My buddy Jimmy Moore interviewed me recently for an episode of The Livin’ La Vida Low Carb Show. We talked about the new book for kids, of course, along with other topics.
I was pleased to hear that Jimmy liked the last chapter (It’s Perfectly Good to be Good Instead of Perfect) the best. Most of that chapter is what I’d tell my adolescent self if I could go back in time. I can’t go back in time, but I can deliver the message to kids (and adults) who read the book.
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i’m sorry to say, but your friend jimmy moore is obese again, or at least that’s how he looks. and he has some pretty bad blood results. i’m affraid he’s not a good advertiser for this keto/paleo lifestyle. i respect you both, but i’m honestly curious about your objective opinion on this matter. i mean, i know some whole food plant based people which are still in awesome shape with best blood results, and i personally still don’t know which path to choose, so i’d be glad to have your answer on this matter. regards from transylvania 😉
The proper comparison isn’t Jimmy on his diet to vegetarians (most of whom were never fat) on their diets. The proper comparison is Jimmy on his diet to Jimmy on other diets. He’s battling his genetics. His brother died of heart disease at age 42. His mother had gastric bypass surgery and lost 100 pounds, but it all came back over time — despite having a stomach the size of a tennis ball — because her body was programmed to be fat. That’s the hand he was dealt.
I lived on a vegetarian diet in my 30s, by the way. I got slowly fatter and sicker until I gave it up and went more paleo/low-carb.
Just like there are whole food plant based people which are in horrible shape..
Not to beat on this too much, but selection bias can hide a lot of details.
Are there people who will be thin while being vegan or vegetarian, sure. Of course, there are many people who are thin but not healthy? So, just because a vegetarian is thin, does not mean they are healthy, right?
On the flip side, Jimmy may be heavy, but he is healthy. It is kind of funny that we judge health solely on a single metric, waist size.
Our medical world is funny. We measure gain using relative risk, but we measure side effects with absolute risk. Selection bias is king, look too much snow here, thus man made climate change, too much snow there, this global cooling. Look at the massive correlation over there, it must be causation.
At the end of the day we all have to take a huge step backwards, and where possible look at biochemistry and cell biology. Start with what we can demonstrate and go from there.
Genetics and epigenetics can be a real bitch. It is no fair, but that is the hand we are dealt.
i’m sorry to say, but your friend jimmy moore is obese again, or at least that’s how he looks. and he has some pretty bad blood results. i’m affraid he’s not a good advertiser for this keto/paleo lifestyle. i respect you both, but i’m honestly curious about your objective opinion on this matter. i mean, i know some whole food plant based people which are still in awesome shape with best blood results, and i personally still don’t know which path to choose, so i’d be glad to have your answer on this matter. regards from transylvania 😉
The proper comparison isn’t Jimmy on his diet to vegetarians (most of whom were never fat) on their diets. The proper comparison is Jimmy on his diet to Jimmy on other diets. He’s battling his genetics. His brother died of heart disease at age 42. His mother had gastric bypass surgery and lost 100 pounds, but it all came back over time — despite having a stomach the size of a tennis ball — because her body was programmed to be fat. That’s the hand he was dealt.
I lived on a vegetarian diet in my 30s, by the way. I got slowly fatter and sicker until I gave it up and went more paleo/low-carb.
We are never “stuck” with the “hand we are dealt” though, since genes are “expressed” (turned on) or “suppressed) (turned off) by the environment that WE provide for our bodies, in terms of nutrition, sleep, motion, pollution, medications, toxins, etc. In other words, we are not our genes.
Having lost over 130 pounds THREE TIMES in the last 12 years myself, I can relate to Jimmy’s situation.
The first time I approached my structured eating program (not keto, not plant-strong) as a “diet”, something I was “doing” to “get the weight off”. As soon as I was “off it” life happened, and my response was to default back to my unhealthy habits.
The second time I did the same nutrition as the first time, a structured eating program, and I had a health coach (came with my program). Then I BECAME a coach, and I learned both the healthy habit of proper nutrition AND the healthy habit of motion. I maintained my health for THREE YEARS, and then….LIFE HAPPENED. I dropped my two healthy habits, nutrition and motion, and surprise surprise my body did what my body has always done when not getting motion in regularly and remaining highly structured and intentional with my nutrition. I gained it all back over the next 2 years.
