Fasting Q&A with Dr Jason Fung: Loose Skin, Fasting with Thyroid Issues, Fat Bombs vs Fat Fasting, Fasting with Osteoporosis, and More

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
Before we get started with today's
episode, I would like to quickly read
you our podcast disclaimer.
This podcast is for educational purposes
only and it is not to
substitute for professional care by a
doctor or other qualified medical
professional.
You should always speak with your physician

(00:27):
or other healthcare professionals before
doing any fasting, changing
your diet in any way, taking or
adjusting any medications or supplements, or
adopting any treatment planned for
a health problem.
The use of any other products or
services purchased by you as a result

(00:47):
of this podcast does not create
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any of the experts affiliated with
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not been evaluated by the Food and
Drug Administration and are not

(01:08):
intended to diagnose, treat, cure,
or prevent any disease.
Alright, and now we'll get started with
today's episode.
Welcome, everyone.
My name is Lisa Chance.
I'm a fasting coach here at TFM.
We are here today with our very own Dr.
Fung for our monthly Q&A.
This is a monthly Q&A where he answers

(01:30):
questions submitted by our TFM Community
members. Hello to our podcast listeners
who will be able to listen to this Q&A
with Dr. Fung a few weeks after
our Community members.
Please remember that Dr. Fung cannot answer
any medical questions.
He's here to answer your
fasting and nutrition questions.

(01:52):
This question, I found kind of intriguing.
It was quite a long question, but
I kind of broke it down to what I believe she
was trying to ask.
She was talking about, you know, how, in
the past, women would transition from
perimenopausal to postmenopausal
much easier, before we started getting all
this processed food and everything.

(02:13):
So she's saying she's hoping that
you may be able to offer us women in
this category, that are eating holistically
and getting our insulin down, would
doing that help us transition
without hormone replacement therapy
easier? Are there any research
articles on that, including

(02:34):
helping with symptoms like hot
flashes and the other things that come with
transition into menopause.
Yeah, that's a great question.
Unfortunately, I don't know the answer to
that. A lot of the data around
ultra-processed foods is relatively
new, so we don't know.
My guess is that it's

(02:54):
a bigger problem than most of us
recognize.
In the past, people talked about
ultra-processed foods, mostly, in terms of
maybe the chemicals that they add are
bad for us, but there's actually a lot more
to it than that.
The processing not only can add
chemicals, but the way that it changes
the physical structure of the food can

(03:15):
be very bad, the speed of absorption.
So, if you eat ultra-processed foods, it
tends to deliver the insulin and the glucose
spikes very much higher and very
much quicker, which makes a big difference.
There's other things other than the
chemical additives that may be an issue with
ultra-processed foods and how they affect
menopause. I don't know that there's a lot of

(03:36):
research into that.
My guess is that it's probably
very important, but
the data is still sort of to
come. So I couldn't give a definitive answer.
The other question about women tolerating
menopause better, it always gets
confounded because you can't tell if old
studies show-- you know, people just

(03:57):
didn't complain about it as much, right?
It was sort of one of these things that
you had to deal with.
So nobody really took it seriously, right?
There is-- especially when you go into the
older literature, there's a lot of sort of
sexist points of view, in that case.
You know, it was very male dominated, the
research back then.
So these things weren't taken that seriously.
So is it just that we're acknowledging it

(04:19):
more or is it due to the ultra-processed
foods?
Hard to know. If I had to guess, I'd say the
ultra-processed foods makes a big, big
difference. I think it impacts a lot of
things that we're not fully aware of these
days. So I think that movement towards
natural foods is a good one.
It's just not easy because it
dominates the American diet.

(04:41):
Mainlining! You know, it goes in so fast,
it's just kind of insane.
All right, this person says, "I'm new
to joining the Community and I feel
like my learning curve is
vertical. Should I really learn
the science behind all of this and
get my sea legs with fasting (such
as solid TRE, doing 16/8

(05:03):
on eating days, and maybe a few days a
week of 24s), and then
start joining a coaching group
or even solo, and then later
dive into therapeutic fasting or
should I join a coaching group
right away?"
I would join right away because there's
always things to learn.

