B

lol, owned so hard, but so true

B

From all this, I guess my final question is if you had to give a number for the fat-burning effects of low-carbing, what percentage would you guesstimate is from the low-glucose state and how much is from the initial calorie reduction (I recognize all the complications from personal variance, compliance, etc., but if you ‘had’ to hazard a guess)? I can see a very good argument for calorie reduction being the primary factor, but I am just curious about your best educated guess.

Thanks again. Fantastic information and presentation, and such a simple plan…one of those things that seems almost too good to be true, but ultimately really down to earth and common-sensical.

Shea

Fantastic analysis documented very well. I am also an academic, so I appreciate the chain of references you provide in support of your positions throughout all your materials. You establish and support your points so clearly that I am pretty much convinced about the health benefits of periodic fasting in addition to ‘just’ the caloric restriction. Having said that, I do have a couple of questions I am hoping you can answer for me.

To begin, as you mention numerous times, one of the benefits of ESE is that you can follow any type of diet guidelines you choose in concert with ESE. I was/am following a low-carb plan before I came across ESE, and I find that the combination of these two seems to be working very well together (so far, I am losing at about 4 lbs./week). As you know, Atkins, et al., emphasize ketosis and the production and burning of ketones as the main rationale for maintaining low carb counts. So:

1) Are ketones the “free fatty acids” you refer to so often? No, they are different things. Fatty acids are what is released from your body fat when food derived energy is scarce.

2) In the Advanced Transcripts, you do obliquely refer to low-carb/high-protein diets, but primarily in the context that the claims that high protein intake is beneficial because it stokes the metabolic furnace are false – or at least that the metabolic gains from higher protein do not amount to very much. However it seems to me that your research supports the idea that carb restriction to the point of ketosis would be beneficial in terms of fat burning because even though the metabolism may not be boosted all that much, at least the calories being burned during ketosis are necessarily from oxidizing body fat, just not induced by fasting. This seems to me a fitting explanation for why and how my fat loss is double the 1-2 pounds per week you suggest as plausible from ESE. Not necessarily to the point of ketosis. In fact I don’t like the term ‘restriction’ but yes, a little less carbs will help a lot of people. But you don’t have to restrict them, fasting will do a lot of that for you.

If this is the case, I am also curious about the role of growth hormone (GH) in this process, as from your research it is not clear that GH would be activated in lieu of fasting. So is ketosis a non-GH induced beta oxidation process? I think you are confusing two different pathways here.

At any rate, my plan is to keep on with the low carb thing (averaging around 40-50 g carbs a day) in concert with ESE for this first couple of months or so, and then transitioning to just ESE when the low carb thing gets old. I figure by about then my gains from low carbing will have begun to decrease at an increasing rate anyways, and it is nice to know that I will not have to keep up that style of eating indefinitely – just until I don’t feel like doing it anymore. Sounds good.

Finally, would it be too strong to conceptualize the 24 hour fasting period as literally like exercising for 24 hours straight (minus the muscle-catabolizing and building effects, of course)? They are similar…so I could see how that analogy could be made.

Shea

Fantastic analysis documented very well. I am also an academic, so I appreciate the chain of references you provide in support of your positions throughout all your materials. You establish and support your points so clearly that I am pretty much convinced about the health benefits of periodic fasting in addition to ‘just’ the caloric restriction. Having said that, I do have a couple of questions I am hoping you can answer for me.

To begin, as you mention numerous times, one of the benefits of ESE is that you can follow any type of diet guidelines you choose in concert with ESE. I was/am following a low-carb plan before I came across ESE, and I find that the combination of these two seems to be working very well together (so far, I am losing at about 4 lbs./week). As you know, Atkins, et al., emphasize ketosis and the production and burning of ketones as the main rationale for maintaining low carb counts. So:

1) Are ketones the “free fatty acids” you refer to so often?

2) In the Advanced Transcripts, you do obliquely refer to low-carb/high-protein diets, but primarily in the context that the claims that high protein intake is beneficial because it stokes the metabolic furnace are false – or at least that the metabolic gains from higher protein do not amount to very much. However it seems to me that your research supports the idea that carb restriction to the point of ketosis would be beneficial in terms of fat burning because even though the metabolism may not be boosted all that much, at least the calories being burned during ketosis are necessarily from oxidizing body fat, just not induced by fasting. This seems to me a fitting explanation for why and how my fat loss is double the 1-2 pounds per week you suggest as plausible from ESE.

If this is the case, I am also curious about the role of growth hormone (GH) in this process, as from your research it is not clear that GH would be activated in lieu of fasting. So is ketosis a non-GH induced beta oxidation process?

At any rate, my plan is to keep on with the low carb thing (averaging around 40-50 g carbs a day) in concert with ESE for this first couple of months or so, and then transitioning to just ESE when the low carb thing gets old. I figure by about then my gains from low carbing will have begun to decrease at an increasing rate anyways, and it is nice to know that I will not have to keep up that style of eating indefinitely – just until I don’t feel like doing it anymore.

Finally, would it be too strong to conceptualize the 24 hour fasting period as literally like exercising for 24 hours straight (minus the muscle-catabolizing and building effects, of course)?

Thanks in advance, you have really put together an amazingly strong package…

Shea

I’ve answered your question on a full blog post here:

http://bradpilon.com/2009/03/visible-6-pack-abs-with-eat-stop-eat.html

B

Dirk,

Good question. It is not ESSENTIAL, but it is beneficial.

BP

PS- I’ll try to answer this more concretely in a full blog post.

It could be..But I think it’s important to remember that just like any other day of your life you are going to have great fasts, good fasts, OK fasts and not-so-good fasts.

My suggestion would be to role with it.

B