Powerful ideas from top nonfiction
Try Blinkist to get the key ideas from 5,500+ bestselling nonfiction titles and podcasts. Listen or read in just 15 minutes.
Start your free trial
Blink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club
by Robin Sharma
Why Diets Make Us Fat summary
Sandra Aamodt
The Unintended Consequences of Our Obsession With Weight Loss
Listen to the first key idea
Key idea 1 of 7
4.3 (104 ratings)
18 mins
7 key ideas
Audio & text
What is Why Diets Make Us Fat about?
Why Diets Make Us Fat (2016) demolishes many popular myths about diets and the relationship between weight and health. These blinks explore the science behind claims that dieting just doesn’t work and offer alternatives for people seeking to shed a few pounds and live more healthily.
About the Author
Sandra Aamodt is a neuroscientist and popular science writer. She is the former editor-in-chief of Nature Neuroscience and coauthor of the books Welcome to Your Brain and Welcome to Your Child’s Brain.
Table of Contents
Key idea 1 of 7
Why do you gain weight again after losing it? Because your brain thinks you’re starving.
If a woman of average height who weighs 110 pounds lost 30 pounds, most people would agree she was too skinny and possibly malnourished. Yet if a woman who weighs 230 pounds lost 30 pounds, many people would congratulate her for shedding the excess weight.
To society, there’s a big difference in experience between these two women on a diet. Yet to the human brain, these scenarios are interpreted as dangerous: in both cases, the body thinks it’s starving.
Your body has evolved to keep your weight within a defended range; that is, your average weight plus or minus 10 or 15 pounds.
It’s relatively easy to achieve weight changes within your defended range through modifications in diet and exercise. The range itself can also shift, but it’s important to keep in mind that it’s far easier to raise the range than it is to lower it.
So while you can lose weight, once you drop below your defended range, your body will work hard to get you back to that level.
Why is this the case? Your brain maintains a highly effective energy-balance system, which automatically keeps your weight in its defended range by keeping the calories you burn close or equal to the calories you consume.
This energy-balance system, however, can easily be upset by the body’s reward system. When you do something that helps you survive – for example, eat a calorie-rich hamburger – your body sends your brain a shot of the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine.
Such a system was beneficial for our hunter-gatherer ancestors. When they found a stash of honeycomb or made a big kill, for instance, the body’s reward system compelled them to overeat, which made sense for survival, as the next meal might not come for a while.
Today, however, this system doesn’t work in our favor. With constant access to high-fat, sugary foods, we can too easily overeat, which pushes our bodies’ reward system into a feel-good loop.
As a reaction to our overeating, we often put ourselves on diets. Yet, research suggests that if we diet repeatedly, it can cause changes in the brain, making the reward response even stronger, and resulting in even more indulgence.
Want to see all full key ideas from Why Diets Make Us Fat?
Key ideas in Why Diets Make Us Fat
More knowledge in less time
Read or listen
Get the key ideas from nonfiction bestsellers in minutes, not hours.
Find your next read
Get book lists curated by experts and personalized recommendations.
Shortcasts New
We’ve teamed up with podcast creators to bring you key insights from podcasts.
Who should read Why Diets Make Us Fat
- Anyone struggling to lose weight
- People interested in the science behind eating healthily
- Individuals wanting to develop better eating habits
Categories with Why Diets Make Us Fat
Books like Why Diets Make Us Fat
What our members say
Sven O.
It's highly addictive to get core insights on personally relevant topics without repetition or triviality. Added to that the apps ability to suggest kindred interests opens up a foundation of knowledge.
Thi Viet Quynh N.
Great app. Good selection of book summaries you can read or listen to while commuting. Instead of scrolling through your social media news feed, this is a much better way to spend your spare time in my opinion.
Jonathan A.
Life changing. The concept of being able to grasp a book's main point in such a short time truly opens multiple opportunities to grow every area of your life at a faster rate.
Renee D.
Great app. Addicting. Perfect for wait times, morning coffee, evening before bed. Extremely well written, thorough, easy to use.
Start growing with Blinkist now
25 Million
Downloads on all platforms
4.7 Stars
Average ratings on iOS and Google Play
91%
Of Blinkist members create a better reading habit*
*Based on survey data from Blinkist customers