#36 Stephan Guyenet - Why We Get Fat

I interview Dr Stephan Guyenet, who is a researcher and science communicator in the field of neuroscience of obesity. He has written an excellent book on the same topic - The Hungry Brain. In his book, he explains how the brain is the central organ responsible for gaining weight and body fat.

Stephan finished his PhD in neuroscience from the University of Washington, and then spent 12 years as a full time researcher exploring the science of obesity and its link to the brain.

Stephan is also the founder and director of a non-profit called Red Pen Reviews, an online publication where he and his fellow researchers review popular nutrition books for scientific accuracy. Nutrition is an area where unfounded claims are often made, so I’m grateful for Stephan and the team for putting in effort to help sift scientifically grounded nutrition books from pseudoscience.

In this podcast, I explore with Stephan the neuroscience of why we get fat, and what we can do to stay fit.

== What we talk about ==
00:00 - Introduction to the podcast
01:20 - What is obesity and why should anyone care about it?
05:12 - The Ideal Body Mass Index & the Relationship between BMI and Ethnicity
10:24 - What exactly fat does in our body which make us unhealthy?
16:48 - What actually causes insulin resistance?
23:14 - How do excess calories that we eat ultimately end up into the fat cells?
29:15 - Why is ketogenic diet so popular? How does it really work?
31:07 - Why do we over-eat even when we don't want to?
58:14 - Non-homeostatic systems that make us overeat
1:07:38 - Is food addiction real?
1:17:15 - What people can really do to not get fat?
1:20:52 - Concluding Thoughts