Here is an interesting comment that was left on this blog:
Brad, I believe that your diet, or better yet lifestyle type way of eating will really change peoples lives and even mine for the better. I fully understand the concepts that you present but one thing I do not understand – You say that besides our 1 to 2 days of fasting that you want us to eat “NORMAL”. The problem is that most people do not understand what “NORMAL” is. Heck I don’t even know what NORMAL eating is. WHAT IS NORMAL EATING?
Great point… so here we go.
Eating “normal” is eating responsibly (for people who are trying to lose weight).
There is NO ‘normal’ or ‘perfect’ way to eat for weight loss.
This is the great fallacy behind most diet books.
The fact is calorie restriction (or more correctly a calorie deficit compared to the current amount of calories you are eating) causes weight loss.
ANY diet book or diet style that claims they have the secret ANSWER or that their way is the ‘only way that works’ are INSTANTLY proven wrong by the millions of people who have successfully lost weight by using alternative methods.
For instance, if I were to say that the Eat Stop Eat style of fasting is the ONLY way to lose weight I should INSTANTLY lose all credibility (Since it is entirely possible to lose weight without following the Eat Stop Eat style of fasting)
The point I am trying to make is that there is NO such thing as an all encompassing way to define eating “normal”. This is why I don’t ever attempt to define what is “normal eating” or what a ‘normal diet’ is.
What is a normal diet to someone who lives in Cairo Egypt would be very “not normal” to some one who lives in Pittsburgh.
Normal is defined by your ancestry, your geography how you were raised and your personal preferences AND your goals…you simply cannot define it.
Eating responsibly is much easier to define.
Simply put, eating responsibly is eating the AMOUNT of food necessary to reach your goal.
Eating responsibly is also a mindset. It is realizing that on many occasions you are going to want to eat more food than you need to.
If your goal is to lose weight then eating responsibly means recognizing when you are eating too much and either A) making the decision to stop eating or B) accepting the fact that at that time you are going to eat more and you will deal with the results later.
There is no free pass to weight loss.
And, despite what some people say, you simply cannot eat as much as you want and still lose weight as long as you take supplement X or follow diet Y or exercise routine Z.
Even getting the fat cut right off your body in a surgical procedure still does not constitute permanent weight loss. (Yes you can eat enough food to put that weight right back on! …the remaining fat cells can still expand and fill up with fat if you continue to wolf back massive amounts of calories after the surgery)
So the bottom line is that there is no such thing as “eating normal”, there is only “eating normally for YOU”.
If the amount of food you normally eat is the amount of food it takes to maintain your current weight at your current activity level (so assuming that you are not currently gaining or losing weight), then adding in one or two fasts without changing anything else, will cause you to lose weight. End of story.
So ONE method (but certainly not THE ONLY method) to lose weight is to eat normally (for you) and then add in one or two Eat Stop Eat fasts per week.
I hope this helps clarify a pretty ‘murky’ topic.
BP
