[davan]

davan on May 26, 2010 at 3:47 am #16759

A lot of people have asked questions on what is the ‘best’ diet or how to get lean and what not. There are many ways to go about it and many of them work just as well even though they may be very different. What becomes important then is how well you can adhere to the particular diet and how well it works with your life/body/health balance.

Intermittent fasting and variations thereof, from my experience and that of many people I know on this forum, has tended to be one of the easiest to follow and still effective. Martin Berkhan has released a basic guide to his style of intermittent fasting and I think it would be a good place for many people to start. It isn’t gospel by any means, but it is good stuff.

https://leangains.blogspot.com/2010/04/leangains-guide.html

[AddictedToSpeed]

AddictedToSpeed on May 26, 2010 at 9:50 am #98514

interesting read

have you followed this “intermittent fasting?”

howd it go for you if you did?

[davan]

davan on May 26, 2010 at 10:04 am #98515

I have followed it and maintain its principals (overall) pretty much year round and adjust depending on my goals and activity. I have had a lot of personal success with it. I am as lean as ever and am very happy with the way I am able to eat. It is a lot easier for me to maintain a diet when I eat a big meal and just do not eat small stuff throughout the day (which tends to make me hungrier and less satisfied).

[Matt Norquist]

Matt Norquist on May 26, 2010 at 11:43 am #98519

I think the key with any diet is following it. Especially when trying to either: 1) Hypertrophy; 2) Lean down; 3) gain strength without gaining too much weight. When I was my leanest, I followed an unintentional version of intermittent fasting.

Currently (trying to gain strength without gaining weight) I simply try to get 250g of protein, fats come from snacks (nuts, egs, cheese) and carbs are all whole wheat or beans. Eat until I’m satisfied. Use SURGE recovery as my peri-workout drink. Stuff is awesome – but definitely doesn’t keep me lean.

Gets me needed protein for muscle preservation (if not growth) and accounts for about 3500 calories a day.

I can testify that Evan has a diet that works. He is probably under 8% without any “cutting”. My problem is when I diet too carefully, I hate exercising. So will not do serious stuff till post-season.

[comando-joe]

comando-joe on May 26, 2010 at 10:17 pm #98529

.

[davan]

davan on May 27, 2010 at 12:13 am #98533

My strength is as high as it ever has been when I’ve utilized the diet. There is nothing inherently special about it and it can be used to lose weight, gain weight, or maintain, but it helps a lot of people adhere better than they otherwise would.

[Linas82]

Linas82 on June 2, 2010 at 5:11 pm #98868

I have followed it and maintain its principals (overall) pretty much year round and adjust depending on my goals and activity. I have had a lot of personal success with it. I am as lean as ever and am very happy with the way I am able to eat. It is a lot easier for me to maintain a diet when I eat a big meal and just do not eat small stuff throughout the day (which tends to make me hungrier and less satisfied).

Davan, so basically you usually don’t eat breakfast and your major meal is in the evening?
I noticed that for me is better as well two eat one or two bigger meals and be more satisfied and of course having better weight control. Now I started not to eat breakfast (just coffee with milk and honey) b/c I’m not really hungry in the morning. When evening comes I want eat more and I don’t want to go to bed feeling hungry. This guy Ori Hofmekler I think makes sense, general idea is very simmilar to intermittent fasting in my opinion . Many don’t understand him looking at this video at first b/c many think he advocates just eating at evening. His recommended diet allows to eat during day time as well, just mainly fruits and vegetables, simply not very heavy as I understand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBrwRiSjd3I&feature=related

[mortac8]

mortac8 on June 2, 2010 at 10:08 pm #98873

Everything we know is wrong. Greeks and Spartans were in great shape, notoriously lean and powerful, and didn’t eat breakfast. Slaves and animals were the only ones who were fed breakfast. Egyptians were breakfast eaters also and they were soft because that’s how they looked based on ancient sculptures. Nice.

