Actually, let me go backwards and explain WHY I’m reading a book on adultery before we go any further…

Last week some one responded to my ‘Detach and Relax’ email by saying it sounded like something out of the book ‘Bringing up Bebe’. I didn’t think much of it until the following day I overheard two women talking about ‘Bringing up Bebe’ while I was sitting at Starbucks. Since I hate reading nutrition books, but wanted something new to read I figured, what the heck, and picked up a copy.

So what does a book on raising children have to do with adultery?

Well, in Bringing up Bebe the author recounts her story of raising her children in France while working on her first book. Her ‘first book’ being the one she was writing about the different views of adultery around the world. Now, adultery isn’t exactly a topic I’m interested in, but then again, neither was parenting help. However, the author (Pamela Druckerman) had such a great writing style with Bringing up Bebe that I decided to read her other book ‘Lust in Translation’.

(If this explanation sounds goofy to you imagine how my wife felt when she saw what I was reading)

OK… so now to my point.

The one thing I noticed in Lust in Translation is that the people interviewed in the book all talk about the damage done by the affair being from the act of betrayal. I found the description of this betrayal to be eerily familiar. This Betrayal is exactly how I think people who are overweight feel. Betrayed. Only they were betrayed by their bodies…by themselves.

I call this Body-Betrayal – The violation of the trust and confidence that you put into your body and the moral and psychological conflict that comes from this violation.

Despite where the betrayal came from, the feeling is the same. It’s a feeling that things will never be the same again, that your complete view of the world has been shattered. In other words, just like adultery, obesity is no joke. It hurts. It can be devastating. It can consume you, alienate you, and fill you full of self-doubt and remorse.

The good news is it is reversible. You can fix it.

Now, you may be wondering… why the heck are you telling me this?

Well for a couple reasons really. If you are overweight – I get it – I get how devastating it can be, but you can fix it. I also want to apologize that I spend most of my time talking about calories and hormones and the like, but rarely do I talk about the suffering and emotional issues that come along with having more body fat than you’d like.

In all honestly my background is in the ‘calories’ part, not the emotional side. So I can sympathize but can’t really give advice in this area. (When it comes to the calories side Eat Stop Eat is my best attempt to help with this, so if you’re interested check it out –> Eat Stop Eat.)

If you are NOT overweight – I have two things for you: Firstly Don’t become overweight. It sounds silly but just do yourself a favor and stay on top of it as best you can.

Secondly – Take it easy on people who are overweight. They have, and are, going through a lot. Support, not snide comments, is what it will take to help them on the path to recovery. I know it’s easy to take the ‘they brought this on themselves’ approach, but doing this helps no one. As illogical as it sounds, obesity can ‘sneak up on you’. and arguing over who’s fault it is gets us nowhere.

We need to see the problem, address the problem, then fix the problem. It takes a mind-shift, but it’s possible.

Getting over the body-betrayal is the hardest part. After that it’s a matter of finding the easiest way to eat less and move more. But I PROMISE you – pretending their isn’t a problem or wishing the problem will just magically go away is not going to help.

Bottom line is that the pain of betrayal can stay with you for years if you let it. If you are obese or are recovering from being obese it is something you will have to work at. But, it will also be worth it.

I don’t really know where else to go with this, just wanted to share – obesity is more than calories. While the physical solution is a calorie deficit, there is a large mental component that needs to be addressed, often even before we can address the physical side of things.

BP

After all, the subjects in the study are practically celebrities.

This particular study is on a group of people in “A nationally televised weight loss reality TV show where participants are voted off weekly”

Gee – I have no idea what show that could be

Anyways, here is what I want you to look for in the coming months as a result of this study’s publication:

Really distorted scaremongering.

Here’s why:

In this study, after 30 weeks of dieting and exercise, the average Basal Metabolic Rate of the subjects decreased. And, it decreased to significant degree.

Bad study design? No, this was a well designed study, with excellent methods.

