Wellness. Fitness. Change of Lifestyle!

Browsing the fitness section of the magazine stand 

will reveal dozens of headlines that seem to be the 

answer to your fitness and dieting questions.

I went to my local book store and browsed the fitness 

magazine section. Here is a sample of the headlines I found:

   “709 Tips to get you  Jacked”

   “Get abs you’ve always wanted in less than 1 hour per week”

   “16 Rules of fitness you MUST follow”

   “Low carb diet risk”

   “9 Biggest training traps to avoid”

   “15 Foods that fight fat”

   “78 simple ways to swap flab for brawn”

   This is just a small sample of all the headlines I found.

It would probably take you the entire year to implement all 

of the “rules” and “tips” in these articles…and these are just 

the articles I found in the January issues! There are 11 months 

of magazines with “tips” “rules” and “tricks” to go for the 

rest of 2010.

This is an example of how the fitness/diet industry has to 

keep you guessing and thinking that you’re missing something 

important. All of this is in an effort to get you to buy this 

month’s magazine with the promise that you’ll find the right 

tips to get you the results you’re looking for. 

And of course, next months issue will have just as many

tips, tricks and secrets.  

Within this ongoing flood of tips and rules is the dogma of 

eating to get bigger muscles. This is one of the most persistent 

fallacies of the fitness industry.

In this podcast we will deconstruct fitness headlines and 

get to the bottom of the eating to get bigger muscles fallacy.

Train Smart, not hard but intense.

Eat your way to bigger muscles”>

Here’s a little known fact for you:

The most frequently asked question I get about Eat Stop Eat is about

protein.

Typically it goes something like this:

“Brad, I’m having a lot of success with Eat Stop Eat, but I’m

wondering about my workouts. Don’t I need to eat protein after my

workouts to make my muscles grow?”

It’s a very good question. One that has piqued my interest enough

to figure perhaps it’s time I reviewed the research and see if I can

find a definitive answer.

It’s a difficult topic to cover, and I have found some very

interesting research.  One particular study was so interesting, I

wanted to share it with you today as an “advanced showing” of what

is in my new book.

In a really interesting study published back in 1996, 43 men who

were experienced weight lifters took part in a study that involved

exercise and weekly injections of testosterone enanthate for 10

weeks.

Yep, these boys were on steroids for the benefit of science!

They were divided into 4 groups.

The first group performed no exercise and didn’t get any steroids.

The second group performed exercise but didn’t get steroids, 

The third group didn’t exercise but received the weekly injections 

The fourth group exercised and received the injections.

As you can imagine after 10 weeks of lifting weights 3 times per

week, the group that was receiving the steroid injections gained

over 13 pounds of muscle.

The group who were just working out (no steroids) didn’t do too bad

either, packing on almost 4.5 pounds of muscle in only ten weeks.

The guys who sat around doing nothing for 10 weeks but received

the steroid injections still had an increase in lean mass (almost 6 

pounds), while the group who received no steroids and didn’t workout

did not see any change in their lean mass.

So what does a study on steroids have to do with nutrition? well, 

all four groups were on the same diet. They were all consuming 

about 0.7 grams of protein per pound of body weight and about

16 Calories per pound of body weight.

What this shows is that for a group taking steroids while

exercising, 120 grams of protein per day was enough to supply the

amount of protein needed to allow for a 13.5 pound gain in lean

mass!

It was also the same amount of protein the the exercise only group

ate to gain 4.5 pounds, and the other groups ate to see their gains,

(or lack thereof).

So for the groups who saw less gains in lean  mass then the steroid

group, the amount of protein that they ate was not what determined

how much muscle they gained. The workouts (and the steroids) did

that.

Lastly, it should be noted that none of these guys took a post

workout protein meal. In other words, guys on steroids put on over

13 pounds, while guys just working out put on almost 5 pounds, all

without the supposed “essential” post workout meal.

Obviously, the steroids played a huge role in this muscle building

effect. But the important point I want to get across to you is

that the relatively normal protein intake of 120 grams per day did

not hinder the steroids muscle building effects. 120 grams was

enough protein to allow for relatively HUGE gains in muscle.

