I just listened to this new podcast with Jimmy Moore, where Dr Jason Fung addresses his point of view with respect to Dr Phinney’s concerns with fasting. Excellent stuff.
I’m a huge fan of both doctors, and I love to see this sort of intelligent discussion on challenging topics.
Ugh. I’m unimpressed with Fung’s response.
Calls his critics “armchair quarterbacks”. Insults. Says the criticism doesn’t come from experts in fasting.
Appeal to authority (“I’m an expert and you are not”) is perhaps the best known logical fallacy. What about the details of the argument? This is a lame way of avoiding the argument.
As Fung talked on and on for over one hour, I’m sorry but I was unable to follow any logic. OK Jason, please put your answer into one concise sentence, or else I conclude this is BS!
sorry but Fung has shown on some of his tweets he has important side. Whilst Phinney is maybe being over cautious remeber he is looking from a sporting background and is talking I believe about longer fats which none of his clients would ever do.
No problem with debate if over the science but words like that shows why I am not bothered to listen to this podcast and I am a big fan of Jimmy’s.
Hahaha you just have studied philosophy too 
With all the fallacy talk!
I would have to respectfully beg to differ.
I used to communicate with Dr Fung years ago (when he was not famous as today) and he taught me a lot about fasting. The courage and intelligence it took to do this is incredible. As a result, he has hoards of people he has reversed diseases in his clinical activities as a doctor, and countless others (like me) who had the great fortune to get benefits of his terrific advice.
I can see how a lot of the criticism he faces can be a bit of an annoyance. And the term Armchair quarterback is quite fitting, I think. It’s a gentle response. He could have easily said worse things.
Actually, at the end of the podcast, after talking about aspects of fasting, Dr Fung speaks very highly of Dr Phinney, the importance of Dr Phinney’s work on ketosis, and describes the importance of doctors / researchers challenging each other in the common pursuit for truth and healing.
no, armchair quarterback towards the one of three people who pushed us forward, along with Noakes and Volek, is totally disrespectful and totally misleading.
If not for those three then I doubt our movement would be anywhere near as strong as of course it is based on science and fact (unusual combo this world now).
I love Fung’s lectures but comments like this and a couple I see on twitter don;t do him any favours
He isn’t saying they didn’t do great things, quite the opposite. But even Einstein failed to grasp the complexities of his discoveries and spent the rest of his life trying to hold back QM rather than embracing and helping. Someone isn’t given a free pass in science, the fact that he holds up proven bad studies from 1919 as his source is enough for me to say thanks for your help, why don’t you take a break.
Edit to add that I don’t take the armchair thing as badly as others, I work in a field where the researchers constantly try to tell you whats best, but on the applied side it doesn’t work.
I thought it was a thorough and respectful response on a highly-contentious issue. I’m only sorry that Jason Fung did not invite Dr Phinney to review his patient records. I wonder if Jimmy will invite Dr Phinney onto the show to get the balance.
I’m glad that they suggested using a bone broth during a fast as this would provide essential different collagens and all essential amino acids.
If you haven’t listened to the entire episode I recommend you do. At the very minimum it will test your own point of view.
I listened to the podcast and thought it was excellent. I don’t do extended fasts and that’s okay. 
I’m still interested in what Fung has to say as he’s a smart guy, knows his stuff and isn’t afraid to speak out.
All due respect to Dr Phinney, “armchair quarterback” is quite fitting. Dr Fung has supervised thousands of fasts. His vast clinical experience is something the fittingly esteemed Dr Phinney lacks.
Setting up the strawman argument that we should ignore those facts because of Dr Phinney’s contributions to the movement is completely fatuous.
Here’s the study that Dr. Fung references around 17:36 in the podcast that claims to show no significant decrease in lean body mass (LBM) after 32 weeks of alternate day fasting (ADF).
There’s some interesting food for thought in this research also:
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/physzool.69.2.30164186
And the name-calling of Phinney is sad to hear about and totally unprofessional behaviour. Phinney is a researcher and is completely within reason to ask for more scientific evidence before recommending extended fasting. Also, since he works with athletes (and he would know about the potential relationship of fat stores to protein conservation, see above) he also is within reason to speculate that Fung’s clinical findings may not apply to all people (people who don’t need to lose weight for instance).
Dr. Phinney has crossed over into treating patients with Type 2 diabetes through involvement in Virta Health with Volek and Hallberg. these are all highly respected ketogenic diet researchers. They make some important points about dealing with patients whose state of health is complicated by modern pharmaceuticals.
https://blog.virtahealth.com/science-of-intermittent-fasting/
Here’s the thing:
There’s loads of clinical and anecdotal evidence that Phinney is wrong on fasting. IF people were losing muscle at the rates he claims, and regaining as slowly as he claims, you’d see it. Period.
I think people (not necessarily Phinney, but general people) underappreciate exactly how much 5 or 10 pounds of muscle IS. Not lean tissue, muscle. If people were losing at the rates he talks about, you’d literally see it.
The people themselves would be getting noticeably weaker.
He’s doing what was done to keto and low carb - cherry picking scant studies to support something he just inherently believes.
Sounds like a great podcast to listen to later today. My two cents is that what works for one, may not work for the other. I think for people who have stored energy, EF is likely effective. For those who have little stored energy, fasting is probably not a good idea. It’s all situational, really, but for those that can really benefit from it, I’d hate a blanket statement to be made and then that’s one option off the table for them. We should have all the options and see what works best for each of us for our individual circumstance.
