Making Fasting Work for You

Occasionally I get email from people who have difficulties with there fasts.

Fasting is like every other aspect of your life. You are going to have easy fasts and you are going to have days that are a little tougher.

But here is the beauty of flexible intermittent fasting - you can tailor your fasts to your own individual needs.

For instance, let's say..you tend to get hungry around 16 hours into your fast. In this scenario I would suggest a 11 am to 11 am fast.

This way you are asleep at the 17 hour mark (around 4 AM), and by the time you do get up, you only have a couple of hours left in your fast.

Another example is when people have problems eating too much after their fasts.

In this scenario you could use later start and stop times, such as 9 pm to 9 pm. This way, once your fast is completed you only have 2 or 3 hours before it's time for bed..which means less time for eating.

By tailoring your fasts to your own personal needs you can guarantee weight loss success with as little effort as possible.

BP
===

Hi Brad,

I just wanted to give you some feedback on the fasting suggestions you gave me the other day. The noon to noon fast is perfect for me!

I even did an intense weight training session and had SO much energy that evening and the following day. It's helped to keep my blood sugar levels more stable when I'm not fasting too.

I've realised that I actually feel better when I'm fasting, and you can see the changes in my body already! My mum told me last night that my abs were amazing! Always room for improvements though. So given all of that I can't wait for my next fast tomorrow.

Thanks again Brad.

Amy x))

Brad's Predictions - An Update

It was back in January when I made my predictions for 2008. It's been five months now, so I think it's time we took a look and evaluate my Nostradamus-like abilities.


1. Eat Stop Eat will become very popular - Well, we're not there yet, but it does seem like every day more and more people are talking about the benefits of flexible intermittent fasting. Just yesterday I read a multi-page article in Men's Health on the health benefits of fasting, so it looks like people are starting to take notice of how short periods of fasting can help you lose weight and improve your health. Good news for all of us.


2. More people become pro-supplement. I don't have any direct proof, but I think I may have missed the boat with this prediction. It may just be me, but I get the impression that many of us are now completely immune to supplement advertising, and have become tired of the "Rage against the supplement industry" stance taken by many on-line health and fitness personalities. To be perfectly honest, I find the whole topic of supplements boring these days.

3. More and more people will become aware of Obsessive Compulsive Eating. I think this one is definitely happening. I have noticed many similarities between my own personal beliefs about the way we eat, and the beliefs put forth in Michael Pollen's book "In defense of food" so the message is hitting the mainstream, albeit slowly. Hopefully this means more and more people are eating food because of the love of food, and not for fear of eating 'wrong'.

4. More people will photo-blog their food. Definitely happening. And, does nothing for me except point out that I need to improve my culinary skills.

I'm 2.5 out of 4 so far ;)

BP

PS- You can see my original predictions here ==> Brad's predictions for 2008

Adventures with Eat Stop Eat

We all have good days and bad days. Good days at work, bad days at work. Good days in the gym and bad days in the gym. And, for those of us who practice Eat Stop Eat, we have good fasts and bad fasts (hopefully we all have more good than bad).

Sometimes the curve balls that life can throw you while you are fasting can be unbelievable.

For instance, check out the email I received on Monday about a truly unbelievable example of fasting and will power.

Hi Brad

I'm a TV reporter and I am following Eat Stop Eat. One of the city's largest and oldest bakeries burned to the ground on the weekend -- they produce something like 40-thousand loaves of rye bread every week.

So, I was assigned to go to their secondary bakery and do an interview with the owners about the future of the original plant and how they're going to keep up with their orders. But the owner was very late getting there... he kept me and my cameraman waiting for about an hour and a half... during which time I simply had to sit in the bakery store-front and wait, surrounded by -- and I'm not kidding you -- stacks and stacks of the most amazing cinnamon buns, pastries, cookies and bread.

It looked and smelled like heaven, you don't even know. You want to talk about iron will? *I* have an iron will!!

P.S. I accidentally swallowed my gum this afternoon too. Like a three-year-old. My cameraman laughed at me and said I broke my fast. Noooooooo!

Honestly, Unlike this emailer I probably would have caved. I am super impressed that she made it though this ordeal as fresh baked goods are my weakness.

The good news is that the fact that she made it through the entire interview without sampling any of the baked goods showed her just how strong she can be. You can bet the next time she's tempted while fasting it will be an absolute breeze for her to ignore the temptation.

