Eat Stop Eat Review

Eat Stop Eat Review - Does Intermittent Fasting Really Work?

Eat Stop Eat is an ebook about losing weight through intermittent fasting (IF). If you are considering intermittent fasting (IF) to lose weight but not sure if it works, then this review may help you make an informed decision. 

I have practiced IF in the past 12 years with proven results, so I am here to share some of my personal thoughts about the popular IF ebook Eat Stop Eat.  

I am someone who lives a simple life. Eat Stop Eat matches this lifestyle very well especially in terms of weight loss. I have failed with many other weight loss programs but succeeded with Eat Stop Eat. It is simple and easy to follow. I must say a true weight loss plan does NOT have to be complicated. 

About Intermittent Fasting (IF)

So what is intermittent fasting and how and why it makes weight loss simple and effective?

IF is a scientific method of losing weight by using an eating strategy. It focuses on when to eat rather than the type of food to eat. The strategy is to eat at certain times and fast for certain periods. And by doing so, your body will be forced to tap into its fat stores for fuel. Therefore, this makes it easier for you to burn the stubborn fat.

You do not need to cut calories severely or refrain from any food group. The plan is to fast for 24 hours once or twice a week, hence creating a calorie deficit. When fasting, you take as few calories as possible such as tea, juice or water and when you break the fast, you eat what you want but in normal portion.  

It will take a week or two to get accustomed to the Eat Stop Eat style of eating. The more fasts you do, the easier you’ll find it. And you will see the weight loss results come very fast. 

Download it for just $10 – until end of Feb 2019

(It is usually $49.95)

Health Benefits of Intermittent Fasting

There are tremendous benefits to intermittent fasting. The main thing it does is rest many of the vital parts and organs of your body so they can do their jobs better. Some of these are: 

• Rests the digestive system
• Increases insulin sensitivity 
• Increases Growth Hormone (GH) levels
• Reduces blood sugar
• Detoxification 
• Decreases inflammation
• Increases weight loss and fat loss

People from various backgrounds have been fasting for different reasons in the past thousands of years, and the above benefits are generally agreed. But what is more amazing is that many of the benefits were found after as little as 24-hours of fasting!  So here comes the beauty of IF when you want to lose weight.

About Eat Stop Eat

The expanded version of Eat Stop Eat is 214 pages long vs its first edition was 90 pages – It provides simple and concise information about short term fasting. 

The Eat Stop Eat method of using flexible intermittent fasting for weight loss is so completely uncomplicated that you can literally start the program the VERY MINUTE you finish reading this book.

You can buy the book, follow the guide and see the results. If in 60 day’s time, you decide Eat Stop Eat is not for you, then you will get a 100% refund at no-hassles and no-questions-asked. 

The regular price of Eat Stop Eat is $49.95, but until end of February 2019, you will need to pay only $10.  Please click this link to enjoy the special price.

About The Author

Eat Stop Eat was created by Brad Pilon who has a unique background. He has an honors degree in nutrition. Instead of becoming a dietitian, he started working in the weight loss industry, right after university. Throughout his career, he was able to conduct multiple body composition tests on numerous athletes and top level bodybuilders and monitor them while they dieted and tried new experimental weight loss programs.

In fact, it was these experiments that ultimately led him to leave the industry and pursue graduate studies in human biology and nutritional sciences.

Many of the experiments he conducted had results that were VERY different from what he expected, and he soon realized that if he was to truly understand nutrition’s role in weight loss, then he would have to start from the very beginning and study what happens to the body when it goes without ANY food.

Eat Stop Eat is actually all the research from the scientific reviews he completed in graduate school.

That’s right, Brad’s research was on ‘The Metabolic Effects of Short Periods of Fasting in Humans and its Potential Application in Weight Loss’, so in essence when you read Eat Stop Eat what you are really reading is an easy-to-read version of his graduate study. 

Brad developed the Eat Stop Eat program as a way to help people lose weight. His goal is to help everyone who follows his program to lose weight and build muscle as quickly as possible.

Pros

• The Eat Stop Eat program is easy to do because you don’t have to prepare any special meals or think about what to eat. You just have to stop eating for a period of 24 hours. It seems hard at first, but the more fasts you do, the easier you’ll find it, and you will quickly get used to it.

• The Eat Stop Eat book is an online bestseller with thousands of copies sold since 2007. It is legit, and it is not a product that exists today and gone tomorrow.

• An interesting add-on advantage of fasting is that you have more time in the day. When you don’t have to spend time shopping, cooking and washing the dishes, you’ll get a bit more done in the day and enjoy doing something that you may not normally have time to do.

• The Eat Stop Eat method can be used by men and women of all ages.

Cons

• The book explained and proved why IF works. Although everything is supported by Brad’s scientific research, the actual fasting instructions won’t appear until page 118. It will take a bit of patience to go through the basic facts and benefits about short term fasting.

