I wanted to write about my recent experiences with trialling intermittent fasting. What you’ll learn is the specific program/diet that I have been using has allowed me to drop significant amounts of body fat without losing muscle mass, strength, fitness levels or vitality. Keep in mind that this is written from a body composition and health perspective. So in other words, can intermittent fasting help to achieve greater health, fat loss and/or muscle gain?

So with that said, I’ve personally experienced major fat loss and muscle gaining results with an intermittent fasting nutrition plan. Initially, I was able to achieve visible fat loss, and measurable strength gains simultaneously. This surprised me. However, since then I’ve found intermittent fasting to be a sustainable, and even enjoyable, system that has helped me optimize my body to be more athletic, aesthetic, stronger and healthy. Whether you’re trying to gain muscle, lose fat, or just be a healthier resilient person, intermittent fasting might be a lifestyle habit that makes sense for you.

A Quick Word on Body Types

We all have different body types these are the cards we are dealt with and you can’t change that (not 100% anyhow) If you struggle with gaining fat and losing weight Intermittent Fasting is probably one of the best thing you’ll ever learn about. So in other words, if you’re naturally have endomorphic tendencies (like I do), Intermittent Fasting is a great option for dropping body fat (I would argue the best option actually). However, if you’re someone who is naturally skinny and you have an extremely hard time with gaining weight and even bodyfat (ectomorphic tendencies), intermittent fasting probably isn’t for you.

My Experiences

For the past 2 months I’ve been following an intermittent fasting program, within my nutrition plan along with carbohydrate cycling (this is not refined carbs, bread/pasta etc) I had heard about intermittent fasting from a fellow fitpro and decided to read about it in a few articles and do some more research, I was a bit dubious at first after all, doesn’t eating inspire metabolism? Aren’t you suppose to eat many small meals throughout the day or ELSE you’ll feel tired and lose all your hard earned muscle that took  hours of hard work? Well the reality is all those old conceptions are myths and have no scientific backing. It took bumping into a few sites and learning from a few sources for me to start to question all the ‘gym bro knowledge’ that I’ve heard for years to give it a try. After only 2 weeks, I could already tell that I’d likely be committed to this way of eating for life. I’ve already seen fat loss results while also gaining strength. This indicates a REAL body re-composition where I’m gaining muscle while simultaneously losing fat. I’m feeling more energy (especially in the mornings when I’m fasting). And there’s something within my intuition that tells me this is a more healthful & natural way of living.

Why Intermittent Fasting Makes Sense to Me

When evaluating how our bodies evolved, it’s seems reasonable to think that the human body was in a fasted state a lot of the time, maybe not by choice, but by circumstance. Food is scarce in the wild. There is no tupperware, no microwaves, no packaged convenience foods, and no take-away. Hunting and gathering takes effort (aka exercise), and often coming up empty handed and remaining hungry would be unavoidable. This is why the human body is extremely effective at storing fat (I know from experience). In other words, in nature food was probably scarce for most of human evolution. Human beings definitely weren’t pigging out continuously, and most likely the feeding times were irregular and erratic. So what is the point? Replicating conditions of how the human body evolved will likely provide health and wellness. So my point is that the human body evolved to have times of being fasted.

Fed vs. Fasted

If you look at modern society, we rarely let ourselves go fasted. I was under the impression that it was a muscle building sin to not have something in the stomach at all times and that you had to eat to fire the metabolism! I don’t know what it’s like to be on steroids, I have never done them, but it seems like most of the ‘never let yourself go hungry’ preaching is coming from the bodybuilding community (the gurus being pumped up). At one point I listened to this argument and way of living. However, it just didn’t work for me I found it nearly impossible to actually lose fat, especially the stubborn navel fat. I felt like crap a lot of the time (especially in the afternoons), I was drowsy and un-alert, and looking back on it now I just didn’t feel vibrant and healthy.

Even if you’re not into fitness and bodybuilding, the average person is in a ‘fed’ state continuously throughout their day and lives. Not only are we eating stuff our bodies weren’t designed for, we are eating too much of it, and too often. It now makes sense to me that keeping your body in a ‘fed’ state continuously is going against our evolutionary programming and could be one of the causal factors behind diseases of civilization as well as the obesity epidemic we are fast approaching!

Intermittent Fasting Scientific Backing

There is an increasing amount of studies being done on fasting. The results are starting to compile and short-term intermittent fasting has been found to have the following health and fitness benefits:

• Decreased body fat & body weight

• Maintenance of skeletal muscle mass (you won’t lose muscle in other words)

• Decreased blood glucose levels

• Decreased insulin levels & increased insulin sensitivity (avoiding diabetes and obesity is a good thing right?!)

• Increased lipolysis & fat oxidation (which leads to ABS )

• Increased Uncoupling Protein 3 mRNA

• Increased norepinephrine & epinephrine levels (more energy)

• Increased Glucagon levels

• Increased growth hormone levels

 

How to Implement Intermittent Fasting as a Lifestyle

So how can you make intermittent fasting into a lifestyle/system/habit? Well the good news is there aren’t any hard ‘rules,’ only suggestions and principles. The principle is simple: let yourself go hungry occasionally. Some people (such as the author of one of the books I recommend called “Eat Stop Eat“) recommend fasting once or twice a week for 24 hrs. Personally, I’ve followed a program of 16 hour fasts twice a week and one 24hr fast once per week, and not one day after another. For me, this made sense and worked well with my nutrition plan.

Like I just mentioned, the whole ’3 square meals’ or ’6 small meals’ and ‘breakfast is the most important meal of the day’ fads are conventional wisdom crap that has been repeated so much that we assume it to be correct. The only problem is it doesn’t have any basis in nature or current research.

So basically I have my last meal at around 8pm. I skip breakfast, do my workout routine with weights at before midday in a fasted state (taking BCAA’s before my workout & after), and have my largest meal of the day at around 1pm. From 1pm to 8 pm I follow the nutritional principles in my programme (I’m absolutely NOT perfect and this is what has worked for me. Perfection isn’t the goal, excellence is.)

Keep Learning about Intermittent Fasting!

I’ve found that one of the most motivating forces fully understanding the implications of certain actions.

In other words, if you ‘sort of’ understand how intermittent fasting has potential to help you in your fat loss goals, it’s likely that you won’t be fully motivated to give it a fair chance and reap the full benefits of it.

In order to make sure you fully understand the implications of intermittent fasting I HIGHLY recommend you continue to study this lifestyle in detail. Make it a challenge for yourself to gain a detailed understanding of how intermittent fasting works and how you can really implement it into your life. Here are a couple resources you should check out or if you have any questions then just drop me a line.

 

-          www.leangains.com

-          Eat Stop Eat by Brad Pilon (available from Amazon)

Matt