How Many Meals a Day Should I Eat if I Want to Lose Weight?

"Q: I heard breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Will it affect me if I miss breakfast on a fast day?
"There is no scientific evidence to prove that breakfast is any more important than lunch or dinner for adults. As a matter of fact, there is no scientific evidence proving three meals per day are any better than one."

Above is a quote from Brad Pilon's book, "Eat Stop Eat" which can be found at:
http://www.eatstopeat.com/?vtid=eatblogeat&utm_expid=7760520-13&utm_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fbradpilon.com%2Fbooks%2F

When I found the above quote among the FAQ's in Brad's book it addressed a particular thought that I had been having about whether I could simply eat a good meal once a day and fast the rest of the time in order to speed up my weight loss. Also wondering if I could try that every day, or just a few times a week.

I had the idea to do that once before (which I blogged about) but I got waylaid by worry. I was worried that I would not be able to go that long every day without having a snack. That got turned into "two snacks" and soon it was three meals again, so I never actually tried it out.

Now that I have the experience of fasting "under my belt" I think I could actually do it. Without planning to, I did it yesterday (Saturday) and noticed I lost a few pounds this morning even though I ate two meals last night within a few hours of one another. As I thought about it, I don't think I went overboard on the daily calories, although I only made guess-timations on the calorie count.

Since I belong to the 5:2 Diet group on Facebook I've been reading how the other participants are doing with their calorie counting and actually eating small meals on their fast days. They go for about 36 hours twice a week, on average, and eat 500 cals during their fast. Then on the other days they are supposed to eat "normally" but most of them count calories on those days, too, keeping it under whatever level they have calculated to fit their body and metabolism. They seem to lose an average of  about a pound a week doing all this.

For myself, when Dr Robbins measured my body's daily caloric burn on her machine it came to 2400 per day.  This means that I could eat 2400 calories each day and I would not put on any more weight. She wanted me to eat 1800 calories a day and I went off the deep end when I tried calorie counting. I could not keep my intake that low and counting calories is such an offensive way to eat. I ended up gaining weight as I resisted the whole idea and quit doing it. (I blogged about that, too. LOL)

Brad suggests fasting for 24 hours straight with only water or calorie free drinks and then simply eating normally on the other days. "Eating normally" to Brad means not increasing your intake to compensate for the time that you spent fasting. This makes sense if your goal is to reduce your weekly calories and lose weight, along with all the other health benefits that come from fasting.

I tried those diets, too, that said you should eat 4 or 5 times a day and found that easier to take emotionally than calorie counting, but "many meals" turns out to be tedious to do in real life, also. Either counting calories, or eating many small meals in the day, turned out to be, for me, a lot of hard work, in addition to the rest of my life. I find that either method forces me to worry about food and eating all day long. I'd really prefer to not have to think about that all the time.

On the other hand, the "Eat Stop Eat" program does seem to work for me and my daily life. It is so much easier to simply not pay attention to food during a fasting period and then look forward to having a good meal at the proper time, when I break the fast. Amazingly, I find, that I don't mind how I feel when I'm not eating. Having an empty stomach is kind of a treat. Who knew? LOL

I find that when I resume eating that my body gets back all its old "feelings" again. It is a little bit odd to find out that processing food puts a "drag" on my body. I feel more sluggish and full and not so light and efficient as I feel when I'm fasting.

Since Brad says there is no real scientific evidence that I have to eat breakfast or even eat three meals a day, let alone, four or five, I see no problem with simply holding out on my eating until dinner time each day and then have the meal I would really like to have.

I always fear that someone is going to get all scared that I'm going to have 22,000-calorie Sumo meals but that is not what I am talking about. I'm talking about a regular, ordinary, dinner with or without dessert as the occasion fits. And then stop eating for the day.

