It seems the bill just keeps climbing at the grocery store.  The price of gas drove food prices up, and they sure aren’t coming back down with the lower prices at the pump!  And the hardest hit foods are the one’s that are central to a healthy diet: fruits, vegetables, fish and meats.  What alternatives are available if you want to eat well and still save some money on the grocery bill?

Well, author Brad Pilon stumbled upon an unexpected answer.  While researching his post-grad degree, Brad had some interesting notions about eating, and weight loss that he set out to prove.  The problem was, with each new discovery, he found evidence that his assumptions were wrong, that the food manufacturers were pushing our buttons, and that a no-nonsense approach to more healthy eating and fat loss was right under our noses.

What he discovered is that the evolutionary tendency of human beings to naturally or culturally undergo cycles of both feast and fast is a completely normal and even essential component of our relationship to food.  The human body can only be in either a fed or fasted state.  The first allows us to use the food we eat as energy or store it as fat.  In the latter we release energy stores from fat to burn as fuel.  It’s as simple as that.  Here’s the problem, most of the time our society keeps us in the fed state infinitely more often than the fasted state.  And the visible consequences are all around us.

There are a lot of myths surrounding the idea of fasting for fat loss.  Many believe that your metabolism slow to a crawl.  There’s the myth that you’ll be listless or fog brained while in the fasted state.  Many objections persist in our modern society regarding the fast.  But Intermittent Fasting, short bouts in the fasted state as explained in Mr Pilon’s book, Eat Stop Eat, do not cause any of that.  In actual fact, as Brad so thouroughly explains in the book, quite the opposite is true.

Studies have clearly shown that the metabolism does not slow down from Intermittent Fasting.  In some cases, it even increases!  These same studies have also proven an extremely positive effect on homronal balance from [short bouts of fasting.

Rapidly accumulating anecdotal evidence accredit Intermittent Fasting with improved performance in the weight room, enhanced mental accuity and better productivity.  This is in large part due to the activation of the sympathetic nervous system while fasting, which releases epinephrine and norepinephrine (adrenalin).

But many consider the best part of fasting to be the fact that it is a boon to healthy and quick weight loss.  The key hormone for fat loss is called Growth Hormone.  And fasting is a trigger in helping the body produce more GH.  Along with the right type of resistance exercise and plenty of sleep, fasting helps mix a powerful weight loss cocktail.  Coupled with the obvious reduced calories inherent to fasting, shedding pounds is a given.

Just two bouts of IF a week can make a big impact on your body composition.  And with the cash you save on not eating for one third of of your week, you can treat yourself with high quality healthy foods during the remainder of the week!  It’s an ideal situation.  But, as is the case with anything new, you should take the time to educate yourself before launching into a program of Intermittent Fasting.  It’s a very simple thing, but it’s crucial to understand all the facts before you fast.  I strongly suggest you explore this page full of Intermittent Fasting resources.  You’ll also find links to Brad’s book, which is absolutely worth the read.  If you consider Intermittent fasting for weight loss to be an interesting alternative after looking into it, I’m convinced you’ll be astonished by the results.

Clearly, fasting is an effective way to lose unnecessary body fat, but once the fat has melted away restoring a youthful physique, how do we keep it off?  Should a fasting regime be practiced to maintain weight loss? The answer is a simple one.You should never go fasting considering it as your primary source to get rid of excess weight.  The secret is to learn how to fast healthy and eat healthy.If you wish to lose weight fast, then you should eat in a way that helps keep the weight off.  That’s balance.  Lets learn how.

First you must understand when I say weight management I do not mean the endless seesaw action of gaining and losing weight.  We are all sick of that ride where eating is ether a mathematical equation of calorie counting or a mindless overindulgence.  No, I am speaking about managing body weight as a consistent dietary lifestyle.
I have a friend who is an avid faster.  In fact he finds it easy to fast and has done it  often throughout the years.  On the surface it would seem he has steel discipline, effortlessly doing what others find to be a great challenge.  His self-imposed purpose is to become a fruitarian and for twenty years has read and studied the health benefits of eating an all-fruit diet.  Yet never has he been able to put together more than 14 days of fruit eating, experiencing countless failed attempts.  My friend eats better than most people I know, but in his words, always “blows it”, gorging with franticness and absurd extreme.  I found it difficult to witness these compulsive exhibitions because I knew the aftermath would be guilt and depression, leading to yet another joyless fast.  This abusive cycle has continued for years and probably is still continuing.  He is thin and in good shape but there is no joy and little freedom in eating.
  
