Over the last decade or so, a major source of skepticism towards official narratives of all kinds — especially that of state science — has been in the area of nutrition, diet, and exercise. The discrediting of the notion that diets which are high in fat cause obesity has made it into the New York Times repeatedly, and official guidelines are being ‘revised.’
This book, written by P.D. Mangan, explains ten causes of obesity and what to do about them. It’s a slim book that weighs in at $0.99, and you can probably finish it over the course of a couple lunch breaks.
One passage grounds some of the more recent low-carb dieting advice in the case of an English undertaker from the mid-19th century who wrote a best-selling tract about how he lost weight:
Banting lost 50 pounds in his first year on the diet [consisting mainly of meat, vegetables, wine, and… a generous allowance for other forms of dry liquor, like gin and whiskey…] Naturally, the mainstream medics of the time despised a layman figuring out something they should have figured out for themselves, and denounced him at every turn. But many people bought his book because his diet was effective for weight loss.
Another curious historical observation is that, before the 20th century, standing desks were ubiquitous in offices.
The general outlook of the book is that, while exercise doesn’t directly help people to lose weight due to the practical difficulty involved in resisting hunger, exercise which increases muscle mass (like high intensity interval training or weight lifting), thereby improving your base metabolic rate.
Changing the composition of what you eat, favoring proteins and fats over carbohydrates and sugars, also makes it into the book without relying on too many trendy diet buzzwords.
This is further grounded in observations of how diets of different compositions affect different species of animals. This was even observed by naturalists and epicureans in the late 18th century. Quoting from a book titled The Physiology of Taste:
…carnivorous animals never grow fat (consider wolves, jackals, birds of prey, crows, etc.) Herbivorous animals do not grow fat easily, or at least until age has reduced them to a state of inactivity, but they fatten very quickly as soon as they began to be fed on potatoes, grain, or any kind of flour… The second of the chief causes of obesity is the floury and starchy substances which man makes the prime ingredients of his daily nourishment. As we have said already, all animals that live on farinaceous food grow fat willy-nilly, and man is no exception to the universal law.
Like Mangan’s previous book on supplements, this is packed with citations for other books that you can follow. His stated motivation for writing it was because he was tired of the enormous number of faddish diet books which are not well grounded in either realism with respect to compliance (few people can ignore hunger pangs) or a good assessment of what actually makes people fat.
Both of his books are on Kindle Unlimited, so you can grab them both at no extra charge if you’re a subscriber.
The other pleasant aspect of it is that it gets straight to business, without coming up with any cute buzzwords, imaginary characters, or non-representative case studies involving fictional characters that the author has concocted to make the book more interesting.
While there is a lot here that you might already be familiar with if you have read other books involving paleo or low carb dieting, this is a good concise, realistic source of information that you can keep for yourself as a reference or hand off to someone who might need it.
Mangan is also a jolly fellow who speaks often with other figures in the Dark Enlightenment (especially on the topic of human biodiversity), so your dollar will be going into the pocket of a fellow traveler if you choose to buy this book.
One of the things I like about Dennis Mangan is that he genuinely seems to go wherever his pursuit of the truth takes him. You get the idea that, if he suddenly found evidence to indicate that low-fat diets did work, or that democracy really had gotten a bad rap, he would come right out and say “oops, I was wrong, lets look at this again” rather than trying to back and fill and make up lies about how he was really right. That’s pretty rare, anywhere on the political spectrum. I’ll certainly buy his new book.
“The other pleasant aspect of it is that it gets straight to business, without coming up with any cute buzzwords, imaginary characters, or non-representative case studies involving fictional characters that the author has concocted to make the book more interesting.”
That’s great. I can’t stand the modern trend of “telling a story” in self-help books.
Working in a warehouse is great. I know several such employed who’ve lost on the order of thirty pounds in their three months.