Complete Guide To Fasting: Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and Extended Fasting

Well what can I say?! I am used to doing protein shakes so the idea of fasting didn’t worry me too much as I know many countries like us in the UK have reached the epidemic of eating for the sake of it! I have been type 1 diabetic on insulin since 15 months old and am now 45 with an HbA1c of 6 every time so I have very good control. Bearing in mind when I was a child there were no blood tests or labels on food re nutrition etc so I and my parents had to learn to deal with it or I would quite simply die, especially in my sleep as that was the most dangerous time for going into a hypo.

Anyway, I decided to give this a go this week after reading it all in just 2 days as it’s an easy read. It was recommended by a colleague and he said to be careful re my type 1 diabetes as this was more aimed at type 2. My reason for doing it is because it makes so much sense and I wanted to lose weight. We certainly don’t ever leave ourselves to get properly hungry. In the 1970’s when I was born, then got measles and the docs think it killed my pancreas hence the type 1 diabetes from a baby, I remained as skinny as a pole until my 30’s. probably due to just having 3 meals a day and no snacks in between, which was the norm in those days. .Anyway, I had to have my insulin changed when I was in my late 20’s as they no longer made porcine insulin so I went onto Glargine/Lantus as my 24 hour background and Novarapid for my food insulin. Since then I’ve gained loads of weight as both insulin’s are known to be weight gaining so I needed to stop eating at the rate I was used to. So I did a 36 hour fast at the beginning of this week, which was absolutely fine as I didn’t get hungry. I then ate on Tuesday purely as we had friends over for a meal. I have then started fasting on liquid only since Wednesday morning and I’m writing this now on Friday evening. I will break my fast at lunch time tomorrow (Saturday) at 14:00hrs after we’ve been swimming as we want to get a Subway! That will be a 77 hour fast! Not bad going for my first week! Haven’t weighed myself yet as I’ll do that tomorrow but my stomach has noticeably reduced and lots of people at work have noticed. I am due to go on holiday for 2 weeks now but I don’t tend to gain weight then as I eat very healthily and do lots of exercise. Whilst exercise isn’t mandatory, it’s something I have been doing for years and enjoy! I do HIIT training in hard core mode for 45 minutes, 5 days a week with a group at work. It’s certainly not for everyone so that’s a choice thing. Besides any exercise only accounts for 20% of weight loss so the main culprit is food! Exercise is just helpful when losing weight to bring your body back to a better state re skin and muscle etc if it’s done at the same time.
Anyway, so far this book has been spot on! Everything it says has been accurate for me so I challenge anyone to give it a go and feel tonnes better! I certainly have to be very careful re my type 1 diabetes but I have managed my own medication and life myself for years now and do a great job. Apart from going for the annual blood test, I don’t see any nurse or specialist as they say they don’t have any information to add to my years of dealing with it and as I am so healthy with it, I just need to keep doing what I do! So I reduced my Lantus down from 16 units to 8 units and have taken practically no Novarapid during the fasting period. Only 2-3 units when I’ve gone a little high (11) and I’ve stayed pretty stable at 6 throughout. As I am due to start eating again tomorrow I will put my background Lantus back up to 16 again to cater for the increase in food and continue as normal with my Novarapid whilst on holiday. Once I’m back from my holiday I will then do some more lengthy fasts to lose that final weight I’ve been trying to get rid of for 6 years with no chance no matter how much exercise I did or what diet I tried! This works, quite simply plus on eating days I can enjoy the tastes and flavours of whatever I like and still not want loads as I know I just don’t need the volume! I went from 12 stone to 16 stone 9 lbs when I got pregnant with my son and that was 6 years ago. I’d managed to get down to 14 stone 5 lbs now but with fasting I can see it will come off really easily. Once I’m back to 12 stone I will then use intermittent fasting as a maintenance fast.
So go on, try it! It works for sure. If I can do it with type 1 diabetes then believe me, you can too.

Après le livre de Jason Fung (“The obesity code”, qui est traduit en français sous le titre “Code obésité”) qui est à mon sens la meilleure introduction à la science de la nutrition et de la perte de poids, voici un guide pratique et complet au jeûne. Jason Fung s’est associé à Jimmy Moore pour rédiger ce guide destiné à accompagner tous les jeûnes, qu’ils soient intermittents ou de plus longue durée. Je conseille aussi The obesity code pour avoir une vue plus profonde sur comment fonctionne le métabolisme et pourquoi le jeûne a cet effet.

DONT BOTHER BUYING THIS BOOK. THE INFO IS VERY OUTDATED AND NOT REVELEANT ANYMORE.

Dr Fung is a great writer. He explains things in a clear science fact based way that helps you understand how and why fasting works. I have lost 50 lbs, not from just fasting, but from really understanding that it is an Hormonal imbalance and not a caloric imbalance. How Insulin, Ghrelin, Cortisol, and Leptin are some of the key hormones affecting obesity. Dr. Fung’s book the Obesity Code really opened my eyes. The book made such a great argument why his methods works. It gave me a much deeper understanding of the underlying principals to craft a program for myself. A program that holistically looked at addressing all of these hormonal imbalances, and not just making it all about fasting.

I liked this book, but I am worried that people jump to this book just looking for a fasting quick fix program. Instead of trying to understand the problem and gain the knowledge how to build a solution for themselves. I would almost want to make The Obesity Code required reading beforehand. I have friends that made me give them cliff notes, and they have all failed because they didn’t read the books, didn’t gain understanding, and only looked for a quick fix diet plan. Because they didn’t bother to read and learn a new perspective, their old dieting knowledge gained over decades of miss/incorrect information kept them from having the same epiphany I had. Something that cannot be learned in a 10 minute elevator speech.

I also didn’t like the Keto Upsale in this book. Some of the sections where the other writer is selling his keto books is tasteless in contrast to the writing of Dr. Fung. After reading Dr. Fung’s books, I have really become to dislike all the diet books that make unsubstantiated claims and overly pontificate on their diet over another, and try to sell you something at the same time. Diets have become religions to some. I have seen people argue about how their diet is better than another with no facts to substantiate. It is refreshing to hear a clear concise advise with no up sell, except for the guy pushing his keto books.

All in all, great book, but recommend reading Obesity code first.