Pain is an unpleasant sensation occurring in varying degrees of severity as a consequence of injury, disease, or emotional disorder.

No Pain, No Gain is merely a false, catchy statement.
It isn’t true.
If you are working out, and you feel pain… then Stop doing it.

A great many “exerts” don’t understand that concept. I like to think of myself as a person with common sense, and I see a big difference between not enjoying an activity, and feeling pain during an activity.

Pain is to be avoided.
Pain is bad.
Pain is the body saying “something’s wrong here”.

Personally, I’ve never been interested in becoming an athletic person, and I totally missed out on the “herd instinct”. I have no desire to ever participate in a marathon of any sort, and if an activity, exercise, or workout isn’t enjoyable to me, then I’m not doing it.

Although a body is meant to move, many types of activities…which are not at all painful… can provide benefit to it. I believe that the modern philosophy that everyone should exercise or work-out ... even if it hurts ... is as ridiculous as the video below.

 "The Fast-5 Diet and the Fast-5 Lifestyle" (2005) by Bert Herring M.D. is a weight-loss and weight-maintenance plan based on the concept of intermittent fasting. It consists of a single rule: limit calorie intake to no more than five consecutive hours in each day. The Fast-5 Lifestyle is an indefinite continuation of that diet for weight maintenance after the weight loss goal has been reached.

Dieters using the Fast-5 diet fast for nineteen hours total each day. This nineteen hours includes sleep. After the nineteen hours of fasting is complete, dieters then have five hours in which they can eat whatever they choose.

The suggested eating window is from 5pm - 10pm, but Dr. Herring indicates that the nineteen continuous hours of fasting time is the key to the diet's effect, and that the five-hour eating window may be set whenever it is most personally convenient.

The Fast-5 approach does not stipulate a calorie intake level. It relies on the eating schedule's effect of correcting appetite to determine proper intake, but doesn’t discourage the addition of a calorie counting approach. The Fast-5 Diet also does not specify food content or forbid any foods, allowing the approach to be used with any dietary preference.

The Fast-5 diet was developed based on the personal results Dr. Herring experienced while working at the National Institutes of Health and incorporates estimates of the eating schedule of ancient hunter-gatherer humans who ate without benefit of food storage or refrigeration.

Dr. Herring distinguishes Limbic hunger, which comes from that part of the brain that connects primitive drives, emotion, and memory, from Somatic hunger, which is the sensation of discomfort in the stomach area that is commonly known as hunger, or hunger pangs. Somatic hunger is the result of the interaction of many hormonal and nerve signals and incorporates more information than just whether the stomach is empty.

He says that Limbic hunger is the reason why it is hard to eat only one potato chip. Eating one chip triggers more appetite because primitive limbic signals tell the brain we should eat as much as we can while food is available. This leads to more eating, connecting in a vicious circle that doesn’t stop until the bag of chips is empty. The ancient instinct takes control of behavior, ignoring higher thinking and preferences. Limbic hunger in a land of plenty causes one to eat too often and too much.

Two ways in which the Fast-5 plan is helpful, according to Dr. Herring, is that:

• Having a 19 hour short-term fasting period eliminates the potential…during that time period, for eating to-drive-more-eating, and keeps limbic hunger from taking over control.
  
  
• 19 hours of daily fasting enhances the body’s fat-burning capabilities by providing a long period every day when the body’s fat-burning machinery is switched on and stays on. Once the body is using energy from stored fat, rather than from fresh glucose absorbed from digesting food, continuous fat burning is more efficient than when the body flips back and forth from fat to glucose and back again. Also, changing back and forth causes fluctuations in the levels of hunger related hormones (insulin, ghrelin, leptin and more) resulting in the sensation of hunger.

I have had brief and limited experiments with the Fast-5 diet, usually in combination with alternate day eating. I am currently involved in another entirely different Fast-5 experiment.

My normal pattern is to wake up about 4am. and go to sleep about 8pm.

During my past experiments, I chose an eating window of 2pm until 7pm, which in my lifestyle is the equivalent of a 5pm to 10 pm window. This did not work well for me because during the entire Fast-5 dieting experiment I found myself simply killing time every day until 2pm, totally focused on wanting to eat, while I did everything possible to distract myself from food until the time finally came for me to eat.

I am a morning person, and normally prefer my breakfast and lunch over my dinner, so with a late-in-the-day window, my preferred mealtimes were not available to me.

I had difficulty in getting myself to set a morning 5 hour window because of the idea of how hard I might find it to go without food during the long afternoon and evening period.

