October 24, 2020 — A tidy narrative attracts the human mind. When they ring true, generalizations are seductive. They wipe away the complex mess of real life. For example, the untidy reality of living through the pandemic lockdown leaves us eager to make sense of it. So a new paper describing a global survey of health behaviors in the […]
August 22, 2020 — An interesting new study in the Journal of the American Heart Association isn’t really getting the attention it deserves. It asks simple questions. What’s the effect of cutting sugar-sweetened drinks? First, does it reduce risk factors for heart disease? Second, does it bring weight loss? Finally, does it lead people to prefer less sweetness? The […]
July 6, 2020 — For decades now, we’ve been debating the role of macronutrients in weight gain. But that fierce debate has yielded precious little consensus. Low-fat dietary guidance ruled the land for decades. Right now, low-carb diets seem to have the upper hand. However, in a new webinar, Kevin Hall suggests that neither calories, carbs, nor fat tell […]
April 30, 2020 — The final straw came from the New York Times. Yesterday, Gretchen Reynolds wrote that she had found the perfect study on fitness for our times. It’s all about sprinkling intense four-second workouts throughout your day – miraculous quarantine fitness. Put it together with articles warning us about the “Quarantine-15” and what do you have? Fuel […]
February 29, 2020 — What is the first thing people do when they resolve to shed some excess weight? Often they head to the gym. Self-help articles are full of suggestions for the best way to exercise for weight loss. Unfortunately, that stuff is mostly misleading. The relationship between exercise and weight is complicated. As we’ve written before, exercise […]
January 2, 2020 — The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has rendered a great truth this week. The word diet doesn’t mean much. That word is no guarantee that whatever it describes will make you lose weight. In fact, you might even gain weight. Said this San Francisco court in a unanimous ruling: The prevalent understanding of the […]
November 25, 2019 — The assumption is everywhere. Obesity is simply the result of “eating too much and moving too little…poor diet and lifestyle choices.” So says the UK’s National Health Service. But in fact, it’s not so simple. And it’s worth considering the impact of drugs and other chemicals that nudge us to a higher weight. These are […]
October 30, 2019 — Everyone was ready to head home from FNCE 2019 yesterday morning. Yet a crowd gathered to hear from Kevin Hall and Amber Courville about ultra-processed foods. Theirs is the fascinating study that shows people eat more calories and gain more weight on a diet of processed foods. It’s a study that seems quite important. But […]
July 26, 2019 — It’s no guarantee. But with all else being equal, you may find that you have a certain metabolic edge if most of the food you eat comes earlier in the day. New research published by Eric Ravussin and colleagues in Obesity tells us why. Eating early in the day seems to help with hunger. In […]
July 22, 2019 — If you look online or in stores, it’s hard to miss. Popular culture holds up the 100-calorie snack pack as some kind of panacea. For example, Amazon has shopping lists for 100-calorie snacks. Healthy eating websites offer advice for “super healthy” snacks under 100 calories. Snack food marketers are onboard, too. They brag about promoting […]
