wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

Notice that both of the people in the comments above who angrily said "exercise does TOO make you lose weight" talked about how they started exercising AND eating better. Not just exercising. Taubes never says exercise isn't good for you, he just says that it's not something that generally makes fat people thin without them also changing their diet. This leap ("I exercised and quit eating junk and I lost weight so of course exercise makes you lose weight") is exactly the kind of thing he rails against in the book - observing something that had multiple aspects and just picking the one (exercise) you like to credit for the result.

Everybody has an opinion and what Gary Taubes does is analyze them all, so in that sense he is open minded which has brought about his claims...
So, Anyone that challenges him or his claims could then be at risk of being seen as having what is known as a "closed mind"...and the sooner we all agree to this then the sooner we start making a dent in the big old sad cases of diabetes and heart disease..
As for those who think exercise is good for you, then you may as well take up smoking...seeya..wouldn't wanna be ya...Ok so you need to learn some its Ok to admit it..
Now..
The best exercise a person can do to lose weight is to exercise their mind and maybe learn actual physiology instead of listening to stories of "how i lost weight"
Bottom line...go figure it out for yourself then come back and you will maybe end up in the same place as me..(supporting Gary Taubes)..
P.S..You may want to start with reading something that doesn't sell fitness.

From the end of his NY Times magazine article:

"All of this suggests that the best advice is to keep in mind the law of unintended consequences. ...clinicians test drugs with randomized trials to establish whether the hoped-for benefits are real and... whether there are unforeseen side effects that may outweigh the benefits. ...it’s never a bad idea to remain skeptical until somebody spends the time and the money to do a randomized trial...".

This is the guy's advice for dealing with health news? Be skeptical, wait and see for proper tests to be done, which he admits are expensive, take a lot of time, and that may never happen anyway. What the hell are people supposed to do in the meantime?
Talk about living in an academic ivory tower...

I have to say that I was absolutely dumbfounded by what I heard - but I had to guess that I was perhaps hearing it out of context. I used to be 220lbs, starting running and eating a lot less and now I weigh 185, and I'm planning to keep going to 165 - which for a 5' 8" guy seems reasonable.

In 2007 - I don't understand how anybody walking upright could suggest with a straight face that exercise doesn't make you fitter - or help you lose weight "it just makes you hungry"??????????

Are you insane?

If you don't eat more than you already need to, exercise will make you leaner. But if you eat more than you burn in calories, no, exercise will not make you leaner. Why would it?

I found that I did not lose weight after exercising (elliptical for 20 to 30 minutes, plus the weight machines) three times a week -- which was good, because I did not *want* to -- and that yes, I was definitely hungrier afterwards! I do tend to eat a more substantial but healthy dinner the nights I exercise. But since I was already lean, it did not mean a weight gain, or a weight loss. I just stayed the same.

Did this guy actually say that diabetes was caused by overweight (or overeating)?

Blaming weight for diabetes is a huge folly and is very misleading.

The primary causal agent for diabetes is known to be heredity. We've known that for almost 100 years now...

I personally have been diabetic since 1969. I'm 5'11" tall and have never weighed more than 144 lbs.

Draw a line gragh of our use of highly prossed food and refined sugar against insidence of cancer, diabeties,obesity, They run parallel.
Its not rocket science. You run a car on bad cheap gas and it will run like hell and break down way before it's time.
The body you walk around in is your car while your here, For goodness sake use premium!!

Taubes' seemingly all-out attack on epidemiology would sit better with me if

-- he acknowledged the proven uses of epi, as, for example, with John Snow's forcible efforts against a cholera epidemic in London;

-- he differentiated the science itself from media or government extrapolations/recommendations.

-- he acknowledged that attacks on epidemiology have often come from affected industries, such as tobacco or Rick Berman, "the Junk Man."

-- we knew his previous funding sources.

BTW I lost 30 pounds in 3-4 months by not eating as much garbage food...no fastfood and more froot for breakfast

What I'd read is that overweight/obese people don't eat more than others, but that the obesity itself makes it harder for them to exercise & burn the calories they do take in.

I once lost 10 lbs in 2 weeks by making my bicycle my primary mode of transportation--& I was eating more to fuel it! Then again, I wasn't really overweight.

All my many doc friends tell me that the markers for heart disease are crp and homocysteine and I don't have to worry about cholesterol!

Dr Thomas Cowan says low cholesterol has a much higher association with death than high cholesterol

this is baloney, this cholesterol scare.

Everybody i read says white sugar and white flour - refined carbs adn food addtitives are why we get degenerative diseases (adn environment too, and heavy metals)

regarding british trolley, maybe
1. drivers might have been more introverted, stressed personalities to begin with.
2. the ticket takers were more physically active and extroverted, willing to interact with passengers more

could this guy be any more annoying...I'm musing don't answer me

This is very interesting and informative and thought provoking. Someone I know has very high cholesterol and it continues to climb as medication is increased (and personally I think the medication has surpassed the dangerous level).

This guy is a whack job! How can you say exercise does not make you lean?! I used to be 205 pounds and did not exercise at all when I was in college. I work out now and eat healthy. Now I weigh 160 and just ran a 10K in under 7 minutes/mile. Exercise makes you lean plain and simple and the sooner that Americans start changing their lifestyle into one of exercising everyday the sooner we will be a thiner nation