“Feeling amazing about life again”

A follower on Facebook recently posted some before/after pictures with the following caption:

The Facebook post

Today was a big… no scratch that a huge mile stone for me.. the scale says 284 lbs (129 kg)! This means I am officially down 150 lbs (68 kg)!! I went from a size 50, to a 36 (34 in some brands) a size 4x/5x to a XL. I went from insulin dependent and 10+ pills a day to no meds… at all.. feeling amazing about life again.. thank you Jason Fung!! Your videos on Dietdoctor.com were my inspiration and the start of this journey.

His story was so inspiring that I asked him to write a few more words about his journey to help others along the way. He writes:

The letter

I am honored to share my story with your many followers. I hope my success will encourage others to start doing something, or stick to what they have already started. It is difficult to stick to something even if you do not feel like you are seeing results at the moment, but the end result is very much worth the perseverance and discipline.

For a majority of my childhood I as overweight and or obese. I was the fat kid in school, and was often times teased for that reason. I was always so confused as a child because from what I could tell I was not really eating different than any of my friends. I did grow up in what I would consider to be poverty (I did not really have that concept then, but looking back now I realize that was the case) Throughout all of school, not a whole lot changed other than I continued to gain weight.

After turning 18, a physician told me that I was morbidly obese and needed to eat less and move more. I had a fatty liver, and if I did not lose weight it could be detrimental. My mom tried to help me and well, I think we all know that eat less move more, simply put does not work. So again not a lot changed, other than I was miserable attempting to eat less and move more.

As time continued on, I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes before the age of 30 and given the classic dosage of metformin which did work for a period of time. In addition I was directed to follow the American Diabetes diet (which makes no sense by the way – it directs you to eat 45 carbs in a sitting????) I followed this, and took my metformin, but lo and behold I only gained more and more weight. Eventually my A1c was so elevated that I was given insulin (by this time I had also developed hypertension and high cholesterol which I was being medicated for). The insulin did bring my A1c down for a period, but the weight kept driving up (which makes sense now because insulin was the cause of this all along).

At my peak, I went to see my endocrinologist, with a high A1c, continuing to increase my insulin dosage and weighed in at 434 lbs (197 kg). I was depressed and ready to give up on everything. My medications were extensive (4–500 mg Metformin, Losartan, Amlodopine, Prilosec, Atrovistatin, 100 units of Lantus, and sliding scale of Humalog) I was spending several hundred dollars each month on medications. It was over the top.

One night in a depressive state, something sparked me to start reading blogs about what others had done when they were in this state. I googled “how to cure type II diabetes” and one of the hits was dietdoctor.com. On this site, I watched videos from various doctors and experts, one being Dr. Jason Fung! These videos taught about concepts like a low carb life style, and intermittent fasting, and how to use them to help with diabetes.

I jumped in full force and started a lifestyle that included no more than 20 carb per day. It helps that my wife (who by the way has her own story – she is nearly down 80 lbs – 36 kg!) and I did this together. We have found ways to make everything we ate before in a healthier way – for instance if we want chicken strips, we use pork rhinds, and butter and bake them. If we want a rice bowl, we use cauliflower rice, and make our own seasonings. We are able to make just about anything we want using the information we have learned.

Within one week of starting low carb, my fasting sugars started to plummet. Because I was not eating many carbs, there was really no regimen for meal time insulin because my sugars were never high enough to constitute taking it – so mealtime insulin was gone within the first week. I was getting over 200 mg/dl (11.1 mmol/L) routinely fasting, and then started getting closer to 100 mg/dl (5.6 mmol/L). Within two weeks, I was fasting near 80 mg/dl (4.4 mmol/L), so I cut my Lantus dose in half. By week 4, the same happened again so I decided to cut it all together (I asked for forgiveness, and medically do not recommend stopping meds, but I did that one on my own).

Sometime around January, I started doing IF. I have done multiple variations of it since. I did one meal a day a couple times / week to start. Then moved on to trying a longer fast, I went for 7 days, but only made it 3. Then finally had a break through and got to 5. My current plan (that has been working well for me) is fasting every other day, so really a combination of the 36-hour and 42-hour fasts from the Complete Guide to Fasting book.

I was fasting with normal sugars and no insulin. I then talked to the doc and asked about stopping metformin, he agreed that it was fine to try, so we gradually gut back on that, and viola! I am off diabetic meds. I then asked if I could cutout my other meds, and got rid of Prilosec (turns out metformin caused my stomach issues and was why I needed an antacid), followed by cholesterol meds, and finally BP pills.. Today I take no medications, and could not be prouder of that (and my wallet likes it too).

I started seeing rapid weight loss, some water, but some not. People at work would start saying “have you been losing weight?” when I answered “yes” they would respond with “no really, you have lost a LOT of weight”. I wish I would have but did not track exactly how much at any given time, I can say that I was 434 lbs (197 kg) in July of 2016, and my most recent weigh in was 284 lbs (129 kg) in April of 2017, so a total of 150 lbs (68 kg) gone (that’s an entire person by my calculation – actually a grown man).

I appreciate people like Dr. Fung putting themselves out there and going against the direction of the government and modern medicine. It has to be challenging to go against your peers, but you are helping people like myself be around to see our kids grow. So for that I commend and thank you.

Comment

Terrific results, congratulations.

—
Jason Fung

Earlier with Dr. Jason Fung

All posts by Dr. Jason Fung, M.D.

More with Dr. Fung

Dr. Fung has his own blog at intensivedietarymanagement.com. He is also active on Twitter.

His book The Obesity Code is available on Amazon.

His new book, The Complete Guide to Fasting is also available on Amazon.