Reading is healthy

So far I’ve read 5 books on the subject of Intermittent Fasting and one about dangers of sugar. Here comes my short summary of each one of them.

Gin Stephen’s books

First two books I read were by Gin Stephens.

• Delay, Don’t Deny was her first book on Intermittent Fasting from 2106. What’s interesting about it that it brings Gin’s personal side of things when it comes to fasting.
• Fast. Feast. Repeat was, actually, the first book I read on Intermittent Fasting and it was this book that got me interested in trying this approach. This book is quite recent, it’s from 2020. This book is a little bit different from her first book. It’s less personal and provides more details about the science of why intermittent fasting works. Also this book contains 28 Days FAST Start approach to Intermittent Fasting that Gin came up with.

Dr. Jason Fung’s books

Two other books were by Dr. Jason Fung

• The Obesity Code is from 2016, but it’s still relevant and has a detailed explanation about how we get obese and what to do about it. In comparison to Gin’s informal writing style, Jason’s style is a little bit more dry. But it could be because it’s was written by a doctor. Anyway, I liked it too.
• The Complete Guide to Fasting was also published in 2016, and this book has very similar content to The Obesity Code, but there are a number of very important differences, which makes it the best of all the books I’ve read so far. First, this book is visually appealing, having lots of colorful diagrams and graphs that help better understand why Fasting works. Second, even though the content is similar to the previous book, it has a better balance between scientific details and user friendly explanations. Third, this book has personal stories of people who used Intermittent Fasting and were able to reverse their Type 2 Diabetes and obesity.

Science can be good for you

The 5th book I read was the book by Prof. Mark Mattson, who is the neuroscientist and biologist. He’s the leading researcher in the field of Intermittent Fasting.

• The book is The Intermittent Fasting Revolution from 2022. This book is the most scientific out of all previously mentioned, but actually, it wasn’t a dry reading. I liked it very much especially the evolutionary biology explanation of why animals and humans are evolutionary adapted to Intermittent Fasting. Also, Mark himself is practicing Intermittent Fasting and doing 16:8 fasting for decades now and provides his personal advice on the subject.

But not sugar

The last book I finished reading today was a book by journalist Gary Taubes.

• The book is The Case Against Sugar, it’s from 2016, but it’s relevant as ever. In it Gary Taubes describes the history of how sugar became such a commodity in our diet and how its consumption that grew to worrisome proportions was a root cause of all diseases related to Metabolic Syndrome. Back in 2016 it was still a hypothesis that sugar is a culprit. Now, it’s proven. Sugar is a poison that works in the long run.