Taking Steps with IF
February 20, 2008
While I get the content rolling on this site, let’s first get some input from the resident experts of Intermittent Fasting….those people that have been doing it! I’m one of them, implementing more consistently in my life for probably a good 2 years. Although there probably have been plenty of times fasting took place whether being sick or just cramming for a college exam. But even those times were more unintentional, it seemed that nature had a reason for it (curing sickness, increasing mental clarity…that is what I would like to think my days in college were about!).
There are many advantages to fasting including:
- Helping to give your digestive system a break so it can “clean up” (Imagine your gut as a house and it’s dirty from all the people coming in and out. Now no one is in the house and you get a break from the trafffic, lots more can be accomplished). This is also along the lines of the fact that all health does being in the “gut”. (I hope to have more posts on this in the near future but will leave it at that for now)
- Allows your body to use enzymes and other energy to repair cells, boost immune function, clean up deposits, and other health improving functions.
- Most people are suffering from some level (if not a big level) of insulin resistance which has been linked to increase risks of most all diseases including heart disease, cancers, accelerated ageing, diabetes and more. Giving our body “breaks” from the onslaught of insulin allows it to actually start to become less resistant to it. Imagine listening to loud music all day, pretty soon your hearing will get worse and worse and what is the solution? Turn off the source of the problem, the loud music. Chances are your hearing will come back, as the body can repair and heal (thank goodness cause otherwise we would have all been goners long ago)
I see the question quite often, how often do I intemittent fast? Well besides my wise ass answer of “intermittently”, I would have to say it depends on one’s goals, state of current health, activity level and overall lifestyle. Like any good program, one has to review and adjust to make sure they are not seeing decreases in performance, body composition or overall health.
So how do you start to IF? First I would say back up and learn how to eat “clean” in the first place. Intermittent Fasting on Crap (or IFOC as I will call it) will not do anyone any good. Someone who is not active, severely overweight and decides to eat in smaller windows without changing the food they eat may see an initial weight loss that can be associated with the lower calorie intake (since crappy food usually has a larger calorie total). But overall these are short term results and a person will plateau without soon needing to eat better or take up exercise to change it up. So step 1 is always going to be, make better choices in your foods first all day long. This means good quality meats and protein with every meal, vegetables, some fruit, healthy fats and other snacks like nuts. What it also means is no sugar and processed foods.
Once you can maintain a healthy food eating schedule (even if it is 85% complient…as not anyone I know is ever 100%) then I would say you are ready to add IF. Some people may only add it for a day, some 2x a week and others daily. Again is there one way to do it? No. In fact shifting protocols may have additional benefits as the body will always respond better to changes. Again all this has to be monitored to one’s goals, body composition, performance and health. If you start fasting every day, and you are seeing negative results then you have to backup and adjust. Most people can not fast every day and maintain a high performance level without taking in a large amount of food in a shorter window. Others see it as an easier lifestyle to fast every 3rd day and use that as a day of rest from activities. Too many variables and everyone’s needs and schedule for working out will be individualistic.
But hopefully on our journey we will evaluate different approaches and anyone from any lifestyle will be able to understand and implement IF to best suit them.
In the meantime I am asking the people who IF to comment, let us know what has worked for you, what you like and dislike about IF, what changes you make and so forth.
The IF Life is now launched…..
Great post Mike, Long time lurker on the Performance Menu forum’s and have always enjoyed your posts. This is another gem for the IF newbs like myself.
Thanks Chris and welcome on board. Feel free to post any comments or questions about IF or all the other stuff I will probably ramble on about here. Its going to vary day to day but hopefully overall be a great resource for improved health, performance and living life the way you want to!
I pretty much follow Eat Stop Eat. I fast two times a week for around 24 hours. My other days I try to eat pretty clean. Also workout 6 times a week for about 45 min. to 1 hour windows. I love this lifestyle and am so grateful that the basic food rules in regards to eating all day long & getting so many grams of protein, really are meaningless, to a point. IF is just so easy. I’m excited for this website. I believe, Mike, you have alot of wisdom to share.
Thanks for the information MOD, Im gonna definatel be using this for my training. I’ve read both articles so far and must comment on the cell phonefastng as I had an iphone but have that up in order to “free” myself so to speak from technology although I still suffer from the computer part.