In the end, protein is important, but as this study shows, 0.7

grams of protein per pound of body weight is enough daily protein to

allow for a 13.5 pound increase in lean mass in 10 weeks. It’s also

enough to allow for a 4.5 pound increase in people not taking 

steroids, which is still very impressive muscle growth for a ten

week period!

For those of us who are not ‘pharmaceutically enhanced’ this study 

helps support the idea that your workout is the most important part 

of your muscle building journey.

So you can get the amazing weight loss benefits of fasting and you

can workout during your fasts, with the advantage of knowing that

even though you are may not be eating a post-workout protein meal,

your muscles are still being worked, and therefore are still going

to grow.

Get a great workout, put in a great effort, see great results, it

might just be that simple.

Train smart not hard but intense,

BodyByBelicina

EatStopEat by Brad Pilon

No matter if you’re trying to “bulk up” or “cut down”, 

you’ve likely tried to get to the bottom of whether you

need some sort of ketogenic diet to get “dialed in”.

 Yet, when you get off and running keto style, you’ve

likely found that it’s not what it’s cracked up to be.  

And, in fact, instead of making out like a bandit, you

probably yo-yo’d up and down so bad on the scale…

… and any glimmer of hope you had for your perfect body

seemed to fade away, gently slipping out of your gasp.

But what’s wrong with this picture?

Is it the low carb guru’s fault for stringing you 

along?

Or is there more than meets the eye regarding this

extremely popular eating pattern?

In today’s audio lesson, John and I go into the

in’s and out’s of the ketogenic diet:

The Truth about Low Carb Dieting

Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff. 

 this book the author explains the principles of Taoism using

characters from the classic A.A. Milne children’s story Winnie the

Pooh.

And while I’m not a Taoist by any means, I am a big fan of Winnie

and his friends.

In fact, I’ve realized that I can classify the entire Nutrition

industry using characters from Winnie the Pooh.

Sounds crazy right? Well take Eeyore for instance.

We all remember Eeyore - The donkey who was always losing his tail.

Well Eeyore is your constant “why bother” pessimist. 

The Eeyores of the nutrition world are the people who tell you that

it’s just not possible to lose weight. Diet’s don’t work. Exercise

doesn’t work. It’s your genetics. The Eeyores view the world of

weight loss through doom and gloom glasses.

I’m sure you’ve come across an Eeyore or two.

And who can forget Rabbit - the clever but somewhat bossy bunny.

Rabbit is the calculating alarmist, always 100% sure of his latest

and greatest ‘discovery’. You’ll find rabbits all over the

internet…they are the main people pushing Obsessive Compulsive

Eating. 

‘Don’t eat that, Eat this. Only eat this at certain times and NEVER

combine this with that!’ this is the ever changing OCE mantra of

the rabbits.

You know the people I’m talking about…sometimes I think they write

just to see what kind of fancy big words they can come up with!

In the end, they end up confusing more people than they help.

And who can forget OWL? Owl is the thinker, always making sure all

the other animals knew that he was full of knowledge.

You will find the Owls writing for the pseudo-science websites,

telling you about highly detailed metabolic pathways that control

phosphorylations of various enzymes.

These “Owl” people love knowledge for the sake of appearing wise,

and as we probably have all found, sometimes the knowledge of the

owl is a bit hard to understand -  especially since a lot what they

say doesn’t seem to match up with our own experience of how things

work.

This is why we find the Owl approach to weight loss so confusing -

their logic typically goes against what our intuition tells us is

right.

And that leaves Winnie the Pooh.

You and I, we are Pooh Bear. We know that (as crazy as it sounds)

the best way to lose weight is by NOT DOING ANYTHING. After all,

when you think about it eating, NOTHING is the best way to lose body

weight.

We enjoy the simplicity of this message. Sure we need to know the

hard science behind such simple statements, but this is only so we

can reach the Rabbits and the Owls of the world. And we need lots

and lots of proof to try and help the Eeyores, but for us the

beauty of it all is in its simplicity.

It’s the simplicity that allows us to enjoy what we eat when we do

eat. And it’s this Simplicity that allows us to recognize OCE and

avoid it.

