When I was 250 (okay 253) pounds I was for damn sure obese. Now that I'm around 185lbs I'm still overweight by BMI standards but since I'm hovering around 12-15% body fat depending on where I am in my training and dieting cycles I'm not too fussed.

The difference? Diet. Entirely diet - I increased exercise and it didn't do jack, I started counting calories and the pounds just melted off; and I didn't have to turn into a carb-phobe, a lipid-phobe or cut out any macronutrient to do it, I just had to learn what actual food was and what a portion really looked like.

Aragon,Bsc, Ms,= Alan is a continuing education provider for the Commission on Dietetic Registration, National Academy of Sports Medicine, American Council on Exercise, and National Strength & Conditioning Association and guest lectures at various universities: http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2011/02/23/ive-had-my-hands-full/ -

Beef stimulates as much insulin release as brown rice: http://www.ajcn.org/content/66/5/1264.abstract (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9356547) - The acute effects of four protein meals on insulin, glucose, appetite and energy intake in lean men:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20456814 - James Krieger did a write-up of this and a few other studies that excerpted the relevant graphs for anyone who doesn't have full-text access to clinical journals at http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=319

Underestimating of intake is proportional to level of obesity if you look at some of the studies I posted links to - which makes a lot of sense to me; when I was 250lbs I honestly didn't think I was eating that much or that many calories but when I actually started to run the numbers using The Hacker's Diet I discovered why I was screwing myself over with my portion sizes. Now at 185lbs and a 1.5x bodyweight squat (15% body fat after my last bulk, cutting down to about 12% for summer) my calorie intake is in line with my expenditure because I don't rely on guesstimating intake by eyeballing - I am as unreliable as the next person so I do need to measure my portions to actually control intake.

His hypothesis is "Eating carbs stimulates insulin which drives fat storage which makes you fat, excess calories has nothing to do with it and eating carbs can cause fat gain in the absence of excess calories"

Taubes was of course taken by complete surprise by the existence of Acylation Stimulating Protein http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10355026 [nih.gov] which is about two-three orders of magnitude more potent driver of fat storage than insulin is and stores fat in the complete absence of insulin in your system, and he also failed to take into account that protein stimulates more insulin release than carbs do, which leaves both parts of his hypothesis falsified.

He's also claiming that obese individuals will add body mass in absence of excess calories based on self-reporting of calorie intake. Which would leave you with mass appearing from nothing, or you'd go with the alternate explanation which is that people will under-estimate and under-report their intake in proportion to their level of obesity:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9312790

Taubes was of course taken by complete surprise by the existence of Acylation Stimulating Protein http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10355026 which is about two-three orders of magnitude more potent driver of fat storage than insulin is and stores fat in the complete absence of insulin in your system, and he also failed to take into account that protein stimulates more insulin release than carbs do, which leaves both parts of his hypothesis falsified.

You're kind of right - but it's Taubes' understanding of it that's too simplistic: http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-energy-balance-equation.html

Taubes claim is that obese individuals don't consume excess calories or more calories than lean individuals, but that the percentage of carb intake is higher and that the source of calories causes fat gain. His primary support for this is studies using self-reported calorie intakes, which is utterly useless since people will typically under-estimate their calorie intake by 20-60% http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7985624 , http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10745278 and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9312790 combined with vastly over-estimating their energy expenditure: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21178922 Taubes' theory requires that there are magic insulin fairies that come in the night and add fat mass to innocent overweight and obese individuals who accidentally had some carbs. The alternative hypothesis - that people lie to themselves and don't know how much food they actually need or what's in the stuff they're eating is much simpler, neh?

Lusting has been extensively debunked by Alan Aragon http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/02/19/a-retrospective-of-the-fructose-alarmism-debate/ and James Krieger, amongst others; and Gary Taubes' carb hypothesis requires that obese individuals are capable of violating the laws of thermodynamics and the laws of conservation of mass so he's just reaching for something, anything that can vaguely support his bullshit claims.

We Norwegians would like you Danish land thieves to hand back Greenland and cease and desist with the silly claims about Leif and Erik.

I'm sure the Icelanders will be on my case in a second :)