Real Doctor Reacts to What's Wrong With Jillian Michaels' Explanations on Intermittent Fasting

What! Intermittent fasting is no good for weight loss. A lot of people probably

choked on their bulletproof coffee as jillian michaels explained why

intermittent fasting isn't actually good for weight loss. That statement must be

astonishing to the huge number of people who have actually lost a lot of weight

on intermittent fasting even after every previous approach had failed. So in this

video we're going to take a look at why the arguments made by Jillian Michaels

stand in such stark contrast to the results experienced by millions of

people. Coming right up!

Hey I'm Dr. Ekberg. I'm a holistic doctor and a former Olympic decathlete and if you

want to truly master health by understanding how the body really works

make sure that you subscribe and hit that notification bell so that you don't

miss anything Jillian Michaels is a celebrity trainer

and a fitness expert and she is probably best known from her role as a coach on

the TV show Biggest Loser where they had people eat calorie restricted diets and

workout hours and hours and hours every day and they created massive weight loss

unfortunately most of those people ended up losers in the long run because after

the show was over then they had such a low metabolism they had crashed their

metabolism and they ended up gaining all of that weight back almost everyone

after the show gained the weight back and they did it even though they were

eating less calories than before because their metabolism was so low at that

point. Earlier this year Jillian Michaels spoke out in a very controversial series

of videos on how bad the ketogenic diet is and now she has presented a new

viewpoint in a new video where she tries to clarify and explain what intermittent

fasting is and why it's actually not any good for

weight loss. In the first half of the video she explained she lays down some

basics that are pretty straightforward she says that fasting is simply the

period of time where you're not eating and then she states that what it's good

for is general health it's good for immune function and it's good for

longevity for staying young longer and feeling good and this is because of

processes involved with fasting called autophagy and apoptosis and so forth so

far the message is very straight forward and we all agree with that.

So intermittent fasting is really good for those things right staying your most

healthy vital self for as long as possible

boosting immunity but it isn't actually good for weight loss. That's just not

true. The only thing that works for weight loss is calories in calories out.

Doesn't matter how healthy the food is the quality of your food has to do with

fighting off disease, staying younger longer, boosting endurance, but ultimately

a calorie is a unit of energy okay. There are calories in your food. Doesn't

matter how healthy the calories are if you eat more energy than your body burns

in a day you'll store that energy as fat. Period. End of story. Right off the bat

here she makes three very bold and controversial statements so let's look

at those first she says that the only way to lose weight is by watching your

calories calories in calories out is the only thing that matters the second thing

is she says that the quality of the food doesn't matter when it comes to weight

loss if you eat more calories the quality has no impact whatsoever on that

and then she also says that intermittent fasting is no good for weight loss

because again she falls back on this on this dogma on this idea that calories in

calories out is the only thing that matters I think it's so critical that we

understand each of these points and what they mean

and what the flaws are in the argument so let's take a look at those one by one

but it isn't actually good for weight loss that's just not true the only thing

that works for weight loss is calories in calories out it isn't actually good

for weight loss the only thing that works is calories in calories out so

let's take a look at that what she is referring to is what so many people have

fallen in the trap of believing a whole world has bought into it the United

Nations the World Health Organization the US government all the

recommendations are based on calories as if that was the only variable so what

they're referring to is the first law of thermodynamics which says that energy

can't be created or destroyed and for a system in equilibrium the energy is

constant so whenever we add energy to a system and we remove the same amount of

energy from the system then the energy in the system stays constant so energy

when it comes to the body we're talking about fat because fat is the way that

the body stores energy it's the most efficient way of storing energy so when

you eat extra calories they get stored as fat for future use so calories in

calories out that's that's the basis and a lot of people say that well it's it's

completely incontrovertible it's totally irrefutable because two plus two is four

