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

by Jason Fung

Several decades later, William Banting (1796–1878), an English undertaker, rediscovered the fattening properties of the refined carbohydrate. In 1863, he published the pamphlet Letter on Corpulence, Addressed to the Public, which is often considered the world’s first diet book. His story is rather unremarkable. He was not an obese child, nor did he have a family history of obesity. In his mid-thirties, however, he started to gain weight. Not much; perhaps a pound or two per year. By age sixty-two, he stood five foot five and weighed 202 pounds (92 kilograms). Perhaps unremarkable by modern standards, he was considered quite portly at the time. Distressed, he sought advice on weight loss from his physicians. First, he tried to eat less, but that only left him hungry. Worse, he failed to lose weight. Next, he increased his exercise by rowing along the River Thames, near his home in London. While his physical fitness improved, he developed a “prodigious appetite, which I was compelled to indulge.”5 Still, he failed to lose weight. Finally, on the advice of his surgeon, Banting tried a new approach. With the idea that sugary and starchy foods were fattening, he strenuously avoided all breads, milk, beer, sweets and potatoes that had previously made up a large portion of his diet. (Today we would call this diet low in refined carbohydrates.) William Banting not only lost the weight and kept it off, but he also felt so well that he was compelled to write his famous pamphlet. Wei...