Under those conditions, even having another snack at the end of the day should not be a problem but I'm not going to build that in. That is the mistake I did last time. I built in the snack then they got out of hand. I am kind of an odd duck. If I build it in, then it somehow gets translated into my mind that not only "I can" but eventually "I have to" and I don't want to trigger that response either. I'll just plan on eating normally, for me, and that's the end of it.

Sometimes I don't know if all this is just a "nice thought" or an actual "plan." It feels like a plan, at this moment so I'm going to try it out and see how it goes. I'm always flexible if I'm nothing else, so I'm not going to worry about it.

Another thing... on the 5:2 Diet facebook group page they have been talking about chia seeds so I got mine out and made up a batch. I used to take two tablespoons full like everybody always directs when you read about them, but I never really noticed any particular effect with that and it soon fell by the wayside. If I cannot see the benefit, I usually just leave it behind. Today, I filled a cup with the gelatinous solution of chia seeds in water and drank it down.

My belly feels as full as if I'd eaten but I don't feel the drag on my body. I'll have to wait and see if there are any other side effects. I'm hoping it will keep the plumbing moving along, too.

Anyway, that's where I am today.

Be back soon,

Marcia

excerpt from "Eat Stop Eat" by Brad Pilon:

I Don't Need a Better Style of Eating. What I need is a Style of Not Eating.

In his PDF book, "Eat Stop Eat" Brad Pilon makes the following statement:

"While you may find this guideline overly simplistic at first, the truth is there is NO 'normal' or 'perfect' way to eat for weight loss. This is the great fallacy behind most diet books. The fact is, and always will be, it is calorie restriction that causes weight loss."

I am amazed that this statement is so amazing to me. I hope you are getting the double whammy that is in that statement. It does not say you have to count calories, he says you have to restrict them... in other words: eat less. I know. I know. What's so unusual about that? Everybody knows that! If you want to lose weight you have to eat less. Point made. Point taken. Lose the food, lose the weight.

I have spent so much time trying to figure out what to eat to lose weight that this simple truth somehow whizzed right over my head. Brad's statement brought it down in front of my eyes. I don't like to think of myself as "simple minded" but, darn, maybe I am. I worked hard to find a style of eating that would help me lose weight and what I really needed was a style of not eating. Oh my.

The "double" part is that eating "low carb" or "low fat" or "high protein" is not the point. The point is less food. What my mother used to say. All this time, I've been avoiding it, but it turns out she was right. It is the one thing that works. Just eat smaller portions. It is not even important how much smaller, just smaller than what you've been eating. You don't need "guidelines" from someone else. Just make your portions smaller than what you usually eat. Start where you are and trim a little off the contents of the plate. Drink plenty of water, too.

Surprise. You don't need to fill up all the spaces in your stomach. Once it becomes a habit, it will not seem unusual or strange to you.

I think the thing I feared was not having food to eat. Or eating less. Or being deprived. Somehow. I know... I feared "hunger." Is that possible? Yes, I think it is. I feared being hungry. I don't know why... and I'm not even interested in finding out why. I'm just glad that I've already discovered that "hunger" is nothing to fear!! That is the major lesson I learned from fasting. It is not the overpowering, all consuming, scary thing that I seemed to think it was. Hunger. Wow.  Starvation? Yes, that should be feared and worked against. But, simple ordinary every day hunger? What is there to fear in that. It is almost silly. Funny.

I worked so hard to avoid the fact of simply eating less that I went round in circles over and over again. I did not think I could control the quantity of food that I eat in a session, so avoided attempting something at which I believed I would fail. I believed I could not simply eat smaller portions and be satisfied. I was used to dealing with the eating machine which is the antithesis of portion control. The eating machine is portion out of control.

But I've been fasting for 24 hour periods for a while now so I know I can do it and love it. Not that every time I try it, it is successful. Just today I was going to do a spur of the moment fast, but I petered out later and ate. But ESE is flexible and I know I can do it tomorrow and if I prepare for it, I will do it.