Denise - Sounds like a good plan. The advantage is really knowing how to adjust for your activity level and recovery needs, as those are always changing. Protein is needed for the rebuilding of muscle, but if you are eating healthy (aka like a Paleo style) chances are you are getting plenty. Plus you can also have the advantage of regular IF creating an increased utilization of protein, so you need less but get more from it.
Kevin - I hear you on the cell phone. I am now trying to set it down more often because even when I have it on me I am always checking it. How can one really relax if the subconscious is constantly running around! The age of modern technology is great, but we really have to control it…or it will control us.
Good post MOD
A suggestion, perhaps take this post and make a FAQ type section out of it.
For everyone else here is my experience with IF:
I started IF last January after reading Robb Wolf talking about it on the PM forum. I read the articles and jumped in all the way starting at 15 hour daily fasts from 6-7PM the night before to 9-10 AM the next day depending upon when my last meal was. The reason I set it up this way was so that I would still be able to eat dinner with my family. I found that I had to start downing coconut milk+protein powder shakes prior to dinner to get enough calories in per day for the first 2-3 months. After my body adjusted though I found I required less maintenance calories than I did before which Mike touched on in his post. I also dropped ~5% BF from January to May without actually going on a caloric deficit but using maintenance level calories and training as I would anyway.
In the beginning I did have bad hunger pangs because before this I was doing the whole 6 meals a day every 2-3 hours type of eating. I coped with this with a tablespoon of Bragg’s ACV in some water when I would wake up. The hunger pangs lasted about 2 weeks.
Tweaks:
Later on I started taking longer fasts where I would start eating even later ~18 hours. I would do this intermittently to see how far I could push it.
Some Pros:
-Less food to prepare and worry about than my old eating method where I had to cook massive amounts of food to bring to work and microwave…etc
-I wasn’t constantly thinking about my next meal as I had in the past
-Performance in the gym and on the road stayed pretty consistent if not improved in some places.
-I cut down 5% bodyfat which in my case is ~10 pounds without even trying to.
-Faster rebound from cheat/junk meals, In the past when I went out with friends for beer and some wings I’d typically feel weighed down all the next day. I definitely noticed a very fast rebound from junk eating in the space of a few hours.
Some Cons:
-Lowered metabolism - After 5 months of consistent IF’ing someone else had brought up that they noticed a lower body temperature and I realized this held true in my case as well and threw some more cheat meals in there to kind of get things back to normal.
-Trying to cram in the calories some days was rough, in the beginning like I mentioned earlier I was drinking 1000+ calorie shakes and that was puttine a hurting on my stomach.
-A good sleep schedule can make or break your IF, after June with my wife’s surgery and recovery my sleep schedule flew out the window and so did my IF’ing habits.
Just a few thoughts, not all of them, hope they are useful.
Allen - Great feedback. Yeah I plan on getting some FAQs up soon and that post was definitely the start of it. A good point to take home is the “lowered metabolism”. Although I think this is a great long term longevity feature, for those starting with weight loss/IF I do believe in “eating clean” first then IF for 2-3x a week. If someone jumps right in on the daily version then their metabolism will drop, however 2-3x is still enough for the health benefits, lower avg daily calorie intake for weight loss, and also really is the start of learning how to control calories to maintain and keep performance levels up. Thanks for your contribution as I know people need to hear these kind of truthful and realistic testimonials.
Thank You for the feedback, Mike. This is going to be really good, as I always am looking for ways to tweak my diet if need be. I’m enjoying reading everyone elses experience.
I am very intersted in this topic. I stumbled upon a discussion of intermittant fasting on Dr. Michael Eades’ blog a few months ago, and I realized that this is how I used to eat naturally when I was thin. I ate when I was hungry, and if I wasn’t hungry again for 12-15 hours or so, that was fine by me.
I was in my 20s and in perfect health, but was told that I needed 3 squares a day. Then I was told to eat 5-6 times a day to maintain constant enegy and keep my metabolism from falling. Can someone please give me a break! I have eaten my way up to 200 pounds at this point, which on 5′6″ female is not cute!
