Intermittent Fasting For a Lean Hollywood Body!

Paleo Weight Loss :

So you want to lose body fat right? Of course you do, most of us wouldn't mind dropping some of that unsightly muscle-masking blubber. Being lean is a top priority if a Hollywood Body is your goal - and I'm sure it is, because you're sitting there reading my site.

Intermittent Fasting For a Lean Hollywood Body!

Most of you are aware of the following, but let's reiterate:

"In order to lose weight, you must create a calorie deficit (burn more calories than you consume). This is a true statement.

The problem lies in the discipline or methods used to do so. Sure, you can count calories 7 days a week, eat every three hours, and drive yourself somewhat crazy. Or you can simplify the process and relax a bit, still knowing you're bound to drop fat. Sound good? Enter: INTERMITTENT FASTING.

A Simpler Approach To Effective Fat Loss

You may have heard of intermittent fasting (IF) because as of late, it's become a fairly popular weight loss technique and for good reason. Fitness expert Brad Pilon is probably the most innovative when it comes to the subject. Check out his blog for more info on the matter than you're likely to read all at once, but it will lay out the science and logistics behind IF to a far better degree than I could relate. He is the go-to guy for IF! His eBook is one of the best purchases I have ever made. It's not your typical eBook - this information could be what takes you to the next level of fitness!

Intermittent fasting is exactly what it sounds like: sporadic periods of no food. For our purposes, we are not talking about lengthy fasts either. I recommend going anywhere from 14-24 hours, and a maximum of 36 hours, but 36 is pushing the limits and not necessary. However, you can choose to do so without encountering the negative benefits. Anything beyond the 36 hour mark and you begin to risk the things you're probably worried that a 6 hour fast will create.

On that note, what about all the fitness sites that are telling us that we have to eat every 2-3 hours? Their claim is that by skipping meals or waiting too long between meals, your body will go into starvation mode and your metabolism will come to a screeching halt. This, my friends, is simply not true, and IF is not unhealthy. Far from it. The 6 small meals a day approach is currently very popular amongst the fitness community. But where did this all start? Is there actually a solid foundation backing this theory, or is it just word of mouth and then the general consensus assumes it to be true? Fitness Blackbook has a short post with some good points that question the veracity of this theory.

This isn't to say that it's a bad approach to weight loss. It can work, but remember, the bottom line is that whether you eat one meal or ten meals a day, if a calorie deficit is not created, you will not lose weight. Personally, I can put down food! No really, I can eat like a horse. So eating six meals a day could easily add up to a very large number in the calorie department. If your daily caloric goal is 1800, six meals a day would be 300 calories a meal. So this method requires a great deal of portion control and discipline. Sometimes, you just want to eat with somewhat reckless abandon, so to speak. IF makes this possible, while still creating a calorie deficit.

If Muscle Gain Is Your Goal, I Recommend The More Meals A Day Approach

If you need to pack on mass, and some of you do, getting doses of protein many times a day is an effective way to go. This is from personal experience as well as factual information. I will gain muscular size faster when I eat 5-6 times a day with protein at every feeding.

But if you're happy with your size and are aiming for fat loss, both methods will work, and I have truly experienced the quickest fat loss and lowest body fat levels when performing some sort of IF.

Methods Of Intermittent Fasting

Eat Stop Eat
Brad Pilon's tried and true method of fasting allows you to "Stop Dieting and Start Living." Depending on your goals, the main principle is to do 1 or 2 24-hour fasts per week. It may sound like Hell, but it's actually easy once your body adapts. Say you eat dinner at 7pm on Thursday - you would then fast until 7pm on Friday. Water, tea, and coffee (black) are allowed. After the fast is over, you resume your normal eating habits as if the fast never happened. You do not go to the McDonald's drive-through and order 10 things from the dollar menu, unless you want to ruin your hard work. Detoxification is an added bonus to this, but the main goal is creating a caloric deficit over time. Think about it. Hypothetically, say you normally eat 2000 calories a day, every day. That adds up to 14000 calories per week. If you fast 2 days, that would reduce your caloric total by 4000, which is over a pound of fat, and more weight on the scale (a pound of fat is equal to 3500 calories). So in a week, you've leaned down over a pound of fat by simply eating normally 5 days of the week, and fasting the other 2. No need to worry about creating a deficit every day, just maintain discipline for two days. Even one day of fasting using this approach will compound into good results over time.

Eating Window
Not the official name, but it makes sense to me. I used this approach last summer and got down to sub 5% body fat. It's my favorite way method of IF. Basically, you will eat between certain hours, and not eat during other hours. For me last year, I would eat my first meal at 1pm, so breakfast was 2 cups of black coffee and that's it. Coffee actually suppresses my appetite and obviously the caffeine helps in regards to having energy. So making it to 1pm was no sweat. In fact, I would perform a morning workout around 10am, fasted, and without food after for a few hours. And no, I did not lose muscle. I will touch up on this in a moment. I would eat meals between 1pm and around 11pm. That's 9 hours where eating is an option, and 14 where it's not. I did not monitor calories while on this style of eating, I simply ate healthy Paleo food until full, and ate again when hungry, inside the parameters of the diet. Honestly, I've never dropped body fat so quickly and easily as when using this method.