Fasting has shown me there is a different way to approach food and eating. You do know those are two different things. Food. And eating. Food is simply a substance. Eating is an act that is performed. If you want to lose weight, you have to eat less.

The other day I had gotten out one of my mother's old dessert dishes (picture above). I don't remember what for. But as I walked across the floor I stopped and looked at the size of this tiny dish that had the name "dessert dish." It fit in the palm of my hand. I thought about the gargantuan bowls of ice cream I used to eat when I was a kid. I remember my Dad teasing that I would "make a good step mother" because I served everyone large portions. They never refused them. And here in my hand was this tiny little cut glass dessert dish. If every dessert I had would fit in that small dish, I would probably be thin.

It is almost as if the size of the bowl creates the size of the person.

I was recently watching episodes of the BBC program call "Supersize vs. Super Skinny" where one humongous person and one tiny person swapped meals for a certain amount of time in what they call their feeding clinic. They have to sit across the table from one another, after preparing a meal from a day in their own food diary, and then when they sit down to eat, they trade meals. The big person eats the small person's meal and the small person eats the big person's meal for a few days in a row. 

They are both flabbergasted at what the other one eats and they have conversations about this experiment as they do it. Often the big person quickly eats the little person's meal and then sits and watches the tiny person struggle to eat their gigantic portions of food which they almost never finish. Each one feels responsible for the other ones discomfort. When they see how the other person has to struggle to do what they do on a regular basis, they begin to realize what they have been doing to themselves. The big person realizes just how unrealistically large their portions are. The thin person realizes that the tiny meals they eat are not enough for an adult to live on.

The supersize person gets a trip to America that the skinny person does not get. They go to visit a person who can be as much as a couple hundred pounds larger than they are for the purpose of seeing, for themselves, what the effects of continuing to pack on the pounds does to a human body. The people they visit often have many ailments and they often are not doing anything to curb their appetites and lose weight, although not all of them are like that. They suffer from immobility, pain, seeping legs, high blood pressure, diabetes, sleep apnea and all kinds of weight related problems. They often need help, just to go to the bathroom. This is the "wake up" call for the English participant. They get to be up close and personal with what it really means to continue doing what they are doing. It works. They get it.
 
From having watched many episodes this feeding clinic exercise seems to help the overly slim or super skinny person get in touch with their hunger, which for whatever reason, got turned off sometime in the past. When they return to the show about 8 weeks later they look more normal sized and not so skinny, even though they worked hard, ate lots, and put on about 3 pounds they look like they've put on 15 or 20. The fat person also looks different. They often lose quite a bit of weight and feel very good about themselves and they look good too.  But... a year later the formerly super skinny person now looks like a normal human being, the fat person looks like a smaller fat person. Sometimes the "one year later" show has three of the participants back and very often it is two of the reformed super skinnies, and one of the somewhat smaller fat people. Makes me wonder if the fatties got lost somewhere, or put their weight back on again, so they are not on the show. They never say anything like that. You just never see them again.

All of these prove that we have perceptions about food and eating that show up as body size. Sometimes they are easy to change and sometimes they are not. I find that the twice weekly fasting has taught me some things about me that I did not know before. For one thing, I can now skip a meal and not have a cow. In fact, it really is rather simple and very easy to skip a meal, or two, or three in a row, and not die. It does not make me sick. I don't get light headed. I don't feel faint. I don't get tired. In fact, just the opposite happens. I feel lighter on my feet, awake and alert and, dare I say it: happy. I still know where my next meal is coming from. I'm not starving. I don't go into starvation mode and my metabolism is not harmed in any way. Studies on fasting prove this is true. (You can read about it in ESE.)

You won't go into starvation mode until about 72 hours of not eating. The body also knows how to maintain your metabolism. If it is not getting food to run on, it uses the storage of fat. A fat belly really is like a pantry for the body to feed itself, but if you keep eating continually, it never gets the opportunity to use up the one year supply of food on your back. This makes it very hard to lose weight and very easy to pack on more pounds. It is not the style of eating that needs to be changed. It is the style of not eating!!

