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It is Easy, So Easy

December 27, 2007 04:08 PM

It is so easy to bring your metabolism, sleep, eating, and even exercise to healthful levels. WW did it without the harder training that I do and others do. You really don't have to. But, if you combine the basics with varied and enjoyable exercise that is intermittently and briefly demanding, you have the whole package. I have often said, it is so easy you will think you are cheating. Tuesday summed it up elegantly and I did not want anyone to miss the message in the comment, so here it is:

I find the easiest way to do intermittent fasting is not to keep much food on hand. When I don't eat, it's for the same reasons prehistoric humans didn't: no food. It helps ensure I have fresh produce too, since I have to shop every couple days, and half an hour at the grocery store after work is much better than half an hour watching TV.

But the idea with intermittent fasting isn't to skip meals and starve yourself so as to limit your total calorie intake, but rather to defer a meal or three to get the physical benefits of fasting without the calorie deficit. For example, after you fast one day, eat double the next day to make up for it, or half-again as much the next two days, or whatever it takes to sate your hunger. If you're ravenous after a workout, eat. If you're suddenly hungry between meals, snack.

In spite of how complex the mechanisms behind an evolutionary approach to fitness are, its real beauty is in how simple it is to implement. As long as you don't feed your body crap (like processed sugars, starches, grains. See: here (requires Real player)) in place of food, and stimulants in place of sleep (see: here ), your body is largely self-regulating. Sleep when you're tired, eat when you're hungry, keep moving, and you're probably 90% there.

The last 10%, maybe even just the last 1%, is a lot of what Dr. De Vany writes about: careful manipulation of genetic switches through diet and activity levels for specific results. He's been doing the evolutionary fitness thing for decades and is a very advanced practitioner, and so reading his blog is a lot like reading a professional pitcher's training logs. Dr. De Vany is often talking about things that are the equivalent of optimizing work/rest cycles for managing a failing rotator cuff mid-season, and most of us need to realize we still need to learn how to throw a fastball.

Get the diet sorted first. Get used to feeding your body plenty of good food when it's hungry. Get used to buying and cooking meat and nuts and fresh produce and herbs and spices and whatnot, and avoiding grains and starches and refined sugar. Spend a few months at it until it becomes habitual and effortless to eat well. Do this before you start mucking about with controlled fasts, because by then your insulin and blood sugar will be rock steady and because of this the hunger pangs you suffer on the fasts will be mild.

· Evolutionary Fitness ~ · Meals

Comments

OK, that link with the 1:48 hr video explaining fat metabolization (and the national forgetting of it) should be the poster board for breaking the current paradigm on fat loss. For me, it completely confirms what I've tested for myself. I keep getting more and more lean. I eat nuts, fruits, meat/fish, and vegetables (toast occasionally as a butter transport system). I walk often and do short/intense exercise sessions that are less than 20 minutes. Most times, they are more like 12 minutes. (5 rounds of short sprints, 2 rounds of burpees+pullups, etc.) My love handles are gone. I had them for years, but lost them in a couple of months. I am going to go a while longer and get some blood tests to see what my insulin, tg, and Ldl/Hdl levels are.

Posted by: Abraham W [TypeKey Profile Page] at December 27, 2007 11:16 PM

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