I’ve been reading the book “The Tao of Physics” by Fritjof Capra.
I’m about halfway through and had planned on working my way through a big chunk the second half last night.
But, right when I started reading I came across the following quote:
“Before you study Zen, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers; while you are studying zen, mountains are no longer mountains and rivers are no longer rivers; but once you have had enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and rivers again rivers.”
This quote stopped me dead in my tracks.
It was unbelievably eye opening because it perfectly parallels my experience with nutrition. With a couple small changes I could sum up my entire journey in health and nutrition with one (rather long) sentence.
“Before you study Nutrition, food is food and drink is drink; while you are studying nutrition, food is no longer food and drink is no longer drink; but once you have had enlightenment, food is once again food and drink is again drink.”
Back when I was a kid, food was food and drink was drink.
Then as I started studying Nutrition, food and drink became these complex chemical compositions that had these wondrous effects in the human body. Food and Drink were now macro-nutrients and micro-nutrients and polyphenols and volatile fatty acids, carbs, fats, essential fats, and on and on…
The more I learned the less the words food and drink meant to me, to the point where they were virtually meaning less. There was no such thing as food or drink. It was only protein, fat and carbs.
Now, after years of studying nutrition and learning I’ve realized that most of that ’stuff’ …that ‘knowledge’…it’s almost completely useless.
It’s health and fitness mind-clutter.
And, it destroyed my relationship with food.
So now, food is food once again and drink is drink.
It does not have magical properties. It is simply there to
A) fuel my body when I need it
and
B) to be enjoyed
This realization has helped me break free of Obsessive Compulsive Eating and has made losing weight and maintaining a body I am proud of to be easier than I ever thought possible.
So this is what I hope you learn when you read Eat Stop Eat. Food is Food and Drink is Drink.
If you want to lose weight then Eat Less. If you want a stress free life then learn to enjoy food again.
It can be this easy if you let it be.
It’s amazing where you can find inspiration (I mean really…a book on Physics?)
I’ll leave you with what I believe to be the best long lasting health advice I can give. It has nothing to do with carbs, protein, fats, calorie cycling, hormones or anything of that nature.
It is simply..
Eat when you are hungry. Sleep when you are tired.
BP
Most Commented Posts
Filed under: weight loss success
Trackback Uri
70 Comments.
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
-
[...] Thursday’s blog post on ‘The Zen of Nutrition‘ is probably the best example of my current views on Health and [...]
thks brad for this write-up! food & drinks are becoming more complicated with the current craze on Organic eating.
Al,
I’m not sure if there is such a thing as ‘clean’
I would all say that your assumption is incorrect.
I just want to know to truth as to how people get below 10% bodyfat: eating only fruits, veggies, oatmeal, egg whites, boneless skinless chicken breasts, etc… OR just eating less; thats all. I want to feel confident knowing that I can just simply eat less (especially with ESE)and still get lean.
@Al S
Al,
From a purely technical and scientific definition of what it takes to lose body fat; all you need to do is eat less. It really it’s just a matter of calories in vs calories out.
The practical part comes in when you decide what types of food you want those calories to be contained in. This is where your notion of eating ‘clean’ comes from.
I would guess that your assumption about eating ‘clean’ is really just a way of saying that in order to get a fulfilling diet of food while losing weight requires a selection of whole foods and not processed or really calorie dense foods.
In other words, eating ‘clean’ foods might satisfy both hunger and nutritional needs better than just eating whatever you can find at the convenience store.
Technically speaking, less calories is all you need to lose weight, practically and realistically speaking you probably need a quality choice of good whole foods to make eating for weight loss feel satisfying and sustainable.
JB
@Jon
If we can’t laugh at ourselves, what can we laugh at? LOL – anyway, thanks for the comment. I just packed up about 100 of my diet books and am donating them to my library. I still think that I won’t be able to live a long healthy life, if I choose to eat Pepperoni Pizza every day and chocolate chip cookies (my 2 fav foods). I am just going to follow ESE and eat mostly fruits and vegetables, which I love anyway. I’m not a big fan of too much meat, so it’s nice to know that I can move on from the low-carb craze! Time to find something else to obsess about – maybe learning a new language, sport, etc. I realized how much time I have wasted in my life reading and learning new fad diets. I’d probably speak 20 foreign languages by now if I spent half the amount of time doing that instead. Obsessions/addictions are so human, but yet so pointless…
Terri
I like it – good quote
I am glad you made that remark about “eating clean”. I sometimes find myelf feeling guilty about eating this or that because it is not “clean”. I even erroneously was describing Eat Stop Eat incorrectly saying that you suggest eating clean. I will go back to that person and correct my error. I think I got that idea from all the “eating clean” stuff at Craig’s site and somehow transferred that to you.
I think the biggesgt problem for me and others is getting the junk (mind clutter) out of our brains. The other day I was thinking that I was not getting enough servings of vegetables although I do eat enough fruit. Then I again started to think about how much protein I had had.
I used these thoughts to give myself permission or even encouragement to eat when I was not hungry and in the case of the vegetables, to eat what I didn’t want to eat at that time. Then I felt over fed and found myself off focus, over eating again the next day.
