I’ve recently discovered Dr. Jason Fung, the medical director of the Intensive Dietary Management program. He focuses his efforts on treating metabolic syndrome which includes obesity, diabetes, fatty liver, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer and high blood pressure. I’m now watching his online lecture series, The Aetiology of Obesity.

I started reading his blog after catching a few interviews where he discussed the success he’s had reversing type 2 diabetes through changes to patients’ diet. And I decided to try intermittent fasting for lent after reading his series about fasting and weight loss.

Dr. Fung is amazing at taking very complicated information and simplifying it for the layperson.

If you are overweight or obese and believe the only way you can lose weight is by cutting calories and exercising more, then check out the first lecture in this series — A New Hope.

He takes on a few weight loss myths, like exercise is important for weight loss. Something I learned from this lecture: A 140 lbs. person burns more calories (2,200) staying in bed all day than that same person would walking for 45 minutes at a moderate pace (102 calories). Why?

We burn about 95% of our calories to heat and run the human body (to keep us alive). Exercise only focuses on 5% of total calorie burning. It doesn’t mean exercise isn’t good for you — it is. It just means when it comes to losing weight, you need to focus on what you are eating.

He’s definitely a rock star at going after the root causes of obesity and diabetes and not just treating the symptoms.