Trying to get lean for the summer using the Eat Stop Eat method? Here’s a quick tip.

First, we must assume that you’re fasting twice a week and that you aren’t going to adopt any obsessive-compulsive eating habits.

Here’s the tip: Try to fast during the work week, and then focus on eating right on the two toughest days of the week, Saturday and Sunday.

Many people consume the most calories on Saturdays and Sundays. Make it your goal to be “good” on those days.

At the least, you should aim to face Sunday night with the feeling that you made some responsible decisions over the weekend.

Take control of your eating on Saturday and Sunday, eat responsibly the rest of the week, and burn more fat by fasting on two weekdays.

This simple change could make a big difference in your success at losing weight.

Conquer Saturday and Sunday, and the rest will fall into place.

Many people in the fitness industry promote a combination of “fat burning” workouts and “muscle building” nutrition.

I believe this is a completely backwards and highly ineffective approach to improving the looks of your body.

Here’s why:

It’s very difficult to lose weight purely by working out, whether you try long distance running, interval training, high-intensity weight training, or any combination of the three.

Individuals may push their “ultra fat burning workouts,” but the truth is that exercise alone is a poor stimulus for weight loss. Even if the workouts are metabolically demanding, they actually have a very small effect on calorie burning.

Some calories are burned after hard workouts, but it is only about 8 to 10 extra calories per hour, and they usually don’t burn for the 24-36 hour timeframe some people promote. Research concerning after-exercise metabolism boosts is inconclusive at best.

Furthermore, there is very little proof that any type of eating style can build muscle. There are plenty of companies and individuals who say that certain eating methods will help you gain massive amounts of muscle mass, but these claims aren’t backed by science.

I have been researching as I work on my new book, “How Much Protein?” and I can tell you that there is very little evidence that any type of diet can build muscle. Diet has very little to do with building muscle.

Putting the two myths together can get you in a messy situation.

If you follow the myths, you will be eating high protein and more calories multiple times per day to gain muscle, and you’ll be working out with fancy weight training circuits, cardio intervals and lots of ab exercises to burn fat.

Neither approach is effective, so you’ll end up spending a lot of time in the gym and a lot of time worrying about your diet, but you’ll won’t see any results.

It would be better to eat for weight loss and to work out to build or maintain muscle.

Research does prove that eating less will cause you to lose weight. And research also proves that muscle-building workouts will preserve muscle mass, ensuring that weight you lose comes from body fat.

Eat Stop Eat uses a combination of fasting and resistance training. The combination of the two leads to optimal fat loss with the least amount of physical or mental work.

The most ideal way to improve the way your body looks is to eat for weight loss and exercise to build muscle. It sounds simple, but it’s actually rather difficult to accomplish. It’s easy to be distracted by the latest and greatest new ways to burn fat in the gym.

If you’re looking to change the way your body looks, keep your workouts simple and geared toward building muscle, and let your diet take care of your fat loss.

To do this, you’ll have to follow a few simple rules:

• Switch to lower reps. If you’ve been doing 15-20 rep exercises, try increasing the weight and doing sets of 5-8 reps.
• Stop doing most isolation exercises. Instead, use total-body, multi-muscle movements.
• Stop doing crunches and sit-ups. Instead, focus on larger multi-muscle movements.
• Change your workouts frequently.

And for your diet:

• Find an easy way to eat less than it takes to maintain your current body weight, and use that method. (This is the only truly important diet tip for weight loss.)

If you’re stuck spending hours in the gym every day and trying to eat in a way that supposedly maintains or builds muscle, try changing your approach and see what an amazing difference it can make.

When you have begun eating for weight loss and exercising for muscle building, then you can add exercises like intervals or metabolically demanding body weight exercises to speed up the fat burning process. Only do this if you have the first two steps set into motion.

A great question from Chris:

“Brad, I am on the fence about your program. I have been low-carbing it for a while now with some great results. However I am starting to feel a little limited in what I can eat. It would be nice to have the occasional taco or dessert! Are you saying all calories are the same? Meaning if i switch to ESE and add some carbs to my diet, and still lift, my weight and body comp shouldn’t change b/c of the calorie reduction? Thanks”

My Answer:

A calorie is a calorie. It is a unit of measurement, just like an inch. An inch of anything can only ever be one inch, and, in the same way, one calorie from any food is still one calorie.

All macronutrients are not the same, however. Proteins, fats, and carbohydrates have different effects on the body. (Personally, I think we wouldn’t worry so much about calories if we would adopt the Joule as the standard measurement of energy.)

In answer to the question, I’m positive that you can continue to lift weights, switch to the Eat Stop Eat lifestyle, and increase your carb intake (within reason) without seeing a change in your body composition – as long as you don’t increase the amount of energy you consume.