it's plain math it's plain physics and so far they are right this is what's so

difficult about this concept is that it is so simple it's so irrefutable it is

so true and yet it is completely wrong why how can it be that something is true

and wrong at the same time and it is because something that works in physics

something that works with inanimate objects something that works in a closed

lab setting when you're observing physical parameters doesn't necessarily

act the same way in the human body. Why? Because humans have behavior and we

will change our behavior to survive based on circumstances so when they're

talking about the first law of thermodynamics when they're talking

about calories in calories out it is completely irrelevant because it

doesn't happen that way in the human body

we have variables there are variables like genetics and hunger and metabolism

and insulin and human growth hormone and nutrient density of food and the

glycemic index of food and the frequency with which we eat the food all those

variables are interrelated okay when they look at calories and calories out

when they refer to this first law of thermodynamics they are speaking as if

hunger and metabolism were completely independent variables as if they didn't

depend on anything else and this is where the flaw in that argument lies

calories in in humans depend on something called hunger and calories

burned calories out depends on something called metabolism and these are not

independent variables they depend on each other and on all of these different

things so that's why calories and calories out is completely irrelevant

when it comes to humans and why we need to focus 100% of our attention in

understanding what are these factors how do they work and how do they affect the

hunger and the metabolism when they speak calories in calories out they're

assuming that hunger and metabolism isn't going to change and let me just

ask you does that seem reasonable in your experience doesn't matter how

healthy the food the quality of your food has to do with

fighting off disease staying younger longer boosting endurance but ultimately

a calorie is a unit of energy okay there are calories in your food doesn't

matter how healthy the calories are if you eat more energy than your body burns

in a day you'll store that energy as fat. Period. End of story. So apparently the

quality of the food has to do with fighting off disease staying younger

longer and boosting endurance but it has no impact on weight loss so that doesn't

really fit my experience to me it seems like when you eat better quality food

there are some things that change that I know that there are different foods that

have different glycemic index so we're going to trigger different amounts of

insulin depending on the quality of the food then the satiety how full you get

if you eat something like steak with some butter and some vegetables then are

you gonna stay full longer than if you drink a couple of sodas well the answer

is obvious so it changes the behavior it changes the hunger and therefore it also

influences weight loss the other thing has to do with nutrient density that if

you eat a depleted food even if two foods have the same number of calories

if you eat something that's depleted and processed then you're gonna fill up your

fuel tank for a short time but then the body which is very very intelligent is

going to start looking for the nutrient it's going to look for the essential

amino acids and essential fatty acids and the vitamins and the minerals and if

it's lacking those then it's gonna ask for more food even though you filled up

the fuel tank the body didn't get what it needed it didn't get the nutrients so

if you eat nutrient-dense food you will stay full longer if you eat food that is

more satisfying that doesn't change your blood sugar so much it will be more

satisfying you will eat less in the long run

and if you eat foods that don't trigger insulin then you're not gonna be storing

fat to the same degree so let's just take a look at insulin because we need

to understand a little bit she conveniently leaves out insulin from

this video completely and insulin and weight-loss are so synonymous they are

so closely tied together that you really can't talk about one without the other

anytime that you eat you trigger insulin if you eat fat you trigger a tiny little

bit of insulin if you eat protein you trigger a little bit more and if you eat

carbs and especially processed carbs you trigger a lot of insulin now there's a

principle in the body that when you introduce something when you change

something then over time the effect of that will be less the body adapts the

body starts resisting if you take a medication if you take a valium if you

take an antidepressant then over time they'll work less and less and less

because the body adapts the body starts resisting and insulin is no exception

insulin resistance is caused by insulin but more often you have insulin and the

higher it is then the more likely that you're going to get insulin resistant

and when you eat food and it triggers insulin the purpose of that insulin is

to bring the blood sugar from the blood into the cell when the cell is full it

gets converted to glycogen and then to fat so any excess gets stored as fat but

it's insulin that does that and the more insulin resistance you are the greater

the tendency to store the fat now when you fast you do the opposite anytime

that you don't eat, you're fasting, you don't eat insulin goes down so during the time

that you are fasting you're becoming less

insulin-resistant you becoming more insulin sensitive and when you're

fasting you're going to be moving toward burning the more insulin sensitive you

are the more likely that you're going to burn fat the more insulin resistant you

are the more likely you're going to store fat and the harder it is to lose

weight the more insulin sensitive you are the more likely that you're gonna be

burning fat and the harder it is to gain weight now let's see if there are more

reasons why quality doesn't matter. A perfect example of this would be an

animal like a bear. I don't think bears could eat better.

I mean let's think about it. What are they doing? They're catching wild salmon.