Obviously any way to lose weight is going to appeal to me. But, I get your point that first, I need to eat “clean.” I know how to do this, it’s just a matter of sticking to it. So, that’s my first step. I’m going to see if I can sustain a healthy eating pattern first, then try some intermittent fasting - which I probably already do on occasion when I eat too much.
Wish me luck. I look forward to future posts.
Val - Welcome about. Don’t be concerned with general people “telling you” how to eat as most people get their information passed down from all the wrong sources. As you can see the “don’t eat fat” and “lots of grains” advice really worked out well for lowering obesity and disease! (note the saracasm) Anyways, protein is going to be important and the level is dependent on your activity level (how often do you break muscle down, how much repair needs to be done). You will find the interesting thing about IF is improved gut health/digestion, which in turn means you assimulate more protein and nutrients. In a sense, you will need less calories yet still have the same muscle building and fat loss! Eating clean is always the first step as SUGAR is the #1 enemy in all fat loss….dump that from every source you can (and look for hidden sources like sauces, ketchup, and others). You will learn about the “essential” fats your body needs, and oh yeah…there is no such thing as essential carbohydrates.
Start with 3 meals, eat with a good serving of protein (about 3-4oz), as many vegetables as you like (not counting potatoes, peas, carrots, corn…all high in sugar), and add either some fruit in the am or healthy fats like 1tbsp of olive oil. Get some fish oil as that will help. Drink alot of water (again dump the sugars!). You will learn insulin control is the key to long term health and fat loss. Aim for eating healthy first, as a healthy body will always want to burn fat and keep muscle! Forget long cardio (look in the resource section for a post on chronic cardio), and stick to being active 20min a day including at least 3x a week of resistance training. Muscle is what makes the metabolism, and women need it as much as men (don’t worry about bulking up, it won’t happen once you burn the fat away you will shrink). I also have another site *plug* specifically to give free workouts at http://www.projectfit.org which should be up and running by March.
Remember consistency is the most important thing. Get quality foods, try IF 1-2x a week to start (say eat from 12-6pm every 3rd day) and be active. Results are sure to happen!
Thanks for the helpful advice and encouragement, Mike!
Have a great weekend
MOD,
Firstly, many thanks for putting up this site. There’s so much information out there on IF that it’s nice to have a “one stop shop” to refer to.
I just have a quick question about the lowered metabolism from too much IF. If one is training sufficiently (whatever that is), wouldn’t that offset any decline in metabolism?
Currently my training centers around the kettlebell for conditioning, 3-5 times per week. I throw in some heavy resistance training for strength 1-2 times per week (think Power to the People) and sprints/intervals for variety and mobility, 1-2 times per week. My workouts generally don’t exceed 30 minutes. I don’t worry about performance, per se, in that I’m training, eating paleo, and IF-ing for the health and longevity aspects. However, I do want to maintain my muscle and keep my bodyfat below 10%. Will a lowered metabolism sabotage this? Will my training prevent the sabotage? Am I asking too many questions?
Again, thank you for contributing your time and effort to this worthwhile site.
Thomas
Thomas - The “lowered metabolism” I believe is more centered around people who IF daily, not some other alternating schedule of 2-3x/week. Also there is the concept of how many calories is one really getting in the shorter eating windows and in the bigger picture what is the average per daily intake (like if you eat 3000 day1 and 1000 IF day 2…your daily avg is 2000). As for muscle, that is more a function of muscle breakdown and supplying enough amino acids to rebuild (how much protein intake is).
Because everyone’s training and metabolism/insulin resistance/body composition is specific I don’t think you will ever find one way to fits all, just a way that fits your goals. So it is more “try and see” for your lifestyle. Hence why I suggest adding it only 2-3x a week to begin. See how your body responds and adjust. You will need good protein intake of course for muscle gain (and not loss). Fat loss can always be manipulated with other macronutrient balancing with fats and carbs for energy intake needs. (and make sure there is some deficit to burn stored fat).
Plus there are other tricks like taking a day to eat a boat load of healthy calories (more so for people who are not high BF% and have better insulin sensitivity levels) to shock the metabolism into overdrive so to speak. You will see people notice great gains adding in those feed days every 5-10days (depending on schedule, goals, etc…).
