The Obesity Code: Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss Paperback – March 1, 2016

I am a PA with decades of experience with diabetes and it's ill effects. I have watched through my career, type 2 diabetics listen to medical advice and never get any better. When my daughter, who was a gestational diabetic with her first pregnancy had a fasting blood glucose of 288 mg/dl, it became personal for me. They gave her the usual Metformin script and sent her on her way. Knowing that these meds do nothing to cure the disease and that it would only head her to a life on insulin and further weight gain I asked her not to take the meds, stop all carbs for the moment and let me do some research. That was when I came across Dr. Fung's lectures on the internet. As someone who has been studying holistic medicine for 30 years it made complete sense to me.
What makes this book and his lectures so valuable, is that he approaches everything from a medical model and shows why modern medicine is getting it all wrong.
He explains the process of glucose metabolism in a way I feel most lay people can understand. It's important for every overweight or type 2 diabetic to understand this process to better understand what they have been doing to their bodies...and unfortunately what we in medicine have been doing to their bodies.
What was most valuable to me was him quoting studies that are considered standards in the field of medicine...not studies on rats or studies that have 15 subjects...but studies conducted over years with thousands of participants...like the Frammingham study or the NHANES study. I had seen these studies in the most prestigious medical journals like JAMA...funny how some of the aspects of the studies that he cites just weren't included or stressed in the outcomes.
After going over all the metabolism...the studies on why reducing calories and increasing exercise just doesn't work...he presents a series of plans to reverse (yes I said reverse) type 2 diabetes. There are several options and one is bound to be workable for most people.
My daughter has a hectic schedule and always complained about diets that required 3 or more meals a day...she doesn't like to eat breakfast and has no time to schedule multiple meals. The four hour intermittent fasting plan worked great for her. After an initial adjustment of about 2 days (headaches which were not relieved by increasing her sodium, my guess was sugar withdrawl), she had no hunger, no cravings and felt great. Within a week her blood sugar was normal. She started this right before the holidays and was concerned about missing holiday dinners...my answer was that of Dr. Fung's: have your dinner, enjoy it and get back on track the next day. She did just that and got through the holidays effortless and satisfied that she wasn't deprived of a thing. She remained on her fasting protocol and just had her meal within that time frame. Her blood glucose was higher the next morning but normalized after one day. She chooses now to have one "cheat meal" each week and for 4 weeks the next morning her blood sugar was higher...but got lower each week and after 4 weeks her morning after a cheat meal her blood glucose was normal!
Within 10 weeks she has lost 46 pounds and is thrilled with her progress. Her doctor is shocked and initially thought the diet was nuts but now wants to know more about it...hence why I ordered 3 copies of this book...perfect for the medical mind.
This diet is basically a ketogenic diet on steroids...great for so many ailments and used by many cancer patients.
I started on the diet myself and found similar results with the exception of my cheat day...maybe because of my age, I do not get into ketoses for days after my cheat day which slows down my weight loss. I have still managed to lose 16 pounds in 3 weeks effortlessly with the exception of the 2 day sugar hangover like my daughter experienced. I have since found a product that will put you into ketoses in a day, but it is very expensive and the taste is...not so great. I use it once a week and it allows me to have that cheat meal once a week without sacrificing my progress.
My guess it that Dr. Fung will become villified for several reasons:
1. His plan works without medicine
2. The drug companies will lose a tremendous amount of money
3. No special foods or supplements to buy
4. No added expenses...in fact my food bills are much lower.
5. He exposes the fact that this information has been available to the medical community for a long time and no one has acted on it.
I highly recommend this book and highly recommend you read through all the facts and figures he goes over...it makes managing your weight and your diabetes much easier over your lifetime without much thought once you know how your body reacts to food.
I also recommend getting an extra copy for your doctor because they will surely think you are nuts when you tell them what you are doing.
I will be eternally grateful to Dr. Fung for giving me the tools to cure my daughter and better serve my patients.
UPDATE: My daughter continues to do well with blood sugars that remain normal, her biggest complaint is that she has to keep buying new clothes. She has found her weight has stalled and after some investigation I realized why...she had been taking MCT oil, about 3 tablespoons a day in pill form (she doesn't eat breakfast and doesn't like the taste of coconut) and she stopped it at the same time her weight loss halted. MCT oil...and there are several like coconut and hazelnut, stay liquid at room temperature. They can be added to food like coffee or smoothies, even salads. I found that I can get back into ketosis at warp speed when I started using it. Amazon has several brands here and I like the 32 ounce Viva labs coconut MCT. I found that although the craving weren't horrible, I missed my sweets. There is a new book from Martina Slajervoa called "Fat Bombs" that I highly recommend. Tons of sweet treats that are keto friendly. I will say I hate stevia and it's aftertaste, but found Swerve to be a great substitute. I will also warn you that if you don't use MCT oil in many of the recipes and sub coconut oil in it's more solid form, the results are not nearly as good. The chocolate hazelnut smoothie does it for me...sometimes I sub ice for all the water and I get a soft serve like ice cream that tastes like I'm cheating. The MCT oil helps me get right back into ketosis after my cheat days without buying that expensive, horrible tasting powered drink I was using. She also has a book on ketogenic recipes in general that I found very helpful as she has many dinner recipes that can be prepared in 30 minutes or less. I have taken my blood sugar both before and an hour after eating these "Fat Bomb" treats, (I'm not diabetic) and my blood sugar stayed the same or went lower...that was using the Swerve, which is expensive but worth it and a bit cheaper if bought in the 3 pack as I do.

I’m surprised nobody has mentioned this but Dr Jason Fung is a traditional medical doctor in Canada working in the system — where the government won't pay for a medical intervention if it isn't effective. He has helped his patients drop thousands of pounds with an unconventional approach. The book covers the reasons he has elected to take this controversial approach. His program, called intensive dietary management, helps people adapt a low carb diet and intermittent or (when appropriate and supervised) prolonged fasts. He knows what he's talking about when it comes to the connection between what you eat and what you weigh.

Dr Fung makes it clear that the calories in/ calories out model of weight management has proved to be a colossal failure, and explains why, covering the nuanced realities of hormones, fasting, carbohydrates, fats, sugars and sleep and the roles each plays in your health.

As a doctor myself specializing in weight loss, I too am deeply interested in the disconnect between calories consumed and body weight that seems to trap some people in a metabolic vicious cycle. So I find his focus on this topic fascinating. Particularly interesting are the arguments that lay out why we were wrong about the calories in calories out model and how human physiology seems to defy physics (but actually isn’t, as you’ll see).

Each chapter unfolds into a sensible, well researched, very well-reasoned and sometimes sobering discussion of a health topic.
Topics include:
▪ the heritability of (a tendency for) obesity
▪ The role of insulin in weight gain
▪ Benefits of fiber to gut health and how that translates to faster weight loss
▪ Probiotics—any reader interested in health should be familiar with this new field.
▪ The power of fasting (yes, fasting) and why it’s not so extreme

Dr Fung has tapped into something very important and no doubt the future of nutrition and health discussion is going to be centered around concepts found here in The Obesity Code