Yumm !!!

Here's a vegan, gluten-free, soy-free, antibiotics-free, raw, non-GMO, organic, fat-free, low-carb, low-calorie meal.

Preparation Note: 
Use Filtered water only.

Does Fasting make you fat?
            by Brad Pilon

If I remember correctly, the FTC views the use of animal research in supplement advertising to be one of the most heinous advertising infractions, right up there with Photoshopped before and after photos.

Why?

Because they believed that due to the lack of transferability of animal research to humans, doing so would be intentionally misleading the customer as to the potential benefits of said supplement.

Even the most ‘fly-by-night’ ethically-devoid supplement companies do not use animal trials in their marketing for this reason.

Keep this in mind when you see journalists and bloggers reporting on the latest mouse research, using it to create clickbait style articles about human diet, nutrition and weight loss.

Alright, now that I’ve said that, lets get to that article that appeared on Yahoo suggesting that skipping meals will actually make you fatter.

It was an animal study, using mice.

We know that mice are extremely sensitive to fluctuations in both body weight and meal patterns. They are very small animals, and without getting too technical I’ll just say it’s well known in the scientific community that many parts of metabolism scale with size.

For 5 days the mice in the diet group were given half the amount of food as the control mice, and all of the food was provided in one meal per day (that’s why it’s being referred to as a ‘fasting study’).

After 5 days of dieting the mice were allowed to gorge for 13 days, they were given an amount of food that was the same or more as the control mice, and were still only eating it all in one meal.

So what happened?

The control mice continue to grow normally, and their weight increased throughout the study, but the fasting diet-restricted mice lost almost 20% of their body weight in the first 5 days of the study. (This should be your first hint that mice are different than humans. If you and I eat 50% of our daily intake for 5 days we’re not going to lose 20% of our body weight – heck, we could do this for a month and we’re probably not losing 20% of our body weight.)

Then, the fasted mice were fed 98-122% of the amount of food as the growing control mice, so the fasted mice started to grow… and they grew quickly. If you think about it, they were getting fed the same amount of food (or more) as the mice that were 30% heavier then them… so rapid weight gain (and fat gain) make sense.

So end result? Mice who rapidly lost 20% of their body weight and then regained most of that weight by overeating ended up with larger fat cells then the control mice. I’m not sure why this is surprising.

They also had worse measurements of a bunch of health markers… again not surprising.

I’m not sure how much the eating cycle mattered here. Again, as I stated earlier, mice are really sensitive to eating patterns so it probably did play some sort of role, but rapid weight loss then overfeeding causing increased fat stores and messed up glucose control isn’t surprising.

What’s surprising is the reporting.

Overeating and causing rapid weight gain is generally not a good idea. Losing excess body fat generally is.

So what does this have to do with humans and Intermittent Fasting?

Simple. Fasting is popular, so it makes for great headline fodder.

We were baited in with the headline, then they attempted to blind us with the science.

Here’s the truth – There are lots of ways to lose excess body fat – Fasting is just one of dozens.

They all work, and some will obviously work better for you then others, based on your personal likes and dislikes and styles of eating.

The bottom line is please don’t worry about the mouse study, and feel free to voice your anger when people use mice to try and tell you how to eat.

Mice aren’t people, people aren’t mice. Yes, there is value in animal research and animal research can lead to proof of concept for human studies, but jumping right from animal trials to setting dietary recommendations for humans is reckless.

Brad Pilon is an expert on intermittent fasting as it relates to losing weight and gaining muscle. He's a bodybuilder, and the author of Eat Stop Eat.
 

I plan to write an article to go along with this cartoon, but I don't have the time at present... so... sometime in the future I will revisit this topic and post a Part 2.

22 years ago at age 47, weighing 271 lbs. at a height of 5'0",  I had an RNY gastric bypass, open surgery, with NO removal of any intestine, which means that every calorie I eat is still digested, and still counts. 

The doctor's recommendation for post-surgery eating was simple. "Eat three meals a day of whatever food you want, but make half of each meal protein; avoid fried foods and sweets; and have no carbonated beverages."

