when you eat your body wants to store
food energy because food Energy's coming
in you should store it for a time that
you don't have it and when you are not
eating then insulin falls and you simply
take that food energy that you store it
and you burn it and that's why you don't
die in your sleep like every single
night you don't have to eat muffins
every two hours to survive like it's
okay so if you think about it now we're
eating sort of ten times a day instead
of three times a day so 10 times a day
we're telling our bodies to store fat
it's like store fast or fast or fast or
fat and that's like I wonder why I'm so
fat it's like because you keep telling
your body do that and if you want to
burn fat then you gotta tell it to stop
burning fat and again it's a hormonal
signal it's not a caloric signal it's a
hormonal signal you got to let that
insulin fall because it's when the
enzyme fall that the body's gonna start
burning the glycogen I'm gonna start
burning the body fat if you keep your
insulin high then you'll never do it
because insulin is the signal to to go
high and this is the promo type-2
diabetes because you get this insulin
resistance which means too high insulin
all the time so it gets harder and
harder to lose weight as it goes so then
as you get in sort of like 40 years in
if you're 60 years old and you've been
gaining weight since age 20 for example
you have all the senses and resistance
it keeps it high even though your diet
may be good you have to you have to
fight all those years of insulin
resistance and that's why I also say
that that obesity is really a
time-dependent phenomenon that is the
longer you have it the harder it is
which the Clarke theory completely sort
of ignores that is to say if you gain 10
pounds from where you are right now you
could lose that pretty easily yeah but
if somebody is 65 it's pretty hard to
lose that 10 pounds because they've
always had it and it's this sort of
chronic resetting upwards of this body
set weight that's the problem
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som ni fi x.com dr. funk thanks so much
for coming back on it's great to be with
you again great to be here thanks having
me yeah so that last interview we did it
was let's see not Memorial Day I'm
thinking of membranes day of 2016
oh sure you're wearing your lapel people
we're asking about that in that video
remember that yeah it's like early
November there's a whole week
remembrance week oh yeah yeah yeah papi
the punk people are asking like what's
up with that flower and so we didn't
talk about that so anyway ah yeah okay
almost eighteen months ago and I was
looking through the comments or
thousands of comments cuz there's such
great content that you shared and people
were curious or they one of the top
comments that would keep coming up was
did this doctor really just say that the
calories in calories out model does not
govern whether someone loses weight or
gains weight and so we're talking
offline how there's really no receptors
for calories in their body yeah and this
is the thing that's very strange routine
so you take a concept from physics so
what calories is is that they take a
piece of steak or whatever and they
basically burn it and see how much
energy it is so you can determine how
many calories are in a steak and a piece
of broccoli or a piece of wood for that
matter so you just burn it and see how
much physical energy there
so the body has no receptors it doesn't
measure calories it has no idea how many
calories you eat so if you eat a piece
of wood it might have 10,000 calories
but you're not gonna absorb any of it
because it goes straight through you if
you eat steak
if you it's it's going to have a certain
number of calories if you if you drink
Cola it's gonna have a certain number of
calories if you don't drink diet cola
it's gonna have zero calories but the
body doesn't actually know that because
it has no way of measuring it so it has
no way of responding to it so why would
we think that this is a sort of an
important concept and the only reason we
think that is because we've sort of been
ingrained into us but it's a it's a
concept of physics and it's not a
physiologic concept if you put a hundred
calories of sugar in your mouth versus a
hundred calories of olive oil the
physiologic response is completely and
utterly different so you put that oil
into your mouth and drink it down for
example and there's no insulin response
for example you eat a brownie which is
the same number of calories and insulin
spikes way up so the body responds to
hormones I mean everything runs on
hormones thyroid hormone insulin all
these different hormones and that's how
it knows what to do so when it senses
that you're taking in carbohydrates for
example then insulin will go up if it
senses that protein is coming in insulin
will go up as well as well as something
like mTOR so there's different receptors
for amino acids there's different
receptors for fat there's different
receptors so the fat for example you'll
have cholecystokinin release if you need
a lot of fibrous foods you'll have
stretch receptors in your stomach which
are activated so there are all these
different things that the body does
respond to but calories is not one of
them so therefore it really has no idea
you can look on all these different you
know these diagrams of metabolism that
we've done and you can go on google you
can find you know hundreds of diagrams
of metabolism you see the Krebs cycle
you see acetyl co a you'll see insulin
receptors you'll see all kinds of things
amino acids fatty acids all kinds of
things and in nowhere in the last sort
of five hundred you
of human physiology have we described
the calorie receptor it doesn't exist
right and so the the entire concept is
sort of borrowed from physics and sort
of made a little bit of sense not a lot
of sense but it just kept being repeated
repeated repeated so people think that
is true but again 100 calories of
broccoli is not the same as a hundred
calories of donuts that's just the
bottom line and we all try and pretend
that it is but it isn't and that's where
we've really failed so if you believe
that calories is what's really important
then all you need to do is switch over
and drink diet soda and have that fake
fat olestra that we used to have eat
fake food with zero calories switch and
there are lots of things we've done it
for sort of 30 years that I mean diet
cooks been around for a long time and
there would be no obesity crisis but
it's worse than ever so it's like okay
well you know what people never really
get is that the bottom line is that you
have to have results if you think that
cutting calories is what's really
important and we've told people this is
important for the last sort of 20-30
years well what's happened well obesity
has gone like through the roof so
clearly this entire notion is completely
false and that's where we're getting
into trouble because we're following the
wrong path we're so obsessed with
calories that we forget about everything
else we say yeah you can eat doughnuts
for dinner because it's the same number
of calories as if you had that kale
salad like you've got to be an idiot to
think that eating doughnuts for dinner
is a good idea and equally as fattening
as eating kale salad there's nothing the
same about them the minute it goes into
your mouth there's nothing the same
about those two foods so you got to
follow the physiology rather than this
sort of foreign notion of physics that
we've sort of imported in I mean why
don't we say for example that it's all
dude the weight of food if you eat half
a pound of food you will gain half a
pound of weight
you know depends what you're eating in
the hormone response yeah exactly and I
mean that's the law of thermodynamics to
first law of thermodynamics you can't
gain a pound of weight if you've only
eaten a pound half a pound of food if
you've eaten half a pound of food you
must weigh half a pound more there's
simply no way around it of course that's
stupid because you get metabolism
there's metabolism something that's
going to be exhaled as carbon dioxide
something's gonna go through your stools
there's all this physiology that happens
when when when you go from physics to
physiology but but you know the whole
calories thing is just like it's just so
engrained into us from like we're from
the time we're like 2 years old that we
really can't let go of this notion and
that's where we're really really getting
into trouble yeah do you think part of
that is the food industry because people
go to the grocery store buy packaged
food so they look at calories and so
it's like indelibly inked I mean it's
gonna take a long time for you on a
hundred thirty it was all driven by the
food industry in my mind because it's
not driven by the scientists other than
know what those who have been paid off
by the industry because what they want
to do is equate in our minds that it's
all calories so that you can say you can
eat doughnuts for dinner and then hey
why don't you buy these doughnuts
there's a lot tastier than that salad
you're gonna eat and if it's 200
calories of doughnuts and 200 calories
of salmon hey same thing it's like
cheaper it tastes better just eat that
doughnut and it's great so of course
they they love this sort of idea and the
beverage business for example it's like
yeah you can drink Gatorade and then go
bicycle for an hour and you'll work it
all off it's the same it's all
equivalent when you try and make them
equivalent what you don't understand is
that if you drink that sugary drink
you're gonna get fatty liver you're
gonna get insulin resistance you can
exercise your muscles but you can't
exercise your liver your livers dying
your muscles are doing great so it's
like okay well in the end you get all
these athletes like Professor Tim Noakes
who's running marathons to marathon
after marathon and then gets type-2
diabetes it's like okay well how does
that work it works because the whole
calories notion is
Falls and that's one of the things that
we have to understand yeah maybe it's
you know maybe I over exaggerated a
little bit
for a fact but you really can't use that
calories notion it's not a helpful
notion and if it was we would be doing a
lot better than we are sort of today
mm-hmm and in the longer term at the
demon illogical studies have teased this
out and and reducing calories effects
resting metabolic rate which I want to
get into but first is two kind of two
examples you know I want to talk about
insulin and then also if someone is
eating the right amount of
macronutrients but is in a calorie
excess but yet it's keeping their
hormones in balance so we've seen this a
lot of people on the internet are doing
like 5,000 or 4,000 calorie a day keto
you know diets and they're not gaining
fat because their hormones are
imbalanced so yeah how do you feel about
that I think you can do it now it all
depends on what happens you got to
realize that for most of sort of human
history people didn't count calories
calorie intake varies widely know nobody
eats sort of like 2,000 a day every
single day honestly I have no idea how