So…metabolic slow down? Probably not.

I took the data of all the participants and then used predictive equations to figure what we think their metabolic rates SHOULD be based on their Lean Body Mass.

Here’s what I found -

In the beginning of the study, when the average weight was 328 pounds (162 pound of body fat!), the average BMR was almost 2,700 – a full 700 calories ABOVE what the equations suggested.  Even when you account for the 2 Calories per pound per day metabolic rate of body fat, they were still 200 Calories above what we predict (Yes fat burns calories).

At the end of the study when the average body weight was around 200 pounds, (they lost more than 120 pounds) the average BMR was 1,900 -  Still a full 100 calories ABOVE what the equations predicted it should be given their lean body mass. Heck, it was still higher than my BMR!

In fact, if you use the equations from the study (based on the metabolic rates of the subjects when they were obese) and plug my current numbers in (based on my latest DEXA) my Basal Metabolic Rate should be 2,620! You guessed it, a full 700 higher than it is based on my last measurements.

So here’s my confusion, and my guess:

My bet is that everyone focuses on the almost 700 calorie ‘drop’, and not the fact that in the end their metabolic rates ended up being right where they should be given their height, weight and lean body mass. And I doubt ANYONE will be concerned with how HIGH their metabolic rate was in the beginning of the study when they were morbidly obese.

This is the part I find confusing – their metabolic rates are MASSIVELY elevated when they are overweight – to the point where it reminds me of people in disease states like fever or sepsis! So, is this evidence of a metabolic ‘slow down’ with dieting or a ‘hyper metabolism’ from being morbidly obese and having body that is in really, really rough shape??

To me, the ultra high metabolic rate just shows the damage of being more than 100 pounds over-fat, and how much work the body has to do at this level of fatness, and it adds strength to argument that obesity of this degree truly is a disease state.

And the sad part is, were are probably all going to argue over ‘starvation mode’ and the like, and we are TOTALLY going to miss the point -  At the end of the study, these people lost over 100 pound of body fat, reclaimed their lives and their health, massively improved their self-esteem, lowered their risk of life ending diseases AND still have a metabolic rate that is precisely where it should be! To me, this is an amazing accomplishment, but somehow it will be turned into more metabolism scaremongering.

People will say things like “Their new ‘lower’ metabolism predisposes them to weight gain”…which is odd, since my BMR is around 1700…so…does that mean I’m a ticking time bomb?

The average healthy, active 5’6″ women has a basal metabolic rate even slower than mine – So what would this mean to her???

The bottom line is that this study is full of things to be positive about, yet the suggested negative sells better.

Fear sells.

So my advice is to keep on keeping on with your weight loss efforts, and remember, the story is usually much more complex than the headlines suggest.

BP

There was always something I just didn’t like about where health and nutrition was going, and I wanted to rally against it… Revolt if you will.

Eat Stop Eat was the result of this feeling. In a sense it represented my own personal health and fitness revolution.

But it was more than just fasting, it was the mind set.

I had grown tired of people promoting suffering as dedication, exhaustion as a virtue, and obsession as health.

It’s not that I don’t want people to workout, or make conscious decisions about what they eat, it’s actually the opposite.

I want you to work hard in the gym. Very hard. And I want you to be aware of your food choices. I do NOT want you to eat passively.

I also want you to learn to be patient and take breaks from eating. You don’t have to eat all the time, but you certainly don’t need to fast all the time either.

I needed a way to convey ‘dedicated but balanced’, instead of ‘obsessed and inflexible’.

Today, I think I figured it out.

It’s the art of ‘Detach and relax’

I want you to workout and workout hard, but when you are done your workout I want you to Detach and Relax. Don’t take it home with you, don’t obsess about it.

I want you to be aware of what and when you are eating, but once you are done making a food decision, I want you to Detach and Relax. Don’t obsess about your food choices, don’t let food control you.

Detach and Relax.

