Here’s part two of the interview I conducted with Jonathan Bailor, author of The Smarter Science of Slim.

Fat Head: Based on your definitions of SANE and inSANE foods, what are the three worst foods you see people typically consume?

Jonathan:
1. Any beverage with a high concentration of sugar or high-fructose corn syrup (e.g., regular soda)
2. Foods full of processed starch combined with sugar (e.g., cakes, pies, snack cakes, doughnuts, etc.)
3. Foods that are fundamentally sugar or processed starch (e.g., candy, white bread, etc.)

Fat Head: You also state that the quality of food affects our need and ability to burn fat.  I know it’s a complex topic, but as briefly and simply as you can explain it, how does higher-quality food enable us to burn fat more efficiently?

Jonathan: The need to burn fat (distinct from the need to slow down and to burn muscle) means our body has an abundance of nutrition and a shortage of calories. When there’s an abundance of nutrition and a shortage of calories, the body wants to burn fat to fuel itself instead of slowing down and burning muscle.

The ability to burn fat means metabolizing fat for fuel is “easy” given our hormone levels. For example, if we have the hormone insulin circulating in our bloodstream, it is not “easy” for our body to burn fat for fuel. No matter how much we need to burn fat at that point in time, insulin has removed our ability to do so effectively.

High-quality food provides an abundance of nutrition and satisfies us so effectively that we avoid overeating. Additionally, high-quality food creates a hormonal environment that makes it much easier for us to burn fat for fuel. More nutrition plus less overeating and healed hormones enables our body to burn fat rather than slowing down and burning muscle.

Fat Head: The USDA recommends eating nutrient-dense food, but advises against eating red meat.  Isn’t red meat nutrient-dense?

Jonathan: If we divide the nutrition provided in a serving of lean red meat by the calories provided in a serving, we see that lean red meat is nutrient-dense.

Fat Head: Are whole grains nutrient-dense?  Do you ever eat them?

Jonathan: Dividing nutrition per serving by calories per serving, we see that whole grains are less nutrient-dense than non-starchy vegetables, seafood, lean meats, low-fat or fat-free plain Greek yogurt, low-fat or fat-free cottage cheese, citrus fruits, and berries, as well as most nuts and seeds. Therefore, we would be better off eating so much of the aforementioned nutrient-dense foods that we’re too full for less nutrient-dense whole grains. For example, when we’re out to eat, we could easily tell our server, “Please hold the starch and double the vegetables.”

I personally do not eat any whole grains because they do not further my health and fitness goals.

Fat Head: I’ve seen quite a few guidelines on how much protein a person should eat, and they’re all over the place.  According to one expert, I only need about 50 grams of protein per day.  The Protein Power guidelines put me at around 130 grams per day.  According to both you and Tim Ferriss, I should be consuming closer to 200 grams per day.  That’s a lot of protein.  What would be the advantage for me of consuming that much?

Jonathan: Lean sources of protein are very satisfying, positively impact our hormonal balance, are nutrient dense, and are relatively difficult for the body to convert into body fat. Also, we have to eat something, so focusing on protein-rich foods is a great way to satisfy ourselves while ensuring both the need and the ability to burn fat. Put differently, if you didn’t get about a third of your calories from protein, you’d be getting them from foods that are less likely to ensure you have both the need and the ability to burn fat.

Fat Head: You suggest consuming at least 30 grams of protein soon after waking.  I’ve been doing the opposite lately, limiting my meals to lunch and dinner as a form of intermittent fasting, which I presume you’d advise against.  Why should I eat a protein-rich breakfast in the morning if I’m not actually hungry?

Jonathan: Studies show that consuming protein every three to four hours boosts the metabolism (need to burn fat) and creates a hormonal environment more optimized for fat burning (ability to burn fat). I, too, am not hungry when I wake up. As a solution, I’ve found mixing whey protein powder with a big glass of water is a great way to boost the metabolism and help hormones even when hunger isn’t present. I also mix two tablespoons of wheat grass powder into my protein shake to sneak a few servings of non-starchy vegetables in.

Fat Head: How do you feel about intermittent fasting in general?  Do you believe the positive hormonal changes promised by advocates of intermittent fasting do indeed occur?

Jonathan: The research behind The Smarter Science of Slim shows that anytime the body has insufficient nutrition (distinct from insufficient calories), the metabolism slows down (bad), the body burns at least as much muscle as fat (bad), and a hormonal environment is created that will cause fat gain in the long term (bad). However, my research suggests that as long as the body is provided with an abundance of nutrition (including protein and essential fatty acids) insufficient calories could provide a positive result.

Fat Head: The diet you recommend is around one-third protein, one-third carbohydrates from fruits and non-starchy vegetables, and one-third fat.  I haven’t tried to calculate macronutrient percentages lately, but I’m pretty sure my diet is more than 50% fat and probably no more than 15% – 20% carbohydrates.  Is there something wrong with that ratio?   Can you explain why less fat and more carbohydrate would help me lose weight more weight?

Jonathan: As long as you are eating at least ten servings of non-starchy vegetables a day while getting about a third of your daily calories from protein, the rest of your diet could consist of natural fats—ideally, mostly from plants and seafood—without compromising long term health or weight. In other words, studies show that to optimize long-term fat loss and health, we must eat at least ten servings of non-starchy vegetables and approximately a gram of protein per pound of body weight per day (there are exceptions for very heavy individuals). After that, as long as it’s full of water, fiber, and protein, we are good to eat it.

Fat Head: You urge your readers to get their carbohydrates from non-starchy vegetables and low-sugar fruits, and I totally agree with that.  But frankly, I’d find it difficult to consume a third of my calories in the form of, say, green vegetables while simultaneously limiting my fat intake.  For example, I checked the nutrition label on a box of spinach and found that it provides about 90 calories in the form of carbohydrates.  I’ll happily eat that box of spinach, but only if I add at least two tablespoons of butter to the mix, which means I’m already consuming twice as many fat calories as carbohydrate calories, and that’s before I even put any meat on my plate.  So, with that preamble out of the way, here’s the question:  if you’re going to get a third of your calories from non-starchy carbohydrates, how do you make all those piles of vegetables palatable?

Jonathan: Without a doubt, a SANE cookbook is needed, and one is coming this year.

In the meantime, sautéing non-starchy vegetables with a teaspoon of olive oil and various seasonings can make it easy and delicious to consume 3-4 servings of non-starchy vegetables in a sitting. Do this with lunch and dinner, and someone can eat 6-8 servings of non-starchy vegetable with less than a tablespoon of olive oil. Add some non-starchy vegetables to an omelet or scrambled eggs for breakfast and put some sugar snap peas (delicious raw) in a bag to snack on, and it’s relatively easy and tasty to take in more than 12 servings of non-starchy vegetables without consuming over 12 servings of added fat. And that’s what someone would do to achieve excellent health and fitness. If someone’s goals are more moderate, the non-starchy vegetable intake becomes even easier.

