Welcome to my website!

My name is Dr. Thomas Torok, I am a nutrition scientist from Canada. My mission is combating the global epidemic of obesity. Obesity is the plague of the new millennium. Since the beginning of the 20th century, obesity has claimed more lives than all wars, violent events and dictatorships combined, including World War I, World War II, genocides, civil wars, man-made famines and communism. The vast majority of our modern-day diseases such as type-2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, cancer, arthritis and many others are closely related to obesity. The common feature of these ailments is that they are all lifestyle diseases and in many cases they can be prevented by simply adopting a healthy lifestyle.

The worldwide epidemic

Since the 1970s, the number of obese individuals in the United States has more than tripled: by now, 36% of Americans are obese. Canada and the European countries show a very similar pattern. The phenomenon of obesity is not limited to the industrialized countries only. By the beginning of the new millennium, obesity had become a worldwide epidemic. Even in those developing countries, that faced food shortage a couple decades earlier, the number of obese people increases at an alarming rate. It seems like we lost the battle against obesity. Why?

What causes obesity?

In order to answer this very complex question, we need to first look at the basic concept of how mainstream science describes obesity. Although several hypotheses are used to explain what causes obesity, the calories in - calories out model is the predominant view among researchers and healthcare professionals. The World Health Organization (WHO) is no exception either. As per the WHO website: “The fundamental cause of obesity and overweight is an energy imbalance between calories consumed and calories expended.”
 
According to the calories in - calories out model, nutrients are absorbed from the ingested food (calories in). The energy from the food is used for maintaining vital body functions, growth, physical activity etc. (calories out). The excess energy will be stored in the form of body fat (positive energy balance). If energy expenditure exceeds energy intake, the energy shortage will be supplied from the stored fat (negative energy balance). In other words, if we eat too much and exercise too little, sooner or later we will be fat. Conversely, to lose weight, the only thing we need to do is slightly reduce our meal portion sizes or do some exercising once in a while. Now, our energy balance is negative and we’ve immediately started to lose weight. I will explain below why this approach in real life does not work.
 
Proponents of the calories in - calories out model often refer to the first law of thermodynamics: energy can be neither created nor destroyed. It makes perfect sense, but is it really that simple? Of course, the first law of thermodynamics is true, being one of nature’s most fundamental laws, however it is completely irrelevant to obesity. This model assumes that our caloric intake has no effect on our caloric expenditure. Many of those who are on a low-calorie diet feel cold all the time, because the human body reacts to severe caloric restrictions by slowing down the basal metabolic rate and switching to energy-saving mode. On the other hand, after a generous sized holiday meal you may feel excessively hot, because your body produces more heat from the excess calories. In other words, a higher caloric intake results in a higher caloric expenditure and a lower caloric intake causes a lower caloric expenditure.
 
“A calorie is a calorie” – says mainstream nutrition science. Let’s take a closer look at what is wrong with the most common nutrition myth ever. What will happen if a 100 calories of sugar or a 100 calories of raw cabbage are burned in a lab environment? As expected, both foods will produce the same amount of heat. You’ve already heard the saying “A calorie is a calorie”. It is 100% correct in the food scientists’ bomb calorimeters for sure. These two foods however have totally different effects on the human metabolism. One hundred calories of sugar, which is just two tablespoons has a definitely more fattening effect than one hundred calories of cabbage , which is half an entire cabbage! Not all calories are created equal. The calorie counting model doesn't give a full explanation to obesity. Besides calories, there are other factors as well, such as nutrients, fasting, hormones, genetics, your lifestyle and even the duration of obesity; these all have a significant impact on your body weight. Caloric intake is just one of the several terms in this very complex equation.