Variety is the spice of life!

One thing I try to avoid is a state called homeostasis, which is essentially about the body maintaining its status quo. If you're in perfect health, I guess that's fine, but most of us aren't!

When it comes to weight, the heavier a person is, the more their body will resist any efforts to change the status quo. When a thinner person loses 2 lbs, their body just sorts of shrugs and says, sure, what's 2 lbs more or less? When a heavier person loses 2 lbs, their body tends to freak out a little, work very hard to regain not only the 2 lbs lost, but to regain even MORE, just to be "safe". How does it do that, you ask? By releasing more and more ghrelin, the hormone responsible for creating the sensation of hunger and the push to eat. High insulin also comes with the side effect of suppressing leptin, the hormone responsible for giving us the sensation of being full, so it becomes an endless cycle of hunger and eating without feeling satisfied, which produces more hunger and more eating, etc. Our bodies resist our efforts to being changed. 

A good way to hack the cycle is to keep things from settling into a rut, whether that's how you eat or how often you eat or the way you exercise. I've read a lot of posts from people who are trying intermittent fasting, for instance, who say things like, "I've only been eating one meal a day/23:1 protocol for the past 10 days and now my weight loss is stuck. What am I doing wrong?" The answer lies in the "for the past 10 days" part. The key is to keep changing it up! This is why the simple calorie deficit method (eat fewer calories than you expend) doesn't work: the body adjusts to the new amount of input and starts compensating, giving you less energy to work with and falling into "diet" mode - you're cold and tired and don't have any energy. This is exactly what we want to avoid! The same thing tends to happen for people who, say, replace the same meal every day with a meal replacement bar or protein shake, and do it at the same time every day. The same thing happens with people who always work out the same way on the same schedule. This last, for instance, is part of why crossfit has proven to be so effective for so many people - it's the variety of the different exercises and activities used. 

So: vary it up! Don't eat zucchini noodles every day. Don't fast every day, or for the same periods of time. Keep your body guessing, and it can't out-hack your efforts to keep it from maintaining the same problems you've always had! Will it be 1,500 calories today or none whatsoever? Will it be cardio or strength or a relaxing day off? Will it be an 18-hour fast or a 66-hour fast? We'll see, haha!