The Case for Keto: The Truth About Low-Carb, High-Fat Eating

Anyone who wants to understand why and how keto would work for them in managing their sugars and losing and maintaining weight will find the book and excellent read full of information, why keto works

Gary Taubes really highlights all the bad science and data misrepresentation over the decades about the way we eat and what we eat. With obesity and diabetes at pandemic proportion worldwide this book identifies the roles played by corrupt science and the food industries efforts to vilify FAT in order to hide the real villain, SUGAR. Well worth a read.

Keto did one hell of a job retaining Gary Taubes as its lawyer. Whether you love him or hate him, surely we can agree that he writes as if he won a golden typewriter from the devil at a crossroads in Georgia? He has devoted 20 odd years of his life to writing about one growing area of research into what makes people fat and what they can do about it. He has suffered personal ad hominem attacks, all sorts of insinuations about his motives, and he has kept on publishing. The message is the same, but the angles are different.This time you get a book that makes the case for keto (the summation of which would be, “It works. For everybody. But may need tweaking to fit your own circumstances”) and comes as close as Taubes is willing to lay out some advice and formulate a plan. He’s not a celebrity diet author. The book presents the science, then devotes a series of short chapters to reassuring, exhorting, refocusing, and warning those who feel that this is a way of eating that they need to try out.Is it original? Can you find this sort of stuff elsewhere? Is he saying anything new? All good questions. The answers won’t shift units: it’s not new, it’s out there in many places; Taubes has written about all of this before. But the angle is new: this is as close to a self-help book as you’re likely to find Gary Taubes writing. It’s damn good science, it’s damn good writing. You might have tried keto before (along with many other ways of shifting weight), but I’d be prepared to wager that you’ll finish Taubes’s book and be prepared to give it another go.Taubes has provided a very welcome voice to the many who are making money telling fat people what their problem is. He sets out an argument -like all in this field, one which has many counter arguments- based in science. He makes a compelling argument behind which and facing which you can find history, researchers, practitioners. All that you have to do is to decide which side makes the most persuasive argument. Taubes’s case is enticing. It really is as simple as cutting out all of the things that (some) science suggests is leading you to retain more fat than others, tweaking your food if things seem to stall, and then sticking with it until you’ve lost the weight that you need to, or until you don’t seem to lose any more. What Taubes pretty much guarantees in this book is that if you build the diet, the weight loss will come. He promises that you won’t feel hungry, but you will drop the kilos, shed the pounds, lose the stones.Taubes writes so well, and with such intense focus that there are many enemies gunning for him. He’s a fraud, his science is flawed, his motives are base. I don’t see it in his writing. He appears to be speaking from personal experience; he appears to be cautious in the claims he makes; he appears to believe his interpretation of what the science says. HE CHERRY-PICKS! shout the detractors. True...but that’s because there aren’t enough trees on the planet to make the paper you’d need for a truly comprehensive book about the science of weight gain and loss. What many people will say is that they know all about the case for eat-less-move-more, and it doesn’t work for them. Not because they’re feckless moral reprobates, but because they can’t secure their gains...which is to say, they can’t defend their losses! The weight comes back. The hunger never ends.So when Taubes and others come along to say that there is a solution which doesn’t require hunger, although it will require sacrifice and determination, the message is a welcome one. Sacrifice and determination are characteristics that overweight people have in bucketloads. Is this sacrifice just too much to ask for? Is the determination really up for what Taubes asks? Read the book and give it a go - why not? Make a commitment, have a goal, devise a strategy and then focus all of your energy on seeing it through to the end. If Taubes is wrong, you’ll have devoted 3-6 months of your life trying to lose weight. And those of us with excess weight are ALWAYS trying to lose it. If Taubes is right, then you will spend these 3-6 months losing weight constantly and without feeling hungry. You may end up looking at the rest of your life without some of the foodstuffs that you absolutely adore, but you will never feel dissatisfied with your body again.The defence rests.EDIT: I wrote the above mid-May 2020. It is now the end of June 2020. I have eaten lazy keto for five weeks and I have lost over a stone in weight (8.8kg). Will come back later on with a further update.EDIT 2: It’s now mid-September 2020 and have now lost over two stone. But what makes it good is that I am now perfectly clear in my head, that this is not a diet, but a way of eating that meets my body’s needs. I’m eating far less than I ever have and have no hunger. When I eat, I’m eating things I really like. This doesn’t mean that keto is the magic bullet, but if you’ve always struggled with your weight and seem to put on the pounds even when you’ve not really eaten that much, it may be what you need. Will update at the end of the year.EDIT 3: December 2020. Some carbs have crept back in - largely though peanut butter- but in a much reduced quantity than in the past. The consequence is that the weight loss is continuing, but slower than before. I'm down by about 20kg, losing just a kilo a month. But I could keep going like this forever! Will continue updating.

If you have heard about low-carb high fat (LCHF) or keto lifestyle eating, and want a very good (best) non technical description of what this means, its pitfalls and controversial points, this is the book. For doctors and dietitians who still think the Atkins diet is bad, this is a very good way to find out the best way to advise patients to lose fat and become much healthier

The Case for Keto is a genuinely compassionate book written for those who have struggled with weight.Not only that, but I think it should be required reading for all doctors, nutritionists and personal trainers who work with clients trying to lose weight!It collates research from a broad range of sources in an easy to read and organised way.My favourite book on weight loss I think I’ve ever read.

This book inspired me to go on a Keto diet to lose weight. And the diet worked, when I stopped bingeing on fatty food and reduced my portions to reasonable size. The author does gloss over the hazards though. I have discovered that the Keto diet is unwise if you have kidney issues - I have chronic kidney disease, so have modified the diet. One small quibble - the book could have been a quarter the size. The various points are repeated over and over and over again.

It's ok. All the usual stuff plus the science of it. Not needed of you've done a NY research but a good first read

I've lost 18lb (8.2kg) with ease and I'm only 170cm tall. Easy to do too. Give it a try.

For me, this’d book is a follow-up to “Good Calories, Bad Calories.” The book has motivated me to go “full Keto.” I lot 80 pounds some years ago going low carb, and have put 20 back on. Taubes helped me organize an approach, after getting reminded by another text, “Brain Energy.”

Libro interessante e utile!

Ich hoffte das Buch auf meinen Rechner lesen zu können. Ging leider nicht.

Excellent Book..Great insights...Thoroughly researched and neatly explained..Anyone interested in the subtle distinction in Human Metabolism shall read this book, to get their answers...Author isn't a fanatic in that, he does not insist that Keto is for everyone..However, he wants the mainstream nutritional authorities to understand that, neither is carb ...

I have read all of Gary Taube's books since Why we Get Fat in 2010. I am lean, having eaten a Keto diet since 2010, but highly insulin resistant. I also had gestational diabetes in the 1980s. During the pandemic lockdown I began to eat liberally of carbohydrates and the weight began to pile on.Thanks to The Case for Keto I am getting back on track with my keto eating and am very thankful to Gary for reminding me that those of us who are insulin resistant have a different brain response to carbs than those who are insulin sensitive.I am slowly losing weight now that I eat a ketogenic high fat/low carb diet. I simply don't have the leeway with my diet as do some others in my family. I have to learn to accept and even, appreciate, this knowledge. It's a fact of my life which Gary explains clearly with scientific findings.Thank you Gary.