many calories I eat in a day and most
people don't either they even if they
try and count it they're wildly
inaccurate the idea is that the body
works as a negative feedback loop and
that's how we maintain stable weight so
look let's go back to the 60s the
sixties nobody's exercising and weight
is quite stable for the most part in a
very good range like in a non obese or
overweight sort of a range so how does
that work because if you think that you
can match your calorie expenditure in
your intake to that degree that sort of
2% of the population is obese but you're
taking 2,000 calories a day in a year
times 365 it's you know 70,000 calories
in a year a pound of fat is roughly
3,000 calories so you're matching it to
less like sort of a 99.5 percent
accuracy without any idea of how many
calories are either either
spending it's like there's no way that's
possible so there's obviously a negative
feedback loop and what that is it's like
a thermostat so a thermostat is a
perfect example of a negative feedback
loop so you set your temperature at say
72 degrees which is room temperature if
it's summer and it's hot then the the
thermostat senses it's too hot and turns
on the air-conditioning brings it back
to 72 if it's winter and it's really
cold temperatures in the house drops to
69 degrees
these thermostat senses that turns on
the heat brings it back up so it's a
negative feedback loop and that's a
perfect example of homeostasis the body
does exactly the same thing and there's
a very similar body set way so we have a
a mechanism in our body that determines
how fat we get so if you get too fat
you're gonna you're not going to survive
because you're not going to be able to
catch food or somebody's going to eat
you if you get too skinny you're also
not going to survive because you can't
take it when there's no food like the
wintertime there's no food you're gonna
die so the body actually sets a certain
set weight which is defended very
vigorously actually so if you get too
fat your body will actually turn on and
try and burn off those calories and
we've proved that through lots of
studies so if you deliberately over feed
people to gain 10 percent body weight
they'll actually burn 500 calories per
day more than if they're at their normal
weight then you drop them to their
normal weight and their basal metabolic
rate goes back to the same one if now
you make them lose 10 percent of their
body weight they're actually burning 300
calories a day less than they did when
they were normal weight so you see that
the basal metabolic rate goes up and
down depending on where it is but the
body has this mechanism that if you get
too fat it's going to burn it off
burn off those calories so we get back
to normal weight the more sort of
situation we deal with more is that
you're trying to lose weight then the
body tries to make you gain that weight
back so the key is not to look at the
calories so let's take an example of the
thermostat mm-hmm we know there's a
there's a negative feedback loop there
if you
temperature of 72 degrees and it gets
too hot then what's gonna happen is that
the body will turn on the
air-conditioning if you for example put
in a bunch of heaters you can bring it
back up so say you're at 72 degrees and
you say okay now I want to be 75 degrees
but instead of changing that thermostat
you just bring in a couple of heaters
well that's great you go from 72 to 75
then the thermostat is going to turn on
the AC and then it's gonna bring it back
down to 72 so you say okay well that
didn't work so instead of one heater
I'll bring in two heaters you bring it
up to 75 it brings it back down and you
keep fighting yourself that's exactly
what we do with our body so we have a
say say our body set weight is 200
pounds we don't want to be 200 pounds we
want to be a hundred and eighty pounds
so you lose weight you count your
calories you lose weight go down to 180
and what does the body do well the body
makes you hungry and then it slows down
your metabolism in an effort to get back
up to the 200 pounds so then you say
okay well now you know I've got a lot of
willpower so I'm gonna cut my calories
even further so you cut your calories
further and what happens the body makes
you hungrier and it slows down your
metabolic rate even more so you're
constantly fighting yourself rather than
adjusting that body set wait so it's not
about calories it's about this body's
that way because the way it worked is
that insulin is going to make you gain
fat but if your fat cells expand to a
certain point they're going to generate
leptin so leptin goes into the brain and
it says hey we're too fat and turns down
the appetite right down okay so as your
appetite goes down you don't eat if you
don't eat insulin goes down so perfect
here is your negative feedback loop hi
there it's me again with a quick
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show you eat insulin goes up when you're
too fat left and turns on and turns off
the insulin so it works perfectly what
happens though is that if you've
hijacked that mechanism now listen you
you stimulate insulin all the time so
you go to 1977 the government says eat
lots of Brad because remember they said
eat 50 percent carbs 55 to 60 percent
carbs right if they're eating broccoli
you're good but if you're eating white
bread and you should see the original
Dietary Guidelines they're all white
bread and you know spaghetti yeah and so
you're supposed to eat that five or six
times a day so insulin is going through
the roof but not just that but people
went from eating three times a day to
six times a day that wasn't in the
guidelines but that did happen so now
you're stimula every time you eat
assuming you eat a mixed meal
you're gonna stimulate insulin assuming
you have some carbs some proteins on fat
yeah you're gonna stimulate insulin so
not only are you stimulated insulin more
you're stimulating it all the time so
what happens is that if you stimulate
insulin all the time you get insulin
resistance your fat cells get big it
turns on leptin leptin if you stimulate
all the time you get leptin resistance
same thing we know that because in
obesity what you have is not a lack of
leptin but a total lack of response so
it's a leptin resistance state so now
your negative feedback loop is
completely busted because insulin you're
eating a diet lots of carbs eating all
the time
your insulin is going up through the
roof and leptin goes up but there's no
response so now your your negative
feedback loop is busted and you're just
going to gain weight so that thermostat
that bodyweight thermostat is gradually
getting reset upwards
higher and higher and higher exact yeah
and then if you simply try so so the
important thing is that how do you reset
that well it's a balance between insulin
and leptin you can't do much about
leptin so you really got a attack the
the infant side and really lower it but
if you simply say and here's where we
made a huge mistake so you're eating
2,000 calories a day now you say okay I
want to cut 500 calories I'm gonna cut
the fat out because that's what the
government told them I'm gonna cut the
fat high calorie weight so the coke
calorie thing is like okay I've cut my
calories because I've cut so much fat
out of my diet that fat had no
practically no insulin response anyway
yeah and instead of eating three times a
day I'm gonna eat six or seven times a
day because somebody told me that you
have to eat all the time
you should eat six meals a day so not
only are you you're not affecting your
insulin because you're eating foods that
are getting reading the same insulin
effect and you're getting more insulin
effect because you're eating all the
time so you're eating less calories for
having the same insulin in fact and then
wondering why your weight is going up
because you never corrected the problem
which is this balance between insulin
and leptin you need to get your insulin
low for a significant amount of time and
keep get your you're left to get low and
that takes a long time because that is
reset upwards very very gradually so if
you think about standard sort of common
obesity it's about a pound of weight
gain one to two pounds per year which
adds up over three decades sort of thing
but that's it this gradually reset
upwards so can you move it all back down
in like a month and a half not really
it's it's a long term process there's
this really fascinating study about
eating habits and
the things that I've always talked about
in you know in the obesity code is that
it's not simply what we eat so if you
look at the foods that we should eat
there's there's really not that much
disagreement nobody really thinks you
should be eating a lot of white bread
anymore
so if you look that we all sort of agree
unprocessed foods are good natural fats
are sort of back so there's less you
know avocados and nuts it's not that
much controversy around the edges like
saturated fat and so on there's still
some controversy but if you look at what
people say you should eat it's not that
it's not that different the thing I've
never talked about is the when to eat if
you look at nineteen seventy seven how
often people are eating it's about three
times a day so I grew up in to some
needs a breakfast lunch dinner you
wanted to stack your mom said no you
can't have a snack we don't have snacks
and you're gonna ruin your dinner you
want an after-dinner snack they're like
no if you got hungry yes buddy you
should be more dinner that exactly what
they would have said and if you look at
the latest data so 2004 2005 the Ann
Haynes study which is this giant sort of
American survey it's closer to six times
a day average in 2005 sorry a couple of
years ago they had this really
interesting study where they gave
somebody a smartphone app and people
would just record when they ate and how
much they ate sort of thing and they
looked at how often people ate and they
broke it in by deciles so each the top
10% of people in the bottom 10% so the
the bottom 10% the peep that the 10% of
people who ate the least frequently
averaged 3.3 times hmm that is 90% of
people ate more than three times a day
it's and and the top 10 percent of
people how often they it was ten times a
day
well it's ridiculous we're eating all
the time so again if you think about it
the way human nutrition is is not that
complicated when you eat your body wants
to store food energy because food
Energy's coming in you should store it
for a time that you don't have it
and when you are not eating then insulin
falls and you simply take that food
energy that you store it and you burn it
and that's why you don't die in your
sleep like every single night it's like
yes you don't have to eat muffins every
two hours to survive like it's okay but
that's the way nutrition is so if you
think about it now we're eating sort of
ten times a day instead of three times a
day so 10 times a day we are telling our
bodies to store fat
it's like store fast or fast or fast or
fat and that's like I wonder why I'm so
fat it's like because you keep telling
your body do that and if you want to if
you want to burn fat then you got to