Short, 24-hour fasts for one, two, or even three days in a week gives your body the chance to go into fat burning mode. In between you can eat what you normally eat but in a responsible manner. Brad suggests that you eat more fruit and vegetables, which will replace a lot of processed foods. If you are conscious enough to be eating more fruit and veggies you probably are already not eating as much sugar and starchy foods. Brad says that the key to making this work for you is "self control." You cannot eat like a sumo wrestler and expect to look like a super model. On the days you eat, eat sensibly. Eat enough. And then move on.

So the new thing for me in this is the dessert dish. Now I know what size a dessert should be for a normal sized human being. With the combination of 24 hour fasts, and in between, sensible eating, I should be able to speed up the weight loss thingy. 

Wonder what people will think when I bring my dessert dish with me as a reminder for myself that I can have dessert as long as it fits in my dessert dish? I picture holding it up and saying (more to myself than to anyone else), "As long as it fits in here, I can eat it. If it does not fit in here, then I don't eat it."

I guess I'll find out.

Be back soon,

Marcia



 

Unlocking the Prison Door of My Food Cravings Through Fasting

I remember, before I read about the science behind fasting that I thought it was an absolutely crazy and unhealthy way to lose weight. Only an idiot would do that. I could not imagine going for 24 hours without food and did not think I was even capable of doing it. After all, I suffered from heavy duty cravings that drove me to eat. Cravings that seemed to be in control of me no matter how hard I tried to fight them. They always won. Little did I know that fasting is the key which unlocks the prison door of food cravings and the constant push to eat behind which I existed. 

I knew that if I did a three-day carb fast, that turned the eating machine off, until the next time I grew lax and ate too many carbs again. But I am beginning to realize that total fasting on two separate occasions for 24 hours during the week simply keeps them turned off, or under control, in only one day. And if I do indulge in a carb treat or two or three on my feed days, fasting the next day, again, halts the cravings. It seems to be that if I eat carbs, I crave more carbs and if I don't eat carbs I don't crave carbs. They have a sort of odd "rebound" effect. I would never have discovered that if I had not personally tried it out. I can't speak for others. I can only speak for myself, but I think if you've had trouble with that persistent, unyielding, monstrous push to eat, like I did, then fasting may possibly help you, too. It was a real mind blower and eye opener for me and was far easier to do than I thought it would be.

There are some other things that fasting for 24 hours does that have helped my body, too. Brad Pilon in his PDF "Eat Stop Eat" explains that not only blood sugar levels will come down to normal, but that insulin will also come down when you fast. He also says that fasting for 24 hours will take advantage of the largest single drop in insulin that will happen in a 36-hour fast. Insulin is the fat storing hormone and toning it down for a while slows down fat storage for that time period.

This chart is from page 80 of his book:

While your insulin is going down, there are two other things that are going up. One is growth hormone which protects muscles as you fast (totally eliminating the need to fear "starvation mode" -- it does not happen in that short of a time period), and also glucagon, which turns on the fat burning process in the body. And isn't that what we want? To burn fat?

So let me get this straight. You reduce fat storage, don't lose muscle mass, and burn off fat by fasting for 24 hours? Yep. Isn't that the goal we want: to lose fat? If you think about it, why did we not see this before? The diet industry is so focused on teaching us to eat in their particular style (which they are selling to us), and so afraid of the dreaded "starvation mode" (which does not occur until after 72 hours of fasting) that we, the dietees, do not even notice or consider that it is only logical that if you want to stop the effects of eating too much you may have to occasionally skip a meal or two. It's like missing the forest because you can't see it through the trees.