Hope that is not to confusing but the best way is to start slow, monitor results, and make adjustments as necessary. I don’t believe you need IF daily to reap the “benefits” of it, but there are ways to do it successfully (such as IF 18hours Mon-Fri and eat all day Sat-Sun). Fasting 1-2x a week should let your body achieve a greater level of health if your fasting is longer than 18hours (I would keep it in the 18-24hr range, any longer than 36hr and you are looking at muscle wasting).
Eat for insulin control, get enough cal intake for recovery and performance improvements, and add in IF a few times a week. I think that will do wonders for you. (If you are wanting more muscle, play with adding in more protein daily or supplementing BCAAs pre/post workout.) Remember (especially for very active people) IF is NOT about calorie restriction (CR) all the time, you still need a good amount for recovery and strong metabolism. It’s when you dip too low on the calorie daily total that you may see as the biggest factor in metabolism (whether it is due to a primal survival response or also a loss of active muscle tissue over time). Hence the re-feed days can help with that too. But make sure you are still eating enough. The best part of IF is that you may find you need less overall calories to maintain muscle and keep up fat loss, which will lead to a longer lifespan. See study
Hello MOD,
First of all, this is a great blog. I´ve been reading your post on Performence Menu forum and practising IF for about a year now. Yet, I have a question regarding my IF and Work Out schedule. As my working time is 9am-1pm and 2pm-6pm the only time I work out at the nearby gym is at that break hour and I usually fast 3 times a week 21-23 hours. That is on WO-days from 8pm the day before until 6/7pm the following day (i.e. the day that I work out). Following the logic that you should fast on your work-out days, I was wondering if it could have negative side effects not eating/supplementing straight after the work-out, since I have to get back to work by 2am. I also do not feel like breaking my fast at 18 hours, since I am convinced more extended fasts have greater benefits. Due to my little son, it is also impossible for me to work out after 6pm (after my work in the office).
To mention that I try to eat as “clean” as possible, avoiding all the junk and restaurant food, limiting grains and PUFA´s the most possible, allowing myself an ocasional home-made treat, I make myself.
I would appreciate your reply, and am sending you my best regards from sunny Portugal.
Katarina
Katarina from Sunny Portugal - (I feel like a talk show host on the radio….first time caller, long time listener?) There is logic to wanting some amino acids at least in the pwo window to halt the muscle breakdown and start rebuilding (as there is a window of improved sensitivity of the muscle for uptake of glycogen and amino acids 30min-2/3 hours post workout.) It is said the longer one waits, the less sensitivity one has. So in a sense, 20grams of protein in that window is like eating 40g of protein at any other point in the day.
As with anything you have to monitor your body composition changes, performance levels and health to make sure things are advancing in a positive manner. Amino acid supplementation pre or pwo may not technically break a fast depending on how you define fasting (release of insulin or digestive enzymes). As for exercising in a fasted state (other than not having enough energy to have a good workout), that is more ideal as it will release a greater GH response from the exercise. (GH response = good!)
I will post something today on IF and fat loss that may also help answer some questions about timing.
MOD,
Many thanks for the information. I’ve been IFing for about a year, but it has mainly consisted of near daily 15-18 hour fasts. I do make sure that I eat what I feel is sufficient during the feeding window. However, I will take your advice and do longer 18-24 hour fasts 2-3 times per week. I guess I’ve just been trying to undo years of potential metabolic damage incured by following the FDA high carb crap diet.
I’ll give the “eating a boatload of healthy calories” every 5-10 days a shot in addition to my long fasts. There are certainly worse things than eating…
Again, muchas gracias, and I look forward to checking in regularly.
Thomas
Thomas - I usually do the 15-18 hours fasts weekday(s) and give myself the weekends free. (depends on how I feel and what my recovery needs are) Although for increased health benefits I do believe you need the longer fasts of 18-24 hours. Many other variables as to your goals and activity levels that come into play as well. But in the end it comes down to what YOU enjoy and works for your lifestyle consistently….there is no just only one way for it all (and that’s the best part). As for “metabolic damage”, don’t sweat it as thankfully your body is a smart machine and can undo most of whatever damage you think you have done (thank goodness for all of us on that fact!). Just watch out the boat load calories are not at one setting….try to break it up and eat healthy foods, big meals are never the best way and if you eat healthy anyways you won’t overdo the calories per meal.
Thanks, MOD.
Thomas