THE SERIOUSNESS OF INTERMITTENT FASTING
AYYY what’s up everyone!?! Nothing like a huge half naked picture of me on your phone screen to get people pumped about fasting right?!? For those of you that follow me on social media, you have probably seen me post about intermittent fasting. This is something that I have only recently begun, but so far love it. So, the question is, what the flip is intermittent fasting? I’m going to do my best to describe it in this blog. Hopefully it will answer a few questions and make the whole process clearer. Enjoy!
What it is
Basically, intermittent fasting (Also knows as time restricted eating) is going between periods of not eating and eating. Fasting means “to refrain from all or some kinds of food or drink.” With intermittent fasting, the goal is to consume no calories during a fasting period so as not to trigger a metabolic response (a calorie triggers a metabolic response).
MY EXPERIENCE WITH INTERMITTENT FASTING
To give a little backstory, I come from a bodybuilding style/broscience lifting and eating strategy. What I mean by this, is that I was under the impression that I needed to eat every 2 hours, have 5 to 6 meals a day, and have chicken, rice, and broccoli for every meal of the day. A lot of that changed when I moved to New York, I was no longer able to go to the gym every single day for an hour or more. I needed to make a change, something that would fit my lifestyle, and achieve results. This is when I began researching intermittent fasting and implementing it to fit my life. The results were me dropping weight, maintaining muscle, and looking much leaner. The toughest part for me personally was the initial week of me implementing intermittent fasting. I was used to eating breakfast every morning and having a late-night snack before bed. When removing or putting off breakfast for a few hours, and cutting off my eating at 8 pm or so, I saw changes almost immediately. I lost several pounds in a shortened time period, and honestly felt amazing on a day to day basis. Again, I DO NOT do this every single day. Usually 2 to 3 times a week is ideal for me. On days where I do not fast I still push my breakfast back to either 10-11 AM and make sure to track my macros throughout the day (myfitnesspal). Again, this is something that works for MY personal life, not for everyone. Below this paragraph I’ll put some screen shots of my results over the past few months!
This is from a consistent week of fasting, results were great. I weighed every morning at the same time. Not 100% sure if the BF% is accurate, but it does show an accurate trend of BF reduction.
What the benefits are
Easier to lose weight and lose fat- easy to reduce daily caloric intake due to the shortened window to eat.
Higher growth hormone levels and cell regeneration
Better brain function
Increased immune system function
Longer life span
Increases insulin sensitivity- helps the body handle and metabolize macronutrients in the body more efficiently.
How often should it be done during the week?
Technically, intermittent fasting CAN be done every day. It will however, lead to a rather boring social life. It will also be incredibly difficult to make sure the body maintains a lot of key nutrients. So, the amount of time you are eating each day become INCREDIBLY important. I would recommend starting with2-3 days during the week trying a fasting method that works for you and go from there. Also, there is the thought that eventually, ones BMR (basal metabolic rate) will decrease. This basically means that your metabolism will slow down due to the body getting used to fasting which is less than ideal for most people. So keep that in mind!
Do’s and do nots of fasting
I’m going to compose a basic list of things that can and cannot be eaten during a fast. Now, this is where things can get tricky due to there being A TON of conflicting data when it comes to fasting. Technically speaking, a TRUE FAST IS MADE UP OF WATER EXCLUSIVELY. Yes, ONLY WATER, nothing else. This is because anything else does trigger a metabolic response or is metabolized by the body (SCIENCE). HOWEVER, most individuals and people in the fitness industry have a different protocol which still gets results! It is a great way to still make progress, just slightly less optimal than utilizing only water. SO HERE IS THE LIST.
DO CONSUME
COFFEE (BLACK ONLY)
GREEN TEA
WATER
0 CALORIE DRINKS
DO NOT CONSUME (COMMON QUESTIONS)
CREAMERS
BCAA’s
PROTEIN POWDER
HERBAL TEAS WITH FRUIT
BULLETPROOF COFFEE
COCONUT OIL
GREY AREA
APPLE CIDER VINEGAR- research says benefits typically can outweigh slight break of fast because it can potentially get you deeper in fast.
MCT OIL- Technically is fats (calories) so it does trigger a metabolic response. HOWEVER, MCT oil has been shown to help produce ketones at a much faster rate, which is one of the goals of fasting. So, with that thinking some people are for it and some against it.
Some of the science behind intermittent fasting
About to go nerd mode for a little bit. Here’s some science behind intermittent fasting. In a lengthy study done on mice, it was found that through intermittent fasting the mice saw better weight loss, Improved cardiovascular health, decreased cancer risk, and increased lifespan. It isn’t quite fully understood why fasting has these positive life effects, but one theory is that periodic food deprivation is almost like a pre-stressor on the body, meaning it prepares the body for a more stressful situation. Kind of like exposing your immune system to minor germs to prepare it to fight sickness (like Dwight when he asks coworkers to expose him to sickness). One of the biggest studies does claim that intermittent fasting will not lead to overall better body composition, or weight loss in humans. However, the common thoughts that one needs to eat every 2 hours or that one needs to eat 6 meals a day to maintain metabolism due to the thermogenic effects on the body is also not 100% true. The thermogenic increase is proportional to the caloric content of the meal, not the meal frequency. Most changes in the bodies metabolic rate occur from overall caloric intake daily, not meal timing. There are studies that site a balanced protein intake throughout the day is more ideal to maintain an anabolic state vs large protein intakes fewer times in the day.
Closing thoughts
This is by no means a fix all solution to everyone’s goals, and what we do not want to do is think of this as a “diet”. A diet is something that is a short-term fix, a diet is not something g that can be achieved for an entire life. What we should focus on is implementing something that we can sustain, something that fits our lifestyle without being boring. We can do this by following a structured plan that fits within a healthy eating plan that consists of healthy amounts of fats, carbs, proteins, and micronutrients.