What doesn't break our will, simply makes us stronger.

However, if you do break your fast prematurely don't worry. Remember the whole goal of Eat Stop Eat is flexibility. If you wake up one day and simply do not feel like fasting, or life throws you a curve ball that will make your planned fast difficult, simply reschedule.

There is no difference between fasting Sunday and Thursday as opposed to Sunday and Friday.

Keep your fasts flexible and make them fit into your lifestyle and you will see great results.

BP

Seth Godin vs. Eat Stop Eat

I woke up this morning to an email in-box that was full of emails about marketing guru Seth Godin's recent blog post titled "The (stupid) Diet".

In case you missed in, here is what Seth had to say:

My friend Chris told me about a diet he used to use to lose weight. He would eat what he wanted five days a week and fast two days a week.

No, that doesn't work.

The parallel to marketing seems pretty obvious, doesn't it?

Now I am pretty sure that Seth isn't talking about Eat Stop Eat. Especially since "Eat what you want five days a week and fast for two" would be an absolutely horrible description of the philosophy of Eat Stop Eat. (I would much prefer "Eat sensibly and responsibly while enjoying the foods you Eat. Follow a resistance training program and once or twice a week take a 24 hour break from eating").

Even if Seth was talking about Eat Stop Eat, he most likely has not read the book, and is simply basing his comments on the typical assumptions about the idea of fasting for weight loss.

I find this to be the one thing that every Eat Stop Eat naysayer has in common - They haven't read the book. Once they've read Eat Stop Eat, they almost always take a much more open minded approach to the philosophy behind Eat Stop Eat.

Don't worry about the naysayers. They are typically just scared by the idea of fasting and haven't actually read the research behind it.

BP

PS- If you would like to learn more about the benefits of fasting and the Eat Stop Eat philosophy of fasting for weight loss, please CLICK HERE.

Listen to me being Interviewed About Eat Stop Eat

I recently discovered the miracle of Skype. I know that most people probably think Skype has been around forever, but for me this is some pretty new stuff.

I'm not sure if you are as in the dark as I am when it comes to this type of thing, but just in case you haven't heard of Skype, its a service where you can make phone calls using your computer.

As soon as I figure this out it was time to start calling people I knew who would otherwise be long distance. I ended up chatting with my friend Adam Steer from www.coachsteer.com and pretty soon our conversation turned to everything to do with Eat Stop Eat, fasting for weight loss and working out.

Luckily, Adam saw this as a great opportunity to do an impromptu interview.

Adam had some great questions for me, so if you want to hear what I think about detox diets, or how I stumbled into studying the benefits of fasting (or if you just want to hear my funny Canadian accent) then all you have to do is sign-up for the Eat Stop Eat newsletter.

(use the sign-up box on the right top corner ==>)


BP

Fasting AND Mental Clarity

As an early Valentines day present I bought my wife the new Mac Book Air. A fantastic machine that has made both our lives a lot easier (For those of you thinking "who gives people electronics for Valentines, don't worry, I also bought her roses!).

Now, no matter where we are in the house or in our travels with lil' Brier, we can have access to the net. Add in the fact that her new mac book is thinner than my Black Berry, and only weighs 3 pounds, and you have the perfect computer for a new Mom on the go (Brier has a busier social schedule than any other 8 month old I know!).

Thanks to the MacBook Air, I was able to spend some time this morning reviewing The Conditioning Research Blog. A great blog that covers a lot of relevant information on fasting.

I noticed Chris ( the blog's author) makes some comments about fasting and increased mental alertness and mental clarity.

I found this interesting because I have had a surprising number of people email me to tell me that they feel a heightened sense of energy and concentration while they are fasting.

It's true. Many people following Eat Stop Eat have told me that they are their most productive when they are fasting.

Perhaps this is because they aren’t spending any time worrying about what and where they are going to eat next, or perhaps it’s because fasting increases circulating levels of the adrenal hormones. Either way, it seems that brief periods of fasting can be useful as a method of increasing both your energy and ability to concentrate.

Eat Stop Eat - An effective way to lose weight that is much easier than you might think, and that just might help you finish that major presentation in time!


BP


No more counting calories to lose weight

Calories, Weight Loss & Weight Gain

Remember how I told you I was snowed in on Friday? Well it’s been exceptionally warm today, so as a result I’m at home dealing with a flooded basement. Awesome.

