So I got my copy of TFS a few days ago and sat down last night to read the majority of it. It is a quick read, especially if you are familiar with the concepts from his previous books and don't have to reread some of the denser material.

I thought the book was excellent. It was certainly focused and you could tell that Dr. Sears went to a lot of effort to make the book digestible for new comers. He saved much of the science for the appendix section and even that was slightly watered down when compared to some of his other books.

In the past I have been very critical of folks that suffer from all the modern day afflictions caused by the food they eat yet, apparently, make no effort to change their habits. This book is extremely enlightening in that sense.

My only complaints, if there are any to be made, is that I felt like the book may have been a little too focused and there were too many pages dedicated to recipes. I'm sure this was a conscious decision by Dr Sears and when all of his books are viewed as a whole this complaint is pretty bogus.

The core message remains basically the same since 'Enter The Zone'. Each successive book is a slight evolution of his original dietary/lifestyle recommendations to make them either more effective or palpable to the general public. Each book supports those recommendations from slightly different angles and serves to deepen the argument for them.

What Dr Sears has built over the years is a pool of literature that justifies and explains a method to dramatically improve the health and well being of individuals and seems to be the only way out of what is increasingly being acknowledged as a worldwide inflammation epidemic.

Dr Sears simply does not get enough credit for what he has done. I would highly encourage anyone remotely interested in their health and well being to read his latest work and then head straight to the book store to pick up all of his other books. You will not regret it.

I'm interested in others thoughts and would love to start a thread dedicated to discussing some of the topics in focus in TFS.

Also...I'll be posting most of the above on amazon.

Thanks for all the info Chris!

I can't wait to read the book!

Hello from Spain! I saw you review at amazon.com Chris! I believe I was first person in this world -except Dr Sears' staff- who read this book. I bought it almost 1 month ago at amazon.com and I finished to read it one week ago. I always love to be first reading latest nutrition and health books of my favourite authors, and Dr Sears is probably my favourite (I like also N. Perricone, Andrew Weil books..). I believe TOXIC FAT is the most revolutionary Dr Sears probably since The AntiAging Zone. Now I am translating ideas of most revolutionary chapters to Spanish for Spanish public in my blog about Beauty, Health and Youth/Longevity. There are many controversial material in this book:
- Explanation of why obesity is a cancer
- You may be obese but healthy: you have a benign tumor
- You may be perfectly slim and have toxic fat
- You overeat and remains slim...but you create free radicals if you do it, how acts this genetics?

TOXIC FAT

CONTENTS

1.- The real epidemic behind the obesity crisis
2.- The perfect nutritional storm
3.- How inflammation help us -and hurt us
4.- Why getting fat may not be your fault
5.- Good fat may be protective
6.- Malignante toxic fat
7.- Do you have toxic fat syndrome?
8.- The Zone Diet: Your primary defense in fighting toxic fat
9.- Super fish oil: Your final defense in fighting toxic fat
10.- Putting it all together
11.- Overcoming obstacles to your success
12.- The coming reckoning
13.- Anti-inflammatory meals to reverse toxic fat syndrome in less than 30 days

Appendices
A. Continuing support
B. Blood testing for silent inflammation
C. Hormones: The keys of your biological internet
D. Eicosanoids: Hormones of Mistery
E. Everything you wanted to know about fish oil but were afraid to ask
F. Insulin resistance: It all starts in your adipose tissue
G. Nutrigenomics: How diet affects the expression of your genes
H. Zone food blocks

Greetings from mediterranean pro-Zone Spain!!!

Nice info you guys. I would be interested in learning more. Maybe it will help me understand how come people let themselves get obese. I don't want this to happen to me and I'm ready to do all I can and learn all I can to keep it at bay. the thing I find is helpful of people who study nutrition is go give recipes so people can see they can eat something that is good for them and healthy. We don't have to eat Crisco and Mrs Butterworth to be happy. Yogurt can't do it all. I was at work this evening and I had asked a girl what she was eating today.. She said she had a yogurt. I said what else are you going to eat? She said two cups of tea. I said what!! is that all. She said yes, she doesn't feel like eating. Well, now. This lady is not a 120 girl. She is quite a bit round as I'll call it. Another lady, the same thing. She is on WW boards and saying, her weight is not moving. I asked what are you eating? She hesitated to say, she skips breakfast because she gets up late. I said okay, so what did you eat before you came to work? She said nothing. I said there's your problem. You are not eating. She fears eating.. and yup, she's fat. I wish I could get people to understand it's okay to eat. does the book address people who try to lose weight by not eating and saying it's their fault? they think Yogurt and Granola bars are all they need to lose weight. This rant may not go with your topic I'm sorry but it just erks me that they are not reading the right information.

i do largely agree that this was his most revolutionary book to date. In my original comment I mentioned that in the past i was very hard on people that didn't appear to be helping themselves. this book convinced me that, for many, it is much harder to maintain a healthy weight than you may think. Setting aside the cultural factors and I am including the perfect storm that Dr Sears describes in detail in the book, I learned that what really counts isn't the calories you consume but the amount of ATP that you are able to produce from the food you are eating.

Many people are unable to efficiently produce ATP from the calories they are taking in. Of that population, some take those calories not converted to atp and store them very efficiently as fat. In order for them to have adequate levels of energy (ATP) they need to eat far more total calories than you think. When they attempt to lose weight, there bodies burn muscle and other vital tissue in preference to fat and their energy levels plummet. Starving themselves is unsustainable and unhealthy. Obviously (unsurprisingly!) the answer is the zone diet. One fact that sticks out in my mind is that high levels of polyphenols can increase the efficiency at which individuals can convert calories to ATP. You get those polyphenols primarily from eating a ton of vegetables and fruits.

Other people are equally inefficient at converting calories to atp but they are also inefficient at storing excess calories as fat. These are the folks that people often envy because they can eat whatever they want and not gain a pound. Interestingly these are the people that can look great but still have extremely high levels of inflammation. ...not something very enviable. :)

anyways...a gross overgeneralization of the situation but at least a start to explaining why obesity is far more complicated then self control.

oh yeah...Dr Sears makes a very poignant point when he compares self control to the point of denial at the dinner table with holding ones breath. It might work temporarily but it will eventually fail.

there is some much solid information in this book. i took it home to my parents house over the weekend and i am already anxious to get it back since i feel like i rushed through it!