People Who Burned the Boats

"I committed to a three day fast and figured I would send you thirty bucks before I started. Like money I already spent. That way backing out would cost me twice. Made it to day four. The thirty dollars was the cheapest accountability partner I have ever had."

"My sister invited me to an expensive Italian restaurant for her birthday. I went. I ordered soda water all night. I watched everyone eat pasta and bread and dessert and I sat there and drank my water and I was fine. She was totally cool with it. Saved about a hundred dollars on dinner. Here you go Connor. Thanks for the push."

"Read the Burn the Boats post at 1 AM on a Tuesday. I was sitting in front of the refrigerator. Literally had the door open. Closed it. Went to bed. Woke up and kept going. That was day six. I am on day nineteen now. Sending this because that one article is worth more than the four hundred dollars I spent on a nutritionist who told me to eat six small meals a day."

"I am a nurse. I work twelve hour shifts. I used to eat garbage from the vending machine every single shift because I told myself I needed the energy. I have been fasting three days on two days off for six weeks. I have lost twenty-nine pounds. My scrubs are loose. My patients are asking what I am doing. Sending you what I used to spend on vending machine food per week."

"My doctor told me I needed Ozempic. I was about to fill the prescription. Twelve hundred dollars a month. Then I found your site and read the GLP-1 section in the boats article. Cancelled the prescription. Three weeks into my first extended fast. Down fourteen pounds. Sending you what the first month of Ozempic would have cost me minus what I saved on groceries."

"I have been fat my entire adult life. Forty-two years old. Three hundred and eight pounds at my heaviest. I read the two signals section and something clicked that twenty years of diets never touched. The body is not stupid. It does not burn the engine to fuel the car. I cried reading that. I am on day eleven. I am not hungry. For the first time in my life I am not hungry. Thank you."

"Showed the autophagy and loose skin section to my wife. She has been terrified of fasting because she thinks she will end up with a skin apron. She started a seventy-two hour fast the next day. We are doing this together now. First time in our marriage we have been on the same page about our bodies. That is worth more than money but here is some anyway."

"I am a personal trainer and I have been telling my clients to eat six small meals a day for fifteen years. I was wrong. I read your two signals breakdown and I cannot unread it. I have started incorporating fasting protocols with my clients who carry significant body fat and the results are insane. I owe you a consulting fee. This is a down payment."

"Day one I weighed 287. Day twenty-one I weighed 261. Twenty-six pounds. My wedding is in three months. My fiance cannot stop looking at me. I had given up on looking good for the photos. Not anymore. Every dollar of this is money I did not spend on DoorDash this month."

"Former cop. Twenty-two years on the job. Retired at two sixty-five and climbing. The food was the one thing I could not put down. Tried everything. Your site is the first thing that talked to me like an adult about this. Not a sales pitch. Not a pity party. Just the truth. I am on my second fasting cycle. Down eighteen pounds. The joints do not hurt anymore. That alone is worth everything."

"I calculated what I spend on food I do not need per month. Fast food. Snacks. The 11 PM ice cream run. Four hundred and twelve dollars. That is what I was spending to stay fat. Sending you ten percent of one month's savings. Going to keep sending it every month I stay clean. Hold me to it."

"I read the three types of hunger article at work. Conditioned hunger. Hedonic hunger. Homeostatic hunger. I realized I have not experienced real hunger in maybe fifteen years. Every single time I thought I was hungry it was my brain running a program. I skipped lunch that day. Nothing happened. I skipped dinner. Nothing happened. I am on day eight. My brain still runs the program. I just stopped obeying it."

"The cigarette playbook article destroyed me. I work in food manufacturing. I have seen the labs. I have seen the formulation meetings. The bliss point is real. We literally engineer food so you cannot stop eating it. I have been part of the problem for eleven years. I sent this article to my entire team. Two of them are fasting now. I cannot undo what I helped build but I can stop lying to myself about what it is."

"My therapist told me for three years that my binge eating was an emotional regulation issue. That I needed to address the trauma first and the food would follow. Three years. Twelve thousand dollars in copays. I read the article that said stop calling it a willpower problem and something broke open. I am not weak. I am addicted. That sentence changed my life more than thirty-six therapy sessions. Sending you one session's worth."