tell it to stop burning fat and again
it's a hormonal signal it's not a
caloric signal it's a hormonal signal
you got to let that insulin fall because
it's when the insulin fall that the
body's gonna start burning the glycogen
gonna start burning the body fat if you
keep your insulin high then you'll never
do it because insulin is the signal to
go high and this is the promo type-2
diabetes because you get this insulin
resistance which leads to high insulin
all the time so it gets harder and
harder to lose weight as it goes so then
as you get in sort of like 40 years in
if you're 60 years old and you've been
gaining weight since age 20 for example
you have all this insulin resistance
then of course the whole problem is that
you have all this insulin resistance it
keeps it high even though your diet may
be good you have to you have to fight
all those years of insulin resistance
and that's why I also say that that
obesity is really a time-dependent
phenomenon that is the longer you have
it the harder it is which the Clarke
theory completely sort of ignores that
is to say if you gain ten pounds from
where you are right now you could lose
that pretty easily yeah but if somebody
is 65 it's pretty hard to lose that ten
pounds because they've always had it and
it's this sort of chronic resetting
upwards of this body set weight that's
the problem
so actors in Hollywood do it all the
time you see people they gain like ten
for their 20 pounds for a roll and then
they drop it and no no no biggie yeah of
course
they just gained it like two weeks ago
they can lose it no problem right
because their setpoint was relatively
normal go there's that points here it
takes time it hasn't really gone up but
they force-fed themselves to gain that
weight for whatever movie role they have
to do so their body weights here but
their set points here so then they
simply stop eating because lectins too
high they stop eating because they
really don't want to eat and they just
drop and we saw that in experiments with
in the 1960s with the overfeeding
studies so those are fascinating because
they took these college kids and they
said we want you to gain weight so this
was an interesting story because Ethan
Sims he wanted to study obesity so he
said okay well you know what I'll make
these rats gain weight so you just gave
him food and they wouldn't gain weight
when they're full they stopped which is
exactly what happens in in in like the
1960s of course people ate until they're
full and they stopped the key of course
is they're not eating all the time but
they so he thought okay well I can't
make these rats get fat that's weird
I thought it is pretty easy so he got
these college kids and I said I want you
to gain like 10 percent of your weight
and they all thought it'd be easy and
they couldn't do it they couldn't gain
weight so he went to prison and he said
okay I'm gonna take these people in
prison and make them gain weight he he
made sure they didn't exercise too much
he had people watch them as they ate
because you know their liberties were
being restricted so they gained weight
but is really really hard there's one
guy he eventually gained sort of 25
percent of his body weight he was eating
10,000 calories a day well so you think
okay what's going on he normally 820 500
calories a day for example he went up to
10,000 but as you went up to 10,000 his
bodies that way was down here and his
body is actively trying to burn off all
those calories that are coming in now
you can't make up that many calories so
he did gain weight that's what happened
he said when the experiment stopped his
body set weights down here he's up here
boom he lost all that weight in like two
months without effort
it's crazy that's crazy well you know a
lot of bodybuilders not in review but a
lot of bodybuilders use insulin for to
put on mass you know because you you're
at 190 pounds you want to be a
professional onstage at 285 there's a
long way to go right so they used
insulin a lot of anabolic sex you rev up
so that they can physically eat down
much food
yeah so it's crazy um you know a lot of
people will say like oh I just have a
sluggish metabolism and I remember
reading some studies about that like
overweight people their metabolisms not
slow they're just storing more than
they're burning you know yeah so that's
really interesting about like you know
increasing the food intake the body will
compensate and will speed up resting
metabolic rate but one thing that how
can we mentally unravel the difference
between calorie restriction like you
know I want to lose whatever how many
pound so I'm going to only eat 1200
calories per day and intermittent
fasting and how calorie restriction
reduces your resting metabolic rate but
intermittent fasting does not help us
like navigate that yeah that's a common
question and the point is that calorie
restriction first of all the body really
has no idea what the hell you're doing
so you restrict calories but the body
does whatever it wants because it
responds to hormones intermittent
fasting is not about how many calories
you eat it's about the time that you're
not eating so you're not eating for 12
hours or 16 hours or 24 hours or 7 days
and people always think that you know if
I only eat once a day for example and I
eat 1200 calories well that's exactly
the same is about 1200 calories through
that day no the difference is that if
you you know let's do a thought
experiment yeah if you eat sort of you
know I equal sized portions of food sort
of every hour you know throughout the
whole day is that really the same as
eating that one portion through that
whole all at one sitting and it's not
really because every time you kind of
stimulate your insulin to go up and you
keep telling your body to gain weight
when you drop your insulin enough what's
gonna happen is that you're going to
tell your body to switch fuel sources
okay so when you're eating all the time
you're fueling your body on the food
that's coming in so you eat two thousand
calories you burn two thousand calories
that's all food that's kind of going in
and out and it's going through the
short-term storage and the glycogen sure
but if you let your insulin fall low
enough then what happens is that you
switch into burning fat so after you get
through your glycogen then you get into
your body fat and that's where you start
to see the ketones and all this sort of
stuff but you know that you're burning
fat so for example if you're switching
fuel sources there's no reason for your
body to slow down so again let's take
some numbers so if you have a 2,000
calories a day and you eat 1,200 but
you're eating all the time and you're
you're keeping your insulin high either
because you're injecting it or you have
insulin resistance and your insulin
slicer insulin is high insulin blocks
like pollicis so what that means and
we've known this again for 50 years
insulin stops you from burning fat why
because insulin is telling your body to
gain fat so you don't want to burn fat
and gain found at the same time so we
say insulin inhibits lipolysis so if
insulin is high but you're only taking
1200 calories you have no access to your
fat stores right because it blocks like
pollicis insulin is high you can't burn
fat so all you have coming in is 1200
calories all you can burn is 1200
calories your metabolic rate must slow
down
in order for you to survive because you
don't want to die hmm what happens now
if you allow your innocent to drop say
you go on a 7 day fast and so you have
zero calories coming in for seven days
and I choose this not because I
recommend it it's pretty it's fairly
extreme in some cases but if you have
insulin resistance at least I know you
your insulin will fall so as your
insulin falls then you're gonna switch
from burning food to burning fat that's
what's supposed to happen so if your
body now sees okay I'm burning body fat
there's like tons of this stuff yeah why
do I need to slow down my metabolism
in fact if you look at the physiology of
fasting it actually maintains the
metabolic rate because as insulin Falls
you get a counter regulatory hormone
surge and again this is sort of basic
physiology insulin Falls the body
increases sympathetic tone so the
sympathetic nervous system adrenaline
and noradrenaline growth hormone and
cortisol we know that that's pretty
basic because that's trying to get the
glucose back out from the liver into the
blood and those hormones the sympathetic
nervous system adrenaline cortisol
growth hormone are trying to push the
glucose out well what do you think
adrenaline does that's not slowing your
metabolic rate right it's pumping it up
and why does growth hormone go up but
growth hormone is there because you have
a period of gluconeogenesis at around 24
hours if you look at the physiology of
fasting the glycogen stores which are
chains of glucose in your liver that's
the first sort of stuff you go to when
you burn through your glycogen it lasts
for 24 hours at 24 to 36 hours roughly
you're gonna burn protein and that's
where everybody says all your burning
muscle know you're burning protein
that's not necessarily muscle there's a
lot of excess connective tissue there's
a lot of excess fat that you should burn
if you look at those you know
documentaries of people whose weight
they have all this excess skin
yeah well that needs to be burned and
you want to burn that that's not bad
thing that's a good thing you want to
get rid of that same thing with the
Tophet you you want to get rid of this
protein but if you keep getting rid of
protein and never putting it back in
that's not good either so what does a
body do the body's not that stupid what
it does is it pumps up growth hormone
like you can't believe it goes up like 3
to 5 fold on a 5 day fast Wow
and what it means is that when you eat
again you're gonna rebuild that protein
but not the protein that you didn't need
that excess skin that you didn't need
the stuff that you do need the same
thing for @rg same thing for cancer
cells same thing for all
timers plaque and so on you actually
have the ability to break down this
protein that you don't want and that's
why a lot of these people there's a lot
of research going on into a tappa G
caloric restriction in terms of
longevity I mean there's a whole calorie
notion which is not really physiologic
but it's the same thing you really want
to burn off this excess protein that's
not making it good because the if you
don't ever let your body break down this
protein you can't actually build new
protein because it's like if you have a
bathroom that you want to renovate the
first thing you got to do is pull out
that sort of avocado green tub that was
sitting from the 1970s if you don't pull
out that tub you can't put in a nice new
clawfoot tub you have to get rid of it
first yeah then that's the way the body
works if you look at turnover of bone
there's osteoclasts and osteoblasts the
first thing you do when you remodel BOE
is chew up the old bone then you lay
down new bone and that's healthier then
keeping the old crappy bone there just
like that old avocado green top so you