Note: The research underlying The Smarter Science of Slim shows that naturally occurring fats found in foods that are rich in water, fiber, and protein are fantastic for fat loss and health. It does, however, recommend we add as little fat to food as possible, as pure fat isn’t rich in water, fiber, or protein.

Fat Head: You cite research in your book to convince readers that despite what we’ve all been told, saturated fat and cholesterol don’t cause heart disease.  But you also recommend consuming egg whites and low-fat or fat-free dairy products.  While producing Fat Head, I was focused mostly on restricting carbohydrates, but I’ve become more of a whole-foods guy in the past couple of years.  Since eggs are a whole food, why should we consume eggs whites instead of whole eggs?  Why consume consume fat-free dairy products instead of full-fat dairy products?

Jonathan: Whole eggs are healthy sources of fats since the majority of eggs’ calories come from fat versus from protein or carbohydrate. I recommend mixing egg whites with whole eggs to even out the ratio of protein and fat. If someone gets sufficient lean protein from other sources and takes in all the non-starchy vegetables necessary to optimize heath and weight, then whole eggs are fine. More simply, if someone eats eggs as a source of fat, whole eggs are fine. If someone eats eggs as a source of protein, he needs to mix egg whites with whole eggs to ensure he is actually eating mostly protein.

The point with the low-fat or fat-free plain Greek yogurt and cottage cheese is similar. If someone eats Greek yogurt and cottage cheese as sources of fat, then the full fat variants are fine. However, if someone uses these foods as sources of protein, she needs to make sure the majority of the associated calories are from protein. Note: Eating reduced fat/low-fat anything is only desirable if the fat is not replaced with sugar. Low-fat food that is chock full of sugar is terrible for health and fat loss.

To be really clear, it’s not about fearing fat. Rather, it’s about maximizing our intake of foods rich in water, fiber, and protein. We should enjoy fat freely, just after focusing first on water, fiber, and protein.

Fat Head: I’ve heard from dozens of readers who lost a lot of weight by cutting sugar and starch, but are now stuck at 20 or 30 pounds heavier than they’d prefer.  What, if anything, can people who reach a plateau do to lower their set-points even more?  What do you tell people who can’t seem to drop that last 20 pounds?

Jonathan: Exercise less—but smarter—as recommended by The Smarter Science of Slim. This type of exercise is specifically designed to work our muscles in a unique manner to trigger a magnitude of “fat-burning hormones” unparalleled via nearly any other exercise technique.

Fat Head: You wrote quite a bit about how hormones drive weight gain in your book.  Once women reach menopause, their bodies undergo hormonal changes that encourage accumulating more body fat.  Is there anything they can do to avoid this hormonally-driven weight gain?

Jonathan: Yes. Eat more and exercise less, but smarter. More specifically, eat so many non-starchy vegetables and so much lean protein that you are too full for starches and sweets. Then exercise your muscles so deeply that it is impossible for you to exercise that way again for about a week.

Fat Head: A couple of other authors who wrote about lowering the body’s set-point claim that we need to engage in aerobic-type exercise for an hour per day.  Do you believe aerobic exercise can lower the body’s set point?  If not, why not?

Jonathan: I did not find any studies that showed aerobic exercise to meaningfully impact the hormones which influence the set-point. Therefore, I do not see how aerobic-type exercise could meaningfully impact the set-point.

Fat Head: You recommend brief, high-intensity exercise instead of jogging or walking on a treadmill.  Why do you believe this kind of exercise is better for weight loss?

Jonathan: What I believe is based on the work of countless brilliant doctors, academicians and researchers all over the world. As I said earlier, biology isn’t a matter of opinion. Consequently, every piece of advice I give is grounded in the research, which has proven that high-force exercise works a specific type of muscle fiber (Type 2b) that triggers a uniquely helpful hormonal response. Think about triggering this hormonal response like trying to move a heavy piece of furniture. You can gently poke at the furniture for one, ten, or even 100 hours, but no quantity of low-force movements will cause you to move the furniture, i.e., the result you want.  Fewer but higher-force movements are how you get the result we want.

Fat Head: There’s a lot of buzz these days about paleo diets and paleo exercise.  I’m sure you’re familiar with the terms, so what do you think of the paleo/primal lifestyle?  Is it healthy?

Jonathan: The eating philosophy I advocate is similar to a paleo type diet, but there are three differences. My understanding of paleo diets is that no/very little legumes or dairy are permitted and fatty meats are encouraged. (My apologies if I am mistaken.) My research shows there are high-quality legumes and a few high-quality dairy products, and that these high-quality foods are both healthy and helpful for fat loss. It also shows that the best sources of fat are plants—nuts and seeds—and seafood. Therefore, if you are looking for the highest quality protein combined with the highest quality fat and given the choice between a fatty cut of meat and a lean cut of meat plus a handful or two of nuts, The Smarter Science of Slim recommends the latter.

Fat Head: How would what you recommend differ from the advice people receive from paleo/primal advocates like Mark Sisson and Robb Wolf?

Jonathan: It’s going to be more similar than it is going to be different. I mentioned the three dietary differences above.

When it comes to exercise, I agree with Mr. Sisson and Mr. Wolf on the “less but higher-quality” angle. However, my research takes this concept one step further and provides a specific type of exercise that can be done at home without any equipment and ensures the highest-quality exercise possible while minimizing impact on joints and ligaments. To my knowledge, the specific type of exercise recommended by The Smarter Science of Slim is not part of the paleo/primal regime…although I suspect Mr. Sisson and Mr. Wolf would not be opposed to it, as they are both scientifically minded individuals.

Fat Head: You don’t have recipes or meal plans in The Smarter Science of Slim, so explain what a typical day’s meals look like for you or someone following your recommendations.

Jonathan: Recipes and meal plans are coming. In the meantime, SANE meals are going to be similar to paleo meals but focus on getting fat from plants and seafood rather than fatty meats and can include high-protein, low-sugar, and low-fat dairy as well as legumes. At the end of the day, it’s about each individual’s tastes and goals because The Smarter Science of Slim is not a set of ridged laws, but a body of knowledge that enables people to most effectively accomplish their particular health and fitness aspirations.

Thank you, Jonathan.

Here’s part one of my interview with Jonathan Bailor, author of The Smarter Science of Slim.

Fat Head: Let’s start with the obvious question:  what inspired you to write The Smarter Science of Slim?  With all the diet books already out there, what new information did you hope to provide?

Jonathan: I’ve always been interested in science and technical topics, and as little kid, I wanted to emulate my older brother. He was heavy into athletics and working out, and so I naturally did the same. At first, I took a traditional path to health and fitness but also read all I could in popular literature because it interested me. In fact, I got so involved in health and fitness that I became a personal trainer.

