Eat Stop Eat = Routine Periodic Fasting

Fasting is making headlines again!

Here are just two of the subjects of e-mails which have been sent to me in the last week:

“Routine Periodic Fasting Is Good for Your Health, and Your Heart, Study Suggests”

and

“Study: Periodic fasting good for health, heart”

Why all the buzz?

The mainstream media has caught wind of Dr. Ben Horne’s latest research.

Dr. Horne is a friend of ‘Eat Stop Eat.‘ We have exchanged e-mails. I think it’s worthwhile to take a look at his latest findings.

Dr. Horne’s work is based on 24-hour fasts, once or twice a week, which is almost exactly the protocol for Eat Stop Eat. It’s very relevant for those of us who are following Eat Stop Eat. If Dr. Horne had added in some weight training, it would have been a perfect match!

And Dr. Horne isn’t alone in this. He is one of more than a dozen doctors with Intermountain Medical Center’s Heart Institute who discovered the most recent round of physiological benefits from fasting.

Here is what Dr. Horne and his colleagues have found:

During 24-hour fasting periods, Growth Hormone increases to an average of 1,300 percent in women and nearly 2,000 percent in men!

When Growth Hormone is elevated, fat is burned and muscle is preserved. Finding this kind of rise in 24 hours is excellent news for us!

Fasting reduces other cardiac risk factors, such as the presence of triglycerides, and weight and blood sugar levels.

Another bonus for us!

According to a news article, “Dr. Horne believes that fasting could one day be prescribed as a treatment for preventing diabetes and coronary heart disease.” To be fair, I haven’t seen or heard him say such a thing directly, but it is a logical suggestion as far as I‘m concerned.

I should add that Dr. Horne cautions fasting may not be for everyone, and I completely agree. If you have a serious medical condition, discuss Eat Stop Eat with your doctor before attempting to fast.

Now here is the bad news: Even though recent articles show more support than ever for the Eat Stop Eat lifestyle, it doesn’t mean that Eat Stop Eat or fasting is going to go mainstream any time soon, and maybe not ever.

In fact, it the concept became popular, it would be shot down very quickly by a large group of critics.

Food companies, supplement companies, food ingredient suppliers, and anyone else who makes money when you eat don’t want you to stop eating for 24 hours once or twice a week. That would create a financial nightmare for them.

While this research adds to the ever growing body of scientific research which supports our way of eating, it’s not going to change the fact that your friends, family, and coworkers will probably never ‘get it.’ At some point they will most likely give you a hard time about your fasting habits. They will tell you that you need to ‘eat to keep up your energy.’ They will push you to eat in order to make themselves feel better about how much they eat.

We are just going to have to learn to deal with this reaction from others.

Here is what I want you to do: Add this latest round of research to your ever-growing support for Eat Stop Eat,  but don’t expect the research to prevent the funny looks you get when you tell people you are fasting. And when you deal with friends and family, share the Eat Stop Eat concept with those who are ready; those who want to lose weight. Don’t bother discussing the concept with the people who want to argue about it.