(05:23):
You don't have to understand the science of
it to do it.
You can just do it. And that's the whole
Community program, which is now laid out in
a weekly session. It has things to
focus on - you know, the eating goals,
the fasting goals - but also very important
are the accountability goals and there's
mindset goals and so on.

(05:44):
That really helps you because the whole point
is that just knowing that you're supposed to
do something is not necessarily going
to make you do it.
Like for example, we all know we should
exercise, we all know we should floss our
teeth. It doesn't mean that I'm going to do
it. But what makes it
easier is, you know, one,
establishing that habit, but also getting

(06:05):
into groups where people talk about it.
It sort of becomes a bit more top of mind
so that you think, "Okay, well, maybe I could
skip this," you know, "Maybe I don't need to
eat right away.".
So a lot of the sort of aspects
of losing weight are actually
much easier done in a group,
in a supportive setting.
We know how important it is for all other

(06:25):
aspects of behavior change, like Alcoholics
Anonymous, right?
It's not a magic program.
If you did it yourself, you'd probably be 10
% as successful as what they are
because they leverage a
lot of the sort of accountability, they have
sponsors, right?
So they have people you can talk to, you can
always talk to-- there's group meetings,

(06:47):
there's all the social things.
That's what we're trying to create in the
Community is a social support network
where we all help each other
achieve those goals by talking about
it, by thinking about it, by sharing tips,
that kind of thing.
And that's what you can't get just
by reading a book or whatever,
right? And that's the thing.

(07:08):
If we could all-- it's like going to
university. If all you needed to do is read a
book, nobody would pay that amount of money
to go to university.
[laughs] It makes no sense at all.
It's a lot of money, it's a lot of years.
But it's because everything we do,
practically, is done better with a
guide, with a teacher, with a peer group.
You know, keeping yourself accountable by

(07:28):
keeping it fun, that kind of thing.
So I would definitely join the group.
And like I said, the way it's set up now is
you don't need to understand anything, you
can just do it.
And then, as you go, learn some
of the stuff we're talking about, why we're
doing what we're doing, so you understand why
it is. But, yeah, I would definitely try to
take advantage of the program which is set
out very practically now just to

(07:50):
do this, do this, do this.
And then the groups which are there to
help you do that.
You're talking about the 12-week cohort that
comes with membership, and that is excellent.
And I can tell you, as a coach,
I can see my clients who
have accountability buddies, who check
in with me or somebody else every week,
they do so much better.

(08:11):
It's just easier for them, you know?
So, absolutely.
Change all those behavioral habits
too, right?
This person says, "I believe I read or
heard you say something to the effect of
it's difficult to shed loose
skin in autophagy when
you have lost the same weight over
and over again (regained it and lost

(08:32):
it again) throughout your life.
Could you please talk more about that?"
I don't know that there's much data.
I mean, the loose-skin issue is something
that there's not a lot of data on.
What's interesting is that most people
think of fat loss as purely
fat, but it's not.
There's actually a lot of associated
tissue.

(08:53):
One study (and I was trying to find it again,
because I actually thought it was super
interesting) looked at fat cells,
and what percentage is actually fat and
what percentage is actually sort of proteins.
And I think it was around 60-something
percent of the fat cell that is
actually fat.
Obviously, it changes depending how big it
is. But what it points out is that, whenever

(09:13):
you're trying to lose fat, you're actually
not trying to just lose fat, you're trying to
lose both fat and protein, which consists
of skin, connective
tissue, blood vessels, all that kind of
thing. You get a sense of how much
it can be when you see some of these shows
on TV where they do the skin surgery
and, you know, people who have lost a lot of

(09:34):
fat they take off-- like, they literally cut
off like 25 pounds of skin
and tissue, right? And that's not fat, that's
protein.
So the whole point is, during autophagy
during fasting, you can activate a
little bit of this protein breakdown and it
doesn't necessarily mean that you're losing
muscle. Everybody says this, "You're losing
muscle, you're losing muscle." No, no there's

