Fasting to Lose
Published 4.29.2025: Day 2 is when I stopped even making a pretense of listening to all the talks from the vegan seminar, "The Truth About Weight Loss". Basically, the format was the have two medical doctors speak and then two speakers who'd lost a lot of weight. On this day, one of the two people who'd lost a lot of weight demonstrated how she carries a portable kitchen with her so that she can only eat what's approved of on her diet. HARD, HARD NO to all that. "I don't want to live that way" is a recurring comment that I make in this synopsis… but IN NO WAY do I want to travel and constantly cook my own food. Yuck to that. So, I listened to the doctors only and skipped the "inspiring" talks.
For whatever reason, I only took a few images of slides on this day, and none for the second medical presenter. For her, I took only notes. So I'm going to combine them. First up is Dr Alan Goldhamer. Goldhamer supervises water only fasts at his spa/retreat called True North. He's written a book called, The Pleasure Trap, which is (in part) what he's here to flog.
Long term fasting is a topic that I haven't researched particularly well, so what follows will be "facts" as presented by Goldhamer. He does have a slide that listed all the different types of fasts, including options that aren't really fasts, if the definition of fast is cessation of all food. The 5:2 "fast" is listed, though it's not a true fast because on the two "fasting" days you can still eat a small amount of food.
Valter Longo's Fast Mimicking Diet is also listed, that also allows you a bit of food. Longo has decreed that prolonged fasts are not safe, he thinks that a food cessation period of 12 hours is long enough. Goldhamer thinks differently, though his 40 day water fast is always supervised by medical professionals.
Goldhamer is one of those who thinks that diet failure is on par with failed heroin addiction, I've never been addicted to heroin, but I'm gonna go with, heroin addiction is very different from not being able to put the fork down (or avoid ultra-processed, hyper-palatable food).
I blow hot or cold on the food addiction thing listening to these presentations. The YouTuber Graphically Alex does not think food addiction is real, though he does admit that it can feel that way. To him it's not an addiction, rather it's a ritual that psychologically (and falsely) people believe comforts them.
But Goldhamer's main point (which I don't argue with) is that fasting is the way to lose weight and regain health. I'm less convinced that a 40 day water fast is necessary, but if you don't eat, you will lose weight. When you restart eating you will likely regain a lot of weight, but there's no denying that calorie restriction is the way to lose weight.
I lost weight doing the 5:2 "fast", and while I have yet to figure out how to continue to lose weight not fasting, at least I haven't put any weight back on. Apparently I have gained muscle and lost fat in the meantime, so that's not a bad thing. This per the impedance scale at my gym.
I did not learn a whole lot from this presentation, because I'm really not interesting in fasting, though I am reading Longo's book on longevity. So more to come on that. Longo's "fast" which Goldhamer included on his slide, is not really a fast. It's not the 5:2 either.
Interestingly, when I did the 5:2, I would up skipping morning meals and just eating a regular dinner (because I'm not in control of dinners in my home— if I was, it would have been easier to continue and up the fiber greatly at dinner). I have since listened to researchers say that mornings are the worst time to not eat. Far better to skip dinner than breakfast. To the extent that people in the so-called Blue Zones fast, they tend to eat earlier and skip (if they skip eating) dinner.
I'll have more on fasting after a finish the books I'm reading on longevity (which interestingly includes Exercised by Daniel Lieberman, I am still reading…).
Dr Vanita Rahman is next up, and her speciality is food addiction. Food, she says, is more addictive than anything (and maybe she used the same slides as Goldhamer). Not sure, but she uses a lot of fat activist-speak in her talk… which is maybe why I only have sporadic notes on her talk. She's part of Neil Barnard's group, and I don't have the best opinion of Dr. Barnard, which might be why she rated only notes.
She says salt, sugar and fat are the causes of obesity (addiction), but that's the same as salt, oil, and sugar or SOS. Babies, she notes, eat intuitively— but do they? Breast fed babies might, but otherwise I think the parents control what the baby/kids eat. And there are now obese babies.
I'm not going to go without salt, nor do I think that guacamole winds up being craveable due to salt. My delicious guacamole has very little salt in it. I did like the fact that she mentioned bingeing— something that gets mentioned far too seldom. I still think it's the most common eating disorder.