They're eating berries and fruits and all this healthy stuff off the land and

they can pack on enough fat to hibernate for months at a time. Okay so here the

argument is that if a bear who eats really really healthy food. He eats

salmon. He eats berries. He eats healthy stuff off the land then if you can gain weight

on that then quality must be completely irrelevant well just like it doesn't

make a whole lot of sense comparing our digestive tract to that of a cow or

comparing our nutritional needs to that of a mouse we are not very much like a

bear even though humans and bears do eat were both omnivores we can eat both

plant food and animal food the thing that's different about a bear is he is

designed for hibernation okay he is genetically pre-programmed to sleep half

the year some bears sleep seven months out of the year they go without food or

water for seven months that's a pretty extreme adaptation and if you were to

sleep if you were designed to sleep for seven months out of the year then you

would also be genetically pre-programmed to put on a bunch of fat

for that event so in the case of a bear it's not what he eats it's the fact that

he eats a salmon and two hours later he's hungry because he's supposed to be

hungry he's supposed to put on enough fat to last for seven months

so that's a pretty extreme adaptation when was the last time that you

hibernated for seven months alright if you were genetically adapted to pull

that off I guarantee that you would have a ravenous hunger for months before

that event so that you could put on enough weight to pull it off so it's

kind of a funny story but it's completely irrelevant to anything that

we're talking about and what happens in the bear however he intermittent fast he

fasts for seven months and I bet you he loses a bunch of weight during that time.

So think about that right if we want to lose weight it actually doesn't really

matter when you consume your calories it just matters how much you're consuming

and how much you're burning the quality of those calories has to do with how

long you're going to live how healthy you're gonna be. All right so again

intermittent fasting isn't really good for weight loss if you want to lose

weight it doesn't really matter when you consume those calories it's just about

the number of calories again this is not correct so let's look again if we keep

in mind how insulin works that insulin triggers insulin resistance the more

insulin resistant you are the more likely you are to store things and the

more insulin sensitive you are the more likely that you're going to burn fat now

let's look at someone who eats about four times a day this is what Jillian

said that she does so while you're sleeping you are not eating your while

you're sleeping you're becoming more insulin sensitive you're more likely to

burn during that period then you wake up you have breakfast and your blood sugar

goes up your insulin goes up and and you go a couple hours three to four

hours in her case without food and your insulin starts moving down but it

doesn't really get into the level of developing insulin sensitivity because

it's only been three to four hours since you ate and then you eat again and now

your blood sugar your insulin goes up and every three to four hours you repeat

that so at the end of the day you've had a feeding period of 12 hours okay so

you've had more or less insulin during those 12 hours but it has never been low

enough to start moving toward insulin sensitivity then after the last meal you

go to bed and as you're sleeping your insulin keeps moving down okay and the

longer you sleep the longer it has time to move down and become more insulin

sensitive so in the case she's talking about she's feeding for 12 hours and she

is fasting for 12 hours that it's her idea of intermittent fasting and that's

great that can work for someone like her and she has if we compare the time

period where you're primarily insulin resistant to the time period where

you're primarily insulin sensitive they're about equal it's a one-to-one

ratio so if you're already insulin sensitive you can maintain your insulin

sensitivity on that program but if you are insulin resistant then that's not

going to change it's not going to move you out of insulin resistance

just because an insulin sensitive person can stay insulin sensitive on that

regime doesn't mean that you can become insulin sensitive most likely you're

going to stay the way you are so if you want to change from insulin resistant to

insulin sensitive you have to do something a little more drastic so let's

do a little stronger example of intermittent fasting and we'll

illustrate what's called a 20:4. So 20 hours of fasting 4 hours

feeding so after people have done intermittent fasting for a while they

generally feel that hey it's not a big deal to skip breakfast or even lunch and

then you have two meals somewhere during the day in a four-hour window so you

wake up you're already insulin sensitive but because you don't eat when you get

up you keep becoming more insulin sensitive until maybe around 4 o'clock

or if you eat at 2 o'clock or whenever it doesn't really matter as long as you

keep that window short so then you eat and then you fast for a few hours and

your insulin starts dropping but you're still in the insulin resistance phase

because you didn't go long enough and then you eat again and you could raise

blood sugar you raise insulin but then that's your last meal and now you stop

eating for the day your insulin starts dropping you start moving toward insulin

sensitivity you're becoming even if your insulin resistance still you're moving

toward insulin sensitivity and now you have 20 hours to do that so if we

compare your period of insulin resistance to that when you're primarily

insulin sensitive or moving toward insulin sensitivity you have a 5 to 1

ratio so there's five times more time that

your body can become insulin sensitive and when you are becoming insulin

sensitive you're burning more fat okay and what what this does is it not only

helps you become insulin sensitive but it also increases the probability that

you can maintain your metabolism so yeah I'm focusing on calories alone is a very