Recently, I decided to try Fast-5 with a morning window from 9am to 2pm and found that this suits my body and personality a great deal better. A five hour window from 9am to 2pm allows me to eat at my preferred mealtimes. It also seems that so far…..I, personally, feel less physical hunger and less desire to eat after 2pm between lunch and bedtime, than I do in the mornings before 2pm. Whether this will continue to be the case over time, is something that I just don’t know.

My present Fast-5 experiment is in the early stages, and is combined with calorie counting and other dietary preferences. I haven’t set a time-period for how long I’ll continue on with it. Right now, it’s day-by-day, and I’m deciding each morning whether or not to go forward with it.

I know that there are times when I find eating zero food easier than eating a tiny amount of food, and other times when this isn’t true for me. I’m interested in learning more information about that difference. I’m also curious as to whether this way of eating will cause me to eat less overall, for more than just a few days, and if that behavior will provide me with any weight-loss results. I mention this just as another example of how I treat Dieting as a Hobby.

"We never repent of having eaten too little.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743 -1826)

When Jefferson was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, he was around 33 years old, and he lived until age 83 during a time when food was not as easily obtainable. Even though he did not experience our modern readily-available-highly-processed-food world he seemed to understand the value of eating less.

How little is "too little"?

I’ve noticed that people who eat far too much, seem to spend a lot of time worrying about eating too little. Why do people who are obese, or even merely overweight, fear eating too little, and just how little is too little anyway?

Many overweight and obese people appear to have an irrational fear of starvation mode.
However, one really can't eat too little for weight loss - Starvation Mode (the way most dieters define it) is a Myth.

"Starvation mode" is a phrase that gets thrown about loosely. Many people think that eating below 1000 to 1200 calories a day, will cause their metabolism to slow down so much that their body will stop losing weight. The reality is that until a male has only 5% excess body fat, or a female has only 10% excess body fat, it is very unusual for a person to go into “starvation mode”.

When it seems impossible for a dieter nearing goal to lose weight, they assume their metabolic process is slowing down, and think that they are “in starvation mode”. However, people with extra weight obtainable to oxidize, can oxidize extra body fat per second. The less human body fat one has, the less fat oxidized for each moment. So as one gets closer to the body’s individual reduction limit of human body weight, the slower one will burn up what body fat one has. This is why taking off the final 10 pounds happens very slowly, NOT because one is wrecking one’s metabolic process with an aggressive diet regimen.

By the way, I’m using the term…”excess fat”… to define the entire genetic make-up of an individual body, not “troublesome” fat on specific body areas that one wishes were leaner… like stomach or thighs, etc. It is not uncommon for someone who is “normal weight” or even “underweight” to be unhappy with the way their own body’s necessary fat is genetically distributed.

The article quoted below makes a number of good points:

Are You In The Starvation Mode or Starving For Truth?

Recently we discussed the myth that dieting can lead to an eating disorder and saw this common dieting myth was inaccurate.  Another common dieting myth held by people is that they may not be losing weight because they are in the "starvation mode" from eating too few calories. And, in response to the intake of this low calorie level, their body has gone into "starvation mode" and slowed down their metabolism and is holding on to the weight. The usual recommendation to get out of starvation mode and allow the body to lose more weight, is to consume more calories. Eat more calories, to lose more weight.

Really?

Well, for anyone struggling to lose weight, this may sound sensible, but as you will see, it, like most other dieting myths, it is inaccurate. A few things to consider before we get to the "starvation mode."

First, the human body, as is our world, is governed by the laws of physics. Body weight is a product of energy balance. We can not violate the laws of physics and thermodynamics. The energy we consume must go somewhere, and to maintain a certain level of weight, an equivalent amount of energy must be consumed and an equilibrium must be achieved.

Second, in regard to metabolism, about >70% of our base metabolism is driven by our brain and other vital organs and is not really effected by food consumption as I discussed in the metabolism blog. We have little impact on this basal metabolic rate.

Third, most attempts to accurately track food consumption under report (intentionally and/or not intentionally) by about 30% and attempts to track exercise and activity levels over report by up to 50%. Even professionals can be as much as 30% off or more. This is usually part of the problem. Fat people are not accurately able to determine their caloric intake and output.

Now, in regard to the "starvation" mode, someone who has extra body weight and body fat is not in any "starvation mode" where they need to 'kick start" their metabolism by eating more calories. You can not "eat more" calories to force your body to "lose weight".

In regard to metabolism, if you are overweight/overfat, you can not cause your metabolism to decrease below a level needed to lose weight while you have extra weight/fat on you, and you can not "lose more weight by eating more calories/food." This is a misunderstanding of the principles of metabolism that does not apply to overweight people trying to lose weight.

