The Eat Stop Eat lifestyle allows you to truly take control of how you eat.

When you have gone without food for 24 hours a couple of times, you start to understand the real reasons behind why you eat, what you eat, and when you eat.

Sometimes hunger isn‘t what causes you to eat. The real culprits are usually habits and emotional connections.

Remember that, and you can create a big difference in the way you eat – all by making small changes.

Think about coffee for a moment.

When I first began fasting, I realized how much I loved coffee with cream and sugar. (I drink black coffee during my fasts, but I don’t like it!) When I began fasting, I also learned how much I craved coffee. I usually drank two or three cups per day.

I soon realized that this was a perfect opportunity to make small changes for big results.
In the beginning, I drank an extra large coffee with two creams and two sugars – which contains about 280 calories.

I slowly weaned myself down to a large coffee with one sugar and one cream – about 110 calories.

After about a week of drinking large coffees with one sugar and one cream, I began to realize that I wasn’t enjoying my coffee anymore – so I switched to two creams and one sugar – about 180 calories.

That did the trick.

Because of one small change, I was able to reduce my calorie intake by 100 calories, two or three times per day – saving myself between 1,400 to 2,100 calories per week without cutting out any of my favorite foods.

This, in my opinion, was much better than trying to stop drinking coffee all together. I enjoy my coffee, and cutting it out of my daily diet would have been punishment. Weight loss and healthy eating plans should never be about self-punishment.

Besides, I probably would have only lasted about three days without drinking any coffee at all, so it would have been a futile punishment as well.

Small changes bring big results.

We’ve probably all asked ourselves why we eat so much at one point in life.

After all, most of us don’t have the bodies we want to have because we eat too much.

Some answers to the question make it sound like it’s not our fault. We can blame it on hormones like ghrelin and adiponectin. Other answers, such as a complete lack of will-power, make it sound like it’s all our fault. And many other answers lie somewhere in between.

Here are five little-known reasons why you might be eating more than you need. Some of the answers are blunt, but they need to be considered.

1 . You are thirsty. Many times, thirst can be mistaken for hunger.

•    Quick fix – Drink some water. It can’t hurt.

2. You are covering for something. Be honest. We eat because we need the stimulation. A person who is about to go skydiving for the very first time won’t step off the plane and think, “Gee, I could really go for a muffin right now.” If you find that you constantly need to eat, it may be time to look at your life and ask yourself if you’re bored with your job, your relationship, or your friends. If you give yourself more stimulation, you might eat less.

•    Quick fix – When you eat, stop and ask yourself whether you’re hungry – or whether you’re just bored. If you consistently answer that you’re bored, find a different way to pass the time.

3. You are trying too hard to be healthy. In reality, if we ate all the foods we’re supposed to eat, we’d be overeating. Even if you’re following a low-calorie diet, the calorie count easily sneaks back up on you when you throw in some almond butter, goji juice, coconut oil, or an organic-fair trade-wheat grass shake.

•    Quick fix – Ignore “super foods.“ If you want to try a new food, replace an old one. Don’t just add it to your diet.

4. You are being mindless. Have you ever sat down in front of the TV with a full plate of food, and then, before you knew it, you reached for your plate, and it was empty? Chances are, you – not the cat – ate the food without even realizing it.

•    Quick fix – Don’t eat in front of the TV or computer.

5. You’re paying too much attention to your pre, during, and post workout nutrition. I know the theories and the “science” behind the claims that eating during, before, or right after your workout can be beneficial, but if your goal is to lose weight, those meals could be keeping you from reaching your goal.

•    Quick fix – Cut back on your “around workout” meals and see what happens.

I have some bad news.

In order to look better than most people, you have to do things differently than most people.

You’ll have to eat less and exercise more than most people – because most people just don’t do the job well enough.

Look at this shocking example:

You can learn three things from looking at these statistics:

1. The North American population has a fairly evenly distributed percentage of body fat.

2. A man’s average body fat percentage is around 25, while a woman’s body fat percentage is around 40.

3. If you want to have less than 12% body fat (for men) or less than 22% body fat (for women), you’re going to have to be an “outlier.”

