This calories in calories out model

doesn't work at all. If you're trying to

lose weight, what you need to do is Dr.

Jason Fung, the founder of intermittent

fasting whose influential work could be

the key to a healthier and even longer

life. Every continent is seeing this

increase in obesity, but we put the

blame on the individual. The problem is

there's something wrong with the message

we're giving people and I can go over a

few examples. First of all, exercise is

really good in a number of ways, but in

terms of weight loss, it's actually very

very small effect. The whole idea that

you need to eat as soon as you get up is

just false. We know that from twin

studies that 70% of your risk of

becoming obese is due to genetics, but

it doesn't explain why the population

became much more obese. And we know that

you can't cure obesity by saying eat

fewer calories. It's about fixing the

hormones that are behind the calories.

If you want to lose body fat, you

actually need to extend the period of

time that you're not eating, so you do

some intermittent fasting. There's all

this data showing that fasting activates

the body fat, increases your energy and

your concentration. A treatment

available to everybody for free and it

will be healthier for us. So I need some

advice then. What does your fast look

like? What food should I be giving my

body and in what proportions? The first

thing you got to do

is

I've got to talk to you about these new

injections people are getting to lose

weight.

I think

Quick one. This is really really

fascinating to me. On the back end of

our YouTube channel, it says that 69.9%

of you that watch this channel

frequently over the lifetime of this

channel haven't yet hit the subscribe

button. I just wanted to ask you a

favor. It helps this channel so much if

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So if I could ask you for one favor, if

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repay that gesture by making sure that

everything we do here gets better and

better and better and better. That is a

promise I'm willing to make you. Do we

have a deal?

Dr. Jason.

Hey Steven, how are you? I'm really

really good.

This book here, The Obesity Code,

unlocking the secrets of weight loss.

Why

did you write this book? What was the

sort of driving motivation behind

committing what must have been a very

long part of your life to this subject

matter?

Uh it's it was actually a very

interesting sort of journey of discovery

for me. So I did my training in

nephrology, which is kidney disease, so

I'm a kidney disease specialist. And I

thought about weight loss sort of very

conventionally, sort of calories in

calories out, just watch what you eat

sort of thing.

And that's what's taught to all doctors

is that it's extremely

unhelpful for people. It doesn't work at

all. It doesn't work for patients and it

doesn't work for for for doctors even,

right? So doctors who want to lose

weight,

they don't they don't use calories in

calories out because it doesn't really

work. And we all know this. Um every

person has sort of counted their

calories and almost all of them failed

to succeed. So the whole point was how

to get people to lose weight. And so I

started to look into the literature and

I started to read about it and so on. I

got very very interested in it. And

again, I I started to become very

unhappy with the discussion about

calories in calories out because the

whole point was that people had this

idea that it was energy balance, right?

And there's this sort of energy balance

equation, which is

uh calories in minus calories out equals

body fat, right? Because body fat is a

way to store calories.

But that's not a very helpful sort of

description of how to approach the

problem, right? The problem is not that

people didn't realize that they had to

eat fewer calories or increase their

calorie expenditure.

The problem was

why were they eating more calories than

they could expend, right? And it's

because the body is

is being told to store energy, right?

That's the way it is. That's why you're

taking in more calories or you're

storing more calories is because your

body has hormones that tell you to store

calories. So there's a hormone called

insulin, for example, and if you give

people insulin, so

inject them with insulin, which is a

drug for type 2 diabetes,

almost everybody gains weight. So if you

give somebody insulin, they gain weight.

If I gave you insulin, you would gain

weight. It has nothing to do with the,

you know, your willpower, for example.

If I gave you insulin, you would gain

weight. Why? Because I'm giving your

body the instructions to store energy.

So you're saying that weight gain and

obesity in particular isn't a

function of calories in calories out. It

is a

function of hormones. It's a function of

hormones and it's sort of you have to

think about it in sort of levels, right?

So calories in calories out is true. So

body fat is a storage is it's a way to

store energy, which is calories, equals

calories in calories out. But that's not

the real question. The question is why

are you storing more calories than

you're expending? And it's because

you're telling your body to do so. So

for example, if if you take another

equal I'll give you an analogy. Say

alcoholism is

alcohol in minus alcohol out, right?

Same same idea. Or if you have a room,

it's the number of people how how full

it is is how many people enter the room

or exit the room, right? So same same

idea, right? It's absolutely true. So

alcohol in minus alcohol out

equals how drunk you are. equals how

drunk you are. So alcoholism. So can you

simply cure alcoholism by tell telling

an alcoholic, "Oh, just drink less

alcohol than you expend." It's like,

yes, you can say that and it's

absolutely true, but it's not useful in

any way because you've never gotten to

the really the deeper understanding of

why that person is taking in more

alcohol, right? You have to get to that

next level and say what, you know, it's

like going one level deeper. Why? Why

are they drinking more alcohol? Well,

maybe they're depressed. Maybe they're

addicted.

Deal with the addiction. That is the way

to deal with alcoholism. You can't cure

it just by saying drink less alcohol,

the same way you can't cure the obesity

by saying eat fewer calories because

you're not understanding why the body is

is storing more energy.

With the amount of information we now

have, the amount of science we have, one

would expect that obesity levels would

be coming down.

Yeah, unfortunately, if you think about

the way most people think about it, it's

mostly still in calories. Even in the

academic centers, they all think about

sort of calories, how to get calories

down, how to reduce calories. And I

always and I always say, "Well, it's not

about the calories, right? It's about

fixing the hormones that are behind the

calories." Like cuz you can choose to

eat fewer calories. Yes, that's true,

but you can't but you have to ask

yourself, why are people eating

um so many calories, right? Well, it's

because they're hungry. You can't choose

to be less hungry and therefore you have

to really talk about controlling the

hunger and controlling the hormones,

which are behind the calories that you

eat. And that's going to be much more

successful to you. If you take two

different foods,

equal number of calories,

and you eat them,

the hormonal response to those calories

are completely different. So you eat two

slices of white bread and jam.

All that energy the so insulin spikes up

because it's very high in refined

carbohydrates. All that energy goes

straight into your body fat and you've

left none of it for for for energy for

your day. By 10:30, now you're ravenous

and you go get yourself a low-fat

muffin. Again, pure carbs.

Insulin spikes up, all of that goes

straight into your your fat stores. Why?

Because you told it to. Remember that

when you eat

white bread or muffins or refined

carbohydrates, you're going to have this

insulin spike, which is going to tell

your body to store energy. If you eat an

egg, you don't get that spike in

insulin. So that that energy that you've

taken, those calories, are there. You

can use it. And so what happens? Well,

that keeps you full during the day. If

you're telling your body to immediately

store those calories as body fat, well,

guess what? Over time you're going to

gain body fat cuz you told your body to

do that.

If you eat the egg and insulin's not

spiking up, well, you haven't told your

body to store that energy, so it's going

to be around for you to use all day

long.

And you won't be hungry. And you're not

going to be hungry because your body's

like, "Why do I need to eat again?"

Because, you know, you're you're you're

you're basically have taken the energy

that you need, I've got it available,

right? It's sort of like if you go to

the the the grocery store, right? You

can store food in the refrigerator.

