QUOTE from Dr Fung (emphasis mine):
“After all, who hasn’t tried the portion-control strategy? Does it work? Just about never. Data from the United Kingdom indicate that conventional advice succeeds in only 1 in 210 obese men and 1 in 124 obese women. That is a failure rate of 99.5 percent, and that number is even worse for morbid obesity. So whatever else you may believe, portion control does not work. This is an empirically proven fact. Worse, it has also been proven in the bitter tears of a million believers. But why doesn’t it work? Because restricting calories causes a compensatory increase in hunger and a decrease in the body’s metabolic rate. This effect derails weight-loss efforts and ultimately ends in failure.
Intermittent fasting succeeds because it produces beneficial hormonal changes that chronic caloric deprivation does not. Most importantly, it reduces insulin and insulin resistance.” [1]
NOTE – What does it say?
Fasting is when we stop taking in all forms of nutrition, especially those which have sugar in its various forms. It is an all-or-nothing strategy; we turn eating to “off.” When the body senses nothing coming into the digestive system, the body begins to make hormonal changes to switch to burning fat, which is stored in the human body specifically for this purpose. Fat, in other words, is the auxiliary gas tank of the body, and many of us have very large tanks that are completely full of fuel.
So whatever else you may believe, portion control does not work. This is an empirically proven fact.
Calorie restriction, which is the typical understanding of a diet, is a completely different digestive strategy. With calorie restriction we do not stop eating but instead limit what we eat. Rather than turning the eating switch to off (fasting), we turn a volume control downward by eating less … but more than “off.” Portion control – calorie restriction – is a volume control, not a switch. And a decreased volume of food doesn’t work long term.
Combined with a tendency to follow a pattern which the body can detect in calorie restriction, this strategy is not only a failure but is dangerous to the goal of wishing to weigh less: restricting calories causes a compensatory increase in hunger and a decrease in the body’s metabolic rate. This effect derails weight-loss efforts and ultimately ends in failure. Portion control doe not work as a weight-loss strategy.
STRATEGY: Do not practice “volume control” dieting; practice “on/off switch fasting” in 24 hour long units or longer.
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SOURCE – Footnotes:
[1] Quote from The Diabetes Code: Prevent and Reverse Type 2 Diabetes Naturally by Dr. Jason Fung; Greystone Books (April 3, 2018). Page 229.
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Key: Fung-16 Shipped: 05/04/2021. Updated 01/11/2022.