Reddit reviews Presto!: How I Made Over 100 Pounds Disappear and Other Magical Tales

As a nutrition researcher myself, I also have high standards for information sources and get so frustrated by all the bullshit out there. I've worked on all sorts of protocols, including keto ones, and there's few benefits and some harm to be had from following keto diet if not epileptic (yeah- go ahead and shoot me now lol) but somehow it's become commingled with fasting for health. Anyways. Some science for you:

https://www.amazon.com/Fasting-Eating-Health-Medical-Conquering/dp/031218719X
(Great overview of why fasting)

https://www.amazon.com/Fast-Diet-Intermittent-Fasting-Healthy/dp/1780721676 (by one of the first doctors to publicize fasting)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1501140183
(More like funny memoir of experience with fasting and a layperson's understanding of the science)

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ourbrokenplate/our-broken-plate/rewards
(In a few months should be available- brilliantly researched)

Documentary https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ihhj_VSKiTs

https://www.amazon.com/How-Not-Die-Discover-Scientifically/dp/1250066115
(Not solely on fasting but so comprehensively researched that I highly recommend it - everybody should read it. Truly and literally life changing)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4684131/#!po=27.9661
(Not a book, but some good info)

If you're >50 lbs overweight you should be focusing purely on diet and calorie restriction. You might even consider cutting back or removing workouts until you get the weight worked out. The (overly simplified here) theory is that exercise can actually cause reactions in your body to slow weight loss. You'll have a much easier time focusing on one thing at a time and doing a phased approach:

1. Lose weight down to a manageable weight
   
   
2. Start working out again, while keeping your weight maintained
   
   I actually recently read Penn (from Penn and Teller) book about how he lost 100 lbs from 330 to 230, you might find it worth checking out. It's not really a diet book, more like a biography. But it was an interesting view of a 300 lb guy successfully losing 100 lbs reasonably quickly. There's a lot of kinda weird focus on potatoes, but that discussion of "don't worry about your muscle mass while you're trying to shed a lot of weight" is discussed in it as well.
   
   Finally, and I have used this one, check out www.myfitnesspal.com and try actually counting your calories and your exercise. You'll quickly discover that the calories you burn during most exercise pale in comparison to most of the food you're eating. I found this to be an amazingly effective tool for choosing foods that optimize my fullness and macros for their calories.
   
   

> Looks like Penn slimmed down a decent bit.

https://www.amazon.com/Presto-Pounds-Disappear-Other-Magical/dp/1501140183

Also yes, he's almost certainly voting for Johnson.

Hey there, fellow 6'4" shorty here. I weight in at 175 pounds currently, was 270ish at my heaviest and I've kept the weight off for years.

Basically when I met my wife, I was already down to about 250 from being in college. Walking around campus was my first kick in the butt on laziness. Took jogging class in college for 2 years because for the longest time I wouldn't do it on my own. Finally got in the habit of doing it on my own. By about 2007-2008 I was constantly around 215 pounds, stayed that way until about 2013. Started running 3x per week, 6 miles at a time (basically 1 hour). I was doing no other exercise. Also in 2010 I started eating Vegan (eliminated all my BP medicines).

From running and a cleaner diet (whole foods, lots of veggies and fruits), got down to about 190. Started intermittent fasting schedule, eating only 12pm to 5pm so lunch and dinner. Weight still pretty steady, but the strict eating window allows me excellent control on my snacking, really helped me mentally, so went from 190ish to 175 from 09/15 to present day.

FYI, I would follow Ray Cronise on Twitter, he is great at responding to you. He is the one that helped Penn Jillette (book Pretso) loose like 100 pounds. Some great podcasts with him out there as well if you are interested.

Penn Jillette has a terrible diet. He ate nothing but potatoes for two weeks then slowly added soups iirc. He is the perfect example of how not to do a healthy plant based diet. But he wrote a book about it that got 4 stars on Amazon!

You might not want to hear this, but all the "sugar and carbs" that you enjoy are probably severely messing with your sense of taste. Sugar has a tendency to cause you to crave even more sugar!

Magician Penn Jillette in his book Presto! How I made 100 pounds disppear and other Magical Tales went on a pretty absurd diet: for the first two weeks, he ate ONLY potatoes with nothing added. Now, I would NOT recommend that you go on a potato diet, however, there was something that always struck me about his story. After two weeks of only potatoes, he was allowed to have corn for the first time. His description of eating corn for the first time was that it tasted like candy. Once his sense of taste was recalibrated, he was awash in a sea of flavors from previously ordinary or bland foods.

Edit: formatting

then wrote a book about it - http://www.amazon.com/Presto-Made-Pounds-Magically-Disappear/dp/1501140183/

Penn Jillette recently (or a few years ago) lost over 100 pounds, from slightly above your weight down to 180lbs-ish. He talks about it in his book Presto.

Though he also makes a point of saying that if someone takes medical advice from Vegas magicians they are an asshole. He followed the advice of Ray Cronise to lose the weight.

Their take is exercise will make you hungry, and animal products and processed foods are too calorie dense. Penn now eats completely vegan with no processed foods or added salt or oil, with the exception of rare and appropriate meals scheduled 2 weeks apart.

Of course, I'm sure you've gotten lots of advice from lots of people, but I figure this might be a motivating story and a place to go to for some inspiration.