Mar 31 2008
What Happened After My Water Fast?
A reader sent me an email this morning to find out what happened after my short 4-day fast in December. She reminded me that I hadn’t really finished that series of posts.
The whole point of the fast was for me to find out if a short fast would help control sugar cravings and help me get through the holiday sugar extravaganza without gaining weight. I told you about the experiment, but I didn’t tell you what the results were. Shame on me.
Did I get through the holidays without gaining weight?
Yes, I did. The 12 pounds I lost in the 4-day fast did not come back. My daughter baked some of the best sugar-cookies I’ve ever tasted while I was visiting her over the holidays, and I did eat one. But I wasn’t compelled to eat 10 of them. This was a real eye-opener, because my sugar cravings had been getting worse in the last year or two.
In fact, this experience was so illuminating that I decided that I needed to know more about the whole issue of food cravings. I did write a book on sugar addiction, and the mental exercises in that book do help you avoid giving in to food cravings. I have been using those meditation techniques myself for years.
But being able to say ‘no’ to an urge is a very different thing from not having the urge in the first place.
Since those cravings had been getting worse as I got older, but a few days of fasting made them go away (at least temporarily), I came to the obvious conclusion:
The food I was eating was causing the cravings.
But this is where it gets weird - since I write full-time about health and weight loss issues, I have a full bookshelf lined with the latest information about how to eat ‘right.’ And the older I got, the ‘healthier’ my diet was getting. I stopped eating red meat because so many authors say it isn’t good for your heart. I bought low-fat milk, and low-fat salad dressings, because I knew I was ’supposed’ to. (I can’t stand the taste of low-fat milk!) I stopped buying butter, used only vegetable oils for cooking, steamed as many things as I could, etc., etc.
But I gained a few more pounds every year, and all the effort I was making to stop gaining the extra pounds didn’t work. I was eating fewer calories every year, and eating almost no fat at all, but I still gained weight. And the cravings for sugar and pasta and bread were becoming almost overwhelming, even though I used everything I knew about mind control to fend them off.
After Christmas I started doing some major reading to find out what was wrong with the way I was eating. That 4-day fast did a lot more than just help me lose 12 pounds - it got me started on one of the most interesting reading and writing projects that I’ve ever done.
Here’s what I discovered:
- Scientists have known for 91 years that low-calorie diets don’t work for permanent weight loss. Yet almost every doctor (and at least one article in every magazine) tells you to lose weight by cutting your calories and eating less.//
// - There are a number of fairly dangerous physical and psychological symptoms that are caused by reducing your calories, and by eating a low-fat diet. One of those symptoms is food cravings. (Depression is another one.)//
// - The obesity epidemic started in earnest in the 1960’s, just as some major changes were taking place in the way our food was grown and raised, due to major scientific advancements in agriculture that later became known as the Green Revolution.
// - The improved crop yields, especially in corn, wheat and soybeans, created a glut of these commodities in the US market, but government subsidies kept farmers growing the stuff. Something had to be done with all the excess grain and beans, and this change is the primary cause of the obesity epidemic.
What happened with all that extra grain?
Most of it was used by the new confined livestock industry as high-energy food for beef cattle, dairy cows, chickens and pigs. That was problem # 1.
The rest of it was used to make new industrially-produced ‘foods’ that the human body had never experienced before - high-fructose corn syrup, corn oil, and soy proteins. That was problem # 2.
These two changes are highly important for two reasons:
- Grass-fed cows produce a special fatty acid called conjugated linoleic acid, or CLA. This is a powerful, and perhaps even medicinal element that helps humans regulate their weight.CLA has been proven to help fat burn faster, and it also causes the creation of bigger and stronger muscles, which makes the metabolism even more efficient. CLA
is now being sold as a dietary supplement to dieters and bodybuilders, and it works.
//
However, CLA should be a natural part of our diet, since it’s normally found in the fatty parts of beef, and in the cream in milk - but only if the steer or cow eats it’s natural food. Grass is the natural food for cattle.Since the 1960s, you can’t buy grass-fed beef in a grocery store, and almost none of our milk comes from grass-fed cows.
