Intermittent fasting to lose weight, increase muscle mass

Dr. John Jaquish visited Good Morning, Arizona to talk about his most recent book “Weight Lifting is a Waste of Time: So Is Cardio, and There’s a Better Way to Have the Body You Want.”

He spoke about the importance of a healthy diet, monitoring one’s sugar and carb intake…and intermittent fasting, and how it can help jumpstart bodies. “If you complete fast, you die. Intermittent fasting is ultimately an easy approach because, after a certain amount of time, your body stops being dependent on glucose and insulin,” Dr. Jaquish said.

LDL cholesterol, according to the doctor, can be used to help get someone out of being glucose-dependent. “The reason you’re hungry all the time is that you’re in an addiction model. Anytime you have sugar or carbohydrates….you constantly need that fuel,” he said. “Another supporting thing which is better is getting carbohydrates out of the diet.”

Full Transcript

Ben: Well, friends athletes from the NFL and NBA who constantly push the boundaries of human performance have discovered an exciting fitness revolution trading the dumbbells and barbells for variable resistance training. So what’s the secret that keeps all the pro athletes in their prime breaking records, delivering breathtaking performances game after game? Let’s find out. Joining us this afternoon is John Jaquish, who heads the Primal Medical Group and is the creative force behind the osteostrong, a medical technology bolstering bone density, and the author of Weightlifting is a Waste of Time. I like that book there, the title of that book. Good afternoon, sir. Let’s talk about this variable resistance training. What is it?

Dr. John Jaquish: Thanks for having me, Ben. So variable resistance is when you change the resistance based on your capacity for producing force. So for example, humans are seven times stronger in this position than they are in this position. So once you know that, why would you ever lift a weight? It doesn’t make any sense. So that was the premise of the book. Weightlifting is a waste of time. Notice I didn’t call it resistance training is a waste of time because variable resistance falls into that category. But this really means that to be effective in strength training, we need to have more powerful forces onto places, driven through muscle where the body is more powerful. Yet we need lower forces where the body is less powerful. And typically those are the places where we are at risk of joint injury. So safety goes up and effectiveness also goes up. Now also, we look at most individuals who do physical strength training. You might say 99% of them never make any progress or only make progress as beginners. I’m sure you, Ben, think of your friends. You probably know 50 people that are like gym fanatics, yet year after year they look exactly the same. So this is what we need to apply to get out of that cycle of failure that the fitness industry has given us. And this is just a much smarter approach. Almost every power lifting record has been broken in the last 15 years, and it is all because of variable resistance exercise.

Ben: That’s pretty fascinating stuff, especially considering you come up through high school, up played football, and there is so much weightlifting involved and off season and things of that nature to get in shape for the season. But you’re right though, you see that plateau as you’re going through that fitness journey. Let’s talk to some folks at home who may be intrigued by this today. What’s something you can do to dive into this right away?

Dr. John Jaquish: Well, I mean, you asked the direct question. I would say that this should probably read my book. Weightlifting is a waste of time, but that’s probably the most simple approach to understanding it. And also this is, it’s written so that you don’t need to be a professional powerlifter to understand what it’s talking about. It’s not very complicated. We use a latex banding. In fact, you can see over my right shoulder, there’s a wine barrel behind me and there’s some bands hanging out of it. And I hook those bands. So this bar. And so that’s about how complicated it is. I can deliver, when I do a chest press, I’ll hold 550 pounds at the top, 300 pounds in the middle and about 130 pounds at the bottom. And I can go through that range of motion. And as I begin to fatigue, I can’t get to the powerful range of motion. So I just diminish the range. So I’m doing shorter repetitions with a lower weight. This ensures I take the entire musculature to fatigue. This is something you can never do with a weight

Ben: That’s outstanding.

Dr. John Jaquish: That’s why scientific is a barrier.

Ben: Yeah, I’m pretty excited about this. I want to check out your book myself. Let’s tell folks where they can buy it. We got about 10 seconds left, John.

Dr. John Jaquish: Sure. amazon.com type in weightlifting is a waste of time.

Ben: Alright. And it’ll be at your home and just a matter of days. John, thanks so much for joining us today. And we’re impressed by your work, sir. Thank you so much.

Dr. John Jaquish: Thanks Ben.