You Are What You Eat

Why Women Need Fat
William D. Lassek & Steven J.C. Gaulin
Diet & Health

Don’t we all know someone who is constantly on a diet? Maybe we are that someone. I’ll admit it, I find diet books kind of fascinating. I’ve read quite a few and let me tell you, after awhile, they are just hilarious. Each one will tell you why other diets fail you but why this one will finally have the answer! At first it sounds great, then after you’ve read enough of these books and seen lots and lots of failure, you finally just start to pick them up for an amusing way to kill a few hours. But this book actually made me sit up and take notice.

William Lassek and Steven Gaulin, both doctors, initially started doing research on why women have small waists, which then morphed into this book when they started noticing how much fat has to do with weight, especially when it comes to women. There’s all sorts of science-y mumbo-jumbo in here and yes, I did have to skim some parts because I felt my eyes start to glaze over at the idea of another biology lesson. But they have some good points and interesting data. Basically, we’re eating the wrong kinds of fat (soybean oil and vegetable oil are the biggest offenders and they are in everything! It’s a little depressing, actually) and at the end of the book, they tell you what kind of fat you need to eat to get yourself to your natural weight (the weight your body wants to be at and will always, always go back to when you lose more weight than you should). At some point I probably will try this way of eating because it just makes sense. Let me emphasize that Lassek and Gaulin stress a lot that their plan is not a diet. You just avoid all the bad oils and stick with eating natural foods that come from the earth. This will eventually lead you back to your natural weight.Not exactly a revolutionary idea, but one I’m sure more people probably need to hear.

Even if you’re not interested in dieting, there’s still a lot of intriguing stuff about women’s health, today and throughout history. So put down The South Beach Diet and grab Why Women Need Fat. Your body will thank you.