https://drjasonfung.medium.com/auto...ss-207aebb70377

I'm sure it will help some people, who are not aware of how they are constantly keeping their bodies in a state of Digestion.

Dr. Fung helped me realize how much energy we use digesting our food, including gearing up and tapering off. Low carb amazed me when my Atkins lunch would not knock me out like a Mickey Finn. Then, fasting amazed me by helping me realize our bodies need the resources I used up in the past, by constantly triggering the digestive cycle.

When I ate the right foods, I could eat as much as I wanted. And NOT eat as much as I wanted

I work at home, so the office model doesn't apply to me.

I drove cars before cup holders, we just got inventive. They were invented in the 1960s, just not built in until the 1980s. But we had those things that hung on the door from the slot in the window-frame.

TV Tables for eating in front of TVs were invented in the 1950s.

I grew up in the 1950s-1960s when cookies and (full-fat) milk greeted most children after school, candy bars were a nickel, and a bag of potato chips cost a dime. You could even get penny candy.

I don't know about the real world, but if you look at old movies, people are often eating at their desks.

Personally I think he is barking up the wrong tree.

The three main differences I see are:

1) The fat-free diet propaganda. Too much starch/sugar and not enough fat.

2) Soft drinks were something that we enjoyed on special occasions. Some people never drink water, it's soda-pop or just-as-bad a sports drink.

3) High Fructose corn syrup which I read and believe is even worse than refined sugar

Now I do think his suggestions will help some but we also need will power.

I'm an entertainer, and just this week we played a 90th birthday party, and of course they wanted to share cake with the band. A lot of our gigs involve dinner followed by dancing. The hosts often want to show their appreciation by offering us something sweet to eat. I have the will power to say "No thank you", if they insist, I tell them, "I'd love to but it's doctor's orders". I don't need to let them know it's Dr. Atkins.

We have to accept responsibility for what we eat. I come from a family where I am the only person under 300 pounds. My parents both died early from obesity related diseases, and I figured that could be my future if I didn't do something about it.

I tried a few different diets before I found keto (we called it Atkins Induction then). I've been on it for decades now. I know how to say "No thank you."

Lazy keto works for me. Fewer than 1800 calories and 20 grams of carb per day plus twice as much fat as protein.

I'm in the low to mid 170s now and my BMI is on the high side of normal, but it's still normal and not overweight. When I started the BMI said obese.

With the right diet for you and enough self-discipline, most people can do this. It wasn't easy at first, but not dying early is a good incentive.

Which diet is best for you is another question. Easy keto works for me, but it took trying a few until I found out what worked for me.

And it's good for my health, I'm 75 and on zero prescriptions or non prescription medications. I get a mild, 2-day cold every 10-15 years and that's it. I never had a flu shot, and haven't gotten the flu since I went keto. I did get the COVID jabs, because right or wrong, that one scares me.

Barring an accident, I plan to live well past 100.

Good article, and he's right. Humans have morphed into creatures that must have food available for every portion of the day. "Eat many small meals throughout the day," is an oxymoron that must have been promoted by the ADA for those trying to prevent hypoglycemia, but for those who don't (yet) have T2D, it makes zero sense. One of the key principles helping me early on is the timing of meals and eating. Time Restricted Eating is not a new novelty, it's the way most ate before being inundated with "foods" intended to prevent cravings, not real hunger. But it's so different from the way people eat today, that in some circles it's considered fasting . . . . . . .

I think Jason Fung might be romanticizing the past although certainly our eating patterns have changed and the availability of food has increased along with the types of food available. But when I was a child we did have snacks, one at school between breakfast and lunch and one between lunch and dinner, when we got home from school. There was a daily routine to eating and other than the snacks eating between meals did not happen so as not to ruin one's appetite for the upcoming meal. We also almost never went out to eat. In my household there was a definite routine and no junk, no soda, no candy, hardly ever any cakes or cookies. Certainly meal timing matters but there are other factors at work here also, social climate, food climate, ubiquity of fast foods, low fat idiocy.

I laughed. Then I pondered: isn't it strange how easily people accept what an authority says... and not listen to YOU?

Also, I wonder if Dr Fung is trying the water dripping on rock approach. Because most people are utterly embedded in their eating habits; we're a rare bunch

Yes they do. And that's the end of it. It also ends with a smile.

Of course they might be secretly guessing what is wrong with me, but no one has ever asked. If they did, I'd gently let them know it's private.

I do the same when they want to buy me drinks. I don't drink on the job as I think I need to be at my very best both playing sax/flute/guitar/wind-synthesizer/vocals, and constantly assessing the audience so I can pace them and play the right songs at the right time to give them the best experience I can for the evening.

I don't want to insult them, so by saying something like, "Thank you, I'd love to but --- doctor's orders" it refuses their generosity, but puts the blame on someone else, so they don't end up with hurt feelings and they don't try to insist (with rare exceptions).

