The first order of business in your weight loss journey is to consult with your physician before you begin a diet. It is imperative that you have a physician clear you before you start any of the following suggestions for fat loss. If you do not have clearance from your physician, then my recommendation is that you do not follow any of the suggestions in this handout. You should also be monitored throughout your weight loss.
Next, you should know the reason why you are overweight in the first place. Barring an underlying disease such as Hypothyroidism, Cushing’s disease, low Testosterone, etc., the answer is Insulin Resistance.
This handout is not long enough to give a full discussion on Insulin resistance, but here is a brief statement about it. Every time we eat anything, chew gum or drink something sweetened with sugar or artificial sweeteners, our blood sugars rise.
Insulin is released to bring our blood sugars down and to store it as energy sources for our body. It is first stored as glycogen in the liver, but then it is stored as fat when the glycogen capacity is met. Our bodies live in a high insulin environment due to our poor dietary habits. The more exposure to insulin, the more fat we store. If you are obese, then you are insulin resistant to some degree. Compared to people who are not insulin resistant, you will produce more insulin in response to any given food or beverage. Basically, if you have had chronically high insulin levels, some cells in your body are likely to respond less to insulin, so your body produces more insulin to get the desired effect. If your body produces too much insulin for too long, it can create enough insulin resistance to cause Type II diabetes.
To lose weight efficiently and for the long term, we must break this insulin resistance. This can only effectively be achieved with fasting. By fasting, you do not cause any spikes in your insulin, so you do not store fat. Your body burns through its glycogen stores for energy until it depletes its stores and then starts to burn fat for energy. If you are cleared by your primary care physician, you should perform an extended fast for 7-14 days.
If you are on any medication, you need to talk to your doctor before trying an extended fast, because appropriate dosages are often affected by how much you are eating. If you are diabetic and don't have your doctor adjust your diabetes medicine for the fact that you are eating less for a period, you could die. You could also consider a modified fast with foods with an insulin index below 10 once a day (see the list below).
Even with a modified fast, be alert to any warning signs such as nausea, dizziness, extreme weakness, irregular, fast or slow heart rate. If you experience these symptoms, you can always raise the upper limit on the insulin index for your modified fast or discontinue your modified fast entirely. After you complete your extended or modified fast, or if you are unable to complete it, you should start fasting intermittently.
It may be easier for some to start intermittently fasting at the start and then trying an extended or modified fast after you become used to fasting. Either way, the most successful weight loss plan will require fasting. You should continue to fast intermittently until you reach your weight loss goal or you reach a plateau in your weight loss.
There are many ways to intermittently fast. It could mean that you eat once a day or that you alternate days of eating 2-3 meals with no snacks, followed by a day of 1 or no meals. If you reach a plateau, you should change up your intermittent fasting or consider another extended or modified fast.
You should select a diet that works best for you to follow with your intermittent fasting. Some are more effective and healthier than others.
The insulin index comes from the results of experiments in which experimental subjects ate a specific food, and then their insulin levels were measured over time after. Glucose was used as the standard to compare the foods and beverages against and given an insulin index of 100. The table focuses on the differences between different foods and beverages.
Unfortunately, all foods are not in the tables. Glycemic index is another valuable tool. It is a scale of how quickly sugars in foods are released into the bloodstream. Low glycemic index foods release the sugars slowly and are, therefore, healthier than higher glycemic index foods. You can search for insulin index and glycemic index to find as complete a list as possible.
Here are some of the comparisons from the table between low fat and high-fat versions of things:
From here on, I will list only the highest-fat versions of things in the table since eating low-fat versions of things makes no sense unless you want to fool yourself that you are eating more healthily than you are.
Many, many kinds of cold cereal have been tested. They all have high insulin indexes. Below are the worst and the best, but aside from all-bran original, even the best is not good:
If You Drink Alcohol, Consider Gin or White Wine Instead of Red Wine or Beer. I do not recommend alcohol consumption for good health because of the numerous adverse effects on our bodies. But if you choose to drink alcohol, you should have no more than 2 drinks in a day. The insulin index is as follows:
Fruits typically have a high insulin index, but many fruits weren't tested in time for this list. Although there are many important differences, the glycemic index does have a positive correlation with the insulin index. Given the lack of direct data on the insulin index for many fruits, the fruits are in order of their glycemic indexes for various fruits. Where there is insulin index data, those values are alongside for comparison.
Glycemic Index:
Another option to get the benefits of fruits without their high sugar content/high glycemic index is the fruit powder Gundry, MD Vital Reds. Taking many kinds of fruit and turning them into a powder does destroy some of the value of the antioxidants, phytochemicals, and other micronutrients, but the fact that the sugar has been subtracted in making the powder more than makes up for that. Overall, you are getting an improved ratio of the good aspects of fruit relative to the bad aspects.
Recommended resources:
Documentaries:
Forks Over Knives
What the Health
Books:
The Obesity Code by Jason Fung, MD
