I’ve just finished reading the Obesity Code, and what really strike a cord for me was his view on body set weight and how to reset it.
I feel that my body set weight has risen to 72kg after my 3 pregnancies. It’s easy for me to maintain, even if I feast a lot. However that weight isn’t healthy, too much fat around my tummy. 6 years ago, my body set weight was 64kg and I need to reset it to that level.
I was wondering if anyone had read Dr Fung theories on this? Or if anyone had been successful in resetting their body set weight? Or if you have alternative reading to advice on this topic.
Thanks!

I’m also really interested in Louise’s question. Judicious July has seen not a smidge discard on scales (maybe an odd centimetre here or there, but certainly not what I had hoped for – and the blips have been no worse than in earlier months since starting). I wonder whether the carbs/cals balance is off, so I’ve reset my metabolism, in a bad way….Really quite disheartening!

Sounds like an annoying plateay 6Turkeys 🙁
Can you try and shift things by changing your fasting schedule? Or even upping your calories for a while, ie not couting calories, just keeping carbs below 20gr? Might keep your body guessing?

Hi Louise,
Dr Fung is the only one that I have seen talk about the idea of a body set point. – I don’t know a definitive answer on this one, but it is a topic I have been pondering and am being my own experiment at present.
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My own experience is that when I started on the BSD path I saw first a rapid weight loss during the fluid loss period, and then a slower / stepped weight loss until I got back to the weight that I have traditionally been as an adult. – Then the scales hovered around the same 5kg range for a number of months, but because I felt so much better on low carb I just kept on keeping on, and focused on the emotional drivers for my eating patterns as that was obviously going to be important for me long term. – First of all experimenting with fasting, and then taking part in the weight training program.

While my weight didn’t change much, my fitness and stamina continued improve, now when I have a long physically active day it doesn’t wipe me out the day after. I can see that my physical shape is changing, but how much of that is posture, and how much is shape changes in places you don’t normally measure which changes the overall picture is something I haven’t come to a conclusion about.

As a vegetarian I was staying low carb, but that was working out in the 20 to 30g of carb a day, it was difficult to get below that. – It didn’t take very many carbs to knock me out of ketosis and it would take me a couple of days of hard work to get back into ketosis.

Something that I have been reading more recently has made it clear to me that I have been Insulin Resistant sufficiently to be causing health problems for at least 30 years. So recently I have been working on reducing carbs further. – It sort of makes sense to me that staying in ketosis for multiple days / weeks, is going to be needed to help heal my insulin resistance. —- The image that comes to my mind is that all the body tissues which have been subjected to high insulin levels for decades need long enough periods of low insulin levels to heal.

As Dr Fung tells people following his program that you don’t have to eat keto between each 36 or 42 hour fast, then, their insulin levels will rise again during each eating window. and/or the gut bacteria to digest carbs will multiply. – While he talks about extended fasts being needed to reset body weight set points, which will be keeping Insulin low for multiple days and killing off the gut bacteria that depend on carbs. ————— To my mind, being in ketosis for say 2 weeks none stop, will be having the same effect as fasting. (Which is what I think is behind the egg fast idea). Not that I think just one 2 week stint is enough to reverse IR, but doing this for months may be, and if not, then I feel so much more alive when in ketosis that it isn’t a hardship.

I do seem to be breaking free from the stall, (but I was at a social event yesterday which was important enough to me to join in eating a high carb meal so I will keep away from the scales for a few days. )

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From a science point of view. I do think that Dr Bikman’s work about fat decoupling may be relevant to this point. – His research shows that when in ketosis, your fat cells will more willingly burn off surplus calories as heat. – I have noticed recently that when in ketosis, if I have a coffee with cream I immediately start to feel warm/hot for a short period. But that doesn’t happen when I am not in ketosis.

HTH’s

Very useful as always JGwen! I’ll look up Dr Bikman’s work.
What was that piece you read about insulin resistant? I don’t think I am – but at the same time, I couldn’t find anything that would give me a clear answer on that one.

I put a link to a podcast about insulin resistance mimicking an underactive thyroid on the Take a look at this thread a few weeks ago. – That was a lightbulb moment for me. I went through multiple blood tests with GP’s starting 30+ years ago as I had all the signs of an underactive thyroid but the blood tests for T4 showed I was just inside the normal range.

Turns out that Insulin Resistance can result in your body being unable to convert T4 into the active hormone of T3.

Thanks, I will check that thread and podcast 😊