Jason and his crash diet, week 5.

I mentioned before about my friend Jason who is pursuing this crash diet of fasting and eating and drinking nothing except between the hours of 4-8PM. The rest of the day, so he claims, he eats and drinks nothing other than water, coffee, and other beverages that have no caloric value like Diet Coke. While I admire his decision to take this on, I also think that it is a stupid diet. I asked him a bit more about the details when I saw him out one night and lo' and behold, he was having a Diet Coke and nothing else.

This is one hurdle that I really think would be really difficult for most people to accomplish. Jason is hanging out with this friends, all of which are drinking booze, and he is having a Diet Coke and still participating like he normally would, playing pool, chatting, and having a good time. I really don't think that I could do that even though I HAVE done it in the past when I was taking weight loss seriously. Now I am in "maintenance mode" so it isn't a priority for me.

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I tend to stay away from offering advice to Jason because he did his own internet research and is confident in it. The fact that he has taken any initiative after years of just getting fatter and fatter is a better result than what he was doing, which was nothing. I do think that his plan is better than nothing but only a little bit.

You see, in his allowed hours for eating, he absolutely destroys food and he puts no thought into what it is that he is consuming. It could be pizza, burgers, fries, tacos, anything that people would normally associate (incorrectly) with being unhealthy, he eats the crap out of it during his allowed time-frame. I would imagine that he REALLY looks forward to the clock striking 4pm and prepares accordingly. The one thing that I am really impressed with is that even during his allowed time to eat, he still avoids processed sugar. Well done Jason!

We haven't noticed any sort of noticeable change in his body after 5 weeks but a lot of this could have to do with the fact that he is still wearing the same baggy clothes that he was wearing back when he was doing nothing. Who knows if he has benefitted at all from this because he says he doesn't own a scale and I think this is a mistake. Maybe I should buy him one.

The problem that I see with his diet and all other ones like it is that I don't think that it is sustainable. I honestly don't think it is good for your body to deprive it of all fuel throughout the day. Of course we can look at evolution and easily see that it would be quite normal for people to live and eat like this - sometimes going multiple days without eating and then gorging themselves for a big feed.

I have also noticed that Jason is "cheating" more and more frequently as the weeks go by. There is always an excuse but I have seen him out multiple times in the past couple of weeks, well past his cut-off time, drinking beer with friends. This is a very easy trap to fall into because there aren't many people who are going to be down for drinking beers from 4-8 PM. I am one of the guys that prefers drinking during that time but for most people, the night time is the right time.

I foresee Jason completely falling off the diet plan in just a couple more weeks and all of a sudden he wont be talking about his diet anymore. If anything, I hope he can take the aspect of not consuming processed sugar with him when he does convert back. That on its own would probably do him, and many other people, a world of good.

Another thing that Jason constantly harps on about that bothers me, but I hold my tongue, is that he is very badly informed about what happens during the fasting times. He seems to think that in lieu of food to consume in the belly that your body automatically attacks the fat and uses it for fuel. This is potentially very misguided. Bodies are different but one thing happens in most people, the body will go after whatever fuel source is most available and this includes muscle, especially if said muscles are in a constant state of atrophy. Jason does not exercise at all and his only movements are the ones that he absolutely must do in order to survive.

I know that Jason and everyone else (especially men) are very interested in losing their gut, but unfortunately that is not how the body works. In Jason's case there is a very good chance that the fat stores that are burned could be coming from any part of his body. All trainers that I have ever met always say that the gut fat is the last to go.

This is a big part of the reason why I am very anti-crash-diet such as any that involve fasting. This is not something that many people can keep up for long-periods of time and in a situation like Jason's he would need to in order to see meaningful results to his body. Plus, the fact that he is avoiding exercise because he doesn't have the energy or fuel to do it by virtue of not eating, he is just asking for his muscle mass to diminish and this will make exercise even less likely in the future.

I believe that making slow and sustainable changes to one's lifestyle is the way to go for long-term health. This doesn't appeal to a lot of people because of the first word: "slow." People don't like slow. In this day and age of immediate gratification the notion that it could take years to shed body fat is something that people don't like to hear, even though I believe that it is the only method that works in the long run.

I will continue to follow Jason's progress - or lack of it - and I am not rooting against my friend.... I hope he does prove me wrong. Unfortunately there are tons of studies to suggest that he will revert and if he doesn't get a hold on his natural consumption, he is going to end up right back where he began. I fear that because of the complete lack of activity in his life, that the situation could actually end up worse.

_{I don't claim to know all the right answers. In fact, I know that I don't. What I do know is that the things I suggest worked in my life and I lost over 50 lbs at a time in my life where it is meant to be extremely difficult to pull that off and I didn't even find it very taxing... and I've kept the weight off ever since}