Suppose you go to the grocery store, put

all your food away, lock it away in the

in the refrigerator. Now you have

nothing to eat, right? You're going to

say, "Oh, I need to go out and get some

more food, right?" Same thing with your

body, right? So if you take food, but

you've also spiked up your insulin,

you're going to lock away all those that

energy immediately into into your fat

stores. It's not going to be available

for you to use. Well, you're going to

say, "I'm going to go out and get more."

So you haven't controlled the hunger

that's going to lead to the caloric

intake, which is going to lead to the

weight gain. People look at this through

an evolutionary lens and say, you know,

we just didn't have this much food, so

it's the abundance and um ease of access

to food, it's the fridges that we now

have, it's the you know, we never had

fridges in our home. So, people point at

it and go, "Well, that's why people are

getting gaining weight and you know,

we're suffering with obesity at epidemic

levels." It's just because there's more

supply.

Yeah.

is taking advantage of it because once

upon a time

if we didn't eat that

jam and toast, then we would have, you

know, maybe not have been able to find

food for another 2 weeks or something.

Yeah, I don't think that's the whole

story because if you think about it, and

people again

make that assumption that we don't have

any control over

our body fatness, right? So, they say,

"Well, it's available, so you're going

to take it, right?" In fact, that's not

true because we actually have a number

of different

hormones that tell us to stop eating.

Okay? So, if you eat, you cannot simply

keep eating and eating and eating,

right? If you go to an all-you-can-eat

buffet, at some point you have to stop

because you're full.

Right? So, there are systems, very

powerful systems within our body that

tell us to stop eating. So, you eat

food, there are

stomach stretch receptors, for example.

So, as your stomach stretches out, it

sends a signal to your brain and says,

"Stop eating." If you eat a lot of

protein,

it activates a hormone called peptide

YY, which tells you to stop eating. If

you eat a lot of dietary fat, you

activate a hormone called

cholecystokinin, which again tells you

to stop eating. And these are very

powerful. If you look in the wild, there

are no obese antelope, there are no

obese lions. Why? Because how much body

fat you you carry

is actually very important. If you are

obese as an antelope, you're going to

get eaten. If you're an obese lion,

you're not going to catch any food. So,

therefore, it's going to correct itself.

So, if I overeat now, my body will

basically overcompensate by burning off

the extra calories? It It absolutely.

So, if you eat a huge meal,

right? You eat, you know, you go to a

big wedding or something like that, you

eat a huge meal, the next day you're

probably not that hungry.

If you eat a giant steak, so you're

activating all these satiety hormones,

peptide YY, cholecystokinin, you're

eating all this food, well, you may not

be hungry for the next day. So, that

means that my body has some kind of

baseline

weight. Yeah. It will know whether you

should eat more or less. So, there's a

this concept called the sort of body set

weight, which is a sort of thermometer.

That is, your body sets a weight that

you should be at.

And if you go above that weight, or if

you eat too much, it will activate

hormonal systems to bring it back down.

If you don't eat enough, it will also

activate hormonal systems to bring it

up. So, it's like a thermostat that you

set you have in your room. For example,

you set the the room temperature,

if it's too hot, you're the the the the

room activates the air conditioning. If

it's too cold, it activates the heat.

Your body actually acts the same way. If

you gain too much body fat,

your fat cells, for example, will

produce leptin, which is another

hormone. The leptin tells your body to

stop eating. That's really interesting.

So, in the case of obese people,

their set point must just be really

high. Yes, and that's the crux of the

matter. Why is that set point being

overridden? Just like if you have a room

that's too hot, and you look and you

say, "The thermometer set for room

temperature, why is it so hot in here?"

Then you can say, "Okay, well, what's

the problem?" And the problem is not,

you know, heat in versus heat out,

right? That's That's a very simplistic

way. Same thing, if your body has too

much body fat, you got to then think

about why are you overcoming the normal

compensatory mechanisms

that are happening, that are stopping

you from eating. A lot of it relates to

processing foods, of course. So, if you

take out So, remember I talked about

stretch receptors in the stomach, right?

So, you eat natural natural foods,

there's a natural break.

It It stretches the stomach, you stop

eating.

Well, what's one way? Pull out all the

fiber, process the foods, turn it into,

say, a very fine dust. That means it's

absorbed extremely quickly into the

bloodstream. So, that means that pure

You've got pure carbohydrate basically

mainlining it into your IV like like an

IV.

Your

glucose spikes way up, your insulin

spikes way up. It's completely

unnatural, right? If you eat pure

carbohydrate instead of eating it with,

you know, proteins and fats, it's going

to go It's going to shoot way high.

That's unnatural, and that's going to

overcome the natural

tendencies to for you to stop eating.

So, you you know, you've you've

basically overcome that that that that

protective mechanism because you've

ultra-processed the the carbohydrates.

If you don't eat any protein, if you

don't eat any fat, you're not activating

peptide YY, which is the satiety

hormone. You're not activating

cholecystokinin. All of a sudden, you're

eating, you know, 500 calories of white

bread, but you have zero satiety. Or if

you drink a Coca-Cola or a soda, for

example, I've always, you know, thought

about this. It's like, how can you take

a thousand calories, for example, in one

of those giant sodas you get at the ball

game or something,

and don't feel full at all? Whereas if

you took a steak that's a thousand

calories, you'd be like, "I'm pretty

full. I don't really feel like eating."

You drink the soda, you're like, "I

really feel like eating some chips or

popcorn or something." Why?

Because it has zero satiety.

Interesting. So, if I'm if I've got a

baseball stadium, what I want to do

is I want to make sure people get a soda

because then they'll also buy the chips.

But if they just eat the chips,

you know, maybe they won't buy anything

else. But the soda's going to

increase my revenue

because it'll basically just pass right

through them. It'll pass right through

them. They're going to store the all

that energy as calories, but they're

going to want more because you haven't

made them full.

Right? So, the the the whole point is

that you have to think more than about

the calories. There's more there than

just the calorie story. There's this

whole hormonal balance. You're saying

that overeating isn't just a choice,

it's a hormone-driven behavior. It's a

hormone-driven behavior. I mean, the

whole thing about obesity is is quite

interesting to me because

if you think about obesity, if you think

about

in the United States, which is where I

get a lot of my data from, um, you know,

you have maybe 70% of people overweight

or obese, and it's going up every year.

It's been going up every year since

1977.

And if you think about that, it tells

you that

the problem is not willpower. The

problem is not the people. The problem

is the environment that they find

themselves in, the food environment that

they find themselves in.

Because you can take an analogy. Say you

have a hundred children. One of them

fails. Well, that might be the child.

They didn't study. What if 70 of them

fail?

Would you say it's it's each and every

one of them's fault, or would you say

it's more likely that it's the teacher's

fault?

I think it's more likely that it's the

teacher's fault. So, if we have a

hundred Americans and 70 of them are

obese, the problem is likely not an

individual willpower problem.

The problem is likely that there's

something wrong with the message we're

giving people, the information we're

giving people, and the food environment

that we're finding ourselves in, which

is dominated by this sort of calories

in, calories out thinking.

And what's really unfair, of course, is

that we put the blame

on the obesity or overweight

on the individual. And we say, "Well,

they let themselves go, and they didn't

watch themselves. They weren't careful.

It's their fault."

