The Truth About Fasting

Here’s the Truth About Fasting from guest author, and inventor of the fasting diet wave that’s been sweeping the nation since 2007, Brad Pilon. Brad is the creator of Eat-Stop-Eat . The 6th edition of this legendary book is available on July 17th.

If I’ve learned anything from the last decade I’m spent writing about nutrition and weight loss it’s that losing weight only becomes complicated when we choose to make it complicated.  Unfortunately, for some reason we gravitate towards complication.

We like to add complex layers of pseudo-understanding, perhaps to reassure ourselves that something is indeed completely under our control, or maybe it’s simply a stall tactic, to prevent us from starting something new, or something that scares us.

But when we let go of this need for intense unneeded understanding of the beautiful phenomenon that is how our bodies work, things tend to sort themselves out.

When we just let it be, and don’t add rule after rule to the basic principle of weight loss it becomes incredibly simple, and Intermittent fasting could be one of the easiest ways to use this simplicity to your full benefit.

After all, there really isn’t anything complicated about Intermittent Fasting.

Intermittent means  ‘every once in a while‘, and fasting means ‘taking a break from eating’.  So one of the most positive and powerful things you can do for your health and your body is to simply take a break from eating every once in a while.

It requires very little effort, thought, or reflection. It also takes very little planning and when done properly can fit very easily into your life and your lifestyle.

When you stop eating for a brief period of time your body burns your body fat as a fuel. You do not have to trick it to do this, you don’t need to manipulate it or deceive it. Your body knows what to do, you just need to get out of its way.

The Eat Stop Eat method of intermittent fasting was designed to optimize this ease and simplicity. It consists of fasting once or twice a week for 24 hours followed by anywhere from 3 to 6 days of dietary ‘rest and recovery‘ where you eat as you normally would.

There are no complicated rules, or restraints you need to follow.  When you fast is up to you, as is how often you fast.  When you are not fasting you live a normal happy life, eating as you usually do but without overeating, when you are fasting you still live a normal happy life, the only difference is you’ve decided to take a small break from eating.

When used properly this style of intermittent fasting is the easiest way to lose weight. With traditional dieting you diet every single day – a process that forces you to restrain yourself for week after week and month after month. It’s a slow agonizing process full of temptation to fill your days searching for ways to trick and manipulate your body into burning fat faster. Wasting an unbelievable amount of energy and mind space trying to fix a process that was never broken.

With Intermittent fasting you do it all your dieting at once – you step out of the way and allow your body to do what it does best, then you go on with your normal, productive life – like ripping off a bandage quick, instead of the drawn out, agonizing pain of pulling a it off slowly. Both techniques work, only one is a lot less painful, and wastes a lot less time.

With intermittent fasting very little of your time is spent stressing over what to eat next, searching the internet for diet strategies or worrying whether or not you are actually losing weight – instead you simply take a break from eating and focus your energies elsewhere for a brief period of time.

Striving to make something uncomplicated while at the same time maintaining it’s effectiveness helps free up time and energy for the other, much more important things in our life.

In other words, if you can lose weight without constantly dieting, without spreadsheets of foods you can and can’t eat, and without using up mind space with the guilt and stress that comes with ‘possibly messing up’ your diet, why wouldn’t you choose this option?

To your fasting success and simplicity,

Brad Pilon
Eat-Stop-Eat