1. I know this is off topic and you might not answer it but I was just curious to know what made you decide to break away from Dr. Fung and the low carb community in general? No one else seems to have the same approach to obesity that you do and I was just wondering what made you go in your own direction.
I usually do not reply to this question because I have addressed it before. I haven't done so in detail though, so I understand the curiosity. For this reason, I am going to reply this time because I think my experience might help others.
I had already lost my weight when I came across Fung. So you have to understand that I was looking at all of this from the stand point of having already reached my goals. I think that is what made me not as vigilant as I should have been over the information that was being given. After all, these were "doctors" and I'm not. I'm just thankful, that because I had already lost my weight, I didn't ended up like so many others who followed this nonsense to their own detriment.
I lost my weight by following a modified carbohydrate restricted diet which was lower in carbs than typical Atkins. I had removed all the sugar and grains from it. I stopped avoiding saturated fats and used them instead of vegetable oils. This was a protocol I had designed for myself after reading 'Good Calories, Bad Calories' by Gary Taubes. I ran across his book during a time I was researching how changes in my diet were affecting my blood glucose.
Later on, when I came across Fung, his protocol made sense as it matched closely to what I had already read. Interestingly enough, I found Fung not through fasting but through cholesterol. Fung had extensive information on cholesterol and saturated fat intake which I was interested in because I had stabilized my blood glucose, lost body fat but started having issues with cholesterol.
Before then, I had never heard of fasting as being "a thing" but I figured it was a new approach for treating diabetes. When I started fasting for 16 -18 hours a day and continued losing weight, it verified to me that everything was Kosher. I failed to realize that the fasting protocol was not what was causing my further weight loss. I had just continued being leptin sensitive and would have resumed losing weight even without the fasting protocol as I had been able to sustain proper blood glucose regulation.
You can see that at this point, I had not delved deeply into human metabolism and obesity research. I was going by basic general information on insulin resistance, provided by the low carb community. I never corroborated what was being said.
As time went on, I started noticing inconsistencies though. For instance, the more people fasted, the less results they seemed to have. This was always downplayed because they would have "lower" blood glucose or "lower" lipids while fasting, "proving" that it was working. They would also lose 5 or 10 pounds and consider that a victory even when they regained them after they ate again. I was baffled as to why these people were being given the same advice to continue with something that was obviously not working. No answers were ever provided to explain this. This bothered me because I figured that if they were clear as to why they believed their protocol worked, they should also be clear as to why it wouldn't. After all, they were the "professionals" but the advice remained to just fast longer. It was as if they couldn't reverse engineer their own theory.
I did not understand why these longer and longer fasts were being promoted when they obviously didn't work. It started to feel like a sporting competition, rather than a serious treatment. This is not how I lost my weight and I didn't see anyone else lose theirs this way either. In fact, the few who were able to succeed, never followed these fasting protocols at all. We were just people who had already lost a significant amount of weight, following a carbohydrate restricted diet, and were now trying to find further information for fine tuning our approach, receive advice for weight maintenance or address new issues that might have arisen during our journey.
Aside from this whole fasting quackery, I saw multiple errors with the dietary advice being given. It seemed like all the emphasis was being put on the ability to fast longer and longer while the diet remained mediocre at best. Many times, the diet would just worsen over time and people would try and "fix it" through longer fasts. Again, that is not how I lost my weight. I lost my weight following an extraordinarily strict diet and I ate every day. I knew that exercise was vitally important as well, as it had been a major part of my journey, but it was always glossed over or not mentioned at all.
I started questioning the people who were giving all of this advice. They weren't nurses or medical professionals. They were just recruited from an online pool of followers and given a fake "fasting coach" title that didn't mean anything. Most of these "fasting coaches" were obese themselves and seriously struggling with the protocol they were advising on. These individuals didn't know anything about how to treat obesity. Many of them were displaying serious disordered eating practices which they were passing on to their "clients". Yet people were paying a program for these nobodies to provide them with "advice" about something they can do themselves.