Remember that even if you increase your carbohydrate intake moderately on the days you are eating, your carb intake will be zero on the one or two days you’re fasting, so it should balance out.

Macronutrients play an important role in our health, and most of us could benefit from eating fewer carbohydrates. In the end, though, our ability to eat a wide variety of foods will bring us the best health, and our ability to reduce our caloric intake will bring us the best weight loss. (If you want to make sure the weight that is lost is body fat, be sure to add in resistance training.)

By the way, I have recently heard from a paleo person, a vegetarian, a fruititarian, and a pasta addict – and they all found benefits with Eat Stop Eat.

Eat Stop Eat doesn’t discriminate. The plan can help individuals of all diet beliefs lose weight and feel great.

I am sometimes asked, “How much should I eat on the days I’m not fasting?”

I don’t like complex equations used to count calories, so I have a simple approach to this dilemma.

Eat normally – that is, don’t fast – for two weeks.

Weigh yourself on the third and fourth days. Calculate the average of those two numbers. Weigh yourself again on days 13 and 14, and calculate the average of those two numbers. (Remember to weigh yourself in the morning before you eat.)

If your weight went up more than three or four pounds from your starting average to your final average, you’ll know you’re eating slightly more than you need to eat.

If your weight stayed approximately the same, you’re eating the right amount.

If your weight went down by three or four pounds, you have room to add more food to your life.

This technique is very accurate for men, but women should allow themselves four pounds from their starting average because of the way their body water levels change throughout the course of a month.

This exercise works well for individuals who have lost considerable amounts of weight through fasting and who need to determine how much food they should be eating based on their new weight.

I’ve thought of about a million different ways to explain why Eat Stop Eat works well for women, but the best way I can come up with is a fictional story:

Janet and Kevin met when they were in college.

Kevin, 6’2” and 205 pounds, wasn’t an “athlete,” but he worked out regularly and maintained a muscular build for his height.

Janet, 5’6” and 135 pounds, was involved in plenty of sports when she was a child. She was active in sports ranging from field hockey to soccer, and from swimming to dance, and, as a result, she had a “fit” and athletic build that made other women her age jealous.

Janet didn’t have problems with her weight during college. By her senior year, her weight hovered around 140 pounds, but, for the most part, she had it under control.

Then Janet and Kevin got married.

They both lived busy lives, trying to balance their new careers with something resembling a social life. As a result, Kevin and Janet ate out 2 or 3 times a week. At home, Kevin cooked relatively healthy meals, and they almost always ate breakfast and dinner together.

After 4 years of marriage, Kevin still weight about 205 pounds. He had lost some muscle and was a little “softer” around the stomach, but not much had changed.

Janet, on the other hand, hated her body.

Her once-athletic build could only be described as “thick.” She spent a lot of time stressing about what she ate, how much protein she ate, and how many carbs she ate. She always took her fish oil pills. It was a never-ending battle to keep her weight below the dreaded 160 pound mark.

When work became stressful, she could easily find herself drifting into the mid-160s.

A few days after Thanksgiving last year, she hit the breaking point. She weighed herself before bedtime, and learned that she had reached 170 pounds. This devastated Janet, and she couldn’t understand why it was happening.

She had joined a gym and was going on nightly walks with Kevin, but nothing was working. Her friends said she could be eating too much sugar, but, for the most part, her meals with Kevin were very healthy.

She finally decided her metabolism simply must have slowed down. Maybe it was the stress at work, or maybe it was a hormonal thing she had inherited from her mother.

The truth?

Janet was gaining weight because she was eating too much. More specifically, she gained weight because she was eating the same serving sizes that Kevin ate.

Since Kevin was maintaining a weight of around 200 pounds and was as active as Janet, Janet was eating enough food to maintain a weight of 200 pounds!

In restaurants, Kevin didn’t order a “big guy” serving size while Janet ordered the “slim girl” size. Both plates were identical. When Kevin made healthy omelets, he didn’t make one for himself and half of one for Janet.

This is the plight of women.

Most restaurant serving sizes are too large for the average man, which means they’re entirely too large for a woman who is 4 inches shorter and 40-60 pounds lighter. And, for the most part, when we cook at home, we don’t “downsize” portion sizes for the smaller person.

Eat Stop Eat works well for many women because it gives them a chance to play a little catch up – or, more correctly, to play a little “fall behind.”

Women can eat in a restaurant without having to leave part of their meal on their plate. And women can eat at home without cutting their chicken breasts in half.

Eat Stop Eat is a dietary custom/portion size equalizer.