[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":310},["ShallowReactive",2],{"bookItem:why-we-get-fat":3,"hdtVivZN8n":190},{"item":4,"relatedBooks":76,"relatedNews":129,"relatedSoftware":157},{"slug":5,"name":6,"meta_title":7,"meta_description":8,"overview":9,"cover":10,"main_content":11,"book_authors":12,"publisher":14,"publisher_url":15,"publisher_affiliate_link":16,"publication_year":17,"isbn_13":18,"page_count":19,"formats":20,"language":25,"score":26,"favourite":27,"price_low":28,"price_high":28,"best_for":29,"featured_quote":30,"key_takeaways":31,"pros":35,"cons":38,"author_slug":42,"author":43,"tags":66,"date_created":72,"date_updated":72,"category_slugs":73,"category_names":74,"primary_category_slug":71},"why-we-get-fat","Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It","Why We Get Fat - Mind Wobble Review","Gary Taubes's accessible version of his carbohydrate-insulin hypothesis - readable and provocative, but the thesis has not held up as well as promised.","Gary Taubes's accessible pitch for the carbohydrate-insulin hypothesis - clear and provocative, but the thesis has been partially undermined by subsequent research.","/images/books/why-we-get-fat/cover.jpg","Why We Get Fat is the short version. Where Good Calories, Bad Calories ran to 640 dense pages of revisionist science history, this 2010 follow-up compresses the same core argument into a brisk 272 pages aimed squarely at the general reader. Gary Taubes strips away most of the historical apparatus and focuses on the central claim: we get fat because of the carbohydrates we eat, specifically because of their effect on insulin, and the way to get lean is to eat fewer of them. The book is more accessible, more direct, and more practical than its predecessor. It is also subject to the same evidential critique, and the years since publication have not been kind to the strong version of the thesis.\n\n## What the book covers\n\nTaubes opens with the same challenge to the calorie model that anchored Good Calories, Bad Calories, but in a fraction of the space. The conventional wisdom, he argues, is that obesity is caused by eating more calories than you burn. This model implies that the solution is to eat less and move more, and that people who fail to lose weight are simply lacking in discipline. Taubes argues that this is not just unkind but scientifically wrong. Different macronutrients have different metabolic effects. Carbohydrates elevate insulin. Insulin drives fat storage. Therefore the type of calories matters more than the quantity, and the calories most responsible for fat gain are carbohydrates.\n\nThe book walks through this argument in clear, accessible steps. Taubes explains the role of insulin in fat metabolism, describes how refined carbohydrates produce blood-sugar spikes that drive insulin up and lock fat in storage, and argues that a population-wide shift from fat to carbohydrates in the wake of the dietary guidelines has been a primary driver of the obesity epidemic. The practical prescription is straightforward: cut carbohydrates, particularly refined ones, and replace them with fat and protein. Do not count calories. Trust that the hormonal correction will take care of the rest.\n\nThe book is effective as a piece of persuasion. Taubes writes clearly, the argument builds logically, and the reader finishes feeling that they have understood something the conventional wisdom has missed. The question is whether that feeling is well-founded.\n\n## Where the science stands\n\nThe same caveats that apply to Good Calories, Bad Calories apply here, but more concisely. The carbohydrate-insulin hypothesis has been directly tested since this book was published, and the results have been mixed. Kevin Hall's metabolic-ward studies at the NIH found that when food intake is carefully controlled, low-carb diets do not produce meaningfully more fat loss than isocaloric low-fat diets - a finding that is difficult to reconcile with the strong version of Taubes's model. The NuSI initiative, which Taubes co-founded to fund rigorous testing of the hypothesis, produced results that did not confirm the predictions. Low-carb diets work for many people, but they appear to work primarily by reducing appetite and total intake rather than through the specific insulin-mediated mechanism Taubes describes.