Brad – as I’m wanting to lose “baby weight” after my 6th baby just 7 weeks ago I’m wondering your thoughts since I’m a nursing mother and getting enough nutrients to be sure my baby girl has enough. Is that not a concern since you actually do eat every day? Or would a 16 hour fast be better nutritionally for my baby?

Thanks so much -
Vanessa

From the research I have read, a women’s breast milk is unaltered during periods of short term fasting. The common belief is that the nutrients in breast milk come from the mother body-stores and not the immediate food derived sources.

I personally know of two women who have successfully lost baby weight while following ESE. First was my wife, and second was Lindsay, whom you can read about HERE.

BP

PS- This is one of those touchy amost medical questions, so I should point out that my comments are not medical advice, and are only my opinion based on my education and my review of the current and available research.

PPS- Wow, that almost sounded beer commercial-ish

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Hi Brad,

Came across your blog from Zen Habits and I have been doign the fast 2x/ week for 3 weeks now. Will it have the same affect if I am able to fast for 20-22 hours instead of full 24 hrs? Also, can we drink tea? Thanks!

24 hours was chosen mostly for its simplicity (it’s really easy to know when to stop your fast).

Most likely you will get almost the exact same results fasting for 22 as you would for 24. However, make sure you keep your fasts goal oriented (aim to hit 24) and if you can’t hit 24 hours make sure you know exactly why.

And, ‘I got hungry’ doesnt cut it.

You need to know what cues made you want to eat, and this is very important as these cues are so powerful that they were able to make you break your fast with only 2 hours left.

Indentifying these cues would most likely have profound effects on improving your eating on the days you are not fasting.

BP

PS – Yes, tea is excellent during your fasts.

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Hi Brad,

First off, thank you for the amazing book. It is really changing my life.

I would like to know, I have seen you on Youtube say that the Eat Stop Eat lifestyle is limited to 1 or 2 days of fasting for flexibility and that more days of fasting would be too intrusive. I find that it would be no trouble at all fasting on three separate days (Mon-Wed-Fri) for me. Do you think it’s safe for me to add the extra fasting day?

This is one of the more common questions I get about Eat Stop Eat.

From a physiological point of view, there is nothing wrong with fasting 3 times per week for an otherwise healthy person.

I do not like this approach because it lacks flexibility and it moves fasting in the direction of obsessive compulsive eating that I am trying to fight against (as scary as it sounds there are some people that would think that since 3 times per week is OK, and if 3 is OK then 4 is also OK, then 5…It gets very scary very quickly).

These are my main reasons for promoting once or twice a week as opposed to the more flexible and obsessive every other day method.

My personal opinion is for diet longevity, and for diet peace of mind, one to two times per week can be incredibly effective WITHOUT being overly restrictive.

But these are my only reasons.

If you’d like to try 3 times per week then go ahead, but my recommendation and expertise fall within the realm of one or two 24-hour fasts per week (combined with resistance training) used for weight loss, weight control or overall health. From my experience this approach seems to work the best.

BP

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My friend Gisbert sent me an email concerning my last blog post…

Very interesting information that I thought you might like:

Ivan Pavlov [The guy from THIS BLOG POST] was an important promoter of therapeutic fasting in the Soviet Union – still today, Russia is the country where therapeutic fasting has the largest background. It is “in” in Moscow to fast one day or two per week…

Always fascintating to get a more ‘wordly’ view of fasting.

So I guess I can say that Eat Stop Eat is big in Russia

BP

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I’ll admit, I wasn’t always the best listener in high school.

Sure I remember most of my lessons, but I’m not sure if I really
‘got’ them.

Take for instance…Pavlov’s Dogs.

I’m sure you’ve heard the story: Pavlov was the man behind some of the most famous scientific experiments.

Basically, he took a group of dogs and rang a bell every time they were fed.

In grade 9 science class, you were probably told that this was a perfect example of conditioning, and that would be the end of the science lesson.

And boy, would you have missed a VERY valuable nutrition lesson.

You see the dog’s salivated because they were hungry.

They had been conditioned to become hungry at the sound of the bell.

…even when there was no food present. No food smell, no food sound, and certainly no food taste.

Just a bell.

The bell alone caused a powerful expectation of food. And this expectation caused the dogs to drool.

THAT IS HOW POWERFUL THE EXPECTATION OF FOOD CAN BE.

It mimics hunger perfectly.

So the part that may have been left out of your grade nine science class was that the bell was eventually able to cause an extreme desire to eat…

This exact same conditioning happens to us almost everyday.

There are little things in our lives can cause us to A) THINK we are hungry and thus B) overeat.

So what are your bells?

It could be the smallest thing. A sight, a person, even a sound or a smell.

Repeated enough times, this small cue could be the cause of what you beleive to be hunger AND could be causing you to overeat.

So here’s the point of today’s email – On the days when you are fasting pay special attention to when you feel the need to eat. Try to identify the cue that caused this wanting…this is how fasting can help you eat better on the days when you do eat.

Once you know the cue, it will help you tell the difference between hunger and conditioning.

