Perhaps It's More When You Eat and Not What You Eat

So much of what we have been told regarding dieting advice has been based on what to eat; i.e. eat less fat, eat less carbs, eat more vegetables, eat less meat or sugar or bread or whatever.

Some of this is good advice. Some is garbage, such as the embarrassing "Food Pyramid" the USDA released back in the day which put simple carbohydrates like pasta and white bread (which are almost immediately broken down into sugars and can cause a bigger spike in blood glucose than even pure sugar) at the base of their farcical pyramid.

But while what you eat is important, I've found doctor Jason Fung's argument that when you eat is even more important extremely compelling. This is an argument he fleshed out in his fantastic book The Obesity Code. Following his advice, I have already lost 20 pounds.

They key point Jason Fung makes is that obesity is a hormonal problem, not a calorie problem. This goes directly against the traditional health idea that losing weight is simply about having a "calorie deficit." Namely, the only thing that causes weight gain is too many calories and the only thing that causes weight loss is, well, eating less calories than you burn. 

Even Google will dictate this you as some undeniable truth. And, as we all know, Google is always above board with these sorts of things: 

This would fall under Michael Malice's wonderful dictum about the corporate media: "Factual, but not truthful." Yes, it is technically true that your body will either burn or store every calorie you ingest. But that information is by itself useless and actually harmful without a proper understanding of how our bodies hormones work, particularly insulin.

Indeed, Fung explains the results of what could be called an extremely successful failure. Namely, the Pathway study that lead the "ambitious effort involving 1704 children in forty-one schools." 

The specific nutritional goal was the same low-fat, low-calorie diet combined with increased exercise that had failed so miserably as a remedy for adult obesity.

Did the children learn how to eat a low-fat diet? Sure did. Dietary fat started at 34 percent of calories and over the course of the study, fell to 27 percent. Did they eat fewer calories? Sure did. The intervention group averaged 1892 calories per day compared to 2157 calories per day in the control group. Fantastic! The children were eating 265 fewer calories per day. They learned their lessons extremely well, eating fewer calories and less fat overall. Over the course of three years, calorie counters expected a loss of approximately 83 pounds! Bud did the children's weight change? Not even a little bit. (Pg. 149)

The problem, as Fung makes painfully clear, is that our bodies naturally try to maintain homeostasis. So if we ingest less calories, our basal metabolic rate will decrease and our bodies will conserve energy. And vice versa if we eat more. Thus, most diets succeed at first before we plateau and then gain the weight right back.

And the government should know this. As Fung relates, "Data from the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANES) in the United States from 1990 to 2010 finds no association between increased calorie consumption and weight gain. While obesity increased at a rate of 0.37 percent per year, caloric intake remained virtually stable." (Pg. 32)

Fung also brings up the Minnesota Starvation Study from 1945 (I sincerely don't think such a study would be allowed today) where 36 young  men spent "six months of semi-starvation, [where] only 1570 calories were given to them." The men fell apart psychologically but their "resting metabolic rate dropped 40 percent." (Pg. 36-37) 

They did lose weight but not nearly as much as would be expected by the simply counting calories. So starving yourself doesn't really help weight loss because your body just conserves more energy by reducing your physical activity. Fung also references studies showing that increased calorie consumption increases your basal metabolic rate leading to the exact opposite effect.

So what's missing from this equation? The answer, for the most part, to that question is the hormone insulin. 

Diabetics know that when they are prescribed insulin, they gain weight. Indeed, there is even a rare tumor called an insulinoma that secretes insulin and causes weight gain. 

When the body ingests calories (particularly carbohydrates and proteins) it releases insulin. The primary job of insulin is to push glucose into the cells to be used as energy. But too much insulin to consistently causes an imbalance.

Insulin causes obesity-which means that insulin must be one of the major controllers of the body set weight. As insulin goes up, the body set weight goes up. The hypothalamus sends out hormonal signals to the body to gain weight. We become hungry and eat. If we deliberately restrict caloric intake, then our total energy expenditure will decrease. The result is still the same-weight gain. (Pg. 86)

Back in the 70s, Americans ate three meals a day and rarely snacked. Nowadays, "by 2003, most people were eating five to six times a day... The average time between meals has dropped by 30 percent, from 271 minutes to 208 minutes." (Pg. 120)

We sleep less and snack more and snack more on carbohydrates, particularly highly processed carbs with little fiber. This is a perfect recipe to for obesity.

Thereby, the cure is, in large part, to eat less often. It's not just what you eat (although that's important), it's when you eat. 

So yes, you should reduce sugar, simple carbohydrates and highly processed foods, but you should also stop snacking entirely and start fasting. He recommends a 24-hour or 36-hour fast for those who are trying to lose weight. You either skip eating one day and eat the next (36-hour fast) or skip breakfast and lunch on one day and then have three meals the next (24-hour fast). And no snacking!

This reduces the amount of insulin your body secretes and rebalances your "body set weight" back into a healthy range.

I've been doing 24-hour fasts for a while now and have lost 20 pounds with no signs it's coming back. Indeed, it would seem intermittent fasting is the way to go and Jason Fung has broken the obesity code. I highly recommend anyone looking to lose a few pounds check out his book.