very small portion of the picture I'm not saying that you shouldn't count

calories I think it's a good idea just to have an idea of what you're eating

but to try to restrict them in order to lose weight is going to get you in

trouble every time because if you don't reduce insulin if you drop your

metabolism now you're going to gain the weight back

which is happening in everyone who has ever done a yo-yo diet which is most of

the world's population the track record is terrible okay

everybody knows that doesn't work so let's start understanding why and how

something might actually work so again intermittent fasting not good for weight

loss is completely wrong it is a very very powerful tool and very powerful

principle because you lose weight when you reduce insulin resistance and a long

fasting period is the most powerful way to reduce insulin and become insulin

sensitive I recommend eating every three to four hours so what this does is it

automatically gives you an overnight fast period of minimum twelve maximum

sixteen fasting hours in your 24 hour period so if you get up and you have

breakfast right then three to four hours later you either have lunch or a snack

these are two interchangeable meals I often usually do a snack after my

breakfast and then I have a bigger lunch later in the day so I eat less at dinner

so three to four hours later I'll have my snack three to four hours later I'll

have a late lunch three to four hours later I'll have my dinner and then I

don't eat again for twelve to thirteen hours and that's

it. That is the answer. And here she explains what works for her and that's great I am

sincerely happy for her that she has found something that works for her

physiology for her genetic predisposition for her level of activity

for her age for her metabolism that's awesome so I'm not exactly sure what she

meant by saying that's it that's the answer but when she says that's it

that's the answer I'm sort of hearing that as this is the way that it should

work for everyone this is the universal answer this is the truth and the problem

with that is that we are all so different we have

to stop looking for the one diet for the one solution for the one answer we were

always so obsessed with ending up in different camps different convictions

plant versus meat or low fat versus high fat or one meal a day versus six meals a

day right we want to understand the principles we want to apply them and

then see what works for you so in Julian's case she says she eats

breakfast she eats a snack and lunch and dinner with three to four hours in

between each which means she ends up feeding during a 12-hour window and she

ends up fasting during a 12 to 13 hour window she says so again that puts her

at a one-to-one ratio which is great for maintaining what you have if you're

already insulin sensitive but here's the thing think of your body think of your

metabolism as a carbohydrate tolerance machine and if you are insulin

resistant then you broke the machine you broke it and now there are new rules

okay her rules don't apply anymore we can't take an insulin sensitive person

and say look this is what keeps them healthy this is what you should do it

doesn't work like that there are new rules and we have to learn what those

rules are for us so as we try things out as we evaluate

as we watch other videos as we read books as we learn as we try things we

want to keep these in mind these are irrefutable you can look these up in any

physiological textbook alright any medical texts on physiology will tell

you this that insulin is in response to food food produces an insulin response

and if you understand they're not necessarily going to express it this way

but if you understand anything about adaptation and resistance in the body

then you understand that the more you do of

something the more the body will adapt and resist it so insulin is the cost of

insulin resistance and this you can look up in any textbook insulin increases

lipogenesis it promotes the production and storage of fat insulin interferes

insulin stops lipolysis the breakdown of fat so therefore it promotes storage and

it prevents the usage it's a storage hormone because of that because it has a

greater tendency to store you have less access to the food it will make you

hungry and this is part of the problem with the calories in calories out model

that they treat hunger which is completely responsible for the calories

in as if it's an independent variable as if every human on the planet has the

same amount of hunger and what they don't realize is that because insulin

makes you hungry the more insulin resistant you are the hunger you're

going to get the more insulin resistant you are the more likely that you're

going to store fat and the less likely you're going to retrieve fat you don't

have access to your food stores insulin resistance makes you hungry it makes you

eat more calories it makes you burn fewer calories

another irrefutable fact is that the longer you fast the lower your insulin

goes no doubt about it that's just how it works so if you want to become

insulin sensitive the most powerful tool you have is to fast longer not everyone

has to fast super long but if you are insulin resistant that is your most

powerful tool so this is not a crusade on Jillian Michaels it's a crusade on

misinformation I think one of the greatest things about the Internet is

that everyone has a voice everyone has the right to state their opinion but it

places a greater demand on us as viewers to have some basic knowledge to see

the patterns to learn enough to where we can make sound decisions and to filter

through the blatant misinformation okay if you base your reasoning on what we

know then you're not going to be steered wrong the purpose of my channel is to

explain things better than other channels so that you have the tools and

the background to make better decisions so if you enjoyed this video then I'm

sure you're going to love that one thank you so much for watching and I'll see

you in the next video