One thing I’ve heard Jay suggest is that a weight loss diet should be more sustainable. But there is an inherent problem with this, as weight loss, at ANY rate, is simply not sustainable in the long term. At some point, you will either plateau at some weight, or die.
But this isn’t really a “problem.” Wearing a cast, for example, isn’t “sustainable,” and if you do so for years, the affected limb would atrophy, and maybe fall off or need to be amputated. But this doesn’t mean that casts aren’t useful. When people use a cast, they use it for a short period, like 6-12 weeks, and discard it after healing. It’s not needed for the rest of life, or even an extended period of time like years, But that doesn’t mean it isn’t useful.
Why can’t a portion of weight loss be fast and unsustainable, while only being used for a short duration? Hours, days, or weeks?
Truthfully, we do unbalanced or unsustainable things every day. If you are driving west on I-10, for example, that is “unsustainable,” as eventually, you would drive straight into the Pacific Ocean. But guess what? No cars actually do that, and the number of cars that have driven west on I-10 and ended up in the Pacific Ocean eventually is very low, like less than 0.001%, and was likely completely unrelated to the freeway driving.
How come there isn’t the same idea in weight loss? Really, there are two main, overarching goals for anyone who wants to lose weight and be weight stable at a lower weight-
1. Shed the excess pounds (specifically fat and certain water weight)
2. Fix a broken metabolism so that the new weight is easily maintained.
Most weight loss solutions focus on goal 1 and get some short term success, but ignore goal 2 (or are very ineffective at achieving it), so they fail long term. But there is no reason that you can’t use a tool that’s very effective at the first goal, and then eventually switch to something else later. Like using a cast to heal before embarking on a physical training program.
I think this idea of the Sugar Diet/Sugar Fasting can be similar to using a cast. It may help people lose a fair amount of weight quickly. It might help to lower FFAs in the blood, get cells back to using more glucose for fuel, and get glycogen stores full. It might help to get body temperature up in some people.
Right now, I am only experimenting with the short term sugar fast idea a couple times a week (like maybe a 16-19 hour sugar window, similar to the old IF structure). I am NOT planning on doing it for years or decades, especially with low protein. I don’t even think the low protein idea is necessary, based on the William Brown experiment. I don’t even think most days have to be super low fat, either, especially if you are using a lot of coconut oil.
But I do like this as a tool that can be experimented with. I might even try longer “sugar windows” as certain points, just to see what happens, and if they are useful.
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