"The ghrelin wave article saved my first fast. I was twelve hours in and thought I was dying. Pulled up the article on my phone. Twenty minutes. That is all it takes. I set a timer. Sat on the couch. The wave passed. Exactly like you said. I have now ridden out over forty ghrelin waves. Every single one passed. Every single one. The timer is the weapon."

"I called my insurance company and asked if they cover food addiction treatment. The woman literally laughed. Not a mean laugh. A confused laugh. She said that is not a recognized condition. I read your health insurance article the same night. Follow the money. They will pay for my gastric bypass. They will pay for my Ozempic. They will pay for my diabetes medication. But they will not pay for someone to teach me to stop eating. Because that would end the revenue stream."

"I am a high school teacher. I showed the medical disclaimer on your site to my AP Biology class as an example of satire being used as legal protection. Before you skip that next donut, consult your physician. Twenty-seven teenagers laughed. Then I asked them why it was funny. The room got quiet. Because nobody tells you to ask your doctor before eating the thing that is killing you. Only before you stop. Best class discussion I have had in nine years of teaching."

"My nutritionist had me on 1,400 calories a day. I was losing muscle. I was exhausted. I was miserable. I was always hungry. Then I read about the two signals. Caloric restriction tells the body to downsize. Fasting tells the body to sharpen up. I fired my nutritionist. Stopped eating entirely for five days. Lost nine pounds. Kept every ounce of muscle. My bench press went UP. Sending you what I would have paid her this month."

"I have been lied to by every doctor I have ever seen. Eat less move more. Six small meals a day. Breakfast is the most important meal. Whole grains for heart health. I believed all of it for twenty-three years and gained a hundred and forty pounds doing exactly what they said. Your site is the first place that explained why their advice made me fatter. Insulin. Ghrelin. mTOR. Nobody ever told me about any of it. I am furious and grateful at the same time."

"Showed my husband the fasting is not a diet article. He read it twice. Did not say a word. Went to bed. Next morning he told me he was not eating for three days. That was two weeks ago. He has done two seventy-two hour fasts and lost nineteen pounds. He will not admit he cried reading it. But I heard him. Sending this from both of us. Thank you for writing it like a man would need to hear it."

"Your disclaimer made me laugh so hard I woke up my roommate. Before you walk past a Krispy Kreme without stopping, get a psychological evaluation. I screenshot it and sent it to everyone I know. Three of them clicked through and read the burn the boats article. One of them started fasting the next day. Your legal protection is also your marketing. That is genius."

"I do not have money to send you right now. I am a single mom with two kids and I am on food stamps. But I want you to know that I have been reading every single thing you write and for the first time in my life I do not hate myself for being fat. I hate the system that made me this way. That is a different kind of anger. The kind you can use. Thank you Connor."

"I am seventy-one years old. My doctor said I would be on metformin for the rest of my life. I read your site and did a three day fast. Then another. Then another. My A1C dropped from 7.2 to 5.9 in six weeks. My doctor asked what I was doing. I told him I stopped eating. He had no response. I just wanted to say thank you for writing this down where an old man could find it."

"I am in recovery for alcohol. Six years sober. But the food took over where the drinking left off and nobody talks about that. Nobody. You talked about it. You called it the last addiction and that is exactly what it is. It is the one they let you keep. I am not sending money. I am sending respect. From one addict to another. Keep going brother."

"My daughter is fourteen and already struggling with her weight. I have watched her cry in fitting rooms. I have watched her stop wearing shorts. I cannot fix this with another diet because diets are what broke me. I found your site last week and for the first time I feel like I have something real to teach her. Not a meal plan. Not a points system. The truth about what food does to a brain. Thank you for giving me something honest to hand my kid."

"I am a pastor. I counsel people every week who are killing themselves with food and I never had the language for it. Addiction. Not weakness. Not sin. Not a lack of discipline. Addiction. You gave me the vocabulary to help my congregation without shaming them. That is a gift. God bless you and this work."