Somewhere in-between ripping up carpet and tearing down drywall I managed to check my email this morning and received a very interesting question:

“Have you ever met someone who was eating too few calories for weight loss and then when they ate more, they lost weight?”

In my opinion fitness experts are making a huge mistake telling people that you can actually eat so little that you stop-losing weight.

Only in the diet industry could people get away with making a statement like this that lacks so much common sense.

I think this misconception is caused by the articles you read in bodybuilding and fitness magazines and is a prime example of obsessive compulsive eating (OCE).

If you dig down into the history of this theory you will find that it comes from the idea that all we have to do is slightly cut our calories to lose weight at a super accelerated rate.

Let’s analyze the classic example of a man attempting to get shredded by reducing is calorie intake from 2400 down to 2200.

Firstly, it’s important to realize that none of us really know exactly how much we eat.

Sure, we can get a rough idea by using tools like fitday.com, and we might be able to say we eat around 2400 every day, but we could be off by a hundred or so calories in either direction simply as the result of some bad rounding and incorrect estimating.

For instance, a food that is 100 Calories per serving could actually be 104, and the 2 servings you ate could actually have been closer to 2.5. These small little underestimations can all ad up pretty quickly.

Secondly, and here’s the kicker, we really have NO IDEA if 2400 was the right “maintenance” number to begin with!

Perhaps for the person in the example a true maintenance intake is actually 2332 Calories and the 2400 that he has been eating represents a very slow almost undetectable steady weight gain.

Now a reduction down to 2200 calories is barely a 4% reduction in calories. And, I guarantee that in this situation on any given day, 2200 could easily become 2300 and thus cause no weight change at all.

Hopefully by now you are seeing why over-analyzing your nutrition and focusing too much on numbers can cause “Paralysis by Analysis”. Things that should work on paper may not work in real life.

It may be true that over the long run even small changes like this can create big results, but it takes some serious amount of appraisal and adaptation to make weight loss happen at more drastic speeds.

So forget all of the numbers and equations and stick with what we know for sure-
If a certain amount of calories does not make you lose weight, then that amount of calories is the amount it takes to maintain your current weight at your current activity level.

To lose more weight you can either decrease the calories you eat, or increase the calories you burn. It does not matter who you are or what you do; this is the easiest most logical approach.
It also does NOT matter what person X eats or how much person Y exercises, it only matters how much YOU currently eat and if YOU are currently losing weight.

If you aren’t losing weight and you want to, then you must adjust your calorie deficit.
The idea that there is a dieting threshold and that dieting too much will actually stop weight loss is silly.

I think it is important to for us to look outside of health and fitness occasionally. A very harsh example of the effects of extreme caloric deprivation is people who suffer from anorexia.
These poor people reduce their calories to ridiculously low levels to the point where they waste away until they die.

They never hit a magic number where they stop losing weight. AND they see massive losses of muscle mass, so by the classic definition they would have 'slower' metabolisms, yet they still lose weight until they are a walking skeleton, and then unfortunately for many of them, until they are deceased.

I know this is a very harsh example, but it puts things into perspective, and corrects our myopic “health and fitness” view of how the body works.

People who advocate the idea of “eating so little that you stop losing weight” should Google image search anorexia just to remind themselves how ridiculous they sound. And, imagine how they must make families who have lost loved ones to anorexia feel when they say; “if you eat too little you won’t lose weight”.

Another, less tragic example are long distance runners.

These people eat a lot. And they eat a lot of Carbohydrates. But because of their training they still spend large periods of time in a caloric deficit.

This combination of intense exercise and not being able to make up for this level of training with the amount of foods they eat keeps their bodyweight and body fat at extremely low levels. It does not make sense that eating even less would slow their weight loss.

"Amy, you're looking a little thin, better start eating less so you don't lose any more weight"

Lastly the idea that eating more will actually cause you to lose weight, is just typical of the OCE confusion that they use to fill the fitness magazines and that over the years has managed to dig its claws into the dieting paradigm.

If a long distance runner started to eat more food, they would start losing more weight? Similarly, would an anorexic lose more weight by eating more? I don’t think so.

Now I’m not condoning extremely harsh low calorie diets (I think a 10-20% reduction from a true maintenance is ideal).

