading them wrong.
Taubes' claim has always been that obese individuals gained fat mass on a diet that included fewer calories than equilibrium level for their metabolism but too many carbs, which would require that the energy stored in the fat mass of obese individuals came out of nowhere. I really can't help you if you believe Taubes' hypothesis that it's even possible for a human to gain weight on a hypocaloric diet as long as that diet includes carbs - and you you want to read up on a more detailed descriptions of the factors that go into the calorie balance equation, you should start here: : http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-energy-balance-equation.html
Asked and answered upthread- ASP stores fat in the complete absence of insulin which came as a rude surprise to Taubes, Eades, Wolf and several other carb-phobes who keep trying to reduce a complex problem with complex causes to a single cause-and-effect variable to justify their disordered eating pattern. Satiety effects and protein metabolism are separate issues that goes to the psychology of dieting, but as metabolic ward studies have repeatedly shown, macronutrient composition of diet is completely irrelevant to weight loss, only calories in and out matter.
Asked and answered upthread- ASP stores fat in the complete absence of insulin which came as a rude surprise to Taubes, Eades, Wolf and several other carb-phobes who keep trying to reduce a complex problem with complex causes to a single cause-and-effect variable to justify their disordered eating pattern.
Asked and answered upthread - Acylation Stimulating Protein http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10355026 which is about two-three orders of magnitude more potent driver of fat storage than insulin is and stores fat in the complete absence of insulin in your system came as a rude surprise to Taubes and the assorted carb-phobes who subscribe to the single-cause-of-all-disease fallacy common to all pre-scientific guesswork that ends up with a Dr. Atkins, Dr. Eades, or Dr. Lustig ascribing assorted problems with a myriad of complex explanations to a single explanation for everything.
As I said upthread: Taubes was of course taken by complete surprise by the existence of Acylation Stimulating Protein http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10355026 which is about two-three orders of magnitude more potent driver of fat storage than insulin is and stores fat in the complete absence of insulin in your system, and he also failed to take into account that protein stimulates more insulin release than carbs do, which leaves both parts of his hypothesis falsified.
Beef stimulates as much insulin release as brown rice: http://www.ajcn.org/content/66/5/1264.abstract ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9356547 ) - The acute effects of four protein meals on insulin, glucose, appetite and energy intake in lean men: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20456814 - James Krieger did a write-up of this and a few other studies that excerpted the relevant graphs for anyone who doesn't have full-text access to clinical journals at http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=319
But that isn't what Taubes' hypothesis in "Good Calories, Bad Calories or anything he's ever written is.
His claim has always been that calories in/out doesn't matter, that you can consume 2500kcal of mixed carbs/protein/fat and grow obese or consume 3000kcal of protein/fat with 0 carbs and grow lean which is a violation of thermodynamics and completely off-base to how human metabolism actually works.
When I was 250 (okay 253) pounds I was for damn sure obese. Now that I'm around 185lbs I'm still overweight by BMI standards but since I'm hovering around 12-15% body fat depending on where I am in my training and dieting cycles I'm not too fussed.
The difference? Diet. Entirely diet - I increased exercise and it didn't do jack, I started counting calories and the pounds just melted off; and I didn't have to turn into a carb-phobe, a lipid-phobe or cut out any macronutrient to do it, I just had to learn what actual food was and what a portion really looked like.
Aragon,Bsc, Ms,= Alan is a continuing education provider for the Commission on Dietetic Registration, National Academy of Sports Medicine, American Council on Exercise, and National Strength & Conditioning Association and guest lectures at various universities: http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2011/02/23/ive-had-my-hands-full/ -
Beef stimulates as much insulin release as brown rice: http://www.ajcn.org/content/66/5/1264.abstract (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9356547) - The acute effects of four protein meals on insulin, glucose, appetite and energy intake in lean men:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20456814 - James Krieger did a write-up of this and a few other studies that excerpted the relevant graphs for anyone who doesn't have full-text access to clinical journals at http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=319
Underestimating of intake is proportional to level of obesity if you look at some of the studies I posted links to - which makes a lot of sense to me; when I was 250lbs I honestly didn't think I was eating that much or that many calories but when I actually started to run the numbers using The Hacker's Diet I discovered why I was screwing myself over with my portion sizes. Now at 185lbs and a 1.5x bodyweight squat (15% body fat after my last bulk, cutting down to about 12% for summer) my calorie intake is in line with my expenditure because I don't rely on guesstimating intake by eyeballing - I am as unreliable as the next person so I do need to measure my portions to actually control intake.
