Footnotes

^*570 calories per person per day times 365 days in a year equals 208,050 calories. Multiply this by 8 years and we end up with 1,664,400 excess calories per person between 2006 and 2014. Divide 1,664,400 by the 3,500 calories in a pound of fat and we get 476 pounds of fat per person.

^*300 calories times 365 days in a year equals 109,500 extra calories per person per year. Multiply that by 29 years we get 3,175,500 excess calories consumed per person between 1977 and 2006. 3,175,500 extra calories divided by 3,500 calories in a pound of fat equals 907 pounds of fat.

^*After hearing this analogy one may think, “Fun comparison, but while we can stop smoking, we can’t stop eating.” This interpretation is a bit off. The scientists aren’t telling people to “stop breathing.” They identified something that we would be better off not breathing: cigarette smoke. The same thing goes with food. Scientists aren’t saying, “Stop eating.” They have identified some things that we would be better off not eating: starches and sweets.

^*The average American gained about twenty pounds during a time period when Americans consumed enough extra calories to gain over thirteen hundred pounds.

^*The biological factors involved in our set-point include leptin, insulin, Mc4r receptors, amylin, melanocyte hormones, NPY, peptide YY, galanin, norepinephrine, ART, bombesin, GLP–1, serotonin, urocortin, CRF, agouti-related peptide, ghrelin, mTOR, AMPK, TRH neuron, the thyroid, ARC POMC neuron, Angpt14, gastric inhibitory polypeptide, cholecystokinin, pancreatic polypeptide, and much more. Maybe this is why we haven’t heard about it.

^*Leptin, ghrelin, peptide YY, cholecystokinin, amylin, gastric inhibitory polypeptide, and more.

^*Note: We are going to cover a lot of rat or mouse studies. These studies are useful because they allow researchers to do things they could never do on humans and because they enable us to eliminate variables like emotions and social pressure. When we observe animal models, we’re looking at mammalian biology plain and simple.

^*Sixteen hundred calories per day is considered generous by today’s “eat less” advocates.

^*From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: “Body Mass Index (BMI) is a number calculated from a person’s weight and height. BMI provides a reliable indicator of body fatness for most people and is used to screen for weight categories that may lead to health problems.” (Source: http://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/assessing/bmi.)

^* Fiber: “Dietary fiber, also known as roughage or bulk, includes all parts of plant foods that your body cannot digest or absorb. Unlike other food components such as fats, proteins or carbohydrates—which your body breaks down and absorbs—fiber isn’t digested by your body” (Mayo Clinic, “Dietary Fiber: Essential for a Healthy Diet,” MayoClinic.com, www.mayoclinic.com/health/fiber/NU00033, accessed March 20, 2011). Taking up space in our digestive system until it “keeps us regular,” fiber keeps us full for a long time.

^*Glycemic index: A measure of foods’ Aggression. The higher a food’s glycemic index, the more Aggressive it is.

Glycemic load: A measure that is similar to glycemic index but also considers quantity. The glycemic load measures a food’s Aggression combined with the calories in a portion of it.

^*The fat in food is completely unAggressive. It does not increase the amount of glucose in the bloodstream at all. In fact, fat slows the release of glucose into the bloodstream. That is why foods containing fat are often less Aggressive than fat-free foods. That said, foods made up of nothing but fat—oils, butter, cream etc.—are not particularly SANE because they are not especially Satisfying, Nutritious, or inEfficient. They are fine in moderation, but don’t go crazy with them. We’ll cover dietary fat in detail later.

^* Nonstarchy vegetables: The most SANE vegetables. Think of these as the vegetables you can eat raw and generally find in salads such as spinach, romaine lettuce, kale, any green leafy vegetable, broccoli, mushrooms, peppers, onions, zucchini, cauliflower, carrots, asparagus, etc. Basically anything other than corn, potatoes, turnips, yams, parsnips, radishes, etc. Corn, potatoes, yams, and other starchy foods are not SANE.

^*When I use the term “evolution” please feel free to read “human history” if that better fits within your lifestyle. If you prefer to read “human history,” please also read “99.8 percent” as “95 percent” as human history is a shorter period of time than evolutionary history.

^*First there was Dietary Goals (1976), then came the Dietary Guidelines (1980), the Food Guide Pyramid (1992), MyPyramid (2005), and finally MyPlate (2011). Additionally, since the release of the original Dietary Guidelines, the government has rereleased the same basic guidance every five years.

^*One or two servings of sweet potatoes per week are fine.

^*Note: This is not to imply that well-formulated low-carb/high-fat diets are unhealthy. Quite the opposite is true as we will see later. It is possible and healthy to go low-carb SANE, but “out-of-the-box” SANE eating does not qualify as low-carb.

^*The document on which all things nutritional in the government and related organizations is based.

^*Note: When thinking about grams of protein keep in mind that—for example—a 200-gram serving of salmon contains about 40 grams of protein. Like most SANE foods, salmon is mostly water. We are aiming for between 100 and 200 grams of protein, not 100 to 200 grams of foods containing protein; we’ll be enjoying far more delicious food than that.

^*Observational studies such as the China-Cornell-Oxford Project provide us only with correlation, not causation. For instance, increased usage of sunglasses correlates with sunny days. That does not prove that wearing sunglasses causes the sun to come out.

^*Dutched or dutch-processed cocoa/cacao has been treated with chemicals and has lost much of its health benefit.

^*Calories provided by the vast majority of alcoholic beverages are inSANE. That doesn’t mean we must avoid all alcoholic beverages. It means that given our goal of minimizing inSANE calories, the best alcoholic beverages are those with the least calories. For example, choose wine instead of beer, choose clear liquor versus brown liquor, and completely avoid sugar-saturated mixers (for example, fruit juice or soda).

*Note: Both sets of exercises are basically the same. The gym options are performed on machines that enable us to add much more resistance safely. These machines are required for advanced individuals, as they will otherwise not be able to safely use the amount of resistance needed to activate all their muscle fibers.

*The universal principles: If you are hungry, slowly eat nonstarchy vegetables, nutrient-dense proteins, whole food fats, and low-fructose fruits, in that order, from unadulterated sources, until you are full, and stay hydrated, rested, and active while enjoying short bursts of safe and intense exercise.