(09:54):
a lot of protein that needs to go in addition
to the fat. And that's why when we had our
clininc, you know, even when people
were losing lots of weight, they were having
a lot less problems with the loose skin
than before.
You know, the fasting is a useful method
to try to get, not just getting the
fat, but also getting a little bit of that

(10:14):
protein down.
And the autophagy, as best as we can guess,
is somewhere around 20 to 30 hours is gonna
be the sweet spot.
When you get beyond 30 hours, your body
mostly is just burning fat, so, therefore,
you're not losing as much lean tissue.
And that's the thing that people always harp
on and on about is like, "Oh, you've got lean
muscle loss." And I'm thinking, "You wanna

(10:36):
have a little bit of lean muscle loss because
it's not purely fat."
So if it's a 100% fat tissue, you're gonna be
left with all this excess skin, which is not
a good thing. It's just useless stuff.
So fasting is a great way, and,
when we started, it was one of these sort of
things that people recognized.
It was very important because they didn't see
it in other forms because the other forms of

(10:58):
the calorie restriction didn't have that
benefit of having autophagy and
so on.
This person is taking thyroid medication
and they want to know whether there are any
special tricks or accommodations
in their fasting schedule when
they do have thyroid issues?
And I would say it depends on if you're

(11:18):
in a flare or not, and if you've checked your
labs level, right?
Absolutely. It always comes down to checking
the labs because that's the only way--
symptoms are a very poor guide to
what your thyroid level is.
And when you're fasting, we've actually heard
a lot of people, a lot of people say that
their thyroids get better.
Certain thyroid diseases are autoimmune

(11:40):
in nature, which means that it's your own
immune system which is suppressing or
destroying your thyroid function.
So they become hypothyroid and they need
thyroid medication. However, if you
do the fasting-- and this is anecdotal
but a lot of people have said they check
their thyroid and it's actually getting
better. And that's possible because, if
the immune system is settling down--

(12:02):
so again, autoimmune means your immune
system is attacking itself which means it's
really overactive.
When you don't eat your body wants to
sort of shut down anything, and so an
overactive immune system is going to get
reduced to sort of a normal level, and,
therefore, maybe the thyroid actually
improves, which means that the thyroid
medication you're actually overdosing on.
So then that's a problem.

(12:23):
But again, the symptoms are a poor guide.
You actually have to check with your blood
work to see.
But we've had lots of people say, "Oh,
yeah, I started doing the fasting and then I
got off all my thyroid medication." And it's
like it shouldn't actually affect the
thyroid, but, because it is a common thing
that happens, this autoimmune thyroiditis,
we do hear it quite a bit, actually.

(12:43):
So it's an interesting phenomenon.
Yeah, I have had several clients.
And I have one client who actually had
thyroid cancer, and she
hit it hard, therapeutic fasting,
you know, but she always checked her levels
every six weeks so that her medication was
adjusted accordingly.
And all her cysts
are now empty on imaging.

(13:06):
Of course, the doctors are freaking out and
she keeps telling them, "I've been fasting,"
and they're like, "How can this have been
reversed like this?" [laughter] So
it's pretty cool.
She's like yelling from the room because
they're bringing in another radiologist and,
you know, another doctor and they're like,
"We've got the wrong X-ray comparison," and
she's like, "I'm fasting!" [laughs]
Yeah, they don't understand it that that's

(13:27):
why because they never learned about it.
There was a patient I had who had hemorrhagic
cysts, which were bleeding a lot, actually.
I actually even wound up having to get part
of one kidney taken out because the kidney
cysts were always bleeding.
Anyway, they started fasting and, again,
it's the same thing.
When you fast, your body wants to sort of
shut down any exogenous-- instead of

(13:48):
trying to grow, it tries to sort of maintain
and repair.
And cysts are growing.
So, therefore, when you're fasting, it tries
to reduce that excessive growth.
And, in fact, her cysts just totally
stabilized, she stopped bleeding.
And, again, it started to shrink, and the
same thing. She'd go and get an ultrasound
and they're like, "Wow, this can't be, this
can't be right." And she's just thinking, you

(14:09):
know, "It's okay!" [laughs]
But it's exciting as a coach,
you know, to hear that this has happened.
Whether they're cysts in the breasts, or
cysts in the kidneys, or cysts in the
thyroid, it just really-- it makes me
feel so good, it's so rewarding.
So thank you for that Dr. Fung.
This person says, "I've read your blog post
about who should avoid fat bombs.

