I am always hungry. Okay, maybe not always, but the idea of food always sounds good—and it’s hard to differentiate the two. Meanwhile, my dresses are increasingly strained across my hips. So when I encountered the textbook-size (and, in that it’s packed with charts, history, and recipes, the textbook-like) Always Hungry?, by Harvard endocrinologist, nutritionist, and pediatrician David Ludwig, MD, PhD, well, that damn book stared me right in the thighs.
Ludwig’s philosophy is that by “ignoring calories and targeting fat tissue directly”—with a low-carb diet based on “good fats,” legumes, nonstarchy vegetables, and a wide array of proteins (which, as a lactoseintolerant vegetarian, is right up my alley)—you can reprogram “fat cells to release their stored calories...shifting metabolism into weight-loss mode” and eventually find your healthy set point, i.e.,…
