The importance of the new information on fasting....

Today's post:  Thursday, 11-10-2016

1.  There are a number of things that have helped people lose fat they keep off.

Each of them is doubly worth doing because they all also protect your health and make a long life worth living much more likely.

When some people who have been doing many of the things that make people fat instead turn all that off and upgrade their lifestyle in each of these ways, all their excess fat comes off.

(No more junk food, fast food, soft drinks, packaged snacks and desserts and excess sugar -- and health OK protein foods and spices and fats;  and organic vegetables and fruits instead. 

No more: high fructose corn syrup or artificial sweeteners or grains or grain oils or hydrogenated oils or MSG. 

And, doing some walking, some high effort—short duration cardio and some effective strength training most days of every week.

Doing ALL this does remove fat and a lot of fat for some people.  And, it ensures that when you lose fat it tends to stay off!)

But some people need more to lose enough fat even with all those things!

2.  Also, some very fat people -- and many people who are older and have stressful lifestyles who have some fat that remains -- need a good bit more leverage to get the fat loss they need or want.

When people lose fat successfully at first, they are much more likely to make the upgrades that help keep it off.

Eating less every day and particularly, eating less than your basal metabolism in calories every day creates the effect the Perfect Loser contestants experienced. 

Any fat you lose you gain right back because your body’s failsafe famine response makes you hungrier and your metabolism goes down as does your energy.  So not only do you gain back the fat, it’s no harder to lose it again.

We’ve looked at cold packs and partial fasting a couple days a week and at days with extra protein and almost no carbs and strength training.  All of these work sometimes for some people.

Stomach shrinking or reducing or blocking surgery works for some people but is super expensive, leaves the person permanently unable to have a normal life and even has a death rate.

NOT, ever worth doing in my opinion!

So there has been a huge need for another way without these drawbacks.

3.  The new information on fasting suggests that this may indeed solve the problem.

It removes fat in a way that you have plenty of energy if you have a lot of fat to burn!  Your metabolism stays the same or goes up a bit.  And when you stop, your metabolism stays up.

If you take key supplements to ensure you still have essential vitamins, and keep up strength training, and get enough water and salt, it’s been tested as safe.

Surprisingly we have evolved in such a way that your body burns fat but keeps your muscle AND even boosts your growth hormone to ensure you keep your muscle mass.

And, you can help ensure that by eating lots of health OK proteins before and after your fast AND doing effective strength training that you continue while you fast but reduce slightly until you stop the fast.

It seems almost crazy because so few people have been doing it – now.  But before a hundred years ago, and in some groups now, people have been fasting for hundreds if not thousands of years.  So, surprisingly, fasting is NOT new.

4.  The most effective way to fast for losing fat is to do it long enough your body switches over from burning mostly glucose to burning mostly fats – and then continuing as it burns your body fat for fuel after that.

The first 2 or 3 days while your body is still burning glucose I’ve read can be challenging.  But if you have set up in advance for your body to burn some fat, after that your body begins to burn your body fat and you have the rather odd sensation of having MORE energy than normal and far less hunger. 

So my first try at fasting which is coming up will be a five day fast.

The day just before it I’ll eat no carbohydrate foods and only health OK proteins and fats.

And, I will have some Brain Octane MCT oil in my coffee and some salted water during the fast and my vitamins and minerals – but nothing else.

If that works for me as well as I hope, I will then do it once every four weeks until I am as lean as I want to be and then perhaps once every other month.

If it works half that well, I may try it every other week.

5.  But if I find it as doable and effective as Dr Fung has found it in his practice helping obese people lose their fat, it may have the potential to solve this problem for everyone!

(Dr Jason Fung, is author of the new book: 

“The Complete Guide to Fasting: Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and Extended Fasting," by Dr Jason Fung" co-authored with Jimmy Moore._)

He found the complexity of the processes in treating kidney disease intellectually challenging so he went into that medical specialty, nephrology. 

But then he found that most severe kidney disease is caused by type 2 diabetes.  So, when he heard that fasting could cure type 2 diabetes, he began to test it.

It’s bit tricky to manage safely when people are taking drugs for the diabetes.  But he found that fasting could often cure diabetes and stop it from causing kidney damage when it was managed safely.

Then he found that for people who weren’t taking these drugs, fasting was a reliable and effective way to turn off type 2 diabetes and obesity also!

6. Until now most people trying to lose fat have failed because they have used the eating less every day method without the lifestyle upgrades.

Some people doing the lifestyle upgrades well have not lost all their fat.

Some people who are under stress or older or very fat have had fat that seems locked in place.  It is!  Research has found the bio-messengers involved.

Fasting done in Dr Fung’s style looks likely to cut through all that like the sword of Alexander the Great cut through the Gordian knot!

7.  I’ll only be effective promoting this if I find it works for me also.  And shortly, we will know if it does!