What I am advocating is careful appraisal of the progression of a diet, and logical problem analysis for logical solutions. Follow this paradigm and nothing about weight loss ever has to be drastic.

If you lower your calories you will lose weight. If you continue to lose weight you will eventually hit a new weight that your lower calorie intake can maintain. This means you will stop losing weight.

If you lower your calories slightly again you will start losing weight again until your body reaches the weight that your new lower calorie intake can support. These changes may be very minor, but they still need to be made.

I will admit that drug use may skew everything I just said, as would people who are attempting to get to super freaky levels of near death body fat for a real bodybuilding show.

I’ve spoken with many trainers who have very unique stories about top level athletes who are getting down to incredibly low levels of body fat and who have stalled in their fat loss. If you are trying to go from 4.5% body fat down to 4% you are way outside of normal human physiology and I admit I’m not an expert in this area.

In this unique situation things like “refeeding” days may actually be warranted. Again, preparing people to be on a stage, near death, flexing for an audience is not my area of expertise.

For normal people trying to lose weight, maybe even get lean enough to have a visible "6-pack" of abs, everything I just said is my educated opinion of the way things work.

There is a lot of confusion out there, but none of it is really logical.

This is why I hate Obsessive Compulsive Eating. It just doesn’t make any logical sense.

Its time we started thinking like children again. If you asked a classroom full of 8 year olds what happens if they eat too much they’d all yell out “we’d get fat”. Ask them what happens when they eat to little, they yell, “we’d get skinny”.

This is why I follow the Eat Stop Eat program. I simply don't beleive that equations, calculations and estimations are effective tools for weight loss. I like finding an amount of food that I can eat and maintain my current weight, then reducing the amount I eat so I lose weight. I just makes the most sense to me.

BP

Fasting and Exercise

I've had a number of people ask me about the effects that fasting and exercise have on blood sugar.



In clinical research there generally isn't a concern that exercising while fasting will cause an ill effects to a persons blood sugar. The body is remarkably good at regulating blood sugar levels, even in the face of intense exercise.



In fact, most of the research on weight training and protein synthesis is conducted on people who have been fasted for anywhere between 12 and 16 hours. And, we know that there are professional athletes who play full NFL games in the fasted state.



However, as I have stated before, there is a difference between research and the real world. Most importantly, in research the people who participate as the subjects are always screened to make sure they are healthy, and that they do not have any underlying medical conditions that may effect the results of the study.



So, I figured this would be another great time to experiment on myself, using my dreaded glucometer.



After I was fasted for 22 hours, went to my Krav Maga class and took part in an hour of practicing leg kicks, body kicks and kicking and striking combinations. It was a hard class and I definitely sacrificed the health of my shins in the name of research!



Here are the results.



I started the class with a blood sugar of 4.7 mmol/L, pretty typical for me during fasting.



After an intense 15 minute warm-up of sprints, sprawls and various body weight exercises I retested by blood sugar and had a reading of 3.9 mmol/L (This is the lower end of normal, however I felt fine).



After the warm up we went right into shins kicks and defences with lots of moving around and striking, I was definitely sweating, and working hard, I took a quick break and tested my blood sugar which was at 5.6 mmol/L (This score is about the same as I would see after a meal)



We followed up with more pad work, throwing in some body kicks and more combinations and making sure our footwork was good, right at the end of the class I measured my blood sugar again and it was at 5.3 mmol/L (looks like I'm already returning to normal)



15 minutes after class my blood sugar was back down to 4.2 mmol/L. thirty minutes later it was 4.7 mmol/L and then right before my fast ended at 2 pm my blood sugar was 4.4 mmol/L. (Right back to where I should be. Time to eat.)

Just another example of the bodies ability to regulate blood sugar, even while fasted and exercising intensely.

BP

Fasting Benefits Your Heart

My mom sent me a text yesterday about a study out of the University of Utah. Apparently, according to this study, people who fast one day a month are 40 percent less likely to be diagnosed with clogged arteries than those who did not regularly fast.

Sounds like great news, especially if you are like me and fast 6 to 8 times per month.
Unfortunately, after looking over the study, I did a google search to see what the newswires were reporting and found some very disheartening news bytes.

According to an article I found on Yahoo News, when asked to comment on the study Dr. Raymond Gibbons of the MayoClinic (who was not involved in the study), stated "Fasting resets the metabolic rate".

