No Nonsense 6 pack abs

Just a quick note today.

If you're interested in the truth about 6 pack abs, then you may like this post.

Basically, I tell you about my experience with getting a 6 pack.

No Nonsense 6 pack abs

BP

MEGA-Simplify your meal plans

This question kept me up late last night:

Why don’t you make shopping lists for people instead of meal plans? let people make what they want, when they want it. when the food is out, you’re done eating until the next shopping list is published.

Really, its a very good idea.

A predetermined weekly shopping list that contains a set number of calories, fruits and vegetables provides an incredible amount of flexibility while at the same time helping people ‘target’ a certain calorie intake.

Basically, take a weekly calorie goal, and eat it through out the week in any manner you like. Once meal per day, three meals per day, 32 meals per day….what ever suits you best. BUT, when the food runs out..the food runs out.

This would be a great way to learn what a certain calorie intake ‘feels’ like.

The simplicity and logic makes this an intriguing idea.

I checked with John Barban and his meal plans do indeed include a weekly shopping list. So if you are interested in meal plans, but crave diet-flexibility the same way I do, then this approach (as suggested by Travis) may be something you want to experiment with.

BP

PS - If you want to check out johns plans visit www.qualitymealplans.com

PPS - Obviously there are certain limitations to this plan, like if you shop for a family of four, but if you can manage it, it might be worth the experiment.

Fat Loss Meal Plans

NEWS FLASH: Over the next couple days your email in-box is going to be FLOODED by people promoting Meal Plans.

My guess is your going to get a MINIMUM of 5 emails over the next week.

You’re going to here all kinds of stories of why you absolutely MUST get a meal plan.

And, surprisingly (under the correct circumstances) even I am going to be one of those people!

Here’s the deal:

I’m not just blindly promoting some random product - I am promoting it for a specific purpose AND
for a specific reason.

That reason is I lost a HUGE debate with Eat Stop Eat science editor John Barban.

This debate led to John creating meal plans.

It was about 2 months ago, we were sitting in Williams Coffee Pub in Burlington Ontario, I was having a cappuccino and John was having a black coffee (he was fasting).

Out of the blue, John drops this line on me

John: “You know, you basically turn your back on people who don’t want to fast”

Obviously, my first thought was a good right hook…but seeing as John outweighs me by about 25 pounds, I decided that might not be the brightest idea.

Brad: “What are you talking about?” (this was my substitute for the right hook)

John: “Well for people who don’t want to fast, you simply tell them to eat responsibly”

Brad: “Exactly”

John: “Well, for people who have been completely confused by the obsessive compulsive advice from diet books and diet gurus…no one has a clue what eating responsibly means anymore”

Now, this made me really angry. I go to great lengths in this blog trying to explain what ‘eating responsibly’ means…but in reality, I could see John’s point.

Brad: “Well, what would you suggest?”

John: “Meal plans”

This is where I almost walked out of the coffee shop.

Brad: “F&*ck Off” (I’ll be honest, this was the most intelligent thing that I could get out of my mouth at this point)

Brad: “No. No way. Meal plans are a perfect example of OCE, they force people into a style of eating because of some BS pseudoscience rational of why people MUST eat one way…I don’t care what you say, meal plans ARE NOT the answer”

John: “Well, what if they were just simple plans that are made up of whole foods and mixed meals and some cooking instructions, no science story, just meals at various calorie levels.”

Brad: “nope, still way to restrictive, I want people to be flexible with their diets..that’s the whole point of Eat Stop Eat”

John: “Brad, some people need some form of schedule in their lives, especially when they are attempting to diet. You have to admit, even people following Eat Stop Eat sometimes ask for help trying to figure out WHAT to eat when they ARE eating.”

Brad: “OK , that’s true, but still….I can’t condone eating according to a meal plan for the rest of your life, that’s just…torture”

John: “OK, so what if it wasn’t a ‘rest of your life thing’, what if it was meant as a guide to follow for 12 weeks to get back on track with your eating style’

Brad: “12 week meal plans?”

John: “Yes, 12 week meal plans. The exact same type of meal plans that are used successfully in hospital settings…you have to admit, they have an excellent track record for effectiveness”

Brad: “OK, under those circumstances yes. But to be a respectable idea it would have to have ZERO pseudo science, no magic hormone manipulation stories, and it would be perfectly blunt that is ONLY a 12 week plan to be used to learn how to eat a certain amount of calories in a day?”

John: “yes”

Brad: “Fine…actually, yes…that would be something I could stand behind…I still prefer people be flexble with their eating habits, but for those people who REALLY want some sort of structure to work with this could be useful…but only if you make sure it’s done properly…you can market the hell out of it, but make sure the product is just as good as you say it is”

That is pretty much how the conversation went…I’m sure I missed some random thoughts and a ton of tangents (and I’ve edited out a bit of swearing), but that is basically it.

It was a debate, and a debate I lost. John had a valid point, a valid problem and a valid solution to that problem.

Therefore I can support this product because in my own way I was involved in its creation and because John gave me his word that it wouldn’t have any crazy pseudoscience or any misleading marketing.

(Obviously there was going to be marketing, I just didn’t want it to be misleading - all diets work if they create a calorie restriction; it’s the people who make up false reasons WHY their diets work that infuriate me!)

Now, I wasn’t involved in the design of the plans or any of the marketing (John teamed up with a guy named Pat McGuire and a guy named Vince Delmonte for this project), but I trust John enough to believe he’s done a good job following through on his idea.

So if you want to check out the meal plans the John helped develop then visit www.qualitymealplans.com

Again, I encourage you to be flexible with your eating, however If you are having a hard time figuring out how much to eat, or have been so confused by diet books and diet advice that you would like a simple 12-week refresher on what to eat, then again these plans may be helpful.

