Thanks for your thoughtful responses. I’ll say again — even though it does seem as though you’re tied to your particular view and resistant (not necessarily insulin resistant:>)) to feedback at times, at other times you’re unusually receptive and open to dialog. You make great points about your particular view, but when it comes to another point of view, you tend toward “Well, yes, there are these studies of people who’ve lost weight andkept it off but I don’t really believe it therefore there must be flaws.”

This is the first time you addressed stress (I called it stress but there are huge psychological factors that go way beyond the simplistic concept of stress) and you simply say it’s too hard to deal with on Medium.

Actually, there are a great number of excellent daily posts on Medium dealing with stress. Evoking the relaxation response in a scientifically valid wayis one of the easiest things imaginable. 2:1 breathing alone is a technique anyone can learn in 5 minutes (I’ve taught it to 4 year old children) and it only takes a few minutes a day to have a significant effect.

You simply breathe out twice as long as you inhale.

That’s it. I’ve used it for years to help get to sleep faster, and taught it to others to help with sleep, regulation of food intake, chronic pain, anxiety, depression, ADHD, trauma, OCD, and more.

And there are dozens of practices that are equally easy — relaxation, breathing, imagery, mindfulness (dozens if not hundreds of forms of mindfulness, though there are probably only about a half dozen or so fundamental types), mindful cognitive behavior therapy, somatic experiencing, and many many more. You can read about the essentials here: www.RememberToBe.Life.

Also about the “all other things being equal low carb is better” view.

Our psychological condition is just not that simple. It’s not linear. Being “Fat” is not stressful in itself. No external condition is inherently stressful. The most fundamental finding of all therapies — in fact, all philosophies the world over for thousands of years — is that pain is inevitable in human life but suffering (crudely referred to as “stress” in pop literature) is optional. This is the basis of the Buddhist “4 Noble Truths — and everything we understand in contemporary neuroscience points to the same truth.

All that we know of what we call “the world” is a construction in the mind (not a creation; I’m not putting forth a philosophy here). What we perceive as “brain” is also a construct. The WAY this experience is constructed is fundamentally based on internal attitudes, beliefs, and views. This doesn’t mean our mind CREATES the world but the way it appears to us psychological is fundamentally related to how we construct it (not that we do that consciously!).

Sorry for veering off into a much more complex topic but it is quite relevant. I’ll add one more thought about it below.

Finally, one thing you haven’t addressed is the massive amount of research showing that some people — regardless of their condition related to insulin — just do better on a higher carb diet.

Again, if you want to sum up my one main concern about your posts — it’s that you have a great theory that has some support for SOME people but not ALL.

finally, this is a bad marketing technique, The research is out there, easy to find in 3 seconds with simple search, and people inclined to buy your book who see an absolutist position are simply not going to buy it.

• ** I said I’d add something about how the contemporary neurological understanding of how experience is constructed relates to absolutism.

One you get a visceral sense (it can be done), an experiential sense, that all that is perceived is constructed, you realize that the fixity, the absolutism of our physical and biological sciences is deeply limited. For example, things are far more changeable and flexible — particularly our gut and overall digestive system — than we like to believe.