(14:30):
You want enough fat, but not too much
fat. So how does that apply
to a fat fast?
How many grams of fat should we be
eating per meal, per day
on a fat fast?" And I know
our fat fast is about 80%
fat, right, unless it's the plant-based, then
it's about 70%.
Yeah. So the fat is interesting because the

(14:52):
way it's metabolized is that, when you eat
fat, it doesn't go to your liver.
It sort of just gets absorbed through the
lymph and then gets deposited into the blood
where the fat cells then take it out.
So it sort of goes directly into fat
storage.
So that's why eating fat bombs--
and so fat bombs was this sort of older
idea, which I don't know that anybody does

(15:13):
too much anymore. It was this
sort of ultra-fat, you know, something that
is just very, very, very high in fat, which
people could eat whenever you wanted and
however much you wanted.
The problem is that, when you go into
ketosis-- ketosis is
interesting because it tells you that you're
in a fat-burning state, which is

(15:33):
fine, but if you're adding fat at the same
time and you're burning fat, well, then
you're not losing fat.
So eating a lot of fat bombs for no reason
is not that good for you.
It doesn't make you lose weight.
The fat fast is different.
You're not trying to eat a whole lot of fat
for no reason. You're just trying to eat
enough that you're taking the edge

(15:54):
off that hunger.
So, even if you don't lose weight, at least
you're getting your body used to the whole
process of getting into ketosis and all
that. So that's why we call it a training
wheel, because you're not going to get as
much fat loss than if you did a
full, water-only fast, for example.
because on a water -only fast, you're burning
your fat, but you're not adding fat back in,

(16:15):
right? A fat fast is just to take that sort
of edge off, make it easier, and
get you into it. And a lot of people find
that, when they do that, because the amount
of fat they're burning in a day is a lot less
than they're taking in, they're still losing
weight on it. And again, you just wanna eat
enough that you're not hungry.
The point is to make it easier.
It's not better, necessarily, but some people

(16:37):
get great results because you're not having
so much of the hunger.
You have to realize that there's different
reasons why people eat and some people
just feel that deprivation, they feel
like, you know, if they can't eat anything
then they're going to wind up binging.
So you're just trying to dial it down a
little bit so that you're taking it a little
easier into that whole

(16:59):
process.
But, yeah, fat bombs is
not what we're aiming for with the fat fast.
What we're trying to do is just sort of dial
back the feeling of hunger, the feeling of
deprivation, that kind of thing.
And, you know, from experience, I think it
works actually quite well.
You know, personally, when I used to do
some five-day fasts, and it used to be like a

(17:19):
water-only, like, three or four days, it was
getting, not difficult-- the physical
hunger was never the hardest part.
The hardest part was always that sort of
mental psychological, "Whoa, I really,
really want to eat this because it's really
delicious." And that's where I
found it useful to have a little bit.
That's not a full, classic

(17:40):
fast. On the other hand, it was enough to
take the edge off, but not enough that I
wasn't still losing weight and getting the
other benefits. So it's all a matter
of finding what works for you.
What works for me, may mean something-- you
know, I need it usually around day three, day
four. Some people might need it day onen and
that's okay.
Yes, you're not going to lose as much weight,

(18:01):
but you will still lose weight.
I tried the fasting-mimicking diet and
I actually thought it was too much.
I couldn't eat the whole thing because I
didn't need to. So I didn't, right?
So I think the first day is like, you know,
1100 calories sort of thing, but it was
too much. I was like, "I can't eat all that,"
right? It's like, on a fasting day, that's
just way too much for me, so I actually

(18:22):
just dialed it back. I think I took half of
what they did and it really made it easy, I
have to say, but, for me, it was just too
much. SO you have to always adjust.
And the fat bombs is this idea that you
could indulge yourself and eat as much as you
want because it's a free food.
It's not a free food, but the fat fast is
to dial back that hunger.
We often get this question from clients, and

