Have you ever noticed that every month seems to bring a trendy new diet and yet

obesity rates continue to rise and with it a growing number of health

pros. That's why I wrote my new book How Not To Diet. Check it out at your

local public library. Welcome to the Nutrition Facts podcast. I'm your host,

Dr. Michael Greger. Today we start a four-part series on intermittent

fasting. Fasting is the practice of abstaining from food for a period of time.

Anyone who's seen the biggest loser TV shows knows that hundreds of pounds can

be lost with enough caloric restriction and exercise. But what's the long-term

effect of doing this? Our first story is about calories. How many fewer calories do

you have to eat every day to lose one pound of body fat? The first surgical attempt

of body sculpting was in 1921 with a dancer wanting to improve the shape of her

ankles. The surgeon apparently scraped away too much tissue and tied the

stitches too tight, resulting in the creusest amputation and the first recorded

malpractice suit in the history of plastic surgery. Today's liposuction is much

safer, only killing about one in five thousand patients, mostly from unknown

causes, throwing a clot off into your lung or perforations of your internal organs.

Liposuction currently reigns as the most popular cosmetic surgery in the

world and its effects are indeed only cosmetic. A study published in the New

England Journal of Medicine assessed obese women before and after having

about 20 pounds of fat sucked out of their bodies, resulting in nearly a 20% drop in

their total body fat. Normally, lose even just 5 to 10% of your body weight in

fat and you get significant improvements in blood pressure, blood sugars,

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