ESE also releases the water being held in your tissues. My ankles are now back to normal! Praise the Lord! I think the major thing that helped that was the fasting that I did last week. I decided to do a 4:3 which means that for 4 days I ate normally and for 3 non-consecutive days I fasted for 24 hours and only drank water or hot tea and chewed some xylitol gum. I'll go back to a 5:2 next week and then do a 4:3 from time to time.

One of the ways that I support myself in either starting or sticking to a diet regime is to watch videos and read books on the subject. In my viewing and reading adventures this week while I stayed home and let my body begin to heal from the juggernaut of a chest cold I've had for the last two weeks (I think I've finally turned the corner and am on the mend -- still have congestion but it is somewhat lighter and looser than it was a few days ago.) I stumbled upon a book called "The 5:2 Diet." I bought the kindle version for about $3 and began to read. Inside, the author, Kate Harrison, shared that she had created a facebook group to which I applied for membership and was accepted.

It has been a real pleasure to suddenly be part of a community of other fasting folks. I don't feel so alone in my quest as I did before, even though I am still kind of the odd woman out because they do a different kind of fasting than I do. We have similar "timing" but what we do on the fast days and on the feast days is quite different.

The 5:2 dieters choose the number of days they are going to fast (from 1 to 3, with most doing 2) and then on that day they reduce their calorie intake to 500 for women and 600 for men. That is about the size of one small to medium meal, depending on what you are eating, which they can choose to eat in any manner they want from 3 snacks a day to one meal a day to anything they can dream up that does not go over their calorie quota for that day. Then on the feeding day they again count calories. But first they must calculate how many calories their particular body needs for the day and then follow that as their quota for the feed day. After doing all this they lose from 1 to 2 pounds during the week with occasional larger chunks of fat falling off from time to time.

I think I like the "Eat Stop Eat" style of fasting better because I've never ever been able to do the "calorie counting" thing. Doing that shoves me over into wacky-ville. So glad to not be doing the calorie thing. On the ESE the premise is that the body needs to actually stop eating all together for a 24-hour period. The author, Brad Pilon, did his master's thesis on fasting. The ESE program is what he discovered about the science behind feeding and fasting the human body while researching many hundreds of studies which have been done in the past (and present).

Here is a link to his sales page, which, by the way, has a ton of fasting information on it even if you don't buy the inexpensive PDF he has for sale. ( http://www.eatstopeat.com/?vtid=eatblogeat&utm_expid=7760520-13&utm_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fbradpilon.com%2Fbooks%2F )

Scroll down to the very bottom of the page when you get there and click on "Intermittent Fasting" (small type) and it will take you to an audio presentation with text and pictures by Brad, himself, that introduces you to the ESE program. I recommend getting the book because I have found it so motivating due to its fact and science based nature. And because the program is simple and easy to actually do! Brad has a direct style so you won't get bogged down in his explanations. He makes them plain. And the system works. Nothing else I have done in the past five years has worked to help me actually take off pounds and inches like the Eat Stop Eat fasting program has.

Brad says: You can follow the diet you like best. With Eat Stop Eat you can follow any style of eating you like, after all, Eat Stop Eat doesn’t tell you what you can and can’t eat, that’s all up to you.

Perhaps you may be getting tired of me going on and on about ESE... I'm not on his payroll.... I am just glad to have found something that works without me having to relearn or calculate anything except when I will stop and start eating again. I don't even feel like I have to do more than minimally manage what I'm eating on my feed days. I can basically eat whatever I am up for eating with the caveat that if I eat like a sumo wrestler I will continue to look like one. Current research has found that most people usually do not make up for what they did not eat on their fast days by over eating on their feed days by more than a miniscule 10% which means they've had a 90% reduction in calories for as many days as they chose to fast. That can really make a big difference in a weeks time and people are losing weight. Slowly, surely, and regularly. All you have to do is continue fasting on separate days.

Using Brad's method of going from, say, 2 p.m. to 2 p.m. the next day, you also never go a day without eating. As long as there is 24 hours between, you will be healing your body and losing weight, too.