And that's the stigma that comes with

this whole calories in, calories out

thinking because we say it's their fault

because they could choose what they eat.

It's like, yes, they could choose what

they eat,

but they didn't choose the food

environment that is telling them to eat

all this ultra-processed food, that is

making all this ultra-processed food

available to them, that is telling them

that all this ultra-processed food is

good for you. So, leptin is this hormone

that essentially brings down my hunger,

makes me less hungry. Is it therefore

possible that

people are becoming leptin resistant?

There is leptin resistance. The question

again is why? And the way to think about

it is it's sort of this sort of balance,

right? So, insulin, if you give people

insulin, like if you think about causes

of obesity, what causes people to gain

weight? Well, if I give you insulin,

you'll gain weight. If I give me

insulin, I'll gain weight. So, insulin

causes weight gain, whereas leptin will

cause the opposite. So, it's sort of

this seesaw. Body fat is nothing more or

less than

a store of energy, right? And you only

store energy when your body tells you.

Our entire body runs on hormones, right?

Nothing happens without the hormonal

system being activated. So, insulin is

pushing us to gain weight, leptin us is

pushing us to lose weight, and what's

happening is that one is sort of

overcoming the other. Insulin is

overcoming the leptin. If obesity isn't

about a lack of willpower, and it isn't

just a case of people being lazy or all

those things that sometimes some people

stereotypically assert,

I've also heard the counterargument that

obesity is a function of our genetic

makeup and uh we inherit obesity from

our

parents, you know.

Is there any truth and merit in that?

Um,

it's it's yes and no. So, yes,

there is a very strong sort of genetic

predisposition to obesity. So, if you

take, you know, somebody with a family

history and look at the genetics, about

70% of your risk of becoming obese is

due to genetics. And we know that from

twin studies, for example. What do we

know from twin studies?

If you take twins Um raise them sort of

in different environments,

you know, they actually turn out very

similarly. So, we know that there's a

there's a genetic component to obesity.

So, when they they sort of do the uh

calculations, they say about 70% of

obesity is sort of genetically related.

So, if you take a

a twin that comes from originally a

family that were obese, and you put them

with a family that are not obese,

Yeah. the child will still likely become

obese even with the family that are not

obese.

Yeah. So, you

the this was done in obviously they they

had uh

twins that were sort of separated at

birth, compare them after they've grown

up, and say what's the sort of

correlation between the weight of the

two. And it's about 70%. So, you have

somebody who's very overweight and, you

know, twin A goes into one family, twin

B goes into a second family, you know,

twin B uh

is going to be more prone to gaining

weight even if they're with a thin

family, right? So, the environment has

some role, but it's it it's the genetics

have a very large role, too. 70% of it?

About 70% is it is is genetic. So, there

is. However,

the part that's important is that that

doesn't explain why we have obesity in

the last 40 to 50 years because the

genetics of the world population

has not changed. So, if we're seeing

more obesity now, and then remember this

is not a

a USA problem, it's a it's a worldwide

problem. We see it in Asia, we see it in

Europe, we see it in America, we see it

in South America, we see it everywhere.

Uh we see it in Africa. So, every

continent is seeing this increase in

obesity. Therefore, it's not due to this

this recent change within the last 50

years is not due to a change in

genetics. So, while yes, it's true that

there is a strong genetic component,

that explains my risk of, say, obesity

compared to yours, but doesn't explain

how the population of the United States,

for example, all of a sudden became much

more obese in general. So, you're saying

this is really about a predisposition,

which basically means your genetics make

you more or less likely, for some

reason,

um which is a genetic reason, to become

obese when

you

make certain lifestyle choices.

Um but that is a predisposition, which

means that And I guess your work asserts

that the predisposition relates to your

hormones' response to the foods that we

So, it really it's really a

genetic response to foods,

which is based on your hormone response.

We all have a certain genetic sort of

predisposition to obesity, right? So,

all of us have a certain risk. Some

people, obviously, they eat whatever

they want and they don't gain weight. We

all know people like that, right? And

some people sort of look at a muffin and

they gain weight. So, you have that

genetic predisposition. So, that

explains the difference between two

people, but it doesn't explain the

difference within an entire population.

Like if you take the entire population

of the Earth or even of America or

whatever, the genetics haven't changed

sufficiently

of that entire population

to say why there's more obesity now than

before. So, we're inheriting our

parents' hormone response.

Uh yeah, but we're we're we're the the

hormone response that we have is going

to be dependent a lot on genetics, but

the food choices we're making are

different than our our parents. So,

they're eating different things. If you

think back about what your grandmother

ate and stuff, it's different than the

food environment that we find ourselves

in right now, and that food environment

is creating this sort of

uh is sort of increasing the risk uh

over over time. That's the sort of uh

what what we need to try and figure out

and why we need to have a deeper

discussion as opposed to calories

because we've been having this sort of

calories discussion for, you know, 30,

40 years. It just hasn't been very

helpful. You call it a a deception. You

say in chap part two of your book, you

say the calorie deception.

Yeah.

And you say there are five wrong

assumptions about obesity and weight

loss.

The calorie calo- calorie in calorie out

are independent of each other, so won't

trigger one another.

Um this interesting point about the

basal metabolic rate being stable.

Is that in essence because people, you

know, people will often say I have a low

metabolism. It's kind of like a word in

culture. If someone is um obese, often

the

the diagnosis is they have a low

metabolism.

Is there any merit in that? Is that

true? Oh, absolutely. The question So,

when you think about so, body fat, you

think about the energy balance equation.

Body fat equals calories in minus

calories out. This often leads people to

say, "Well, just eat 500 fewer calories

and you'll lose a pound of fat per

week."

It's

it's unquestionably false because every

single study that we've done over the

last 50 years shows that if you eat 500

fewer calories, then

over time, depending on what foods

you're eating, eventually your body will

just burn 500 fewer calories. So, that's

your basal metabolic rate, the number of

calories that your body is expending in

one day.

So, we see this in almost every single

study. We've known about it for like 80

years at least. You eat fewer calories,

your body burns fewer calories. Well,

that's going to limit how much weight

you're going to lose, right? So, this

idea that just eat fewer calories will

automatically lead to weight loss

is completely false because we know that

eating fewer calories leads also to

burning fewer calories.

So, you eat 500 less, your body burns

500 less,

and you're not losing any body weight.

So, I go on a diet, let's say, cuz I'm

trying to lose weight.

My metabolism lowers to meet the

calorific restriction that I've imposed

on myself. Yeah. What then happens when

I come off the diet? Does my metabolism

stay

Generally, yes.

low? Yeah. So, that's that yo-yo dieting

effect. So, say you start with 2,000

calories in,

2,000 calories out. You're not gaining

weight, you're not losing weight, right?

Now, you decide, "Okay, I'm going to go

on a diet." So, you go down to 1,500

calories thinking that you're going to

burn 2,000,

and the body fat's going to provide 500,

right? That's how you balance that

equation.

However, if you eat the wrong foods, and

you're eating all the time, so you're

eating 10 times a day, eight times a

day, like people say you should, you're

eating low fats, you're eating tons of

carbs, you're spiking your insulin.

