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

by Jason Fung

They say candy doesn’t make you fat. Calories make you fat. They say that 100 calories of cola is just as likely as 100 calories of broccoli to make you ...

Don’t you know? But show me a single person that grew fat by eating too much steamed brocco...

Furthermore, we cannot simply eat our usual diet and add some fat or protein or snacks and expect to lose weight. Against all common sense, weight-loss advice usually involves eating more. Just take a look at Table 11.1. Table 11.1. Conventional advice for weight loss. Eat 6 times a day Eat high protein Eat more vegetables Eat more omega 3s Eat more fiber Eat more vitami...

Why would anybody give such completely asinine advice? Because nobody makes any money when you eat less.

SNACKING: IT WON’T MAKE YOU THIN

Your grandmother was right. Snacking will make you fat.

BREAKFAST: THE MOST IMPORTANT MEAL TO SKIP?

It is simply not necessary to eat the minute we wake up. We imagine the need to “fuel up” for the day ahead. However, our body has already done that automatically. Every morning, just before we wake up, a natural circadian rhythm jolts our bodies with a heady mix of growth hormone, cortisol, epinephrine and norepinephrine (adrenalin). This cocktail stimulates the liver to make new glucose, essentially giving us a shot of the good stuff to wake us up. This effect is called the dawn phenomenon, and it has been well described for decades. Many people are not hungry in the morning. The natural cortisol and adrenalin released stimulates a mild flight-or-fight response, which activates the sympathetic nervous system. Our bodies are gearing up for action in the morning, not for eating. All these hormones release glucose into the blood for quick energy. We’re already gassed up and ready to go. There is simply no need to refuel with sugary cereals and bagels. Morning hunger is often a behavior learned over decades, starting in childhood. The word breakfast literally means the meal that breaks our fast, which is the period when we are sleeping and therefore not eating. If we eat our first meal at 12 noon, then grilled salmon salad will be our “break fast” meal—and there’s nothing wrong with that.

A large breakfast is thought to reduce food intake throughout the rest of the day. However, such does not always seem to be the case.10 Studies show that lunch and dinner portions tend to stay constant, regardless of the amount of calories taken at breakfast.

The more one eats at breakfast, the higher the total caloric intake over the entire day. Worse, taking breakfast increases the number of eating opportunities in a day. Breakfast eaters therefore tend ...

There are some commonsense questions you can ask yourself about breakfast. Are you hungry at breakfast? If not, listen to your body and don’t eat. Does breakfast make you hungry? If you eat a slice of toast and drink a glass of orange juice in the morning—are you hungry an hour later? If so, then don’t eat breakfast. If you are hungry and want to eat breakfast, then do so. But avoid sugars and refined carbohydrates. Skipping breakfast does not give you the freedom to eat a Krispy Kreme donut as a mid-morning snack either.

FRUITS AND VEGETABLES: THE FACTS

It’s assumed that with the low-energy density and high fiber of fruits and vegetables, our satiety will increase, and therefore we’ll eat less of calorie-rich foods. If this strategy is the main mechanism of weight loss, our advice should be to “replace bread with vegetables.” But it is not. Our advice is simply to eat more fruits and vegetables. Can we really eat more to lose weight?

To put it simply, you cannot eat more to weigh less, even if the food you’re eating more of is as healthy as vegetables. So should we eat more fruits and vegetables? Yes, definitely. But only if they are replacing other unhealthier foods in your diet. Replace. Not add.16