As I’ve said so many times, Pure Activity is a companion to all your diet and exercise plans; a way to refine and get more enjoyment out of them, and protect your body from injury and imbalances – it does not preach about exactly what method you should use to lose the fat or exercise – that’s a very personal thing. However, if you want to lose weight there are many methods out there, and perhaps the best that I have found is Brad Pilon’s Eat Stop Eat programme. I used his principles this year to get myself back into shape, and I loved it!
What’s so refreshing, and dear to my heart is how Brad has based his programme on fasting. I’ve been a fan of fasting for many years, and this is the first time I’ve ever seen it used in this way in a weight loss programme. Well done, Brad! Fasting is not only, as he says, a great way to cut down on your total calories, but it’s essential for the body to have the odd rest to repair itself and clean out the system.
Now it may seem odd that I’m promoting this, as Brad says he’s not a fan of body typing, and Pure Activity is based on body typing. You might be surprised to know that I absolutely agree with him! The fact is that Western ideas of the endomorph, ectomorph and mesomorph body types is incredibly limiting, open to lots of misinterpretation, and, as Brad says, leads to lots of banned activities and foods.
The difference is that in Pure Activity we are basing the body types on the ancient Ayurvedic system, where much of the knowledge of fasting came from in the first place. It is a magical, complete system to help you understand not only your body, but the entire universe, and how it relates to your body and your health. There are no banned foods, just a method of making you understand how each food might affect you, at different times of the day and year as well, so that if you do have an imbalance of some sort, you will be armed with the knowledge of how to redress the balance. And the number one prerequisite of an Ayurvedic diet is that it should be delicious!!
Anyway, back to Eat Stop Eat. Another thing I love about Brad’s book is how he does not over-complicate exercise. His weight training advice is spot-on, and he is absolutely right that you don’t need loads of boring cardio to lose fat. Just eat the right amount and do some weight and that’s it. Where I might add to that is possibly just that Brad is pretty young, and probably hasn’t run into too many aches, pains, imbalances and injuries yet. At his age I would have said the same, but now I think considering methods of being able to exercise into one’s later years with ease is very important. And that’s exactly where our Hanna Somatics routines and the three-phase-workout in Pure Activity come into their own. Exercise isn’t always boring, and when you have found a way to make it actually blissful, it’s a great joy to just use the body for the sake of it!
In closing though, I’d have to say that if you do want to lose fat, or even go as far as getting your abs out, and more conventional methods have failed, then Eat Stop Eat is the way to go. A great read! Also make sure you check out his book ‘How Much Protein’, which dispels quite a few silly old myths in that direction too!
Pure Activity e-book available FREE with the Somatic Movement Education video download. Find out more HERE.
