The media is alive today with advanced reports that the January issue of O magazine contains an interview with its namesake Oprah Winfrey in which she divulges that she has once again become obese. (here, here and here)

Apparently the queen of daytime TV (and my neighbor down the street) has ballooned up to 200 pounds.  And, if her statement on the cover of her magazine can be believed, she wonders how it happened. I’ve read a few of the articles, most of which quoted her from the advance copy of her January magazine.  As I read her quotes I realize that despite all her fame and wealth, she is basically just like any other middle-aged woman prone to obesity.  Let’s let her talk. Read more »

I’ve just discovered that the soft-cover version of Good Calories, Bad Calories is out.  I guess it has been out for a few weeks, but I just discovered it was available.  If any of you have been waiting for the paperback before reading this terrific book, now is the time to get it.

Since GCBC came out a year or two ago, I’ve gotten countless comments asking me what Gary thinks about this topic or that one.  And I’ve gotten comments from folks asking me to ask Gary a question for them.  I was going to interview Gary and post his responses to my questions when it occurred to me that you all might like to ask questions of him directly without having them come through me.  I contacted Gary this weekend to see if he would be willing to answer specific questions from people on this blog.  He very generously agreed to do so.

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I’m going to start this post with a few questions that I want you to seriously consider before you answer and read on.  Are you overweight?  If so, how much overweight?  What do you think your ideal weight should be?

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I found an intriguing study in the Advanced Online Publication section of the International Journal of Obestiy.  (Currently you can download the full text of the article free here.  Often these articles go unfree once they are published, so grab it in pdf while you can.)  The paper shows the value of adding a couple of eggs to not just a low-carb diet, but to any calorically restricted diet.

The authors point out that since different foods confer different degrees of satiety (i.e., meat: a lot; pasta: not much), a diet composed of foods with higher satiety values might just help people lose weight more easily.  Well, duh.  Those of us in the low-carb biz have been saying that for years since low-carb diets are so much more satiating than high-carb diets, and, consequently, those who follow low-carb diets tend to spontaneously reduce their caloric intake.  Of course the lipophobes out there all then shout that the extra fat and cholesterol are going to clog the arteries of anyone following a low-carb diet.

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Dinner tonight at Casa Eades

Last Sunday the New York Times published a color spread on the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) data on the changes in food consumption in this country between 1970 and 2006, which got me to musing.

To the uninformed, which, sadly, probably means most people working in the nutrition industry and even those employed in a nutritional capacity at the USDA, these changes (all save two) seem to be in a positive direction. The intake of dairy products has decreased; the intake of vegetables has increased; the intake of red meat has fallen; the intake of fish, chicken and skyrocketed; the intake of fruit is up; the intake of grains has increased markedly; and the intake of vegetable fats has almost doubled. The only two negatives are that sugar and sweeteners have increased and overall food consumption has gone up by about 11 percent, or an addition 1.8 pounds per person per week.

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