My surgery was done when the procedure was still considered experimental.  At the time, it was performed here in California by only a few doctors. To get surgery, people had to travel to San Diego, stay in the hospital 2 or 3 days, then stay at a local hotel for an additional 10 post-surgery days before being released to return back home.  Follow-up care was received once a month during the surgeon's visit to one of the nearby temporary clinics located in various cities throughout California.  About five years later,  surgeons all over California began setting up specialized practices for weight-loss surgery, and coordinated with nutritionists who made specific post-surgery diet recommendations like protein shakes etc. That happened several years before laser surgery became common.

The first year after surgery my body would tolerate very little food.  Eating more than one-quarter to one-half cup of food at a time made me feel uncomfortably stuffed like after Thanksgiving dinner.  

I frequently experienced Dumping syndrome, which is caused by food passing too quickly into the small intestine. This caused immediate symptoms of flushing, weakness, fatigue, dizziness, and an intense desire to lie down. Severe episodes include feelings of nausea, and even stomach cramps.

I experienced severe dumping symptoms after just a swallow or two of fruit juice; or one or two bites of fried-or-greasy food; or a bite or two of any sweet like cookies, cake, pie, candy. I also became lactose intolerant. Milk made me feel ill, and even the tiniest bit of ice cream, with it's combination of milk and sugar, immediately made me lie-down-with-dry-heaves-ill.

Therefore, due to my weight-loss surgery, that entire first year my food intake was somewhere between 200 to 600 calories a day, which caused my weight to drop from 271 down to 161 lbs .... without dieting. This happened while I ate however much I could, of whatever food my body would tolerate.  The reason I did not binge, cheat, or quit, even when my weight-loss was slower than I believed I deserved, was because it was physically impossible for me to do so. 

Most people think that weight loss after WLS always happens rapidly.  That immense amounts of weight fall off everyone's body every week, 5-10-15 pounds, week-after-week, like on the Biggest Loser tv show.. only maybe even faster. 

However, Real Life AFTER a Gastric Bypass Surgery, works just like Real Life BEFORE a Gastric Bypass Surgery.  Even though after a RNY surgery Everyone has a smaller stomach, and Everyone eats just a small amount, the rate of weight-loss continues to be an individual matter.  Some people's bodies simply drop weight faster than other people's bodies, and surgery doesn't change that fact. 

Below is a graph of my own individual weight-loss results. This is what happened to MY body during the 64 weeks after a RNY gastric bypass surgery.  I did not diet during that time, but the surgery severely restricted what I ate, and the amounts I ate. I was physically unable to cheat, and I was physically unable to quit.  Plus, of course, I was strongly motivated to lose weight.  Remember, I was a 48 year old, sedentary female who was only 5 ft 0 in tall.

For the next 2 to 3 years I maintained in the 160s while eating as much food as my body would tolerate, however, my stomach begin stretching, and my body began to tolerate more food, and again, I had to begin dieting to keep my weight down.

For the next 10 years, I worked at dieting to keep my weight down, but my weight kept creeping up. I felt I simply could not bear weighing over 200 lbs again, after all my effort, pain, and expense. My struggle to avoid gaining more weight allowed me to maintain in the 190s for several years.  In September 2004 I began logging my food into DietPower, which is a computer software food journal that I discovered online.

At that point, I begun losing weight, and about 16 months later, after working to eat a daily average of approx 1230 daily calories, I reached my goal weight of 115 lbs.

During all of the 8+ years since that time I've been working to maintain at or near that goal weight.

SO ....to summarize the NEXT SEVERAL YEARS: 

Without Dieting

Maintained in the 160's the following 2 ½ years until weight crept into the 170s.  

Started Dieting again, with following Results.

Back to the 160's for 4 months, then weight crept back up into the 170s.

Maintained in the 170's for 2 years, then weight crept on up into 180's. 

Maintained in the 180's for 2 years, then weight crept on up into the 190's

Maintained in the 190s for 2 years,  

          Next

Started Dieting Successfully - began tracking food daily using computer software.

September 20, 2004 - weight 190

January 27, 2006 - weight 115

8+ years later, now in 9th year of dieting to maintain weight-loss.  

Total Summary: 

            Weight                        Weight                  

Pre Surgery …...     241            Reached.... ...... 161  =   110 pound Loss

Post surgery …..     161      Regain….....… 190   =     29 pound Gain

Food Tracking...     190           Goal reached….115  =      75 pound Loss

For further information see the section ABOUT ME here at DietHobby.