(18:44):
it's a training wheel, or a fat bomb or,
you know,-- I would always use a tablespoon
of really good-- I live
near Napa, so really good, artisanal,
farmers' market olive oil that's
locally grown and really fresh,
and I would just take a tablespoon of that.
It had a lot of antioxidants in it.
And I would take that any time of the day or

(19:05):
night if I was struggling-- when I first
started, if I was struggling.
And I always looked at it as kind of priming
the pump. You always talk about two different
ovens, right?
A glucose-burning oven and a fat-burning
oven. I wanna get over to that
fat-burning oven.
So I followed your advice, but I'm talking
one tablespoon. I'm not taking a 500-calorie

(19:25):
fat bomb drink, right?
A big difference.
Yeah, exactly. These were like little treats
that you could make and stuff, where-- I
mean, they're quite a lot, right?
And it's exactly right.
That's the way to do it, is just to get over
there so that you're still staying in that
fat-burning state, but you're taking
a little bit, but, because it's mostly fat,

(19:46):
you're still staying in that fat-burning
state. You are adding a little bit of fat
back, obviously, that's what you have to do,
but, because you're staying in there, then
you're managing the hunger.
But you're managing the sort of mental side
as well, and that's important.
It's not that, you know, "Oh, goody, I can
have a fasting aid." It's
like, "Do I *need* a fasting aid?

(20:07):
Do I really need it right now?
Will it help me fast another 12 hours?"
If not, if I'm just having it because I can
have it, that's, you know, that's not the
way we do it, right?
[laughs]
Exactly, exactly.
And that was the thing that I found.
Sometimes it was that, you know,
it's like, "Oh, you can have all this." And I
was like, "I don't need all that.

(20:29):
I'm perfectly fine with like this much."
That's all I need to take, right?
Because I want my body to burn my own
fat. I don't need it to burn the fat that I'm
taking in. I'd rather take a little less and
let my body burn my own fat and my own sugar.
Yes. I have two DEXA questions.
So this person says, "Last summer I did a
DEXA scan and I noticed

(20:50):
that I had gone from osteopenia to
osteoporosis.
Since then, I have been fitting
in workouts, resistance training.
What is the best way to fit
in workouts around my fasting
schedule?
Should I exercise in the fasted state or
not?" That type of thing.
Yeah, I think exercising in the

(21:12):
fasted state is beneficial.
And then, some people, what they do, if
they're trying to build muscle (not bone but
muscle), is eat some high-protein foods
within sort of like four hours, six
hours after the fasting and
the workout because you're more primed
to build muscle in that state.
For osteoporosis, it's a lot less well

(21:33):
defined because people don't know.
So people used to think, "Well, it's a
calcium deficiency." It's not a calcium
deficiency at all.
If you look at osteoporosis around
the world, for example, in Japan,
they drink about a third of the calcium that
Americans do, but they have like 10 times
less osteoporotic fractures.
It's a huge difference.

(21:54):
The question is what causes that difference?
And it's not the calcium, that's the point.
Because we all get into this state where
everybody's like, "Well, you should drink
more milk and you should take more calcium.".
I don't think that's the issue.
I think the issue is, one, bones
get stronger when you put stress
on them.
So if you're sitting a lot--

(22:15):
and this is the whole problem with
North America, in general, is that
you're sitting more during the day,
you're using your car.
When you live in the suburbs, for example,
you're driving everywhere as opposed to
walking, so you're not putting the stress
on the bones.
It's only putting stress on bones that

(22:35):
causes the bones to get stronger.
That's why astronauts get osteoporosis.
They're eating fine.
So everybody thinks it's, "What am I eating?
What am I eating? Eat more of this." No, no,
no. If you need strong bones, you need
to put stress on the bone.
If you want strong muscles, you need to put
stress on the muscles.
You can't eat your way out of these things.
Can you adjust your eating?
Well, the fasting may help because of the

(22:57):
increased growth hormone, but that may take a
little bit longer.
So you may have to get into the longer fasts
to do that.
And of course, when you're eating, you want
to make sure you're getting all your good
vitamins when you eat.
You don't have to eat all the time, but you
want to make sure that you get it.
You probably need to get out in the sun, you
know, vitamin D is very important.
I used to measure vitamin D levels in my

