Managing your weight

Over the last few weeks, I had the good fortune to read a book called "The Obesity Code: Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss" by Jason Fung (M.D), which was published in 2015.

It has been some time since I read a book on physical health and weight management that was so good that I feel certain concepts it espouses could be more widely shared through a short blog summary.

The main purpose of the book is to find out exactly what causes obesity and to provide permanent solutions to manage it.

From the perspective of a 35 year old Singaporean male who spent 10 of his younger years as a former member of the Trim and Fit (TAF) club, where its name is by itself is a mockery of its esteemed members who are all overweight, I do feel that the suggestions put worth by the book are worthy of further consideration and experimentation.

What causes obesity?

There has been many suggestions from various sources on what causes obesity. Some of the more popular ones are: “calories in > calories out”; “too much carbohydrates”; “too much fat”, etc.

The author has suggested that instead of the traditional suggestions of the causes of obesity, the main causes are instead the increased levels of insulin, heightened insulin resistance and increased cortisol (stress hormone) levels, putting forth the argument that obesity is really very much a hormonal issue instead of the widely held belief that it boils down to ONLY personal discipline. 

So as long as one's insulin levels, insulin resistance and cortisol levels (“Factors”) are managed, one should be able to maintain a healthy weight / fat levels.

Essentially it boils down to what you eat, how often you eat, and how much stress is present in the body, as these points directly affect the Factors.

Solutions to obesity

The author has identified a multi factorial approach to tackling the obesity problem:

1.    Reduced consumption of added sugars

2.    Reduced consumption of refined grains

3.    Moderation of protein consumption

4.    Increased consumption of natural fats

5.    Increased consumption of protective foods (fiber producing foods, vinegar, etc.)

6.    Intermittment fasting

7.    Mindfulness meditation

8.    Sleep hygiene

My own weight loss experience from my younger years involved adoption of many, if not all of the solutions above, except that of solution 6, 7 and 8, which are new to me in the battle of the bulge.

I’ll touch on 6 for a bit. 

Folks who have undertaken diets before, be it low sugar, low fat, low calories / high output, etc might be familiar with a plateau in weight loss, or a nasty reversion to the original or increased weight levels.

What the author suggests is that one of the keys to unlocking the dreaded plateau or weight reversion is increased insulin resistance, where eating wrong over many years has resulted in needing more insulin to absorb similar levels of glucose, and a higher baseline level of insulin leaving us more ravenous,increasing the storage of glucose / glycogen / fat and decreasing the ability for us to burn fat.

In order to tackle increased insulin resistance, one can undertake intermittment fasting so the body has a chance to reset the “insulin baseline” and its resistance levels. The author advocates doing a 24 hour fast a few times a week, or a daily 16 to 18 hours fast / 6 to 8 hour eat timings, but the key is to eat similar level of calories, and of course healthy food that does not spike your insulin levels to the max.   

It doesn’t mean that because you only eat for 8 hours a day, once a day, or once every 2 days, that you can gorge yourself silly. In fact, there is a suggestion that following solutions 1 to 5 would lead to increased satiety such that one would naturally know when to stop when enough food has been taken in by the body. 

Parting thoughts

The book certainly leaves a lot of food for thought, and while the above isn’t a comprehensive representation of the book (there is much more meat that I have been unable to share in this summary), I do hope it has given you some inspiration to delve deeper and that it assists in the development of your personal health.

After all, health is wealth isn’t it?

Maybe intermittment fasting is really the key to getting the last few stubborn extra kilograms of fat off my body. I shall certainly endeavour to try this approach in 2020.