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"So what happens if you are trying to lose weight by adopting conventional advice to reduce the dietary fat and calories, and eat 6 times a day. By doing so, yo

"So what happens if you are trying to lose weight by adopting conventional advice to reduce the dietary fat and calories, and eat 6 times a day. By doing so, you keep insulin levels high because you are eating lots of low-fat bread, pasta, and rice and eating all the time." I don't think "conventional advice" is to eat 6 times a day. And "conventional advice" is certainly not to eat lots of bread, pasta, and rice. Fung is pretty obviously setting up a strawman argument here. Furthermore, even accepting his absurd strawman, wouldn't the body still end up burning fat when you sleep (8+ hour fast)? Fung himself said so earlier in this article: "But what happens when you go to sleep? Because you are not eating, you are fasting." This article is mere ad copy to sell Fung's books (and whatever else he is selling). By the way, I personally think there may be something to intermittent fasting and I plan to try it sometime myself, I just can't stand con-men who have to puff themselves up by creating strawmen arguments and preying on people's insecurities about their weight, which is basically what Fung is doing here. Any benefit from intermittent fasting will just be a marginal improvement over achieving caloric reduction through other means. If you want to lose weight, cut calories. You can do that by eating 6 meals a day, or occasionally fasting, or eating low-carb or eating low-fat, whatever works for you. But if you consume fewer calories than you eat, you will lose weight. Read carefully and you will find that even people like Fung are forced to admit this. Be skeptical of anyone who tells you otherwise, they're almost always trying to sell you something.

jmlsf 8y ago
While I completely agree with you on the general puffery of most of these diet book people, note that Fung comes at this from having treated thousands of people for diabetes, with a great deal of success. I think you should take a closer look at his writing, which is fact-based and extensive. The eating six times a day advice IS advice I have repeatedly heard and I have known many people who follow it. The idea that we should be eating lots of carbohydrates IS conventional advice if you consider the medical community's decades of instruction that we should not eat fat or meat: the only remaining macronutrient that most westerners will eat is carbohydrates. The popular prevalence of keto and paleo and Atkins makes people forget that the prevailing medical advice STILL effectively directs people to a high carb, low calorie diet. Calories-in-calories out isn't wrong, but it is incomplete. It doesn't explain why the "Biggest Loser" winners see their base line calorie consumption drop way below what you'd expect for someone of their new weight. It doesn't explain why some people NEVER have to diet while other go through life starving but still gain weight. If it were just "calories in calories out", you wouldn't see these anomalies. In short, it doesn't explain hunger. Fung's insulin theory has good science behind it and fits well with a lot of historical observations, such as the increase in sugar in our diets. And the ADF diet study had incredibly good results.
- bena 8y ago
  Do we eat too much sugar these days? Too much meat? Too much dairy? Yes to all of it. Probably so. > It doesn't explain why some people NEVER have to diet while other go through life starving but still gain weight. But there is a very simple explanation: Self-reporting is bullshit. Never believe anyone who says "I can eat anything I want and not gain weight" or "I hardly eat anything and still gain weight". There's always something they aren't seeing. Anyone who says that needs to keep a very strict food journal for a month. No cheating, no "well it's just a mint". Strict. Everything gets recorded. You take a bite of someone's ice cream, you record it. What you'll find is that their caloric consumption is right in line with their weight.
- darioush 8y ago
  > It doesn't explain why some people NEVER have to diet while other go through life starving but still gain weight This is simply not true. I monitored behaviors of my friends or asked them probing questions where I suspected this was the case. They may 'skip dinner' or 'have a light dinner' the day you watched them gorge on cake, but you might not see that. They may run 10 miles the day after eating the same Mexican food as you. Same with other side, people who say they don't gain weight in spite of eating 1000s of calories in surplus just aren't eating 1000s of calories in surplus. They think they are because they often eat candy, ... but they may take a bite or two and 'save the rest for later', or 'have dessert for dinner' and think that's eating lots of calories. They may also be taller than you by a couple inches and you're underestimating the effect height has.
bena 8y ago
Thank you. You said it better than I could have. When I ran across this line: "This is the reason that you do not die in your sleep every single night." I just about rolled my eyes. You can go without eating for quite a while without dying. 8 hours isn't killing anyone who wasn't already knocking on that door.

jmlsf 8y ago

While I completely agree with you on the general puffery of most of these diet book people, note that Fung comes at this from having treated thousands of people for diabetes, with a great deal of success. I think you should take a closer look at his writing, which is fact-based and extensive. The eating six times a day advice IS advice I have repeatedly heard and I have known many people who follow it. The idea that we should be eating lots of carbohydrates IS conventional advice if you consider the medical community's decades of instruction that we should not eat fat or meat: the only remaining macronutrient that most westerners will eat is carbohydrates. The popular prevalence of keto and paleo and Atkins makes people forget that the prevailing medical advice STILL effectively directs people to a high carb, low calorie diet. Calories-in-calories out isn't wrong, but it is incomplete. It doesn't explain why the "Biggest Loser" winners see their base line calorie consumption drop way below what you'd expect for someone of their new weight. It doesn't explain why some people NEVER have to diet while other go through life starving but still gain weight. If it were just "calories in calories out", you wouldn't see these anomalies. In short, it doesn't explain hunger. Fung's insulin theory has good science behind it and fits well with a lot of historical observations, such as the increase in sugar in our diets. And the ADF diet study had incredibly good results.

bena 8y ago
Do we eat too much sugar these days? Too much meat? Too much dairy? Yes to all of it. Probably so. > It doesn't explain why some people NEVER have to diet while other go through life starving but still gain weight. But there is a very simple explanation: Self-reporting is bullshit. Never believe anyone who says "I can eat anything I want and not gain weight" or "I hardly eat anything and still gain weight". There's always something they aren't seeing. Anyone who says that needs to keep a very strict food journal for a month. No cheating, no "well it's just a mint". Strict. Everything gets recorded. You take a bite of someone's ice cream, you record it. What you'll find is that their caloric consumption is right in line with their weight.
darioush 8y ago
> It doesn't explain why some people NEVER have to diet while other go through life starving but still gain weight This is simply not true. I monitored behaviors of my friends or asked them probing questions where I suspected this was the case. They may 'skip dinner' or 'have a light dinner' the day you watched them gorge on cake, but you might not see that. They may run 10 miles the day after eating the same Mexican food as you. Same with other side, people who say they don't gain weight in spite of eating 1000s of calories in surplus just aren't eating 1000s of calories in surplus. They think they are because they often eat candy, ... but they may take a bite or two and 'save the rest for later', or 'have dessert for dinner' and think that's eating lots of calories. They may also be taller than you by a couple inches and you're underestimating the effect height has.

bena 8y ago

Thank you. You said it better than I could have. When I ran across this line: "This is the reason that you do not die in your sleep every single night." I just about rolled my eyes. You can go without eating for quite a while without dying. 8 hours isn't killing anyone who wasn't already knocking on that door.