The Obesity Code: I finally read it

I just came off a 7 day fast. Don't ever say "can't". You'll be amazed at the things your body can do. You can start slow and build your fasting muscle by just skipping breakfast, and that might be all you ever need.
I'm not sure where the "just chicken and vegetables" thing came from, I eat all kinds of food - but keto friendly. I use keto to support my fasting. You may not even need to eat low carb (but I suggest it, I started out eating regularly. Keto is better).

If you want to start intermittent fasting, I wouldn't eat breakfast, even if you are hungry. Hunger comes in waves, it will go away.

I fast for 16 hours every day. It actually works quite well if I finish dinner by 6pm and don't eat for the rest of the night. In the summer, I sleep in a bit, so I get up, have bulletproof coffee, and I'm fine until (and often beyond) 10am, which is the end of 16 hours. It will work during the school year as well because our lunch is at 10:30am, which is perfect timing. Fasting sounds daunting (and throw in Keto to make it even more exciting!) but it is very doable. I'm working to break insulin resistance and get myself out of the pre-diabetic state. Diabetes runs in my family, so I'll do what it takes to stave it off as long as possible.

Do you drink coffee when you fast? If so, do you use any sweetener or creamer? Is that allowed with fasting? I could go the 16 hours each day without eating, but my morning coffee breaks me every time.

Freebird, thank you!

Wow, freebird that is impressive! Congratulations on your hard work. 

I've been doing the no breakfast thing and it is fine as long as I drink my coffee black. I've been doing two meals a day and am trying to narrow the time between them so that I can try a single meal per day. One way to look at it is that you need to think about food and what you eat much less. All you have is two meals per day so make them count. No need to fret about snacks and breakfast.

ETA: was posting at the same time as freebird re: coffee & katlady a lot of my eating is habit. SaveSave

My thoughts.....


1.Obesity is genetic - Maybe.

2.It is caused by hormones and High Insulin blood levels - I agree there's a bigger link than we've been lead to believe.

3.All diets work, but only to a point, and you always gain it back - Agree because people typically don't change what they're doing. If you do what you always did, you'll get what you always got.

4.Your weight is a "set point" and your body will always try to get you back to that number. - Kind of agree with this because I know, no matter how fit I was (past tense), I could never get below a certain number.

5.Excercise does not help you lose weight - Agree. You can't out exercise a bad diet. Losing weight is all about nutrition vs. exercise.

6.Your metabolism will slow down when you consume less calories - Yep, that's science. Your body goes into starvation mode

7.don't eat breakfast unless you are hungry - Agree.

8.No Snacks, ever - Agree.


9.No sugar or sugar substitutes ever. - Absolutely agree. Sugar makes you crave more sugar.

I think that eating habits are very individual. If a snack works for you then you should do it. 

For me one snack leads to another snack that leads to another snack and me thinking of stuff to eat. If I have a meal with veggie + protein + starch and I eat enough I don't need to eat until mealtime or think about food. I am trying to lose around 20 lbs. I am around 8% away from not being technically overweight. 

Just throwing in my 2 cents. There are definitely different body types that we are born with and some have a predisposition to obesity. I don't think that is the same as saying obesity is genetic. In my family of five siblings, raised on the same diet, 2 tended to put on weight easily, 2 were normal weight and 1 was skinny. Pretty much from birth through to middle age we have stuck in our lane. My dad would put on weight easily, my mom was always skinny. DD can put on weight easily, DS has always been skinny.

We have choices, and I've let my weight get up there and lost it a few times over the years. My worst habit is mindless snacking in front of the TV. It is a habit, not hunger and calories needed to maintain my weight, so I will always put on weight when I let myself go down that road.

IF has been easy for me to adopt as a lifestyle. Most of my social eating is lunch or dinner and I was never much of a breakfast eater. I have tea in the morning now and drink my coffee after lunch because I don't put anything in my tea and need almond milk in my coffee. I've started knitting again to keep my hands busy and avoid snacking in the evening.

This. My experience is almost identical.

I try to eat lower carbs as often as I can and eliminated artificial sweeteners, but I wouldn't say I eat a keto diet. I don't eat a bunch of fat. I just try to balance my diet in the traditional fashion of lots of protien veggies, fruits, dairy and fats. 

as for this "6.Your metabolism will slow down when you consume less calories", I think you misunderstood what he was saying. What he explains is that if you limit your diet to a low calorie diet and eat many small meals then yes, your metabolism will slow because your body is constantly being fed, but only in small amounts so there goes the starving mode. When you fast for longer than 16 hours though, your body starts fueling from the stored fat on your body and then when you break your fast you eat a healthy amount of calories so it balances out without going into starvation mode. (someone correct me if I'm wrong or need to expand on my understanding of it)

I 16 hour fast daily and 24 hour fast twice a week and am maintaining my weight with no problem going on 3 or 4 months now. Its liveable and easy for me. I plan on living this lifestyle forever to maintain my weight. 

I’ve lost 80 pounds in the last 13 months all though fasting and cutting carbs. I started by basically just skipping breakfast and eating lunch and dinner. I fasted at least 16 hours a day but usually 18. I kept my carbs to 30 total grams. I really didn’t think I could do low carb but at this point in my life I was almost 270 pounds and I knew I had to do something. I’ve done weight watchers before and would always lose about 25 pounds and get stuck. I now know that I was always eating too many carbs.

