WOD

AMRAP in 15:00 of:

3 deadlifts 185/120#

6 push-ups

10 double unders

Post to comments

155# Robbie trying to finish up "The Bear" with 135#. He made it!

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Clash of the Titans. Gray Taubes vs Dr Oz

There is a part two to this. You can click on it at the end. Can anyone tell me what is wrong with Dr. Oz's arguments?

Comments

[Walden]

Don't need a part 2, barely managed part 1.

They are both making something simple complicated. Eat simple un-refined foods in proper proportions and quantities. Bust your ass on a regular basis. Done.

Asshats the both of them.

[Noonan]

I can tell you what's wrong with both of their arguments...Taubes is just as FOS as Oz.

[Amy]

Not sure if anyone reads these comments so I'm mirroring this on my blog today. But I wanted to put it here just in case.

Eric, Noonan, no no no! Gary Taubes is a visonary, a knight in shining armor! Like most visionaries, he is misunderstood and maligned in his time. But eventually the evidence will bear him out and he will be seen for the hero that he is. And quacks like Oz will be seen for what they are, which is parrots of conventional wisdom, who can't think for themselves.

I think what people may be reacting negatively toward in Gary Taubes is his style of speaking, which is very slow and deliberate and precise. But that is because he is a science journalist, one of the few GOOD ones, and science demands precision in language. I think this manner of speaking can come across as "talking down" to people, but he is not doing that at all. He is simply trying to explain a difficult concept as clearly as he can, without misspeaking or misrepresenting cause and effect. And he is trying to present evidence for his claims, which is the gold standard in science.

Eric, your reaction and reasoning is very common, so I really want to address it. You are absolutely right that the ideal behavior is to eat simple unrefined foods in reasonable portions and to be active on a regular basis. But just doing those things will not fix someone who is broken. Taubes' main point is that INSULIN is what drives obesity, more specifically: too many carbs lead to raised insulin, which leads to insulin resistance, which leads to fat storage, which leads to obesity, which leads to overeating, inactivity, and sickness. That's what's revolutionary - the idea that inactivity and overeating do not lead to obesity, obesity leads to inactivity and overeating! See Mike's very nice explanation of this here: http://knitfitter.blogspot.com/2010/03/guest-post-its-not-as-simple-as.html

There is a certain percentage of the population that is not susceptible to insulin resistance (Eric, I believe you're in this camp). They will agree with Eric's assessment because they WANT to be active on a regular basis and they WANT to eat reasonable portions and avoid junk foods. Because their insulin is in balance, it leads them to live a healthy lifestyle.

But that is not the case for most people. It wasn't the case for me. My weight was creeping up and up, no matter how hard I tried to follow the prescriptions that Eric and Oz and Jillian Michaels prescribed. Then I started CrossFit and felt better, but my weight didn't go down and I didn't see huge performance gains until I started reading about low-carb eating and decided to give it a try. Because I was insulin resistant, I was storing all those "healthy" whole grains as fat, just like Taubes describes in his books. When I cut my carbs down to just fruits and veggies and my body learned how to burn fat for fuel, the weight came off effortlessly, I had way more energy, and I wanted to work out harder. The same process has occurred for Mike and for several others at the gym, and I've read about it in countless comments posted on paleo/primal/low-carb blogs.

Eric, you said they are making something simple complicated. But this is not a simple story. It is a story of biochemical cascades, human physiology pathways. The human body is not simple, biology is not simple. Research on human cognition reveals that we tend to think in a linear and causal manner (x leads to y, end of story) and have a very hard time understanding and predicting dynamic systems and feedback loops. But like it or not, biology is about feedback loops and and dynamic systems, and so it is very difficult to understand!

This is why Taubes had such a hard time on the show. Our short-attention-span media is all about sound bites, and to make his point, he needs more than three seconds to explain things. Oz cut him off every time he started to speak. Of course he didn't come across well - his message is not a sound bite! Oz, Jillian - they can just shout out the same sound bites we've been hearing for years and then the host latches onto those messages because they are familiar and comforting, and she wraps up the show not having learned anything.

But even though the mechanisms are complicated, the bottom line is actually quite simple. Eat real food, plenty of fat and protein, and RESTRICT YOUR CARBS to mostly vegetables and some fruit. Good health, energy, an active lifestyle, and a lean body will follow.

Oh and to answer Tim's question, what's wrong with Oz's arguments? They are emotional, not backed up by evidence, mechanism, or logic, and he doesn't even have his facts right. But honestly, I'm not sure I'd even call them arguments. They're just shrill, arrogant, judgmental insistence, deaf to science, deaf to the pleas of millions of sick, frustrated obese people who are pleading for something that works. Something that Gary Taubes is handing them on a silver platter.

[Walden]

Pullup ladder 1-5 with 53# KB strapped on first.

Then WOD.

17 +3 deads