[Linas82]

Linas82 on June 3, 2010 at 3:11 am #98891

Some people are very flexible almost to any diet. However, when an athlete is looking for body fat under 10%, bodybuilders for 4-6%, than you need to be more precise about food choices, food timming, combination, refeeds and ect.

[AddictedToSpeed]

AddictedToSpeed on June 3, 2010 at 10:06 am #98899

I am going to try this intermittent fasting diet, Im at 10-11% bf at the moment, and hopefully I will get down to the single digits and be able to maintain it.

Do you guys suggest the main meal to be in the morning/afternoon/ evening?

[davan]

davan on June 3, 2010 at 10:14 am #98900

It depends on your training schedule. Most people that train in the afternoon/evening will make their main meal their dinner. I have heard of a few people who have used other times of the day, but usually people don’t do that because part of the behavioral/adherence benefits of IF are that you go to bed on a full stomach and don’t have to worry about getting hunger before bed or while asleep.

[burkhalter]

burkhalter on June 3, 2010 at 10:33 am #98901

Any suggestions for this who have to split sprint and lifti g sessions 3x per week?

[Matt Morsia]

Matt Morsia on December 17, 2010 at 6:05 am #104063

just picking up on the whole fasting theme… although i’ve read up on it a bit I’m not claiming to be an expert, however, isn’t the whole idea with weight loss that the faster your metabolism the more weight your going to lose – and I thought it was generally accepted that eating smaller amounts at short/regular intervals would stimulate your metabolism more so than eating larger amounts with larger intervals? so therefore, assuming that your eating the same amount overall, surely spreading it over more frequent/smaller meals is gonna result in more effective weight loss than larger/less frequent meals?

[Craig Pickering]

Craig Pickering on December 17, 2010 at 8:39 am #104072

Eating smaller amounts more often raises your metabolism slightly after each meal. Eating more less often increases your metabolism to a greater extent after each meal, so the net effect is the same. At leasts, thats what proponents of IF say.

[Avi S.]

Avi S. on December 26, 2010 at 12:50 pm #104313

I’ve bee following this guy for a while and reading the science, I can answer some of people’s questions here, but i’m no expert on this at all

Matt Morsia:

THe interesting thing about IF is that you burn much more calories in the fasted state after about 12 hours into the fast, than you do normally between large meals. So we need to redefine fast. The fast between bigger meals is different from a fast beginning when you wake up in the morning after not having eatin for 12 hours. Metabolism increases 12 hours into the fast for many reasons, one is that your body burns ketones as well as stored glucose reserves. I found a study (PM if you want full text) that showed that we produce carnitines during the fast, and this allows the brain to even burn fat. So fasting raises brain and muscle metabolism basically (evolutionary advantage)

One of the coolest things about it is that you can actually consume more calories than you burn, this is related to the increased metabolism at 12 hours. So it’s much different comparing this to eating 2-6 times a day, as metabolism differs. THere could be a similar effect from eating only 2 meals a day however, but I don’t know.

Brooke: I’ve found that my morning workouts become much more intense when fasting. So you could switch a few of your workouts to the mornings when you fast, probably 4 hours after you wake up when you’re getting really hungry.

speedfreak – it’s a little more complicated than that. Small meals, or even better, a lack of food, can stimulate metabolism because the ciruclating hormones, like ghrelin, cortisol, and norepinephrine raise blood sugar. Larger meals can depress metabolism even through increasing orexin levels, which downregulate the waking cycle, but it’s more complicated than that too. A reason people are tired after thanksgiving may be because they ate a lot, not because of turkey proteins. Martin pointed to a study though that showed cortisol levels decreased in a fast though so once again IF is a lot different from regular feeding. It tends to optimize hormoes too, which means better metabolism as well.

Addicted to speed – see what works for you, for me it would be lunch, because I would skip breakfast and fast till I was hungry or until I worked out. But I don’t know what others have done.

I haven’t really had much success with it because I was vegetarian/vegan for a while, and longer fasts break down muscle tissue. If your last meal was rich in protein, then you can fast for longer as the amino acids will still be circulating (according to Martin). So now that I’m able to eat meat again ( i was at school and the meat is conventionally farmed there), I may try this again.

