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by
Jason Fung
These studies all came to the same startling conclusion: the low-carb diet was significantly better for weight loss than the low-fat diet. Even more stunning was that all the important risk factors for cardiovascular disease—including cholesterol, blood sugar level, and blood pressure—were also much improved on the low-carb diet.
“Eat less, move more” has been done to death over the past fifty years, and it doesn’t work.
The underlying cause of obesity turns out to be a hormonal, rather than a caloric, imbalance. Insulin is a fat-storage hormone.
persistently high insulin levels result inexorably in obesity.
if excessive insulin is causing obesity, then clearly the answer lies in reducing insulin.
Both the ketogenic diet (a low-carb, moderate-protein, high-fat diet) and intermittent fasting are excellent methods...
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stop eating at 6:00 p.m. and then don’t eat again until 6:00 p.m. the next day.
So you still got
to eat every single day, but this strategy forced your body to go without food for tw...
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cancer prevention and treatment, including using a calorie-restricted ketogenic diet to treat brain cancer and other cancers. One
of the more interesting and memorable nuggets from that half-hour interview came at the very end of our conversation, when Dr. Seyfried made the bold assertion that an annual seven- to ten-day water fast could be a useful tool for preventing cancer.
alternate-day intermittent fasting—fasting for twenty-four hours every other day
bone broth with sea salt,
I fasted between 2 p.m. one day and 9:00 a.m. the next day, about nineteen hours.
Dr. Thomas Seyfried on my podcast in 2009, he was adamant that a one-week fast would be beneficial as an annual cancer-prevention strategy.
benefits of being in a state of nutritional ketosis—and fasting and ketosis go together perfectly, like bacon and eggs.
When you eat a low-carb, moderate-protein, high-fat diet—a ketogenic diet—it becomes much easier to fast. The
And here’s the key to why keto is so great for fasting: being in ketosis teaches your body to burn fat for fuel rather than sugar, and since that’s what your body has to do during fasting, if you’re already in ketosis, your body is already using fuel the way it’s supposed to.
This is why going keto (covered in detail in my book Keto Clarity) is a great first step for fasting, both IF
and extended fasting. I wasn’t quite in ketosis yet myself
Controlling blood sugar and giving your pancreas a week to rest from producing insulin is an excellent reason for attempting a fast like this.
the weight loss on a one-week fast like this is mostly water weight because the fasting process depletes glycogen stores.
kombucha and
bone broth with sea salt.
He said the vitamins I took and other things I added to my fast may have sent “mixed signals to the body,” making the fast more difficult.
Dr. Seyfried noted that a cancer-preventing fast should probably be done using distilled water only and nothing else.
He also lamented that I didn’t measure the level of ketones—byproducts of the body...
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Combining Fasting and Nutritional Ketosis
By eating a low-carb, moderate-protein, high-fat diet, I was able to switch my body from primarily burning glucose for fuel to burning fat.
Once my body made the switch from burning glucose to burning fat, the idea of eating breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, snack, midnight snack just seemed silly. Why would I want to eat that often when I wasn’t hungry? My body was very clearly telling me it was okay that I didn’t think about food that obsessively anymore. We simply aren’t meant to be eating as much or as often as we do in modern culture, and getting into ketosis by consuming real, whole foods on a diet that is low-carb, moderate-protein, and high-fat, with adequate calories, will allow you to spontaneously fast for twelve
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stick to a good, nutrient-dense low-carb diet and get fat-adapted for a while before experimenting with fasting. I think it’s easier and more pleasant to fast when your body isn’t still screaming out for carbohydrates.
when I got into a state of nutritional ketosis—when I became mostly
a fat-burner rather than a sugar-burner—fasting became completely natural for me.
my own experience with fasting has been that it was difficult before I got into ketosis, and perfectly natural and easy afterward. That one-week fast really showed
me the power of the ketones in keeping me completely energized and comfortable during a fast.
I set out on a twenty-one-day fast with only water, kombucha, and bone broth with sea salt, together totaling well under 200 calories daily.
felt euphoric and surprisingly energetic
after fasting for a few days, you will actually feel more normal than perhaps you ever have before.
the urge and desire to eat is more mental than physical.
Total cholesterol dropped 100 points in less than three weeks of fasting, without the need for any cholesterol-lowering medications like statin drugs.
here is a totally drug-free method for lowering cholesterol.
didn’t lose any muscle during my twenty-eight days of fasting,
(Dr. Fung discusses the myth that fasting causes muscle loss
There is no correlation whatsoever between constant eating and good health.
In the 1970s, a typical American ate three meals a day—breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with no snacks.
Fats are directly absorbed as fat and have minimal effect on insulin.
1. Feeding: Blood sugar levels rise as we absorb the incoming food, and insulin levels rise in response to move glucose into cells, which use it for energy. Excess glucose is stored as glycogen in the liver or
converted to fat. 2. The postabsorptive phase (six to twenty-four hours after beginning fasting): At this point, blood sugar and insulin levels begin to fall. To supply energy, the liver starts to break down glycogen, releasing glucose. Glycogen stores last for approximately twenty-four to thirty-six hours. 3. Gluconeogenesis (twenty-four hours to two days after beginning fasting): At this point, glycogen stores have run out. The liver manufactures new glucose from amino acids in a process called gluconeogenesis (literally, “making new glucose”). In nondiabetic persons, glucose levels fall but
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