(23:19):
patients, and, like, 90% of
them were low because, for so long,
we've been so sort of, "Stay out of the
sun, stay out of the sun," that a
lot of us are low in vitamin D, and
vitamin D is obviously very important for
bone development.
So osteoporosis is a tricky one because
it's actually tied into a whole lot of

(23:39):
things, but, essentially, the resistance
exercises-- it's more than the exercise
because it's the everyday 'what are you
doing?' sort of thing, right?
So if you look at a lot of
places around the world, they do
better because it's not so
car-centric. Like, you go to certain cities
and everywhere you go, you walk.

(24:00):
You know, I remember in Italy, there was
this-- you know, you just-- one, you're just
walking everywhere, and, two, there's hills
everywhere, right?
So you're always walking up and down
stairs. And again, you're putting more
stress because, let's say, even when you're
going downhill or downstairs, you're putting
a little extra jolt against your bones,
which is going to make it stronger.

(24:21):
So it's fine to get that extra 30
minutes, three times a week of your exercise,
but it's, like, what are you doing ten hours
a day? Are you walking everywhere?
That's what's going to make a difference in
the long term. It's not that it's so much of
a difference, but a little difference over a
long period of time can still be a big
difference.
So osteoporosis is tough, but it's definitely

(24:42):
something that increased stress on
the bone is probably the most important
thing.
How do you feel about K2, specifically
D3 and K2 supplementation?
K2 is probably much more
important than we thought.
It's one of these vitamins that lately
has been-- people are recognizing how
important K2 is.
So vitamin D and K2, I see it together

(25:05):
a lot now too, so people will take it in the
same pill almost. So it is worth taking those
vitamins if you want, but getting out
in the sun is probably as good as anything
too, you know.
[unintelligible] is the new smoking they say
so, yeah, get out and you know walk a little
bit throughout the day.
The other DEXA question is," I've

(25:25):
finally gotten to my goal of 25% body
fat. I'm no longer type 2 diabetic
and have reversed my non-alcoholic fatty
liver disease, but I want to get
that final 5% off.
What fasting regime would
you suggest for getting to that last
bit of weight loss?"
Again, everything works differently

(25:46):
for different people.
So I don't know that there's a
best. I think you have to try them and
then see what really works well for
yourself. It's no different--
like some people like to eat lamb and
some people don't. Some people love tofu
and some people don't.
And some people love eggplant, some people--
It doesn't mean one's right and one's wrong,

(26:06):
right? So if you find that
one meal a day works really well, fits into
your schedule, is easy for
you to do, other people find it really
difficult. So it's not that that's
the best for everybody, but it'll
be the best for you.
So I would try the regular ones,
but then the ones that people haven't tried

(26:27):
as much are the longer fasts.
Lately, I've found them more useful,
these longer fasts of three to five days,
but not a full fast, like with a little bit
of vegetables or something, because I
find, for myself anyway, that it winds
up dominating my thoughts by day three
and day four.
It's like, all I'm thinking about is, "Oh,
this is what I'm gonna eat when I eat." But

(26:49):
not the physical hunger.
There actually is almost no physical hunger.
I never feel the physical hunger on day
three, day four, but I feel the sort of,
"Oh, I should do this." And I don't know if
it's because you get exposed to it so much
because you drive on the highway, you see
signs, you see the McDonald's,
you see the Tim Hortons at the hospital.
It's just in your face all the time.

(27:09):
So that's why I actually think that
those ones are, actually, I find very useful
these days, whereas before I used to
do a lot more of the 24-hour fasts.
And it may change over time too.
So that's why I switched over to
doing-- you know, I still do the 24-hour
fasts, but now have these sort of longer
fasts.
And that's not something everybody's done

(27:31):
before. And it might be useful
to have a coach. And this is where the
Community is helpful because they say, "Well,
this is what I found useful for me." It
doesn't mean it'll be helpful for you.
It means you can try it and then decide for
yourself, "Hey, this was fantastic,"
or, "This one really was hard.
I don't think I can do it." And it's okay.
You're only responsible for yourself, but

(27:53):
it doesn't mean that, just because it didn't
work for you and it worked for me,
it means that I'm right or wrong.
No, it just means that you have to have some
acknowledgement that, "Hey, this is what I
tried and this was what works best for me."
Some people don't like fasting at all, and
it's okay. If you don't like the fasting, you
can always change your diet to sort
of natural foods or low-carb foods.