have to break it down to rebuild it and
that's what fasting does it actually
breaks down the protein growl hormone
goes through the roof and so does
noradrenaline and some people have so
much energy they're like I can't sleep
I'm like waking up at like 3 a.m. and
you know doing all this work I'm like
one is like that's great if you want but
if you can't then like yeah you know
that's just one of the things that
happens but what you're doing you're
allowing access to those energy stores
those fat stores remember fat is simply
food that's stored away for you to use
when there's no food available now that
you've dropped your insulin you're
allowing bought your body to access all
those huge stores of energy and the
body's going crazy and it's like yeah
I'm going crazy I'm gonna do this so it
burns it all off and at the same time
it's breaking down this protein when you
eat again growth hormone is so high
you're going to rebuild your protein so
when you look at clinical studies of
weight loss
you actually get much better retention
of lean mass with an intermittent
fasting strategy than a standard sort of
cut 500 calories per day and these are
the sort of myths that are out there
the myth that your metabolites going to
go down it's actually the exact opposite
fasting does much better in terms of
preservation of metabolic rate oh you're
gonna lose all this muscle it's
completely false it's actually the
opposite
if you try to lose weight with standard
calorie restriction compared to
intermittent fasting and the studies are
there then you will do much better by
doing the fasting because you're you're
cycling the the sort of energy source
you're just you're allowing your body to
access those energy stores rather than
keeping insulin hiding it away and then
saying okay you can use whatever energy
is coming in through the mouth and it's
like 1,200 calories while you burn 1200
calories and that's the real problem is
that the body and we saw this in the
Biggest Loser so these Biggest Loser
diets so they lose a lot of weight yeah
and a lot of fat which is great but the
problem is that the metabolic rate just
kind of sank like a stone so yeah and
one poor guy who is burning 3400
calories a day went down to like 1800
calories and what does a man drop that's
a massive drop yeah I mean he he lost a
lot of weight too but then the problem
is that the body's used to burning this
amount of calories so say say you
normally take 2,000 calories then you go
on this 1,500 calorie a day caloric
restriction diet your body now can only
burn 1,500 because you haven't dropped
your insulin you haven't solved this
sort of hormonal imbalance you're trying
to solve this kauri imbalance but it's
not a calorie imbalance you got the
wrong problem she got the wrong solution
so you drop your calories now the body
insulin is still high because you're
cutting fat and you're eating six times
a day so your insulin is high you have
no access to body fat you instead of
burning 2,000 you're burning 1,500 guess
what you're gonna feel cold you're gonna
you feel sluggish your hair may fall out
your nails might get brittle because
everything takes energy your heart needs
to pump your blood pressure your
liver your kidneys and you've put them
on this sort of restriction so you're
cold and then your body makes you hungry
you know that Gowland goes up your body
makes you hungry because it wants to get
backed up to that that weight and your
metabolic rate slowing so you feel cold
you feel tired you hunt feel hungry you
feel like crap and you've stopped losing
weight because your metabolic rate has
gone down not to 59 that usually goes
down to like 1450 or something like that
yeah so now you're actually starting to
regain that weight so you're on 1,500
calories your body's move this metabolic
rate from 2,000 to 1450 you're regaining
that way you said forget it I'm going to
go back up to 1,700 calories
now you just pile on the weight because
you're still at 1450 mm-hmm and you're
still feeling it like crap because
you're used to burn 2,000 and your
weights all back to where it was
it's like sound familiar yeah well guess
what that's what every single dieter
does why not instead do the intermittent
fasting drop your insulin levels very
low for a period of time whatever time
it is 16 hours 24 hour whatever it is
during that time you allow your body to
burn stored food energy hey why does it
need to change from 2000 so this is the
difference between calorie restriction
of 1200 calories and eating one time or
1200 calories in you know one day is
that you're taking 1200 calories for
example from food and 800 calories from
body fat because you've dropped your
insulin and allowed your body to access
that body fat now your body's like yeah
I'm gonna burn 2,000 because I want to
whereas before when your insulin is high
you've blocked it off and you can only
burn 1200 and that's the difference
between sort of intermittent fasting and
just calorie restriction and you can see
why one works and one doesn't work
you're simply allowing your body to
access the stored food energy that's on
your body and guess what
that's what is therefore that's what
body is the body fat is there for it's
not there for looks it's there for you
to use
you know it's so brilliant I really
wanted add more into insulin I think
that's a great analogy you know that and
it really underscoring the importance of
the hormonal balance and speaking of
hormones ghrelin is a hormone people
talk about in the context of like why
women shouldn't fast and there was a
study came out that show that ghrelin
reduction was actually better in women
versus men which i think is interesting
yeah that was a fascinating study so
they talked about why women shouldn't
fast and honestly I don't know why
people say that it doesn't really make
any sense I mean if the woman is
underweight or at risk of anorexia sure
that makes sense like you got to apply
everything in a clinical context you're
not gonna put a 16 year old 80 pound
girl on some kind of fasting diet you're
asking for trouble
they might get anorexia nervosa sure but
you put a 250 pound 60 year-old man on
fasting he's not gonna get any sooner
Roza okay so women can fast absolutely
then grrrrrr Allen is so so-called
hunger hormone so the higher it is the
hungrier on and when they look that food
craving so one of the things that we
talk about all the time is people when
they come in the the number one sort of
concern about fasting is hunger they
think I can't do it I'm gonna get so
hungry and what you have to realize is
that when you look at ghrelin over 24
hours if you don't even over 24 hours
you see gorillas spike in a spikes three
times at breakfast lunch and dinner
so we're trained to eat a lot of people
are trained to eat three times a day so
when it comes around to noontime ghrelin
spikes up but he is that doesn't
continue to go up if you don't eat it
actually just drops back down to normal
and anybody who's worked through Dinard
work through lunch
knows this because at twelve o'clock one
o'clock you're hungry but then you're so
busy you're just working you're working
or working by four o'clock it's as if
you ain't there's actually no difference
in hunger if you ate or you didn't eat
why is that well because insulin fell
your body essentially ate lunch out of
your own body fat it's like okay that's
perfect
that's exactly what we want it to do but
the hunger does not keep going up it
comes in waves and I say you got to ride
those waves out because they will come
they'll be dinner time you're gonna get
hungry but if you bribed it out it's
gonna go down so if you look at food
cravings you see the same thing so you
can do these questionnaires and this
study looked at food cravings and they
compared a sort of standard calorie
restriction diet to is sort of ultra
ultra low calorie diet like a couple
hundred calories a day sort of thing and
what they found was that the cravings
essentially disappeared and women versus
men had much higher levels of these
ghrelin spikes and it sort of makes
sense when you talked about people who
are chocoholics and crave these foods
it's women for more than men whom these
sugar cravings and all that and
physiologically you see that the women
have these much higher morale and spikes
and they come right down when you fast
them so again if you have cravings the
important thing is not to say well I'm
gonna eat a little bit because it's like
an itch if you're a parent you know that
you don't touch that edge if you scratch
it it's gonna get worse mm-hmm it's the
same thing with cravings you don't say
okay I'm gonna take a little bit because
it's gonna get worse yeah if you take
those cravings for and it applies to
everything so you have a craving for
sweets if you all of a sudden stop
eating sweets entirely those cravings
actually disappear so fasting is much
more powerful because if you have
cravings for bread and then you just
stop eating bread those cravings will
actually diminish whereas if you just
eat oh I'm just gonna eat a little bit
of bread all the time we're gluten free
bread low carb prayers not your way even
if you reduce the amount of bread that
you eat or sweets that you eat because
you have to take those sort of cravings
down to a zero level take the food down
to the zero level and then the cravings
disappear and that's the real power of
the intermittent fasting and also the
ketogenic diets for example so if you're
eating ultra low carb well after a while
you soon
to get used to it and those cravings for
the carbs go away and that's one of the
sort of keys to a lot of people's
success is that once they stop eating it
they find that they don't really need it
but if you eat it sometimes you're gonna
get those cravings right back they come
right back and and sort of knowing this
is important because then you can say
well you can now use this information to
your advantage because if you know you
have this sort of addictive behavior and
so on you can use these to get rid of
your cravings at the same time do
something which is very healthy and you
know has all these other benefits in
terms of protein breakdown and at off of
G and all these other things yeah and
that and that's the real key is the
having that knowledge allows you to sort
of say okay well I'm gonna do this I'm
gonna do this and this is getting back
to what I was saying is that to me
weight loss is really about sort of two
things what you eat and when you eat and
sort of we talked endlessly and then to
see about the what to eat but the when
to eat is sort of completely ignored so
if you ignore sort of like this huge
sort of fifty or sixty percent of the
problem you're gonna fail because you're
not addressing it because we've gone
from eating sort of three times a day to
somewhere around six to ten times a day
and we think it's good for you right you
see this all the time and the question
is where did this advice that you have
to eat all the time come from food
industry you know fitness and is up
there it sure didn't come from the
doctors because no doctor I know has
ever found any study that proves that
eating six or eight times a day is good