Insulin prevents you from burning body

fat, okay? So, we've again, we've known

about this for 80 years. So, now you eat

1,500 calories, but you're keeping your

insulin levels really high. So, fewer

calories, but lots of high-carb foods,

eating all the time, insulin stays high.

You're you're taking in 1,500, your body

is now burning 2,000, but you can't burn

any body fat. So, the calories that are

stored in your body fat cannot be cannot

be sort of taken out. It's like it's in

the bank and the bank is closed. It's

you can't take it out. So, what's going

to happen? Well, you don't have a

balanced equation.

So, that cannot cannot happen. So, what

happens is that in order to balance that

equation because your insulin levels are

high,

you're eating 1,500 calories coming in,

your body can only burn 1,500 calories.

Your metabolic rate has just now gone

down by 500 calories. And guess what?

You're not losing any body fat.

So, that's an example of how the whole

the calories idea is completely wrong

because if you continue to do that,

what's going to happen over time is that

you you get tired because you're burning

fewer calories. You don't have enough

energy to generate body heat. So, you're

cold, you're tired, you're hungry. So,

you say, "Okay, I'm going to go to 1,800

calories."

So, now you're eating 1,800 calories,

but you're only burning 1,500 calories.

Guess what? You gain weight. And you

say, "But how can I gain weight? I'm

eating less than I did." Yes, you are

eating less than the 2,000 calories you

used to eat. You're eating 1,800, but

you're eating the wrong foods. You're

very high-insulin foods.

So, therefore, you're going to gain

weight. In fact, everybody says that.

And and all the all the nutritionists,

all the doctors just they just don't

believe them. They say, "You're lying.

You're cheating. You're eating more than

you think." So, this explains something

that happened with one of my friends,

which I always puzzled me.

He swears by the calories in calorie out

thing. I've spoken about him a few

times. He posts about it online, as

well.

Um and he he actually managed to get a

pretty much like six-pack abs, pretty

much.

And at the time, it appears that he was

eating a lot of Domino's pizzas, a lot

of pizzas. And I was thinking, "How does

this guy eat all these pizzas, but he's

using this calories in calorie out

thing?"

Uh and then when the pizzas stopped,

Yeah. there was this yo-yo effect.

Yeah.

Where he managed to get to basically

what I'd describe as a six-pack or there

thereabouts, and then um stopped eating

all

stopped the diet, per se, and then there

was this big yo-yo effect, which I

imagine is what you've said there. What

he's done is he's lowered his

metabolism, then when he goes up just a

little bit,

it all comes back.

It all comes back and then some. And

then some. Yeah, absolutely. So, this

form of dieting

is actually over the long term probably

going to make you gain weight. Oh, it's

it's very detrimental. And that's what

yo-yo dieting we all know it's very

detrimental. But think about it

differently, right? So, let's take a

different example with the same

calories, which is why I keep saying you

have to think about more than the

calories. You have to think about what

the hormones are because that's the

instructions to your body. Food contains

calories, energy, but it contains

instructions as to what to do. So, let's

take an example. You're eating 2,000

calories in, 2,000 calories out. Now,

you go on a diet. You want to you take

in 1,500. But what you do is you do some

intermittent fasting. When you fast,

insulin is going to fall. That's the

whole point. Insulin is a hormone that

goes up when you eat, it goes down when

you don't eat, right? So, when you eat,

insulin goes up, your body wants to

store energy. When you don't eat,

insulin goes down, your body says, "I

have no energy. I have no food coming

in. Please take it out of storage." So,

now you take 1,500 calories, but you do

intermittent fasting, so you're allowing

your insulin levels to fall. Now, 1,500

calories are coming in, insulin levels

are low, your body wants to burn 2,000

calories. It says, "Well, insulin levels

are low. Let me take 500 calories from

my body fat." Guess what? You have 500

coming from your body fat, you have

1,500 coming from your food, you burn

2,000.

It's a balanced equation. So, instead of

the opposite situation, so and and and

you see that the calories are the same.

You went from 2,000 in to 1,500 in,

but what the difference was that you

allowed insulin to fall, which allowed

you to burn body fat, right? It's the

hormonal signal that says,

"Please take energy out. Open up the

doors so that body fat can come out."

And this is the piece that's missing

because people are all all like, "Well,

I'm this, I'm that." And it's like,

"Well, why can't you burn the fat that's

on your body?" Cuz there's 200, 300,000

calories of body fat. Why can't you

access it? It's because you haven't

activated the right hormones so that you

can access it.

So, now if you do intermittent fasting,

you eat 1,500 calories, you take 500

calories out, your body's burning 2,000.

Now, all of a sudden, if you go off your

diet and you go back to 2,000 calories,

guess what?

You don't gain weight, you don't lose

weight. Same as before. Whereas before

you go even to 1,800 calories, you lost

weight. But the difference was not the

calories, it was always 2,000 to 500.

The difference was you paid attention to

the hormones that you're telling your

body. And the insulin is sort of the

primary hormone. There's actually a lot

more. There's, you know, there's there's

there's cortisol is a is a very

important hormone. There's other

hormones.

You mentioned burning calories there.

One of the thoughts around the calories

in calories out model is that you can

just exercise, and if you burn 1,000

calories exercising, then that gives you

a little bit of a reserve there to eat

more, for example. Yeah, and it's

probably a very very small effect for

for a couple of reasons. So, we know

that uh if you exercise,

and I I and I say this, exercise

is really good for you in a number of

ways. Flexibility, strength, core, all

kinds of things. So, very very

important. But in terms of weight loss,

it's actually very very small effect.

Why? Because one, the amount of calories

you burn during exercise are simply not

that high. So, if you look at, you know,

if you do walking, I mean, if you did 8

hours of high-intensity exercise, yeah,

you're going to burn a lot of calories.

But most people I deal with, which are

sort of middle-aged and higher, you're

talking about sort of a quick walk or,

you know, 45 to half an hour three times

a week sort of thing.

And if you ever go on the treadmill and

you ever watch that calorie counter on

the treadmill, you know, it goes up very

very slowly, right? You'll do half an

hour and it'll be up to like 120

calories or something like that, right?

So, that exercise really didn't burn off

very many calories. It's the amount that

you'd get in a couple of cookies, for

example, right? So, it's it's just

numerically, it's just very small. So,

if you're you're taking in if your body

is normally using 2,000 calories with

your brain, generating body heat, your

heart, your lungs, your liver, they're

using 2,000 calories, and now you go up

to 2,100 calories. Well,

percentage-wise, it's not a huge deal,

right? The other problem with exercise

is that it tends to actually cause you

to eat more. So, uh again, we found had

decades of study for this. If you

exercise, during the exercise, you have

uh loss reduced appetite. So, you have

extra diet It's called exercise-induced

anorexia. So, in the middle of a

basketball game, you don't suddenly go,

"Oh, wow, I'm really hungry." Right? Cuz

your your blood is flowing in your you

know, in your muscles and so on. Uh

you're not thinking about the hunger.

So, hunger actually goes down during

exercise. But after exercise, we see

this rebound. So, we see that people are

actually more hungry after exercise. And

if you're hungrier after exercise, it's

going to cause you to tend to gain more

weight. In fact, there's this very

interesting study that was done a few

years ago in Harvard where they measured

the sort of calorie difference that you

get with uh for for children

um in certain activities. So, they said,

"Okay, what if a child is watching TV?

