Eat-Stop-Eat #1

I realised once I started writing this that I've got quite a lot to say about Eat-Stop-Eat, so I'm going to break it down over two days - mostly because I'm writing this 'part #1' in the half hour left before I have to race off to my Salsa class. :O) It's only two weeks until the Salsa congress and I must learn moves, many impressive moves.
When I first heard about Eat-Stop-Eat on the Turbulence Training forum I was extremely wary of everything about it. All I knew was that there were a few crackpots on the forum that were practicing 'intermittent fasting', as per Eat-Stop-Eat, and I carefully avoided reading too much about what they were up to because it made me nervous.


After a couple of weeks I figured out that the Eat-Stop-Eat e-book was part of my TT membership package so I downloaded it and had a look. The thing is, I used to believe in the benefits of fasting, first as a young teenager because my mothers church encouraged it and then later because I was studying naturopathy and experimenting with all sorts of increasingly restrictive diets. Unfortunately, because of my 'take it to the extreme' personality type, I naturally took it to the extreme and embarked on long fasts which were supposed to cleanse my body and soul of all impurities. The longest was 14 days, and it's not really surprising that this period of my life was also the peak of the crescendo in my binge eating behaviour. Basically I was always either fasting or living on fruit or I was binge eating junkfood. Discovering the 'Zone' diet and then BFL with their emphasis on frequent eating and adequate protein was the beginning of sanity for me and since then, I've been happily scoffing on a regular schedule, convinced that without 4-6 meals a day my metabolism would fall over and die. You could say that, in my mind, fasting had been filed away in a dark room along with pale and pasty, cold, lethargic, hungry, religious, tired and miserable.

Then along comes Mr Brad Pilon. The man is not a pale, skinny, religious nut - he has visible muscle and an advanced degree in nutrition. He's doesn't seem remotely 'fringe' or spooky and he talks in language that I can understand. My bullshit-ometer did not bleep loudly when I read his book and I realised what he is proposing is very, very simple and not at all similar to my previous negative experience. Everyone knows that you need a calorie deficit to lose fat. In Eat-Stop-Eat you simply get your deficit by fasting 18-24 hours once or twice a week, instead of dieting every day. You never go a day without eating, but would fast, for example from 7pm to 7pm. There are a few studies referenced which show that the metabolic rate is not upset by this, and this made sense when I thought about it. Your liver and muscles store about 2000 calories and this would keep most people functioning for 24 hours without bodily distress. I can't imagine that the metabolism would grind down too much while there are still glycogen stores. I thought I'd give it a go, with a stern word in my own ear that if any eating disordered behaviours showed themselves, or if I hated it, then I'd ditch it.

To be continued.....