You simply can not be all health and fitness all the time.

Eat less, move more, don’t be afraid to break a sweat every once in a while, and remember to be balanced.

As much as some people may hate to hear it, there’s more to life than 0% body fat, blood and puke in the gym, and macronutrients on your plate.

BP

If you haven’t already heard, the 5th edition of Eat Stop Eat has finally been released (YEAH) so I have some time to blog again.

I think the best place for you and I to catch up is with the series of DEXA experiments I’ve been conducting on myself.

(Special thanks to the team at the Bone Health Clinic in Toronto for allowing me access to their DEXA Scanner.)

The DEXA scans (and also the BODPOD measurements and Metabolic Rate Measurements) were all part of an experiment to compare myself now at age 35 to the data I had from when I was in my mid-twenties. And I’m happy to say – They were pretty much exactly the same.

This has served to be a fun experiment. I also planned a series of photoshoots to coincide with my DEXA measurements.  Then, I found old pictures so we could do some fun comparisons. In the pictures above I’m all roughly the same body fat percentage (around 11-12%), and I have roughly the same amount of lean body mass (around 152-153 pounds).

In fact there are only two differences. In the first picture (taken 6 years ago) I LIVED body building. I had dieted for 4 long months before this picture was taken. I had followed the high protein lifestyle, I did cardio in the morning, weights at lunch and then cardio again after work. I took every single supplement I could get my hands on. And, it worked. The results were awesome and I was really happy with how I looked. But, I wasn’t necessarily happy with the process.

The middle picture was taken three years ago. I was about 3 years into Eat Stop Eat. I was lean, I didn’t have to do a harsh diet for 4 months to take the picture, I was still very happy with how I looked, but I was even happier with the process, since it was significantly easier.

The last picture was taken this past February. Nothing other than a spray tan, a quick shave of the chest and some water loading was needed for that pic. I’m now extremely happy with the process. I’ve even changed my body since the second picture. I’m increased the width of my shoulders while becoming a little less chesty (I took a LONG break from any sort of chest training).  Eat Stop Eat has let me get rid of almost all of my Obsessive Compulsive Eating. I don’t worry about macro-nutrient profiles, calorie cycling, food combining or any of that stuff.

So the big difference between these three pictures was the approach to getting lean.  The second difference is the hair

To tell you the honest truth these days I only really think about nutrition when I’m writing about it. Outside of my ‘job’ it’s not something that eats up a lot of my ‘mind time’ anymore. And I certainly don’t live a ‘fitness lifestyle’. (Even though I have a facebook page dedicated to nutrition and fasting, I’d love it if one day that page was full of people talking about Guinness, Scotch, and Vintage Port..we’ll get there one day. In the mean time, you may as well pop over and say hi –> www.facebook.com/bradpilon)

Of course, after posting these pics on facebook I received some questions about fasting and gaining muscle.  For the last couple years building more muscle has not been my goal ( I’ve been trying to improve my Adonis Index, not ruin it). However… I figured why not give it a try?

So I set a goal to increase my lean mass while decreasing my body fat using Eat Stop Eat…and to do it in 6 weeks.

I also wanted to make sure I knew WHERE I was increasing my lean mass, and I didn’t want to ruin my adonis index,  So I did the following experiment. I took a look at the pictures above..and thought that the one thing I’d like to improve is the width of my back as seen from the front. So on every day I wasn’t fasting I did a weight workout with 5 exercises. 3 exercises for my back, Some squats, and then an exercise for my arms (still no chest training). The goal was to increase the muscle mass in my back while keeping everything else close to the same.

The results? After 6 weeks I had a second DEXA test done. My Lean Body Mass had increased by 3 pounds while my body fat decreased by another pound. The exciting part was that all of this lean mass gain was in my trunk. And since I wasn’t training chest at all, it’s a good bet that the vast majority of those 3 pounds was in  my back (Thank you pull overs, heavy rows and heavy chins).

