Fasting days do not slow down your metabolism

by Brad Pilon, author
Eat Stop Eat

I'm back home after a whirlwind trip down to New York City to film
a spot on the Morning Show with Mike and Juliet.

From my experience this was a win. Not a giant win, but a small
significant one.

After all, the point of my appearance on that show wasn't to win
the approval of a dietitian and a medical doctor (It's not like
this was a scientific debate), and I fully expected them to be
skeptical....(after all, they got to hear a 30 second hyped up
montage, me talk for about 1 minute and then were asked to give an
opinion.)

Instead, my plan was to expose a large audience of people to a
style of eating that can help them lose weight, and to help them
understand that this method is incredibly simple and effective.

No supplements, no phases, no stress, no guilt, no unhealthy
obsession with 'eating clean', just a simple way to eat less while
enjoying the foods you eat.

Given the time I had, I think I did a fairly good job.

OK, so now lets get to the good stuff, here is the behind the
scenes info:

First, let's start with the evil dietitian and the mean medical
Doctor - They were actually both super nice, open minded women. I
kid you not! Off the air they were both very likable people.

And, Dr. London is no stranger to the weight room, that lady had
some muscle!

As for their on-air personalities and their concerns about Eat Stop
Eat, well we've all heard them before. "Your metabolism will slow
down and you will lose muscle."...nothing new here.

I knew this was what they were going to say, after all, I thought
the EXACT SAME THING before I went back to school.

And as I said before, my goal wasn't to convince these two people
that I was right and they were wrong...because you simply can't
change a person's way of thinking in only 30 seconds.

But just for the sake of argument and to show that I'm not just
cherry picking one random unnamed, unreferenced study here is

a snapshot of just a few of the papers that I review in Eat Stop Eat

that show that your metabolism does NOT slow down and that you

do NOT lose muscle::

* Carlson MG, Snead WL, Campbell PJ. Fuel and energy metabolism
in fasting humans. Am J Clin Nutr. 1994 Jul;60(1):29-36.

* Halberg N, Henriksen M, Söderhamn N, Stallknecht B, Ploug T,
Schjerling P, Dela F. Effect of intermittent fasting and refeeding
on insulin action in healthy men. J Appl Physiol 2005; 99: 2128-2136

* Jensen MD, Ekberg K, Landau BR. Lipid metabolism during
fasting. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab. 2001 Oct;281(4):E789-93.

* Johnstone AM, Faber P, Gibney ER, Elia M, Horgan G, Golden
BE, Stubbs RJ. Effect of an acute fast on energy compensation and
feeding behavior in lean men and women. Int J Obes Relat Metab
Disord. 2002 Dec;26(12):1623-8.

* Klein S, Sakurai Y, Romijn JA, Carroll RM. Progressive
alterations in lipid and glucose metabolism during short-term
fasting in young adult men. Am J Physiol. 1993 Nov;265(5 Pt
1):E801-6.

* Mittendorfer B, Horowitz JF, Klein S. Gender differences in
lipid and glucose kinetics during short-term fasting. Am J Physiol
Endocrinol Metab. 2001 Dec;281(6):E1333-9.

* Samra JS, Clark ML, Humphreys SM, Macdonald IA, Frayn KN.
Regulation of lipid metabolism in adipose tissue during early
starvation. Am J Physiol 1996;271:E541-E546

* Webber J, Macdonald IA. The cardiovascular, metabolic and
hormonal changes accompanying acute starvation in men and women. Br
J Nutr. 1994 Mar;71(3):437-47.

* Zauner C, Schneeweiss B, Kranz A, Madl C, Ratheiser K, Kramer
L, Roth E, Schneider B, Lenz K. Resting energy expenditure in
short-term starvation is increased as a result of an increase in
serum norepinephrine. Am J Clin Nutr. 2000 Jun;71(6):1511-5.

* Gjedsted J, Gormsen LC, Nielsen S, Schmitz O, Djurhuus CB,
Keiding S, Ørskov H, Tønnesen E, Møller N. Effects of a 3-day fast
on regional lipid and glucose metabolism in human skeletal muscle
and adipose tissue. Acta Physiol (Oxf). 2007 Nov;191(3):205-16.

So even if they weren't taking the opposite view just for the
sake of good TV, I should point out that I certainly did not expect
either woman to be completely up to date on the literature in this
field.

I had to go back to school full time, spending almost two years
reviewing papers full-time just to get to the level of
understanding I currently have - and I am nowhere near the world's
leading expert on this topic.

Both these woman run extremely busy personal practices...it simply
wouldn't be fair to think they had time to review all of these
papers before we went on the air. (TV moves fast, I only found out
about this appearance on the Weekend, so I imagine both Kerri and
Dr. London only even heard about Eat Stop Eat on Sunday, maybe 24
hours before the show went live.)

So in the end, despite the fact that I was met with the same old
argument, it was a good experience and I met some great people.

I hope I exposed a lot of people to a style of eating that will
help them lose weight without asking them to become obsessive
compulsive about what they eat or by asking them to spend hundreds
of dollars a month on useless supplements or specialty foods.

The Morning show is run by a group of very nice, very professional
people, and if even one person who saw the show has success with
the Eat Stop Eat lifestyle then it was worth my time.


Sincerely,

Brad Pilon

Author, Eat Stop Eat