for you and nobody in the history of
humanity has ever done that because they
have work to do yeah yeah feels you have
to go you know plow the fields you're
not spending all your time eating and
yet we think that we shouldn't go more
than a couple of hours without stuffing
cookies in our mouths and we teach our
children this yeah you should look at my
son schedule I mean not anymore but when
they were in like grade school and so on
eat breakfast in the middle of morning a
couple cookies or something lunch after
school those
you know fruit or something dinner and
then you go to soccer and oh in between
the hands Oh another granola bar like
come on you know I used to go out and
play after dinner and it's like you
didn't eat you're busy playing you
didn't have to you don't need to stop to
eat and so you didn't eat anything from
dinner until at least breakfast the next
day if you eat breakfast yeah I deal
with that with my daughter right now and
it seems that there's always a birthday
party some special event and it's always
sugar-based foods yeah my topic for
another conversation but you know I
think it's really you know kind of
fascinating about the ladies you know
that ghrelin spike and so forth and
going back to that just completely I
don't having you know my problem with
diet foods is there's the Paleo Donuts
the low-carb donuts and all this stuff
is emerging for people and like you said
the addition is a kick the habit
obviously we need to enjoy life too and
have a little you know food periodically
but um you know one whatever advise a
heroin addict just take a small little
hit yeah okay just a small like they
have to go cold turkey so that's kind of
an interesting yeah and and and again
the the key is understanding that
there's a difference between these sort
of carbohydrate insulin hypothesis and
the insulin hypothesis the instant
hypothesis says that insulin is one of
the key regulators of
body weight which i think is true what's
not true is that carbs are the only sort
of input into that system and that's
where a lot of people get into these
debates because it's like can you eat
high carb foods and still have low
insulin absolutely so you go back to the
Okinawan for example they're eating 65%
sweet potato diets there there's no
obesity whatsoever you go to the Kitab
and they're eating sort of 65 70 percent
carbohydrates their serum insulin levels
are like five percentile compared to a
Swedish population no obesity
well why is that well a big part of it
is that you're not eating all the time
so even though you're eating cassava and
root vegetables and all this and you got
to remember again in the 1980s in China
all white rice and vegetables
eating 10 times a day there's like
almost no sugar in that diet there's a
lot of carbohydrates so there's you can
look at the the Chinese and some people
say oh they're eating brown rice they're
not eating brown rice like I have
relatives from there everybody's eating
white rice it's all refined grains but
they're not eating all the time they're
eating very little sugar like almost
zero sugar and I think you know for
different reasons
sugar is much much much more fattening
than any other carbohydrate out there
and this is even though you get no
insulin effect of fructose so fructose
has no insulin of fact that has no
glycemic index of fact so people used to
think it's great but it's actually very
very bad for you and I think it's sort
of like 20 times as fattening as say
Brad which has sort of glucose as
opposed to the Frog dose mm-hmm
so there's no sugar in that they're not
eating all the time there's no you know
there's there's all these other sort of
mitigating factors that keep their
insulin low so you can eat a low fat
diet you can eat a high fat diet and
still keep your insulin low and we see
this in traditional societies all over
the world there are societies that are
based on eating meat and they do fine
and there's societies that are based on
eating white rice like China and they're
doing fine obesity wise obesity and type
2 diabetes but yet they're widely vary
in terms of their macronutrients so I
should never tell people to eat you know
to watch the macronutrient I don't think
it's that important but you have to
always keep in mind the insulin effect
and a huge part of that is sort of
frequency of eating and getting that way
down so if three per day is sort of what
people have traditionally done and done
fairly well with that well that's pretty
good but if you've been eating 10 a day
for the last 10 years going back to 3 a
day is not gonna cut it you're not gonna
lose weight like that you got to go
lower than 3 to make up for those surger
10 yeah years of 10 a day and and and
you know just like the you know and this
is where the calories thing in the
insulin thing really overlaps because
again
anything you eat assuming it's a blend
of the three macronutrients is going to
stimulate insulin to some effect and
it's gonna have some calories so there
is going to be an overlap between
calories and insulin effect so that's
where the confusion comes in because
people say oh it's just all about
calories like it's not about calories
there's nothing to do with calories but
there's an overlap between the two but
what when you look at Islan what you say
is that a hundred calories of certain
foods are more fattening than hundred
calories of other foods which is sort of
common sense and what your grandmother
sort of would have told you like she's
not gonna say oh you know eat cookies
and for dinner and I've seen this advice
given help by doctors so if you want
cookies and ice cream eat it instead of
dinner and you'll be fine oh my god God
yeah no clue because you can't hear you
can go or that physiology I mean there's
a whole thing to do a satiety for
example remember that as you eat foods
you're gonna activate certain satiety
signal so if you go to the buffet and
you eat like a lot like way too much and
then you try and eat a couple more pork
chops it's like you'll never do it you
can't do it you can't force the pork
chop down but if you're to eat some
cookie you could easily do that there
were no time for cookies exactly because
there's no satiety effect of those
highly refined grains the sugar the
fructose you're gonna get the calories
you're gonna get the insulin effect but
you're not gonna get any sort of satiety
effect yeah that's why I used to think
it's very strange because you can eaten
lunch in this guy I used to think this
is a kid actually it's very strange that
you can eat lunch or you can eat lunch
with a big soda and you'll feel exactly
the same in terms of fullness but you've
taken a lot more calories when you drink
that big soda it's like I wonder why I
you know you think of for 2,000 calories
I should feel the same amount of fall no
it's completely different and this is
the thing with natural foods is that
they have natural satiety Meck
so if you eat a lot of beans which is
all carbohydrates while you'll stretch
your stomach you'll activate stretch
receptors if you eat a lot of steak
you're going to activate peptide YY
which is for protein you're gonna
activate in cretons which is for you
know another satiety signal you're gonna
activate cholecystokinin which is a
satiety signal
you're gonna activate the vagus nerve
also in terms of stretch receptors so
you can eat something which is very
bulky and feel full or you can eat
something that's very not bulky and feel
full because we have natural satiety
mechanisms and this is part of you know
human physiology because our our we
don't want to die like we don't want to
stuff ourselves so much like you hear
these arguments that oh you know we're
genetically programmed to get fat we
just eat everything in front of our face
it was like you try eating that 60 ounce
steak that you'll get for free if you
eat in an hour
they're not going out of business any
time soon because there's powerful
satiety mechanisms but processing does
is it removes all that so you take flour
so if you're to eat carbohydrates like
beans you're gonna get full even rice
you're gonna get full but not as full as
you might think but now you take flour
you take out all the fats you take out
all the protein because the fat goes
rancid so you don't want to cook rancid
so if you take out all the fat you take
out all the protein you cut down a lot
of the bulk of the fiber well you've
just lost three satiety signals
you've lost those stretch receptors in
the stomach you've lost the the protein
satiety signals and you've lost the fat
satiety signals then you grind it into a
fine powder because you know flour when
you throw it up it's very fine you grind
it into a fine powder then it gets
absorbed super fast so just like okay
and the reason people grind it up is so
that they can get that massive high so
now you grind it up you get this massive
high when you're eating your white bread
now okay so it's fine for a bit and then
two hours later it crashes because
you've just gone spiked up and spiked
down and then you want to eat a
muffin because you had that bagel in the
morning and it's all gone now because
it's gone up and down so that's where
the processing is completely different
as opposed to say even like a potato if
you need a baked potato it's pretty
filling like hard over you does yeah
it's pretty hard I mean when you process
it when you do things like potato chips
and stuff in that deep fryer and that's
alright yeah it changes things yeah but
it's pretty difficult to eat to overeat
a boiled potato like people have put
gone on these potato diets and III
potatoes sometimes it's pretty filling
like that's why this whole meat and
potatoes you know sort of thing is
because the me the potato is actually
one of the highest foods on the satiety
index so if you eat a potato calorie for
calorie you will feel more full than
virtually anything else
hmm it's hard to overeat boiled potatoes
yeah baked potatoes is kind of similar
it's it's pretty hard to overeat that
but again you're activating natural
satiety mechanisms like the potato is
pretty big it's it's gonna fill up it's
gonna activate these other stretch
receptors it has it's almost all starch
so there's very little fat very little
protein but it's gonna activate other
things so the Irish for example ate tons
of potatoes didn't have much of a
problem until recently until the 70s
just like everybody else
so there's there's a lot of things so
yes there's carbohydrates but what's
really important is the insulin because
you can eat a sort of low fat diet high
in carbohydrates and still have low
insulin levels and still have very
little B C and that that wasn't what
came out in the diet fit studied so this
was that study that Chris garner did a
couple of weeks ago I guess it got
released and what it showed was that if
you take people and put on a low fat
diet and a low carb diet they did
roughly equally but it wasn't just any
kind of low low fat diet it's not like
white bread and jam sort of thing it was
all unprocessed foods it was all and you
see that yaki had a period of
yeah yeah also you weren't supposed to
eat all the time yeah and there were
