Article 4: It Was Never About Calories

I weighed over 475 pounds when I began. I say “over” because I had stopped looking. I did not get on the scale for a couple of days after I started my fasting program, so I will never know the real number. There is a point where the number becomes too painful to witness and you simply stop witnessing.

By May 2019 I had shed 240 pounds.

This is the practical article. Here is exactly what I did.

First, Read the Book

Before anything else, read The Obesity Code by Dr. Jason Fung.

This book was a real eye opener. So much of what we have been taught about losing weight is upside down and backward. What we have been doing is both right and wrong, and I think the bottom line is this: we have linked weight loss exclusively to decreasing calories and increasing exercise.

Yes, it matters that we move. But we have completely missed the real issue. Like every other activity in the body, weight is controlled by hormones.

Dr. Fung explains how to get off the diet merry-go-round by resetting what your body believes your set weight should be. Anyone working with people on weight, or trying to lose it themselves, really needs to take the time to get through this book. There are answers in it.

The Whole Thing in One Sentence

Weight is hormonally driven. It is all about keeping insulin as low as possible.

Insulin is the hormone that tells your body to store fat. Every time you eat, insulin rises. Every time you taste something sweet, insulin spikes — and when insulin spikes, whatever you have eaten goes to fat. If insulin is chronically high, your body simply will not release fat, no matter how few calories you eat or how much you exercise. You can starve yourself and stay fat. Most of us have proven that personally.

The only real solution is to stop spiking insulin and give it long enough periods of rest that your body remembers how to burn what it has stored.

That is what fasting does.

What I Actually Did

Low carb, savory only. I ate nothing sweet for nearly two years. Not one single sweet thing crossed my lips. I ate — I was not starving — but everything I ate was savory. Sweet taste spikes insulin, and once insulin spikes it all goes to fat. To this day I do not eat cheap carbs. You do not throw out all that work to put something cheap in your body.

Water fasting three to five days a week. I began the last week of August 2017 and kept that rhythm going. Many people feel this is quite dramatic. The results are very worth the effort. Before forming an opinion for or against it, read the book.

Liver flushing every other week. This is where it gets trickier, and it is the part most weight loss programs miss entirely.

Why the Liver Flush Matters

Liver flushing clears waste out of the liver so the liver can effectively process excess fat out of the body. Any weight loss program will benefit from regular liver flushing.

I used two different flushes, depending on what my body needed. The ELF — Emergency Liver Flush — can be repeated over several days to clear congestion in the liver whenever it’s needed. The Amazing Liver Flush is different. It is very effective and really clears out the waste, but because of the Epsom salts, which strongly flush the bowels, it can only be done once every six to eight weeks. It must be respected to protect your electrolytes, and it cannot be repeated until that time has passed.

What triggers a flush for me is a stall. If I water fast, I expect to drop some good weight the next day. When I struggle through a day of fasting, run to the bathroom all evening, and then lose only a half pound or nothing at all — that is the signal. The liver is congested and needs clearing.

An example from that first winter. After three days of water fasting I had lost only one pound. Friday night I did an ELF. Saturday I water fasted, as I felt a bit off from the flush. Sunday morning the scale showed a five pound drop. Sunday I went out to lunch with a friend, which likely cost me. Monday through Wednesday I water fasted and dropped another two and a half pounds. Total for the week: seven and a half pounds.

Anytime what you are doing stops working — or fails to work when it obviously should — it is time to flush the liver.

My own weakness is that I get so tired of all that oil that I put it off for days instead of getting right on it and clearing the issue quickly. I am telling you that so you do not think I did this perfectly.

Herbal Support During Fasting

Clear liquids with no calories are acceptable on a water fast, so I used my extracts as nutritional support through the fasting days:

• Weight Loss formula — this contains kelp, which supports thyroid and glandular function. That has always been a weak spot in my body, and thyroid function is directly tied to metabolic set point.
• BF&C formula
• Calcium formula

For years my daily supplement has been superfood, but superfood is not available to you on a water fast. Dr. Fung suggests using a vitamin supplement when fasting a week or more. I do not care for pressed pills, and I was honestly a bit concerned that extracts alone would not support a longer fast well enough. That question is still open for me.

What to Expect in the First Weeks

The water dump. When your body begins burning ketones it releases a great deal of stored water. Dr. Fung explains why in the book. Expect to run for the bathroom every hour or so. It is not a bad experience, just an inconvenient one.

The headache, and the fix. When the headache started I added a bit of sea salt to my water, as Dr. Fung suggests in his book. The pain in my head ended nearly before I finished drinking the salted water.

Energy up. This surprises people. My energy went up. I felt so good after my first 24 hour water fast that I decided to do it again the next day. I had done a 40 day juice fast years earlier, and honestly the water fast was about as easy as a juice fast.

The numbers. Eighteen pounds in the first two weeks. One hundred twelve and a half pounds by the following summer. On January 23, 2018 the scale read 344 pounds — roughly 131 pounds gone in five months.

The Part No Book Warned Me About

Somewhere in the middle of it I wrote this down:

“The emotional work is also a part of this process. I have become emotional for no reason.”

That is not a footnote. That is the most important thing in this article.

Fat is not inert. It stores things. As the weight dissolved, the feelings it had been holding had nowhere left to hide, and they came up. I cried for no reason I could name. My sweet husband was a great support through it even while he scratched his head wondering what on earth was wrong with me.

Nothing was wrong with me. The Silent Watcher was finally being heard, and she had a great deal to say.

If you do this work, expect that. Do not panic when it comes. It is not the program failing. It is the program working deeper than you were prepared for.

A word to the reader: I am an herbalist sharing my own protocol, not a physician giving you advice. Extended water fasting is not appropriate for everyone, particularly anyone on medication, anyone with kidney or blood sugar conditions, or anyone with a history of eating disorders. Read Dr. Fung’s book, know your own body, and take responsibility for your own choices.