• If you are looking for a diet plan, then you may feel cheated here… but put your fears aside. Because Eat Stop Eat is NOT a diet; it is a lifestyle based on the nutritional custom of including the combination of short-term, flexible, and intermittent fasting along with resistance training into your life. So you would need to be prepared for a new and healthy lifestyle.

Should You Get the Eat Stop Eat?

Definitely yes! 

This guide focuses on one of the most powerful strategies for losing weight fast. Intermittent fasting is not about restrictive diets or mind-numbing exercise. It’s about eating in a way where you get the same amount of calories, but your body burns fat faster because it’s in a fasted state.

There are several different types of intermittent fasting, but this is one of the simplest to follow, and it’s also one of the most effective. It is the only system that gives you everything that you are looking for. If you put into practice the information in this guide and adopt intermittent fasting, you absolutely will lose weight.  

This product works. Period.

Click here to download Eat Stop Eat at $10 (valid through end of Feb 2019)

My Simple Health and Fitness Rules - Eating

When it comes to weight loss, I must say I’m one among the few individuals who manage to lose weight and keep it off. But it’s not a matter of luck, I take some simple actions to make that happen. Want to know how I do it? Here are some of my health and fitness rules which are really simple.

These are my personal rules that you don’t have to follow. However if you do, you’re sure to benefit in one way or another. 

Let me start with my eating rules.

Eating should be enjoyable. If there are too many rules to follow, counting calories for every meal, then there will be no fun at all! Make it simple and you’ll enjoy the beauty of simplicity. Here are my simple eating rules.

1. Eat Less

When I eat less, I feel better. Foods taste better, I feel happier and less worried. You may already know that eating less can help reduce risks of cancers and diseases. 

2. Eat Fresh and Natural

I drink orange juice from a real fresh orange. No bottled or canned orange juice. I’m sure you see what I mean. I don’t take supplements. That’s right. Reading through my blog, you won’t see me recommending any supplements. I do window shopping at Fancl House and GNC…but never buy anything. 

If you eat a variety of real fresh good foods, your need for supplements is close to none. 

3. Eat Less in an Enjoyable Way

I successfully lose weight and stay fit by eating less. More importantly, that’s the way I enjoy. I suggest your finding a sustainable and “enjoyable” way of eating less. That way you will stick with it because you enjoy it. 

If you want to learn how to eat less in an enjoyable way, read my article – 5 Intermittent Fasting Windows that Produce Great Results.

4. Learn to Cook

The more you cook for yourself, the healthier you eat. Do learn to cook and teach your kids to cook as well. No time? Do you have time to date your boy friend or girl friend? Why not cook together? Share the fun of cooking with people you love and eat healthier.

5. Make My Own Dressing

Eating salad is healthy, isn’t it? But don’t forget the dressing which makes you fat. I start making my own dressing after reading this article - The Salad Dressing To NEVER Eat. It’s quick and easy, however delicious and healthy, and I’m never tired of it. 

Finally I’d to remind you of the 5 simple cooking methods that I mentioned in my earlier post: grilling, poaching, steaming, boiling and raw. Read the full article: Simple Life and Weight Loss 

These are my simple health and fitness rules in terms of eating. I’ll continue with my workout rules.

I wish you eat well!

Win Weight Loss Battle in Two Days or Two Months ?

I went on a short trip to Thailand with a friend recently in June to celebrate my birthday. After that we both went back to our normal life.

Last week I met my friend again and she was complaining that she was unable to get rid of the extra weight she gained out of the binge eating over the Thailand trip.  I was shocked, as I went on the same trip, ate as madly as she did, but I didn’t have the same problem.  

Now is early September, already two months after our Thailand trip.  She said she worked very hard only to have lost 1 pound.  I did gain some weight as you know it was my birthday and holiday, I just couldn’t stop eating.  But once I returned to work and resume my intermittent fasting (IF) eating style, my weight went back to normal in a few days.

We then discussed the subject of weight loss and I introduced the idea of short term intermittent fasting, quoting myself as a live example of easy weight loss.  But you know what?  Here’s what she said:

    No breakfast – no way!

    No food for 24 hours – I’m going to die of starvation!

I don’t know how hard she worked to lose that one pound.  But if she applied any of the IF methods, losing one pound was as easy as breathing.

Weight loss seems to be more of a mental battle than a physical one. Sure there are some hunger cravings to deal with every now and then, but 90% of the battle is in your mind. If you can win the battle in your mind you can also win the battle around your waist or butt (or wherever you store your fat).

The most important thing you can ever do to lose weight is to re-program the way you think to believe that not only fasting is for some people, but that it’s possible for YOU.

Whatever thoughts you hold in your mind will become reality regardless if they are positive or negative.

As in my friend’s case, it’s up to her to struggle or to change her mind to learn to accept that fasting can help to lose weight. And if she doesn’t believe she can fast, she’s never going to take action to win the weight loss battle.

If you have positive thoughts about fasting weight loss…All you need is a plan.