So there you have it.

That is the entire nutrition industry summed up using the

characters from a children’s book written in 1926! (With some

inspiring help from Benjamin Hoff)

So whether you are re-reading Eat Stop Eat or listening to the

Audio files remember that while the science behind Eat Stop Eat is

impressive, it is the simplicity that makes Eat Stop Eat unique.

And when telling your friends and family about Eat Stop Eat, please

remember to keep it simple - the simpler the message the better

they will understand it. The better they understand, the better

their chances of seeing great results.

Eat less and enjoy the food you eat,

EatStopEat

Think of all the diet suggestions you know. They all rely on the continued intake of food.

Eat six small meals a day. Eat high protein. Eat breakfast (the TV commercials say it’s the most important meal of the day). Eat cereal. Overeat, cycle your carbohydrates, cycle your proteins, Eat lots of high calcium foods. Eat whole wheat. Take diet pills. Whatever the recommendation, it always revolves around making sure that the population is

continuously consuming food and food supplements. Stressing over what we eat, how we workout, what to do to lose weight and all the

confusion and frustration that goes along with these things no longer needs to be a part of your life. You do not need any of them to lose weight. Any message that is full of

nutrition and fitness rhetoric and ‘eat this, not that’ lists and rules that ‘you absolutely need to follow’, is nothing more than nutritional mind-clutter.

I still recommend eating a variety of fruits and vegetables combined with lean protein,

but I emphasize that in the Eat Stop Eat lifestyle, you do not have to stress over what

you choose to eat. 

1. Prolonged caloric restriction is the only proven nutritional method of weight loss.

2. Human beings (nutritionally speaking) can only be in one of the following states: Fed or fasted.

IN THIS BOOK it mentions:

YING AND YANG of FED (Insulin) – Eating and Storing Calories and Fasted (Growth Hormone) – Not eating and burning Calories.

YING AND YANG of INSULIN – Fat Storage and Glucagon – Fat burning

YING AND YANG of VARIETY - LESS

*Forget Everything You Have Ever Read About Fasting*

Fasting and your Metabolism, Fasting and Exercise, Fasting and your Brain, Fasting and your Muscle Mass, Fasting and Hunger, Fasting and Blood Sugar Levels, Other Myths of Fasting, The Health Benefits of Fasting,

With Eat Stop Eat, you get rid of the compulsion and guilt that drives so many of todays

eating habits, as we get rid of the idea that you need to be constantly eating, or that there

is even one true ‘perfect’ way to eat.

The reason I don’t consider this style of eating to be a diet is because unlike almost all

popular diets, the Eat Stop Eat lifestyle is a sustainable addition to the way we eat for the

rest of our lives.

It is the easiest way to lose fat, feel fit and maintain a lean body, as it does not require

any difficult nutritional planning. It does not require special shopping trips, exotic foods

or expensive supplements. It simply asks you to refrain from eating for one or two 24- hour periods every week.

EatStopEat - by Brad Pilon

The theory of Starvation Mode is something that fuels Obsessive Compulsive Eating in North America and throughout the world.

To use a very basic definition, Starvation mode is when your metabolism supposedly slows down when you don’t eat enough calories. More often than not this definition is used to support very complex diet programs.

These diets will tell you that not eating enough food will cause you to store more fat. Right after delivering this pseudo-science message of fear they then tell you the only solution is to keep eating, and here is the catch, you must eat the special foods they recommend.

This is just another example of fear mongering and confusion created by the food, diet and supplement industry that ultimately leads to obsessive compulsive eating.

They are actually trying to tell you that eating less food won’t help you lose weight, and in fact might actually cause you to gain weight – Fear mongering at its best.

The truth is a large body of scientific research shows you can eat very low calories for extended periods of time with no change in your metabolism and, no decrease in muscle mass, as long as you do some form of resistance training (I cover a large part of this research in Eat Stop Eat).

This is one of the major reasons why so many people are afraid that eating too much food or too little food will have a negative effect on their metabolism.

