hi, anyone had any experience with the "eat stop eat" system.
fasting for one or two days in a week, continuing with liquids, and you train on fasting days to retain muscle mass.
seems pretty handy, anybody got a view?
thanks

I dont want to sound like a jerk, but this sounds pretty terrible to me. Eating 5 or 6 meals per day is the only way to go imo. And that goes double for people that train hard.

Think of your body as a machine like a car. You need to fuel it with all the proper nutrients to keep it running in top condition.

Cool bike BTW.

I agree with Wessy here.
Haven't tried it before but doesn't sound to good...Id rather eat before i workout to get all the great food nutrients into me so i can have a healthy gym sesh that will also keep me going through the session. .

oh, dont know now!
google it and see, the guy says its only minimal fasting for 24hrs, so there`s no ill effects, and you wont lose muscle mass, just weight?

Sounds like a great way to lose some lean mass.

Lol....

I'm not gonna start anything about this subject. All I'm gonna say is that there's a BUNCH of research to back up that book.

For bodybuilders obsessed w/ having giant muscles...it might not be the best, although I think every person on this Earth should fast once in awhile, ESPECIALLY people who think 6 meals per day is healthy in the long run.

But for the average person who wants more of the kind of Spartan warrior look and not a big bulky look - I think it's perfect.

Oh, and by the way...

You don't lose muscle, and you can get your workout absolutely fine if it's under 45 minutes. I've proven this over and over again with myself, so I'm not just saying it.

I know it sounds kind of hokey to a lot of people but don't bash it unless you know the science behind it. A lot of awesome things happen in your body when you're fasting

Anyway, I don't wanna start a huge discussion on this and get in fights b/c I don't have time for that...just wanna let every1 know that there's a ton of research to support 24 hour fasts, so don't bash it without reading it.

While I don't really see anything wrong with fasting now and then, I don't think that is a very effective path to long term weight management. Think about it, if every couple of day, your body gets no fuel at all to run on, what's it going to do? It's either going to rob the nutrients it needs from your muscles and bones, or it's going to assume starvation is at hand, and hold on to every bit of fat that it can, because it knows not when its next meal might be.

I don't want to get into an argument on this either, and if it works for you, it may be a short term alternative, tho I doubt it. Far better, in my opinion, is to eat healthy, cut out junk food, increase overall exercise. Diets, of any kind, may work short term, but long term we need to eat properly, otherwise, old habits will return, and along with them, the weight you are working so hard to lose.

For the record, I eat 5 or 6 mini meals per day (350 to 400 cals each) and I weigh 131 pounds. So eating often does not have to mean getting huge.

Just throwing in my 2 cents.

Come on then, I'd love to read up on the whole bunch of science this has backing it; why don't you post some links for us all to read?

How anyone can suggest that starving someone is a good idea is beyond comprehension

Googled it, and read a bit about it. Seems the basic theory is eat what you normally eat 5 days a week. Eat nothing, and drink only water or coffee on fasting days. So that if you normally eat say 2500 cals a day, by fasting 2 days a week, you would reduce overall caloric intake by 5000 for the week, and should thereby lose 1 to 1.5 pounds a week. Didn't really do any in depth reading of the "science" behind it. My only concerns would be these. 1 denying your body the vital nutrients it needs even only two days a week seems like a bad idea. 2 would there be a tendency to over eat the day after fasting and end up at the end of the week even or only slightly below on calories. A better idea, to me anyway, would be to cut some calories everyday, burn some through exercise, and concentrate on eating the foods that give the body what it needs to function.

Please point me towards said research...

Yeah, I can see how the thinking goes; shame it's such a stupid way of thinking.

There is no 'science' behind it, it's just another fad diet finding a new way to cut out calories.

My main concern with this is the way it promotes an unhealthy attitude to food where eating is seen as bad and in effect optional. I imagine diets like this can easily be a precursor to eating disorders as it creates the association between eating and poor health whereas in reality the opposite is true.

Denying your body nutrients is unhealthy and I challenge anyone to come up with decent research or scientific theory that backs the idea that starvation can have positive long term effects

We should learn not to take some research at its face value without investigating its contents to determine its validity and quality. It is good to be reasonably skeptical.

There are simply quite a few dietary programs that claim to be supported by research, only to have them be over-hyped BS to earn your hard earned money (think the over-the-counter fat loss pills market, and other diet program outlines).