If you want to look at the skip breakfast plan, take a look at Mike O’Donnell’s website; he calls himself 2 Meal Mike.

If you want to explore the 24-hour fasting plan, visit Brad Pilon’s website; his plan is called Eat Stop Eat.

You can also read my previous article about the 5 Intermittent Fasting Windows that Produce Great Results.  If you are willing to try any of the IF methods that I suggested, then you are on your way to build a new lifestyle for yourself.  

My friend has been brainwashed that breakfast is the single most important meal in a day, she’s not willing to give up breakfast in any case. But she can still try the 5:2 method. Remember where there is a will, there’s a way! It all depends if she has a will to lose weight.

I must say IF is not for everyone. If you are willing to make little changes in your eating habit to acquire big changes in weight loss results, IF is another tool in your fitness tool box.

How You Can Workaround Fasting Windows and Make it Work for You

I have introduced 5 popular intermittent fasting windows in my last post. How about my personal fasting windows? It’s time to show how I workaround my fasting windows and make it work well for me. Here is a live example of how I manage my eating schedule. The main theme is – to keep it simple and flexible. I have a food diary to record my every single meal detail. As someone who eats mostly one meal a day, what to eat, where to eat and with whom to eat are very important to me. 

Without prejudice, I have picked a week from my food diary for demonstration purpose. I have drawn up a table to indicate my eating schedule for the first week of August in 2018. For the 7-day period, I have had 7 full meals and 3 light meals. And there are also a few sessions of 24-hour fasting. *Note, my light meal can me as light as a fruit or some steamed vegetables, just to add some more fiber to my daily diet.

You will find that I’m combining two of the mainstream intermittent fasting patterns – 2 meals and 1 meal a day. My preferred option is one meal (dinner) a day. But as a matter of fact, I had to do it flexibly.

The big picture is: keep at least two 24-hour fasting windows in a week. That's it. Make it simple and flexible. Never fix a day and do it on an unplanned and natural manner. If you keep your eating schedule too rigid, you will have no fun, and somehow will affect your social life.

As for myself, my preferred one meal option is to have dinner only. But you will notice I have had all the 7 full meals at lunch hour, because I have to workaround my fasting window flexibly to accommodate the business and social requests during lunch hour. So if I have a full meal for lunch, I will have no dinner or light dinner.

Will you pick any of your 7-day periods and review your eating schedule? See if you are able to skip one or two meals and still manage to keep your business, social and family lives in balance?  If so, then you are on the starting point to manage your own intermittent fasting windows. If you don’t have a food diary yet, then set up a simple one and review it after one week. 

Anna's Thought Today:

Make fun by fasting, enjoy eating while losing weight! 

5 Intermittent Fasting Windows That Produce Great Results

I’m guessing you want to lose weight easy and simple. However many weight loss programs have a lot of rules and complexities.

Intermittent fasting keeps things simple, and it has become a very popular eating pattern to lose weight. As the author of this blog ‘Simple Life Weight Loss’, I’m here to share my fasting experience as well as provide the useful information to get you started.

This article looks into some of the most popular intermittent fasting windows that have been producing outstanding weight loss results. In fact, I myself rotate among these various fasting windows and obtained great results.

Weight loss comes down to energy in versus energy out. To lose weight, you need to spend more energy (calories) than you intake. This can be done by eating less, moving more or a combination of both. Here’s how intermittent fasting comes into the picture.

Intermittent fasting is the art of arranging your 24 hours between eating and fasting. Let see how we can play around with the fasting window to acquire weight loss and other health benefits. Don’t forget, I’m going to keep things simple for you.　

The Art of Eating Less – 5 Effective Ways of Intermittent Fasting (in short - IF)

Below I have detailed 5 of the most popular ways to do intermittent fasting. All of them can be effective, but which one fits best will depend on the individual.

1. The 16:8 Method: Fast for 16 hours each day (2 Meal Solution)

The 16:8 method simply implies a daily eating window of 8 hours and then fast for the rest 16 hours.  In fact, you can make variations according to your own preference, like 18:6 or 20:4. As far as you keep a fasting window between 16 and 20 hours a day will be fine.

This is technically the easiest way of doing intermittent fasting. This method of fasting can actually be as simple as not eating anything after dinner, and skipping breakfast.

You can drink water, and any other non-caloric beverages during the fast, and this can help reduce hunger levels.

It is very important to eat mostly healthy foods during your eating window. This won't work if you eat lots of junk food or excessive amounts of calories.

I eat this way myself and find it to be easy, natural and 100% effortless. However this is not the only way of IF that I do. I actually combine all the 5 types of IF styles depending on my daily schedule. Continue reading, and you will see.

Anna’s comments: If you are a beginner, this is the easiest option to start with. In a nutshell, simply skip breakfast and that’s it. 