Working Out While Fasting?
So am I mentioned above, while on the 14 hour a day fast approach, I would incorporate a morning workout into the fast. Was I a slug in the gym? No - in fact, I had more energy than when fed, and had some of my best workouts while fasted. The body will use it's "fight or flight" internal tactic to signal the body to heighten the senses and become focused like a laser. It's crazy, but it really does happen. My strength in lifts increased, and my best CrossFit times were achieved when in a fasted state. One day I remember thinking, "Wow, if I am this pumped while fasted, imagine what some pre-workout carbs will do!" I ate a big bowl of oatmeal, went to the gym, and had an absolutely horrendous workout! My body was so used to working hard fasted, that it basically rejected the food as far as energy levels were concerned.

Will you lose muscle by not eating protein right after your workout? No. Again, my strength improved and I dropped body fat like no one's business. My measurements stayed around the same, save my waist, which trimmed down to 29", lower on some days. I had the V-Shaped torso to a greater degree than ever, and most of all I felt great! I want to tell you about these personal experiences so you can put your mind at ease when these concerns come about in your head. I worried the same things, but soon discovered the beauty of IF.

Drawbacks Of Intermittent Fasting
Honestly, I am yet to be displeased with anything about IF. I don't think it's the best way to go if you're after big muscle gains, but that's usually not of my concerns. If I do feel like adding some muscle, I will fall out of IF and use the "more meals a day" approach. But for fat loss, I think IF is the way to go, in terms of effectiveness and simplicity. Is it for you? I'm not sure. Try it out and see if it's something you can incorporate into your fitness goals. Chances are, it'll take some time getting used to, as all new things are, but after a couple weeks pass, your body should be primed and accept the concept of IF, whichever method of it you choose, with open arms.

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How to Lose Weight With the God-Given Plan

Paleo Weight Loss :

I've struggled with my weight since I was about 14 years old. At 14, I was 5 feet 7 inches tall (the height I am now) and when I weighed in at the varsity sports physical (held in the library in front of everyone), I was 150 lbs. I've never been a skinny waif, but I was never considered "fat" either. I was athletic and muscular and well, big-boned! Nevertheless, the shock on the athletic director's face when she saw how much I weighed was enough to make me cry!

How to Lose Weight With the God-Given Plan

Since then, I've dieted and exercised and over-dieted and over-exercised. I've had seven babies and been pregnant with two others (for a brief shining moment), and so have had the hormonal and weight changes that go along with that. I've never been extremely happy with my body, but I've never been so unhappy either that I'm willing to starve or have some kind of eating disorder.

I've recently lost two pants sizes. I have no idea how much weight I've lost because I don't own a scale. But I definitely needed to lose some, because I was wearing a pants size that I've never had to wear before! Rather than starve myself and sign up for a gym (I hate to spend money on stuff like that), I decided to take a more God-given approach.

First, I really hate to exercise. I don't mean that I like to sit around all day, but I like my exercise to have a purpose. When we lived in Vermont, I used to stack wood and carry wood into the house and haul water down to animals. I lived on the side of the hill, so even getting to the mailbox was exercise. I live in the city now and still have a large garden that needs hoeing and weeding, but the other activity simply isn't there. So I had to adjust.

Since I'm still not going to join a gym and I still hate taking a walk just for the point of taking a walk, I've tried to add activity and exercise to everything (well, not everything) I do. Since we live in the middle of a wonderful downtown area, we walk everywhere. I love to walk with a purpose. We walk to Jack's soccer games. We walk to one of the three playgrounds near us. We walk to the pool. We walk along the trail to the bike shop, the boat launch or the ice cream shop (where I very patiently only eat the last couple of bites of Kiara or Seamus' ice cream and forego a treat for myself!).

I've also started instituting a little exercise routine into more boring parts of my day. I still dry my hair with a blow dryer. No, it's not very frugal or green. I know that. But I'm growing it out and until it grows out, I have to dry it or I'm frizz central. Which I just hate. So there. You caught me! But while I'm drying my hair and brushing my teeth, I raise up and down on my toes 30 times. Sounds silly, I know. But I haven't had a defined calf muscle in probably ten years and after doing this for two months, I do. I also do 20 leg lifts on both sides while I'm blow drying. Silly? Sure. But something has to account for those pant size drops because I still eat ice cream before bed two or three times a week!

