“Calorie restricted diets are pointless because they are hard to maintain and you just end up putting the fat back on once you stop the diet”

I have NEVER understood this argument against dieting.

To me, it’s just a back handed compliment:

“Sure, you’re losing tons of fat now and you look great, but as soon as you stop dieting and start eating like the rest of us again your just going to gain all that fat back! ”

Funny how you never hear anyone say:

“Really effective weight training programs are pointless because they are hard to maintain and you just end up losing all the muscle when you go back to being sedentary”

or

“Getting out of debt is pointless because it’s really, really hard, and once you go off your budget and start spending like crazy, you just end up in debt again!”

To me, this is just the arguments made by the defeated, the lazy and the jealous.

My advice? Ignore these arguments, and stay the course.

Eat less, move more, fast once or twice a week, ignore the naysayers. That’s the approach people who transformed their bodies using Eat Stop Eat followed, and it will work for you too.

Here’s a quick ‘thought for the day’ to help you with your weight loss goals:

We don’t help cocaine addicts by teaching them about the metabolism of serotonin-norepinephrine-dopamine re-uptake inhibitors or the hormonal implications of cocaine use, yet we try and help people lose weight by teaching them about hormones, metabolic pathways and
glucose chemistry.

While learning about the science of weight loss is fun and interesting, the most important part of any weight loss plan is dealing with our habits, environment, perceptions and stressors.

With this being said, the most important part of Eat Stop Eat isn’t the effect on growth hormone or insulin, but rather what you learn during the 24 hours that you are fasting.

Concentrate on using this time to figure out which of your habits, environmental factors, and perceptions are contributing to how much you eat.

Basically – pay attention to what drives you to eat.

Sure you’ll lose weight by fasting, but if you also use your fasts to help improve the way you eat when you are eating, then you’re setting yourself up for long term success.

NOTE: The following is guest post from John Barban. John is a professional strength coach and author of ” The Anything Goes Diet” and ” Venus Index Workout”

So you’ve probably read some sort of marketing about  foods that can ‘boost’ your metabolism and crash diets that can ‘slow down’ your metabolism.

This is all clever marketing speak. There is nothing you can do to speed up or slow down your metabolism to any degree that will cause weight loss or weight gain.

Getting caught up thinking about your ‘metabolism’ is  just going to distract you from what is really responsible for your weight loss…and that is controlling your food intake.

A dramatically heightened metabolic rate that is high enough to also cause significant calorie burning would  mean that you’re also running a very high fever and are very sick.

This is obviously not a good way to be losing weight. Adding muscle doesn’t do much to your metabolic rate either as one extra pound of muscle only burns about 5 more calories per day.

And finally stimulant supplements marketed as metabolic boosters can only increase the amount of daily calories you burn by 75-125 calories per day…this is about the same as having one extra cup of coffee with cream and sugar.

The marketing focused on metabolism is very powerful because most people make the mistake of assuming they can ‘feel’ their metabolic rate.

It’s easy to assume being ‘tired’ or lethargic means you have a slower metabolism. But this isn’t true. What it means is that you didn’t get enough sleep!

Metabolic rate isn’t anything you can ‘feel’ (besides the short term elevation of heart rate and sweating when you exercise).

The truth is your metabolism is going to be pretty stable no matter what you do.

The good news is that for the vast majority of people and this likely includes you too, there is nothing wrong with your metabolism. And that’s a good thing.

Try to avoid the marketing hype about metabolism and keep your focus on what really matters for weight loss.