I need to just stop worrying about the right mix of chemicals in the food, and just focus on not overfeeding myself.
Hi Brad, you may be interested to know Bruce Lee took the same quote and applied it to his martial art of Jeet Kune Do
“Before I studied the art, a punch to me was just like a punch, a kick just like a kick. After I learned the art, a punch was no longer a punch, a kick no longer a kick. Now that I’ve understood the art, a punch is just like a punch, a kick just like a kick. The height of cultivation is really nothing special. It is merely simplicity; the ability to express the utmost with the minimum.” – Bruce Lee
some more can be found here
http://www.sammyfranco.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Store_Code=sammyfranco&Screen=bruce_lee
Wow! Great post! This one single quote sums up my last year of losing weight and building muscle. Since I was 17 years old (I’m 25 now) and started working out I’ve been trying to get the lean look. It didn’t happen until last year when I started the Eat Stop Eat way of life. The difficult thing has been to give up on all the workouts, diets and stuff I’ve been reading. But as of today I have removed all of the workouts sites and diet sites from my bookmarks. (Not this blog of course:-)). It’s taken me years to discover how simple it is! Food is food…. once again. Thanks!
Hey Brad,
Just got your email this morning and was inspired to come on in here and comment.
The clarity which we can cultivate around the dietary issue can be such a relieve. Simplify. Once we realize that many dietary manipulations are just ways to trick us into eating less, we begin to understand there is no magic bullet. Except ourselves.
Long ago when wrestling with diet demons, one of the mos powerful things I did was to purge my diet bookshelf. Just took them all to friends of the library.
And I seriously considered taking them to the dump so they wouldn’t clutter and confuse anyone else’s process! But then I realized that everyone has their own progression through time and materials….
Your note came at a great time for another reason as I’m thick into decluttering my office, closet, kitchen, pantry….it’s a universal theme!
Thanks for the added insight and synchronicity!
Lani
Great Comments as Usual Lani!
Oops…I see I just posted this on the wrong thread! Off to place it where intended.
Lani
No Zen quotes from Jack today, (maybe another day!) but just started the ESE program, and was AMAZED that once I DECIDED not to eat for that day, it was no big deal. And I had a great work out that day, didn’t feel weak, or lightheaded, drank a boatload of water, though.
I chose to not eat again today, after a leisurely and satisfying lunch (can you believe this, I thought, I’ll just take my time and enjoy my lunch today, as I will not have to devote or set aside any time for dinner tonight!), I thought, great, I can have a productive evening, time to work out, thinking about what I might do for lunch tomorrow, but no concern about dinner tonight, or breakfast tomorrow morning.
An unexpected piece of this program came along, not sure if it is stated exactly, but there is a sense of EMPOWERMENT (yes, I know, you think, what? over food? over that donut? or bag of chips? yes, that’s it exactly!). And I also felt the mental clarity. WOW!
Physiologically, can a person fast every other day? or is that pushing it? The waistline has plenty of reserves!
This has made me reflect on my own journey and what has happened as I’ve taken on more information. A few years ago I lost over 60 pounds in 9 months with almost no nutritional knowledge, I simply ate less. As I’ve read more and gained more “useful?” knowledge, I have struggled with the ridding myself of the remaining bodyfat.
Let’s get back to the basics! My new method of eating is “eating less”!!!
Thanks for making me THINK
Great post, Brad. “Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge” Winston Churchill. The happy part of the human brain is that when overwhelmed with material we find a way to simplify it so we can understand what the hell is going on.
I started playing golf at varsity when I was 23. I simply picked up the club and hit the little round white ball down where the short grass grew using my basic hand/eye co-ordination. I got down to a 8 handicap in 18 months—THEN I picked up a Golfers Digest and I never got lower than a 10 handicap again. Every issue had an article on how to hit your drives further and I tried every suggestion. The irony was a friend of mine had an issue from 1987…what was on the cover–you guessed it, “how to hit drives further”. Logically, 21 years later every golfer should be bashing the ball way past Tiger by now. I became so confused I quit in disgust. The same with exercise…every Men’s Health is about getting ripped abs and having better sex. The bottom line is magazines have deadlines to meet and they have to fill the magazine with something…but it can and does confuse the bejabbers out of you.
I was making the same mistake with nutrition until in disgust I just ignored everything and reduced my food intake by just not eating and kept that up till my pants lost their tightness again. As simple as that.
@Lorenzo
Hey, I’m a major fan of organics—but to promote sustainable farming. Farming practices DO matter
Hey Brad,
I noticed in your article Eat Stop Sleep you said that people who don’t get enough sleep have ‘older brains’ is this why you say sleep when tired?
KK
Brad,
Great stuff. In my quest to gain weight, muscle actually, I have been increasing my colories. However, as a result, my body fat has increased as well. I am interested in reading eat stop eat. Would you reccomend this book for someone looking to gain weight? Thanks in advance…
I’ve had a similar experience with some thing, notably singing. What do you think the moral of the tale is? – that you should just stick doing things simply and instinctively all along, or that it is useful to have a period of struggling with technicalities and theories and bits and pieces of head knowledge etc as long as you then come back to a simpler approach?