The Complete Guide to Fasting: Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and Extended Fasting

by Jason Fung

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.

When we eat, insulin increases, signaling our body to store some of this food energy as fat for later use.

Both the ketogenic diet (a low-carb, moderate-protein, high-fat diet) and intermittent fasting are excellent methods of reducing high insulin levels.

Fact #1—Over the past twenty years, conventional weight-loss advice has called for eating less and moving more. Fact #2—Over the past twenty years, obesity rates have exploded.

there are two distinct ways energy is stored in the body: as glycogen in the liver and as body fat.

To burn fat, two things must happen: you must burn through most of your stored glycogen, and insulin levels must drop low enough to release the fat stores.

The scientific community has long known that eating less cholesterol does not lower blood cholesterol. Our liver generates 80 percent of the cholesterol found in the blood, so eating less cholesterol makes little or no difference.

Figure 12.1. Insulin levels during a traditional 12-hour fasting schedule with three meals a day. Figure 12.2. Insulin levels during a

If hunger were simply due to lack of food, we would consistently be hungry in the morning after the long overnight fast. But personal experience and studies show that hunger is lowest in the morning, and breakfast is typically the smallest, not the largest, meal of the day.

So the optimal strategy seems to be eating the largest meal in the midday, sometime between noon and 3:00 p.m., and only a small amount in the evening hours. Interestingly, this is the traditional Mediterranean eating pattern. They eat a large lunch, followed by a siesta in the afternoon, and then have a small, almost snack-sized dinner. While we often think of the Mediterranean diet as healthy due to the type of foods in it, the timing of meals in the Mediterranean may also play a role.