\n\nTaubes is also more selective in this book than the footnotes suggest. The evidence that complicates the insulin model - populations that eat high-carb diets without becoming obese, the role of the brain's reward and satiety circuits in driving overeating, the environmental and psychological dimensions of obesity - is either briefly noted or absent. For a reader who takes this as the complete picture, the map will be significantly distorted.\n\n## Who should read this\n\nThis is for the reader who wants the accessible version of the carbohydrate-insulin argument and does not want to commit to 640 pages. For the reader curious about why the low-carb community argues what it argues. For anyone who has found calorie counting miserable and wants to understand the intellectual case for an alternative.\n\nRead it alongside The Hungry Brain by Stephan Guyenet, which engages with many of the same questions from a broader and more evidence-balanced perspective. And treat the thesis as one model among several rather than as the settled answer it presents itself as.\n\n## Strengths and weaknesses\n\nThe strength is accessibility. This is a well-written, well-paced book that makes a complex metabolic argument feel intuitive. The challenge to the oversimplified eat-less-move-more model is genuine and useful. The practical advice to reduce refined carbohydrates is sound.\n\nThe weaknesses mirror those of Good Calories, Bad Calories in condensed form. The thesis is more confident than the evidence supports. The citation is selective. The model is single-cause in a way that does not do justice to a multi-causal condition. And the book has aged poorly against the subsequent research base.\n\nA 2.5 is right. The book is a useful and readable provocation, and it should not be taken as the final word on why people gain weight.\n\n## Why this matters for mental health\n\nThe same mental-health considerations apply here as to The Obesity Code and Good Calories, Bad Calories. The practical advice - reduce refined carbohydrates, eat whole foods - is aligned with what the nutritional-psychiatry literature supports. The risk is the framing: a single-cause model that encourages rigid, all-or-nothing thinking about carbohydrates can create dietary anxiety rather than resolve it. For the Mind Wobble reader, take the practical kernel and leave the comprehensive theory.\n\n## Final verdict\n\nWhy We Get Fat is the short, sharp version of an argument that has not aged as well as its author hoped. Read it for the challenge to calorie orthodoxy, which remains useful. Do not read it as the complete picture of obesity, because it is not. Pair it with something broader and more current - The Hungry Brain, The Diet Myth, or the mainstream consensus literature on energy balance and hormonal regulation - and you will come away with a more accurate map than either camp alone can provide.",[13],"Gary Taubes","Knopf","https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/176683/why-we-get-fat-by-gary-taubes/","https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004HGJJUK",2010,"9780307272706",272,[21,22,23,24],"hardcover","paperback","ebook","audiobook","English","2.5",false,17,"Readers who want the accessible version of the carbohydrate-insulin argument - and who will read the subsequent rebuttals alongside.",null,[32,33,34],"The carbohydrate-insulin hypothesis is presented clearly and accessibly - this is the short version of Good Calories, Bad Calories.","The core thesis that insulin is the primary driver of fat accumulation has not been confirmed by the rigorous studies conducted since publication.","The practical advice to cut refined carbohydrates and ultra-processed food is sound, even if the specific mechanism Taubes proposes is incomplete.",[36,37],"Much more accessible than Good Calories, Bad Calories - the argument is clear and well-paced.","Correctly challenges the oversimplified calories-in-calories-out model.",[39,40,41],"The carbohydrate-insulin hypothesis is presented as settled when it is contested.","Selectively cites