Shortly after I started working with clients, I realized how ineffective traditional approaches to health and fitness were. For example, I’d work with a client for a few weeks and she’d drop a few pounds by following a traditional “eat less, exercise more” approach. But a few weeks later, that client would inevitably report how the pounds came right back. I tried all sorts of different techniques to make eating less and exercising more practical, but the results were the same:  clients would lose weight, only to find themselves heavier a few months later. This caused me to re-think what success means in terms of weight loss and health, and I realized success is not defined by short-term weight loss. Instead, it is long-term fat loss and improved health. Also, I didn’t derive much satisfaction from asking clients to feel hungry, tired, deprived, and time-crunched for the rest of their lives.

Something had to change, and I was determined to find out what that change could look like. Building on my interest in science, I started reading all the academic research on health and fitness I could find. I didn’t plan to spend a decade studying this topic; it’s just something that deeply interests me.

Immediately, I was startled by the sharp contrast between what researchers had proven about how to burn fat and boost health in the long term and what I was taught by popular literature and as a personal trainer. At that point, I was determined to get to the bottom of the disconnect between traditional assumptions regarding weight loss, diet and exercise and what scientific research had proven.

The goal of The Smarter Science of Slim is to use scientifically proven facts to show how anyone can lose fat and boost health in the long term. There aren’t many people who are going to read thousands of pages of academic research to achieve this, and I saw a great opportunity to distill what I had learned into an easy-to-read manual anyone can understand and apply.

Fat Head: A lot of so-called experts have tried to dismiss Gary Taubes as “just a journalist.”  Are you worried at all about being dismissed as “just an independent researcher”?

Jonathan: I can see how that could be a concern, but The Smarter Science of Slim has little to do with me because it is a compilation of research conducted by the scientific and academic communities’ most brilliant minds. While I’m sure some people will dismiss me because I don’t have M.D. or PhD after my name, it would seem odd for them to dismiss academically and scientifically robust research conducted by experts at The Harvard Medical School, Johns Hopkins, UCLA, The Mayo Clinic, and hundreds of other top institutions worldwide. “Biology isn’t a matter of opinion” is one of my favorite phrases. And just as it would be puzzling to try to discredit 1 + 1 = 2, the worldwide scientific community has shown it would be puzzling to try to discredit starch + body = a lot of insulin production or non-starchy vegetables + body = improved health.

Fat Head: How did you conduct your research for the book?

Jonathan: I studied more than 1,100 academic journal articles and had numerous follow-up correspondences (phone and email) with the articles’ M.D. and PhD authors. All told, it took me about 10 years to complete. I probably could have done it in less time, but I have been working full-time at Microsoft for the majority of this period.

Fat Head: You did a nice job of taking some complex science and explaining it clearly and simply, which is always a big plus for me when I’m recommending a book.  Was that difficult, or is that just how you think?  Did you ever find yourself rewriting the same paragraph dozens of times, trying to come up with a simpler explanation?

Jonathan: Oh my gosh, yes! I have a folder on my computer that contains hundreds of megabytes of Smarter Science of Slim drafts, outlines, notes, and graphics. That’s a lot of Word documents.

My editors Hillel Black, John Paine, and Mary Rose Bailor (my English professor mother) helped me strip the jargon from the science and re-explain it as concisely and simply as possible. This was a daunting task, but I’m fortunate in that taking complex information and simplifying it is what I do at Microsoft. Every day of my professional life, I collaborate with the most technical people at Microsoft and then simplify their complex technological concepts so they are useful to a non-technical audience. My experience at Microsoft was extremely influential in developing The Smarter Science of Slim, and I feel fortunate to work at such a fantastic place. The Smarter Science of Slim is really just an extension of what I do every day. The only difference is I’m simplifying biology rather than technology.

Fat Head: How did you become so interested in the topic of weight loss?  Have you ever been a fat guy who needed to lose weight?

Jonathan: I’ve always been interested in how people can improve how they look and feel though food and exercise. Chalk that one up to wanting to emulate my athletic older brother combined with my innate interest in science.

My personal situation was weighing too little rather than too much. I was the scrawny guy getting sand kicked in his face at the end of the comic book. This circumstance was instrumental in inspiring me to conduct the research that lead to The Smarter Science of Slim. I’ve since learned that I—and millions of other fortunate people—can eat and eat and eat and not gain fat because:

1. Burning fat is about more than just the quantity of food we eat and the quantity exercise we get
2. The human body is capable of burning fat, automatically, long-term.

As I progressed in my research, two questions drove me:

1. What are the key factors that affect fat gain and fat loss?
2. Is there a way for everyone to make their metabolisms work more like the metabolisms of naturally thin people?

As it turns out, researchers have answered both of these questions. These answers are described in detail in The Smarter Science of Slim.

Fat Head: One of the main points you make in The Smarter Science of Slim is that it’s highly unlikely we’ll lose weight and keep it off without first changing our set-points.  We know the body fights to maintain some of its fat mass –  much more for some than for others –  but does anyone really know exactly what a set-point is?  That is, do we know why our bodies are so determined to remain fatter than we’d like to be that they’ll burn away muscle instead of burning more body fat?

Jonathan: The simplest answer is that the set-point is an abstraction of our neural wiring and the balance of hormones in our body. The former is genetic, while the latter can be influenced by the quality (not the quantity) of our eating and exercise. The body uses this neural wiring and balance of hormones to:

• regulate how many calories it demands
• regulate how many calories it burns off
• determine how it deals with excess calories
• determine how it fuels itself when no calories are available from food

Researchers D.S. Weigle from the University of Washington, T. Kelesidis from UCLA and Harvard,  P.J. Havel from the University of California, R.E. Keesey from the University of Wisconsin, and many others have done extensive research around the set-point.

While one part of our set-point is determined before we are born, the other part is a function of what we eat and how we exercise. Changing the set-point is about food and exercise quality… it has nothing to do with simply eating less of our existing diet and doing more of traditional exercise. This is why so many hard-working people struggle with weight loss: they’ve been given a quantity-based solution (eat less, exercise more) to a quality-based problem. It’s a bit like trying to cure allergies by breathing less air in and breathing more air out.

Here’s a paraphrased excerpt of the book that may help here:

…Think about trying to remove fat from a hormonally “clogged” body like trying to drain water from a clogged sink. Eating less is like turning down the faucet. Exercising more is like scooping out the overflowing water. Both are temporary ways to deal with the symptoms of the problem. Neither does anything about the root cause. That is why they both fail long term.

The problem is the clog. The solution is clearing the clog. And clearing the clog requires thinking in terms of quality, not quantity.

