Category Archives: weight loss

Intermittent fasting: Gina’s take.

My takeaways from the book about fasting: Life in the Fasting Lane by Jason Fung, Eve Mayer and Megan Ramos.

Recently I was in an internet squabble with a woman who declared that pulses (do NOT come at my pulses!) were bad for you and you should never eat them. Then she told me to look up Dr. Jason Fung and I would learn everything. So I did. And because we live in the future, I was able to grab three of his books from the library.

Fung and his coauthors are selling a system they promise will work with your hormones and do not involve a calorie deficit. They will allow you to eat all the food you want. They claim that modern doctors have no clue how to deal with weight loss, and that anyone who tells you calories in calories out is misinformed.

Ok, that’s an interesting take.

They then proceed to teach an intermittent fasting method. In their method you fast for anywhere from a few hours to a week or more. Perhaps the biggest thing that hit me is the emphasis on eating normally* on the days you ‘feast’ (‘feast days’ are just days you eat a normal amount, not a day you splurge, like Thanksgiving). Oh, and you need to cut out all snacks- they want you eating 2 healthy* meals a day, not too large, and that’s it. So what do you get if you go from 2-3 meals a day with 1-2 snacks a day to 2 meals a day with no snacks AND skipping 2+ meals a week?

Say it with me- a calorie deficit!

How they managed to convince the thousands of people who like their program that this is not a simple calorie deficit is beyond me. There’s a lot of talk about hormones and basal metabolic rates and how fasting isn’t going to make your body think you are starving because literally ‘starvation isn’t voluntary, fasting is’ I don’t get. I don’t get how one of the authors ‘cured her PCOS’ by fasting- PCOS is currently incurable. You can reduce the symptoms with diet and medicine, but no one can possibly cure it. I have it. This woman who made this claim is a ‘clinical researcher’, so she ought to know.

Another thing that ‘clinical researchers’ ought to have caught is the authors interpretation of the studies which say that insulin causes weight gain. The studies they referenced watched diabetics gain eight after receiving insulin. The researchers continued to explain that as a result of the insulin, the people studied were more able to absorb nutrients from food, and the weight gain was prevented by reducing calories in a high protein, high fiber, moderate fat and carb diet.

I was also concerned with the ‘don’t talk to your doctor’ suggestion in the book. Saying that your doctor will think fasting is a fad (when it’s been around for 1000s of years) and advise you not to do it is a red flag to me.

Another red flag to me is the attitude towards food through out the book. People are not eating, they are ‘stuffing their faces’. Birthday cake should be avoided at all costs. Eating lasagna is a ‘bad day’. Remove yourself from dinner with the family so you aren’t tempted to eat. These just sound like they are promoting a poor relationship with food. And, of course, saying to avoid my beloved pulses, in addition to not eating potatoes, rice, mangoes, oranges, or bananas, just demonizes foods that are not in the least bad for you.  

Overall I found the book to be not helpful. It seems to be a warmed over Keto/Atkins style diet with little advice on how to have a healthy relationship with food.

My eating hobby: Step 2

I follow diet and nutrition trends as a hobby. I love learning about it and talking about it. I am NOT an expert and am NOT qualified to professionally chat about diet and nutrition (although for 12 weeks and $600 I could be, so should I crowd source that? LMK 😉 )
All this is is me collecting my current personal thoughts into one place. This is not health or nutritional advice, I am not a medical professional, talk to your doctor before starting anything.
If you have ever felt shame when eating, hidden eating (not including a bag of chips when the kids are about), or feel that your body will never be ‘enough’, or ever used food ((or exercise) as a reward or punishment, SEE A DOCTOR to rule out an eating disorder.

Ok, this is step 2. Step 1 is over here, if you are looking for it.

Step two— and this is the single most important thing Noom apparently teaches— Mindfulness.

No, you do not need to pay the cost of a ‘new pair of shoes’ to learn that. Remember last step we talked about just breathing? Yeah this is linked. Just think.

OK, not like that. The idea is that many of us (hi!) consume mindlessly while doing other things. So, the plan is to pay attention to every thing you grab to consume, all water, candy, junk food, vegetables, whatever. If you are going to have a soda as a pick me up in the afternoon, really pay attention to the soda. Do not link food with any judgements (except if you like it or not) and you do not need to record what you eat. Just for a full week, be aware of what you are eating, Explore it with all your senses, and be mindful of how it also makes you physically feel. You do not need to do more than that- no meditation, no yoga (unless you want to).

Some places to learn about mindfulness that are free:
Mayo Clinic
A Free Course
Activities!

Remember, you do not need to do any extra work or study to just be *aware* of what you are eating and how it makes you feel. Just try doing only that for a week and then come back for Step 3.

My eating hobby: Step 1

I follow diet and nutrition trends as a hobby. I love learning about it and talking about it. I am NOT an expert and am NOT qualified to professionally chat about diet and nutrition (although for 12 weeks and $600 I could be, so should I crowd source that? LMK 😉 )
All this is is me collecting my current personal thoughts into one place. This is not health or nutritional advice, I am not a medical professional, talk to your doctor before starting anything.
If you have ever felt shame when eating, hidden eating (not including a bag of chips when the kids are about), or feel that your body will never be ‘enough’, or ever used food ((or exercise) as a reward or punishment, SEE A DOCTOR to rule out an eating disorder.

Ok, that is going to start every page of this series of summaries if what I like and I think works for eating plans.

I love reading up on diets and food plans. I love watching the changes over the decades of what is healthy and what is thrown out. And I love all the parts of our diet— not the ‘weight loss diet’ that is what everyone thinks of nowadays rather than ‘diet’ meaning the food you eat as part of your culture and your personal taste. Most ‘diets’ to read about are for weight loss. So, I read about paleo and low carb and keto and all the like just because I get pleasure from it. Most all the ‘diets’ are garbage. I recently read the Noom book, and in discussing it, some people mentioned being interested in a low stress low energy way to look at food to eat healthier. So that’s what spurred this series.

Most (weight loss) diets come down to the same thing: calories in have to be less than calories out. No matter the gimmick, no matter the formula, no matter the way it’s presented, that is the *only* way to lose weight. So many plans dress that up and make it uselessly fancy, but that’s it. There is no magic bullet that will help you lose weight, no one change that will make it work and keep it working except that. So the basic plan for any weight loss program is to help you understand how to eat, and how to think to keep at a healthy weight for a long time.

So here: Step 1 to Gina’s self plan for eating to a healthier weight: breathe.

Breathe. We (yes, I will use the editorial we for this) have this. We have a body that is working for us, doing what it’s supposed to be doing, and we are going to show it the love and care it needs. It’s important to love our bodies because any depression or hate going into this relationship will throw up boundaries.
So we’ll think of three things we love our bodies for RIGHT THIS MINUTE and give our bodies a hug.
It’s a good body. It’s a good home, and it deserves to be praised for all the work it does.

See you on the next step.