Now I'm not sure what Dr. Gibbons meant by "resets", and he was probably speaking about long term chronic fasting,but the author of the article on Yahoo News added these words after Dr. Gibbons quote "slowing it down to adjust to less food and forcing the body to store calories as soon as people resume eating".

These words cannot be Dr. Gibbons. They just can't be. There is no way I can accept that a former heart association president would make such an incorrect statement, especially since it was in reference to a 24 hour fast.

This begs the question, why is the mainstream media so afraid to tell people to eat less? Why is it that when research on the benefit of brief periods of fasting comes out, people have to comment on the dangers of long term chronic fasting.

Instead of just explaining that as little as one 24 hour fast per month can reduce your chances of being diagnosed with clogged arteries, they have to start digging to find something,(completely unrelated to the study), so they can throw some negative comments into the fray.

If you've read Eat Stop Eat, you know that metabolism doesnot decrease during brief fasting. In fact, evidence suggests that it may even go UP!

I know it will be an up hill battle, but my goal is to make the use of brief periods of fasting a respected and established method of weight control...because it is easy and because it works.

Are you fasting today?

BP

EAT STOP EAT, its easy, its effective, and new research suggests it's good for your ticker!

Are you fasting today?

You'll never guess what happened to me this week.

I was at a lunch meeting, just finishing my coffee when someone came up to my table to tell me that she had just started Eat Stop Eat.

To be honest, it was a little weird to be approached in public, but it was an awesome feeling to be able to actually see her excitement. And, it was an even better feeling knowing that she was going to see results!

My goal is to make the question "Are you fasting today?" as common as "Did you want to go eat?". If this happens, it means people are finally losing weight without the pain of constantly dieting. Without having to cut carbs for months on end, and without the pain of taking a week off of dieting only to watch the pounds practically jump back onto their bodies.

So with New Year's fast approaching, it's time for you to help spread the word. If you have been practising Eat Stop Eat, and have seen great results, it's time to let your friends in on your little secret (it's the holiday season, so don't be greedy and keep it all to yourself!)

This holiday season you can do your part to stop the needless diet suffering that always happens this time of year.

Eat Stop Eat, help spread the word

BP

PS- Haven't read Eat Stop Eat yet? You can check it out byclicking here ==> www.eatstopeat.com



Fasting for weight loss

Fasting and Athletic Performance

Last night I decided to take a little break from working and watch some television. I flipped to the sports highlight channel and was able to watch the highlights from a couple of this weekend's football games.


Boy was I glad I did!


The announcers were discussing college football and in particular the Washington State Cougars. Apparently, one of their players on the Cougars fasts for religious purposes, and during this particular game, he was right in the middle of a fairly lengthy month of fasting (He does not eat or drink during the daylight hours).

Now this player wasn't fasting for weight loss, and his one day fasts are not a full 24 hours, like the fasts I use for Eat Stop Eat, however they are 15 hours, and they are ever day for a month, and they include no liquids at all, so they are definitely very intense! So this athlete was able to play a very high level sport that involves very explosive and intense periods of activity, that can go on for hours, without any food or drink!

Even more interesting is that his older brother plays in the NFL, so he would be fasting during NFL games - talk about intense.

I often weight train and play sports during my fasts, however after hearing about these two brothers I have decided to do something a little more intense during today's fast.

I have begged and pleaded with Craig Ballantyne from turbulencetraining.com to give me an advanced copy of his new "500 workout".

I'm going to do the workout at some point today...hopefully around 1 pm, which would put me about 22 hours into a fast.

I promised Craig I wouldn't give away the exact details about his workout, however I will post about how hard it was and my experiences doing this sort of extreme exercise while fasted.

BP

Learn more about the benefits of using one day fasts for weight loss

Food, Food groups and Nutrients

Before University, I ate food. I ate things with names like ' Ham sandwhich', 'scrambled eggs', and 'tuna casserole'.

After earning a degree in nutrition I ate food groups. Meats, breads, and fruits and vegetables.

When I worked in the supplement industry I ate nutrients. Quick digesting whey protein, complex carbs and heathy fats.

Now, after studying nutrition for ten plus years, I eat food again.