If you want to explore this option further, I would like to introduce Mike O'Donnell, aka 2 Meal Mike, author of 2 Meal Solution and the website The IF Life. Mike is one of my most respected persons about intermittent fasting. He is very passionate, knowledgeable and resourceful about intermittent fasting. He used to sell his eBook 2 Meal Solution, but I just realized that he is now offering it for free. So please visit his website or simply click this link to download: 2 Meal Solution. 

2. The 5:2 Method: Fast for 2 Days Per Week

In a (low calorie) nutshell: you fast for two days and feast for five. On the fast days you eat no more than 600 calories (500 for women) and on the feast days you can eat whatever you like. It's simple, flexible (any two days which are not consecutive are fine) and effective … and fun, because the feast days are carefree and there's always another one to look forward to at every hungry, fasting moment.

For example, you might eat normally on all days except Mondays and Thursdays, where you eat two small meals (250 calories per meal for women, and 300 for men).

Anna’s comments: The 5:2 Diet involves eating 500-600 calories for two days of the week, but eating normally the other 5 days. Try not to over eat on the eating days hoping to compensate on the shortage. Remember our objective is to reduce the overall calories intake.

If for any reason you are unable or not willing to give up breakfast, this 5:2 method is a better option over the 16:8.

3. The Eat-Stop-Eat Method: Do a 24-hour Fast, Once or Twice a Week

Eat-Stop-Eat involves a 24-hour fast, either once or twice per week.

For example, if you finish dinner on Monday at 7 pm, and don't eat until dinner the next day at 7 pm, then you've just done a full 24-hour fast.

You can also fast from breakfast to breakfast, or lunch to lunch. The end result is the same.

Water, black coffee and other non-caloric beverages are allowed during the fast, but no solid food.

The problem with this method is that a full 24-hour fast can be fairly difficult for some people.

However, you don't need to go all-in right away, starting with 14-16 hours and then moving upwards from there is fine.

I personally do this occasionally. When I'm forced to binge especially during business lunch/dinner, work travel, offsite and festivals, I will add a few sessions of 24-hour fasts and then resume my normal one meal day.

Anna’s comments: This method is introduced by fitness expert Brad Pilon, and has been quite popular for many years. Eat-Stop-Eat is an intermittent fasting program with one or two 24-hour fasts per week. Do it when it fits your schedule. If you want to explore this option further, take a look at Brad Pilon’s website. 

4. OMAD Method: One Meal A Day

OMAD stands for One Meal A Day, and it is literally that you have one meal each day. Having to wait 24 hours each day to eat your daily single meal is somehow difficult. But I have been on this way of IF most of the time. However if I had to eat (such as business lunch or someone buys us afternoon treats), I will switch to the 16:8 style, i.e., eat around lunch hour (12-1pm), and then dinner at around 8pm.

Some people may think that it is important to get all the nourishment needed on a daily basis to be packed into one huge serving of food. NO, I personally never do this. One meal is one meal, one normal meal. Try not to over eat, instead, eat what you love to eat and at a comfortable portion. In order for your body to rest while you sleep, early dinner is better than late. 

The great thing is that the next morning, you’ll be completely energized having digested and processed all the food you took in while resting.

5. Spontaneous Meal Skipping: Skip Meals When Convenient

I like this idea very much. I learnt it from Kris Gunnars at HealthLine.

I would say this is a simple combination of all kinds of IF. You don't actually need to follow a structured intermittent fasting plan to reap some of the benefits. Simply skip meals from time to time, when you don't feel hungry or are too busy to cook and eat.

The human body is well equipped to handle long periods of famine, let alone missing one or two meals from time to time.

So if you're really not hungry one day, skip breakfast and just eat a healthy lunch and dinner. Or if you're travelling somewhere and can't find anything you want to eat, do a short fast.

Skipping 1 or 2 meals when you feel so inclined is basically a spontaneous intermittent fast.

Anna’s comments: A very “simple” and "natural" way to do intermittent fasting is to simply skip 1 or 2 meals when you don't feel hungry or don't have time to eat. Just make sure to eat healthy foods. 

TAKE HOME MESSAGE

Intermittent fasting is not something new. If we look back at our ancestors thousands of years ago, they had to hunt for food, and there was no guarantee on the food availability. So it is safe to say that we can survive without food for a short period of time.

There are a lot of people getting great results with some of the above intermittent fasting methods. If you decide to give it a try, then there are a few things I’d like you to keep in mind:

1. Eat healthy foods, avoid junk food.
2. Adjust your eating window and get a good balance within 24 hours of the day. Make yourself feel comfortable, life is to be enjoyed! Hence DO NOT kick off too rapidly. Start off slowly, discover and adjust what does and what does not work for you. Remember you are going to develop a new lifestyle, that you should enjoy the everyday journey and that you should take control of when and how to make things change for you.
3. Have a mindset of developing “healthy lifestyle habits”. You would need to make a few small changes to your daily routine – but in the end, it will be worth it.
4. The idea is that you are able to lose weight in a way that is sustainable for the rest of your life. Not just something that you do for a few weeks or months and then fall back into your old habits. The answer is “intermittent fasting”.