Think about how complicated our metabolisms can be. If one is eating rather normal so-to-speak for a lengthy trend, and then suddenly fasts for 24 hours, is this really going to send someone in this previous type trend into starvation mode? Likely not. Within what I read about this diet, this I would tend to agree with.

Like the mighty Carbohydrate and Insulin, the starvation response can be severely misunderstood in the sense of the bad/good relationship they tend to play in our bodies.

The so-call starvation response appears not to shut and on and off like a light switch.

Rather its an "adaption/adjusting/surviving" process (or the body's own internal thermostat made up of a series of biological processes/hormones, etc), where the body shuts off expensive biological processes (to conserve energy), while turning on others, and it appears to have more to do with current bodily "composition" (fat level to lean mass), the persons dietary/activity and its trends, and the persons unique biological processes (which can vary in efficiency/deficiency).

Therefore, its my opinion (again dependent on the persons prior dietary trend history), that fasting for 24 hours, is not going to trigger the starvation response--again dependent on the persons independent diet trend and particulars.

This is not addressing the psychological, physiological, and biological processes one could possess when fasting, such as intense hunger (which can cause over eating binges). Nor is it addressing the basic understood need of base calories each day and associated macro nutrient needs that are better served (on average) to come from the mouth, rather than from the body having to revert to itself for this need.

When I look at diet related programs and its claims, the very first question (among many I ask myself) is:

Does this pass the basic common sense test when applying the basic and raw fundamentals of diet as we currently understand them to be?

Dependent the answers (and other questions the article may stimulate), will depend on whether the "approach" then becomes "practical" to one's personal lifestyle and their personal (likes and dislikes, weaknesses, and strengths). One is most interested in what will work for them, and not interested in whether another person has the opinion they are weak and could cut the mustard in working with the program.

As in one reviewers "opinion" on the: "Eat STOP Eat" program:

Brad Pilon | Eat Stop Eat Review | Fitness Review Central

When I read this above, the writer completely turned me off. Getting headaches from dietary habits and deducing them to simple psychology is being far too narrow minded, and to me is a rather stupid comment to make.

Simply reducing carbohydrates at a low level for a long enough trend can cause headaches (and other side effects) and this is a biological complication at its "root" and not psychological (though it can effect you mentally).

However, he goes on to say:

So the question is: Why would I want to starve myself periodically, when I could enjoy 5 to 6 meals (and possibly stave off eating binges), and still lose fat tissue?

Isn't the goal of the fat loss dieter to suffer "the least amount necessary" to accomplish their goal? I think in most cases this is very safe assumption.

One of the problems I have with fasting diet protocols, is that it doesn't pass a major fundamental basic we understand:

The body has BASE calorie needs each day (not counting activities), is continually building/repairing tissue (whether weight training or not), of which require macro and micro nutrients to accomplish. For example, The body needs protein each day (whether you weight train or not).

This is very unsettling to me, despite some of the opinions on health benefits--that tend to stray away from recognizing this basic and raw fundamental understanding.

The Eat-STOP-Eat dietary program specifies that one follows a 5/6 day eating program, followed by 1/2 days of fasting where nothing is eaten, and water and coffee is consumed.

Basically its an intermittent fasting diet, with a different name applied.

I have been on this forum long enough to know that this diet is a recipe for personal disaster for the "average person" wanting to lose fat tissue.

A lot of persons have trouble sticking to "traditional calorie deficit" guidelines 7 days per week, let alone adding in 1 or 2 days of fasting. Are they weak of course not. Therefore, if one can eat 7 days a week, and just simply tweak the calories (and macros), and lose tissue, then why starve yourself unnecessarily?

Its really basic and raw diet common sense.

Within the 5/6 days of so called normal eating there is no counting calories/measuring food. Sounds pretty good on the surface doesn't? It removes an irritant with some dieters: Counting calories and/or measuring food. But can it cause another irritant? With one in the know of basic and raw fundamentals, one working with a nutritionist, probably not. A new person who doesn't have an understanding of calorie content in food (on-the-fly), etc, it is likely to cause some complications.

The potential irritating variable is the person will not know whether they are overeating or not, and the 1/2 days of fasting just may not be enough to compensate the difference, and it is possible one could balance out. The 5/6 days need more refined structure applied, and I still do not like the 1/2 day fasting period.......

This diet sucks basically.


Best wishes

Chillen

My 2 cent, this diet is awful and blows. don't do it.

Ahhh the voice of reason....thank you.

well, the nays have it!
awesome input guys, thanks for your time.