To lose weight, fast 24 hours for 2 days a week, Toronto nephrologist recommends

In a new book, a nephrologist in Toronto, Canada, proposed approaching dieting in a new and radical way. Rather than focus on the volume of food to eat, Dr Jason Fung recommends fasting, or not eating.

Fung tells patients who want to lose weight not to eat for two days in a week. It should be non-consecutive 24-hour periods during which the patient should only drink water, green tea, coffee and broth, reports the New York Post.

Fat is burned more efficiently if the body is deprived of food for an extended period of time. “Instead of searching for some exotic, never-seen-before diet miracle … let’s instead focus on a tried-and-true healing tradition,” writes Fung.

The diabetes expert and chief of medicine at a Canadian hospital wrote the book "The Obesity Code: Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss." Available at Amazon, the book explains the prevalence of insulin resistance. Fung says that there is a need to understand first the effects of insulin and insulin resistance to achieve lasting weight loss.

The digestive system breaks down food when people eat regularly. It releases the glucose into the bloodstream and is used for fuel. By not eating anything within six to 24 hours, glycogen, the excess glucose stored in the liver, is burned which also burns fat.

Fung points out that reducing food intake is not the answer because the body compensates for it by burning fewer calories. He says fasting is not dangerous and cites celebrities such as Jimmy Kimmel, Miranda Kerr and Hugh Jackman as practitioners of fasting.

He debunks the myth that not eating would cause to body muscle to shrink. He says a study in which people fasted alternately for 70 days resulted in a six percent reduction in body mass and 11.4 percent decrease in body fat, but there was no change in muscle mass.

Fung says hormones is the key to reducing obesity, not cutting calories. “This finding is the missing piece in the weight-loss puzzle,” he writes.