It depresses me to see the results of people being misguided into caloric restriction. Good Calories, Bad Calories should be required reading at weight loss programs: http://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Challenging-Conventi...

Carbohydrates produce insulin, insulin causes us to store fat. It's not complicated. There have been scientific studies out since the 30's entirely dismissing calorie counting as being effective.

Good Calories, Bad Calories: http://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Challenging-Conventi...

See http://www.archevore.com/archevore/

and http://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Gary-Taubes/dp/14000...

I thought Good Calories, Bad Calories was very good. It's about the bad science behind the high-carb, low-fat diet advice. From there you can get into things like paleo diet etc. I'm not recommending any particular diet - there are plenty of people who think Taubes is full of it (http://reason.com/archives/2003/03/01/big-fat-fake http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/wp-content/uploads/2008/0...), and I'm not a doctor and have no training in the field. Just an interested observer, since diet, nutrition, and exercise is the base for anything else you're going to do in your life.

Amazon link - http://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Gary-Taubes/dp/14000... Google Books preview - http://books.google.com/books?id=Xdm40JUD9HwC&printsec=f...

I started the paleo diet about 6 months ago. In that time I lost about 18kg of fat easier than any other diet I have ever been on. My blood lipids (I was about to start statins for cholesterol) have all improved dramatically in this time, to the point where my doctor is now incredibly interested in the topic. My psoriasis and eczema have all cleaned up dramatically. The crossfit gym I go to has seen massive improvements in lifting etc once people went paleo. And I am finally off the Prozac for anxiety. Needless to say, for the population of n=1, this experiment worked wonders. I know a lot of people won’t take this anecdotal evidence, but if you jump into any of the many paleo forums, you will hear stories like this all the time. If you want a serious easy to follow, health improvement, I highly suggest this diet.

For more resources on the topic I suggest a few books.

http://www.primalbody-primalmind.com/ - Primal Body Primal Mind by Nora Gedgaudas – Lots of science.

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/ - Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson – Lot more accessible. Give it to your parents etc.

http://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Gary-Taubes/dp/14000... - Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes – Very long, but explains where the American Dietary guidelines came from and why they are wrong. (Cliffs notes: http://higher-thought.net/complete-notes-to-good-calories-ba... )

Some excellent blogs/websites:

http://www.paleonu.com/

http://freetheanimal.com/

http://www.westonaprice.org/

http://www.paleoz.com/