Bryon Richards vs. Dr. Rosedale?

Dear Dr. Rosedale:

I have a very important question regarding your eating plan.

You allow for two snacks in addition to three meals. I have read the book, Mastering Leptin, by Bryon Richards who strongly advises against eating between meals. He maintains that if you snack, then you do not allow the body to go into a fat burning mode. After three hours, he says the insulin level should be back to baseline and then glucagon should rise and insulin continue to fall. At this point, the body should start accessing glycogen stores from the liver, and if it depletes those, then it will start burning stored fat for energy. If you snack, then the glucagon effect never kicks in. Instead, insulin is released again in response to rising blood sugar. However, since the glycogen in the liver has not been depleted, then the extra blood sugar is stored as fat adding to a weight problem.

Byron Richards' explanation makes sense to me, so it it important for me to understand your rationale to allow snacking. My boyfriend is diabetic, and I want to steer him to the best eating plan to improve his condition. However, your recommendation and that of Byron Richards' are in direct conflict with each other.

Could your please add help me better understand the basis of your recommendation so that I can be comfortable with what your advice.

Kind regards,
Elizabeth

Dear Elizabeth,

Thank you for your question, and wonderful to see that you are doing your research and comparing different views. Dr. Rosedale is out of town right now, but he did give this answer just a few days ago in response to a similar question regarding Byron.

Dear Elizabeth,

If you don't spike your leptin in the first place you don't have to wait several hours for it come back down. So if you eat carbohydrates that Byron Richards says is okay to eat, then it will spike your leptin and then you have to wait several hours for it to come back down. Then you shouldn't eat snacks, but far better to not spike your leptin in the first place, so if you don't eat what he says and you eat what I'm saying (replace non fiber carbs with good fats) then you don't spike your leptin. As long as you eat the right foods, you're not going to raise your leptin and then you don't have to wait for it come back down. Then you can eat those foods as frequently as you feel the need to. Far better to eat more frequent smaller meals/ snacks than to eat large meals. I have measured leptin in thousands of people and been able to observe the results of eating different foods and diets. Byron Richards has not been able to have that opportunity...

Regards,
Ron Rosedale, M.D.