evidence that supports the thesis while minimising contradictory findings.","Subsequent research, including NuSI-funded studies, has not confirmed the strong version of the model.","hugo",{"slug":42,"name":44,"profile_photo":45,"author_type":46,"role":47,"tagline":48,"experience_summary":49,"expertise_areas":50,"credential_highlights":58,"social_links":65},"Hugo","/images/hugo2.jpg","human","Founder & Lead Writer","Founder of Mind Wobble, writing about mental health through lived experience, research, practical experimentation, and a background in personal training and sports therapy.","Hugo has spent years exploring journaling, sleep, nutrition, exercise, and digital tools to better understand anxiety, low mood, confidence, and recovery. With a background in personal training and sports therapy, he turns that work into practical guidance for Mind Wobble readers.",[51,52,53,54,55,56,57],"mental health journaling","sleep and mental health","nutrition and mental health","exercise and mental health","digital wellbeing tools","AI-assisted journaling and self-reflection","anxiety and confidence management",[59,60,61,62,63,64],"Founder of Mind Wobble","Qualified Personal Trainer & Sports Therapist","Over a decade of personal mental health research and self-experimentation","Writes from lived experience with anxiety, poor sleep, confidence challenges, and low mood","Research-led writer focused on practical mental health self-understanding","Combines exercise science background with mental health writing",[],[67,68,69,70,71],"low-carb","insulin","obesity","diet-science","nutrition","2026-04-16",[71],[75],"Nutrition & Mental Health",[77,88,101,116],{"slug":78,"name":79,"cover":80,"featured_image":80,"meta_title":81,"logo":80,"favourite":27,"date_created":72,"overview":82,"book_authors":83,"publisher":14,"publication_year":84,"formats":85,"page_count":86,"price_low":87,"price_high":87},"good-calories-bad-calories","Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health","/images/books/good-calories-bad-calories/cover.jpg","Good Calories, Bad Calories - Mind Wobble Review","Gary Taubes's ambitious, dense revisionist history of nutrition science - intellectually important, selectively argued, and the origin text of the modern low-carb movement.",[13],2007,[21,22,23,24],640,15,{"slug":89,"name":90,"cover":91,"featured_image":91,"meta_title":92,"logo":91,"favourite":27,"date_created":72,"overview":93,"book_authors":94,"publisher":96,"publication_year":97,"formats":98,"page_count":99,"price_low":100,"price_high":100},"the-obesity-code","The Obesity Code: Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss","/images/books/the-obesity-code/cover.jpg","The Obesity Code - Mind Wobble Review","Jason Fung's insulin-focused model of obesity - readable and provocative, but more contested than the confident tone suggests.",[95],"Jason Fung","Greystone Books",2016,[21,22,23,24],296,22.95,{"slug":102,"name":103,"cover":104,"featured_image":104,"meta_title":105,"logo":104,"favourite":27,"date_created":106,"overview":107,"book_authors":108,"publisher":110,"publication_year":111,"formats":112,"page_count":113,"price_low":114,"price_high":115},"grain-brain","Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth about Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar - Your Brain's Silent Killers","/images/books/grain-brain/cover.jpg","Grain Brain - Mind Wobble Review","2026-04-15","A commercially huge anti-grain book on brain health - mainstream neurology and nutrition science do not endorse the central claims.",[109],"David Perlmutter","Little, Brown Spark",2013,[21,22,23,24],336,14.99,42,{"slug":117,"name":118,"cover":119,"featured_image":119,"meta_title":120,"logo":119,"favourite":27,"date_created":106,"overview":121,"book_authors":122,"publisher":124,"publication_year":125,"formats":126,"page_count":127,"price_low":128,"price_high":128},"wheat-belly","Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health","/images/books/wheat-belly/cover.jpg","Wheat Belly - Mind Wobble Review","A commercially huge, scientifically weak book arguing modern wheat is the root cause of most chronic disease - widely disputed by mainstream nutrition science.",[123],"William