What's the average uh caloric

difference?" And it was like plus 100

calories per hour. So, for every hour of

TV,

they're sort of positive 100 calories

over time, right? And that makes sense,

you're just sitting there. When you look

at mild exercise, it's about the same.

It's about positive 100 calories. So,

the only way that happens is that if

that exercise is causing you to eat

more, right? And you say, "Well, why are

you eating more?" It's like, "Well,

because you're you're hungry." Like the

exercise is inducing you to eat more.

And that's going to make it difficult to

lose weight. You say in the book in

chapter four that 95% of weight loss is

diet. Yeah. And that's the reason why

exercise is very hard to exercise enough

to lose weight. And and and that's not

to say that you shouldn't exercise. It's

it you really should exercise. Everybody

should exercise. But if you're trying to

lose weight, you still got to focus on

the main

topic, which is the foods that you eat,

which is not just the calories, it's

about the types of food that you eat,

which is going to affect the hormonal

balance, and also how often you eat. If

you're eating all the time versus if

you're eating only eating very

infrequently, then you're going to have

a different hormonal balance that is

going to affect your weight as well.

An American survey of more than 60,000

adults and children revealed that in

1977, most people ate three times a day.

By 2003, most people were eating five to

six times a day.

Yeah.

Yeah, this is the whole idea of sort of

eating all the time, and this I find

fascinating because it was this sort of

inadvertent

change in our diet that we never talked

about, right? So, in 1977, we told

people eat lots of carbs, okay? So, we

know that. That's in print. For sure,

the American government said eat 55 to

60% carbs, eat less fat.

What happened is that, you know, in

1977, people ate breakfast, lunch, and

dinner. No snacks. If you wanted an

after-school snack, your mom said, "No,

you're going to ruin your dinner." If

you wanted a bedtime snack, your mom

would say, "No, you should ate more at

dinner." Right? No problem.

But what happened is that as we started

to eat sort of a lot of carbs, what

happened is exactly as what we discussed

before, you eat two slices of bread in

the morning with jam,

you have no satiety, insulin spikes way

up, glucose spikes way up, but then it

crashes because

again. then you get hungry at 10:30. So,

you go around looking for a low-fat

muffin, and it was because, you know,

you know, your your your your sugars are

going down, your insulin's going down.

So, now you're eating mid-morning snack,

then you eat a big plate of pasta, then

you get ravenous at like 3:00, so you go

find yourself some more crackers or

something like that, right? And then so

now you're having a mid-morning snack,

you're having mid-afternoon snack, then

you're having a bedtime snack. And

that's the average American by 2003 is

eating six five six times a day. But

they're saying, "Hey, I'm eating so low

fat, this must be the right way to eat.

This must be good for me." So, now the

snacking becomes institutionalized.

Whereas pre-1977, snacks are an

indulgence, right? It's not something

good for you. It's something bad for

you, but hey, once in a while you

you you you indulge. Then it becomes

institutionalized as something that

every single one of us should be doing,

and we should never be without food for

more than an hour and a half. Let's

think about this very simply, okay? So,

if you eat, your insulin's going to go

up, your body's going to store calories

because you told it to. If you don't eat

or if you fast, your body is your your

insulin's going to go down, you're going

to bring those calories back out of

storage, right? So, you're going to burn

calories. You eat, you store calories,

you don't eat, you burn calories. Very

simple.

So, why would you want to eat all the

time? That makes no sense at all. If you

want to lose body fat, you actually need

to extend the period of time that you're

not eating, in other words, extend your

fasting period and get rid of all the

snacks

in order for you to have enough time

that your insulin is low. When insulin

is low, it's going to allow fat burning,

which is going to allow you to pull

those calories back out. You're

something to this being really the

founder of modern intermittent fasting,

and I've heard people talk about

intermittent fasting on this show over

and over and over and over again now,

but

the internet says that it really came

from you.

I know that intermittent fasting's been

happening for thousands of years, but

the idea of it as a tool for weight

loss, they say it came from you.

Because in 2013, 2014, really nobody was

talking about it from a medical

standpoint. Like, what's happening in

the body? Why is it good? Why is it bad?

And really, I was for years sort of this

one voice in the wilderness that was

saying like, "Hey, this is a tool for

us. If you want to lose weight because

it's important, then you can just set

aside a period of time that you don't

eat. At the time, people thought it was

extremely bad for you. And I I looked

through all the literature and I said,

"Well, why is it bad for you?" And they

had all these reasons. There's all these

myths about intermittent fasting and how

it's going to cause you to gain weight

and be tired and hungry and all these

sorts of things. I said, "Well, no,

there's actually a lot of data here over

the last, you know, 2,000 years that

we've used intermittent fasting and

they're simply not true. And I can go

over a few of those. But that's why

there was nobody talking about it at the

time and that's where I started to sort

of bring it into the uh sort of public

consciousness that this is a tool.

That's all it is. Were you attacked for

that at the time? Oh, absolutely. Like I

got I got attacked from all sides. I

got, you know, doctors were coming after

me, dieticians were coming after me.

Everybody thought I was going to do so

much harm.

And the funny part was that,

you know, as I think back as I spoke to

a lot of colleagues, a lot of colleagues

would say to me, "You know what? I used

to do that when I was in training. We

did that all the time. We'd go 24 hours

without eating because we're in the OR

or we're in the ER or we were busy. So,

we did that constantly and nothing bad

happened. And I remember thinking, you

know what? As a doctor, I actually tell

people to fast all the time.

If you have to go for surgery, you need

to fast. If you're after surgery, you

need to fast. If you do fasting blood

work, you need to fast. So, why is it

that I'm actually telling people to fast

all the time and yet for weight loss,

you shouldn't fast. That doesn't make

any sense. And physiologically, from a

body standpoint, it doesn't make any

sense.

Uh one of the things people talked about

was,

you know, it's going to make you eat

more later. It's going to make you more

hungry. Your basal metabolic rate's

going to go down. This was one of the

big myths of intermittent fasting.

That's going to cause the so-called

starvation mode, right? And this is the

idea that your basal metabolic rate will

fall so low that when you do start to

eat, you're going to gain weight again.

So, I said, "Well, let's think about

this. You can do a study where you take

somebody, say you for example, and you

could fast them for 4 days

and measure how much how many calories

they're burning, their basal metabolic

rate on day zero before the fast and

measure them 4 days into the fast and

see how many calories you're burning."

So, on day zero, they say you're you're

burning, say, 2,000 calories a day. On

day four of zero food, you don't eat any

food for 4 days, they measure how much

calories you're burning, your body is

burning 2,200 calories.

Your basal metabolic rate didn't go

down.

It went up. Your body's activating

itself during fasting,

which is fascinating because if you're

trying to lose weight,

dropping that basal metabolic rate is

death.

Like if you drop that metabolic rate,

it's so hard to lose weight. That's what

the calorie restricted diets did. That's

what the low-fat diets did. The eating

all the time did. But when you actually

fast, your metabolic rate went up. And

we see this in study after study. And

the reason is actually basic physiology.

It's actually medical physiology, like

first-year medical school stuff.

When you don't eat, what happens in your

body from a hormone standpoint is that

your insulin's going to fall, you're

going to allow your body to start using

the calories that are in the body.

