192: How to Boost Your Metabolism, Melt Away Body Fat, and Free Yourself From Calorie Counting Forever | Jason Fung, MD

If you actually look at the success rate of counting calories, it's about 1-5%. That's the data. So, somewhere between 95 and 99% of people fail to lose weight counting calories.

Almost every study for the last 50 years shows the same thing ... When you just restrict calories alone, what happens is that your body responds by burning fewer calories, in which case, your caloric deficit disappears.

If you follow a calorie-restricted diet, if you count your calories and cut out 500 calories a day, then, pretty soon, your body will burn 500 less. That's why your weight plateaus. There's no doubt about it.

There was one study that estimated that switch from butter to margarine caused about a hundred thousand heart attacks per year in the United States.

If you have diabetic kidney disease, there's nothing you can do about it unless you get rid of the diabetes. That's what's causing your disease; you need to get rid of it. That's the bottom line. If losing weight is what you need to do to get rid of it, then you need to lose weight.

If you eat natural foods, it doesn't matter that much what your macronutrient composition is—your body knows how to handle it.

The reason the fitness people are so gung-ho, one, is that they are generally very fit themselves. So, they want to use it as proof that they're better than you, and that's basically it. Their whole self worth is based on the fact that they're fit, and therefore, they want that as proof that they have more knowledge and more willpower than you.

If you're not hungry, then don't eat. Let your body burn down some of this sugar or body fat—because that's the body's way of storing calories.