Fiddling with the quantity of food we eat and the quantity of exercise we get will never clear our hormonal clog. Quality—low-quality food and low-quality exercise—is the cause of the backup. A sink does not get clogged by putting too much water into it. It gets clogged when we put the wrong stuff into it. Our body works the same way…

Fat Head: A lot of dieters who semi-starved themselves found to their great dismay that they lost weight, then gained it all back, then gained more, then had an even more difficult time losing weight.  Do you believe the severe calorie restriction raised their set-points?  If so, why?  What biochemical or hormonal changes occurred?

Jonathan: My research did not specifically cover whether severe caloric restriction raises the set point. However, it did show that depriving our bodies of nutrition (which is distinct from depriving our bodies of calories) does the following:

1. Dramatically slows down the metabolism
2 .Burns at least as much muscle as fat
3. Creates an environment that causes the body to gain more body fat than it burned as soon as possible. Researchers call this “fat super accumulation”

Item three in the list above suggests a change in the set-point. But that’s as far as I’ve found researchers take it.

The simple version of what biochemical or hormonal changes occurred is that the body is designed to prevent us from starving. If we starve ourselves, i.e., provide the body with insufficient nutrition, the body will do all it can to slow down the metabolism and burn calorie-hungry muscle before it burns body fat. Then it will predispose us to storing more fat to protect us from future starvation.

Fat Head: Some people – especially those who’ve never been fat – see obese people eating a lot and assume they’re just being gluttons.  I believe people eat when they’re hungry.  Are obese people hungrier than thin people who eat less, and if so, why?

Jonathan: Most people store excess body fat because they are experiencing what researchers call “metabolic dysregulation.” (I call this “a clog in the metabolism.”) Their hormonal balance has been compromised in such a way that their body is unable to effectively metabolize food, which causes them to over-consume food just to nourish themselves. Researchers call this condition “internal starvation.”  Here’s an excerpt from The Smarter Science of Slim that explains this process:

…Once most of the calories we eat are being stored in fat cells because insulin cannot get them into other cells, internal starvation has set in. We eat plenty of food but starve on the inside because insulin cannot effectively get that energy into any cells other than our fat cells. With excess insulin shuttling most calories into fat tissue and eliminating our ability to burn body fat, the fat metabolism system has no choice but to slow down, burn muscle tissue, and demand more food. It does what it always does when it senses starvation.

Consider Terri. She is internally starving and needs 500 calories of energy. Terri is also a yo-yo dieter and has already slowed down her metabolism and burned as much muscle as she can. Needing some calories, Terri eats 500 calories. Instead of those 500 calories getting into the cells needing it, only 250 make it in while the other 250 are ignored—thanks to insulin resistance—and stored as new body fat. Terri still needs 250 calories. She cannot slow down anymore. She cannot burn any more muscle. And thanks to all the excess insulin floating around, she does not have the ability to burn body fat. What is her only option? Overeat. Specifically, eat 250 extra calories.

So Terri snacks on 250 extra calories to keep her cells from starving. But now only a fraction of the 250 make it to the cells needing it while the rest is stored as body fat. Again, she must overeat even more. This process of overeating to keep a clogged fat metabolism system running repeats itself until Terri eats 1,000 calories to meet her need for 500 calories. Terri’s fat metabolism system is leaking calories into her fat cells and has to compensate by taking in extra calories.

Continue this “overeat to compensate for [her hormonal clog]” cycle day after day and Terri gains body fat. And on the surface it looks like she is gaining body fat because she is eating too many calories. But eating too many calories is not the cause of her new body fat. It is a symptom of a deeper problem: her hormonal clog. Terri’s high consumption of calories is not the cause of her weight gain. It is a symptom of the hormonal clog caused by low-quality calories…

Fat Head: You make the point several times that when we eat quality food, we’re less likely to overeat.  Why is that?  How does the quality of food affect our appetites?

Jonathan: Studies show that the satiety of food—how quickly it satisfies us and how long it keeps us satisfied—is a function of three primary factors:

1. How much do the calories we are eating stretch our digestive organs (our stomach, etc.)?
2. How much do the calories we are eating impact our hormone levels in the short term?
3. How much do the calories we are eating impact our hormone levels in the long term?

Researchers have proven that the more water, fiber, and protein in a food, the more it stretches our digestive organs and triggers a short-term and long-term hormonal response causing us to feel full.

Note: Natural fats also play an important role in triggering this hormonal response. However, my research shows our primary focus should be on eating more foods that contain a lot of water, fiber, and protein. If those foods naturally contain fat, that’s totally fine.

Thank you, Jonathan.  I’ll post part two of our interview next week.

Over my holiday break, I read an excellent new book on weight loss titled The Smarter Science of Slim.  Jonathan Bailor, the author, has (according to the preface) been researching the science of weight gain and weight loss for 10 years, and it shows:  the index of references at the back of the book runs more than 70 pages. Despite immersing himself in heavy-duty nutrition science while writing this book, Bailor had the good sense to explain what he’s learned clearly and simply.  In other words, the book passes my “Aunt Martha” test.

In a nutshell, the book’s message comes down to this:  Most of us will never lose weight and keep it off by simply restricting calories. Permanent weight loss requires changing your body’s set-point, and your body’s set-point is largely determined by hormones.  To shed body fat, we need to clear what Bailor terms a hormonal clog in the fat-metabolism system.  Clearing the clog is, of course, a matter of choosing the right foods and the right kind of exercise, not just eating less and moving around more.

I believe we can’t emphasize that point often enough.  Yes, you can starve yourself and lose weight.  But losing weight without changing your set-point – the amount of fat your body wants to maintain – is a bit like pulling a big ol’ rubber band into a stretched position and trying to hold it there forever.   Sooner or later, you’re going to tire of the effort and let go … and then that rubber band will snap back to its original size.  That’s why most low-calorie diets fail over time.  It’s why so many contestants from The Biggest Loser have regained the weight they lost.  (Many have also ended up with depressed metabolisms for their efforts.)

Early in the book, Bailor takes on the calories-in/calories-out view of fat loss and shreds it with data from several studies.  In one study, for example, researchers had thin people and fat people stop eating completely -– call it a zero-calorie diet.  Then the researchers determined what the subjects’ bodies burned for energy. The results were, as Bailor notes, depressing:  The thin subjects obtained 61% of their calories from stored body fat, while the fat people only obtained 39% of their calories from stored body fat.  Worse, they burned up more of their own muscle mass than the thin people.  Lose muscle, and all you’re doing is slowing your metabolism.  As Bailor writes:

Think about that for a second.  Despite having more body fat, the heavy people burned less body fat.  In the words of the researchers, “… obese patients could not take advantage of their more abundant fat fuel sources.”  The heavy people burned what relatively little muscle tissue they had rather than burning the excess body fat they were drowning in.  They needed to burn body fat, but did not burn body fat effectively.  This is where the idea of a clog comes into play.

