How long will it take you to lose weight? That depends on your ability to reduce your calorie intake over a period of weeks or months.

Many diet plans allow a person to eat varying amounts of food on any given day. One day, an individual may eat more – and the next day, he or she might eat less.

The real trick to weight loss, though, is developing an eating trend that will continue for months – rather than days.

Look at it this way: Your body weight will be determined by the number of days you eat fewer calories than you need to maintain your current weight. When you ingest calories that are more than you need or equivalent to what you need to maintain your current weight, weight loss will not occur.

Do you want to lose half a pound of fat this week? If you need 2,000 daily calories to maintain your current weight, you’ll need to eat 1,750 calories less over the course of the week in order to lose half a pound. (A half pound of fat contains about 1,750 calories.)

Most popular diet plans tell you how to reduce your calorie intake – by giving you rules to follow at each meal, every day. These rules take all the fun out of eating, though, and most people will give up on diets such as these because they are too restrictive.

Counting calories in order to lose weight can be too difficult – and it certainly isn’t any fun. A more realistic plan is to eat less food over the course of an entire week, not one day. By looking at the bigger picture, the guilt of occasionally splurging on burgers and fries is removed.

So the new question is this: What’s the easiest way to reduce your calorie intake over the course of a week? I have the answer, and it’s very simple. You’ll wonder why you didn’t think of it yourself.

Intermittent Fasting.

Frankly, it’s so obvious it was almost embarrassing that I never managed to think of this on my own years ago.

The Eat Stop Eat program instructs you to cut calories through a process called short-term intermittent fasting. Eat Stop Eat creates a weekly calorie deficit that allows an individual to lose weight and still enjoy his or her favorite foods.

Intermittent fasting allows you to eat the foods you enjoy on any days of the week you choose. One or two “fasting days” thrown into each week allow you to give yourself the calorie deficit you need in order to shed pounds.

Stop counting calories and depriving yourself of your favorite foods. Simply reduce your overall calorie intake through intermittent fasting. It’s an effective, scientifically proven method of losing weight.

By John Barban, scientific editor of Eat Stop Eat.

Some diet gurus will tell you that not eating enough food will actually cause you to store more fat. They will also tell you that, in order to lose weight, you must keep eating. More specifically, they’ll tell you that you must keep eating their special foods.

Confusing messages like these lead many to obsessive compulsive eating habits.

These so-called professionals base their arguments on the theory of “starvation mode.” During starvation mode, the body supposedly slows its metabolism production during times when too few calories are being ingested.

Research has shown, however, that individuals can actually eat very few calories for extended periods of time with no change in their metabolism and no decrease in muscle mass – as long as a resistance training routine is maintained. (I cover a large part of this research in Eat Stop Eat).

Significant amounts of weight can be lost on a low-calorie diet without losing muscle mass or damaging metabolism levels if resistance exercise is incorporated into your weight loss plan.

In a recent study published in the Journal of Obesity, researchers examined the effects of 25-pound weight losses by 94 women. These women followed 800-calorie-per-day diets for up to five months. A portion of the women also followed a resistance training workout program, another portion followed an aerobic training program, and a third portion did not exercise at all.

The researchers found that the women who were following the resistance training workout program maintained their Fat Free Mass during the time they were on the diet.  This means that even though they lost 25 pounds they were able to preserve their muscle mass. Therefore all 25 pounds that these women lost was fat!

They also found the group of women who were following the resistance training workout program preserved their metabolic rate. In other words they did not see any metabolic “slow down” as a result of losing 25 pounds, or from being on a 800 Calorie per day diet for 5 months!

On the contrary, both the women who performed aerobic training and those who did not exercise at all during the course of their 800-calorie diet actually lost muscle mass.

More evidence that resistance training while following a weight reducing diet program can preserve lean mass and metabolic rate.

The Eat Stop Eat lifestyle, which combines flexible intermittent fasting with resistance training, can help you lose pounds without losing muscle mass or lowering your metabolism.

REF: Hunter GR, Byrne NM, Sirikul B, Fernandez JR, Zuckerman PA, Darnell BE, Gower BA. Resistance training conserves Fat-free mass and resting energy expenditure following weight loss. Obesity. 2008;16(5):1045-51.