Hey folks…I’m here again with Eat Stop Eat author, Brad Pilon, and today we’re continuing our quest to demystify fat loss by reviewing 2 simple dieting principles that will make it easier for you to implement healthy food choices day-in and day-out.

But first, if you happened to miss part 1 of this interview series in which Brad details how eating more fruit and veggies actually helps you lose fat, then head back and check it out. Now, let’s get into it…

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Craig Ballantyne:    Can we agree that people need to EAT FEWER CALORIES to lose fat?  This one’s a little tougher because there’s a lot of people out there who talk about how you need to eat more calories somehow to lose fat.  So, why don’t you tell us a little bit about that.

Brad Pilon: I mean, this one is FAIRLY SIMPLE.  You simply have to EAT LESS.

The idea of eating more to lose weight, it just – I mean, fundamentally, it doesn’t make sense.  The only thing it does is draw attention to yourself so that you can – people listen to you talk.  But in reality, eat less to lose weight.

I mean, it’s – if you were to pole a group of young children, “What’s the best way to lose weight?”  They’d all just be like, “Well, eat less.”  I mean, that’s obvious, right?  It’s when we try to make things a little TOO COMPLICATED and we get a little too much into sort of the INFORMATION OVERLOAD, things like eating more to lose weight starts making sense, but in reality, it’s eat less.

And it’s finding simple and enjoyable ways to eat less.

And that’s really the key, if you can find ways to eat less, that you enjoy, and it isn’t overly complicated.  A perfect example would just be replacing some of the foods you’re typically eating with fruits and vegetables, like we just talked about, you’re goin’ a long way, right.  Because now it’s not a chore, it’s not self-denial, it’s not 24 hours a day of extreme self-discipline, it’s simply still eating great tasting food and a high volume of it, just not a lot of calories.

Craig Ballantyne:    Now, when you did your body building show, you were just eventually getting down to, what, 1,800 calories per day, 6 days a week, and then one kind of reward meal sort of thing, is that what you were runnin’ on?

Brad Pilon: Yeah.  I mean, towards the end it maybe got a little bit less than that, but that was about it.  It was never more than 1,800 calories, and it wasn’t a cheat day by any means.

A cheat meal was just simply allowing myself to have, I think, some pate, right, just some flavor.  Because back then, I was sort of stuck in the body builder mentality, so it was a lot of artificially – drinking protein powders and things like that.  You get bored of those flavors, so the cheat meal wasn’t really for calories as much as it was for just some flavor, some kick.

Craig Ballantyne:    Very cool, all right.  And then I guess the next one that we’ll go and look at is that people should EAT LESS FAST FOOD.  Everyone’s gotta be able to agree on that, right?

Brad Pilon: Yeah, I don’t see – well, if you take our example with fruit, fast food is actually the opposite, right.  So, it’s actually got a very bad ratio of volume to calories, right, ‘cause it’s pretty calorie dense.  The amount of available energy in fast food is actually pretty high for what you’re getting.

Now, I know that your typical fast food burger isn’t as high in calories as maybe people think it is, but it’s also a hell of a lot smaller than you’d want it to be; they’re not the way they look commercials, right.  So, in terms of the amount of volume per calorie, they’re pretty dense.

And then, really, if you actually sit down and have a fast food meal and just pay attention to what you’re eating, the taste to calorie ratio is just not there either.  And I think that might be part of it, is that they just – they don’t actually taste the way you kinda hoped they would.  Typically, they’re just a combination of salt, fat, and sugar in some sort of form that resembles meat or resembles a sub sandwich or something.

But by and large, you’re not getting that same awesome taste to calorie ratio or volume to calorie ratio you get with fruits and vegetables.

So, you start cuttin’ back on that and automatically you’re making big gains or big losses, I guess.

Craig Ballantyne:    Yeah, I mean, I think you make a couple of really good points there.

One, if you actually just sit and don’t inhale a fast food meal, which is what most people do, then you realize you’re not gettin’ as much taste as you think you are.  I mean, certainly when you start eat – if you compare a hamburger to a cup of blueberries and you actually sit there and taste it, you’re gonna get a lot of sweet and saltiness from the burger, but compared to the blueberries, the blueberries are real actual tasting food.

And the other thing you said – it’s funny, I was just watching a couple of burger commercials and they make the burgers look so big and good, but the teenagers, they crush them into those little wrapping things and they’re definitely not as big as the ones you see on TV, so good point with that as well.

Brad Pilon: Yeah, it’s borderline false advertising, right.  Like, the ones on TV look like they’re beautiful, beautiful gourmet creations and then you get some sort of reasonable facsimile, like a point model version of it when you actually go and buy one.

So, they’re just NOT THAT SATISFYING.  I think when people realize that that’s why we tend to overeat them is because just – they’re not.

And you actually said something really correct there.  With a typical burger, it’s actually a combination of sweet and salt, and most people don’t actually stop and think about this.  But the actual bun of your typical fast food burger is actually very sweet and that’s part of the appeal, that’s part of what draws you in is that combination, which is unlike if you were to do a burger at home on the barbecue and put it in your typical store bought bun, it wouldn’t have nearly the same sweetness.

Craig Ballantyne:    Well, another thing to add to that is that – since I’ve eaten less meat and I’ve done a lot of these veggie burgers and stuff, I’ve realized what MOST BURGERS ARE ALL ABOUT IS SIMPLY THE CONDIMENTS and not so much the burger, especially if you go to a place like a fast food joint, it’s not about the patty there.

At home, it’s an entirely different thing or if you go to Lick’s or somethin’, we go there, but that’s different.  But most places, it’s really about the catsup, the pickles, and whatever other – if you’re likin’ mayonnaise then it’s really about that stuff on the bun, like you said, the very sweet bun, and it’s about that –

Brad Pilon: Yeah, the mustard, the hot peppers, anything to cover up the fact that the meat’s actually of low quality.  I mean, you can tell you’re getting a good burger when you don’t wanna put anything on it ‘cause it tastes that good.

Craig Ballantyne:    Right, that’s a great point, but most of the fast food ones aren’t.  And so what I found, eating these ones sort of made out of sunflower seeds, it doesn’t matter what they’re made out of.  It could be made out of cardboard because if you put a little bit of catsup on it then what you’re really getting is the catsup.

So, we’ve kind of gone a roundabout way of destroying the purpose of the fast food burger, and hopefully people realize that they can get something a lot better that’s more, I guess we would call, real food, right?

Brad Pilon: Yeah, absolutely.

Okay, let’s jump over to next day’s topic, Eating When You’re Not Hungry.