Let's say we look at someone who says they are only eating only 800 calories and not losing weight. A well meaning and good intentioned friend (or professional) has told them they are in starvation mode and in order to lose weight and/or kick-start their metabolism, they need to eat more. But, what if instead of eating more, what do you think would happen if instead they just stopped eating altogether? Would they go further into starvation mode and continue to stay at the same weight or maybe even "gain" weight?

Clearly, they would lose more weight if they stopped eating altogether.

We all know (especially those who are familiar with fasting) that if you were to stop eating completely and just live on pure water, you would start to lose weight almost instantly and would continue to do so.

But according to this theory of the "starvation mode," if you were really in it and you fasted, by its own rational you would lose less weight ... if any at all, not more. We know this is not accurate.

So, where did this myth come from?

There is a true phenomenon known as the starvation response and it is well documented in the Minnesota Starvation experiments and the Hunger Fasts that have been studied. However, it only happens in humans when they lose enough body fat that they fall below the level of essential fat. In a man, this would be below around 5% fat and in women just above that, about 10%.

Most humans will look like holocaust survivors at that time. Here is a picture of some of the subjects from the famous Minnesota Starvation experiments from the 1940s.

Even at this point, after months of a low calorie diet with heavy exercise, they were not yet in the so-called "starvation mode" where they experienced significant metabolic changes. If you have more weight/fat on you than them, then neither are you

In addition, when this point is truly reached, the body does make several metabolic shifts to preserve itself, and if it is not fed more calories, can cease to exist. It is a matter of life and death. Hence the name.

This is not the same thing that happens when someone who is overweight and has a high percentage of body fat, is not losing weight. Usually this is due to an inaccurate assessment of their energy balance.

Now, it is possible that a medical condition, like hypothyroid could contribute to a slowed metabolism. However, if someone was to have a thyroid problem, it can be diagnosed and treated. But, then we are right back to my points above and dealing with an energy balance issue.

So, if you are overweight and/or overfat and not losing weight, the most important thing to do is re-evaluate your energy balance. And the best way to do this is to focus on foods that are low in calorie density (and high in nutrient density) and maintain a healthy level of activity.

The above-article was written by Jeffrey S. Novick, MS, RD, LD, LN, in January 2009 at www.healthscience.org

MS = master of science,

RD = registered dietitian

LD = Licensed dietitian

LN = Licensed nutritionist 

 




It’s easy to make faulty inferences about causation.
Correlation is not Causation.
Let's be careful not to make the same mistake this woman did:

Weight-loss and maintaining weight loss requires that we change our Way-of-Eating, Forever, BUT..
While the change FROM our Way of Eating while we were fat must be permanent,
our change TO any other specific Way of Eating can be temporary.

There are many different Ways of Eating to choose from.
We can choose one for awhile, and then make a different choice.
We can hop between these choices as much as we like.
  Every Way of Eating is acceptable, as long as it fulfills the following requirement,
which is:

During weight-loss:
The amount of food intake must provide less energy than one's individual body burns.

During maintenance:
The amount of food intake must provide the same energy as one's individual body burns.

During my lifetime of learning about, and sampling different Ways of Eating ... (Diets)
here's a statement of objection I commonly see made by somebody, to almost every Diet I've encountered.

The '"X Diet", or "Dieting", will not result in permanent weight-loss because it is NOT SUSTAINABLE.

Everyone tends to nod their head in agreement with this principle, and then people in favor of the specific diet or in dieting, say that after achieving success, one should return to their "normal" Way of Eating... eating a bit less, AND then continue to use that same diet occasionally in order to lose any weight regained.

There is an Alternative way of looking at this,
and it is the one I use here in my own Dieting Hobby.

It's okay for the PERMANENT change to consist of many TEMPORARY changes.

Just pick any diet or way-of-eating that meets the above-stated energy requirements which attracts you. Stay on it as long as you can. When you want to eat differently, choose another diet or way-of-eating that meets the above-stated energy requirements which attracts you. Keep doing this process until you find a diet or way-of-eating that you find personally sustainable long-term, or until you die ... whichever comes first.

This Alternative provides great deal of flexibility within one's eating choices.
I've found that by choosing this Alternative, I am exposed to many desirable possibilities that are new to me. Some of these possibilities are transient experiences, and some of these possibilities become enjoyable Habits that I am able to incorporate into my life on a rather permanent basis.

Some of you may be interested in my new Grandma video:
which is located in DietHobby, at GRANDMA'S HOUSE, under Ask Grandma.
You can also get there by clicking the link: Do YOU Like Change?