Mark Sisson - Two Meals a Day Cookbook: Over 100 Recipes to Lose Weight & Feel Great Without Hunger or Cravings

T hank you for your interest in this cookbook and in the passionate pursuit of healthful living! I am pleased to connect with you on the subject of eating delicious food. After all, its one of the great pleasures of life, and it seems to be marginalized these days. The convenience of purchasing fast food to fuel a fast-paced lifestyle has become the cultural norm, and we have virtually forgotten the ancestral traditions of even the most recent generations. For those genuinely interested in eating nutritious, home-cooked meals, the controversy and confusion over what constitutes a healthy diet can be incredibly frustrating and discouraging. In Two Meals a Day, and this companion cookbook, I attempt to cut through all that noise and focus on a simple strategy that will maximize the nutrient density of your diet, help you efficiently drop excess body fat, and eat in a way that is enjoyable and sustainable forever.

Heres what is exciting about a Two Meals a Day lifestyle: it does not require the pain, suffering, and sacrifice that we have come to associate with restrictive diets and weight loss programs. Because you are ditching toxic modern foods and eating delicious meals that truly nourish your body at the cellular level, you always feel satisfied and naturally energetic, and maintain stable appetite, mood, and cognitive function all day long. This is true whether or not you eat regular meals! When you become an expert at burning body fat (and making ketones in the liver as needed), you will no longer be dependent on regular feedings of dietary carbohydrates as your primary source of energy. Carbohydrate dependency is a wholly modern affliction that drives all manner of disease and decline in modern life.

As you can learn from thousands of success stories published on my health information website, MarksDailyApple.com, losing weight and keeping it off is all about hormone optimizationescaping carbohydrate dependency and becoming what I like to call a fat-burning beast.

The idea that you can reach and maintain your ideal body composition while indulging in the lavish recipes contained in this book (and in many other ancestral-inspired cookbookssee the Resources and Suggested Reading section), without worrying about portion control or painstakingly tracking macros, and without having to crush yourself working out, might seem too good to be true. But emerging science is validating that hormone optimization prevails over the traditional starve and exercise approach to fat reduction that has been a decades-long dismal failure. You see, when you try to lose fat by eating fewer calories and burning more calories, the bodys compensatory homeostatic mechanisms will override your valiant efforts and push you back toward your so-called set point for body composition. After you pound the pedals at a 6 a.m. Peloton ride, you are triggeredboth consciously and subconsciouslyto consume more calories and burn less energy for the rest of the day. If you dutifully restrict portion sizes on a regimented diet, youll become less energetic and burn fewer calories, quickly adjusting to your new eating patterns without dropping any fat.

Over the long run, no amount of discipline or willpower can compete with these powerful hormonal and genetic drives. Recent books, such as Dr. Jason Fungs The Obesity Code and Dr. Herman Pontzers Burn, have validated this concept, known as the compensation theory. Large-scale studies, like the Womens Health Initiative Dietary Modification Trial with fifty thousand women, have proven the folly of trying to bring about fat loss by calorie control. Subjects were predicted to lose thirty-two pounds of fat per year with diligent dietary modification, but after seven years of adhering to the program, the members of the group weighed virtually the same as when they started!

So, if pain, suffering, and sacrifice dont work, what are the real secrets to reducing excess body fat and keeping it offand feeling healthy, happy, and energetic at the same time? Welcome to the Two Meals a Day lifeway! Although the essence of this eating strategy is to eat less frequently and choose the most nutritious foods, you cannot achieve a dietary transformation without adopting an assortment of complementary lifestyle factors, including fitness, sleep, and stress management. You see, hormone optimization and being a fat-burning beast are mostly about what you eat, but not entirely. A hectic, high-stress lifestyle of inadequate sleep, insufficient movement, poor fitness habits (exercising either too much or too little), or a flawed mindset can push you back in the direction of carbohydrate dependency and undisciplined eating habits.