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

by Jason Fung

the root cause of obesity is a complex hormonal imbalance with high blood insulin as its central feature.

Since hormones control both Calories In and Calories Out, obesity is a hormonal, not a caloric, disorder.

Proteins, fats and carbohydrates all provide caloric energy for the body, but differ greatly in their metabolic processing.

•Calories are needed to heat the body. Fewer calories were available, so body heat was reduced. Result: constant feeling of cold.

•Calories are needed to replace hair and nails. Fewer calories were available, so hair and nails were not replaced. Result: brittle nails and hair loss.

The key assumption of the theory that reducing caloric intake leads to weight loss is false, since decreased caloric intake inevitably leads to decreased caloric expenditure.

People who lose weight dream about food. They obsess about food. All they can think about is food. Interest in all else diminishes. This behavior is not some strange affliction of the obese. In fact, it’s entirely hormonally driven and normal. The body, through hunger and satiety signaling, is compelling us to get more food.

Reduced metabolism and the increased hunger are not the cause of obesity—they are the result. Losing weight causes the reduced metabolism and increased hunger, not the other way around.

We do not eat too much because we choose to, or because food is too delicious, or because of salt, sugar and fat. We eat too much because our own brain compels us to.

whether physical activity increases or decreases, it has virtually no relationship to the prevalence of obesity.

The authors concluded there is no association between activity and obesity.

The key point here is that total energy expenditure is not the same as exercise.

Diet does 95 percent of the work and deserves all the attention; so, logically, it would be sensible to focus on diet.

You cannot make up for dietary indiscretions by increasing exercise.

Small amounts are beneficial, but excessive amounts are detrimental.

There appears to be a “set point” for body weight and fatness, as first proposed in 1984 by Keesey and Corbett.

If weight drops below body set weight, compensatory mechanisms activate to raise it. If weight goes above body set weight, compensatory mechanisms activate to lower it.

The problem in obesity is that the set point is too high.

obesity is a time-dependent disease. It develops only over long periods, usually decades.

OBESITY IS NOT caused by an excess of calories, but instead by a body set weight that is too high because of a hormonal imbalance in the body.

Hormones are central to understanding obesity.

Obesity is a hormonal, not a caloric imbalance.

Long-term use of prednisone leads to an insulin-resistant state in a patient or even to full-blown diabetes.

Exposure causes resistance. Vaccines work on exactly this principle.

One of the worst myths is that eating more frequently causes weight loss.

Childhood obesity is a predictor of increased mortality,4 but is, most importantly, a reversible risk factor.

Babies born to mothers with gestational diabetes mellitus have three times the risk of obesity and diabetes in later life, and one of the biggest risk factors for obesity in young adulthood is obesity in childhood.

Reducing the use of sugar-sweetened beverages is a highly effective method of preventing childhood obesity.

Daily consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks not only carries a significant risk of weight gain, but also increases the risk of developing diabetes by 83 percent compared to drinking less than one sugar-sweetened drink per month.

Excessive fructose puts significant pressure on the liver since other organs cannot help.

The bottom line is that excess fructose is changed into fat in the liver. High levels of fructose will cause fatty liver.

But there are no essential carbohydrates and no essential sugars. Those are not required for survival.

Carbohydrates are just long chains of sugars. There is nothing intrinsically nutritious about them.

A recent Spanish study found that adding 100 pistachios to one’s daily diet improved fasting glucose, insulin and insulin resistance.