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Both the ketogenic diet (a low-carb, moderate-protein, high-fat diet) and intermittent fasting are excellent methods of reducing high insulin levels.
Excessive insulin causes obesity, and excessive insulin causes insulin resistance, which is the disease known as type 2 diabetes.
Foods should be recognizable in their natural state as something that was alive or has come out of the ground. Boxes of Cheerios do not grow in the ground. If it comes prepackaged in a bag or a box, it should be avoided. If it has a nutrition label, it should be avoided. Real foods, whether broccoli or beef, have no labels. The true secret to healthy eating is this: Just eat real food.
it’s most important to avoid sugars and refined grains, such as flour and corn products. These are more fattening than other foods, even when they contain the same number of calories, which is why low-carbohydrate diets are effective for weight loss.
olive oil, nuts, and avocados, which were previously shunned, are now considered “superfoods” because they are so healthy. Consuming fatty fish, such as wild salmon,
has been proven to reduce the risk of heart disease. And more and more evidence is showing that naturally occurring saturated fats, such as those found in meat and dairy, are also not harmful to our health.
The basics of good nutrition can be summarized in these simple rules. Eat whole, unprocessed foods. Avoid sugar. Avoid refined grains. Eat a diet high in natural fats. Balance feeding with fasting.
After all, why would your body store excess energy as fat if it meant to burn protein as soon as the chips were down? Muscles and other proteins are functional tissues and have many purposes. They are not designed to store energy. Glycogen and fat are. To burn muscle for energy would be like storing firewood and then, as soon as cold weather hits, chopping up your sofa and throwing it into the fire.
If you are worried about muscle loss, exercise more. It’s not rocket science. Diet and exercise are two entirely separate issues. Don’t confuse the two. Don’t worry about what your diet (or lack of diet—that is, fasting) is doing to your muscle mass. Exercise builds muscle. Lack of exercise leads to atrophy of muscles.
On the other hand, if you are worried about weight loss and type 2 diabetes, then you need to worry about diet, not exercise. You can’t outrun a bad diet.
Grains enjoy substantial government subsidies, making them far cheaper than other foods. This means that a pound of fresh cherries may cost $6.99, while an entire loaf of bread will cost $1.99. An entire box of pasta may cost only $0.99 on sale. Feeding a family on a budget is a lot easier when you buy pasta and white bread. If a diet is unaffordable, it does not truly matter if it is effective. The price makes it ineffective for those who cannot afford to follow it. This should not doom them to a lifetime of type 2 diabetes and disability.
Fasting is free. In fact, not only is it free, it actually saves money because you do not need to buy any food at all! There are no expensive foods. There are no expensive supplements. There are no meal replacement bars, shakes, or medications. The price of fasting is zero.
It is more accurate to use a two-compartment model, because there are two distinct ways energy is stored in the body: as glycogen in the liver and as body fat.
The two compartments, the fridge and the freezer, are not used simultaneously but sequentially. You need to (mostly) empty out the fridge before you can use what’s in the freezer—you need to burn most of the glycogen before you can burn fat. In essence, the body can burn either sugar or fat, but not both.
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.