In Feb 2017 I made a FUNDAMENTAL DECISION that I was going to BECOME AND REMAIN A VIBRANTLY HEALTHY PERSON. It wasn’t something I was going to “put on for awhile”, until “life got hard” just to see me revert to unhealthy habits. I was going to burn the bridge on the unhealthy habits. I was going to begin practicing healthy nutrition, healthy motion, and LEARN healthy stress management, healthy sleep, and I was going to SURROUND MYSELF WITH HEALTHY PEOPLE because we are or become like the 5 people we are around most.
I was going to STOP being food-obsessed, because up until then it seemed my whole life revolved around food. No matter if I was losing or gaining, my primary thoughts during the day were “what am I going to eat next?”
That was no way to live, and honestly, that was one of the problems. Food was my god. I idolized it. I served IT, I had to ask IT permission constantly as to “can I eat that? should I eat that?” no matter whether I was on the losing side of the pendulum or the gaining side of the pendulum. I was either shopping and chopping and tracking (when I was lowing weight), or I was eating “yummy” food and watching food network, buying cookbooks and salivating over dessert recipes.
I spent FORTY YEARS thinking “what’s wrong with me? what’s wrong with my body?” trying to figure it out, and thinking “oh, genetics.” I was in weight watchers in SECOND GRADE. I’m now 48 years old.
Look, don’t blame it on genes. Granted, some of us may have higher mountains to climb in terms of how “easy” or “difficult” living a healthy life is or isn’t. Yes, our genes can be factors in determining how our body utilizes and stores fuel (food). You can view this as a limitation or view it as a challenge. Creating health for oneself is NEVER IMPOSSIBLE, if it is something that is important to you AND you have tools and support that WORK. And, we can CHANGE OUR BRAINS by changing our THINKING, as the newer neuroscientific research is now showing. We can turn gene expression ON or OFF with the food we eat, with the thoughts we think (yes, google Dr. Caroline Leaf Ted Talk and you’ll be amazed).
The important thing is that we never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever give up. We will learn something new, we will master a new skill, we will bring in the missing piece FOR US, and then we CAN live the healthy life and BE the healthy person we want to be. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it! I’m rooting for Jimmy. I look with disgust at those who “fat-shame” him, and I know how he feels although he puts on a brave face and I admire him for that. Stop judging him and focus on yourself and what VALUE YOU CAN BRING to others and the world through kindness, compassion and love. That’s all.
Just like there are whole food plant based people which are in horrible shape..
Not to beat on this too much, but selection bias can hide a lot of details.
Are there people who will be thin while being vegan or vegetarian, sure. Of course, there are many people who are thin but not healthy? So, just because a vegetarian is thin, does not mean they are healthy, right?
On the flip side, Jimmy may be heavy, but he is healthy. It is kind of funny that we judge health solely on a single metric, waist size.
Our medical world is funny. We measure gain using relative risk, but we measure side effects with absolute risk. Selection bias is king, look too much snow here, thus man made climate change, too much snow there, this global cooling. Look at the massive correlation over there, it must be causation.
At the end of the day we all have to take a huge step backwards, and where possible look at biochemistry and cell biology. Start with what we can demonstrate and go from there.
Genetics and epigenetics can be a real bitch. It is no fair, but that is the hand we are dealt.
I’ll add two more points: 1) Jimmy used to weigh more than 400 pounds. In diet studies, “success” is defined as losing 10% of the starting weight and keeping it off. He’s kept off WAAAAY more than that. Much of his bulk around the middle is skin that never snapped back after the big weight loss — I know because he’s stayed at our house several times and I’ve seen him without a shirt. 2) When Jimmy visits for a week, we play so much disc golf, we end up walking 25-30 miles up and down the hilly land that makes up my course. I’ve never seen him become fatigued or out of breath, despite his size. Worse that ever happens is his elbow becomes sore from all the throwing.
Tom,
Thank you.
