Jason and his crash diet: Week 10

This is the ongoing story of a friend of mine who is rather extremely overweight and his journey down the road of trying to finally do something about it. I disagreed with his methods right from the start because he was using a fad diet of fasting during certain times of day and then eating / drinking whatever he wants other than refined sugar during his allowed hours.

In my mind, and from a physiological point of view, this can't possibly work unless you believe calories know what time of day it is, which they don't.

I regret to inform that it appears as though Jason has completely abandoned his diet a mere 10 weeks into it and at no point during any of it did I actually notice any sort of weight loss or health benefits he might have accomplished during it.

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The above infographic is how I feel about all fad diets that come and go with the breeze. I have never known anyone that stuck to a fad diet in the long term and the only people that I know that have had ANY success with them are the ones that transitioned to a overall healthier lifestyle, mostly with diet and some level of dedication to exercise.

Jason was doing a fasting diet where he would eat nothing from 8pm to 4pm every day and then from 4 - 8 he would absolutely pig out on anything other than sugar. He really looked forward to these hours and he would sometimes be a party animal during them. I was actually quite impressed at how at a bit before 8pm on most nights he would head home and get away from the party so that he wouldn't be tempted by a group of friends that are all drinking. We were all supportive of his diet and didn't try to pressure him to take part, but he would pressure himself. Every now and then he would cheat on his diet and as time went by, he was cheating more frequently than not.

Now, he doesn't even talk about it anymore and I'm actually a little bit afraid to ask him. I suppose he will say something to me if and when he is ready. I really wish that Jason would stop looking for a quick fix and just make changes to his overall lifestyle. I realize that this doesn't appeal to most people because I can speak from experience when I say that the results from gradual and achievable changes in one's life does take a LOT longer than fasting, juicing, keto, or whatever the fad happens to be at the time.

The only way that a fasting diet could possibly work would be if it accidentally encouraged some sort of caloric deficit in Jason's day but the way that he was always working against the clock to gorge himself during those 4 hours was basically insurance that this was not going to be the case. If you can just find some discipline and regulate what you eat a bit, this would be a far more sustainable way to lose weight and live healthier. If you are simply starving yourself all day waiting for the clock to strike 4 so you can murder a whole pizza with wings and a couple burger combined with a dozen beers you are still taking in far more calories than your body can possibly use in a day, especially if you don't exercise.... and Jason doesn't.

I feel bad for him, but I am not at all surprised.

I think there are a lot of people out there that don't realize that there isn't a quick fix other than liposuction and even that is simply going to result in the same you if you don't change something about your life after the fact.

I'm not going to pressure Jason, or anyone else. But I really would encourage folks out there to look at this realistically and see that almost no one experiences long-term change in their health via fad diets of any sort. The YouTubers will swear up and down that it can and does work and yes, it can and does work, but it works because of a caloric deficit, not because of the super-magic time of day that you are choosing to eat. All of that is completely irrelevant.

I would suggest to Jason to transition to a low carb beer in week one.... and do nothing else differently. Then in week 2 introduce a 3 times a week half an hour walk. Then move on from there. It's all about baby steps and not crashing into success. I don't understand why this is so difficult for most people to see and accept.