5 Foods to Lose Weight – Only For You

If I say “eat your favourite foods to lose weight”, would that be too good to be true? Well, it is true. However everybody’s food list would be different. I have clipped the following article from Brad Pilon’s newsletter and would like to share with you. Enjoy reading and start to write down your own list of 5 foods to lose weight. Once you have your own list, then move on according to Brad’s advice.

Here's my take on the whole "5 foods to lose weight" thing...

List the 5 foods you know you have to eat in order to stay sane and happy OR help you lose weight. They can be any combination of the daily things you eat that either:

A) support your weight loss efforts, or

B) You need to eat in order to NOT feel like you are on some crazy restrictive diet that is slowly ruining your life and making you a miserable person to be around ;)

Here’s my list:

1) Protein - I like to have around 100 grams a day (I explain why in How Much Protein), and without supplements this takes a little practice.

2) Water - OK, not technically a food, but it helps keep my head clear and I can tell when I forget to drink enough.

3) Espresso in the morning - Probably the only thing that keeps me from committing terrible crimes.

4) Guinness - Want to make me VERY aware that I am dieting? Then take this away from me. I don’t need a drink every night, but knowing I CAN have a pint if I WANT TO goes a long way in making responsible eating manageable.

5) Mint chocolate chip ice-cream - If I had to choose between having ice-cream or abs, I would go buy bigger pants right now. The ice-cream would win. Luckily, I don’t have to make that choice. I just have to keep the serving size realistic.

That’s my 5 foods. If I keep these in the rotation, then weight loss and weight maintenance are much easier for me. If I don’t keep these in check, then weight loss becomes difficult and I become miserable. I feel "restricted" which usually ends with me breaking down after a week or two, since I miss eating the foods and having the drinks I like the most.

I’d like you to take some time and identify your 5 foods.  They can be any combination of foods you feel you need while losing weight and foods you want in order to feel human.

Once you have your list of 5 foods, here’s what you do next.

Tally up the calories that come from your 5 foods. Feel free to round up.

For me this comes to:

1 - 100 grams of protein X 4 Calories per gram, plus a bunch of heavy rounding = 500 Calories

2 - Zero Calories

3 - Zero Calories

4 - 120 Calories, but I’ll round to 150 to be safe

5 - 250 Calories, but I’ll round to 350 to be safe.

Next subtract these calories from your daily calorie goal.

So my "must haves" come to 1,000 calories. This means I have anywhere from 800 to 1,400 calories every day for other food. And remember, it’s not like I have ice-cream and Guinness EVERY day, so sometimes this number is lower.

The bottom line is now I only have to worry about the other foods I eat in a day. And it’s much easier to be good knowing that the foods I really want to have, I’m allowed to have. No feeling deprived.

Identifying your "must haves" helps keep everything in perspective as you try to manage your weight.

Try it out.

Brad Pilon, author of Eat Stop Eat

Why Short Term Fasting Works Well For Women

There are many weight loss programs out there but men and women may not experience the same results.  Some programs work better for women such as short term fasting.  In the first instance, let’s don’t be afraid of the word ‘fasting’, as we are not talking about fasting for a week or longer.  It is a matter of extending the time in between meals which won’t be a big deal to most people.

When man and woman get married and moved in together, both living busy lives, eating out is kind of unavoidable, may be 2 or 3 times a week.  At home they may cook relatively healthy meals and generally eat breakfast and dinner together. 

This somewhat normal life in time will make a difference between man and woman in their body weight.

After a few years of marriage, most men may remain similar in weight but women may put up 15% or even more in weight. Why does this happen?

The answer is simple, women usually put on weight because of eating too much.

Most women may not agree with this. But let's look at it this way. Do wives eat almost everything in the same size servings as the husbands? 

When they would go to the restaurant and order the same meal, men didn’t get the ‘Big Guy’ serving size, while women got the ‘slim girl’ serving size…both plates looked identical. 

When husband made them healthy omelets, he didn’t make one for himself then a half an omelet for the wife, he simply made two omelets.

This is the plight of women.  

Most serving sizes in restaurants are too big for the average man, let alone a woman who is 4 inches shorter and 40-60 pounds lighter.

And, for the most part, when eating at home people usually don’t ‘downsize’ the portion sizes for the smaller person.

Even if we tried, we generally end up at some middle ground that is still a little too much for an average sized woman. Let say a man stands 6’2” weights 200 lbs and his wife stands 5’6” weights 135 lbs, both eating the same amount of food day in and day out.  The weight problem will bother the woman much faster than man.

This is why short term fasting works so well for so many women. It gives them a chance to play a little catch up. Or more correctly to play a little ‘fall behind’.  Allow an extended gap in between meals, such as 12 hours or 18 hours, once or twice a week.  In fact there are many variations in doing short term fasting and that women can try and work out a way to tie in to their lifestyles.

Short term fasting allows woman to eat at a restaurant without having to leave 1/3 of their food on the plate.