If I'm feeling really energetic, I'll lay down and do a bunch of stomach crunches and weight lift with some 8 lb weights that came with our house for about 10 minutes. I probably do this 3-4 times a week. And while I'm waiting for the coffee to brew in the morning, if Seamus isn't too grouchy, I'll do 20-30 deep squats right there in the kitchen. It's usually about 5 am so no one else sees me.

I try to do these things in little spurts because the idea of "working out" for 30 or 60 minutes at a time not only sounds mind-numbingly boring to me, but is virtually impossible because someone is always needing something!

I've also changed the way I look at food. I was always a pleasure and comfort eater. Now I try and look at things in a more centered way. I figure that God and Mother Nature came up with a plan for what humans should eat and they provided us with it - as well as the tools and knowledge to grow more. If it doesn't grow in the ground or doesn't eat what grows in the ground, I try not to eat it. By looking at our food as what it is, simple fuel, and not as a reward, punishment, comfort or anything else, I have found that I eat a lot less and eat much more of the things that are good for me.

I eat much less refined sugar now than I used to. I used to not be able to pass by a plate of cookies or brownies and now I have no trouble. By simple changing my perception of food and being happy with what is provided, I find that I have fewer cravings and fewer "needs" for what really are "bad" foods.

I also found that my nature is to not be wasteful. I was hollered at forever as a child to "clear my plate" and "eat all I take." What I started doing as a grown-up was eating everything my kids left on their plates too, so it wouldn't go to waste! Ugh! They were perfectly healthy, eating what they needed, and here was their vacuum cleaner mom, still trying to please her parents with perfect plates. Once I realized just how many crusts of PB&J I was eating, I realized that it's OK to be a little wasteful sometimes.

Now, I am not perfect! I do not eat salad three times a day! But I've cut out all refined flour from our diets except for pasta once a week and I've tried to eliminate refined sugar from everything I eat and drink. I only drink coffee and water during the day - no more soda (especially diet soda which I'm convinced makes you fatter) and I have a glass of wine or two with my hubby on a date night once a month or on a weekend. I do put lemon juice in my water occasionally, just for something different.

Why do I call this a God-Given diet? Because I believe God has given us all the tools we need to be healthy and the weight we need to be. We just have to embrace real food and take our exercise opportunities when we can, as often as we can.

"For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living" - 2 Thessalonians 3:10-12

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The Fastest Diet Is the One You'll Hold On To

Paleo Weight Loss :

The only sure path to lose weight fast is intaking fewer calories than you burn.

The Fastest Diet Is the One You'll Hold On To

Do you want to know the secret to take control of your weight that diet books have never told you? Take in fewer calories-it is not important how - and get some support for your efforts.

We've been told that playing with the form of calories is the way to lose weight:

• low-fat diets, like the American Heart Association Step I diet or the Ornish diet
• low-carb diets like the Atkins and South Beach diets
• higher-protein approaches, like the Zone diet, had their moment of glory
• everything in between, from "eat no sugar" to the Paleo Diet (eat like a cave man)

The latest conclusion, comparing various weight loss plans, however, is that what you eat is less important than how much you eat. What really matters for weight loss is that you take in fewer calories than you burn. How you get there is less important according to a study published in the February 26, 2009 New England Journal of Medicine.

Behavioral, psychological, and social factors are far more important for weight loss than the mix of nutrients in a diet.

If you really want to lose weight fast, find a diet that appeals to you. If it's one your family can follow, so much the better-that way you aren't making different meals for you and your family.

The form of the calories you take in matters for only one reason: helping you stick with the diet. If you prefer protein, then a higher-protein diet will help you lose weight better than a diet based on carbohydrates.

If you like variety and vegetables, try a Mediterranean is for you.

If you believe that eating fat makes you fat (it doesn't, anymore than eating protein or carbohydrate makes you fat), then try a low-fat approach like one of the Ornish plans.

Better yet, build your own weight loss plan. It should provide many choices, less restrictions, and be as good for your heart, bones, and brain as it is for your waistline.

It should be a diet you are excited about, or at least not being afraid of. Most important, it should provide fewer calories than you usually take in. But how can you determine that?

A nutritionist can help you figure out how many calories you usually take in. The process involves keeping a diary of everything you eat and drink over the course of three days. This can be converted to your daily caloric intake. You can also do this yourself online.

There are many online food logs that automatically calculate your calorie intake.

Another free site worth trying is MyPyramid Tracker, set up by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to support its new food pyramid. The site also has an exercise tracker.

Once you know how many calories you take in on a normal day, you can set a target for the future. A 500 calorie deficit is a good place to start. Do it for 7 days, and you'll lose a pound of fat (approx. 3,500 calories).

You can adjust your diet to take in 500 fewer calories a day.

Or you can diminish by 250 calories and exercise to burn the extra 250 calories (walk about 2 miles, swim for an extra 20 min., to your preference).

This kind of plan has a proven record of success!

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