His hypothesis is "Eating carbs stimulates insulin which drives fat storage which makes you fat, excess calories has nothing to do with it and eating carbs can cause fat gain in the absence of excess calories"
Taubes was of course taken by complete surprise by the existence of Acylation Stimulating Protein http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10355026 [nih.gov] which is about two-three orders of magnitude more potent driver of fat storage than insulin is and stores fat in the complete absence of insulin in your system, and he also failed to take into account that protein stimulates more insulin release than carbs do, which leaves both parts of his hypothesis falsified.
He's also claiming that obese individuals will add body mass in absence of excess calories based on self-reporting of calorie intake. Which would leave you with mass appearing from nothing, or you'd go with the alternate explanation which is that people will under-estimate and under-report their intake in proportion to their level of obesity:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9312790
Taubes was of course taken by complete surprise by the existence of Acylation Stimulating Protein http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10355026 which is about two-three orders of magnitude more potent driver of fat storage than insulin is and stores fat in the complete absence of insulin in your system, and he also failed to take into account that protein stimulates more insulin release than carbs do, which leaves both parts of his hypothesis falsified.
You're kind of right - but it's Taubes' understanding of it that's too simplistic: http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-energy-balance-equation.html
Taubes claim is that obese individuals don't consume excess calories or more calories than lean individuals, but that the percentage of carb intake is higher and that the source of calories causes fat gain. His primary support for this is studies using self-reported calorie intakes, which is utterly useless since people will typically under-estimate their calorie intake by 20-60% http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7985624 , http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10745278 and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9312790 combined with vastly over-estimating their energy expenditure: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21178922 Taubes' theory requires that there are magic insulin fairies that come in the night and add fat mass to innocent overweight and obese individuals who accidentally had some carbs. The alternative hypothesis - that people lie to themselves and don't know how much food they actually need or what's in the stuff they're eating is much simpler, neh?
Lusting has been extensively debunked by Alan Aragon http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/02/19/a-retrospective-of-the-fructose-alarmism-debate/ and James Krieger, amongst others; and Gary Taubes' carb hypothesis requires that obese individuals are capable of violating the laws of thermodynamics and the laws of conservation of mass so he's just reaching for something, anything that can vaguely support his bullshit claims.
We Norwegians would like you Danish land thieves to hand back Greenland and cease and desist with the silly claims about Leif and Erik.
:)
I'm sure the Icelanders will be on my case in a second
That would be the Norwegian name, and we'll thank you to remember that, please :)
Mmm, you're forgetting warehousing costs, storage, inventory, breakage, rent for the store, shipping costs, and a whole host of other expenses associated with running any business. The usual retail profit margin is around 3-5% on that 150% markup on account of these costs - you can quite easily go bankrupt if you only operate on a 100% markup.
What's considered acceptable profit margins vary a lot from industry to industry of course - Microsoft with their 80% profit margin and the drug companies with their 18%-24%(ish) profit margin are quite different from your neighbourhood grocery store with a 4% profit margin.
It depends partly on volume - if your turnover is 50K items a day you can have a much lower margin per sold item and still wind up with an acceptable living - if you sell 3-4 stereos a week you damn well better have a solid markup on each just to keep the store open in the slow season. Typical gift-type retailers (ex. toy stores, flatware) make most of their 'profits for the year during the run-up to Christmas, and to make sure they don't miss out they typically stock up a lot - something that requires you to tie up a lot of capital in stuff sitting in the back room. Cutting that "Stay-in-business"-margin during the post-holiday season to make sure you get whatever money is available in the market at a lower price point for the post-holiday season makes good business sense - you need to get your capital back out of the stock that didn't sell out before christmas, and make room for the next season.
It's not getting ripped off though - either before or during the sale. But it's also why you're never going to see significant MegaSales prices before Christmas - retailers are banking on you and your friends/family buying gifts before Christmas, and stocking up on personal stuff on the sale afterwards.
Yeah, that worked real well for Lycos, didn't it?
So, you support the Microsoft Tax on Email (Bonded Sender) where even non-profit mailing lists like the Linux developement lists have to pay IronPort/Bonded Sender to be able to send mail to people who've asked for the mail?
I think the consequences of that are likely to be far more unpleasant than the current spam situation....
Err, didn't Amazon lease Google's tech for that?
Probably not - that was just a "Poison Pill" to make the takeover/buyout completely unprofitable for Oracle and their stockholders.
Poison pills are almost never in the stockholder's best interest - they're mainly used by entrenched boards and management who see their jobs threathened by any takeover, be it "hostile" or "friendly".
Since Oracle launched a lawsuit challenging that particular little gem, I think it's unlikely that anyone can take advantage of it before Oracle gains operational control and cancels the offer.
And some of us swear at it.