Davis","Rodale Books",2011,[21,22,23,24],304,19.99,[130,137,144,150],{"slug":131,"title":132,"featured_image":133,"excerpt":134,"date_created":135,"reading_time":136},"do-vegetarians-and-vegans-benefit-more-from-creatine","Do Vegetarians and Vegans Benefit More from Creatine?","images/news/Do-Vegetarians-And-Vegans-Benefit-More-From-Creatine.jpg","Vegetarians and vegans typically start with lower creatine stores than meat-eaters. Here's what the research actually says about whether supplementing delivers bigger benefits for muscle, mood, and the brain.","2026-05-25T19:21:54.000Z","13.5 min",{"slug":138,"title":139,"featured_image":140,"excerpt":141,"date_created":142,"reading_time":143},"blood-sugar-and-mood-mental-health","Blood Sugar and Mood: Why the Glucose Rollercoaster Is Quietly Wrecking Your Mental Health","/images/news/Blood-Sugar-And-Mood-Why-The-Glucose-Rollercoaster-Is-Quietly-Wrecking-Your-Mental-Health.jpg","Your afternoon mood crash isn't a personality flaw, it's blood sugar. Here's how glucose swings shape anxiety, focus, and mood, and what small shifts actually help.","2026-05-18T14:24:59.915Z","12.5 min",{"slug":145,"title":146,"featured_image":147,"excerpt":148,"date_created":149,"reading_time":136},"the-quiet-case-for-chia-what-a-tiny-seed-can-and-cant-do-for-your-mental-health","The Quiet Case for Chia: What a Tiny Seed Can (and Can't) Do for Your Mental Health","/images/news/The-Quiet-Case-For-Chia-What-A-Tiny-Seed-Can-And-Can-T-Do-For-Your-Mental-Health.jpg","Chia seeds won't transform your mind, but their fibre, omega-3s and blood sugar effects offer a genuine nudge for mood. Here's the honest science.","2026-04-18T00:00:00.000Z",{"slug":151,"title":152,"featured_image":153,"excerpt":154,"date_created":155,"reading_time":156},"vitamin-b3-niacin-benefits-for-brain-health-and-mood","Vitamin B3 (Niacin) Benefits for Brain Health & Mood","/images/news/Vitamin-B3-Niacin-Benefits-For-Brain-Health-Mood.jpg","Discover how vitamin B3 (niacin) supports brain energy, mood, and mental clarity, plus signs of low intake and niacin-rich foods to help support wellbeing.","2026-04-01T00:00:00.000Z","12 min",[158,166,174,182],{"slug":159,"name":160,"featured_image":161,"meta_title":162,"logo":163,"favourite":27,"date_created":164,"overview":165},"forks-over-knives-app-easy-plant-based-recipes-and-wellness","Fork Over Knives","/images/software/fork-over-knives/featured-image.jpg","Forks Over Knives App: Easy Plant-Based Recipes & Wellness","/images/software/fork-over-knives/logo.jpeg","2025-11-06T14:56:40.469Z","Discover the Forks Over Knives app—1,000+ plant-based recipes, smart grocery lists, and mindful cooking tools. Cook healthy, live well, and enjoy lifelong access",{"slug":167,"name":168,"featured_image":169,"meta_title":170,"logo":171,"favourite":27,"date_created":172,"overview":173},"samsung-food-app-smart-meal-planning-and-recipe-manager","Samsung Food","/images/software/samsung-food/featured-image.jpg","Samsung Food App: Smart Meal Planning & Recipe Manager","/images/software/samsung-food/logo.jpg","2025-11-06T14:24:44.571Z","Simplify cooking and grocery shopping with Samsung Food — an all-in-one app for meal planning, recipe organisation, and nutrition tracking. Try it free today!",{"slug":175,"name":176,"featured_image":177,"meta_title":178,"logo":179,"favourite":27,"date_created":180,"overview":181},"side-chef-app-guided-cooking-and-mindful-meal-planning","SideChef","/images/software/sidechef/featured-image.jpg","SideChef App: Guided Cooking & Mindful Meal Planning","/images/software/sidechef/logo.jpg","2025-11-06T12:40:55.980Z","Discover SideChef — the cooking app that builds confidence with step-by-step recipes, voice guidance, and meal planning tools for a more mindful kitchen.",{"slug":183,"name":184,"featured_image":185,"meta_title":186,"logo":187,"favourite":27,"date_created":188,"overview":189},"paprika-recipe-manager","Paprika Recipe Manager","/images/software/paprika-recipe-manager/featured-image.jpg","Paprika Recipe Manager – Simplify Meal Planning & Cooking","/images/software/paprika-recipe-manager/logo.png","2025-11-06T12:19:10.180Z","Discover Paprika Recipe Manager, the ultimate tool to save, plan, and