Burn: Uncovering the Truth About How We Really Burn Calories - by Herman Pontzer PhD

bythewaybytheway: The Hadza are extremely impressive - and hunter/gatherers that certainly don't come across as low carb. But they are just one tribe - and thus certainly don't prove all of humanity's ancestors ate like this.
And the low carb Universe's leading voices Steve Phinney and Jeff Volek emphasize: low carb is not necessary (or even advisable) for all of us.

Certainly, though, for those with "Expanding Waistline/Lose Weight & Keep it Off.....Metabolic Syndrome, Diabetes/Save Life & Limb" = Thrive on Low Carb Diet", see the graph below (from p vii of "The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living" by Jeff S. Volek, PhD, RD and Stephen D. Phinney, MD, PHD).

Please, Herman Pontzer, correct this - the quotation of Steve Phinney is wrong. And Volek/Phinney mention the Massai and the Inuit merely as examples of traditional low carb lifestyles - they do not say everyone has eaten/should eat like this.

Germany on Nov 26, 2023

Maria Francisca: Me resulta muy interesante el tipo de contenido, la pega es que solo estaba disponible en inglés ..así que me cuesta lo suyo comprender exactamente todo lo que dice . Pero me gusta 👍

Spain on Oct 08, 2023

MrCase: The first two-thirds of the book are enjoyable to read. It's entertaining to be taken on a journey through evolution. Doubts arise when Kevin Hall is mentioned positively but Gary Taubes and Stephen Phinney negatively. Doubts arise when the author proposes the hypothesis that it was significantly more relevant that our ancestors began to share meat rather than just eating it. Doubts arise when Calories In Calories Out is presented as the ultimate solution. There are isocaloric studies that clearly prove that mice can become extremely obese and sick simply by swapping saturated fats for polyunsaturated fats. There are isocaloric studies that clearly demonstrate that humans gain or lose weight at different rates depending on the composition of macros. Doubts arise when, in addition to CICO, only the insulin hypothesis is mentioned, but the Mass Balance Model (MBM) is not. In the book, everything is a calorie, but nothing is a nutrient. No mention of the nutrients necessary for the enlarged brain. Just as the author in the book advises consulting an anthropologist, I would have wished for a more open approach to other hypotheses here, instead of rejecting them outright and seriously...

Germany on Sep 19, 2023

puddleshark: Well, I couldn't disagree more with those reviewers he felt the author was too cynical. I was with him, maybe I'm too cynical too, but when he got a bit exercised about he simplistic assumptions often made, I felt he had a point, and he always came over as a real person with a bit of a personality, which made me trust him more. I personally liked the no-bullshit approach, maybe some people find it a bit too informal and outspoken. Despite the more conversational asides, the author explains beautifully how life forms use energy all the way up from the basic principles. If you don't care about the biochemistry you can skip those bits.

There is plenty of interesting information about the authors research (both the research findings and how they went about doing the research, which is often rather entertaining). There is also enough useable advice on how to best apply the findings in the service of keeping healthy - and losing weight if necessary. This advice is not overly detailed but that is because the author's conclusion on that question is that the detail doesn't really matter a lot - much as people have a seemingly insatiable appetite for ever more new miracle diets, the...

United Kingdom on Aug 21, 2023

NeverConvex: I've got one chapter left to go in Pontzer's book, and am a layperson (though an uncommonly picky one when it comes to popular science) re: the study of metabolism, but I've really enjoyed his book so far.

I think he does the following very well:

- digestible, careful review of methodology and physical/biochem basis for doubly labeled water studies of metabolic output, including an interesting discussion of their history and why it wasn't until as late as the 80s that the became cheap enough for us to begin collecting a decent amount of data. This methodology forms the basis of most of the book
- similarly digestible, careful review of human metabolism (Krebs cycle, ATP production, etc), although only a few qualitative facts about this (e.g., that macronutrients are metabolically substitutable, albeit with some tradeoffs; or, distinction between anaerobic and aerobic energy output) tend to figure centrally in the book's arguments
- impressive range of studies discussed while *mostly* keeping descriptions of their major methodological features clear
- interesting cross-species total and resting energy expenditure discussions/speculation, especially in the...

United States on Apr 13, 2023

nfkb: si vous aimez la physiologie, le sport, la nutrition, foncez, ce livre est passionnant, j'ai appris beaucoup de choses alors que je m'intéresse au sujet depuis > 10 ans

France on Nov 12, 2022

Dr Ali Binazir: Have you ever slept just a few hundred yards from a pride of hungry lions to gather data, with just a thin nylon tent between you and becoming breakfast? Herman Pontzer has. In "Burn", he lives to tell the tale of trying to keep up with bafflingly badass Hadza hunter-gatherers and steel-livered Georgian paleoanthropololgists. The result is a masterwork of popular science writing: authoritative yet accessible, iconoclastic, and funny as hell.

The book is primarily about energy: the evolution of how humans acquire, use, and store it; the mechanisms for turning energy into work; how other animals do it differently; and how we sometimes thoughtlessly squander it. In the process, he upends some popular myths about diet and exercise.

For example, his research shows that the Hadza, who every day move around for ~4 hours and 15,000 steps, use the same amount of energy as couch-potato North Americans. What?!? How is this even possible? I'm still wrapping my head around this, but the definitive double-labeled water experiments don't lie. Humans have "constrained energy expenditure", meaning that you only burn so many calories a day no matter what you do. Our extremely...

United States on Mar 05, 2021