If you think you'd prefer the 5:2 method of small meals and calorie counting here is the link for the kindle version at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AFYX78I/ref=pe_245070_24466410_M1T1DP

Amazon also has a free kindle app that you can download for your computer or your ipad. 

So glad to be back on track again.

Be back soon,

Hugs,

Marcia

The Diet That Let's You Eat Cake!! It Works! And is Healthy, too....

Hi,

I've got a couple of things on my mind. I had fallen off the wagon and put on 20 pounds so I am now battling to take that weight off. It was kind of scary to see those numbers going up steadily. I knew I needed to do something about this but was feeling kind of stunted, like there was nothing I could do that would work... or that I was willing or able to attempt. I was feeling helpless and stuck. I guess I had gotten spiritually whiny. I had decided to be a victim for a while so I could keep eating the way I was eating. I had given up.

My feet and ankles are still swollen. I keep track of them by writing in my daily journal. I'm kind of sketchy with my journal now, but I do still take my blood sugar and my blood pressure and weigh myself every morning -- well almost every morning -- I do sometimes have what I call "missing days." I realized I don't really like to call them that, so I try to remember to call it "missing data" -- but I don't always remember, that either. I usually log the things I ate the day before and make notes of anything about my physical condition that strikes me. So I was watching my weight going up and up in kind of a stupor.

But... as usual... I don't do much blogging during those times but when I make a turn around, then I want to blog, so that is what I am doing.

I've also been sick with this bronchial congestion and deep coughing for going on two weeks now. It just seems to keep hanging on. I refuse to go get an antibiotic for this because I just finally got my knee back to passable shape from the one I took way last September and I don't want to go through that again. (For anyone who does not know, some of the antibiotics they have now a days, such as Leviquin, will actually affect the tendons of some people. I am one of them so I got a torn ligament in my knee. Very painful indeed.) I know this cold, or whatever it is, will end at some point. I'm not coughing as much this morning but I can still feel the congestion at the bottom of my throat.

I fasted last Saturday night and Sunday morning for 24 hours. I started another fast yesterday, Monday, at 4 p.m. and will have permission to eat again in about half an hour. As I've observed my physical response to fasting while I've got this cold, that old saying, "Starve a cold, feed a fever" popped into my head. What I noticed is that through fasting, the cold has seemed to lighten up a tiny bit. I also notice that some of my other allergic-type responses have lightened up, too. So while I had an allergy test, for which my doctor charged my insurance over 3,000 dollars, the only food they came up with that I'm officially allergic to is tomatoes. Bummer. I like tomatoes. I was tested for cacao bean (raw chocolate), corn, cow's milk, soybean, whole eggs, whole grain oat, and whole wheat and they said I was not allergic to these things. My reaction to the tomatoes was mild but... I'm no longer eating fresh tomato and will probably not eat tomato sauce very often.

I seem to be mildly allergic to the pollen of some grasses, weeds, and trees, with careless weed, perennial rye grass, and timothy grass, plus, pecan pollen, white ash, and white hickory being somewhat stronger than the others. The one that I am most allergic to is Eucalyptus pollen. I asked the allergist about medicine with eucalyptus in it and he said I react only to the pollen, so that is good news on the cough drop front. I was glad to find that I am not allergic to most animal hair but I do react to an infestation of the American cockroach. Yuck.

But fasting seems to make me feel a little better even though I have a cold. So... who knew that old saying about "starving a cold" might have some basis in reality? I think it may be because some colds are not infections but allergic reactions and not eating at all will certainly eliminate any food that a person might be reacting to, at least.