Not long after opening our Internet Bulletin Board, I became increasingly alarmed about some of the posts popping up here and there.  Over time we learned that a website which promoted anorexia had linked to our website.  I immediately went and looked in no way prepared for what I was about to see.  A mixture of shock and profound grief griped my heart as I read the melancholy testimonies of young women emasculated with self-hate, repulsed by their own bodies, never thin enough.  Most of the testimonies came with photos of themselves, a macabre gallery of gradual suicide, skin stretched over skeletons, large, hopeless eyes set in bony faces, wearing their gauntness like a cry for help.  Weeping, I was appalled that a ministry created to bring freedom was being used to enable obsession.  It was a mockery directly from Satan, soiling the purity of our work into desecration.We acted fast by offering a forum on our Board for those who are suffering with major disorders of eating, enlisting the help of an Bulimia and Anorexia Counselor and providing links to other Eating Disorder Recovery portals.
 
Satan is a god of extremes.  He will gladly offer the two extremes of obesity and anorexia as long as it is he who is in control and not you.
 
Anorexia/Nervosa and other related eating disorders:   
Tragically it is not until we see an unbalance taken to the extreme that we can begin to recognize its peril within ourselves.  The images of those young woman has forever changed how I look at my own body-focus.
No matter what type of personality God has planted in you, practicing fasting or dietprograms as a means of balancing the scales is unhealthy.  Bingeing and purging is harmful and emotionally dangerous.  You have replaced one damaging cycle for another.  There is no freedom and joy in such a cycle, only slavery and guilt.  
Fasting is an exhilarating way to begin a healthy diet, excess body fat quickly drops, bathroom mirror nodding approval, maybe for the first time in years.  Fasting can produce a temporary altered state¾hunger and craving shut down.  Often, while fasting, feelings of euphoria and emotional balance can be enjoyed.  Those with an obsessive personality are attracted to fasting almost like the escape of drugs.Problem is, later or sooner you must face the voracious world including all its trappings.  The junk-food shrines on every street corner have waited patiently.  What was pushed into the peripheral through fasting, is now back into the fore.  Voracious hunger awakens from sleep; the fragrance of KFC is all the more intoxicating.  In fact, some find themselves worse off and within day’s rush to their old food-lovers, fulfilling the axiom, “distance makes the heart grow fonder.
 
I have fasted to gain lost ground on a slipping diet or to break a tenacious addiction or even detoxify after Christmas feasting¾this has been very effective for me.  The fast re-establishes focus on Christ.  This can be healthy and balanced.Once the fast ends, my diet shows the spiritual freedom earned during the fast.  In other words, the fast is more about warfare than weight.      
Where do we cross the line from healthy concern to obsession?  The simplest way for me to answer this important question is by creating what I believe is a balanced and healthy lifelong weight management program, avoiding the endless seesaw action of gaining and losing weight through fad dieting or quick-fix fasting. 

Intermittent Fasting can be a useful part of an overall strategy for fat loss and health.  But it can be hard work.  So I want to share with you some of the tricks I’ve latched onto on my journey as I’ve used fasting as a tactic for weight loss and a tool in my approach to wellness.

In my opinion, the ideal method for Intermittent Fasting is the 24 hour Intermittent Fast recommended in Brad Pilon’s book, Eat-Stop-Eat.  This approach renders the most flexibility of all the various methodologies.  Other programs require fasting every day and eating only within certain daily periods (ex. intermittent fast for 16 hours and eat during six hours).

Brad has you begin your fast after one of your meals and simply not eating again until the same meal on the following day.  This is an interesting variation on the theme of not eating for an entire day, which winds up being closer to a thirty-four hour fast.

The research revealed in Eat-Stop-Eat indicates an ideal window of 18 to 24 hours in which the bulk of the weight loss and wellness benefits are most impressive.  So this plan seems to me to be the most effectiveof the lot.

If you take the time to read the book, you’ll know exactly what you need to do.  But as I said at the outset, Intermittent Fasting can still be a challenge, especially when starting out.  Hopefully these tips will help you acheive the IF success you are looking for.

Plan Ahead