Here’s the result:

(With my  lean body mass up to 155 pounds it’s also important to point out that this the most Lean Mass I have ever had since i started measuring in my Mid Twenties.)

Now, a 3 pound change in a group of muscles as large as your back is hard to notice, especially in a front picture. However, as I said, the reason I chose ‘back’ as my target was I didn’t like how narrow I looked in my previous pose. So I was actually trying to improve a pose…or I guess I wanted to improve how my back looked from the front (figure that one out).

Here’s a better comparison:

Now, I’m really wishing I didn’t use the black background for the second photos (live and learn) and I still have no idea how to set up the lighting. But the point is my approach to eating is incredibly simple (fast once or twice a week), as is my approach to working out.  I use my workouts to direct my muscle growth in a specific purpose (As my favorite business coach likes to say – Progress is on Purpose), and it works for me.

OK, so enough about me and my experiments, let’s get back to Eat Stop Eat.

I’ve included some great new information. This includes new information on hunger, on breakfast, on muscle and fasting, on endurance training and my favorite – new information on autophagy or cellular cleansing.

The approach hasn’t changed (it’s still 1 or 2 fasts per week, each fast lasting 24 hours) and the basic message is still the same (view each fast as a mini ‘win’ and stress less about your food choices), I’ve just included more information on the health benefits, research, and application of fasting.

I hope you enjoy this updated version of Eat Stop Eat, and I’ll do my best to get back into updating this blog.

BP

PS – To get the updated 5th edition of Eat Stop Eat go here ==> www.EatStopEat.com

I bet that headline caused alarm bells to go off in your head.

We intuitively seem to ‘get’ money. We understand how much we make at work. We understand that some people are rich, and some people are broke, and we understand that just because someone won the lottery this week, doesn’t mean next week is our turn.

Weight loss…not so much

The claim “Triple your money in 7 days!” will set off a skeptical alarm bell in most people, however the equally unlikely claim “Lose 15 pounds in 7 days!” doesn’t always set off the same skeptical alarm bell.

In fact, it does the opposite. It gets our hopes up, makes us curious and, more often than not, it makes us buy something (diet pills, diet books, diet drinks).

The trick is that both claims are stating something that it IS possible…but very unlikely. We’ve all seen someone lose 10-15 pounds in one week on the popular Television show “the biggest loser”…just like we all know someone, somewhere who tripled their money on some stock or business venture.

The difference is with money will almost intuitively understand that there are special circumstances that lead to a tripling of money in a week. We may have heard about it happening, but we know it’s very VERY rare, and we know enough not to expect our income to magically triple next week no matter what we do short of winning the lottery. However with weight loss, we tend to think we’re all special, and that we can win the proverbial weight loss lottery every time we read a new diet or fitness headline.

Just like a compulsive gambler whose inner voice is telling them “hey SOMEONE has to win the jackpot and it could be you if you just make one more bet” we tend to believe that a miracle mixture of sweet pepper sauce, pomegranate juice and green tea will make us lose all our ugly unwanted belly fat in just 3 days. It’s as if we can ‘win the jackpot’ if we just bet on the right mixture of supplements, food combination, diet pattern or workout.

The truth is weight loss is exactly like money management: The most successful practices are also the most practical ones.

As an analogy – The weight loss tips that really WORK are similar to the financial advice you will find in the bestselling book on financial advice called “The Wealthy Barber”. This book outlines simple, practical, highly effective strategies to manage your money and become what we would call ‘wealthy’ no matter how much money you make. The specific strategies outlined are so obvious it might seem surprising that someone even took the time to write a book about them.  However, despite how simple and obvious these concepts seem, very few people actually follow them. Instead, they opt to spend hours searching for more complex answers.

But the answers don’t have to be complex. They can be practical and sometimes even simple. And this goes for both finances and weight loss.