I can sum up what I've learnt in those ten years by saying: A grilled-cheese sandwhich is a grilled-cheese sandwhich. No better or worse for you then any other food., especially if you eat a variety foods.

It doesn't matter if you are a bodybuilder, someone trying to lose 50 pounds, or if you are just interested in the foods you eat, my message to you is the same;

Enjoy the foods you eat.

BP

Eat Stop Eat

Fat Loss Time Machine

I just read an amazing article titled "The Perils of Eating, American Style", that was first published in Time Magazineback in December of 1972.


In this article written almost 35 years ago, the danger of inactivity and the merits of a low-fat diet versus low-sugar diet are argued. Various Doctors call for a sweeping reform of our nutrition programs, and a young doctor Atkins out of Manhattan is pushing his newly coined "Atkins Diet".


High protein diets were the current trend for weight loss,while more conservative doctors were calling for people to use more "sensible systems of weight loss".


Best of all, nutritional labeling was just STARTING to be discussed.


Fast forward 35 years. What has changed? We have nutritional labeling on everything. With one quick search onthe Internet I can tell you exactly how many calories I consumed yesterday and I have a pretty good idea of how much saturated fat was in my steak. Unfortunately, this newfound informational freedom doesn't seem to be helping.


We are still arguing over low-fat versus low-carb, and high protein diets are still all the rage for weight-loss.


And we're bigger than ever before. What gives?


Well for starters, we're even more inactive then before. My favorite quote from the article is when a doctor from Harvard is being interviewed about activity levels and says:


"Look at those advertisements for extension telephones; all those steps you save probably add up to five pounds a year in fat."


Extension telephones? Imagine what he must think of cellphones, TV remote controls and just about everything else we now have to aid in our sedentary lifestyles.


From what I can tell, 35 years later and we are still arguing about what to eat, how to eat and when to eat; but no one is arguing about our ever increasing need for exercise.


Here's the kicker...our exercise is getting worse too. Thirty minutes on the elliptical two to three times a week just isn't going to cut it. Either are arm curls for 25 reps with the pink dumbbells you find at the end of the weight rack.


This sounds harsh but its true. The single most effective tool you have in your arsenal for weight loss that you have complete control over is your workout program.


I find it amusing that in 2007 people are willing to shell out 50 bucks for a weight loss pill that is nothing more than caffeine mixed with some microscopic amounts of ineffective herbs, but don't want to pay for a personal trainer or a properly planned workout program.


Following the right workout can make all the difference in theworld.


It is time to take control. Concentrate on your workouts. Find what works for you, then do more of it more often.


Try a professionally designed program like The 6 MinuteCircuits Workout, Shape Shift or Turbulence Training.


Try walking, biking, taking the stairs, martial arts or pole dancing classes,whatever it takes to find one more thing that you enjoy that will get your heartbeat up and your muscles working.


And when it comes to nutrition, eat less but enjoy the foodyou eat. Eat more fruits and vegetables and more herbs andspices. And most importantly stop stressing over your food.


After all, the idea of trying to find the right foods to eat sowe can lose weight has failed us miserably for the last 35 years.


BP

Fasting for Weight Loss

I Lost 4 Pounds of Fat in One Day!!

Alright, so I didn't lose any fat today. Nor did I lose any weight. In fact, I'm the exact same weight right now as I was this morning.

The important thing is that I was able to write that statement. Nobody stopped me, flagged me, or challenged me. Despite what many people believe, magazines and websites are NOT reviewed for their accuracy.

There isn't a group of scientists evaluating the latest copy of "Musclemen Monthly" or "Fit Moms International" to make sure that their diet or exercise advice is up to date and factually correct.

This is why I like research. High level clinical research goes through a peer review process before it is allowed to be published. Meaning scientists review each other's work for accuracy before its allowed to be printed.

But here's the kicker. The abstract of a paper (that little 200-300 word summary of the research that is available free on-line at places like pubmed.com) is typically NOT peer reviewed.

This is why it bothers me to no end when I see people use abstracts in magazines and on-line forums to support their outlandish claims.

Unless you are trained to review research, you should not be writing about research. This goes for magazines, forums, blogs.

Allowing information from abstracts that have not been reviewed for accuracy to appear in magazines and websites that are also not reviewed for accuracy, just adds to all of the nutrition confusion that is so prevalent today.

Read everything critically. If its sounds wrong, it probably is.