Remember, when they offer you food or drink, they are offering you love. You don't want to turn down their love, but if the doctor says "no" they understand you aren't turning down their love, but the doctor put you on a restriction.

Back to Dr. Fung...

One of my hobbies is travel. I live very, very modestly and instead of using my money to buy possessions, I travel.

I've noticed monkeys in the wild eat all day. They find a spot with ripe food, then when they have exploited that, go in search of the next one. It's not 3 meals a day, but eating a little bit here, and a little bit there all day.

Like those monkeys, we are primates too.

Of course they aren't eating ultra-processed food or drinking HFCS drinks either, and they are moving a lot, not sitting at a desk.

Same for the squirrels and birds in my back yard. The only time they seem to quit foraging is in the hottest part of the day (siesta time).

We humans have an abundance of food, and we don't have to walk very far to get it. Plus we eat the wrong things.

Thanks to modern food distribution we have food available, but we also have the wrong food available.

Look at nature. The fattening foods like fruit, tubers, and grains ripen right before the starvation season (winter in the temperate/arctic zones and the dry season in the tropics). Native animals eat the fattening food, gain a lot of weight, and during the lean season when food is scarce they depend on those fat reserves to get them through to spring (or the rainy season).

By that time they lost most of their fat.

Bears come out of hibernation wanting protein and when fall comes it's fruit and berries.

We have fruit and berries all year long plus we have all kinds of food we weren't meant to eat.

I'm not a doctor, but I think eating the wrong foods and not exercising enough have more of an impact than the 3 meals a day theory.

Of course YMMV

Bob

When I was a kid (call it fifty years ago) we didn't have snacks at school -- you had lunch that that was that. We (my family) seldom had snacks at home because we couldn't afford them. We did have sit down dinner and that time was for eating -- the TV was off and of course there was no such thing as cell phones and the like. Eating out was a very rare thing -- perhaps four to six times a year. Fast food was anything buy convenient -- I don't recall when I saw my first drive-thru (though they certainly predate me, few places had them). You wanted McDonald's, you parked and walking inside and ordered and waited for your order. But everything was also hot and fresh and tasted great, unlike today when you almost always get dead crap that's been sitting there way too long.

We didn't eat very healthy at home -- lots of macaroni and cheese, usually with some hamburger tossed in, lots of bread, lots of anything that was cheap. But we were a lot more active. We spent a LOT of time outdoors running around making up our own games. The notion of a motorized Big Wheel, or skateboard, or scooter, or bicycle would have seemed absurd (and, to me, it still does).

We used TV trays in the 1960s, but not every day, it was only when special shows or footballs games were on during dinner (no VCRs or DVRs or streaming; watch now or never).

I think the low-carb craze had the biggest influence. If you eat mostly carbs for a meal, you're hungry 2 hrs later and feel like you needed a snack. Curiously, we did have cookies & milk after school, but during the summer we'd pack our lunches after breakfast and explore and build forts in the woods. The only requirement was to be home at 6:00 pm for dinner. We were so busy we didn't think about or need to eat all day long.

Similar here. We'd leave in the morning and just had to be home by dinner. Though we never thought to pack a lunch because we didn't want to carry it with us and simply went all day without eating anything. We were simply too busy "goofing off" to realize we were hungry. I don't know about my friends, but I almost never ate breakfast, either. But after dinner we would often have some of the leftovers before bed. I always thought it was because I had gone all day without eating that made me hungry again before bed after stuffing myself at dinner. But looking back I suspect it was the huge carb loading that dinner almost always represented.

This was mostly my experience too. When available, I would pick the meat out of the stew to avoid the vegetables, which were never something I liked, and happily avoid today My Thanksgiving was lots of turkey, biscuits with butter, and pumpkin pie.

But I while I disliked rice and gravy, I was helpless before noodles. Which was a favorite Midwest "stretcher." It made me eat, then eat more.

Thank you, but my doctor told me I cannot have that.

What a wonderful line! Wish I had know about it the other day when a friend arrived with eclairs. I had told her I did not eat fruit so she brought eclairs.

Some women (I don't know if this is true of men too) can't come for a visit without bringing food of some kind. Usually a sweet or something made with grains. I am always at a loss to know what to say. Because of my past history I cannot throw away food. So I do not accept the gift. But how to refuse a gift without hurting the giver's feelings? This is a good one. Thanks.

In the before times, when our friends gathered at restaurants far more often I would explain to the server, with a sigh and a sad face, "I'm sorry, but I have to be gluten free," it went over much better. It sort of conveyed this same state.

Men are known to bring chips and beer

I usually bring something. I try to judge what I'll bring. For example: If I know the host drinks wine, I'll bring a nice bottle.

My father used to always bring sweets. I've given them up because of what they did to my parents.

Bob