I lost the first 50 pounds doing 16:8 or 18:6 fasting and low carb. When I hit a plateau I increased my fasting to 20 hours a day and usually only do one true meal. I do not count calories or carbs anymore, but I still stay away from high carb foods like bread, rice, white potatoes, pasta, and sugar. I don’t miss them at all! I make sure and eat to satisfaction. I usually have a small, healthy snack around 4:00 and then eat dinner around 6:00. After I eat dinner I fast until the next day. I do not consume anything except water and black coffee during fasting. As long as I eat a good amount of healthy fats in my meal, I’m not really hungry at all. I’ve been doing OMAD since March and have lost another 30 pounds. I still have about 20-30 pounds to go to meet my goal.

It’s really been the easiest thing I’ve ever tried to lose weight. I’ve now got my DH on board and I’m hoping it works for him. He still needs to clean up his eating a little bit, but he was just telling me today how when he started eating his lunch he got full super quickly and couldn’t finish it all. We call that “appetite correction”.

If you want another book to read that is less “science”y pick up Delay, Don’t Deny by Gin Stephens.

Good for you!  What an accomplishment. This is essentially what I did as well and it was very successful. I’m now maintaining easily. 

        I agree with Tracy Arts and I'll answer the above questions. 

       1. Obesity is genetic. No it is not. Obesity is related to our diet. Specifically our processed food diet. Look at the photos of your great grandparents when they were young. Were they obese? Were their children obese? How about your grandparents as children? That entire generation. Think of their diet compared to today's standard American diet. I don't know about you buy my grandmother grew up on a farm in Georgia (my father's mother). Everything she ate came from the farm-it was all home grown. Now look at today's generation and food shopping. Ordering pizza for dinner, getting processed foods to make quickly at home. That's the difference and that's the major cause of obesity. Processed foods vs. whole foods. Fast foods vs. cooking at home. 

       2. It is caused by hormones and high insulin blood levels. Not sure about this answer because I don't know what the author means by this. 

       3. All diets work, but only to a point, and then you always gain it back. This is true. Diets don't work. If you want to change your weight permanently you have to make a lifetime change. So whatever "diet" or eating plan you choose it has to be a lifestyle change you can live with permanently. This plan calls for fasting. So in order to maintain a weight loss from this diet you'd have to fast for the rest of your life or the weight would come back. 

      4. Your weight is a set point, and your body will always try to get back to that number. Don't believe this for a minute. My weight has gone up and down like a roller coaster for the past 29 years. Lots of this was due to medication and some of it was due to poor eating. I had clothes in my closet from sizes 6-18. And they all fit during those 29 years, intermittently. Pick a set number out of that. 

     5. Exercise does not help you lose weight. Yes it does. If you do it consistently along with a better diet it most certainly does. Diet 80%, Exercise 20% is the key to weight loss. 

     6. Your metabolism will slow down when you consume less calories. Hmm, I think this one is true because the body thinks it's starving and puts itself in starvation mode. 

     7. Don't eat breakfast unless you're hungry.  Not sure about this one. I never have been able to eat breakfast so I don't. I eat only when I'm hungry, and I stop when I'm full. I eat slowly. I always have. Gives my stomach time to tell me it's full. 

     8. No snacks, ever.  Nope, that doesn't make sense. If I'm hungry I eat a snack. I give my body what it wants. 

     9. No sugar or sugar substitutes ever.  I wouldn't touch a sugar substitute with a 9 foot pole, but I do use a bit of raw sugar in my coffee every day. You've got to live. 

      Bottom line-Yes, this diet can work. It has worked for some people-Freebird has proven that very successfully.    For myself I chose 4 1/2 years ago to go in another direction. Truth to tell this book hadn't come out yet, but if it had I still would have chosen what I did. I don't want to fast, period. Honestly I don't think it's healthy. I chose a whole foods, plant based diet that I learned about from watching the documentary "Forks Over Knives" on Netflix. 

With a whole foods, plant based diet I can eat as much as I want. Every day for the rest of my life. I was 186 pounds when I hit 50 years of age and I decided to get healthy. First I gave up soda. Then I gave up fast food. Then I started giving up processed foods by following 100daysofrealfood.com  I learned how important it was to ignore the front of the package of a food and instead turn it around and read the ingredients instead, and so much more. I went from 186 pounds to 169 but I was stuck there. At 5 foot 3 I wasn't happy. So one night I watched "Forks Over Knives" and decided to give it a try for 30 days. It was amazing. I felt so much better and I loved the food I was eating. I lost the rest of my weight and got down to my target weight of 125. My cholesterol went from 220 to 165 with no medication. Basically this diet is no meat, diary or oils. It was actually easy to give up those foods (your palate changes and you no longer crave them)  and 4 1/2 years later  I love the food I eat so much more. I only wish I'd found it sooner. If you want to know more check out forksoverknives.com 
       

Did you switch to a high fat diet, like Keto suggests? Or just a medium increase in fats? I keep trying keto without the fasting part, and I’m just not seeing successes like I did in the winter when I combined it with the fasting, no matter how much fat I add into my diet and how many carbs I cut.