And I would like to take this opportunity to publicly add my thanks to thousands and thousands of others who have thanked Dr. Jason Fung for passionately explaining a detailed scientific understanding of fasting to the public. He has reviewed dozens or maybe hundreds of papers to see just why America (and Canada) got so much fatter over the decades, and is a wonderful plain language speaker and writer.
He has a new book coming out called The Hunger Code, which focuses on why ultra-processed foods are so addictive, and what you can do about it to become healthier. (A friend of mine is editing it and gets to work with the great gentleman himself -- I'm so jealous!)
His videos available on YouTube cover the benefits of fasting, simple explanations of the crucial procedural points of fasting to be successful in improving your health, and some great no-nonsense talks he has given to his peer doctors at medical conferences. I truly think he deserves the Order of Canada for the thousands of lives he has already saved (he’s only in his early 50s now and has done so much good).
There is more fake information out there about fasting (mostly, panicked folks who have never tried it speaking theoretically about how supposedly impossible and dangerous it is, when actually, it’s one of the most healing practices in thousands of years of documented humanity), than there is real information about the millions of incredible healing results, how to do it effectively (hint – you need salt!), how to monitor when to stop and when to move ahead, how it’s free and you don’t need tons of expensive supplements, how it actually affects your body, and what you can get away with ingesting without ruining the benefits of your fast (hint, you need your body to not put out the growth hormones MTOR and insulin, which means you need to not ingest carbs and protein while fasting… there’s way more leeway than you think and the incredible results are easily accessible).
No need for mystery. I’ll tell you where the real deal can be found: Dr. Jason Fung & his business partner Megan Ramos founded a society called The Fasting Method after Dr. Fung wrote a book called The Obesity Code in 2016.
Aside from correct, study-based information, Dr. Fung notes that you need community to be successful with hard new things like fasting. So there’s a free Facebook page you can join, or you can join The Fasting Method website club for coaching and dozens of online Zoom meetings with other people fasting and learning right along with you, right now.
Dr. Fung wrote The Obesity Code after he observed that often his dialysis patients had diabetes, and usually obesity too, and that both of those had followed insulin resistance.
Why not stop this problem at the insulin resistance, he thought, instead of waiting for it to get to the downward slide of insulin-supported Type 2 diabetes and dialysis until death?
He researched and summarized dozens or maybe hundreds of studies going back even to the 50s and 60s (I think) and guess what? It was kind of always obvious that it was the sugar causing the problems, not the fat content making us fat.
Looking at the way our hormones respond to food is also very instructive as to why fasting is so healing, and why it’s much easier than you think.
But… instead of me writing the length of rhapsody Jason Fung deserves, I will tell you, if my brief notes inspire you, to please buy yourself some of his books, and/or find his many wonderful free videos on YouTube. He can explain all this better to you than me regurgitating it here will do.
I was predisposed to listen to Jason Fung’s message, because my grandma Olga Bedry followed all the Diabetes Association and Canada Food Guide rules – scientifically, to the letter. I remember she and my grandfather measuring and counting so carefully to follow exactly what the doctors said to do. Measure your blood sugars, and inject insulin accordingly.
The result? Diabetes. Obesity. Kidney Disease. Gangrene. Blindness. Dementia. Every possible side effect of diabetes until death.
My grandfather was an amazing husband, bestowing earnest, caring love right until the end. When he married her, he was 8 years older than she was. He lived 8 years longer than she did, though, 94 to her 78. It wasn’t that they didn’t follow the rules. It’s that the rules were wrong.
They said: if you have high blood sugar, shoot up more insulin.
What they should have said, and what Dr. Fung says: if you have high blood sugar, eat lower carb until it drops. And guess what? Fake sugars, like all the diet pop my grandma was told are okay? They aren’t okay. The sweetness both makes your body pump out insulin anyway, and makes you hungrier (hunger is due to the hormone grehlin, which Dr. Fung also explains really well in his videos).
Following a regime of fasting can actually successfully bring your insulin resistance, Type 2 Diabetes, obesity, heart disease… etc. under control.
Like many thousands of others, I’m grateful for the power to save my own health in ways the food guide and the standard calorie-counting diet advice never equipped me to do. I’m among the ranks of the thousands he has cured. I will not be meeting my “genetic” destiny to have Type 2 diabetes, though several members of my family certainly rolled down that path, following government nutrition advice.