another farmers market yeah exactly
there's a whole lot of stuff in there it
wasn't like go out and eat some of some
pasta and white bread yeah it was this
sort of healthy sort of eat lots of
vegetables and you know there was a
whole lot of it and I was looking at
that study and I was thinking that's
exactly what we tell people you know
unprocessed foods because it's not
simply about the carbohydrates we have
to move past that you have to get into
this sort of insulin because that's the
sort of language the body speaks if
you're speaking about carbs and proteins
and stuff that's not really there's it's
closer to but it's not exactly the
language that the body understands the
body responds to signals which are
hormones so you wanna get your insulin
high the body's gonna gain weight well
you can eat a low fat diet you can eat
low carb diet and still have the same
effect on insulin so that's where I
differ from some of the people in terms
of the carb insulin hypothesis you can
eat a high protein diet for example all
meat diet you can do all of these things
and still get the same effect of low
insulin and therefore less obesity less
type-2 diabetes and that's where
understanding the sort of physiology
gets you around all these debates and
you know tries to understand why people
can eat different diets and still do
well and and that's the that's you know
that's what I try and bring out in the
books is sort of the science and the
understanding to do it yeah great I have
two examples of that definitely one dive
into insulin especially I didn't know
was discovered here in Toronto
yeah super fasting but you mentioned the
satiety signals at Whole Foods garner on
the body and they're kind of lost in the
processing of food and one example of a
remedy that you talk about
I personally am very interested in this
as well I've been studying it for a
while its gastric bypass or bariatric
surgery in the hormonal I'm not a fan of
the procedure saying that it's good for
weight loss but admiring the mechanism
of action through which gastric or
bariatric surgery affects insulin
resistance is really interesting you
take a full-blown insulin dependent type
2 diabetic as you know
12 hours after the procedure they don't
need insulin because they've got
hormones that you mentioned are
upregulated with whole real food are
super physiologic we up regular and so
yeah bariatric surgery is fascinating
because it's quite successful and people
used to say well why does it work
maybe it's because you cut out a big
swath of the stomach right you come in
with like 90% of the stomach and
therefore you can't produce certain
hormones well the problem with that is
that you can do gastric banding where
you put a sort of belt around the
stomach and cinch it really tight and
you get the same effect since you're not
cutting out any part of the stomach then
the benefits cannot be from from from
cutting out the stomach and the truth is
that the the effect is simply a severe
caloric restriction you're basically
putting them very close to fasting as
much as you possibly can for months at a
time I mean they're eating so little
that you're you might as well be fasting
so fasting you know the whole point is
to get your insulin down now you're not
eating you can't eat because they've cut
out all your stomach and they've rewired
your intestines so that you you know
even if you eat food it's not getting
absorbed well what's gonna happen well
instance gonna drop and I'm gonna keep
dropping so what's gonna happen is that
your body's gonna burn off all that
sugar or not the sugar diabetes goes
away bad as it burns off all that sugar
then it's gonna burn all that fat and
guess what the weight loss is very very
good so the mechanism is quite easy to
understand once you understand that it's
really about changing the insulin which
is the main hormone it's not the only
hormone that's responsible for weight
gain cortisol is another one but for the
most part it's about insulin so that
once you understand that you can see
this is why Bariatrics is so affected
and sometimes you say well this is
really just medical Bariatrics all these
fasting therapies is just medical
Bariatrics and and but it's not easy
it's not fun and that's really one of
the things that we try to do so we have
a program for this which is the
intensive dietary management program and
people can join and we have sort of so
the website is IDM program com
and if you know we put out a lot of
stuff for free like these sort of videos
and we do podcasts and blog I do weekly
blog post and there's lots of free stuff
and if people can just get the
information and there's the books either
that are very inexpensive or you can
take it from the library so there's a
lot of information out there but
sometimes people want a little bit more
guidance so what we've done is we've
provided sort of a little bit more
guidance question and the answers group
fast because again it's about building
this community of people who will help
each other
and that's one of the secrets of any
kind of behavior change is that you do
better in a group so whether you're
looking at Weight Watchers or Alcoholics
Anonymous the point is that changing
behaviors is difficult to do and if you
have people who will support you your
success rate is going to be much much
higher so we're trying to put together a
community in our membership program that
people can join for a fee and then get
the guidance from sort of trained
professionals that they need they get
the sort of extra extra help that they
need to do it if you can do it on your
own great but most people they get out
that they start fasting and then some
doctor tells them oh god you're gonna
kill yourself and then they're done and
then it's like oh but you know you could
have gained so much with it and then we
also have sort of an additional program
where people will provide sort of small
group sort of in groups of three or four
of course anytime you do that it's much
more expensive because you're getting
sort of personalized care but at least
it's available for you so there's we try
and provide sort of everything from the
free stuff to the books and the podcast
and you know the stuff we're doing here
the you know so that you know I hope
people can just listen and do it
themselves but hey if you if you need
some help or we're also here we can give
you more help if you need it the
membership site is $39 a month I think
and it's like we do these group files
which are very popular so that people
fast all together for three or four days
and it's not necessarily you do the full
four days maybe you do a 24-hour fast
for three days or
but because you're doing it with a group
of sort of supportive people it's easier
and then you get the benefit and and in
school we understand this we call it
peer pressure and it's got a negative
connotation in as adults it's called
peer support because it's like we're
trying to change behavior and you're
joining a group to get the support that
you need and guess what it's like very
very important it's it's actually like
it sounds like it's it's one of these
kind of throw away things but it's
actually as we started doing our program
we've been doing it for about five years
now that was one of the sort of keys to
success was getting people into the
small groups and into the bigger groups
where people can talk about fasting
without getting laughed at essentially
and that's been very important and then
I realized of course that's the whole
secret of Weight Watchers or the biggest
Oprah led company now but their diets
nothing special
it's a decent-enough diet but you could
have gotten that diet anywhere right you
could have gone to any book and gotten
that diet the secret sauce was the peer
support Alcoholics Anonymous again peer
support being out there and we're
fighting such a big fight because the
the conventional dietary advice is to
eat sort of eight ten times a day eat
these low fat foods so we're sort of
swimming upstream in terms of our advice
because we generally advise people to
eat sort of whole unprocessed real foods
often low carbs or not necessarily and
then intermittent fasting whether it's
less than a day or more than a day and
that's where people it gets people's
kind of goat up is that the in term in
fasting really scares a lot of these
people and then they get scared out of
it right away they don't have that peer
support so we're trying to build that in
into our program and if that's what you
need you know we're hopefully providing
it at a fairly reasonable price I mean
if you're if you're skipping a meal I
mean that that's like the cost of you're
gonna come out ahead if you do that
totally that's awesome IDM program comm
program
the show notes in blue this video and
then let's kind of finish off on the
book a little bit a few things a few
that I remember like they're inked in my
head you can't fix a dietary disease
with medicine I might box out a little
bit but I think that's really important
because you know a lot of people don't
realize that traditional medical system
like the solution and for a lot of
traditionally trained practitioners is
insulin more and more insulin and what
happens when you get more and more
insulin yeah the problem is that type 2
diabetes is he really misunderstood
disease by the doctors then what they
don't understand is that they're
treating sort of the blood glucose well
so the blood glucose or blood sugar is
high so they try and get it down if you
give insulin well does that get rid of
the sugar and the answer is no you
simply the insulin takes that sugar
it simply crams it into your liver okay
and then liver turns it into factor de
novo lipogenesis or sends that sugars
everywhere else so sugar goes into your
eyes and your liver into your nerves
into your legs into your heart and what
happens well what happens over decades
is that as you keep cramming the sugar
from that blood you had excess trigger
in the blood you never got rid of it but
you took insulin to cram it into your
body your body sort of just blows up
with way too much sugar and then every
part of your Anatomy just rots so you're
gonna go blind and you get heart attacks
you get strokes and get nerve damage and
get amputations you get diabetic foot
infections and it's like why do
diabetics get infections that nobody
else in the whole world gets go is there
sugar there's so much sugar sitting
around in that foot then you get
infections like yeast infections that
love the sugar and it's crazy because
what it means is that type 2 diabetes is
essentially being treated completely
incorrectly we're treating the blood
glucose so we know the blood glucose is
high because of the type 2 diabetes but
the blood glucose is not the disease
the symptom so if you treat the symptom
but don't treat the disease then you're
not going to get anywhere it's
symptomatic treatment and that's the
real problem we are treating the symptom
and pretending like that's the real
disease so yes we got the blood glucose
down have you treated the type 2
diabetes with your insulin and the
answer is no well everybody knows that
