If you have had trouble controlling your weight, it isn’t your fault? What if the problem is that you have been given bad advice that the way to lose weight it to eat less and exercise more? That is the premise of Canadian Dr. Jason Fung, author of The Obesity Code.
Fung said the problem is that as you eat less, the body becomes more efficient and you also expend less energy. “A 30 percent reduction in caloric intake results in a 30 percent decrease in caloric expenditure,” Fung writes in The Obesity Code. “The end result is minimal weight loss.”
Fung’s conclusions are backed up by studies such as the National Health and Nutrition Examination survey from 1990-2010 that found no association between increased calorie consumption and weight gain. While obesity increased, calorie intake remained stable.
“If we eat an extra 200 calories today, nothing prevents the body from burning that excess for heat,” Fung said. “Or perhaps that extra 200 calories is excreted as stool. Or perhaps the liver uses the extra 200. We obsess about caloric input into the system, but output is far more important.”
Men in the Minnesota Starvation Experiment should have lost 78 pounds going by the amount their calories were restricted. But they lost only 37 pounds.
“The body quickly responds to caloric reduction by reducing metabolism (total energy expenditure),” Fung claims.
Many people have struggled for years with their weight. Not only does obesity raise the risk for heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes, but people often feel shameful and have a poor body image that negatively affects their feelings of self-esteem. Yet the percent of people who are obese in the U.S. continues to increase. The obesity rate in the U.S. is nearly 40 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“Obesity-related conditions include heart disease, stroke, Type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancer that are some of the leading causes of preventable, premature death,” the CDC said. “The estimated annual medical cost of obesity in the United States was $147 billion in 2008 US dollars.”
Fung says don’t blame the victims of bad advice.
“The failing isn’t ours,” he said. “The portion-control caloric-reduction diet is virtually guaranteed to fail. Eating less does not result in lasting weight loss.”
Instead, Fung argues that insulin causes obesity and the foods that cause insulin levels to rise are refined carbohydrates, highly refined grains and sugars. There is nothing new about low-carb diets. They were popularized in the Dr. Atkins’ Diet Revolution published in 1972. But those kinds of diets haven’t been proven to lead to lasting weight loss. And there are some cultures with a high carbohydrate diets without corresponding high obesity rates.
Fung recommends five steps to weight loss:
- Reduce consumption of added sugars.
- Reduce consumption of refined grains.
- Moderate protein intake.
- Increase consumption of natural fats.
- Increase consumption of fiber and vinegar.
Then he goes a step beyond what makes up your diet to when and how often you eat. He advocates fasting or intermittent fasting as a way to not just lose weight, but potentially prevent devastating diseases like cancer, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. When the body doesn’t have its preferred energy source – carbohydrates – readily at hand, it will instead go to the fat stores. And it may also “eat” damaged or abnormal cells like those that cause cancer or other diseases. This is a process known as autophagy.
Fung says your body’s insulin is the key to controlling weight and that fasting is the also most efficient and consistent strategy to decrease insulin levels.
“Instead of searching for some exotic, never-seen-before diet miracle to help us break insulin resistance, let’s instead focus on a tried-and-true ancient healing tradition,” Fung said. “Fasting is one of the oldest remedies in human history and has been part of the practice of virtually every culture and religion on earth.”
Fung points out that Jesus Christ, Buddha and the prophet Muhammed all shared a common belief in the power of fasting.
“In spiritual terms, it is often called cleansing or purification; in practical terms, it amounts to the same thing,” Fung said. “Regular fasting, by routinely lowering insulin levels, has been shown to significantly improve insulin sensitivity. This finding is the missing piece in the weight-loss puzzle. Most diets restrict the intake of foods that cause increased insulin secretion, but don’t address insulin resistance. You lose weight initially, but insulin resistance keeps your insulin levels and body set weight high. By fasting, you can efficiently reduce your body’s insulin resistance, since it requires both persistence and high levels.”
Fasting can be done in a number of ways. Just skipping breakfast and eating lunch and dinner is one example of intermittent fasting. Studies of people eating one meal a day found the people lost weight even consuming the same number of calories as before eating several meals a day.
Intermittent fasting is becoming increasingly popular. One of Dr. Fung’s YouTube videos on the topic has had 2.5 million views. The top YouTube video on intermittent fasting, a short, easy-to-understand lesson by Dr. Eric Berg, DC, has 5.3 million views.
One of the most exciting applications of fasting/intermittent fasting is its use to reverse Type 2 diabetes. Some people have had success using long-term fasts under medication supervision to heal their insulin resistance and become free of diabetes. Considering the runaway diabetes epidemic, and the fact that this illness is the most costly health problem in America, this is some great news.