So now that I have wandered down that path, back to the weight battle. After reading about and purchasing a program ($47) called "The Paleo Burn" I started to read it and could feel the old commitment being reactivated. As I was considering making the decision to follow the program for 90 days and try it out, the words "intermittent fasting" popped out at me and I remembered that video by Michael Mosley called, "Eat, Fast and live Longer with Michael Mosley" so I found it on the internet ( http://video.kpbs.org/video/2363162206 ) and watched it once again. I was again blown away with the information and got motivated again to do the one thing that I know absolutely helps me to lose weight. Fasting twice a week (not on consecutive days) and eating normally the rest of the week. I don't know why I stopped!

They mentioned that he has a book out now and I found it at Amazon and bought the kindle version for $8.70 -- it is called: The FastDiet: Lose Weight, Stay Healthy, and Live Longer with the Simple Secret of Intermittent Fasting

While I was there I also noticed another kindle book called: The 5:2 Diet Book: Feast for 5 Days a Week and Fast for 2 to Lose Weight, Boost Your Brain and Transform Your Health which I got for $2.99. In looking through that I found the author has a facebook group with I applied to.

I also got out my "Eat Stop Eat" information and started reading about all the good things that intermittent fasting does for you like, lowering your insulin levels, lowering cholesterol levels, and lowering blood pressure, while, at the same time, NOT slowing down your metabolism. It is about as close to having your cake and eating it too that you can get in the diet world.

When you actually do a water fast for two days every week, the rest of the time, you can eat "normally." You don't even have to count calories. I can still pay attention to eating kind of low carb but don't have to be extremely strict with it and I can lose a pound a week, and sometimes up to 3 pounds in a week. It would not work if you gorged on food the rest of the time, I think, but it turns out that most people only increase their eating on the feast days by about 10 percent -- and they still lose weight. What more could you ask for?

It was working for me up until I somehow stopped fasting all together. I think that is why I put the weight on so fast, my eating habits on the "feed" days had gotten really lax because it had become so easy to lose weight. (Yep, I really said that!) So when I stopped the fasting part, I started to gain weight rapidly. If I had not allowed myself to begin including carby stuff on my feed days then my old eating habits would have maintained my weight loss. So. I now know that I still need to eat wisely on my feeding days so if I stop fasting for some stupid reason again, I won't back slide so far. I'm hoping there will not be another "next time" but, I also know how I am. What I'm recalling is the sumo wrestlers who only eat once or twice a day but they consume gargantuan amounts of food when they eat and, well, we all know we don't want to look like a sumo wrestler!

There are many different ways to do intermittent fasting. The 5:2 Diet Book recommends eating a tiny meal on the "fast" day, so they don't even actually "fast," as the word implies, with no food at all. So following that plan you pick two nonconsecutive days during the week to eat one small meal and the rest of the time you eat normally. Some people do a 4:3 and some do a 6:1. I recall that I started out with a 6:1 and when I realized I actually liked the fast day, I notched it up to 5:2. Some people do a 4:3 one week and a 5:2 the next. What ever you feel capable of doing, or set your mind to do, it will have an effect -- and a good one, at that.

I have chosen the actual water fast rather than the small meal fast, because I want the benefits that not eating for 24 hours does to the human body that I read about in "Eat Stop Eat" by Brad Pilon. Here is the URL (copy and paste) to the page where he sells his book for $37 -- with a $9.99 three-day trial period. ( http://www.eatstopeat.com/?vtid=eatblogeat&utm_expid=7760520-13&utm_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fbradpilon.com%2Fbooks%2F )

One more thing... Michael Mosley talked about intermittent fasting helping to prevent some kinds of cancer and there are suggestions that it helps to prevent Alzheimer's disease, too. These benefits alone are worth the experiment!

I know how I used to fear fasting before I ever tried it. I figured, that I, of all people, being a food adict and morbidly obese, would not be able to do it. But I tried it and I was able to do it. It made me feel better and more alert, too. It was the only thing I tried that was actually helping  me to lose weight, so I am doing it again.

I am so glad to be back on track again. It feels really good to be doing something positive for myself, again.

Be back soon,

Marcia