Category: Health

First published on Medium.

Always Hungry? by David Ludwig is yet another diet book but one written by a respected doctor specializing in obesity in children. I really enjoyed several articles about Dr Ludwig and his ideas, so I was expecting something more from the book but all I got additional was lots of recipes.

1. Dr Ludwig, like many others, blames sugar and refined grains for many of our health problems. I like how he explained it and provided supporting science and studies, but if this is why you are reading the book, I recommend Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes. Dr Ludwig does do a good job of explaining inflammation, blood sugar and fat storage in a way that people without medical backgrounds might understand.
2. I love his point that the process of getting fat makes you eat more, not the other way around.
3. I hate reading cook books on the Kindle. Actually, I just hate reading cook books. I think you should search for recipes or ideas for recipes, not read them.
4. The advice for how to eat healthy seems pretty consistent these days — avoid processed foods, refined grains and sugar — and just as hard to follow.
5. He focused more on waist size than weight and only recommended weighing yourself once a week as opposed to most people’s recommendation to weigh yourself daily.
6. His supporting quotes and stories were all about people who had lost 5–20 pounds instead of the tons of weight most diet books claim.
7. New studies seem to be consistently saying that exercise is good but exercise makes you eat more, not less. I really wonder what we’ll be saying a decade from now.
8. He doesn’t really talk about overweight kids at all in spite of his background.
9. If I could not eat carbs, I’m sure I would lose weight. I would also be really sick of eggs and chicken and meat. And while I like vegetables and fruit, I just can’t imagine them replacing pasta.
10. Unlike Atkins, Dr. Ludwig recommends lots of fruits and vegetables and eventually some grains and carbs.

What did you end up thinking about as you read the book or these points?

While the diet and the ideas behind The FastDiet are pretty intriguing, the book doesn’t add a lot of value.

I was expecting something like Good Calories, Bad Calories. Something with a bit of research and data behind it. Instead you get a brief overview of the diet with a few pointers to studies, a few quotes from doctors at longevity institutes and then lots of advice for how to eat 500-600 calories on the fasting days. Not worth the $9.67 I paid for it.

I also checked out their website which has a brief overview of the diet, but no pointers to any studies.

The diet in summary:

• Eat normally 5 days a week.
• “Fast” on two non consecutive days. “Fasting” means eating 500-600 calories preferably in 2 meals spaced widely apart.

Their theory is two fold:

• Your body evolved under situations that required “fasting” and during those times it spent its energy on repairing itself. So fasting will cause your cells to regenerate, decreasing all sorts of bad things like high cholesterol, cancer and signs of aging.
• You’ll eat less, so you’ll lose weight. They quoted a study that said people eat more the day following a “fasting” day, but it was less than 125% more, not double what they would have eaten normally.

In addition to the proposed health benefits of the diet, they advocate that it’s much easier to follow than most other diets like low calorie or low carb. I do agree with them on that. I think it’s easier not to eat for two days a week than it is to count calories every day but they did not have any studies to support that.

Most of the evidence in the book was the authors’ own experiences, quotes from a few doctors at longevity institutes, pointers to a few studies and a bunch of letters with anecdotal evidence.

The diet is an interesting idea, but the book doesn’t do much more than explain the diet and the authors’ theories.

Food Rules by Michael Pollen is a good summary of many of his other books. It’s a set of 63 rules with a bit of explanation per rule. If you’ve never read any of his books, I’d probably recommend The Omnivore’s Dilemma, but if you’ve already read one or if you are just looking for a shorter read, Food Rules was good.

Some of the rules I liked were:

• If you aren’t willing to eat an apple, you’re not hungry.
• Eat no food whose ingredients you wouldn’t have at home.
• Snacks should be unprocessed plant foods.

(Not that I am currently following any of these rules!)

I also liked these reminders:

• Eat until not hungry, not until full.
• Put your fork down between bites.
• Use smaller plates and glasses.
• Eat at the table, and only eat when you are eating.
• Cook your own junk food. (How often would you eat french fries if you had to cook them?)

Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual was an entertaining and thoughtful read. It didn’t feel worth buying to me because it was so short so I’d recommend checking it out of the library. I got my copy through Paperbackswap and have already sent it on to somebody else.

Instead of this book: (Or if you really liked this one.)

Sugar Blues by William Dufty

Try this one:

Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and
the Controversial Science of Diet and Health by Gary Taubes (Or see my short review of the very long book and my review of one of Taubes’ webinars.)

I really enjoyed reading Survival of the Sickest: A Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease. Dr. Maolem explains how the diseases we suffer from have helped us survive in the past. For example, people with hemochromatosis were more likely to survive the plague. (Bacteria needs iron to survive and while people with hemochromatosis have lots of iron in their blood, they don't have any in their macrophages.) They died early due to their disease but after their child bearing years so the disease, and its advantages and disadvantages, were passed along.

He theorizes that diabetes might have helped people survive a mini ice age – sugar lowered the freezing temperature of blood.

Like good teachers, Dr. Maolem and his co-author Jonathan Prince use a lot of interesting anecdotes and facts to make the material easy to relate to and memorable. (Did you know Inuit hunters can raise the temperature of the skin on their hands from freezing to fifty degrees in minutes? And do so periodically when they are outside?)

You may or may not end up agreeing with all of Dr. Maolem's theories, but if you like understanding why and how the human body and evolution work, you'll probably enjoy Survival of the Sickest.