The premise of The Calorie Myth is that the traditional way of thinking about calories in vs calories out is flawed science. Instead, much research would appear to support the fact that the types of food one consumes, not the amount (and amount of exercise) is the secret to maintaining a healthy weight, and better health in general. Basically, The Calorie Myth supports a paleo diet and exercising smarter, not longer, in order to live healthier lifestyle.
I’m liking
There’s a certain satisfaction in seeing common assumptions smashed to pieces. That’s more or less what the author is doing; let’s set aside the view that ‘all things in moderation’ is OK, that you need to exercise a lot to accommodate for any extra consumption of food units that are outside of your daily needs. Instead, we’re to replace our common pantry items with – get ready for some emotive word use – SANE foods (not inSANE) – (essentially out with the common bread/cereal bulking out of meals and in with pro-paleo high fat low carb options).
You wouldn’t have to exercise much to put this lifestyle into practice – that’s a plus in my books!
Things that made me go hmmmm
There really are only so many times I like to read the same thing stated another way. The first half + of this book was a LOT of stating similar research in order to disprove the validity of calories in vs calories out as a method to maintain a healthy weight. Only after 131 pages do the solutions start to be introduced in meaningful terms. I did feel often like the author was doing his best to sell me into his way of thinking, and it started to grate after a while.
In places the chapters are heavily academic and not as practical as one might expect, for a book that asks many to completely rethink the way they approach food. I would imagine if you were seriously considering a move to a paleo diet, there must be more useful materials out there than this one.
The conclusion
Despite the tremendous amount of convincing that the author endeavours to carry out in this book, I am not 100% convinced that this way is the only way to healthy eating! To a certain extent, the author has to be correct that the formula that many weight-loss programmes are based on clearly do not work by any permanent means for large sections of the population (though how many people really stick to ‘the programme’ for any length of time?)
If you are interested in how we came to work with calories as food units and became a calorie-based society, then this book will be of some interest to you. In essence the book is somewhat interesting, but if you wanted to make a permanent change to paleo you’d probably use this as a basis to sell yourself into why it’s a good idea, and then incorporate other materials, additional recipes, support and research to really make a go of it.
The Calorie Myth is published by HarperCollins and has an RRP of $39.99.