It will be interesting to see if over the years Jimmy’s epi-genetics and skin will catch up. One of the things of interest listening to his podcast with Dr. Nally is the stories of the Doc’s patients who will settle at a set-point (homeostasis) for a year or two, then all of a sudden lose more weight and skin.
regards,
Thomas
I hope for Jimmy’s sake that happens with him, but he’s accepted he may be at this current size for life. He’s done the smart thing and made being healthy his primary focus.
I first saw Fat Head on Hulu. It’s a shame they don’t carry it anymore.
Hulu and Netflix both had licensed for a set number of years. It’s on Amazon Prime currently.
since i somehow trust your sayings 🙂 i’m curious what you think about veganism, because i saw some “doctors” on youtube agressively promoting this lifestyle, like mcdougall, greger, etc. and in their videos they show many studies, so they say they’re backed up by science and by studies, especially rct’s. please respond. i’m a 37yo man, i have some health issues ( sebhoreic dermatitis, plantar fasciitis, hemmoroids, 10 kgs +, extreme fatigue, depression, numbness in feet) that i hope to resolve by changing my diet, so i don’t know what to choose, because i don’t want to screw my body. my present diet is a european one, i eat home raised eggs and milk, whole wheat bread and pasta, veggies, fruits (mostly bananas), pork once a week, chicken once a week, bio coffee, and a max of 4 teaspoons of sugar/day.
They’re not backed by RTCs. Check their evidence, it’s almost always observational studies they cherry-picked. They won’t, for example, tell you about this recent observational study:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312055008_Vegetarian_diet_and_all-cause_mortality_Evidence_from_a_large_population-based_Australian_cohort_-_the_45_and_Up_Study
We found no evidence that following a vegetarian diet, semi-vegetarian diet or a pesco-vegetarian diet has an independent protective effect on all-cause mortality.
If a vegetarian diet conferred superior health, we’d see vegetarians living longer, healthier lives over and over in studies. But we don’t. I cited several other studies that negate what the vegan zealots will tell you in this post: http://www.fathead-movie.com/index.php/2015/03/31/to-the-vegetarian-evangelists-updated/
If you’re looking for a diet to improve your health, go more towards a paleo diet. Cut out all sugar, grains and industrial vegetable oils. Eat real food with as little processing as possible.
From my experience, I had what would appear to be irritable bowel syndrome, that is to say, my trips to the bathroom were frequent and painful, and of course led to a sizeable hemorrhoid. For too much information, but that is where I was. Near 300lbs with a pain in the butt, sore knees and so on.
I cut way down on the sugar and got rid of the grains, lost weight, and bathroom trips became regular. After 3 years, as long as I stay away from refined wheat I am good.
I will freely admit I am a food addict, and of recent months have gotten back into the habit of eating popcorn and too much TexMex and have gained back too much weight. Too much popcorn or corn chips will cause a relapse of my IBS symptoms.
I do not know if I had “IBS” or not, and if it is gluten, the wheat, or what, but there is a direct correlation to between consumption of grains and IBS symptoms.
Too much sugar can also cause me issues, but I believe that is more a function of probably having a pretty fatty liver, and still not being 100% healed.
It is sad, there are far, far too many “facts” out there, and it scares the crud out of me that many governments of the word are doing their best to become the ones who get to chose which ones are fake.
So as great as Tom and Jimmy are, don’t stop there, check out Dr. Cate, Dr Attia, Dr. Lustig, Dr. Lustwig, Dr. Noakes, Dr. Phinney, Dr. Volek, Dr. Rhonda Patrick, Dr. D’Agastino, and more. Check out the all of Jimmy’s conference podcasts. Those lecture series are amazing, between detailed scientific information and far too much anecdotal evidence.
In the end, all I can do is thank people like Tom and Jimmy and all of the people listed above, and many others to bucked the system to investigate and spend time and real resources to explore our health. And yeah, many of them have been able to monetize their activities, but are we not allowed to make a living?
since i somehow trust your sayings 🙂 i’m curious what you think about veganism, because i saw some “doctors” on youtube agressively promoting this lifestyle, like mcdougall, greger, etc. and in their videos they show many studies, so they say they’re backed up by science and by studies, especially rct’s. please respond. i’m a 37yo man, i have some health issues ( sebhoreic dermatitis, plantar fasciitis, hemmoroids, 10 kgs +, extreme fatigue, depression, numbness in feet) that i hope to resolve by changing my diet, so i don’t know what to choose, because i don’t want to screw my body. my present diet is a european one, i eat home raised eggs and milk, whole wheat bread and pasta, veggies, fruits (mostly bananas), pork once a week, chicken once a week, bio coffee, and a max of 4 teaspoons of sugar/day.
