The Secret Life of Fat – Sylvia Tara, PhD

I remember going to a slim nutrition student in law school who thought she understood the struggles of  major weight due to her own 15 or so pound weight loss. Unlike that incident you can tell Sylvia Tara has legitimately struggled with her weight throughout her life.

The Secret Life of Fat begins with Dr. Tara’s personal observations on weight and how she noticed throughout the years that certain individuals could eat pretty much whatever they wanted. The mystery of how this could be leads her into a career examining the science behind fat and obesity.

The book itself is very well written and easily understandable. The meat of the book covers most of the ways fat differs from a traditional strict CICO/Eat Less Move more dogma. I don’t believe I ran into any new concepts, but if you haven’t read about Leptin//Setpoint issues, obesity viruses, aging and obesity, insulin then you could greatly benefit from reading this book. It also pulls it all together very well if you’ve been reading about these concepts in varying and sundry places.

I did get a feeling from the author that she still at least internally views the weight conundrum as at least partially self control/moral issue. I did note that she would describe researchers as thin as though emphasizing they were credible sources due to their physical appearances.

Also, I really didn’t get a lot from the back section of the book that dealt with sustaining suitable weight loss. It’s fairly standard stuff which seems nihilistic in the face of the new data. The author incorporates some intermittent fasting, but stills seems committed to riding the CICO/eat less move more train.

The book is available from Amazon and Barnes and Noble .