In a subsequent chapter, Bailor reviews the scientific literature on exercising more to lose weight.  You can probably guess what he found:  In study after study, exercise has failed to produce more than a few pounds of weight loss … not exactly the result an obese person hopes to achieve.

The key to lasting weight loss, Bailor writes, is to focus on consuming SANE foods.  SANE is his acronym for the qualities of a food that affect weight gain:

• Satiety – how quickly calories fill us up and how long they keep us full
• Aggression – how likely calories are to be stored as body fat
• Nutrition – how many nutrients (protein, vitamins, minerals, essentially fatty acids, etc.) the calories provide
• Efficiency – how many calories can be stored as body fat

As he explains:

The more Satisfying, unAggressive, Nutritious and inEfficient a calorie is, the higher its quality.  The more SANE it is.  The more body-fat burning hormones it triggers.  The more it clears our clog and prevents overeating.  The more it restores our ability to burn body fat and maximizes our need to burn body fat.

The more unSatisfying, Aggressive, not Nutritious and Efficient a calorie is, the lower its quality.  The more inSANE it is.  The more body-fat-storing hormones it triggers.  The more it creates a clog and encourages overeating.  The more it destroys our ability to burn body fat and removes our need to burn body fat.

The next four chapters explain each of these four factors in detail.  You won’t be surprised to learn that the most inSANE foods are sugars and refined starches, while the most SANE foods are non-starchy vegetables, meats, eggs, seafood and some dairy products.

High-protein foods are a perfect example of SANE foods.  Research has shown that protein is satiating –- we eat partly to satisfy our daily protein requirements, so if we’re eating low-protein foods, our bodies tell us to keep eating.  Protein is also the macronutrient least likely to be converted to stored body fat.  Bailor takes the reader through a brief bit of biochemistry in one chapter to demonstrate that if we consume 300 calories of protein, at most 105 of those calories can be converted to fat.  The rest is lost in the conversion process.  In other words, protein is low on the Efficiency scale.

By contrast, 211 calories from 300 calories of refined starch can potentially end up as body fat.  Starch is twice as high on the Efficiency scale as protein, and also high on the Aggression scale because it triggers high blood sugar and high insulin levels that encourage our bodies to store fat.  I was pleased to see that there’s an entire chapter in The Smarter Science of Slim on how insulin and other hormones affect weight gain, all explained pretty simply.

In other chapters, Bailor reviews how our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate, where today’s lousy standard dietary advice came from, why the “cholesterol kills!” theory is full of bologna, and how starchy/sweet foods ended up becoming our dietary staples.  Then he moves on to how we can eat smarter and lose weight without starving ourselves.

Given his SANE scale, it’s no surprise that the diet he recommends is pretty close to a paleo diet:  lots of vegetables, plenty of protein, a bit of low-sugar fruit, some nuts now and then, and perhaps a few dairy products.

Where he separates himself from the low-carb crowd is in the proportions of protein, fats and carbohydrates he recommends.  While he does a nice job of debunking the theory that saturated fat and cholesterol are bad for us, his SANE diet still limits dietary fat in favor of extra protein and carbohydrates (compared to most low-carb diet plans, that is) as a means of promoting weight loss.  Consequently, he suggests consuming egg whites and low-fat dairy products instead of the full-fat varieties.  He also recommends getting about a third of our calories from carbohydrates, with the caveat that we get those carbohydrates from SANE fruits and vegetables instead of sugars and refined starches.

While I believe the diet he recommends is a good one — far better than what most people consume — I’m not convinced that a ratio of one-third fat, one-third protein and one-third SANE carbohydrates is necessary to lose weight.  It certainly hasn’t been the case for me.  Bailor has agreed to do a written interview for a post next week, so I’ll ask him to explain why he recommends those specific proportions.

The last section of the book is dedicated to exercise.  Even though Bailor describes early in the book why most exercise does little for weight loss, he’s certainly not opposed to exercise … he just wants us to engage in exercise that actually helps.  The key is to work our muscles briefly but intensely, then give them adequate time to recover.  In that regard, what he recommends is a lot like Fred Hahn’s Slow Burn program.  The main difference is that Bailor favors working the muscles with negative resistance … that is, exercising the muscles to the point of failure while lowering heavy weights instead of while lifting them.  (Tim Ferriss makes the same recommendation in The 4-Hour Body, at least as an alternate workout.)

Once again, Bailor describes the crucial role hormones play in our body composition.  In one surprising (to me, anway) study he recounts, researchers divided subjects into two groups:  the first group exercised only one arm, while the second group exercised the same arm, but also both legs.  At the end of the trial, researchers measured how much the subjects had increased their arm strength.  The result:  the subjects who exercised just one arm were 9% stronger on average in that arm.  But the group that also exercised both legs were 37% stronger on average – in the arm!  The reason?  Hormones.  As Bailor writes:

Leg-training worked more muscle and therefore triggered more whole-body-transforming hormones than arm training.  All those whole-body-transforming hormones benefit seemingly unrelated muscles more than exercising those muscles directly.

Body composition is largely determined by hormones.  What we choose to eat –- not how much — and how we choose to exercise – now how often or for how long — has a huge impact on the hormones our bodies produce.  That’s the message of The Smarter Science of Slim.  It’s a message people struggling to lose weight and get fit need to hear.

I have a list of questions for my upcoming interview with Jonathan Bailor, but feel free to post your own in the comments.  I’ll pick a few to add to my list.

A reader sent me a link to an interesting article about “citizen scientists” – people who don’t bear the official “scientist” stamp from a university, but are nonetheless running their own small experiments and sharing their data online.  Some quotes from the article with my comments:

More than a decade ago, in hopes of advancing research on the rare genetic disease that afflicts her children, Sharon Terry let two different researchers draw their blood for study. But when she asked for the results of the investigations, the scientists gave her a startling response. Information generated from her own children’s DNA, they said, didn’t belong to her.

Well, if the state of Ohio decides her children are too fat, they won’t belong to her either.

Today, Ms. Terry is part of a growing movement to unlock medical secrets by empowering patients to gather, control and even analyze their own health data.

Members of this loose collective of amateurs, who call themselves “health hackers” and “citizen scientists,” also perform their own analyses and use the Internet to create and run experiments and clinical trials. They all believe that too much science happens behind closed doors.

I agree, but that’s because most health science these days is being conducted in hopes of developing a new pois—er, drug that can be patented.

The controversial notion that people with no formal scientific training can make meaningful research contributions arose a few years ago, prompted in part by new, inexpensive DNA tests intended for consumers.

I can see why the notion is controversial.  Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Ben Franklin — they never would have contributed anything worthwhile without first getting their PhDs … no wait, sorry, I had them confused with people who attended college.  Well, perhaps Thomas Edison had some brilliant professors during his four months of formal education.