At the same time, other hormones go up.

So, the sympathetic tone goes up, which

is your fight-or-flight response. Your

cortisol levels go up because again,

it's an activation and your growth

hormone goes up. Because those hormones

are going to start telling your body to

start pulling calories out. So, you're

actually activating yourself.

Think about it the wild. If you see a

hungry wolf, is that wolf just sort of

you know, all like lethargic? No, he's

activated. He's actually more dangerous

than any other wolf as opposed to, say,

a lion who just ate. Because when you

just eat, you just want to lie there,

you know, you you want to digest your

food. You have no energy. So, people

say, "Well, your your your metabolic

rate's going to go down if you fast."

No. The the truth is actually the

opposite. It goes up. You've got me

thinking about food as an instruction

I'm giving my body because if I eat this

food, it's going to have this impact on

my hormones, which is going to have this

impact on my body. So, if we view food

as an instruction to the body, we talked

a little bit about the timings of eating

and a little bit about fasting. I want

to get into that a little bit more, but

breakfast. I read that you didn't think

most people need breakfast.

Yeah, the the whole idea that you need

to eat as soon as you get up is just

false. So, there's this whole um thing

about breakfast. Now, you will always

break your fast. Think about the actual

word, right? Break fast. It's the meal

that breaks your fast, which tells you

that in the English language, we accept

that your body should have a fasting

period every day. Why? There's a period

of time that you're supposed to feed.

You eat, insulin goes up, you store

calories. Then there's supposed to be a

period of time that you fast. That's

after dinner until the next day's meal,

which is breakfast, right? So, you say

you stop eating at 6:00 p.m., you eat at

8:00 a.m. That's a 14-hour period where

your body

is not eating, it's fasting, and

therefore, it's going to use calories,

right? But the word breakfast tells us

that that's actually a normal pattern.

This normal cyclical pattern. You feed,

then you fast, right? If you eat all the

time,

your body's just going to store energy

and never have a period to burn energy.

So,

okay, well, what's going to happen?

You're going to gain weight. I read as

well that breakfast eaters averaged 539

extra calories per day compared to those

that skipped breakfast.

And that's a finding that's consistent

with other trials. That was on page 132

of The Obesity Code. Yeah, so the more

often you eat in general, the more

calories you take in. So, if you eat

three times a day, you you're six times

a day, then you know, if you eat three

times a day compared to two times a day,

for example,

you'll in general eat less because it's

harder to eat that, you know, big meal.

So, say you eat once a day versus three

times a day. If you eat once a day, it's

not always easy to eat three meals'

worth of calories

all in one sitting because you get full.

Do you fast? Oh, I do that regularly,

yeah. And what what does your fast look

like? Cuz I've heard of all these

different types of fasting, 36 hours, 72

hours.

Oh, yeah. 14 hours.

Yeah. There's no rules for fasting. You

could do,

you know, it could be 16 hours. So, 14

hours, remember, is sort of a baseline,

12 to 14 hours, right? That just means

you're not eating after dinner. That's

it.

Um and so, if you want to lose weight,

that's probably not strong enough to

make you lose weight because 12 to 14

hours is sort of just this baseline that

people had in the '70s.

Um so, you can go to 16 hours, for

example, and you shrink that by either

eating breakfast a little later or

eating dinner a little earlier. But you

can do more than that. You can do, say,

a 24-hour fast. You could eat two meals

a day. Say eat between 12:00 and 6:00.

That's a 6-hour eating window. Or you

could eat once a day, which is like a

24-hour fast. Or you could even go

multiple days

uh without eating because again, your

body is smart. Like our your body knows

what to do. If you have all those

calories sitting on your body,

right? 100,000 calories sitting in body

fat and you don't eat for 3 days. Well,

you need 6,000 calories. Well, you have

100,000, 200,000. So, what's the

problem? Take it out of your body fat.

Let your body eat your body fat. That's

what fasting is doing for you.

And it's totally natural because that's

what it's there for.

That body fat is not there for looks.

It's there for you as a source, as a

store of calories. So, fasting just lets

you use that. There's nothing wrong with

it. People talk about hunger, for

example, but again, hunger is very

interesting because people think it's

the amount of time that you haven't

eaten. But it's not true. It's actually

hormonally mediated. So, if you think

about hunger,

I actually found this really

fascinating.

So, if you look at studies of when

people are the most hungry and the least

hungry,

on average, people are the most hungry

at 8:00 p.m. and the least hungry at

8:00 a.m.

So, in the morning time, you are

actually the least hungry that you will

be all day. That's just an average.

And at 8:00 8:00 p.m. in the evening

time, you're the most hungry. So, 8:00

a.m. is the period of time that you've

gone the longest without food.

So, why are you the least hungry? It's

because it's hormonally mediated.

When you wake up at 5:00 a.m., your body

actually has this surge of hormones,

growth hormone, cortisol, and uh

sympathetic tone, which is already

getting you prepared for the day. It's

starting to release some of the stored

glucose from your body fat, from your

sugar stores

at 5:00 a.m. So, your body has already

prepared you for the day ahead

without you even doing anything. That's

why people in general are not hungry at

8:00 a.m. I've got to talk to you about

these um these new injections people are

getting to lose weight and the role that

they must be playing in our hormone

balances. What are those bloody things

called? The

GLP-1s? GLP-1s. There's another name for

it, isn't there?

Yeah. Uh well, there's

there's the drug name, which is uh

Ozempic is the

is the American name. And these are all

in in a class called GLP-1s. And

essentially,

again, very interesting because they

essentially

really reduce the appetite,

which goes to show you that and people

lose weight, like a lot of weight, and

they keep it off. So, it's 70%.

I know. Like a a billionaire friend of

mine that's

very big in a certain industry uses

Ozempic. And Elon Musk came out and said

he used it.

used it, yeah. Ozempic as well.

Um I don't I'm not I I I don't have any

problem with the Ozempic because again,

if you think about it, what it's telling

you that the lesson it's teaching you

about weight loss is that it's not about

controlling the calories cuz the Ozempic

doesn't burn any calories. It's about

controlling your hunger.

It's about that one level deeper. Why

are you taking so many calories? So if

you simply reduce the hunger, you're

going to naturally eat fewer calories,

which is going to cause weight loss. And

that's what this Ozempic does. It it

really reduces your appetite to very low

levels.

How?

It it's it's it's this this hormone

called GLP-1, uh which is a natural sort

of hormone. It's it's released mostly in

the intestines in the distal intestine

in the small intestine.

And in response to certain foods, it it

goes up, right? So when you eat, the

body has a homeostatic mechanism. So

again, remember, you know, people think

that we're just eating machines. We eat

until, you know, we explode sort of

thing, but that's not true. When you

eat, you actually activate the GLP-1

along with other hormones. There's

multiple hormonal systems. The GLP-1 is

the one we're interested in. You

activate GLP-1, which then sets into

motion the the the instructions for you

to stop eating, right? So the act of

eating

sort of sets in motion that whole

feedback loop to stop, right? So this is

homeostasis, which is trying to keep

things at a proper level. Does that mean

if you eat slower,

Uh there's

you'll be less you'll eat less? Um

there's probably not

time to catch up. Yeah, probably it's

true. Um you know, although it's

probably mostly true that if you eat

really, really fast, that you don't have

enough time for this sort of homeostatic

mechanisms to kick in, so you don't have

enough time to stop eating.