Spend less than you earn becomes Eat less than you burn

Invest in your future becomes Exercise to build and then maintain muscle mass

And here’s my view on how diet fits into all of this…

For many people “Daily dieting” is the equivalent of paying off only the interest on your debt. It’s a lot of time and effort spent simply keeping your head above water.  This is where Intermittent Fasting comes into play. Fasting is like paying off a chunk of the principle on your credit cards, mortgage, line of credit or other loans once or twice a week, then doing your best not to add to the debt on the other days.

Short-term sacrifice for long-term gain.

I like the Eat Stop Eat method the best (of course, I am highly biased) because it reminds me of the most effective financial advice for getting out of debt.

Do what you can to accelerate your payments against the principle, but DO NOT compromise too much of your lifestyle to do so.  In other words cut back where you can, but know the line that separates a balance between frugality and living so conservatively that you resent each and every passing day.

This is a lot like short periods of fasting – a way to cut back once or twice a week without sacrificing the enjoyment of life and constantly worrying about food every day.

Avoid being tempted or tainted by get rich quick schemes and get shredded quick schemes.

Recognize that life isn’t fair. Some people are born into wealth, just like some people are born into a life with six pack abs. It’s not fair, but dwelling on this will do very little to help you get out of debt or get into shape (it will just turn you into a jaded, angry person who spends more and more time on-line obsessing about health and nutrition).

Finally, realize that you are going to splurge. It happens. I’m writing this on an Ipad2 I just bought on impulse…weeks before they’re supposed to announce the release of a new Ipad!  And I’m OK with it…because splurging is much easier when you have control over you debt, when you know your plan of attack…and when you don’t do it too often.

The same thing happens with diet. You are going to splurge and eat a few more calories than you really need from time to time. I ate a cheesecake the other day. Not a piece of cheesecake… a cheesecake. It happens Occasionally.  And I’m fine with it because I have my ‘fat debt’ under control. I know my plan of attack. I know it works and I know I can pay it back because my body isn’t suffering from an insurmountable amount of fat-debt.

No get rich quick schemes for me. Likewise no get ripped quick schemes for me either. Just a healthy balance of money in and money out, calories in and calories out, and not focusing on how much money or how ripped anyone else is.

Like the wealthy barber from the book, think of the healthy, lean and ripped barber. He/she doesn’t have any special tricks or gimmicks. What he/she does have is time-tested practical plan and a set of simple techniques for keeping things under control and building towards the future.

BP

It’s that time of year where everyone has made a resolution to lose weight and transform their bodies. And it’s the time of year where the internet is FLOODED with new diet strategies.

Some Crazy, Some Foolish, Some Dangerous…and a couple of gems.

It is also the time of year where all the new Transformation Contests start.

As you can imagine Transformation Contests + New fad diets = Recipe for diet disaster, horrible rebounds and feelings that you just can’t do it.

So, in order to do our part for helping prevent the fad crash diet mess from happening to you, John Barban and I have created a complete guide to PROPERLY managing your way through a body transformation. (This is why I haven’t been around much)

Because I’ll be honest – this is the one time you CAN diet wrong. You CAN lose muscle and you CAN make yourself tired, lethargic and miserable.

It happens when your body fat levels become very low (We’re talking 6 pack low). In this state…you really can mess up dieting.

Consider a man at roughly 5% body fat who decided to try fasting and dieting, while working out 6 days a week and ends up feeling tired, lethargic…and well, lousy the whole time.

What did he expect? Was his goal 0% body fat??!!!

To be honest, I think most of the weird stuff people do when dieting – carb cycling, fat loading, cheat days, crazy workouts -are all band-aid solutions covering the fact that they are dieting wrong.

Really, really wrong.

Mostly, it’s from taking advice from bodybuilders on steroids – you know the guys and girls who are already insanely RIPPED, but still do 2 hours of cardio a day for the weeks before their contest, just so they can be ultra-mega-insanely RIPPED. (HINT- natural people can’t do this, not without losing a little muscle, and generally feeling like they are perpetually hung over)

Look – when you start to get really really lean, things start to change…and this is when you can mess up a diet, especially when you fall prey to the more-is-better mentality.

