The poor, misunderstood calorie

by William Lagakos

Counting calories to lose weight does not work for the majority of dieters. This happens, in part, because the calories in food are not the same as those expended by the body. This book is intended to explain this misperception, and function as a guide on energy balance and weight management for dieters, nutrition practitioners, and medical professionals.

Genres: Health, Nutrition, Science, Nonfiction, Food

336 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 10, 2012

About the author

Dr. William Lagakos received a Ph.D. in Nutritional Biochemistry and Physiology from Rutgers University where his research focused on dietary fat assimilation and integrated energy metabolism. His postdoctoral research at the University of California, San Diego, centered on obesity, inflammation, and insulin resistance.

Dr. William Lagakos has authored numerous manuscripts which have been published in peer-reviewed journals, as well as a non-fiction book titled The Poor, Misunderstood Calorie which explores the concept of calories and simultaneously explains how hormones and the neuroendocrine response to foods regulate nutrient partitioning. He is presently a nutritional sciences researcher, consultant, and blogger.

Reviews

[Lindsay Nixon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Primarily ‘low carb’ propaganda. Some accurate info, some inaccurate. Many far superior books to read on the myth of calories.

[Gerardo Avelar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice book which easily explain what is wrong with the classic viewpoint about calories, energy balance and their relationship with weight loss. I would recommend it for any "common" person interested in learn about this matter. However, this book would be not so much useful to any health professional who already is fully aware of the limitations of the "classic" CICO theory (this is not the only subject of the book, but for the rest, like exercise and nutrition for instance, I would recommend to read something specialised in that regard instead).

Also not big deal, but this book has some minor edition issues, probably more noticeable in the kindle edition.

[Andy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lagakos is possibly the worst nutrition writer of our time. This isn't a book, it's a group of poorly written blog posts copied and pasted from Google Docs into a self publish book system. It's riddled with errors, and Lagakos has a colloquial, rambling writing style. Lagakos's blog has terrible, terse, confusing writing, and I was hoping his "book" would be polished and well presented. Alas.

The information is generally very good, which is what saves this from being a one star book. I'm debating throwing this book away instead of keeping it, as there doesn't seem to be much re-read value.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I purchased this (self-published, I believe) book after enjoying several posts on the author's blog. Like the blog, it contains interesting ideas, specifically with regard to how changes in caloric consumption lead to (or don't lead to) actual changes in weight and fat/muscle mass, but it's essentially just 300 (large-print, luckily) pages of blog-style writing. One idea doesn't segue into the next particularly gracefully, relevant background material is often omitted, and the book is full of typographic errors and in desperate need of a line editor, or at least a second pair of eyes. Worth a look if you're already a reader of the blog and want to support the author, I guess.

[Maddie Ruffa · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Our body does not use energy to heat one liter of water by one degree C. It uses energy to live, make digestive enzymes in the stomach, synth glucose in liver, climb set of stairs...etc..."

We are not bomb calorimeters.

FOXO3 gene and insulin sensitivity/longevity.

Hormonal impact on body composition independent of energy balance. Calories not created equal.

I liked it but wouldn't recc to anyone who isn't super into this stuff. Lots of study explanations to the point of being dry unless you are hyper-interested.

[Douglas Larson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stands on it's head the nutrition advice of the past 60 years.

The author delves into what many have taken for granted by citing study after study of various dietary regimens and then explains each study's findings and conclusions. He states the duration of each study as well as the population size. With the massive amount of statistics and measurements cited by the author the reading gets a bit tedious all though the numbers are important. I was hoping for a summary at the end but the author didn't provide one. He did summarize each chapter though.

Worth reading.

[Yalman Onaran · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid scientific explanation of why fewer carbs (especially sugar) and not less fat is the key to losing weight. It gets a bit too technical at times but you can skip over the formulas and still understand the relevant lessons from the experiments being shown as proof.