What Really Causes Obesity with Dr. Jason Fung

: Episode 560 – Dr. Jason Fung (www.intensivedietarymanagement.com) again joins host Vinnie Tortorich, back by popular demand! The two discuss leptin, cholesterol and heart disease, and cortisol and insulin in relation to obesity on this Friday edition of the Celebrity Fitness Trainer podcast.

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HEART DISEASE & CHOLESTEROL

• Listener Todd
  • Had serum cholesterol go up, but triglycerides go way down from high fat diet
    • If you eat cholesterol it DOES NOT make your cholesterol go up
    • Eating fat DOES NOT turn into increase in cholesterol
    • If you eat a high fat diet, both bad AND good cholesterol goes up, but triglycerides go down, so it ends up being neutral
• Cholesterol does not equal heart disease

DR. JASON FUNG & THE OBESITY CODE

• Dr. Jason Fung’s new book
• It is about what really makes people fat
• How did we all decide at the same time that we would all eat more?
  • We DIDN’T, therefore CALORIES are NOT what is causing obesity!!!
• We are programmed NOT to eat too many calories (Leptin)
• If calories were the issue, then restricting calories would not make you feel bad and would allow you to shed the weight
  • That is not true
• You have to figure out what is adjusting your own personal ‘thermostat’, and bring it down
  • Cortisol levels skyrocketing (due to stress, sleep deprivation, etc) can help obesity along
    • If stress and sleep deprivation is what is causing it, you have to change your lifestyle because diet won’t work if that is the case
• Obesity is not a caloric imbalance, it is a hormonal imbalance
  • Both with insulin and with cortisol (two big factors)
  • Beer belly type fat is usually cortisol, where overall fatness is usually insulin
    • HUGE role with metabolizing glucose
• Obesity is a multifactorial disease
• Lypodystrophy
  • Super rare condition that causes dystrophy (breakdown) of adipose tissue

LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS

• When you address proximate cause, it does nothing, must treat the ACTUAL cause
• When you reduce your calories, you have to burn more than you lose to burn fat, you can’t just address the proximate cause which is reducing the calories