This isn’t a departure from Eat Stop Eat in anyway – I actually consider this an add-on to ESE for people who want a bit more structure and who are trying to win a contest and want to make sure they don’t mess up during the final weeks.

And since I know that some people just need a tiny bit more structure when they are dieting  John and I have put together a guide on how to do it right.

We’ve called it the Transformation Diet Plan, and it’s based on the Reverse Taper Diet Protocol and the Theory of Fat Availability. Two things you need to know if you actually want to make it through a diet and not feel (and possible look horrible)

Here’s the deal.

There are two versions of the Transformation Diet (one for women and one for men)

They are now available for individual purchase, but only until Friday night at midnight.

The Reason:

Simple, we only want about 500 people tops in on this first round so we can get your feedback and make the necessary additions and changes if need be before we release it to the general public….As you know, sometimes you need to be fluent in “Pilon” to understand me ??

So we’re doing a test run right now… and won’t likely put this back out until April or May (depending on how much fine tuning we need to do).

Okay, that’s the deal, here’s what you get…

- You get a very concise manual about how everything works and how to use the software.

Yep, we’ve got some crazy new software, which tells you exactly:

*Your Ideal Waist Measurement,

*Your Ideal Shoulder Measurement,

*Your most Likely ‘Target’ Weight,

*Your maximal fat loss per week,

*How many calories you should eat per day,

*How many fasts you’re “allotted” per week,

*What your estimated weekly change will be

And as part of the first group to get your hands on it it’s almost 50% off this week. The discounted rate is part of the deal on our side, the part we want from you is feedback on how it’s working for you and what you’d like to see added/changed moving forward.

So the deal is you get it for a big discount, and we get your input on how to make it better (and of course you get the new version with the upgrades you recommend for free when they’re ready)

So that’s the offer.

All in all, this is a very COOL product.

If you’re thinking of attempting a transformation I feel it’ll be a great tool for you to succeed.

Point blank, I really don’t care WHICH transformation contest you are in – if you’re looking to lean down and possibly WIN a transformation contest WITHOUT losing lean mass, WITHOUT feeling lethargic and weak, and WITHOUT the crazy hassles of trying to figure out everything for yourself… this is for you.

If you just want to wing it, then it’s NOT for you. No biggie, just the truth.

And, if you’re not really looking to get super shredded…if you just want to get down to being beach ready and looking great then Eat Stop Eat is all you really need.

But, if you’re going for broke and trying to win a contest – Please do not do it without reading this manual first

Here’s the ‘buy link’ when you’re ready, really a drop in the bucket for the amount of sanity you’re getting ready to get back.

SUPER IMPORTANT POINT ==> The software is different for men and women – they use completely different algorithms, so please… make sure you get the RIGHT one.

————————————————————————————————-

==> WOMEN CLICK HERE

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==> MEN CLICK HERE 

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We’ve done my best to give you a “done for you” approach to body transformations

BP

PS – Please promise me you’ll read the manual BEFORE you play with the software, otherwise it could all get a little overwhelming

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Contraction dependent muscle growth (also called work induced muscle growth) is “Non-Uniform Muscle growth”. Using new measurement techniques we are finding regional differences in muscle activation along a muscle during exercise – and where this activation occurs seems to be dependent on the exercise of choice.

Meaning weight training can affect different parts of the same muscle in different ways – as an example if you do bicep curls you don’t stimulate growth equally along your entire bicep..some parts get ‘hit’ more than others.

From what I have found the difference seems to be along the ‘length’ of the muscle – so sometimes the effect is more ‘proximal’ and sometimes it’s more in the middle.