BP

Fasting for Weight Loss

Foods for Weight Loss

I just saw an interesting new milk ad. It shows a mom and baby with the term "all figured out" beside the mom.

The message? Drink milk and lose weight, or more correctly, "Milk your diet. Lose weight."

The REAL message? It goes something like this:

"We're OK with the fact that you want to lose weight, but please keep buying our product."

In other words, most major companies are aware of the fact that many of us are trying to lose weight, and this scares them.

Diets mean eating less food. Eating less food means buying less food. Buying less food means less profits for the food companies - and this just is not acceptable.

So the smart option for the food industry is to align their products with weight loss, but the truth is that this message is just plain wrong.

No food causes weight loss - Period. Some foods may have more calories and some have may less, but none can actually make you lose weight.

The bottom line is until science develops a food that contains negative calories we should question the ethics of any company who claims their food can actually cause weight loss

BP

Fasting for Weight Loss

How Hilary Did It!

I just read a very interesting article about Hilary Duff's diet secrets and how "she almost went too far".

According to this particular magazine, Ms. Duff was hurt by comments about her weight made back when she was 15.

It made her obsessed and drove her into a "hard-core" diet consisting of vegetables and protein only. After a intervention from her older sister, Hilary eased up on her rigorous program.

Now she's Healthy, Happy and Feeling great.

Here's a few things you need to know about this article.

1. Hilary is a 5'2" young lady who just recently turned 19 years old. Keep this in mind when you read the following points.

2. According to the ESTIMATES in this magazine, Hilary's weight fluctuated from 130 pounds when she was 15 to 100 pounds when she was 17 and now 109 pounds at age 19.

3. She supposedly does one hour long pilates sessions 4 times per week. She also does laps in her pool twice a week.

4. According to the ESTIMATES in this magazine Hilary eats about 1100 Calories per day.

What can we learn from these facts?

Ms. Duff is a 19 year old celebrity who is very small in stature. Granted, she takes her body weight very seriously, however we must keep in mind she also has literally dozens of people around her who profit from her marketability and thus support her efforts to maintain a Hollywood body.

Most importantly, all the information in the magazine is either Estimated (her weight was estimated from pictures and her caloric intake was estimated from a sample 1 day menu) or received from second hand sources (the quote about Hilary doing pilates was taken from her supposed pilates instructor). In other words, we really have no clue what Ms. Duff does to stay in shape.

Bottom line - taking diet and exercise advice from the estimates of what a teenaged 5'2" celebrity movie and music star who was a millionaire before most of us were drive, is just plain crazy.

The lives of celebrities are fascinating, but there's no logic in trying to mimic their supposed weight loss regimens.


BP

Eat Stop Eat

More on the new book

As I mentioned earlier I've been hard at work finishing off my first nutrition book.

It's just about finished, and let me tell you, this book is going to raise some eyebrows.

Now, I know it's a tired cliche to say that an upcoming book is 'controversial' or 'politically incorrect', but in this case...it's true on both counts.

And not in a 'my book is controversial because I've peppered in some swear words' way, but in a true, 'I've written what I feel is right and I don't care if it goes against what people think is right' way.

I justify it this way - making a radical change to the entire way people eat isn't going to happen if I dance around the issue - I have to go for the knockout. And that's exactly what I did.

People may call me crazy now, but in ten years time, it just might be the new way we look at nutrition

PS- the book is called "Eat Stop Eat"

More updates to come.

BP

Eat Stop Eat

What's Interesting about this study?

27 obese patients were subjected to a ten day fast consisting of 250 Calories per day. The Subjects were divided into two groups, a group that exercised and a group that did not.

After ten days:

• Both groups had similar weight loss.

• The exercise was well tolerated without problems.

• The loss of muscle was significantly less in the exercise group.

The authors concluded "This may indicate that muscular activity is useful in aiding adaptation to fasting and may orient weight loss preferentially towards fat mass."

While certainly not earth shattering...the part that is very interesting to me is that this study was published in 1975!

So, we had a vague idea over 3o years ago that exercise was needed to maintain muscle mass while dieting. Yet, nowadays we still argue about protein ratios, carb cycling and meal frequency and supplementation. Seems like something was lost in the last 30 years!

Simple truth - Just like Schrub et al. hypothesised over 30 years ago, if you are dieting and you want to preserve muscle mass, lift weights.