cook stress-free. Organize recipes, create grocery lists, and sync across all devices easily.",{"data":191,"body":194,"excerpt":-1,"toc":301},{"title":192,"description":193},"","Why We Get Fat is the short version. Where Good Calories, Bad Calories ran to 640 dense pages of revisionist science history, this 2010 follow-up compresses the same core argument into a brisk 272 pages aimed squarely at the general reader. Gary Taubes strips away most of the historical apparatus and focuses on the central claim: we get fat because of the carbohydrates we eat, specifically because of their effect on insulin, and the way to get lean is to eat fewer of them. The book is more accessible, more direct, and more practical than its predecessor. It is also subject to the same evidential critique, and the years since publication have not been kind to the strong version of the thesis.",{"type":195,"children":196},"root",[197,204,211,216,221,226,232,237,242,248,253,258,264,269,274,279,285,290,296],{"type":198,"tag":199,"props":200,"children":201},"element","p",{},[202],{"type":203,"value":193},"text",{"type":198,"tag":205,"props":206,"children":208},"h2",{"id":207},"what-the-book-covers",[209],{"type":203,"value":210},"What the book covers",{"type":198,"tag":199,"props":212,"children":213},{},[214],{"type":203,"value":215},"Taubes opens with the same challenge to the calorie model that anchored Good Calories, Bad Calories, but in a fraction of the space. The conventional wisdom, he argues, is that obesity is caused by eating more calories than you burn. This model implies that the solution is to eat less and move more, and that people who fail to lose weight are simply lacking in discipline. Taubes argues that this is not just unkind but scientifically wrong. Different macronutrients have different metabolic effects. Carbohydrates elevate insulin. Insulin drives fat storage. Therefore the type of calories matters more than the quantity, and the calories most responsible for fat gain are carbohydrates.",{"type":198,"tag":199,"props":217,"children":218},{},[219],{"type":203,"value":220},"The book walks through this argument in clear, accessible steps. Taubes explains the role of insulin in fat metabolism, describes how refined carbohydrates produce blood-sugar spikes that drive insulin up and lock fat in storage, and argues that a population-wide shift from fat to carbohydrates in the wake of the dietary guidelines has been a primary driver of the obesity epidemic. The practical prescription is straightforward: cut carbohydrates, particularly refined ones, and replace them with fat and protein. Do not count calories. Trust that the hormonal correction will take care of the rest.",{"type":198,"tag":199,"props":222,"children":223},{},[224],{"type":203,"value":225},"The book is effective as a piece of persuasion. Taubes writes clearly, the argument builds logically, and the reader finishes feeling that they have understood something the conventional wisdom has missed. The question is whether that feeling is well-founded.",{"type":198,"tag":205,"props":227,"children":229},{"id":228},"where-the-science-stands",[230],{"type":203,"value":231},"Where the science stands",{"type":198,"tag":199,"props":233,"children":234},{},[235],{"type":203,"value":236},"The same caveats that apply to Good Calories, Bad Calories apply here, but more concisely. The carbohydrate-insulin hypothesis has been directly tested since this book was published, and the results have been mixed. Kevin Hall's metabolic-ward studies at the NIH found that when food intake is carefully controlled, low-carb diets do not produce meaningfully more fat loss than isocaloric low-fat diets - a finding that is difficult to reconcile with the strong version of Taubes's model. The NuSI initiative, which Taubes co-founded to fund rigorous testing of the hypothesis, produced results that did not confirm the predictions. Low-carb diets work for many people, but they appear to work primarily by reducing appetite and total intake rather than through the specific insulin-mediated mechanism Taubes describes.",{"type":198,"tag":199,"props":238,"children":239},{},[240],{"type":203,"value":241},"Taubes is also more