The Obesity Code: Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss (Why Intermittent Fasting Is the Key to Controlling Your Weight)

by Jason Fung

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans, now updated every five years, spawned the infamous food pyramid in all its counterfactual glory. The foods that formed the base of the pyramid—the foods we should eat every single day—were breads, pastas and potatoes. These were the precise foods that we had previously avoided to stay thin. For example, the American Heart Association’s 1995 pamphlet, The American Heart Association Diet: An Eating Plan for Healthy Americans, declared we should eat six or more servings of “breads, cereals, pasta and starchy vegetables (that) are low in fat and cholesterol.” To drink, “Choose . . . fruit punches, carbonated soft drinks.” Ahhh. White bread and carbonated soft drinks—the dinner of champions. Thank you, American Heart Association (AHA). Entering this brave new world, Americans tried to comply with the nutritional authorities of the day and made a conscious effort to eat less fat, less red meat, fewer eggs and more carbohydrates. When doctors advised people to stop smoking, rates dropped from 33 percent in 1979 to 25 percent by 1994. When doctors said to control blood pressure and cholesterol, there was a 40 percent decline in high blood pressure and a 28 percent decline in high cholesterol. When the AHA told us to eat more bread and drink more juice, we ate more bread and drank more juice. Inevitably, sugar consumption increased. From 1820 to 1920, new sugar plantations in the Caribbean and American South increased the availability of sugar ...