Mastering Leptin by Byron Richards

Bigger Stronger Leaner Beginners
1

I just read the book “Mastering Leptin” by Byron J Richards.

The Leptin Diet is based on 5 General rules, they are:

Rule 1:
Never Eat after dinner. Allow 11 -12 hours between dinner and breakfast. Never go to bed on a full stomach. Finish eating dinner at least three hours before bed.

Rule 2:
Eat three meals a day. Allow 5 - 6 hours between meals. Do not snack.

Rule 3:
Do not eat large meals. If overweight, always try to finish a meal when slightly less than full…

Rule 4:
Eat a high protein breakfast.

Rule 5:
Reduce the amount of carbohydrates eaten.

I agree with all of these rules with the exception of Rule 2.

Quote:
“Three hours after eating, insulin levels should be lower. As it falls, glucagon rises. This is a true fat burning time.”

He goes on describing that the liver needs to deplete its stores of glycogen, and this will not happen if a person eats/snacks between meals.

Snacking between meals causes insulin to rise (even if the snack is a healthy one).

Quote:
“This interrupt’s the liver’s synthesis of sugar, causes the liver to become clogged with fat and develop insulin resistance, and causes fats that were breaking down to go back into storage.”

This contradicts everything I have ever read with respect to eating 6 meals a day instead of 3, in order to speed up your metabolism and prevent catabolism.

Anyone have any advice? How are you supposed to eat 3500 calories a day in 3 larger meals? Wouldn’t that also cause fat to be stored?

2

That would violate Rule 3.

I only skimmed this book, but from what I could tell I wasn’t convinced that there was compelling research that should apply these rules to bodybuilders.

There’s more than just leptin involved in body composition, and it’s probably misleading to focus solely on it.

However, if the general non-bodybuilding population followed those rules, they would probably be less fat.

3

There are things that are more worth your effort than worrying about leptin, and they don’t involve rules like “never eat dinner”.

I agree with the previous poster regarding this being less than ideal from a bodybuilding standpoint.

4

[quote]Anonymous Coward wrote:
I agree with the previous poster regarding this being less than ideal from a bodybuilding standpoint.[/quote]

Sure I agree to a point, however if you are in a cutting phase and wish to burn as much fat as possible, wouldn’t leptin become an important factor then?

I do not agree with eating only 3 meals a day or missing any meals for that matter. But I do believe that leptin levels are important if you want to lose fat or break through a plateau.

5

Leptin is interesting. I’ve read a couple dozen papers about it, enough to know it is complicated.

The fact is, though, that there ARE people who have lost lots of fat, broken through plateaus, and gotten really lean without knowing anything about leptin.