Unfortunately it was not easy to plan fast days. I always fasted on a whim, because I had more energy and was naturally not hungry. There are morning when I feel the carnitines in my brain telling my i’m fasting and I have a lot of mental clarity. So I guess it depends on what you eat. And I think martin recommends 16 hour fasts only, which is very easy. Doing that everyday for a month is something i have not tried yet but maybe I will starting tonight and I don’t think it’s that hard.

[Matt Morsia]

Matt Morsia on December 31, 2010 at 7:50 pm #104422

oh ok that makes sense. what about the long term effects? i.e. i think that one of the benefits of the frequent/small meals theory is that it permanantly increases your metablism so that if you eat differently for a while you body will continue to burn calories at an increased rate. presumably when you stop IF your metabolism will go back to how it was? or are there any permanent effects on metabolism?

[Avi S.]

Avi S. on January 1, 2011 at 3:13 am #104428

I don’t know anything about long term effects. maybe you’ll get very used to it and your mitochondria’s ability to burn fat will improve, similar to low carbing. Here’s a great post on it
https://healthcorrelator.blogspot.com/2010/05/intermittent-fasting-as-form-of.html

[Alex Andre]

Alex Andre on May 17, 2011 at 3:42 am #108060

Brooke: I’ve found that my morning workouts become much more intense when fasting. So you could switch a few of your workouts to the mornings when you fast, probably 4 hours after you wake up when you’re getting really hungry.

I don’t see making the workout “more intense” by fasting as a benefit. Many people (Brooke and I included) have speed sessions at the track in the morning, and then heavy weight room sessions later in the day. Speed sessions are all about getting the most out of each rep, which (for me, at least) requires that I have had a meal 3-4 hours before the session. I have tried running on an empty stomach in the morning and I am unequivocally slower, which kind of defeats the purpose of the speed session. A typical speed day for me looks like:

9 AM – Light breakfast (Whey shake, 2 pieces of fruit, nuts/granola bar)
12-2 PM – Track session
2-3 PM – Lunch
5-7 PM – Weight room
7-8 PM – Dinner

Does 8PM – 9AM count as “fasting”? I don’t see any other way to get through speed days without limiting my workouts because I’m not fueled for them.

[Avi S.]

Avi S. on May 20, 2011 at 10:24 pm #108178

[quote author="Avi S." date="1293348055"]Brooke: I’ve found that my morning workouts become much more intense when fasting. So you could switch a few of your workouts to the mornings when you fast, probably 4 hours after you wake up when you’re getting really hungry.

I don’t see making the workout “more intense” by fasting as a benefit. Many people (Brooke and I included) have speed sessions at the track in the morning, and then heavy weight room sessions later in the day. Speed sessions are all about getting the most out of each rep, which (for me, at least) requires that I have had a meal 3-4 hours before the session. I have tried running on an empty stomach in the morning and I am unequivocally slower, which kind of defeats the purpose of the speed session. A typical speed day for me looks like:

9 AM – Light breakfast (Whey shake, 2 pieces of fruit, nuts/granola bar)
12-2 PM – Track session
2-3 PM – Lunch
5-7 PM – Weight room
7-8 PM – Dinner

Does 8PM – 9AM count as “fasting”? I don’t see any other way to get through speed days without limiting my workouts because I’m not fueled for them.[/quote]

Ok well what I’ve noticed (I have still been fasting almost daily), is that my body gets better at freeing up energy reserves in the lack of them. Above in my post I said I didn’t know much about long term effects but that same blogger had an interesting post about long term compensatory adaptation regarding IF and strength training:

https://healthcorrelator.blogspot.com/2011/05/strength-training-plus-fasting.html

From my limited anecdotal evidence, my body is so used to going without food that I have plenty of energy, especially brain fuel, when fasting. It can be stressful to the body so perhaps on rest days I’d try getting used to it then see if you can carry it over to training days.

I also take back what I said abotu having energy in the morning. Most of my workouts are around 6 PM and my my body ca do a lot of intense activity then during a fast