When eating at home with their family, they don’t need to cut their chicken breast in half and giving it to the dog.

It is a dietary custom/portion size equalizer.  If you want to find out more about short term fasting, there is an ebook called Eat Stop Eat fully focused on the topic.  

Why Do Men Lose Weight Faster Than Women

Hi fellow ladies, please don’t get upset by this article’s headline. If a man and a woman are doing the same weight loss program, it may happen that the man loses weight faster than the woman. But that’s not the end. When the woman continues working towards her goal, she will enjoy the same weight loss results.

I have recently clipped the article below from Medical Daily and would like to share with you.

Medical Daily - If you’re one of the many women who struggle to see any tangible results even after busting your hump in the gym or watching every single calorie you consume, don’t feel alone. The myth that men lose weight faster than women is anything but a myth. The subtle differences between male weight loss and female weight loss come down to the physiology of both men and women. Men have an easier time burning calories and, subsequently, losing weight because they tend to have the height, weight, and muscle-to-fat ratio advantage over women.

Why Do Men Hit Their Weight Loss Goal First?

Does this scenario sound familiar? A man and a woman, whether they’re boyfriend and girlfriend, coworkers, or brother and sister, start on the same weight loss path complete with the same diet and the same amount of exercise. Around a month or two down that road, the man looks in the mirror one day and finds some weight loss goals he’s been striving for. That same day the woman looks in the same mirror only to find herself disappointed. No, the man did not practice stricter adherence to his diet/exercise regimen. Also, the mirror was not magic. That’s just how we were built.

Oddly enough, men lose weight faster because they are bigger to begin with. In fact, how fast a person loses weight isn’t necessarily a gender issue. It’s more of a big person, little person issue. Whether a person is bigger due to his height, weight, or muscle mass, he has the physiological benefit when it comes to losing weight compared to a smaller person. Since men tend to carry around more height, weight, and muscle mass than women, their bodies need to burn more calories to function.

“Men are generally in larger bodies than women that require more calories and therefore can create larger caloric deficits,” Joey Gochnour, registered dietitian nutritionist and certified personal trainer, told Medical Daily in an email. “Because their caloric needs are higher, any modifications they make will create larger caloric deficits. A larger body's organs will take more calories than a smaller person's organs, so their basic burn rate of calories is larger to begin with. A small female's body will not burn as many calories a day as a larger man's, and any caloric deficit she creates will not be as large as a man's caloric deficit.”

What If Women Step It Up In The Weight Room?

Although there is very little a woman can do to change her height, she can do something to change her muscle-to-fat ratio. Some women have the distorted preconceived notion that if they hit the actual free weight section of their gym they’ll end up bulky and less feminine. Building muscle via strength training is a girl’s best friend when it comes to losing weight. Muscle naturally burns more calories than fat — even while at rest. Strength training doesn’t necessarily mean loading up the squat rack or bench press. Women can build muscle just as efficiently with body weight exercises, such as pushups and pull-ups.  

Unfortunately for women, men yet again have the advantage when it comes to building muscle thanks to the natural male hormone, testosterone. Yes, testosterone is produced naturally by the Leydig cells found in a man’s testicles and a woman’s ovaries. Men just produce the hormone in larger quantities compared to women. Evidence has shown that testosterone increase muscle mass by increasing muscle protein synthesis, the rebuilding of muscle tissue.

A recent study conducted at the University of Missouri set out to determine what disparities exist among men and women at the gym. Lead researcher Prof. Jill Kanaley and her colleagues recruited 75 obese men and women who had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Each participant had their heart rate and blood pressure monitored while completing an isometric handgrip test — continually squeezing an object with force for a couple of minutes. Not only did men lose more weight and experience more cardiovascular benefits compared to women, but women had to perform 20 percent more exercises to achieve the same benefits as men.

What Happens In The Long-Term?

Don’t worry ladies, not all is lost. Men may be losing all that weight in the first few months of their diet and exercise routine, but women do catch up eventually. Researchers from the UK recruited 201 overweight and obese women and 77 overweight and obese men who were asked to follow one of four dieting regimens, including Atkins, Slim-Fast, Weight-Watchers, and Rosemary Conley’s Diet and Fitness Plan, for two to six months.

Much to the dismay of each female participant, men had lost twice the amount of weight and three times as much weight as women two months into their dieting regimen. However, that gap in weight loss started to narrow out as both genders continued their diet. By six months, the rates of weight loss among both men and women were identical. So keep working toward those goals, ladies. It will all pay off sooner or later. 

Top 10 Intermittent Fasting Tips

Looking for some fasting tips to kick start your fasting weight loss program? Here are some of my personal tips that I want to share with you. This blog is meant for experience sharing, so what I write is based on what I did.  

1. Identify the tips provider. This is very important, especially when you are looking for some information which might have an impact on your health. Many give warnings and horror stories about fasting had actually never fasted. Best to look for tips from someone who has the real fasting experiences.