As an example – if you were to train Biceps 3 times a week, for 12 weeks and I were to graph the Cross Sectional Area of you Biceps before and after those 12 weeks, the graph would look like this -

The largest changes happen in the middle of the muscle.  As a more illustrated example we can use the picture below – most of the growth would occur at “B”

This regional difference seems to be dependent on the muscle and the exercise – sometimes the majority of the growth is right in the middle, sometimes it’s closer to the shoulder.

So what does this all have to do with steroids?

Well, we now have some pretty concrete evidence that contraction induced muscle growth causes non-uniform muscle growth – parts of the muscle (typically the middle) grow MORE than others when stimulated by contractions (Weight training).

So here’s my theory – With steroid use, especially at high doses, you are essentially BATHING the muscle in anabolic signals for days and weeks and months.

The WHOLE muscle gets the anabolic signal.

Thus, you may get a different muscle growth pattern when using steroids.

Back to our bicep example – a steroid user may see a more uniform growth in his Bicep. So not only would the middle of the muscle increase in size (B), so would that parts closer to the shoulder AND the parts closer to the elbow (A & C).

My bet is that steroid use creates a different ‘look’ than people who are just weight training. It may also explain why steroid users can simply get ‘bigger’ than the non-users – it could just be that they are getting more growth in areas of the muscle that simply will not grow much without steroid use – while this doesn’t sound like much if you are only thinking ‘biceps’ but consider the same scenario using every muscle in the body..that’s some serious untapped growth potential.

This is all hypothetical of course, and it’s confounded by the fact that the vast majority of steroid users also weight train (so they still get the growth at ‘B’) … But the fact remains that steroid use seems to create a ‘fuller’ looking muscle and now we may know why.

BP

So here is a really simple diet hack for you that works for breakfast. Now, I’m not going to go into the whole Breakfast vs. No Breakfast argument because, well…it’s silly and a waste of time.

Instead I’d like to suggest the following:

BEFORE you have breakfast, or even start planning your breakfast, have a tall glass of water. Don’t ‘pound it back’ – just drink it at a normal speed.

This will give you time to A) figure out if you are actually hungry and B) Figure out If you actually even want to eat breakfast.

It will also make sure you are not confusing thirst for hunger.

This simple hack can save you hundreds of calories over the day, since the one thing that all the breakfast research DOES agree on is that eating a big breakfast leads to a higher total calorie intake at the end of the day…Of course people like to play with the stats and tell you that eating a bigger breakfast means you eat less for the rest of the day..but they are just playing with numbers .. Yes a big breakfast may mean you eat a little less at other meals, but consider if a 2,000 calorie breakfast makes you eat 150 less calories at lunch and 100 less calories at dinner, chances are it also STILL caused you to grossly overeat for that day. But I digress.

This hack is simple – Start your day with a glass of water. Give it 5 or 10 minutes and then decide if you are hungry.  And, if you are hungry figure out what you want to eat.

All to often, I’ve been almost FINISHED by breakfast before I realized that I wasn’t really hungry in the first place – I was thirsty and going through the habit of eating in the morning.

BP

PS- Since it’s thanksgiving in the US right now, this Diet Hack will probably be very useful to a lot of people!

Picture in your mind a 6 foot tall piece of marble – it is 3 feet in diameter…the closest thing to a perfect cylinder you will ever see. It’s a beautiful piece of rock, polished to perfection – not a single dent, crack or crevice.

Now wrap your piece of marble in a giant blanket – and what do you get? (Other than a giant piece of marble wrapped in a blanket)

Well, you get the dents, crevices and bulges that come from the blanket…not the marble.

(try as a might, I can not find a Google image of a giant piece of marble wrapped in a blanket)

Now, take away the blanket and wrap the marble slab in plastic wrap.

No matter how thin the plastic wrap is, no matter how tight, what you get is…still smooth.

Because the slab of marble underneath is smooth.(Obviously)

Ok..so where am I going with this?

Repeat the same thought experiment, but take away the perfect marble cylinder, and replace it with the statue of David.