I’m not saying they are magic by any means, but they could be a valuable tool in your weight loss tool box.

www.qualitymealplans.com

BP

Good Foods, Bad Foods

The following Post is a Guest Post from John Barban - Scientific editor of Eat Stop Eat and author of The Adonis Effect. (Please direct all comments towards John)

***

Good Foods, Bad Foods

I was recently reading some comments about ESE and some other diets and people seem to keep using the words “Good foods” and “Bad foods” .

I think this is a dangerous distinction to be making because it presents the potential for us to label almost anything good or bad depending on our focus and opens the slippery slope towards full blown Obsessive Compulsive Eating.

Let’s look at a mythical example of a ‘good food’ and a ‘bad’ food.

Our mythical “Good’ food = Orange Juice

Our mythical “Bad” food = Cake

If you label orange juice a “good food” you might want to consider all of the following points:

1) Do all brands of orange juice get this distinction?

2) Would the nutritional label of your ‘good’ orange juice have to fit into a certain parameter of sugar, salt, calories, additives etc, per serving? (you could simply adjust the serving size to make it fit, half cup vs full cup)

3) What about the source of oranges used and whether or not they are genetically modified

4) Pesticide use on the oranges used to make your juice

5) Artificial flavors and colors?

6) Political implications of where the oranges came from; was any farmer or region exploited in order to get these oranges into the juice you are drinking, were they paid a fair price, were there government subsidies etc.

7) Environmental impact and fuel usage of transporting the oranges and manufacturing the juice and the container that ended up on the store shelf in your town

…and on and on and on…you could take this more in the political direction, or more environmental, or more biological and the specific effects the juice has on your body (this last one is what I am assuming most people mean when they say ‘good’ or ‘bad’ food).

My mythical ‘bad’ food =A slice of Cake

If you label cake as ‘bad’ food you might want to consider all of the following points:

1) Is store bought pre made cake the same as home made cake even if it contains the same amount of fat, sugar, salt etc?

2) is it only bad because of the amount of calories or fat or sugar it contains? (is one bite just as bad as a whole slice)

3) Does the frequency that you eat the cake make a difference for how ‘bad’ it is. Ie: only once every couple months at a celebration is ok, but once a day is bad?

4) Environmental impact and fuel usage of transporting all the ingredients to the store then ending up in a mixing bowl on your counter then the oven then on your plate.

5) If it were the only piece of food you ate today would it still be ‘bad’

6) If you are in good health, happy with your weight and have no measurable ‘health’ issues before and after you eat the cake is it still ‘bad’

…and on and on and on…

It is my contention that there is no such thing as good and bad foods, there is only this…

The food you choose to eat, and the impact this food has directly on your body (both physiologically and emotionally) and the environment impact if purchasing that particular food item.

When you look at it this way food choices become much more personal than general lists of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and you can start to become a much more responsible, eater, shopper, consumer, citizen, parent, spouse, person.

John

(please feel free to leave a comment, however, if you want to talk to me directly, feel fee to email me at john (at) adoniseffect.com)

How to lose baby fat

Here's a great email from a women who used Eat Stop Eat to help her get rid of her post-pregnancy baby fat.

She combined Eat Stop Eat with a solid workout plan and responsible eating, and deserves an amazing amount of credit for her hard work.

A great 'real life' success story ==> lose Baby Fat

BP

A bone to pick with Brad Pilon

NOTE: This is a Guest Post by John Barban, Science Editor of Eat Stop Eat and the Nutrition Help Blog.


As you know Brad does a wonderful job simplifying the concept of diet and weight loss to a point that is straight forward, easy to understand and frankly very difficult to argue with. But I have a bone to pick with Brad.

I feel like he stops short and doesn’t quite take it as far as it can go.

I think there is one more step Brad could take explaining how weight loss and diet really work. And so far this is most effective and simple way I can explain this (although it does seem to make some people uncomfortable)…so here goes.

Take 5 minutes at some point today (preferably alone) to take all of your clothes off and go stand in front of a full body mirror and then say this one simple statement out loud while you are looking at yourself in the mirror:

“The amount and kind of food I eat, and the amount of exercise and activity I do, make me look like this”

If by the end of this statement you are feeling pretty good about yourself and like what you see in the mirror then that is great. Give yourself a pat on the back even.

If on the other hand you see a few spots where you would like to see some improvement (specifically losing some fat, or maybe even building up a few muscles) then you only have two courses of action…and those are…

Eat slightly less calories (on average) than you are currently eating…to lose fat

Do more targeted weight training than you are currently doing…to build muscle

It really is this simple.

How you arrive at a calorie deficit is up to you. I personally choose Eat Stop Eat because A) I spent almost two full years editing the darn thing and B) it really is hands down the simplest way to eat less calories long term without going nuts about it.

And weight training is absolutely essential to building and maintaining firm and youthful like muscle long into your life.

This might be a bit harsh, but it’s really what we’re all dealing with. The way our bodies currently look and our ability to change and manipulate it with diet and exercise.

I have found Eat Stop Eat to be the only truly effective long term solution for lasting fat loss/weight loss. And as always weight training will be a staple in my weekly routine for the rest of my life.

Weight loss nutrition and exercise should never be more confusing or consuming that these two simple steps.

People like Brad have taken the burden upon themselves to sort through all of the nutrition and diet industry media hype and rhetoric as well as rooting through all of the dry and tedious research.

Once this information has all been analyzed and broken down we realize that our multiple ways to 'eat for weight loss' yet they all revolve around eating less (and hopefully weight training more).

When you simplify this down to it's core the result is the beautifully simple nutrition and lifestyle of Eat Stop Eat.