2. Open-minded. Forget about some eating rules that you might have been told a million times, such as breakfast is the single most important meal in a day, eat breakfast like a king, eat 6 to 10 small meals in a day is completely necessary to lose weight…and so on. Food companies brain-wash people with these rules so they will get more sales. Research reports supported by food companies or restaurants always ask you to eat more for all kinds of reasons. If they ask you to fast, then they will be out of business soon.

3. Stick with short term intermittent fasting. Researches have proven that short term fasting does not slow down the metabolism or cause any physical damage. You won't even lose an ounce of muscle while losing weight. If you want to find out the scientific facts, I would encourage your reading Brad Pilon's Eat Stop Eat. 

4. Do not binge on food. This is one of the most important fasting tips I would ever give. Short term fasting is a good opportunity to start off with healthy eating habits along with losing weight. Eating crazily before and after will destroy your fasting effort and can be dangerous. Read more about breaking a fast. 

5. Start slow, work progressively. Try skipping breakfast to begin with. Extend your fasting window gradually until you feel comfortable doing a full 24-hour fasting. For beginners, you may find it hard to go through your first or second attempt of 24-hour fast. You may feel irritated, experience headaches and feel a little of hunger. Believe me, the more fasts you do, the less these problems will bother you and you'll feel better. 

6. Start with juice fasting. If you have no fasting experience and want to give it a try, go for juice fasting first, as it is easier than water fast. Also juice fast provides most of the nutrients and calories that solid foods provide. Apart from this, it gives you some tastes in your mouth which will provide some kind of satisfaction. You just give your body a chance to experience a period without solid food. 

7. Keep busy. Food is sometimes a psychological need rather than a physical need. To withstand hunger, simply don't think about it. Do something (non food-related) that engages and therefore distracts you as much as possible. 

8. Keep silent. Seek support only from people with fasting experience. If you tell everyone that you are fasting, you're sure to receive discouraging comments such as people warning you that you will pass out at any moment and starve to death. As for myself, someone even satirized me of saving food money by fasting. 

9. Keep fasting simple and natural. Stick to juice and/or water. Forget about supplements, vitamins, protein drinks, adding egg white powder or mineral salts to your water…and any other fancy little things to complement your shortage of food. If you do all these, you are not dedicated to fasting and I'm sure you'll quit pretty soon. Eat normal in between your fasting days. 

10. One slightly longer fast per month. While 16-24 hour fasts are easy to do, try to include one slightly longer fast such as 30 hours once a month. For example my 30-hour fast looks like this: breakfast on day 1, dinner on day 2. That way I'm still eating everyday. However you can opt to do dinner on day 1 and breakfast on day 3. Do it when you feel comfortable and your schedule permits. 

You may find lots of other fasting tips. Even real fasters may have different views. For instance, some even don't consider juice fasting as a real fast. After all, there isn't a single fasting bible that has been approved by all. Make your own sensible judgement as to follow fasting tips that sound sensible and work well for you. 

I wish you best.

How To Make Fasting Weight Loss Work For You

Want to do fasting weight loss? If so, you’ve made the right choice. 

Let me clarify. I mean short term periodic fasting. It is very often referred as intermittent fasting (IF). 

Fasting may sound scary in the first place. I understand how you feel. If you’ve been on 3x, 6x or 10x meals a day for years, fasting could be something beyond imagination. However if you understand what fasting is and how it works, fasting weight loss is not scary at all, and yet very effective. In fact, I am eating EVERYDAY.

Why Not Fasting To Lose Weight

Few people will tell you that fasting is a healthy act. Why? Because there are many people who want to make money from people who want to lose weight. Cereals companies advertise heavily by promoting how important breakfast is; diet programs and recipes producers want to sell more of their products. Not to mention the luxury gyms want to recruit more members in order to charge them expensive fees.

99 doctors out of a hundred will not suggest fasting weight loss. Their license which they spent years of hard work to acquire will be challenged. 

So why am I here to talk about fasting weight loss? 

Well, because it works. 

Why Fasting Weight Loss?

A fast cleans up the body. If you bath once a week, you may spend an hour in bathing. If you bath everyday, it may be just a matter of minutes. Fasting works in a similar manner. Prolong fasting cleans up your body, your colon and your bloodstream; short term intermittent fasting can do the same.

A Clean Body Needs Less Food. If your car engine is clean, the same amount of fuel will let you run more mileage; in other words, you need less fuel to run the same mileage. Our bodies work similarly. Food is absorbed and utilized better in a clean digestive system. Your clean body will need less food to run. That is common sense. We don’t need research reports, surveys or clinical tests to prove that. But food is delicious, eating is enjoyable. Meeting friends and eat together is something most people enjoy doing. How to get a good balance between food, social life and a healthy digestive system? We need to give this a careful thought.

How To Make Fasting Weight Loss Work?