Just another example of the benefits of the Eat Stop Eat lifestyle.

BP

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

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

A great ‘real life’ success story ==> lose Baby Fat

BP

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I’m back from an awesome weekend full of father’s day fun.

Lots of playing in the pool and spending time with family.

I was even allowed a little ‘kid free’ down time to catch up on some reading.

During this time I managed to read an article about how increased TV and computer time are making our society fat.

While reading this article I thought to myself “RIGHT ON – KILL YOUR TELEVISION!”

But then I stopped.

After all, the key to progress is to challenge the things we automatically assume to be true.

So do TV and computers make you fat?

Personally, I figure I only spend about 6 of my 16 awake hours NOT in-front of a computer.And this is on a good day.

Of those 6 hours some are spent driving (sitting), some eating (also sitting), and some playing with Brier and Ro (typically moving around, but it’s not like I’m doing wind sprints).

The point is I am in-front of a computer ALL the time.

If I’m not in-front of a computer then I am reading.

My success is based around me reading and keeping as up-to-date as possible. I have no choice but to read and write as much as possible (good thing I love it!)

So for me, TV or Computer time has not made me fat.

I know that other people who make livings on line also spend a great deal of time reading and writing. Craig Ballantyne, Vince Delmonte, John Barban, Joel Marion, these are all people who are probably in front of a computer as much or more than the average person, but each one of them is much leaner and more muscular than the active person. (just a random selection of people who have pictures available)

The difference?

These people have all been consistent with their workouts. They all weight train 2-5 times per week. AND, as an average they all eat less than the average person.

The bottom line – blaming TV and Computers for our obesity epidemic is easy (since it takes the blame off of eating and exercising) but its probably unfounded. My guess is, it IS a contributing factor (especially fast food commercials), but not a direct causal link.

There are people (like myself) who spend an EXCESSIVE amount of time in-front of a computer, that still maintain a lean body.

It is possible.

As always, the key to losing weight is to eat less and move more…and the moving more part does not mean you have to be active 10 hours every day! If your diet is in order, then you can lose weight and maintain a lean body without being obsessive about exercise, nor do you have to quit your day job.

BP

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100 Reasons why you should try Eat Stop Eat

The first few are from me, the rest are written by you

1. Obviously, the weight loss.

2. Productivity – (It’s amazing how much we can get done when we aren’t preoccupied with eating every 3 hours)

3. Because if weight loss really is this easy, why not give it a try (It’s easy)

4. You’ve been eating every 3 hours for the last 10,30,50 years off your life, a 24 hour break might do you a lot of good.

5. Every 24 hour fast saves 5-25 dollars that you would have spent on food you really didn’t need to eat in the first place.

6. Every 24 hour fast involves you NOT creating some sort of food packaging waste (Eat Stop Eat is environmentally friendly)

7. Every time you complete a fast, its a mini-victory.

8. It’s a private diet. If you are private person, no one needs to know you are dieting (sure beats carrying around tupperware everywhere you go)

9. It’s flexible!

10. You learn why you eat. It really exposes your eating habits.

OK, that’s my ten, feel free to add on!

BP

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(This is another Guest Post by John Barban – I’ll be back later this week)

I was walking through the book store the other day and I saw a couple new nutrition books that were displayed on a special table in the middle of the aisle, you know the ones that are new and the book store wants to get people to notice them.

Then I noticed something a bit odd.

When you see one nutrition book by itself with no other nutrition books around it seems as though it could really have the answer you are looking for.

HOWEVER, when you see dozens of nutrition books lined up beside each other, well then each one just doesn’t seem all that profound. After all there are at least 50 different nutrition books at the book store I was at, each one telling a different story about how to lose weight. How could they all possibly be right?

The answer is, they can’t! (and they can at the same time)

Each one of them puts a slightly different spin on the reason we gain weight and how we can lose weight.

Each one of them talks about life changing success stories that their program has produced.

So how is it possible that each of them are telling a different story about how fat loss really works, but all of them can produce results?

The answer is simple. The only way, and I mean the ONLY way to lose weight is to eat less calories than you burn off.

The way you go about doing this, or better yet, the way you go about telling yourself how your body is doing this is the only difference between any of these books.

Behind every single diet book ever written is the simple concept of eating less. They use many different ways to dress up this concept, and this extra ‘dress-up’ (ie the catch or the hook) is the reason we hand them our hard-earned money.

Here is Video to illustrate my point. It’s my quick and dirty book review of just a few selections from our library.

As I’m sure you’ll notice this gets confusing and quite contradictory right away.

And this is also why I think Eat Stop Eat is the easiest way to lose weight without driving yourself nuts.

Enjoy.

John Barban

To Learn more about Eat Stop Eat go here ==> www.EatStopEat.com

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

***

Good Foods, Bad Foods

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

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

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

Our mythical “Good’ food = Orange Juice

Our mythical “Bad” food = Cake

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

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

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

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

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

5) Artificial flavors and colors?

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

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

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

My mythical ‘bad’ food =A slice of Cake

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

…and on and on and on…

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

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

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

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

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