Weight-Loss on SummaryShelf

In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto

Wed, 28 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Sometime in the twentieth century, we stopped eating food and started eating nutrients. People who once thought in terms of bread, apples, and fish began thinking in terms of carbohydrates, vitamins, and saturated fat. Michael Pollan calls this shift nutritionism, and his charge is blunt: it made us sicker. Once eating became about isolated nutrients rather than whole foods, manufacturers could stamp a health claim on almost anything, and Americans dutifully followed the advice into obesity and diabetes. His remedy fits on a bumper sticker — eat food, not too much, mostly plants — but the story of how we lost the plot is worth understanding first.

The 4-Hour Body

Sat, 18 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Your body responds to what you eat at a hormonal level, not just a caloric one, and most of what happens in a gym is wasted effort. That single reframing sits underneath Timothy Ferriss’s decade of self-experiments, a project he spent more than $250,000 testing and refining. The aim was never to do more. It was to find the Minimum Effective Dose: the smallest change that produces the outcome you’re after. Push past that threshold and you often go backward.

Glucose Revolution

Thu, 23 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

You don’t have to give up bread, fruit, or dessert to feel better. That’s the surprise at the center of Jessie Inchauspé’s argument. The problem isn’t that you eat sugar and starch. The problem is the shape of what happens next: a steep spike in your blood glucose followed by a crash. Plot your glucose minute by minute and you get a curve with peaks and valleys. Flatten those peaks and you get steadier energy, fewer cravings, a calmer mood, and lower long-term risk. That’s the whole game. Not less food on the plate. A gentler curve.