Now…with the blanket you still get all the the dents, crevices and bulges that come from the blanket…this is analogous to having excess body fat…you see the shape of the fat, not the body underneath.

And, with the plastic wrap what do you see? you see the contours of the statue..the abs, the chest, the freakishly large hands….

So bringing this to a point- To look lean, to have ‘muscularity’ – dents, crevices and bulges in all the right places… you need to have something underneath the plastic wrap – In other words it does not matter how little body fat you have if you are the perfectly smooth CYLINDER.

So, if you are relatively low body fat, but still don’t have abs, or the ‘look’ you want, perhaps your focus is in the wrong area, instead of dieting even more,  maybe it’s time to start carving the statue.

Eat Stop Eat – it’s intermittent fasting combined with resistance training for a reason

BP

PS- If you think you’re ready for it – this is the workout I’m currently using – Compound Cluster Cycles

It was written by J.D. Roth of GetRichSlowly.org.

To say it resonated with me would be an understatement. His views on money mirrored my views on weight loss so closely that I’ve decided to ‘commentary’ on his post here on my blog.

Below you will find J.D.’s original article, with my comments in [Blue]

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Today I’m going to rant.

I get a lot of requests from reporters who want quotes for their stories about personal finance. That’s fine. I’m happy to help when possible. What bugs me, though, is that nearly every single reporter pitches her story with the same caveat: “I need tips about saving, but I don’t want the same old stuff. I need new, unique ways to save money.”

[The weight loss and diet industry is no different. People want stories and articles about weight loss, but every request for help comes with the same caveat: "I need tips for weight loss, but I don't want the same old stuff. I need new, unique ways of losing weight" and I'm sure J.D. would agree when I say that this is largely because the new, unique ways move magazines and sell books]

sigh

“New, unique ways to save money” have become the bane of my existence. I loathe these requests. Why? Because the basics of personal finance never change. They haven’t changed in thousands of years, and they’re not going to change for thousands more. Fundamentally, all you need to know about managing your money is this: Spend less than you earn.

[Obviously, if you visit this blog with any regularity, you know how I feel about the basics of weight loss. No matter how many tricks and tips are invented it will always come down to spending more energy then you eat]

That’s it. If you spend less than you earn, you’ll do fine. Everything else is details. Those details are important, I know, but most of them are common sense and widely known.

Reporters don’t want to hear that the best ways to save money are to cut cable television (and other monthly expenses), start a vegetable garden, clip coupons or buy a used car. No no no. These ideas aren’t good enough. So, you end up with articles that claim they’ll save readers $5,000 a year — but only if you can get rid of your hot tub or ditch your pet ostrich or give up the vacation home on the lake. In other words, by constantly striving for new, unique ways to save money, reporters make their articles mostly useless.

[Similarly, very few people want to hear that weight loss is mostly about eating less. It HAS to be about hormones and meal timing and burning an extra 5,000 calories every day]

Instead, I think reporters should have the guts to promote the basics. Why? Because they work.

[ditto]

The basics of personal finance

We’ve covered this a zillion times before — including a four-part series in April during which I described my core financial framework — but let’s do a quick review.

Smart personal finance can be reduced to one simple equation:

PS-

Original article is here:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/moneybuilder/2011/10/24/why-i-hate-new-unique-money-tips/

J.D. Roth’s website is here:

http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/

My other posts of fat as debt here:

http://bradpilon.com/weight-loss/big-fat-debt/

http://bradpilon.com/weight-loss/extreme-couponing-for-fat-loss/

http://bradpilon.com/weight-loss/how-to-calorie-budget/

http://bradpilon.com/weight-loss/lean-and-rich/

http://bradpilon.com/weight-loss/gain-the-fat-back/

http://bradpilon.com/weight-loss/on-being-average/

http://bradpilon.com/weight-loss/the-root-of-obesity-and-debt/

http://bradpilon.com/weight-loss/how-to-gain-fat/