Um but the GLP-1s then go to the brain.

So they do certain things. They help

with digestion, so they increase insulin

response. And then they go to the brain.

It crosses the the the the blood-brain

barrier. So the GLP-1s gets released by

the act of eating, goes into the brain,

crosses, and is active um in the sort of

midbrain area that tells your body to

stop eating. What these GLP-1s do, of

course, is that it's a uh it it gives

you the hormone that tells you to stop

eating even though you haven't eaten.

It's sort of That's that's the way the

drug works. So then what people tell you

is that, you know, they're just not

hungry. And if they're not hungry, then

they don't eat. And when they don't eat,

of course, insulin falls, and you start

to burn calories, and lose weight. But

it wasn't about controlling the

calories, it was about controlling the

hunger.

That was the important part of it. It's

the hormones, right? Every successful

drug to gain or lose weight, right, is a

hormone. It's a hormone-based because

that's instructions to the body. Food is

energy, and food is instructions. You

change the instructions, and you you

change the hormone. This whole history

of fiber thing has been so interesting

to me because

in the last 6 months, so many of the

nutritionists I've spoken to have really

impressed upon me that we are fiber

deficient.

And I'm wondering how that happened.

Um well, I think it was part of the

processing

thing. So taking out fiber is a great

way to make foods more

appealing, if you will. Um so what

happens is that if you take um

flour, for example, and you have a lot

of fiber in it, then the digestion is

slowed. So what you get is a slower

rise. So you take flour, and you put a

lot of fiber in it. Well, instead of

having this huge spike in insulin, what

you're going to get is a much slower

spike in insulin.

When you have the huge spike in insulin,

it basically overloads your system, and

it makes you feel, you know, gives you

this big hit. Sort of like if you have

like cocaine, for example, you know,

it's it's turned into a very fine

powder, then you snort it, so you get

this massive sort of spike. Same thing

with

um you know, carbohydrates. If you don't

have any uh fiber, you you pull all the

fiber out by processing, you get this

massive sort of unnatural spike, and

your body says, "Oh, that's great. It

tastes great. I really love it." And you

get people who are sort of addicted to

it because that big spike is going then

going to release dopamine.

And dopamine is a pleasure hormone. So

you eat, you know, cookies or whatever,

highly processed foods, you get this

sort of pleasurable response. And that

makes you crave it. If you have a lot of

fiber, it acts almost sort of an like an

antidote to that carbohydrate because

you're slowing down that release. What

foods are high in fiber? Well, mostly

unprocessed foods. So the the things

like beans, and if you're having if

you're eating whole grains, for example,

compared to others, then it's going to

have a reduction in the speed of

absorption. So it's again not about the

calories necessary or even necessarily

about the carbohydrates because you're

still eating the same amount of

carbohydrate, but you're slowing down

the speed at which is absorbed, which is

going to change the instructions that

you give your body. If you have a

massive spike in glucose, you get this

massive dopamine surge, right? And your

body's like, "Yo, love it."

Then the next time you're like, "Okay,

give me that refined carbohydrate." What

about protein cuz we we tend to think of

protein as something that, you know, is

super great for weight loss.

Yeah, protein is probably

sort of inter it's not bad. I mean, the

main thing is cutting down the

carbohydrates, but you know, in the ABCD

code, I really talk about cutting the

processing down because proteins

usually don't come as pure protein,

right? In nature, you never find like,

you know how you have like whey powder

or protein or whatever you get. The only

way you can do that is by processing the

heck out of food to get some kind of

pure protein. It doesn't exist in

nature. Like it almost doesn't exist.

And maybe there's a few examples. But

when you eat meat, you think, "Okay,

there's a lot of protein." But there's

actually a lot of fat in there, too,

right? Um if you eat anything else that

has protein, it's it's rarely all

protein. You know, very lean meats like

chicken breast and stuff are going to be

higher in protein, but there's still a

lot of other stuff in there. And it's

very rare that somebody will eat just

all pure 100% protein. It it tends to be

hard to eat. Like the fat brings a lot

of flavor and so on. So it's a bit of an

unnatural way to eat. Sure, if you if

you're to eat a lot of protein, it does

spike insulin, so it does have some

effect to gain weight, but it's actually

a very um

inefficient macronutrient. That is,

you're There's three macronutrients.

There's carbohydrates, there's

fat, and there's protein.

Your body stores energy or calories in

two ways. There's glucose, which is

carbohydrate, and it stores it as body

fat, which is fat, right? It doesn't

protein is not a way for the body to

store energy. So when you're eating a

lot of protein, it's very difficult for

it to turn it into a storage mechanism.

Like, you know, so you eat glucose,

and you eat fat. You can store glucose,

and you can store fat, but you you eat

protein, but you don't really store it

as a source of energy. So if all foods

then increase our insulin levels,

I guess the best solution is to fast. Uh

fasting is certainly one way, but just

changing the foods to otherwise because

if you look at the insulin uh release in

processed foods versus unprocessed

foods, there's a huge difference. So if

you eat sort of highly refined foods

like white bread, for example, then

you're going to have a very different

response in insulin compared to sort of

um a a whole a whole food. So

unprocessed foods in general, your body

knows how to handle. Like we've been

eating them for thousands of years. Um

but certainly, anytime you eat, your

insulin's going to go up. You're giving

your body instructions to store energy.

So the solution is to eat less often.

What if you do a juice fast? Juice fast,

of course, is not a real fast because

you're you're taking a lot of sugars.

What do you think of juice fasting?

Um

I'm generally I I I think it's less

effective than regular fasting, and it

really depends on how much juice you

take. If you take a lot of juice, you

could easily get, you know, thousands of

calories plus a lot of sugar. If you do

it, you know, cucumber juice and stuff

that's very low in sugar and kale juice,

then it could be very, very healthy for

you cuz there's vitamins and stuff

there. So it all depends on how it's

done.

However, the

um the fasting is a way for you to sort

of clean out the body. So you can clean

out the glucose. If you have excess body

fat, you're you're going to use it,

right? So again, weight clean it out.

There's this whole process called

autophagy, which is just fascinating.

And autophagy is this um so it's been

very topical cuz in 2016, one of the key

researchers was given the Nobel Prize in

Medicine. So it's it's a very important

process that's been relatively recently

discovered.

What they discovered is that when you

don't eat protein particularly, but when

you fast, your body activates this thing

called autophagy, and it breaks down

some of the subcellular organs, which

sounds really bad.

Subcellular organs? Yeah, so

you know, these are sort of like the

organs within the cell. So it's not like

the liver, but there's something called

organelles within a cell, and some of

that is broken down. So basically, these

proteins and so on within the cell, your

body gets rid of that. And you think,

"Oh, well, that sounds really bad."

But it's not. It turns out that it's

very, very good for you because it's an

opportunity for your body to get rid of

all this old protein, old junkie

protein. And at the same time, remember

that your fasting, your growth hormone

levels are shooting up through the roof.

So, like a you know, 2 3 day fast, your

growth hormone levels might have go up

five times. So, you're getting rid of

all the old stuff, then when you eat

again, you're actually got growth

hormone to produce new proteins. So, in

essence, you're getting rid of the old,

you're bringing in the new. It's

basically the process of rejuvenation.

