Several months before my recent weight loss (starting in February of 2019) I began the habit of eating a healthy low-carbohydrate breakfast: an omelet with egg whites, ground sausage, and spinach.

However, this new habit did not cause weight loss. Why? The answer is simple: I didn't change my foods outside of breakfast. I was still eating high carb food and junk food, and eating it too often. Adding a "healthy breakfast" couldn't fix things when I was still eating unhealthy lunch, dinner, and snacks.

This further reinforced for me the lesson that you can't "add" your way to weight loss and body fat reduction. Despite the fondest wishes of dieters and supplement manufacturers everywhere, there exists no dietary supplement that you can take that will burn body fat. Instead, you need to "remove" those influences that cause accumulation of body fat.

Removing two key factors stands far above the rest in terms of their impact:

• • Fasting (not eating) during a significant fraction of the day allows blood insulin levels to fall naturally. When this happens, the body accesses stored fat and metabolizes it for energy.
  • Avoiding carbohydrates during the time you do eat, to reduce the insulin spiking activity associated with eating and metabolizing food.

To summarize, to reduce body fat accumulation (aka "lose weight"):

1. Spike insulin less often (through fasting).
2. Spike insulin less strongly (through carbohydrate reduction).

In the words of Professor Miles Spencer Kimball quoting Dr Jason Fung

"obesity is always and everywhere an insulin phenomenon"

When you lower your body's insulin response, you reduce your storage of body fat and enable use of your existing body fat as energy. Carbohydrates elicit the strongest insulin response, and thus they are the macronutrient that is most responsible for obesity. (Protein causes a weaker insulin response, and fat does not cause any insulin response at all.)