Bingeing on ultra-processed foods (UPF) causes a hit of dopamine in the brain. The brain craves dopamine because it's the "happy" hormone. She talks about glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) drugs— and this is the first time in my notes (though not the last) that I write that these people are TERRIFIED of GLP-1s and their effects.
Otherwise, I took very few notes, so I will end here.
DISCLAIMER: I am NOT any type of medical professional. Do NOT take medical advice from me!!
For whatever reason, I only took a few images of slides on this day, and none for the second medical presenter. For her, I took only notes. So I'm going to combine them. First up is Dr Alan Goldhamer. Goldhamer supervises water only fasts at his spa/retreat called True North. He's written a book called, The Pleasure Trap, which is (in part) what he's here to flog.
Long term fasting is a topic that I haven't researched particularly well, so what follows will be "facts" as presented by Goldhamer. He does have a slide that listed all the different types of fasts, including options that aren't really fasts, if the definition of fast is cessation of all food. The 5:2 "fast" is listed, though it's not a true fast because on the two "fasting" days you can still eat a small amount of food.
Valter Longo's Fast Mimicking Diet is also listed, that also allows you a bit of food. Longo has decreed that prolonged fasts are not safe, he thinks that a food cessation period of 12 hours is long enough. Goldhamer thinks differently, though his 40 day water fast is always supervised by medical professionals.
Goldhamer is one of those who thinks that diet failure is on par with failed heroin addiction, I've never been addicted to heroin, but I'm gonna go with, heroin addiction is very different from not being able to put the fork down (or avoid ultra-processed, hyper-palatable food).
I blow hot or cold on the food addiction thing listening to these presentations. The YouTuber Graphically Alex does not think food addiction is real, though he does admit that it can feel that way. To him it's not an addiction, rather it's a ritual that psychologically (and falsely) people believe comforts them.
But Goldhamer's main point (which I don't argue with) is that fasting is the way to lose weight and regain health. I'm less convinced that a 40 day water fast is necessary, but if you don't eat, you will lose weight. When you restart eating you will likely regain a lot of weight, but there's no denying that calorie restriction is the way to lose weight.
I lost weight doing the 5:2 "fast", and while I have yet to figure out how to continue to lose weight not fasting, at least I haven't put any weight back on. Apparently I have gained muscle and lost fat in the meantime, so that's not a bad thing. This per the impedance scale at my gym.
I did not learn a whole lot from this presentation, because I'm really not interesting in fasting, though I am reading Longo's book on longevity. So more to come on that. Longo's "fast" which Goldhamer included on his slide, is not really a fast. It's not the 5:2 either.
Interestingly, when I did the 5:2, I would up skipping morning meals and just eating a regular dinner (because I'm not in control of dinners in my home— if I was, it would have been easier to continue and up the fiber greatly at dinner). I have since listened to researchers say that mornings are the worst time to not eat. Far better to skip dinner than breakfast. To the extent that people in the so-called Blue Zones fast, they tend to eat earlier and skip (if they skip eating) dinner.
I'll have more on fasting after a finish the books I'm reading on longevity (which interestingly includes Exercised by Daniel Lieberman, I am still reading…).
Dr Vanita Rahman is next up, and her speciality is food addiction. Food, she says, is more addictive than anything (and maybe she used the same slides as Goldhamer). Not sure, but she uses a lot of fat activist-speak in her talk… which is maybe why I only have sporadic notes on her talk. She's part of Neil Barnard's group, and I don't have the best opinion of Dr. Barnard, which might be why she rated only notes.
She says salt, sugar and fat are the causes of obesity (addiction), but that's the same as salt, oil, and sugar or SOS. Babies, she notes, eat intuitively— but do they? Breast fed babies might, but otherwise I think the parents control what the baby/kids eat. And there are now obese babies.
I'm not going to go without salt, nor do I think that guacamole winds up being craveable due to salt. My delicious guacamole has very little salt in it. I did like the fact that she mentioned bingeing— something that gets mentioned far too seldom. I still think it's the most common eating disorder.
Bingeing on ultra-processed foods (UPF) causes a hit of dopamine in the brain. The brain craves dopamine because it's the "happy" hormone. She talks about glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) drugs— and this is the first time in my notes (though not the last) that I write that these people are TERRIFIED of GLP-1s and their effects.
Otherwise, I took very few notes, so I will end here.
DISCLAIMER: I am NOT any type of medical professional. Do NOT take medical advice from me!!