In my opinion the scientific research is clear, you can eat very low calorie for an extended period of time. As long as you do some weight training the only thing that is going to happen is an impressive amount of fat loss.

And if the existing body of research wasn’t enough to convince you, here is more proof that you can lose significant amounts of weight without losing muscle mass or damaging your metabolism as long as you are using resistance training as part of your weight loss plan.

In a study just published in the Journal of Obesity, researchers examined the effects of losing 25 pounds on 94 women who either

A)    Followed a resistance training workout program

B)    Followed an aerobic training program

C)    Did not workout at all

These women were asked to follow a diet consisting of 800 Calories until they reduced their BMI down to less than 25 (The average 25 pounds of weight loss). The women continued this diet for as long as 5 months straight (not something I would personally recommend without being medically monitored).

The researchers found that the women who were following the resistance training workout program maintained their Fat Free Mass during the time they were on the diet.  This means that even though they lost 25 pounds they were able to preserve their muscle mass. Therefore all 25 pounds that these women lost was fat!

They also found the group of women who were following the resistance training workout program preserved their metabolic rate. In other words they did not see any metabolic “slow down” as a result of losing 25 pounds, or from being on a 800 Calorie per day diet for 5 months!

Interestingly, the researchers found decreases in Fat Free Mass in the women who did not workout AND in the women who performed aerobic training.

More evidence that resistance training while following a weight reducing diet program can preserve lean mass and metabolic rate.

This is yet another example of why the Eat Stop Eat combination of flexible intermittent fasting and resistance training can help you lose fat without losing muscle or lowering your metabolism.

EatStopEat-Brad Pilon

10 Signs that your Diet promotes Obsessive Compulsive Eating

It was back on March 12 of 2007 that I first wrote about the now famous A to Z weight loss trial.

In this ground breaking study, 311 overweight women were recruited to follow one of the following popular diet programs: The Atkins Diet, The Zone Diet, the LEARN diet or the Ornish Diet.

To start the study, each woman was given a copy of the popular diet book that she was randomly assigned to follow.

Then, to make sure she was an “expert” on her program before she started dieting, each woman attended a series of 8 classes (each lasting an hour) explaining exactly how to follow her assigned diet.

(Side note- This just shows how OCE these diets are considering that it takes EIGHT classes for these women to know how to properly follow each diet!)

After the courses were completed the women then set off to follow their assigned diet plan for a total of 1 year.

The results were pretty much exactly what I expected – everybody lost a lot of weight in the first two months, after that the diets tended to even out and by the end of the trial the weight loss was far from impressive – none of the groups averaged more than 10 pounds of weight loss after an entire year of dieting.

And while many people used this study to ‘prove’ that diets simply didn’t work, or that the body somehow adapted to dieting, my take was much simpler – Firstly, this trial is in agreement with most research that shows it is very hard to accurately measure how many calories a person eats in a day, and secondly I thought that these results showed that the number one reason diets fail is compliance.

In other words, the more complicated and the more rigid the diet is (or the more OCE it is), the more likely it is going to fail in the long term. – People just can’t stick to these types of diets for long periods of time.

Apparently I wasn’t alone with my analysis.

In a study published in the International Journal of Obesity titled “Dietary adherence and weight loss success among overweight women: results from the A to Z weight loss study” researchers re-examined the A to Z weight loss trial to see if there was an association between the level of compliance and the amount of weight that was lost.

Guess what they found?

Astonishingly only ONE subject in the ENTIRE study followed the diet as directed for the whole 12 months. This means that every other subject was not following her assigned diet properly at some point during the research trial!

The researchers also found that adherence was significantly correlated with 12-month weight change for all three-diet groups. So the better a woman was at following her diet, the more weight she lost.

The fact that adherence was so low is very interesting considering that these women spent eight class sessions reviewing their assigned diets with a registered dietitian before they even started the diet…you can imagine what adherence must be like for someone who simply bought one of those books, read it cover to cover and then gave it a try!

The findings from this follow-up analysis also suggest that the difference in dietary macronutrients had only negligible effects on the participants weight loss success.

The bottom line is that you can generally figure out how successful a diet will be by looking at how complicated it is.