First, review your eating habit. Today, we have a world of chronically tired, sick, rapidly ageing, overweight and mentally clouded persons around us. Unfortunately they are still being told to eat more often. Or eat like a king over breakfast, like a queen over lunch and so on. Well, eating 3x, 6x or 10x a day is your choice. Have you made the best choice? Review your eating habit and see if there is another way which might be better for you.

Second, learn to control food desire. Fasting on a periodic basis allows you to gradually gain control over your appetite. Learn to control your desire for food. When you successfully merge short term periodic fasting into your life, you will not feel hungry when you end your fast. You are not hungry, but the desire to eat is there. There is a big difference between actual hunger and desire for food. 

Prepare for a Lifestyle Change

Your appropriate mindset determines your success, not only on weight loss, but almost anything in life. Prepare your mindset for a lifestyle change. This is the ONLY way any type of permanent weight loss becomes effective. You must have a change of thought pattern and a change of lifestyle. If you go back to your old destruction way of eating, you’ll soon gain back the weight you lost through fasting.

Intermittent Fasting Benefits – Weight Loss and Many Others

I’ve enjoyed fasting benefits for many years. 2018 marks my 12th year of intermittent fasting. To review my IF lifestyle in the past 12 years, I must say I have changed a lot – mainly eating habit and appearance. If I were to name the most significant fasting benefits, I would say bloating relieve and natural weight loss. 

Road to Intermittent Fasting

My road towards IF was relatively short as I didn’t go through any experiment stage. Though I have been suffering from digestive problems for 17 years, I kicked off my fasting out of an overnight decision. Once I see the benefits, I had never looked back to my old ways of eating throughout these years.

My fasting window is averagely 24 hour, as I target one meal a day. If I eat dinner tonight, I won’t eat until next day’s dinner. In between I had some drinks such as water, fruit juice, coffee or tea and I don’t care about decaf or not. In some occasions, due to social/ business commitments, I eat lunch following the previous dinner, my fasting window was much shorter. Nevertheless I try to maintain the 24 hour window about three to four times a week. For beginners, my suggestion is to start slow. Try it once or twice a week and when you see the benefits, move on progressively.

The Fasting Benefits I’ve Seen 

According to Brad Pilon, author of Eat Stop Eat, periods of fasting have been associated with being more alert, ambitious, competitive, and creative. As for myself, below is the list of benefits that I have personally enjoyed.

1. Bloating relieve. Though it is still bothering me occasionally, but I feel far better than before.
2. Natural weight loss. This came naturally and steadily. I lost six pounds in the first week and progressively up to 20 pounds in six months.
3. Improved mental clarity. My job is very hectic and I have to manage multi tasking almost everyday, however without a problem.
4. Improved workout performance. I do lunch hour swimming during weekdays. I’m not an Olympic swimmer, but I recon my speed had improved.
5. More energy. I used to feel tired most of the time. After I started doing daily workout plus intermittent fasting, somehow I realized my energy level was greatly improved. Now I can swim without food before or after.
6. Improved appearance. I had to wear tight underwear in order to fit into my Chinese traditional night gown ‘cheung sam’. Now I don’t need it any more.
7. Food tastes better. When I had no food for a period of 24 hours, I really enjoy and respect each meal. I’m amazed that food tastes much better than before when I routinely fed myself three meals a day.

Any Disadvantage About Intermittent Fasting?

Yes, if I were to say, there is one. I spent some extra money due to IF.

Some people thought I should save money by eating less. Well, the money I spend on food does not relate to the amount I eat; it relates to what I eat. Like three meals a day can be bread and butter; one meal a day can be Kaiseki. I spent extra money in buying new clothing as I am now two sizes smaller. I really look odd if I continue wearing my old clothing.

Learn More About Intermittent Fasting 

Flexible IF is increasing in popularity.  If you ever wanted to venture into intermittent fasting, Brad Pilon has written a best-selling e-book Eat Stop Eat and he will walk you through ‘why’ and ‘how’ to do IF. You would need to pay a little fee for this book, but you will then become a registered member and can log in to Brad’s website to see any updated version of the book, and download any associated free items.

Simple Life Weight Loss

The beauty of fasting for weight loss is simple and easy. As Brad Pilon said in his e-book Eat Stop Eat “There are no phases, no point systems, no weighing foods, and most importantly no foods that are ever off-limits”. Is this simple enough?

In additional, the simple benefits of fasting are saving money, saving time and saving energy. You no longer have to continuously plan your day around the timing of your next meal, and you may be “resetting” your body’s expectation of when and how much you are going to eat.

Of course you don’t have to spend time to shopping at the supermarket and cooking in the kitchen. All these will enable extra time for your doing things you like, or things you normally don’t have time to do. At least taking the shopping and cooking time for a little rest is not bad at all!

And in terms of easy, there are less rules and guides and things you must do when you practice short term fasting. When it comes to diet rules, less is more. The simpler and easier these rules are, the higher chance for success, that said, you will be able to develop your new long term lifestyle if there are fewer rules to follow.

Simple Life Weight Loss

Less is More!