Finally, I came to the conclusion that all of this was a blatant scam. I can't think of another word that would best describe it. This doesn't just pertain to Fung, by the way. I saw it everywhere in the low carb community. All of these people were basically selling snake oil. From bogus "fasting aids", to useless "one on one" sessions, to books, recipes, website accesses, supplements, event tickets and finally online schools so you can scam too. This is why a lot of these low carb advocates started expanding their scams into other areas like cancer, "longevity", fertility, the magical effects of salt, etc. They knew they couldn't put all their effort into one scam because the gig will eventually be up.
And the gig was up. People were complaining that they weren't getting results or reaching their goals. Many simply gave up and walked away years later, as obese as when they first arrived. I saw people become more obese over time. Some ended in the hospital. Some ended with full blown diabetes and/or other serious conditions. Some ended up dead because they thought they could treat their cancer through fasting and "starving it of sugar". Now the scam was not only simple theft of the naïve but it was actually harming people. And it's all legal because they can simply hide behind their disclaimers and say they had nothing to do with any of it. After all, it's up to you to discuss their "advice" with your doctor.
The followers weren't the only ones who noticed the gig was up. Researchers were coming forward and complaining that their studies were being misinterpreted and misapplied. Some doctors jumped ship as they realized this was a farce and didn't want to be associated with it anymore. More and more quacks and non professionals were being invited to speak at these "conferences" because legitimate people did not want to be caught dead there. A few scandals broke out behind the scenes. Even the goal post was being moved, inch by inch, until weight loss was no longer even being promoted. The entire house of cards was toppling over and low carb's 15 minutes of fame was up.
That's when I left. I didn't want to be associated with that circus. Not only did I leave, but now I was very curious about the naysayers I used to ignore. I became interested in what they had to say rather than just chalk them up to being "hating trolls". I started to do what I should have done from the beginning. I went deep into diabetes and obesity research. Not "low carb" interpreted propaganda but actual medical literature and real biology. I didn't have to go far to realize all of the misinformation being espoused by the low carb community. It only verified that I had done the right thing by leaving.
After I had left, I was finally vindicated in my decision and it occurred in an unexpected way. Dr. Peter Attia conducted an interview with Dr. Tom Dayspring, a board certified doctor of internal medicine and clinical lipidology. Now, Attia may have questionable beliefs but this interview was eye opening as they had a special guest on the show - software engineer Dave Feldman. What occurred during this interview, in my opinion, put the final nail on the coffin for the low carb community. Feldman was embarrassingly obliterated by Dayspring. Feldman knew nothing of what Dayspring was talking about and had to be corrected multiple times. Finally, Dayspring told him, in no uncertain terms, that his "experiments" were already known in the world of lipidology and basically ignored as being absolutely meaningless in the context of cardiovascular disease. Feldman discovered nothing new. He was just witnessing how lipids are supposed to work. The software engineer went back to hiding in his hole and plotting out a new way to make money without working.
Even Attia threw some dirt over Feldman's grave by challenging him to attend a real lipidology conference and present his research, if he was so confident in it, instead of always going to low carb conferences. Of course, Feldman was not up for that task and made multiple excuses as to why he couldn't, even though Attia gave solutions for all his obstacles. Feldman never did take Attia up on that advice, by the way. Instead, as of this post, Feldman now also has some bogus paywall site that teaches you all about cholesterol and helps you do his meaningless experiment at home. The experiment may not protect you from a heart attack but many have used it to help them acquire life insurance. In other words - insurance fraud. This is what made me wonder, what else do these people have wrong? Worse, how many more of them simply don't care they have it wrong?
I now relay what is really known about obesity and diabetes, to my readers, and how they can apply it safely to their lives to help with their treatment. I hope that what I experienced helps people to not take anyone's word for anything. Research it yourself. Cross reference everything. Be very careful because the internet is like the wild west when it comes to information.
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