Robb Wolf

We work much more and sleep much less than we did even in the 1980s, about 2.5 hours less per day on average for most Americans. This change in not only sleep but also our constant exposure to artificial light (which affects every body system you care to consider) is perhaps the most profound change humanity has experienced.

Calories do count, but not all foods produce the same hormonal and metabolic effects. The strict calories in, calories out folks would have us believe that 2,000 calories of sugar are metabolically equivalent to 2,000 calories of pork loin, broccoli or sweet potato. Intuitively, this should smell as bad as products from Fukushima Fish Farms, Inc., but we do not need to rely on intuition—science shows this overly simplistic view, that ‘it’s just about calories’ is simply not true.

With Wired to Eat, I attempt to reach people with two key concepts: one, an understanding of the genetic and environmental factors, such as sleep, stress, hyperpalatable foods, and community, that make it easy for us to overeat; and two, the powerful tool of Personalized Nutrition.

As you now know, we have a bit of a challenge as we begin our health and weight loss journey, in that our normal human tendencies (eat more, move less) are quite at odds with our modern world. This is a legitimately complex problem. Therefore, our simple solutions must address this reality and involve eating, sleeping, moving, and loving in a way that works with, instead of against, our genetic wiring.

What will the kids eat? Same stuff as you. They need the crap formerly living in your pantry even less than you do.

The 30-Day-Reset is incredibly effective at resetting your neuroregulation of appetite, healing your gut, and reducing inflammation. Those are the features; the benefits are that you can get healthy, increase your energy, and lose weight easily.

We will use the 30-Day Reset to get your neuro-regulation of appetite back on track and then we will use the 7-Day Carb Test to precisely dial in the amounts and types of carbs that work best for you.

If we consume more calories than we need, we will tend to get fat. If we are insulin sensitive, this fat will tend to be evenly distributed around the body. If, however, we are insulin resistant (for whatever reason—lack of sleep, stress, inflammation) *and* if those calories come in the form of refined carbohydrates, this fat tends to be stored around our internal organs and is called visceral fat.

It’s worth remembering that although modern degenerative diseases appear to be quite different (they affect different organs and systems), the root causes tend to be the same: poor blood sugar control, elevated insulin levels, systemic inflammation, and intestinal permeability.

This research helps us understand that as long as the carbohydrates we eat are unrefined (and our guts are generally heathy), the amounts of macronutrients we consume may not matter. Conversely, if our guts are damaged and we are suffering from SIBO or related problems, a low-carbohydrate diet (which prunes back the microbiome) may be a smart treatment option, at least until we can fix the gut. Some people (like myself) seem to do better long term by keeping carbs on the low side (100 to 150g/day), while other people find they tolerate larger amounts of unrefined carbs.