They’re not backed by RTCs. Check their evidence, it’s almost always observational studies they cherry-picked. They won’t, for example, tell you about this recent observational study:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312055008_Vegetarian_diet_and_all-cause_mortality_Evidence_from_a_large_population-based_Australian_cohort_-_the_45_and_Up_Study
We found no evidence that following a vegetarian diet, semi-vegetarian diet or a pesco-vegetarian diet has an independent protective effect on all-cause mortality.
If a vegetarian diet conferred superior health, we’d see vegetarians living longer, healthier lives over and over in studies. But we don’t. I cited several other studies that negate what the vegan zealots will tell you in this post: http://www.fathead-movie.com/index.php/2015/03/31/to-the-vegetarian-evangelists-updated/
If you’re looking for a diet to improve your health, go more towards a paleo diet. Cut out all sugar, grains and industrial vegetable oils. Eat real food with as little processing as possible.
From my experience, I had what would appear to be irritable bowel syndrome, that is to say, my trips to the bathroom were frequent and painful, and of course led to a sizeable hemorrhoid. For too much information, but that is where I was. Near 300lbs with a pain in the butt, sore knees and so on.
I cut way down on the sugar and got rid of the grains, lost weight, and bathroom trips became regular. After 3 years, as long as I stay away from refined wheat I am good.
I will freely admit I am a food addict, and of recent months have gotten back into the habit of eating popcorn and too much TexMex and have gained back too much weight. Too much popcorn or corn chips will cause a relapse of my IBS symptoms.
I do not know if I had “IBS” or not, and if it is gluten, the wheat, or what, but there is a direct correlation to between consumption of grains and IBS symptoms.
Too much sugar can also cause me issues, but I believe that is more a function of probably having a pretty fatty liver, and still not being 100% healed.
It is sad, there are far, far too many “facts” out there, and it scares the crud out of me that many governments of the word are doing their best to become the ones who get to chose which ones are fake.
So as great as Tom and Jimmy are, don’t stop there, check out Dr. Cate, Dr Attia, Dr. Lustig, Dr. Lustwig, Dr. Noakes, Dr. Phinney, Dr. Volek, Dr. Rhonda Patrick, Dr. D’Agastino, and more. Check out the all of Jimmy’s conference podcasts. Those lecture series are amazing, between detailed scientific information and far too much anecdotal evidence.
In the end, all I can do is thank people like Tom and Jimmy and all of the people listed above, and many others to bucked the system to investigate and spend time and real resources to explore our health. And yeah, many of them have been able to monetize their activities, but are we not allowed to make a living?
Let me second that advice to check out many sources. You never know where you’ll find the answer.
Happy to see that you are getting some publicity for the new book Tom. Your movie was one of the first things that introduced me to trying this lifestyle seven years ago.
On Jimmy Moore, though he seems nice and he helped me get started with this lifestyle almost a decade ago, the advice he is giving is doing more harm than good now. The interviews he does with public personalities like yourself are great, however. You and I were even on a podcast having some Q&A with the Dr. Su guy – whatever happened to him?
I am in countless keto groups online and there are very hard-working people that are constantly having issues losing weight and being told to consume more fat, increase their calorie intake or don’t pay attention to calories at all, and months go by (years in many cases) and they get fatter or don’t lose anything.
I mean I eat ketogenic most of the time, a potato hack every now and then, because I feel good, but the only way I really lose weight is if I cut my calories massively. Even Gary Taubes in his latest book concedes that energy balance is vital if you want to lose weight – but it’s a pointless statement (he compares it to asking how rich people get rich – they saved more money than they spent – obvious point right?).
Richard Nikoley has started writing some damning pieces on JMoore, and I’ve read that Jimmy has gained something like 70 lbs since writing the book with Jason Fung. I don’t really know who or what to believe now – I would love to believe that what you said is all it is – he has bad genetics – but he lost a ton of weight while he was fasting (expending more calories than he was consuming) however apparently he has put it all back on and then some. How do we continue to believe his advice and follow his advice after that?