Critics of this new wave of citizen scientists point to several potential problems. Amateurs may not collect data rigorously, they say, and may draw conclusions from sample sizes that are too small to yield statistically reliable results.

We’d better train them not to do that.  Otherwise they’ll end up declaring that red meat causes cancer and restricting salt is the cure for hypertension.

When an individual patient determines that something is making him feel better, “that’s great,” says Harlan Krumholz, a professor at Yale School of Medicine, “but to find something that I can put in a textbook and encourage everyone to offer to patients requires a stronger evidence base.”

Don’t be silly, professor.  Lack of strong evidence didn’t stop the makers of Lipitor or Prozac from getting really, really rich.

In traditional studies, scientists guard their data from outsiders for several reasons. They fear that someone else might take that data and publish a finding ahead of them, taking credit for their discoveries. Even after a study is done, they often prefer to keep the data private, for any potential future discoveries.

Or so people don’t look at the data and say, “Hey, look!  There was a small reduction in cardiovascular events in the statin group, but more people died.”

Citizen-science projects don’t fall under the purview of the Food and Drug Administration, since they generally don’t involve testing or developing anything new—such as a new drug, medical device or diagnostic test. The experiments usually test things like vitamins that are already FDA-approved or sold over-the-counter.

Earlier this year, prompted by the growing availability of consumer DNA tests, the American Medical Association sent a letter to the FDA saying that genetic testing should only be done with the guidance of a doctor or trained genetic counselor.

In other words, “People should have to pay us for an office visit before they learn anything about themselves on their own.”

Doctors worried that people might not understand the genetic information being explained to them.

When I lived in California, I had to explain to my doctor that my LDL score was calculated and probably wrong since my triglycerides were very low, and that there’s a difference between small, dense LDL and large, fluffy LDL.  (Not the doctor in Fat Head, by the way.)  Since I wasn’t wearing a white coat at the time, he seemed to assume I making it all up.

As for interpreting results of a DNA test, there’s this new method of acquiring information called the Internet.  Anyone motivated enough to take a DNA test at home will probably make the effort to look up the explanations.

Melanie Swan, an investment adviser in Silicon Valley, is one of the citizen scientists questioning the traditional approach. She has written a smart-phone app that lets users study their genetic data to find any correlations between known efficacy rates for drugs associated with certain genes. Ultimately, she says, the goal is to help patients tailor their own treatment plans.

So she’s an investment adviser, not a programmer by profession, but she wrote her own smart-phone application … I dunno, she may not have the intelligence to interpret a DNA test without a doctor helping her past the big words.

Richard Nikoley of Free the Animal gave an excellent speech at the Ancestral Health Symposium about n = 1 experiments, the point being that if you try different diets, supplements, exercise programs, etc., and carefully track the results, those results are relevant –- for you, if not for everyone else.  If you adopt a low-carb diet and your roller-coaster glucose level stabilizes, it’s relevant.  If you give up wheat and your psoriasis or arthritis vanishes, it’s relevant.

Now we’ve got people sharing their individual and small-group experiments online, which means they can go a step beyond n = 1 and learn from each other’s results as well.  The Wisdom of Crowds in action.

I think this is a terrific trend.  Somewhere, Ben Franklin is smiling.

As part of an ongoing effort to convince doctors and policymakers to (imagine this!) consider the real-life experiences of diabetics when giving out dietary advice to diabetics, a group of researchers including Dr. Richard Feinman have created The Patient’s Voice Project.  My good buddy Jimmy Moore is involved as well.  Here’s an announcement they’d like to share:

The Patient’s Voice Project is an effort to collect first hand accounts of the experience of people with diabetes (type 1 and type 2) with different diets.  If you would be willing to share your experiences with diet as a therapy for diabetes, please send information to Michael Turchiano (mturchiano.pvp@gmail.com) and a copy to Jimmy Moore (livinlowcarbman@charter.net). Please include details of your diets and duration.

Indicate if you saw a physician or other health provider, what their attitudes were and whether you be willing to share medical records.  We are particularly interested in people who have switched diets and had different outcomes.

Finally, please indicate which factors influenced your choices (physician or nutritionist recommendations, information on popular or scientific publications, etc.)

Thanks for your help.  The Patient’s Voice Project will analyze and publish conclusions in popular and scientific journals.

Michael Turchiano
Scientific Coordinator

I know from the comments section that many of you have managed to control diabetes by ignoring the lousy recommendations of organizations such as the American Diabetes Association.  Send in your story and make your voice heard.

Here’s part two of my interview with Dr. William Davis, author of the excellent new book Wheat Belly.  If you haven’t read the book yet, I can’t recommend it highly enough.  You’ll never look at a sandwich the same way again.

Fat Head: Dr. Robert Lustig believes excess fructose is singularly responsible for inducing insulin resistance and other aspects of metabolic syndrome. You blame wheat. When I started showing signs of pre-diabetes in my thirties, I consumed almost no sugar whatsoever – I knew sugar was bad for me – but I ate a lot of pasta, cereal, and bread. Describe how you believe wheat consumption can lead to type 2 diabetes even among those who don’t drink Big Gulps or eat Little Debbie snack cakes.

Dr. Davis: There’s no question that fructose is indeed a big problem in the diet of modern Americans. Like wheat, fructose sources like sucrose, high-fructose corn syrup, honey, and agave syrup increase visceral fat, increase blood sugar, and cause a curious delay in clearing of after-meal blood particles (chylomicron remnants) that lead to atherosclerosis. So Wheat Belly, of course, does not argue that the only problem in the American diet is wheat.

However, as many of us have learned, cutting out sugar and fructose sources is a great idea, but does not solve the entire problem, just one aspect. And wheat is the culprit in people who believe they are following a healthier path by including plenty of “healthy whole grains.”

Two slices of whole wheat bread increase blood sugar higher than table sugar, higher than many candy bars. Oddly, this doesn’t stop dietitians and the nutrition community from encouraging you to eat more of it. Eat more wheat, blood sugar rises increase in magnitude and frequency. This leads to higher and more frequent rises in insulin, which, in turn, creates insulin resistance, the condition that leads to diabetes.

Those high blood sugars are also intrinsically damaging to the delicate pancreatic beta cells that produce insulin, a phenomenon called glucotoxicity. Beta cells have little capacity to regenerate. Repeated beatings from glucotoxicity lead to fewer and fewer healthy, functioning beta cells producing insulin. That’s when blood sugar stays at persistently high levels — even when your stomach is empty: pre-diabetes, followed shortly thereafter by diabetes.

So the wheat we are advised to eat more of is not the solution to the diabetes epidemic that is expected to include one in two Americans in the near future, and 346 million people worldwide — eating more “healthy whole grains” is, I believe, the cause of this situation. And removing it sets us back on a course to stop or even reverse it.

