QUOTE (emphasis mine): “THE EVERY-OTHER-DAY DIET IS SAFE
Over the years, I’ve often been asked about the safety of the Every-Other-Day Diet—after all, 500 doesn’t seem like very many calories. Is it so few calories that EOD dieters could harm themselves in some way? After studying hundreds of people on the EOD Diet, I’m happy to say that I’ve never seen a single health problem caused by the very low caloric intake of Diet Day or by the unlimited eating of Feast Day. Not a one. In fact, I’ve seen just the opposite. Risk factors for heart disease normalize. Total and LDL cholesterol go down. Triglycerides decrease. Blood pressure is lower. Most importantly, of course, the pounds peel off—anywhere from 1 to 5 pounds per week, depending on how heavy the dieter was when he started the diet. And extra pounds are linked to a higher risk for dozens of different conditions and diseases, including cancer. At the same time, unlike people on most other diets, the dieter doesn’t lose calorie-burning muscle—and that retained muscle not only powers faster weight loss during the diet, but also sets the stage for postdiet weight maintenance. Many studies have linked increased lean body mass (muscle) to better health—even to longer life. So rather than posing a threat to health, the Every-Other-Day Diet improves health dramatically.” [1]
“My experiment had failed because there was no way to separate the effect of calorie restriction from the effect of weight loss. I was not a happy scientist! But a scientific investigation that seems like a dead end can suddenly present a new vista of opportunity. And that’s just what happened: I had a eureka moment, an Aha!, a conceptual breakthrough when I realized that the mice always lost weight on alternate-day fasting. The mice always lost weight. Could alternate-day fasting help us humans lose weight?” [3]
The Every-Other-Day Diet helps prevent and reverse cardiovascular disease—the #1 killer of people in the United States. In my first study, the participants not only lost weight; they gained health.6 Specifically, they gained added protection against heart disease: A 21% decrease in total cholesterol. Their total cholesterol dropped from 175 to 138 mg/dL, for an average decrease of 21%. Every 1% drop in total cholesterol lowers the risk of heart disease by 2%, which means the Every-Other-Day Diet lowered the risk of heart disease by a whopping 42%. Not a bad “side effect” of successful dieting! A 20-point drop in LDL cholesterol. LDL is the type of cholesterol that can build up on an artery wall and clog the artery, causing a heart attack or stroke. After eight weeks, the study participants had an average drop in LDL from 102 mg/dL to 72 mg/dL. This took them right to the 70 mg/dL level that doctors try to achieve in patients at risk for heart disease by prescribing a cholesterol-lowering statin like Lipitor or Zocor. (Personally, I’d rather lose weight than take a statin, since these commonly prescribed drugs are linked to fatigue, muscle pain, memory loss, and other health problems.) Triglycerides fell from 125 mg/dL to 88 mg/dL. Like cholesterol, triglycerides are a blood fat that can raise your risk of heart disease. The study participants went from the “normal” to the “optimal” level of triglycerides, as defined by the US government’s National Cholesterol Education Program. Systolic blood pressure fell from 124 to 116 mm Hg. Eight points might not seem like much of a decrease, but it meant the difference between some of the study participants being prehypertensive—just below the level where a person would be diagnosed with outright high blood pressure—and having a normal blood pressure level, below 120. My scientific conclusion: “Alternate-day modified fasting may decrease the risk of coronary heart disease in obese individuals,” I wrote in Obesity, the world’s leading scientific journal on the topic, in 2010. Given that heart disease kills 600,000 Americans every year, that’s a very important finding.” [4]
NOTE – What does it say?
My takeaway:
DISCERNMENT QUESTIONS
What gets your attention?
What human needs or problems are addressed?
What questions do you have?
What solution or hope does it offer?
What would a camera see if this happened?
What are the actual steps that I would take?
[2] Ibid, ?.