(28:14):
It works just fine.
I think that it is useful adjunct
for a lot of different things.
So that's why.
The best fast is the one you can do, right?
And learning all of this, the art of the
pivot. You know, do you need to pivot up, do
you need to pivot down?
Learning to trust your body again, all of
this. This is all the things we teach, right?

(28:35):
Yes, exactly.
All right. So thank you, Dr. Fung.
I am going to go over some of the
questions that were repeat questions and tell
people where they can find the answers on
previous podcasts and articles.
We get a lot of questions about calories.
Calories, calories, calories!
The best resources that you can go look
at is if you look under 'Resources'

(28:55):
on our website, all right,
and go to drop down menu and
you'll see Dr. Fung's Medium articles -
'The Overfeeding Paradox'.

'The Body Fat Thermoset (29:05):
Part
6' is one of those articles that
you can read about calories.
And also another one of his Medium
articles is 'What Ozempic,
Wegovy, Mounjaro Teaches
Us About Weight Loss.
It's about controlling hunger,
not calories' that's the title.

(29:28):
Another one that you could look up that's
not on our website, but is by Dr.
Ben Bikman, who Dr. Fung highly
respects.
His article is 'Four Reasons
Calorie Counting Doesn't
Work'. It's an excellent article.
Also, some people asked about kidney
stones.
You will find answers to that

(29:50):
on podcast #189.
Another one sent in the questions
about the American Heart Association
that was blasting fasting and how
dangerous it was, and increased your risk
of heart attack and heart issues.
Dr. Fung did a rebuttal article to
that. You can find that under the Medium

(30:11):
articles also.
Please remember that it was a poster
presentation.
It was not a research article.
It was also a questionnaire type
of data gathering, which is the most
inaccurate. It was over an eighteen-year
period and people
did not consider having

(30:31):
a coffee and a croissant in
the morning as a meal, they considered
that as still part of fasting.
And nobody was intentionally fasting
on that poster presentation.
We have a bunch of information on that and
various threads over in the Community forum.
Somebody also asked about protein,

(30:53):
the amount of protein.
Dr. Fung, again, referenced that on the
last podcast of his, which was
#189.
And then somebody also was
asking about at-home hemoglobin
A1C testing devices.
There are several that are out there.
I personally like P

(31:15):
(as in Peter) T (as in Tom)
S (as in Sam) -
ptsdiagnostics.com.
I have no kickback on that or anything.
There are several that are out there.
That's just the ones that we used in the
hospital.
I would watch the instruction video
several times if you're going to
do this at home because it is a little
complicated about doing the quality assurance

(31:37):
and stuff on it.
They are reasonably accurate.
They are required by FDA to be within
6-8% of what a
lab value would be.
So you have the convenience of doing it at
home. It usually takes about five minutes.
The more of them you buy,
the less expensive they are.
So you can buy packs of one, three,

(31:59):
all the way up to twelve I believe.
All right? I did it one year while I
did a trailing hemoglobin A1C.
In other words, I tested it every month
instead of waiting
three months. Because remember a hemoglobin
A1C is the amount of glycation, the
amount of sugar attached to a red blood cell
over a three-month period.

(32:22):
And I did one every month just
to see if what I was doing, my lifestyle,
was changing.
So it can be very effective to
help track those, but, again, they are more
expensive.
You could be paying about anywhere between
$50-75 if you were
purchasing it individually, whereas, if
you bought it in a pack and maybe did your

(32:44):
family members-- I did my friends and
family and I bought a big pack.
And so then I was more around $12
on those, all right?
Insurance may not cover your home-testing
equipment for this, so I would ask,
but, again, pay careful attention to
the techniques and instructions on

(33:04):
that.

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