BP

Buying Weight Loss

I apologize for the lack of posts; it's been a very busy 2007 so far.

For me, 2007 has been the year of meetings. It's been one after the other for almost all of January. Usually, they involve a good amount of food, and a lot of conversation about nutrition and the food industry.

In fact, I just finished a meeting today where I had one of those "hmmmmm" moments.

You see, it dawned on me while discussing the latest dieting trends that we have done a great job of creating an "industry" out of weight loss. And, by "we" I don't mean some evil corporate conspiracy or some secret group of executives. I mean you, me, and everyone else who make up the buying public.

Somehow, we've convinced ourselves that in order to lose weight, eating less is not the answer. Instead, we've decided that the key to losing weight is eating foods that make us lose weight.

It's as though we are addicted to buying. To purchasing and consuming. In general we have a hard time excepting that "taking away" is the answer. We would much rather "add".

Sure, this keeps us as good little consumers and keeps the economy going, but a quick look at the stats reveals that it certainly doesn’t make us any leaner. In fact, the opposite is happening. We keep consuming and, as a population, we keep getting bigger.

So here is my solution - Instead of worrying about which green tea to buy, and what specific type of grapefruit you are going to eat, which diet you are going to follow, and which fast food is "healthiest", make a rule that outside of the grocery store, you will not pay for food. I don't mean steal. I just mean don't buy anything extra that day.

We already know that just because you are hungry, it doesn’t mean your metabolism is slowing down, or that you are breaking down muscle (Unless you haven’t eaten in over 3 days!). For the most part, it simply means you are used to eating at that time.

So forgo the snacks in the car, and the coffee stop on the way into work. I’m sure that if you can avoid buying any extra food for an entire month, you will see significant weight loss. Despite all the gimmicks and trends, simply eating less is still the best, most effective answer.

Give it a try, but take a positive approach. Go into this experiment thinking that you do not need to buy extra food. That you will not feel bad, or sluggish. That it will not affect your workouts or your stress level. Stay positive, and avoid purchasing anything other than your groceries.

BP

Deconstructing Nutrition - When you don’t eat, your metabolism slows down

When you don’t eat, your metabolism slows down.

This "nutrition fact" says that when your caloric intake is too low, your metabolism actually slows down. It has been referred to as “starvation mode” and is the basis for the current trend of advising people that they should eat every couple of hours, never skip meals, and never cut your calories too low while dieting.

But is it true?

To examine this truth, I decided to look into what happens to a person’s metabolism when they fast for a short period of time (between one and three days).

The first study I reviewed had six healthy male volunteers fast for 3 days. During this fast, the researchers measured the changes in the subject’s metabolism at 12, 18, 24, 20, 42, 54, and 72 hours of fasting. What they found was that there was no significant change in energy expenditure during any of the 7 time points. So from this study we can say that a 3 day fast in men does not cause a decrease in metabolism.

Already this evidence goes against the idea that if we don't eat every couple hours our metabolism will slow down.

The second study I reviewed had 8 men and 8 women fast every other day for 22 days straight. There was no significant change in the subject’s metabolism from the start to the end of the study. From this study, we can say that fasting every other day for a period of 22 days results in no significant changes to a person’s metabolism.

So we now know that even if we eat sporadically for 22 days, most likely our metabolism won't be affected.

The third study I reviewed had 8 men fast for either 12 hours or 72 hours and then eat a meal. After the meal their metabolisms were measured for 12 hours. This study found that regardless of whether or not the men fasted for 12 hours or 72 hours, their metabolism for 12 hours after eating a meal was not significantly different. So this study shows us that a short term fast doesn’t affect your metabolism after you eat.

So even if we don't eat for 3 days, there is absolutely no change in the way eating effects our metabolism.

So from the research I was able to review, it doesn’t seem like short periods of fasting cause any negative effects on our metabolism. Nor does it affect our metabolism once we start eating again.

Since having absolutely no calories for a short period of time does not effect our metabolism, I feel safe in saying that the idea that you need to eat every couple hours in order to keep your metabolism “revving” is actually a nutrition myth and not a fact at all. Also, the phenomena of a “starvation mode” does not happen until after at least 3 days of fasting, if it actually even exists.

BP

PS- For those of you who are interested, I will post my references in the comments section.

Eat Stop Eat