Customer Reviews

The Diet Delusion: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Loss and Disease

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This is the British edition of Good Calories, Bad Calories, so see that listing for reviews.

I wish publishers wouldn't muck about with titles like this, life is confusing enough as it is :-(

Those who've read this will be unsurprised to learn that a great deal of material was cut out (including, interestingly, comments on the work of Weston A. Price) at the instigation of the publishers, simply because the size of the book was getting prohibitively large.

It's been suggested that Gary reassemble this material and publish it as GCBC, Part 2. In the meantime, Google "Gout: The Missing Chapter".

I'm one of those who think that Gary should get the Nobel Prize for GCBC.

This is the British title for "Good Calories, Bad Calories", a wonderful and thorough report of the ways that science and medicine have supported faulty and dangerous advice for controlling obesity and maintaining a healthy body. It's NOT a diet book, but it explains in detail why most diet books are apparently reasonable but actually dead wrong. I use that phrase because if you do follow the conventional diet advice, you are more likely to lose your health and even your life much sooner than you would like. The subject is important and the book is fascinating.

Calories in/ Calories burned does not mean that all diets are created equal, because the calories burned part of the equation is not a constant. Some foods (at least for some people, as well as other factors (of course, exercise - but also sleep patterns, internal processes like body temperature...) affect the calories burned part of the equation. Some foods (and other things) make our furnace burn faster - so where the calories are coming from, very much does matter.

I don't know why, exactly - but I lose a LOT more weight on 1800 calories of low-carb eating compared to 1800 calories of high-carbohydrate eating.

People who believe a calorie is a calorie, may not believe this, but it's true - so I'd suggest people try it for themselves. All you need is a food journal. Write down everything you eat (tally the carbs and the calories) eat low-carb for several weeks (at least six). Then eat high-carb for the same amount of time (but eat the same number of calories you did for your low-carb eating). Repeat both plans (want to make sure coincidence can't be blamed).

With each, also right down your energy level, your sleep patterns, and generically how you feel (mentally, physically, and moods as well).

Decide for yourself whether your body treats all calories equally.

I have never been interested enough to write a review of a book online but I feel the information in this book is important for people to read.

If someone had told me about the conclusions it draws before I had read it I probably would have been sceptical, however, it is compelling in its indepth research and logical conclusions. It is not a diet book, it is far more than that, it provides you with all the information about the processes that occur when you eat.

Also I have read the one negative review of this book(at the time of writing this review anyway) and it is quite clear that he has not read the book.

If you are a scientific person with any interest in either health or nutrition, I cannot emphasise how important this book is.