Either way, it’s really damaging a lot of these health communities I’m in, and the dogma has sort of shifted away from people being practical and pragmatic about it. Any practical person can see that SOMETHING is not right here.
I’m really bad at monitoring, I’m really good at YES/NO, OFF/ON, which is part of the reason keto works for me (YES meat/veggies, NO sugar/flour, etc) and I’m losing a crapload of weight with long-term fasts (OFF eating vs. monitoring exact calories) but I’m practical about it, and I don’t go around telling people to eat MORE to lose weight, or that they are (incorrectly) eating too much protein.
Love everything you have done, Tom. I hope your book is a huge success – I don’t plan on having kids so it’s a bit out of my realm but, all the best.
Dr. Su passed away some months back, I’m sorry to say.
I don’t know much Jimmy has regained, but of course fasting forever isn’t an option. Your body needs building materials and nutrients to keep from breaking down. Some people will, for reasons scientists have yet to determine, gain weight or fail to lose weight even on ridiculously low-calorie diets. As I’ve mentioned before, Jimmy’s mother lost 100 pounds after bariatric surgery — the supposed slam-dunk cure for obesity — and then gained it all back, despite having a stomach the size of a tennis ball and a severely restricted ability to absorb fats.
Gary Taubes has always maintained that yes, of course losing weight requires burning more calories than you take in. (He has degree in physics, so it’s not as if he’s never heard of thermodynamics.) The part people have a difficult time grasping is that your body can and will dramatically adjust how much energy it expends in order to follow the commands of hormones, so eating more doesn’t necessarily cause weight gain and eating less doesn’t necessarily cause weight loss. In many people, constant calorie restriction will simply reprogram their bodies to survive on very few calories.
In the book, we mention a study in which obese people were locked in a hospital and fed 600 calories per day. They didn’t lose weight. The researchers referred to them as “the resistant obese” and admitted they seemed to be “thermodynamic paradoxes.” In other words, it didn’t seem possible their very large bodies could slow down to the point of burning no more than 600 calories per day, and yet somehow they did.
When I interviewed Dr. Robert Lustig for the film, he mentioned a study in which obese kids were locked in a hospital for a month and fed 500 calories per day. They GAINED weight during that month — on 500 calories per day. I don’t see how any sane person could say they just needed to eat less because, you know, it’s all about calories in vs. calories out. Thermodynamics, doncha know.
What the people who like to treat Jimmy as their favorite whipping-boy don’t seem to realize is that he’s tried everything. You name a diet, he’s tried it — including very low-calorie diets. These internet cowboys are all convinced that, by gosh, if Jimmy would just switch to [insert their preferred diet here], he’d finally get down to 225 or so and stay there.
Pardon my French, but that’s utter bullshit. The internet cowboys don’t know what the @#$% they’re talking about. If “resistant obese” adults can stay fat on 600 calories per day while locked in a metabolic ward, if obese kids can GAIN weight on 500 calories per day, if a woman who’s undergone bariatric surgery can regain 100 pounds, then the obvious fact of the matter is that some people — again, for reasons scientists have yet to identify — are so biologically driven to get fat, nothing will turn them into normal-weight people. They can try this diet or that diet, perhaps lose some weight, but it comes roaring back. The best those unfortunate people can do is choose the diet that (if they’re lucky) causes their weight to stabilize while enhancing their health.
I’m not on a ketogenic diet and as I’ve said in several posts, I don’t believe a ketogenic diet is the ideal diet for everyone. I think for most of us, it’s better to go big on protein when we cut the carbs, then periodically shift into ketosis with some intermittent fasting. I’ve said as much during Q & A on the low-carb cruise.
But posting pictures of Jimmy as proof that a ketogenic diet makes people fat is a cheap, dumbass move. It’s as logical as posting pictures of Jimmy’s mother after she regained the 100 pounds and saying this is proof that bariatric surgery will make you fat.
We could just as easily cherry-pick photos of this guy …
http://burnfatnotsugar.com/
… or this guy …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8aF03UmNSM
… both of whom are on ketogenic diets, as “proof” that a ketogenic diet will make you lean and muscular.