Could this be a very important way

to get rid of some of the chronic

illnesses of aging? And there's lots of

data, uh you know, talking about uh you

know, Alzheimer's disease, there's talk

people talking about cancers, there's

people talking about just general aging,

you know, Dr. Chris Palmer talking about

mental disorders. We're all talking

about insulin and overeating and diet as

a really important component of not just

diabetes and weight,

but all of these diseases, mental

illnesses,

uh you know, chronic uh illnesses like

Alzheimer's disease, neurologic

illnesses. And there's all this data

that suggests that autophagy and fasting

is a way to activate autophagy could be

actually extremely beneficial for you.

Which is fine when we used to do it. And

and

you know, what's so interesting

is that

people seem to have already known about

it. Like, you see it in almost every

major religion.

There's periods of fasting.

Right? It's like, why did they do that?

Because it was good for them.

Through trial and error, whatever, they

realized that, "Hey,

periodically abstaining from food

makes us stronger."

If you eat all the time, constantly, day

in day out, week in week out, month in

month out, that's not that good for you.

There are periods that you should feast,

and there are periods you should fast.

So, religion set

days or weeks or months even where you

should fast. So, it's like, "Whoa.

Why did they do that? And are they just

way ahead of us in terms of

understanding the human body?" Like, we

get so, you know, enamored of our own,

you know, intelligence and science and

so on that we think they're

you know, that they didn't know what

they're talking about. Maybe they knew

more about what they're talking about,

and science is just catching up and

saying, "Oh,

this process of autophagy that you

activate with fasting,

this could be really important for

longevity, uh for other things. I'm not

saying you should do it like every month

or whatever. If you look at the way that

people do it, they don't do it like, you

know, they don't do like 5 days a month

or something. It's they do it once a

year or once every few months.

does autophagy take to kick in? Is it 72

hours did you say?

Um

nobody knows, but probably it's

and it depends on probably how much

protein you eat. Protein is the key

um sort of when you eat protein,

autophagy just stops. So, low protein,

you can activate it. It's probably

somewhere around 20 to 30 hours. So,

you'll see a lot of religions, for

example, they'll have like a 24-hour

fast, right? One day that you're not

supposed to eat or something like that.

And maybe that's the way to cleanse your

body not just of the glucose and the

fat, but also the excess proteins that

are are are old, they're junkie. I mean,

you think about renovating your bathroom

or something like that, right?

The first thing you got to do, you got

to throw out the, you know, 1970s tub

and the avocado green toilet. That's the

first thing you got to do.

You got to get rid of it. You got to

break down before you can rebuild

better.

Well, autophagy might be that way to

break down some of the stuff that you

actually can't break down any other way.

If your body's full of all this junkie

protein,

you can't get rid of it. Is there an

evolutionary explanation for the role of

autophagy, do you think?

I think there is, actually. I think

there's a huge

uh number of reasons why people

uh do it. One of it, um this whole idea

that fasting actually activates the

body, for example,

um is is very interesting because I

think it's like if you're a caveman, for

example, or cavewoman, and it's winter

and there's nothing to eat.

If your body starts to shut down, then

evolutionarily, you're going to die,

right? Because you have less energy, you

can't go out and hunt. So, our body's

just not that stupid. So, what it does

is says, "Okay, well, I'm going to give

you more energy. So, I'm going to

activate the body, but then I'm going to

uh change where you're getting your

energy from. You're not going to get the

energy from the food, you're going to

get it from your body fat stores, which

is your stored food, right? You stored

food for a reason.

So, that's why I think some of the the

fasting has a lot of evolutionary

benefits because it increases your

energy, it it it lowers the glucose. So,

if if you look at the blood glucose, the

blood glucose goes down. So, in times of

stress and so on,

your your body actually naturally fasts.

If you get sick, you get a flu or

something, you stop eating. First thing

you do, right? You just want to drink

some water and stuff. Why? Because your

body wants to lock down the glucose

because the bacteria

love glucose. Your body can run on fat,

but the bacteria want the glucose. So,

you fast to lock down the glucose. So,

there's a lot of evolutionary reasons

why the fasting might be good for, you

know, bacterial infections, taking care

of things, increasing your energy,

increasing your concentration at a time

that you're not like when you're not

eating, you're actually getting more

mental capacity and more energy because

you need it in order to go hunt.

Interesting.

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What is the What is the most interesting

thing or the most

you know, you use the word interesting a

lot or fascinating.

What is the most fascinating thing that

we haven't talked about?

I think to me, the most fascinating

thing is uh other than for intermittent

fasting because a lot of the stuff we

thought about it was wrong.

Uh in fact, the opposite. But

the the most interesting thing I think

is in the field of type 2 diabetes

because it's such an important disease.

Um if you look at the number of people

being affected with type 2 diabetes,

it's skyrocketing. So, we had, since the

1970s, an increase in obesity, then we

had an increase in type 2 diabetes. And

I think the most fascinating thing, the

most promising thing I've heard in a

long time, is that you can actually

start to reverse this disease

by changing the diet. And I think what's

interesting is that you have to

understand that type 2 diabetes is

largely a dietary disease.

And so, we treated it with drugs for a

long time. And if you give drugs to a

dietary disease, well, you're never

going to fix it because you haven't

identified the core problem and fixed

it. You need to change the diet to fix

that dietary problem, then the disease

goes away. And now we have data on

intermittent fasting, for example, and

also

low carbohydrate diets. Dr. David Unwin

published his data in the in the UK on

reversing type 2 diabetes with uh

reducing carbohydrates, which

is showing that you can reduce about 50%

of the people and put them into a

completely drug-free remission state.

Like, basically cure 50% of those type 2

diabetics who are at risk of cancer, at

risk of heart disease, at risk of

strokes, at risk of blindness, at risk

of kidney disease, nerve damage,

infections.

All these people you can fix

just by changing their diet, either

cutting down the carbohydrates or using

intermittent fasting.

And it's free.

And anybody can do it.

I'm not talking about a drug that costs

thousands of dollars. I'm not talking

about a surgery which is only available

to the the the 1%.

I'm talking about a treatment, which is

intermittent fasting,

which is available to everybody

in the entire world for free. And yet

has the power to completely reverse

their disease and make them so much

healthier.

So, the question is, why don't we do it?

I can't answer that question for you.

I try to do my part to tell people, but

you know,

Did you know I was going to ask you that

question?

Uh no.

I was going to ask you why don't we do

it?

No, but what is systems, incentives,

money? I think it is. I think it's

You know,

the real reason is I think that people

are slow to catch new ideas. Like, when

people hear about

new ideas, and I'm talking about

academic doctors and so on, there's an

intrinsic resistance to change. So, I

started talking about intermittent

fasting, say 2016, when The Obesity Code

was published. I talked about it about

reversing type 2 diabetes around the

same time.

Um and uh it's just they're just very

slow to say, "Hey, this makes a lot of

sense." because for them they've

invested so much in this calories in

calories out model. They've built their

entire careers on saying that it's it's

your fault that you're fat, right? It's

it's the foods that you ate. It's the

calories that you ate instead of trying

to get to a deeper understanding. So,