Comments on: Eat Stop Eat: Net Effect for Me http://strongsarah.com/2009/06/24/eat-stop-eat-net-effect-for-me/ Not Just Muscle Wed, 02 Mar 2011 21:58:54 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.2 By: Andrew Lowry http://strongsarah.com/2009/06/24/eat-stop-eat-net-effect-for-me/comment-page-1/#comment-1239 Andrew Lowry Sat, 26 Feb 2011 02:32:05 +0000 http://strongsarah.com/?p=591#comment-1239 I used ESE and lifting (Turbulence Training)to drop about 20 lbs. I find when I go off of ESE I start to gain. I do a lot of business trips which involve too much eating. I find fasting on my way out and back helps to balance out my calories over the week. Another advantage I find with ESE is that I avoid casual snacking whether traveling or at home. So ESE works for me but I have not done your detailed examination of the results. I used ESE and lifting (Turbulence Training)to drop about 20 lbs. I find when I go off of ESE I start to gain. I do a lot of business trips which involve too much eating. I find fasting on my way out and back helps to balance out my calories over the week.
Another advantage I find with ESE is that I avoid casual snacking whether traveling or at home.
So ESE works for me but I have not done your detailed examination of the results.

]]> By: Lynnette http://strongsarah.com/2009/06/24/eat-stop-eat-net-effect-for-me/comment-page-1/#comment-524 Lynnette Tue, 23 Feb 2010 10:10:27 +0000 http://strongsarah.com/?p=591#comment-524 Hi Sarah. I have done the eat stop eat diet with mixed results. At first I was 155 pounds and my healthy body weight was supposed to be around 127-145, my goal was to get to 130 pounds with the diet. I did the diet for 5 weeks(fasting for 2 days a week) and was losing 2 pounds every weeks until I arrived at my "healthy" 145 pounds, I continued the diet for three weeks after that passed with no apparent weight loss. That leads me to conclude that the diet does not work after you get to a healthy weight. Hi Sarah. I have done the eat stop eat diet with mixed results. At first I was 155 pounds and my healthy body weight was supposed to be around 127-145, my goal was to get to 130 pounds with the diet. I did the diet for 5 weeks(fasting for 2 days a week) and was losing 2 pounds every weeks until I arrived at my “healthy” 145 pounds, I continued the diet for three weeks after that passed with no apparent weight loss. That leads me to conclude that the diet does not work after you get to a healthy weight.

]]> By: kamal s. http://strongsarah.com/2009/06/24/eat-stop-eat-net-effect-for-me/comment-page-1/#comment-473 kamal s. Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:22:57 +0000 http://strongsarah.com/?p=591#comment-473 I respect your experience. You approached it in a scientific manner. I would suggest that there are a few things that you may not have taken account of, to this I offer my own experience and ideas below. 1. Did you control for over all caloric consumption that week? MY experience with Eat Stop Eat is that there is a tendency on my part to over-eat not out of physical necessity, but out of psychological habit, on subsequent days. This tendency has to be watched for and if I recall correctly the author of the book mentions it. The trick is to fast during the fast days, and THEN make sure that you do not over-eat over your normal caloric maintence level. Make sure that you eat your normal quantities on non fasting days, not eating a wee bit extra out of a psychological compensation. The point of ESE is to create a net caloric deficit in a structured way, as well as turning the body into a fat burning mode due to metabolic changes, but the small initial effects of one or two days of fasting can be over-turned by eating over maintence mode caloric requirements on other days. 2. You really cannot gauge the effect of the practice with an initial one or two gives. Like ANYTHING it needs to be sustained over a period. For example, you are into fitness and strength training. If a friend came up to you and judged the effects of strength training after a lifetime of neglect based on 2 workouts with a baily's guest pass, wouldn't you think she was being premature? After only 2 workouts? No one remotely gets any effect of strength training or cardio that quickly. Things do not work that fast in nature. My own initial experience with Eat Stop Eat took place over 4 weeks. I set 2/3 days each week in which I did a 24 hour fast, while doing my regular exercise routine (nothing added nothing subtracted). On the first week I noticed NO WEIGHT LOSS WHATSOEVER. The second week, I had lost a couple of pounds, the 3rd and 4th week. The loss became more noticeable. My exercise was mild, I walked 45 minutes a day, and at the gym did 5 sets of 5 reps of deadlifts and 2 sets of 10 reps of bench presses. Three days a week. And twice a week I did a couple of nonchalant sets of 10 kettlebell snatches. Nothing strict, if anything I was sloppy and skipped a couple of workouts that month. I still had a net weight loss effect going on by week 3. 3. There's nothing extreme about it, it is our modern mindset that makes it seem extreme. Fasting is an intrinsic part of many non Western cultures. If anything you could argue that our modern Western modes of eating, even at their mildest, are extreme. I have a Moroccan friend that I discuss diet and exercise with. When I was excitedly described the experiment in Eat Stop Eat that I was considering his only response was a 'nothing special' shrug and a terse blunt: "Well, you American's graze too d*mn much anyway. You should fast more often, it will shrink that belly of yours." And, well, blunt and harsh as it was, he was right. If you go into anything thinking “this is extreme” then your initial attempts will reflect this. Giving ANY dietary or nutritional change a perfunctory once or twice test will accomplish nothing, because the body does not work this quickly. I, personally, got more rapid results because I gave it 4 weeks, and instead of 1/2 fasts a week, I averaged 2-3. After a couple of weeks, it felt so so comfortable that I just integrated it into my lifestyle. It feels natural to me to fast 24 hours here and there, there is no discomfort whatsoever. What IS hard (mentally) for me is a 48 hour fast. Every time I try it, I break down at 32 hours or something. There is nothing truly physically uncomfortable, it's all mental and as an experiment I am pushing through this block just for giggles. But two or three 24 hour Eat Stop Eat fasts a week produces effects in me and I've been able to successfully integrate it into my general lifestyle. It's been about 4 months now since I started it and frankly I would not go back to my earlier eating habits, no matter how healthy they seemed at the time, because my body is so accustomed to the level of Eat Stop Eat that I am doing, I feel greater clarity and vigor on my eat stop eat days, and I am experiencing a sustainable degree of weight loss after having hit some plateaus years ago. It works for me now. But I had to give it more than just a week's go at it. These are my experiences, others may differ. Something that may affect my observations over others is that the initial idea of fasting never seemed extreme to me anyway, and I had naturally stopped eating breakfast a decade ago. I noticed that heavy breakfasts made me feel sluggish through the day and over time I just stopped the practice of eating breakfast. So cutting out lunch to make a 24 hour fast seemed less extreme. So I went into it with a more relaxed attitude than I would have if I wasn’t already used to the idea of cutting out one meal. I respect your experience. You approached it in a scientific manner. I would suggest that there are a few things that you may not have taken account of, to this I offer my own experience and ideas below.

