The article you referenced has some major flaws. (I’ve done a lot of research on nutrition since April 2009.) More and more research is now confirming that the ideas Taubes presented are, indeed, correct. (His whole premise was just asking for more research to be done in these areas.) The person who wrote your referenced article took many of Taubes’s statements out of context and didn’t understand what Taubes was saying about the laws of thermodynamics.

Taubes is saying that the type of calories one consumes (carbs, fat, protein) is important. Our bodies can live without carbs, contrary to what many claim, because our metabolisms can synthesize glucose from fat and proteins. However, Taubes is not saying that we should live without carbs; he is saying that the carbs we eat are very important to weight control and that they should carry a low glycemic load. (This is another place where that referenced article was misleading. By the way, the book is not a diet book, which the article made a big deal about. Taubes just suggested that he changed his diet – and listed some things – after doing the 5 years of research it took to write the book.)

For 150 years until the 1960s, the low-carb diet was the one used to treat obesity and diabetes.

It is true that many people can eat unlimited calories, as long as those calories are high-quality, nutritionally dense, and low-glycemic. However, short women typically have to watch the calories, too.

My daughter, who gained about 15 pounds at college, came home and started eating the way my husband and I do – a Paleo diet – and without exercising, lost all the excess weight. She is now known as “the bottomless pit” because she cut out grains, legumes, and dairy and piles and her plate high with the other stuff, especially meat, without gaining weight.

Poor quality carbs make us want to eat more of them because our bodies are crying out for the proper nutrients. Proteins and fats contribute more to the satiety feeling than carbs do.

The reason carbs are problematic, especially the poor quality ones, are that carbs break down to glucose, which requires insulin to transport the glucose into the cell. If you eat a carb-heavy meal, insulin will be dominant. Insulin is a master hormone, which controls many things in your body. Fat storage is just one example. When insulin is dominant, the body will store fat. To release fat, the hormone glucagon must be dominant.

Taubes doesn’t dispute the laws of thermodynamics, which the article suggests he does. Instead, Taubes is saying that there is a lot more going on that people are not taking into account. Also, he is saying that most people assume the first law (below) goes one way when discussing calories; however, it doesn’t.

Here is the equation:
Change in energy stores = Energy intake – Energy expenditure

There is, as Taubes points out, no arrow of causality in the equation. He says, “It is equally possible, without violating this fundamental truth, for a change in energy stores, the left side of the above equation, to be the driving force in cause and effect; some regulatory phenomenon could drive us to gain weight, which would in turn cause a positive energy balance – and thus overeating and/or sedentary behavior.”

As for exercise, Taubes is saying that typically when people exercise, it makes them more hungry, so they want to consume more calories. This makes sense. Restricting calories is a difficult thing for most people to do for the rest of their lives, if they want to maintain an appropriate weight. It really doesn’t work.

I can tell you for a fact that my husband, who was running for three years was stuck on a weight plateau, even though he was running a lot. As soon as we changed brands of Yogurt and cottage cheese, eliminating those with hidden corn (including high-fructose corn syrup) for more natural yogurt and cottage cheese, he lost some weight. This proves Taubes’s point about the calories and exercise.

Then, as we switched over to a Paleo diet, he lost the rest of the weight. We eat lots of meat, veggies, and a little fruit. No processed foods or very few. We do, for example, eat apple cider vinegar.

The Paleo diet is what we evolved to eat. Here’s a great five-part series of videos on a news report and study. http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2011/11/03/healthwatch-what%E2%80%99s-in-the-paleo-diet/

Normally, I can eat a lot without gaining weight, too, as long as I stick to Paleo foods. However, I actually have additional metabolism problems, so I’ve been on a thyroid hormone, until recently when I ran out. I need to go back to a doctor to get another prescription.

As for the studies, I have a scientific background and have read hundreds of studies. Most are quite flawed. One of the studies the article referenced was the Mediterranean vs. carb-restricted. This is just the abstract. This means nothing without the details of how the study was conducted. I have questions about what exactly the people ate. I’m going to suggest that the carb-restricted diet may have included more processed meats, for example. Also, this study collected dietary records, which typically are very faulty. One can’t make sweeping generalizations from this type of study. Instead, one can only use the data from this to then come up with a hypothesis to test in actual experiments, not studies.