What is an outlier?

out•li•er – A value that is far from the average or mean.

The statistics shown above were compiled from about 13,000 men and women between the ages of 20 and 80 using DXA.

If the thought of being “average” isn’t good enough for you, then you’ll have to commit to being different – very different.

Be your own outlier.

Take note of what everyone else is doing. Then do things just a little differently.

These statistics show that eating more than we need to eat while we obsess over healthy eating habits isn’t giving people the results they want.

Watching TV shows about other people who are losing weight isn’t giving people the results they want.

Having the desire to lose weight is much different than taking the action that is needed to make weight loss happen.

Do things differently.

Be your own outlier.

While others talk about losing weight, read books about losing weight, and watch TV shows about losing weight, you need to be the one to take action.

That’s what will make you different.

In the words of the famous Nike slogan – Just do it. No more talking. No more reading. No more thinking.

Eat less, move more – and be your own outlier.

**Am J Clin Nutr 2009;90:1457–65.

Individuals who are curious about the Eat Stop Eat plan often ask whether it’s possible to gain weight while fasting.

The answer is yes.

Fasting is not magic, although it is a very effective way to create a calorie deficit and lose body fat.

Let’s say you’ve been gaining weight for the last couple months, and, through several scientific methods, we determined that you have been overeating by about 30%, which means you’re eating 30% more calories than you actually need to maintain your weight.

Because you’ve been gaining weight, you decide that it’s finally time to try the “Eat Stop Eat” diet that everyone else is talking about.

You fast twice a week, every week, for seven weeks – but in the end, you learn that you gained two pounds.

How could this be? Is Brad Pilon a liar? Is it a waste of time to fast? Is your metabolism ruined?
The answer is probably very simple.

The fasting might have actually worked incredibly well for you. The two fasts per week might have reduced the amount of calories you consume in a week by 22%. That’s a big drop, but it just isn’t enough.

If you had been overeating by 30%, a 22% decrease still means you’re eating about 8% more than you need to eat.

Fasting won’t work magic for you. The need to eat responsibly remains. You don’t have to avoid sugar or dairy products. You don’t even need to eat healthy (although it’s good to get a good variety of foods). In order to lose weight, you simply need to eat less.

Small changes are important.

Examine your diet and find small changes you could make that will cause big results. A few small changes should get you back into a caloric deficit and help you drop pounds.

It’s very easy to overeat. Some people overeat by thousands of calories every day. If fasting isn’t getting you the results you want, try studying the way you eat when you’re not fasting.

Small changes can have big results, especially if you’re already fasting.

It may not be great Eat Stop Eat marketing, and it’s definitely not some MSN style cure all weight loss technique (ice water anyone?), but it’s honest and it’s true.

Question: How many calories can be burned by a pound of muscle?

Answer: One pound of muscle burns about five calories in a 24 hour period when the muscle is at rest.

This fact is contrary to what is commonly stated. You may have heard that anywhere from 10 to 50 calories can be burned by a pound of fat in a 24 hour period.

Why is there confusion?

The Katch-McCardle Formula used to calculate metabolic rates shows that a persons daily metabolic rate can be calculated as: 370 + (21.6 X LBM(kg)) = Calories burned in a 24 hour period.

Many people think that, if a kilogram of muscle burns 21.6 calories in 2 hours, a pound of muscle must burn about 10 calories.

This is not true.

A pound of lean body mass is not the same thing as a pound of muscle. Lean body mass includes everything in your body that isn’t fat, which means that the calculation includes highly metabolic tissues like your liver, heart and viscera.

When you add lean body mass to your body through resistance training, you are adding muscle mass. You aren’t adding mass to your organs. And even though you have more muscle in your body than organs, they only share about half of the metabolic work.

For every pound of muscle you gain from working out, you can expect to burn an extra five calories in 24 hours while your body is at rest.

Adding muscle to boost your metabolism may not work like you would like it to. If you want to burn fat, rely on your diet.