selective in this book than the footnotes suggest. The evidence that complicates the insulin model - populations that eat high-carb diets without becoming obese, the role of the brain's reward and satiety circuits in driving overeating, the environmental and psychological dimensions of obesity - is either briefly noted or absent. For a reader who takes this as the complete picture, the map will be significantly distorted.",{"type":198,"tag":205,"props":243,"children":245},{"id":244},"who-should-read-this",[246],{"type":203,"value":247},"Who should read this",{"type":198,"tag":199,"props":249,"children":250},{},[251],{"type":203,"value":252},"This is for the reader who wants the accessible version of the carbohydrate-insulin argument and does not want to commit to 640 pages. For the reader curious about why the low-carb community argues what it argues. For anyone who has found calorie counting miserable and wants to understand the intellectual case for an alternative.",{"type":198,"tag":199,"props":254,"children":255},{},[256],{"type":203,"value":257},"Read it alongside The Hungry Brain by Stephan Guyenet, which engages with many of the same questions from a broader and more evidence-balanced perspective. And treat the thesis as one model among several rather than as the settled answer it presents itself as.",{"type":198,"tag":205,"props":259,"children":261},{"id":260},"strengths-and-weaknesses",[262],{"type":203,"value":263},"Strengths and weaknesses",{"type":198,"tag":199,"props":265,"children":266},{},[267],{"type":203,"value":268},"The strength is accessibility. This is a well-written, well-paced book that makes a complex metabolic argument feel intuitive. The challenge to the oversimplified eat-less-move-more model is genuine and useful. The practical advice to reduce refined carbohydrates is sound.",{"type":198,"tag":199,"props":270,"children":271},{},[272],{"type":203,"value":273},"The weaknesses mirror those of Good Calories, Bad Calories in condensed form. The thesis is more confident than the evidence supports. The citation is selective. The model is single-cause in a way that does not do justice to a multi-causal condition. And the book has aged poorly against the subsequent research base.",{"type":198,"tag":199,"props":275,"children":276},{},[277],{"type":203,"value":278},"A 2.5 is right. The book is a useful and readable provocation, and it should not be taken as the final word on why people gain weight.",{"type":198,"tag":205,"props":280,"children":282},{"id":281},"why-this-matters-for-mental-health",[283],{"type":203,"value":284},"Why this matters for mental health",{"type":198,"tag":199,"props":286,"children":287},{},[288],{"type":203,"value":289},"The same mental-health considerations apply here as to The Obesity Code and Good Calories, Bad Calories. The practical advice - reduce refined carbohydrates, eat whole foods - is aligned with what the nutritional-psychiatry literature supports. The risk is the framing: a single-cause model that encourages rigid, all-or-nothing thinking about carbohydrates can create dietary anxiety rather than resolve it. For the Mind Wobble reader, take the practical kernel and leave the comprehensive theory.",{"type":198,"tag":205,"props":291,"children":293},{"id":292},"final-verdict",[294],{"type":203,"value":295},"Final verdict",{"type":198,"tag":199,"props":297,"children":298},{},[299],{"type":203,"value":300},"Why We Get Fat is the short, sharp version of an argument that has not aged as well as its author hoped. Read it for the challenge to calorie orthodoxy, which remains useful. Do not read it as the complete picture of obesity, because it is not. Pair it with something broader and more current - The Hungry Brain, The Diet Myth, or the mainstream consensus literature on energy balance and hormonal regulation - and you will come away with a more accurate map than either camp alone can provide.",{"title":192,"searchDepth":302,"depth":302,"links":303},2,[304,305,306,307,308,309],{"id":207,"depth":302,"text":210},{"id":228,"depth":302,"text":231},{"id":244,"depth":302,"text":247},{"id":260,"depth":302,"text":263},{"id":281,"depth":302,"text":284},{"id":292,"depth":302,"text":295},1780930545230]