Fat Head: You describe in Wheat Belly how today’s dwarf wheat contains more gluten proteins and causes a more dramatic rise in blood glucose than the wheat our great-grandparents consumed.  But Jared Diamond and others have made a convincing case that switching to a grain-based diet caused humans to become shorter, fatter and sicker even in pre-biblical times, when today’s mutant wheat didn’t exist.  So would you say wheat has gone from being a good food to a bad food, or from a bad food to an even worse food?

Dr. Davis: I’d go for the second choice, going from a bad food with adverse health consequences in some people, to an incredibly bad food with adverse health consequences for nearly everybody.

Of course, if you were starving and the only food you had was bread, you should eat the bread. There’s no question that wheat, as the product of early agriculture, served to feed humans when the spoils of the hunt or gathering failed. As Dr. Diamond points out, this calorie-filler, hedge against the poor return of the hunt, and convenience food had adverse health consequences even in early humans and in its earliest forms, such as einkorn and emmer.

We know for a fact that wheat consumption has been unhealthy for humans for as long as we’ve consumed it from observations such as those pointed out by Dr. Diamond:  humans being shorter, fatter, and sicker (bone disease, dental decay, cancer, perhaps atherosclerosis) with wheat consumption, as well as descriptions of the ravages of celiac disease as long ago as 100 AD.

It’s the changes introduced by geneticists over the past 40-50 years, coupled with dietary advice to consume more wheat, that have conspired to create this current mess we are in, turning wheat from a problem ingredient into a health scourge exerting adverse health effects on an international scale.

Fat Head: Let’s talk about some of the specific health problems that may be caused or accelerated by wheat.  One of my readers has a sister who was cured of multiple sclerosis after giving up wheat.  Others have told me they were cured of fibromyalgia, ADD, or depression.  Are they all nuts, or do “healthy whole grains” have something to do with those conditions?

Dr. Davis: Even though I have witnessed the incredible effects of wheat elimination in thousands of people over the past several years, even I still learn new lessons about its effects. It seems a week doesn’t go by that I do not learn about some new health benefit of wheat elimination.

I too have heard countless cases of marked relief, occasionally cure, of fibromyalgia, ADD, and depression. I have only a couple of instances in which I’ve witnessed improvements in multiple sclerosis, since the disease is uncommon in the population I see in my cardiac practice and my online heart health experiences. But, given the reach of wheat into so many aspects of health, I would not be the least bit surprised to see substantial remission of the disease, given the potential central nervous system inflammatory effects of wheat components.

Unfortunately, most of my colleagues dismiss this as pure coincidence, despite the fact that it can be turned on with wheat consumption, turned off with wheat elimination, turned on again at will—repeatedly, reproducibly, and in many, many people. The notion that whole grains are healthy has so deeply infiltrated the thinking of people in healthcare that they are very resistant to changing their views.

I liken this situation to living in a village where everyone draws their water from the same well. One day, 9 out of 10 people get sick drinking from the water; they get better when they stop drinking the water. Out of convenience, they return to the well for water and 9 out of 10 promptly get sick again; get better again with stopping. On again, off again in the majority. Do we demand a clinical trial to prove that there is indeed a problem? Do we insist that it’s all in people’s imaginations and that the diarrhea and malnutrition that results from drinking the tainted water is due to something else? That is the situation we find ourselves in with this thing being sold to us called “wheat.”

I don’t think I’m causing a case of mass hysteria, with everyone crazily pitching their wheat products out with the trash because I said so. People are relating their experiences of substantial weight loss without calorie restriction, relief from multiple conditions across an impressive range of diseases, as well as subjective feelings of increased well-being and mood. In fact, I would say elimination of wheat is the most incredible and consistently effective strategy I have ever witnessed for improving health that I have seen in practicing medicine for 25 years.

Fat Head: I gave up wheat and other grains primarily to lose weight, then I was pleasantly surprised when several nagging health conditions went away soon after … psoriasis, mild asthma, gastric reflux, and arthritis among them.  How often do you see results like mine, and why does wheat cause those conditions in the first place?

Dr. Davis: Results like yours are the rule, not the exception. In fact, it’s only the occasional person who says, “I lost 3 pounds in a month but nothing else happened.”

Conservatively, I would estimate that 70% of people experience a substantial benefit beyond weight loss. It might be relief from a chronic rash like psoriasis, relief from struggles with airway and sinus health like asthma and chronic sinus infections, relief from gastrointestinal problems like acid reflux and irritable bowel syndrome, or it might be relief from run-of-the-mill arthritis or inflammatory arthritis like rheumatoid. The range of conditions caused or worsened by this thing is nothing short of astounding.

There is no single component of wheat that accounts for its myriad adverse health effects. The gliadin protein is responsible for direct inflammatory effects, while also stimulating appetite. The gluten protein is responsible for the destructive inflammatory effects on bowel and central nervous system health. The lectins in wheat likely underlie the increased intestinal permeability to multiple foreign proteins that cascades into inflammatory and autoimmune conditions like rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. The amylopectin A is responsible for the expansion of visceral fat in the abdomen, the “wheat belly” that in turn leads to inflammation, insulin resistance, diabetes, arthritis, and heart disease.

Fat Head: So it’s primarily the gluten and lectins in wheat that cause so many digestive problems, or is there something else involved too?

Dr. Davis: Incredibly, although wheat’s effects on disrupting digestive health is ubiquitous—it’s certainly a lot more than celiac disease—there has been little exploration as to the why. So I can only speculate on why wheat exerts such widespread and frequent gastrointestinal effects.

It likely has to do with the gliadin, gluten and lectins—one or a combination of any of them. I’m also convinced that there are components of wheat beyond these three that exert adverse health effects that explain why I see that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, i.e., removal of wheat seems to yield greater health benefits than each unhealthy component would suggest.

Fat Head: Are all types of gluten equally bad, or are some worse than others? If some are worse, is the gluten from today’s wheat particularly damaging?

Dr. Davis: The amino acid structure of gluten can vary widely, although all gluten shares the characteristic viscoelasticity desired by bakers and consumers, the property that allows the pizza maker to toss the dough in the air to shape pizza crust and allows dough to be molded into multiple forms from pita pockets to ciabattas.

The worst, most harmful glutens are the recent varieties created by geneticists. The changes introduced into the “D” collection of genes (“genome”) characteristic of modern semi-dwarf wheat likely account for the quadrupling of celiac disease in our time, the doubling just in the past twenty years. Less destructive forms of gluten are those found in the ancient wheat forms, such as einkorn, emmer, and spelt—less destructive, not non-destructive.

My view: Gluten, in all its forms but especially its modern forms, is potentially so destructive to human health that the ideal solution is to say goodbye to it completely.