//
In the past, bodybuilders drank lots of milk and ate lots of fatty beef in order to gain an advantage over their competitors. And doctors used fatty beef and milk for special therapeutic diets that improved the immune system and got people back to a normal weight quickly. But that doesn’t work any more, because grain-fed beef and the milk from grain-fed cows - the kind of meat and milk you buy at a supermarket - doesn’t have enough of this element to do us any good.Which means we lost the most important natural ally in the regulation of our weight at the same time that…
// - Our grocery stores and fast-food joints were filled with more and more ways for us to eat the foods that cause insulin resistance and the metabolic syndrome that leads to obesity, diabetes and heart disease.The per-capita consumption of sugar went up dramatically during the 60s, and kids started drinking gallons of sodas sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup. Snack products and convenience foods and pastas were heavily advertised, in order to use up all that extra corn and wheat.
//
And new advertising programs directed at doctors touted the so-called ‘health advantages’ of vegetable oils and soy products. Refined carbohydrates cause insulin resistance, nutritional deficiencies, and food cravings. Recent research shows that vegetable oils and soy products make the problem even worse.
Result: The industrialization of our food supply, and the largest and most devastating epidemic the world has ever known.
The three main illnesses caused by the combination of eating refined carbohydrate foods while not eating naturally-grown meat and milk that contains CLA are heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. Recent research is finding that some kinds of cancers should be added to that list, along with gout, some kinds of arthritis, and many gastrointestinal problems.
So - I would say that the curiosity that was instigated by my little 4-day fast has uncovered some extremely important clues about the way we gain weight, why we have food obsessions, and how to save ourselves (and our kids) from the health threats of modern food.
Baby boomers like me were the first generation to grow up almost entirely on industrialized, Green Revolution food, but older folks also suffered from the changes in our food supply.
I have pictures of my dad in his twenties, when he was just back from his stint in the Navy during World War II. He was thin and strong - a pretty handsome guy, if I may say so. He began to struggle with his weight when I was in high school during the 60s. Yes, right when the Green Revolution was changing the way we eat, removing some of the most important fat-fighting elements from our food, and flooding the markets with new forms of sugar. My father has struggled with a weight problem ever since.
Our kids now get fat when they’re still in grade school, and are being diagnosed with diabetes at an alarming rate.
The only way to stop the obesity epidemic is to go back to eating the way we did before the obesity epidemic started. We can’t stop the corporate conglomerates from producing corn-fed, CLA-free beef and milk, but we can stop eating the industrialized products that line our grocery store shelves, and we can buy our meat and milk from local family farmers who still raise their animals on pasture.
So - can you tell that I’m fired up?
This issue is so huge that I can’t tell you everything you need to know here on this blog. But you can learn more on my brand new website at CravingControlDiet.com
Before I go, I want to answer just a few of the questions I’ve received about fasting. As you can see from my diatribe above, I now know that fasting is not the only way to achieve weight loss, and eating a truly natural diet is the only way to achieve lasting weight loss. But to lose 12 pounds fast, like I did, there’s nothing that works quicker. However, if you go right back to eating bad food, you will eventually gain your weight back again.
Do juice fasts work as well as a water fast?
Juice fasts, which I’ve tried in the past, tend to cause temporary weight loss. But - you’re getting just enough nutrition (most of it from fruit sugars) to prevent any improvement to the metabolic syndrome caused by insulin resistance, (and that’s the reason why we get fat in the first place). You are not getting enough nutrition to keep your body supplied with the fuel it needs. Therefore, you lose weight temporarily, from both fat cells and muscle cells through starvation alone, which is not usually considered a good thing.
And you will probably regain the weight as soon as the fast is over, and a little extra, since that’s a natural consequence of starvation.
Juice fasts are a liquid form of a low-calorie diet, and scientists have known for 91 years that very-low calorie diets are not good for your health, and they don’t work for permanent weight loss.
Will a fast make your metabolism slow down?
A water fast forces the body to use fuel and nutrients that have been previously locked in fat cells by excess insulin, because you aren’t giving your body any of the refined carbs that cause an insulin spike. During a fast, the nutrients your body needs are liberated from fat cells because there isn’t any insulin floating around in the bloodstream. Because the fuel and nutrients have been liberated, and are there to be used by other cells, the body isn’t starving, and it doesn’t slow down your metabolism unless you stay on the fast too long.
It’s important to note that even though a water fast works for fast weight loss, and it will temporarily help reduce sugar cravings and other food obsessions, there are other ways to achieve the same ends for permanent weight loss and improved health. As you can see from what I’ve written above, that’s what I’ve been studying for the last three months. It’s all about the insulin resistance, and getting away from the foods that cause it, while eating foods that help repair the damage that’s already been done.
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