if you lose weight your diabetes gets
better
so insulin makes you gain weight so
right your diabetes not getting better
it's getting worse and the whole point
is that you simply can't take the sugar
in your blood and cram it away where you
can't see it and pretend you're better
you got to get rid of that sugar so in
essence the simplest way to understand
type-2 diabetes is that there's just too
much sugar in the body the body is
overfilled with sugar well if it's
overfilled with sugar then you just
gotta get rid of the sugar what do you
do 1 don't put more sugar in eat a low
carbohydrate diet and number 2 burn it
all off and that's intermittent fasting
so what we've done is we've taken this
dietary disease and instead of treating
the root cause of it which is the diet
we're eating too much too much
carbohydrates predominantly because we
were told to and we're eating too too
many times too frequently but what we've
done is instead of treating the actual
cause of it we tried to drug it we're
trying to drug these people back to
health then we're not treating what was
the actual problem in the first place
and then we wonder why is everybody
getting worse in the worst part is that
the answer that most specialist
researchers give is that type 2 diabetes
is just like that it's a chronic and
progressive disease it's like no it's
chronic and progressive because you
treated it completely wrong the disease
is actually reversible we know that
anybody who loses weight the diabetes
refers to as we knew that from
Bariatrics you can take the most severe
type 2 diabetic and within 2 weeks
they'll be off of all their insulin for
example
because they're basically burning it all
off because they're fasting it's not
really hard to understand if you don't
eat you're gonna burn off that sugar
your blood sugar will drop if your blood
sugar drops you don't need to take
insulin well that's not so hard to
understand but now you're dealing with
the actual problem of sugar overload as
opposed to trying to give more insulin
so here we have a situation which is
sort of mind-boggling that 99% of
diabetics type 2 diabetics in this
country in this world are actually being
treated I think completely incorrectly
and that's why since everybody's getting
worse
the doctors say well it's chronic and
progressive because I gave them insulin
and they got worse
so therefore the disease must be like
that yet at the same time knowing that
this disease cannot possibly like that
because we just proved it with our
bariatric surgery that we could take
this guy do something to him which is
basically fast them for like three
months and make him completely better
everybody who has type 2 diabetes is
reversible except up until the very late
stage that's a fact that we've sort of
proven with our bariatric surgery and
it's a fact that we already knew because
we know that if your friend loses 50
pounds he's gonna get off his diabetic
medication no doctors gonna say oh I
wonder why that happened it's like well
obviously right but so we know this for
a fact that it's a reversible disease
yet we pretend it's chronic from
progressive because we've been doing
such a bad job because we've been using
the wrong treatment interesting when in
your career so you've been practicing
medicine for over 20 years right about
20 years and you talked about in the
book like I know how to make people fat
you know you're in some system give them
insulin at what point did you see enough
patients gain more and more weight when
you were falling the standard of care
that you said this can't be right well
it was it took a little time yeah dogmas
very hard to break and interestingly it
was the patients who all knew they're
all like you know you gave me insulin
I'm gaining weight like crazy here
like how is that good and the answer is
it wasn't good but I didn't know the
answer so I said well you know it's just
the way it is I mean that's that's what
I said that's what everyone else said
too but at some point I mean it was
2008-2009 that we started getting some
of the data that really showed that
giving insulin is not a good idea to
type two diabetics which when you look
back at it is completely sort of
rational that is we know in type 2
diabetes that insulin levels are high so
why are you giving more insulin I mean
isn't that like giving alcohol to an
alcoholic how do you think they're gonna
get better if you give alcohol to an
alcoholic they're they're shaking might
get better but their alcoholism which is
the actual disease gets worse so it's
the same thing you give insulin to
somebody has too much insulin the blood
sugar gets better but the diabetes gets
worse
and that's what we've been doing we've
been treating these addicts with heroin
it's like oh my god and what's scary is
that people are still doing it today
right now and pretending it's the right
treatment it's like oh okay well that's
not a good there's a lot a good idea and
there's like no wonder everybody's
getting worse no wonder the health of
the nation is getting worse because
we've sort of focused on the wrong sort
of quadrant which is we think it's a
drug problem but it's a diet problem we
took type 1 diabetes which is where
insulin very low so if insulin is very
low then give insulin that's a good
treatment citizens very high don't give
insulin that's not a good treatment yeah
you know ladies you said not solving the
root cause of the problem it's not an
insulin deficiency syndrome as type 1
diabetes is you have two receptor gosh
we could go on and talk all about this
stuff I really want to commend you for
all your great work both the books the
obesity code really changed my mind on a
lot of different things particularly
that the time the latency how long
someone has been overweight that that
it's going to affect their weight loss
and I think that's something that people
really need to think about you know
because if they see the lean purse
and get shredded for spring break and
like why I want to do that but they've
been overweight for 35 years so we need
to be realized and that calorie three
theories simply can't explain that
because the calorie theory would say
that if you've been overweight for ten
years or ten days it's the same yeah you
create that caloric deficit and you're
both is a lose weight yeah and everybody
knows that's not gonna happen right
and yet we pretend oh yeah of course of
course it's all about calories it's like
what are you like do you live in the
real world like do you actually treat
people because everybody knows that that
guy who's been overweight for thirty
years that those pounds ain't coming off
yeah like in ten days like like like the
20 year old who gained a few pounds from
a few beers at spring break right so
yeah absolutely that's that's that's the
key to understanding and the
physiologies all been there but it's
been sort of distorted by all of this
sort of you know other interests like
particularly food companies for example
sugary beverage companies who want the
calorie theory to be correct and this is
one of the things that you know we're
really looking to get into is sort of
advocacy to get the sort of conflicts of
interest out of medicine having been in
medicine I realized that there's
actually all these problems like there's
not just pharmaceuticals but you know
the research so we all pretend we live
in this world of evidence-based medicine
the problem is if all the met if all the
evidence is corrupt then evidence-based
medicine is also going to be corrupt so
if all your evidence is produced by
pharmaceuticals is produced by people
getting paid by the sugar industry for
example well you're gonna think sugar is
fine and we have studies that prove that
a funded study so if you fund a study
then you're like something like six to
ten times more likely to finding result
favoring your sponsor well that's just
human nature so we have a guy in Toronto
a dr. Stephen Piper
who is out there all the time saying
sugars good fructose is good it's like a
health food like okay that's really dumb
that's what I'm thinking and then of
course in the newspaper in the National
Post last year which is our national
newspaper it's like oh yeah he takes
hundreds of thousands of dollars from
the sugar industry coca-cola and
everybody I'm like okay makes sense well
here's this makes total sense and here's
the sugar industry funding the
University of Toronto which is happily
taking all this cash they're taking all
this money and producing shoddy research
it's like I don't blame the sugar
company the sugar company or the
pharmaceutical or the big food company I
don't blame them at all because their
responsibility is to sell sugary
beverage that's their responsibility to
the company to their shareholders that's
their whole goal it's out there coke is
there to sell coke that's his job the
problem is that we allow coke to pay the
University of Toronto millions of
dollars to produce crappy research why
do we allow that if you give a New York
City policeman a cold drink he could get
fired because it's a conflict of
interest if you give the judge sort of a
slice of pizza he or she could get fired
for taking that slice of pizza and we
all say of course you can't bribe a
judge whether it's a slice of pizza or a
car it's the same principle mmm the
reciprocity exactly because when I give
you something you're gonna feel better
towards me
that's all human nature so we say okay I
understand this everybody understands
this so therefore you are not nobody is
allowed to give policeman nobody's
allowed to give judges anything but we
say oh yeah if you're a big company you
can give doctors however much money you
want so you look at a journal like the
Journal of the American car
College of Cardiology and the editors
which decide which journals got
published you know what everything is
on average they're taking each over four
hundred thousand dollars a year from
companies and it's like okay I don't
blame the company the company if it if
it means selling more stuff that's what
they should be doing the question is why
do we allow that to happen when it
doesn't apply to anybody else
you can't give four hundred thousand
dollars to a New York Times journalist
they will get fired by the New York
Times they will absolutely get fired you
can't go to some company
I'll call big companies have this rule I
can't go to the Brant bank manager and
say oh hey here's ten thousand bucks
he's gonna give me a loan right he's
gonna get fired or she's gonna get fired
everywhere and in in we know this we put
rules on it but yet when it comes to our
health we say hey dr. Stephen Piper you
can take here's a couple here's $500,000
just do some research on why sugar is
good for you and he produces it and then
people come out and say well the
evidence says that sugar is good for us
it's like isn't that the most ridiculous
situation you've ever heard this is one
of the things that really has to get out
there because if you have differences of
opinion between scientists that's fine
that's how science works everybody has a
different opinion I don't mind that's a
look the vegans have a different opinion
than I do that's fine the problem is