More rules = more complicated = low chance of success

Less rules = less complicated = high chance of success

In my opinion weight loss can be incredibly simple if you let it.

Find the easiest, most comfortable way to reduce the total amount of calories that you eat. The less intrusive a diet is on your lifestyle the greater chance you have of sticking to it long term.

For me, this is flexible intermittent fasting. After all if you can fast for 24 hours once, you know you will always be able to do it. Some fasts maybe harder or easier than others, but you know you can do it!

Obsessive Compulsive Eating habits that make diets complicated and difficult spell doom for long term weight loss.

10 Signs a diet suffers from OCE:

1. It contains a list of foods you can and cannot eat
2. It lists specific times of every day that you are allowed or not allowed to eat
3. It contains specific diet plans that do not take into consideration your own personal food preferences
4. It lacks flexibility
5. It focuses on macronutrients and micronutrients excessively
6. If fails to point out the importance of long term compliance
7. It requires you to pre-pack and carry certain foods with you while you travel
8. It promotes certain foods because they PROMOTE weight loss
9. Over reliance of food Journal

10.  Metabolic Typing

EatStopEat

When people come to the subject of fasting, there’s a lot of misinformation and myths surrounding this topic and it can sometimes make it difficult to get to the heart of the matter. Here we’re going to take a look at seven of the more long-standing myths that accompany the issue of fasting.

Fasting has been around since time immemorial, and many of the first references to it come from the Bible. They knew even back then the many and varied benefits one can derive from fasting, whether it be for short or longer periods of time. There are many examples from all religions that detail the benefits of fasting from a spiritual perspective, but there are also many other benefits to be realized from a health and wellness standpoint as well. First, let’s debunk some myths!

1.  Fasting is a religious activity. Not necessarily. Many devoted holistic health practitioners employ some form of fasting into their health regimen, whether it is for cleansing or for weight loss help.

2.  You can fast in many ways. Partially true, but the spirit of this gets us thinking in the wrong direction. The purpose of a fast isn’t to necessarily “fast from chocolate for a day”, but to be part of a well-thought out health plan that emphasizes a total health solution. Many people decide to fast from whatever their latest obsession is, in the hopes that this will somehow help.

3.  Juice fasting is a great way to go. I would take issue with this. To me this isn’t really a fast, just another fad diet trick. The increased amounts of natural sugars can cause spikes in insulin, which in the absence of other foods being ingested can bring on other unwanted side effects.

4.  Long-term fasting can rid the body of toxins. Not true. Long term fasting can deplete the body of many, many necessary and vital nutrients, and bring on a host of associated problems due to the body’s inability to fight off anything. There is a reason people die from long term fasts.

5.  Political fasting is a viable way to make a point. Doing a prolonged fast for a political cause is one of the worst ways to make a point. Short, one or two day fasts are sufficient, but probably don’t have the sensational aspect political believers seek.

6.  Fasting is only for medical purposes. Not true. While there are valid medical reasons when a fast is recommended, such as before surgery or blood tests, there are other useful benefits of fasting.

7.  Fasting is way too hard. Again, not true! A one or two day fast can be accomplished with no problem by almost anyone.

Fasting can be a useful tool to aid in a total health plan. Done correctly there are virtually none of the popular “side effects” such as light-headedness or weakness. Make sure to not be derailed by fears and myths and you’ll find that fasting can in fact be a great help!

EatStopEat - by Brad Pilon.

short-term intermittent

fasting has been shown to have the following health benefits:

• Decreased body fat & body weight

• Maintenance of skeletal muscle mass

• Decreased blood glucose levels

• Decreased insulin levels & increased insulin sensitivity

• Increased lipolysis & fat oxidation

• Increased Uncoupling Protein 3 mRNA

• Increased norepinephrine & epinephrine levels

• Increased Glucagon levels

• Increased growth hormone levels

• Decreased food related stress

Quite a list I’m sure you will agree. What is even more amazing is that many of the

benefits were found after as little as 24 hours of fasting!

*find out your total body weight

*find out your body fat%

*find out your body hydration

*find out your bone mass

*find out your body mass index

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