I was in New Brunswick with many fitness professionals a few weeks back. One of the people at the fitness mastermind was Brad Pilon. Brad is well known for his research on intermittent fasting.
Before we ate lunch, Dan Go and I did a quick interview with him.
Enjoy!
Rick Kaselj
I am over here in New Brunswick, Canada, at a Fitness Mastermind meeting, and one of the guys at the meeting is Brad Pilon.
Dan Go and I will ask Brad some questions about what he does.
Who is Brad Pilon, the Father of Intermittent Fasting?
Rick Kaselj: Dan, I will get you to introduce yourself.
Dan Go: Hi, this is Dan Go from 6MinutesSuperhuman.com. I am very glad to be talking with my friend right here, whom I consider being the father when it comes to intermittent fasting.
Rick Kaselj: Brad, introduce yourself. Please give us a brief background of who you are.
Brad Pilon: My name is Brad Pilon. I wrote Eat Stop Eat in 2007. It’s been my baby ever since. Eat Stop Eat is my take on how you use fasting for overall health and weight loss and even on weight maintenance. I’ve been writing that thing for about six years now.
Rick Kaselj: Also, your research was done in intermittent fast.
Brad Pilon: My undergrad work was in nutrition. I was studying to be a dietitian. When I finished school, I worked in the supplement industry for six years in research and development. I got tired of working and went back to school.
Then I quit my job and went back to grad school with the plan of designing the perfect diet.
I started by saying, “Okay, let me look at fasting and see what’s wrong with it,” Then, I will build my awesome diet.
When I realized that a lot of what I thought I knew about fasting was wrong. I had to decide if I would continue with my personal beliefs on dieting or if I could change direction with this fasting thing and figure out how it affects the body.
Eat Stop Eat
Then Eat Stop Eat was born from that.
Dan Go: One thing I want to ask Brad is the fact of where exactly the vision of Eat Stop Eat is moving forward.
Brad Pilon: My vision for Eat Stop Eat is after the fasting fad has come and gone. It’s a way for people to realize that it’s okay to take a break from eating.
You don’t have to eat when you are not hungry, but at the same time, even when you are hungry, you can eat if you want to. It is regaining control of eating what you want to eat.
A lot of what we eat is based on attitude and norms. It’s a cultural responsibility and a social responsibility. Those people are not restricted by timing and social responsibility but can control what, when, and where they eat.
Guidelines in Doing Intermittent Fasting
Rick Kaselj: Then, looking at the length of time that people shouldn’t eat, what length is best? Is it like 4 hours, 6 hours, two days, or five days?
Brad Pilon: My general rule is the more often that you do fasting, the shorter the fast should be.
Here are my guidelines:
- If you want to fast every day, 12 to 16 hours.
- If you want to fast every other day, 16 to 20 hours.
- If you want to fast twice a week, 20 to 24 hours.
- If you want to fast here and there, 48 to 72 hours.
Fasting is stress on the body. Exercise is a stress on the body. Just like exercise, you need to recover from it. The same is true with fasting. Then after the fasting, you need to return to normal eating.
You will do a pattern interrupt, fasting, and then go back to normal eating.
OKAY, I GIVE UP!
Brad, is talking way too fast for me to type. You can watch the full interview here.
We interviewed in a sushi restaurant just before they opened, so you can hear the sushi chefs cutting up our lunch.
You may have to listen to the interview 2 or 3 times because of how fast Brad talks, but there is great information that he shares.
Brad has just released an updated edition of his Eat Stop Eat program. You can check out if you want more information on Brad’s Eat Stop Eat.