when you get all these sort of
commercial interests in it but it's not
a problem for the commercial interests I
mean the drug companies they're allowed
to do it so they should do it and they
will do it because that's what they are
stated their stated goal is the stated
goal is to sell more drug right what we
have to do is we have to be on our you
know political you have to get political
and really say okay we shouldn't
allowing any of this anybody who teaches
students medical students teaches at the
university it's not allowed to take
money like
it seems like a no-brainer yeah
they take hundreds of thousands of
dollars every single one of them these
programs that the the pharmaceuticals
put out they pay a doctor fifteen
hundred dollars to give an hour-long
talk lots of doctors do it the more
prominent the more money they get they
pay editors of large journals like
hundreds of thousands of dollars each to
get their research into it the studies
are all produced by drug companies and
we know that if that's the case then
it's more far more likely to be biased
and then and the whole thing and people
complain about oh you know it's big
sugar and big tobacco and big meat it's
like that's the first thing we should be
doing this saying we need new rules
nobody's allowed to pay university
professors any kind of money you want to
be a university professor you want the
privilege of teaching medical students
you get paid by the university you don't
get paid by anybody else if you want to
write guidelines clinical guidelines for
diabetes clinical guidelines for Dietary
Guidelines whatever it is anybody who
writes any kind of guideline is not
allowed to take money from anybody
because doctors are the worst because
they take lots of money from everybody
and they think that just disclosing it
is fine it's like I don't care if you
say it don't do it you can't you don't
have a judge out there saying oh yeah
I've been paid by this this this this
and that so you go to these lectures and
they're terrible because you get we have
financial disclosure slides and so
anytime you go to any lecture somebody
will flash up a slide and there's like
15 drug companies on it that he's been
paid by he goes and he'll always say
something like I'm not biased because
I'm paid by everybody and every laughs
I'm thinking oh my god yeah you guys
don't even know how crooked the whole
situation is because in any other sphere
of life it would be completely
unacceptable would it be acceptable for
your child's teacher to be getting money
from their nose wallah yeah absolutely
not right absolutely 100% not you would
never stand for it I would never stand
for it if I knew my teacher my child's
teacher was being paid by coke and hey
teaches them that coke is okay but yet
coke can pay dr. Steven Piper lots of
money to come out and say hey sugars
good for you then he teaches to the
medical students hey sugar it's good for
you which teaches you yeah that sugar is
good for you and then you get diabetes
and die it's like that's very wrong
there's something very wrong there and
that's one of the things I really have
to really have to you know get the rules
changed not because they're stricter
than anybody else we need the rules same
rules as everybody else and and and and
the health of the sort of whole nation
sort of depends on it we have so many of
these researchers that are just on the
payroll
it's like publishing biased so it's kind
of a partying note here how do you look
at research then now to try and look at
it more objectively with the idea that
this could be funded in a different way
yeah it's really hard that's why most
most people who have understand
evidence-based medicine
think it's completely crap so there's
guys like there's a former
editor-in-chief of the New England
Journal of Medicine land said these are
the two sort of most prominent medical
journals in the world who have both said
yeah after like 20 years of being in the
business I realized that it's all crap
most of what we publish is not true
there's this replication bias you know
where people try and try and juice up
their findings so that it gets in
newspapers and then when they were
trying to replicate the study it's like
oh it wasn't true at all
they only got the result because they
were trying to find a result to get in
the newspaper sort of thing so anybody
who actually understands evidence-based
medicine so you know that these are the
sort of that the editors and chief the
guys who have been there and done that
and lived that life they've all
basically turned their back and said
it's all just crap now and it's not that
the idea is bad it's a good idea but
what you have to do is say get all the
commercial interests out of science you
can't have a drug company doing a study
on their own drug and saying this is the
best thing since sliced bread everybody
should do it and anybody who doesn't do
it is some Luddite who doesn't
understand evidence-based medicine it's
like okay but there's something really
wrong here
if the heroing company is saying look at
this study heroin everybody and and then
came out and taught the doctors and gave
doc there's hundreds of thousands of
dollars to teach medical students that
heroin is good for you we'd say buddy
that study was funded by the heroin
company you can't trust it but when we
say oh that study was funded by the drug
company we're like yay it's like like
logic is just like I'm like kind of
appalled sort of yeah with how how
everything is developed in medicine and
that logic seems to sort of play no role
in in what we do that is you can't allow
drug companies to do their own study and
then tout their own horn and then
dictate how we do medicine yeah that's
great like you've given up you've given
it up and why because our leaders our
University professors are all on the
payroll it's crazy yeah it's a great
book about biases
decisive by the heath brothers Dan and
chippy and so I just noticed that I you
know it's a someone who's been in
and the beneficiary of fasting and the
ketogenic diet I'm very biased Pro that
but now when I read research I try and
really be aware of that because you find
yourself seeking out more of the same so
human nature were very very biased
creature so you can see how this could
happen but but if in terms of like kind
of a parting piece of advice like the
biggest health issue do you think that's
one of them that the so-called
evidence-based medicine is really
industry funded and yeah I think that
there's sort of a couple of things I
mean there's from from a health
standpoint honestly its metabolic
syndrome obesity type 2 diabetes that's
clearly going to be the issue of our
times
yeah it's killing tons of people carting
fast or disease stroke cancer those are
the biggest sort of three killers of
Americans and they're all sort of
metabolic problems so the the sort of
that's sort of the biggest problem and
going to the sort of standard medical
dogma is not great for the related issue
of a lot of bias and medicine research
the good news is that you have you can
take control of your own health you know
through understanding like what we're
talking about do the cutting out
processed foods reducing the number of
times that you eat intermittent fasting
and sort of regain sort of 90% of your
house from the good news from a patient
perspective is that yes you can do
something about right now the larger
societal issue is exactly that to get
the bias out of medical science because
the reason that medical science is
hopelessly bad is that there's just too
much bias so if you look back at the
1970s the obesity goes from very little
to very high so we're worse than we were
in 1970 yeah if you look at technology
in the 1970s computer is like the size
of this room it has like you know a
tenth of the computing power of my
iPhone it's like that's the power of
human ingenuity in nutrition we've gone
backwards
we've gone we would have gone from the
computer the size of this room to a
computer the size of this entire code
language yeah it's ridiculous hmm and
it's because there's too much bias we
get people saying that sugars good for
you I mean tobacco is the same thing for
years people said no problem no problem
why they're all on the payroll okay so
we understand that for tobacco
why don't we understand it for drug
companies for this and that and again
it's not that I'm anti drug companies
drug companies have a very valuable role
but they need to be sort of over there
and the university has to be over here
and you have to split them and if their
drug is good then the university will
say okay well your drug goes good well
at least I know that you're not paying
the guy who's saying it's good yeah
again it's it's it's pure common sense
and it's like we just have to change
that to move far so that's sort of the
larger I think that in the end that's
the larger societal issue the individual
issue that's the biggest that's going to
impact everybody is gonna be you know
how to apply the proper standards of
nutrition in term in fasting I think
that part has been missing for so long
and really until I started talking about
it I don't think anybody was talking
about fasting truthfully no not in not
in terms of how their body builders and
stuff but not in terms of treatment of
disease and that kind of thing that part
is the biggest part for the individual
patient but they can actually do
something about it and that's what I
hope to do with their books with the IPM
program and with the blog and with the
podcast and your podcast and all that
sort of stuff that's where we try to do
try and empower people to sort of take
control because it's like if you watch
this and you decide to do it and get
better hey I don't get paid but guess
what if if you you write to me and say
you know what I watched your thing with
Mike and I lost 50 pounds I got rid of
my diabetes I'm paid in a totally
different way you know that's much more
valuable than the money throws it like
oh I we were able to help these people
feels great feels great minimal amount
of money is gonna get
for you yeah and that's the that's the
point that's the point is that people
can can do that yeah and the book is
great you know it goes through the
historical role that fasting has had in
humankind and as a medical therapy think
back to 1770 something or a long time
ago so you have the books awesome it's
available as you guys watch this video
it should be available on Amazon for
pre-orders worldwide so commend you on
all that great stuff IDM program comm if
people want to get into the membership
site and get into that group setting
which i think is great and by the way
you mention like pure support there's
the pure influence to like when doctors
like you have a paid speaker goes in
from a room and there's all these other
doctors and they're pitching it and they
buy into it so it's part of the yeah so
the part of the group is powerful it can
help you lose weight and balance your
blood sugar - so dr. Fung thanks again
this is a lot of fun coming on yeah
thank you very much my pleasure all
right all right
a lot of good stuff thank you