Fat Head: Do you advise your patients to go wheat-free, or wheat-free and sugar-free?  I’m asking because if they give up both, some people would say it’s the sugar that was causing the problems, not the grains.

Dr. Davis: Yes, sugar is on the no-no list. There is no question that, at least for some people, especially younger people, sugar exposure in soft drinks, junk foods, and snacks is a big problem.

However, just eliminate sugar and eat more “healthy whole grains” and most people do not lose weight, but gain weight. This is the struggle of people who believe they are following healthy advice to limit sugary snacks and eat more “healthy whole grains” who then find themselves 30, 40, 50, 100 pounds overweight.

Switch the order, i.e., eliminate all wheat, and desire for sweets is nearly always markedly reduced, since the appetite-stimulating gliadin protein of wheat is now gone. It is a far easier task to eliminate wheat first, rather than to eliminate sugars first.

And, of course, it’s not just about weight. It’s about all the other effects of wheat that even sugar cannot provoke, such as joint inflammation, acid reflux, irritable bowel syndrome, skin rashes, brain effects, water retention, etc.

Fat Head: In Dr. Weston A. Price’s book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, he described how people in traditional societies soaked or fermented their grains before consuming them.  Do you believe that makes grains less of a health hazard, or is today’s mutant wheat too full of problematic proteins to be made safer by those methods?

Dr. Davis: Soaking and fermenting turn wheat, a bad thing, into a form that contains fewer lectins and less gluten (among some other changes), a less bad thing.  But we’ve got to be careful not to fall into the same trap that fooled nutritionists and “official” agencies: Replace a bad thing (white flour) with a less bad thing (whole grains), then consuming plenty of the less bad thing is good for you. That’s the flawed logic that led us to this mess.

Soaking, for instance, reduces lectin content by about 35% — better, but not great. You can still be exposed to all the adverse effects of wheat, which include gliadin protein appetite stimulation, high blood sugars from amylopectin A, inflammatory responses from gluten and glutenins, and increased intestinal permeability to foreign proteins by lectins.

Likewise, sourdough fermentation that reduces the carbohydrate/sugar content still leaves the other undesirable aspects of wheat intact.  Better, sure, but still not great.

Even geneticists are trying to re-engineer wheat to make it less harmful. One area of research is to try to remove all the most destructive gluten sequences. As usual, they understand the plant genetics but have no understanding whatsoever of the effect of consumption of this plant on human health.

So no matter what a baker or geneticist does to dress this thing up, it remains essentially the same, with all the same appetite-triggering, mind-affecting, inflammatory, autoimmune, and weight-increasing effects.

Fat Head: What about other grains, such as kamut, spelt, oats, amaranth, and buckwheat?  Are they good for us, or just not as bad?

Dr. Davis: Kamut and spelt are evolutionarily older forms of wheat. So they do not share the most destructive changes introduced into the “D” genome of modern wheat . . . but they are still wheat. It means they contain gliadins (though a less potent appetite stimulant compared to its modern counterpart), lectins that increase intestinal permeability, and they increase blood sugar.

Oats do indeed have modest immunologic overlap with wheat. But the problem with oats lies in their extravagant capacity to increase blood sugar. A bowl of slow-cooked, organic, stone ground oatmeal—no added sugar—can increase blood sugar in a non-diabetic to 150 mg/dl, 200 mg/dl, sometimes higher. In a pre-diabetic or diabetic, 300 mg/dl is not uncommon. One of the strategies I teach patients is to check blood sugars one hour after a meal to assess the severity of blood sugar rises; this is when I saw, time after time, extravagantly high blood sugars after oats.

Amaranth and buckwheat are non-wheat grains that are, in effect, just carbohydrates. They lack the immunologic, neurologic, and appetite-stimulating effects of wheat. Like oats, however, they increase blood sugar, followed by all the adverse effects of this phenomenon (insulin resistance, glycation of the eyes, cartilage, arteries, and LDL particles). So I tell people to consume these grains in small quantities, e.g., no more than ½ cup servings (cooked) in the context of a diet with limited carbs (e.g., 40-50 grams per day for most people).

Fat Head: What kind of response have you had on the book, or is it too early to judge?

Dr. Davis: The response has been incredible. Within the first 9 days after its release, Wheat Belly made The New York times bestseller list.

But even more important to me, every day I am hearing about the difference this message is making in people’s lives: rapid weight loss where little or none was experienced before; relief from chronic pain; plummeting blood sugars, etc. What has been especially gratifying is that, thanks to the instant feedback of social media, I am hearing about these stories just days into readers’ experiences. Even in my office practice, I’d generally wait several months to get feedback on patients’ wheat-free results. Now I’m hearing about it literally within days. The outpouring of positive feedback has been absolutely wonderful and has further reinforced my conviction that this is one of the largest health issues of our time.

Fat Head: Have you heard from any of the so-called experts who insist that whole grains are part of a healthy diet?  I take it you’re not popular with that crowd right about now.

Dr. Davis: Nutrition is an important topic. But it is also a surprisingly emotional topic. Dietitians and nutrition “experts” have been so deeply indoctrinated into the “whole grains are good” argument that their knee-jerk reaction is anger, that this is some passing silly fad for rapid weight loss. Anyone who has read the book realizes that is precisely what Wheat Belly is not. It exposes all the things you haven’t been told about this genetically altered grain, engineered to increase yield but also increase appetite.

Wheat trade groups, such as the Grain Foods Foundation, have issued press releases declaring their intention to launch a publicity campaign to discredit me and the message I bring with Wheat Belly. In response, I published an Open Letter to the Grain Foods Foundation that I also sent to various media, inviting them to join me in a public debate, TV cameras and all; they’ve not yet taken me up on my invitation—and I suspect they never will. With what I’ve uncovered, I doubt they want to allow a public airing of all these arguments.

Fat Head: Final question … Now that the book has been released, do you ever lie awake at night, wondering if the good people at Monsanto and Pillsbury are planning your demise?  Because if I were you, I’d avoid dark alleys for awhile.

Dr. Davis: Thanks for the warning, Tom! This anti-wheat campaign makes enemies out of some very influential forces, including Big Food, multi-billion dollar agribusiness, wheat trade groups and, to my great surprise, the drug industry. I was recently shocked (though I suppose I shouldn’t be, knowing what some people are capable of) to learn that at least one wheat trade group is largely populated by people on the payroll of the drug industry. Now that is really a worrisome thing.

What keeps me focused on broadcasting this message, however, are the wonderful stories I keep hearing every day of people rediscovering lost health, relief from pain, etc., all by doing the opposite of what our official agencies tell us what to do and walking away from “healthy whole grains.”

Fat Head: Thank you very much for taking the time to answer our questions, Dr. Davis.  I hope the book sells a million copies.