1. Did you control for over all caloric consumption that week?

MY experience with Eat Stop Eat is that there is a tendency on my part to over-eat not out of physical necessity, but out of psychological habit, on subsequent days. This tendency has to be watched for and if I recall correctly the author of the book mentions it. The trick is to fast during the fast days, and THEN make sure that you do not over-eat over your normal caloric maintence level. Make sure that you eat your normal quantities on non fasting days, not eating a wee bit extra out of a psychological compensation.

The point of ESE is to create a net caloric deficit in a structured way, as well as turning the body into a fat burning mode due to metabolic changes, but the small initial effects of one or two days of fasting can be over-turned by eating over maintence mode caloric requirements on other days.

2. You really cannot gauge the effect of the practice with an initial one or two gives. Like ANYTHING it needs to be sustained over a period. For example, you are into fitness and strength training.

If a friend came up to you and judged the effects of strength training after a lifetime of neglect based on 2 workouts with a baily’s guest pass, wouldn’t you think she was being premature?

After only 2 workouts? No one remotely gets any effect of strength training or cardio that quickly. Things do not work that fast in nature.

My own initial experience with Eat Stop Eat took place over 4 weeks. I set 2/3 days each week in which I did a 24 hour fast, while doing my regular exercise routine (nothing added nothing subtracted). On the first week I noticed NO WEIGHT LOSS WHATSOEVER. The second week, I had lost a couple of pounds, the 3rd and 4th week. The loss became more noticeable. My exercise was mild, I walked 45 minutes a day, and at the gym did 5 sets of 5 reps of deadlifts and 2 sets of 10 reps of bench presses. Three days a week. And twice a week I did a couple of nonchalant sets of 10 kettlebell snatches. Nothing strict, if anything I was sloppy and skipped a couple of workouts that month.

I still had a net weight loss effect going on by week 3.

3. There’s nothing extreme about it, it is our modern mindset that makes it seem extreme.

Fasting is an intrinsic part of many non Western cultures. If anything you could argue that our modern Western modes of eating, even at their mildest, are extreme. I have a Moroccan friend that I discuss diet and exercise with. When I was excitedly described the experiment in Eat Stop Eat that I was considering his only response was a ‘nothing special’ shrug and a terse blunt: “Well, you American’s graze too d*mn much anyway. You should fast more often, it will shrink that belly of yours.”

And, well, blunt and harsh as it was, he was right.

If you go into anything thinking “this is extreme” then your initial attempts will reflect this. Giving ANY dietary or nutritional change a perfunctory once or twice test will accomplish nothing, because the body does not work this quickly.

I, personally, got more rapid results because I gave it 4 weeks, and instead of 1/2 fasts a week, I averaged 2-3. After a couple of weeks, it felt so so comfortable that I just integrated it into my lifestyle. It feels natural to me to fast 24 hours here and there, there is no discomfort whatsoever. What IS hard (mentally) for me is a 48 hour fast. Every time I try it, I break down at 32 hours or something. There is nothing truly physically uncomfortable, it’s all mental and as an experiment I am pushing through this block just for giggles.

But two or three 24 hour Eat Stop Eat fasts a week produces effects in me and I’ve been able to successfully integrate it into my general lifestyle. It’s been about 4 months now since I started it and frankly I would not go back to my earlier eating habits, no matter how healthy they seemed at the time, because my body is so accustomed to the level of Eat Stop Eat that I am doing, I feel greater clarity and vigor on my eat stop eat days, and I am experiencing a sustainable degree of weight loss after having hit some plateaus years ago. It works for me now.

But I had to give it more than just a week’s go at it.
These are my experiences, others may differ. Something that may affect my observations over others is that the initial idea of fasting never seemed extreme to me anyway, and I had naturally stopped eating breakfast a decade ago.

I noticed that heavy breakfasts made me feel sluggish through the day and over time I just stopped the practice of eating breakfast. So cutting out lunch to make a 24 hour fast seemed less extreme. So I went into it with a more relaxed attitude than I would have if I wasn’t already used to the idea of cutting out one meal.

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