Instead of looking at a future of paying for insulin and giving myself needles several times a day, I paid for about a half a year of membership at The Fasting Method, benefitted from the attention of a coach, drank in all the information and experience of my peers like a fire hose during that time, and will always be glad that I did. Talking to people who are successfully doing the thing, seeing the clear difference in health in the Zoom meetings between those who are succeeding at fasting and those who are just beginning… that’s motivating!
If you have seen YouTubers and “health gurus” trying to sell you all kinds of prescriptions and overly specific ideas about fasting, well, they’re just trying to put into a sellable package what Jason Fung will give you for free on YouTube or by signing his book out of the library. Dr. Fung says that fasting has lacked in marketing because it’s free. Fasting is cheaper than nearly any other diet. There are some basics you need to understand, like taking enough salt, and what your hormones do while you’re fasting, but you do not need to buy any fancy diet products or technologies to succeed at this.
My list of “non-scale victories” is pretty typical of people who have taken fasting seriously. I have managed my weight better, my insulin resistance (as measured by my A1C value at the doctor) is vanished – my body handles sugar just fine now (though I limit how much I consume, most days). My previously constantly inflamed painful knees and feet are very rarely sore any more – if they are, I take a period of fasting (and sometimes, cut out the caffeine by replacing coffee with chicory/dandelion coffee) and the pain goes away within days. My migraines are gone. If I get a dose of mold poisoning, which I’m also prone to, fasting helps me clean it out. Pretty much any time I start to get aches and pains, these days, my first (and usually only one needed) tool is to reach for some fasting relief. Many people in the Fasting Method groups (me too!) also notice that they don’t get colds and flus much any more, either. The benefits seem to be nearly unlimited.
A Ukrainian friend I met earlier this year (also named Olga, like my grandma, but this Olga moved to Canada as a skilled refugee from the current war) mentioned that she also loves the emotional and mental benefits. You become much calmer and more self-assured that you will be able to handle whatever the world throws at you.
It is such a gift to realize that there is something we can do about our own health, that we can take the reins and be vigorous and vital, if we have the fire in our bellies to do so.
I am so tired about hearing friends or people on social media complaining about “oh you know how inevitable aches and pains and deterioration are at our age.” Well, actually, no. Thanks to fasting and keto, I’m healthier than I was when I was 30. No fancy treatment needed, aside from learning what you need for healthy fasting, and then taking the time and space to allow yourself to actually do it.
I will admit – that privilege of time and focus does sometimes take a lot of organizing… I am most successful when I can get clear away to my friend’s writing retreat in Nova Scotia, somehow… it’s nearly impossible for me when I’m living with my carb-loving room-mate. To everything there is a season, and I choose to find time and space for seasons of intermittent and extended fasting now and then. That’s power!
The studies showing the benefits are piling up. Fasting, done properly, activates your body’s own healing and anti-aging hormones better than any supplement you can take.
Dr. Fung, Megan Ramos, and other members of The Fasting Method team have written more books now, including information on managing cancer treatment, specifically how to reverse Type 2 diabetes, how women can heal their polycystic ovary symptoms, how couples can increase their fertility using fasting, how to reduce menopause symptoms, and more.
· The Cancer Code
· The Diabetes Code
· The Essential Guide to Intermittent Fasting for Women
· The PCOS Plan
· The Complete Guide To Fasting: Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and Extended Fasting
· Coming soon, the Hunger Code, too!
Sign these books out at the library, or find some free videos from Dr. Fung on YouTube. As Dr. Fung points out, you can always try fasting, and stop at any time. You’re in control. Complete control, all the time. And you can do it while vegan, carnivore, gluten-free, dairy-free… any diet.
Just learn to stop eating (it can take a little while to build up your “fasting muscle” – yes, it might be a little difficult at first, but so worth it, and now you know where to find the clubs!) and see how lovely it makes you feel.
Thank you, Dr. Fung, and to Megan Ramos who has helped provide solid encouragement and partnership so that he has the energy and gumption to keep going, sharing this vital message when most of the world didn’t want to hear it. Less than a decade since The Obesity Code was published, and the diabetes associations are finally starting to honour his research and results by changing their advice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XvSqgBTe9M
The video references https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uyjg5S_ef9k&t=277s
To read previous articles I've written about gurus in our daily life, scroll back through my LinkedIn articles or zoom easily to this blog link https://christabedwingurus.blogspot.com
