Intermittent Fasting discussion thread!!

[RickRock13]

Day 3 of IF so far. Its so very close to what I was already doing when trying to lose fat. I am at about a thousand calorie deficit mostly from cardio and by the time its time to eat am hungry enough to eat my running shoes. I imagine with less of a deficit it will be a bit easier.

I have to admit though, I am not sure I would want to do this while trying to gain maximal lean mass. I think it would just feel wrong to be unfed for such long periods of time. Right or wrong, I always took the feeling of being good and sore as an indication that I should be eating to give my body the nutrition it requires to rebuild and grow.

You can grow easily on IF when going for mass. Feeling like you need food 24/7 to grow is purely psychological.

As a matter of fact, the insulin release and anabolic response you get breaking fast is nothing that can be duplicated with a traditional diet. Anything lost by not being fed a few hours, is more than made up as soon as you start eating again.

Of course you have to hit your desired macros, as is with any diet

 

[MaxxReps]

With all due respect ... (seriously)

Feeling like you need food 24/7 to grow is purely psychological.

I agree. I've never felt the need to graze all day long.

Anything lost by not being fed a few hours, is more than made up as soon as you start eating again.

It is not a few hours, its 2/3 of each day.

May I ask, what do you weigh?

 

[RickRock13]

With all due respect ... (seriously)



I agree. I've never felt the need to graze all day long.

It is not a few hours, its 2/3 of each day.

May I ask, what do you weigh?

Yes, it is just a few hours beyond a normal diet. Everyone fasts while sleeping, so you can throw that out the window.

187 lbs @ 6% body fat right now and 5'9"

(Curious why this is even relevant to the discussion)

 

[MaxxReps]

Because I feel the proof is in the pudding.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I hope mine is similar.

 

[RickRock13]

Because I feel the proof is in the pudding.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I hope mine is similar.

No problem bro. I will be the first to tell you, if strictly as much mass as possible is what you want, IF is probably not for you. Obviously eating as much as you can at all hours is going to give the most benefit, though you will have to accept a reasonable amount of fat gain in the process. But if that was your goal you wouldn't be here I'm guessing.

This isnt anything fancy or magical, but IF has been the best possible diet I can find for staying lean while adding mass, recomping, and cutting with no loss of strength or muscle. I'm just hear to share my experiences with it, and people can make up their own minds whether its something they want to implement into their diet plan or not.

Sometimes i may go off of IF for part of a week or more during the fall/winter months to really concentrate on the mass gains. If I soften up I can always throw IF back in and clean up within a couple weeks or so. You have to be willing to always change and adapt to make your body change

My current focus has been shifted to mass building for the most part, and right now I'm only fasting 4 days per week. My workout days I've been consuming 6 meals like most bodybuilders. So far, so good. No fat gain but no fat loss either and weight/strength has slowly been increasing. There's nothing set in stone, and its all about finding out what works best. I expirement all the time and I'm getting very close to finding the perfect formula for ME.

 

[Evan Tipps]

Are bcaas really necesary to train in a fasted state? Ive been doing fasted training (I hate working out with food in my stomach makes me feel weighed down). Ive came close to trying bcaas but I just havnt yet

 

[RickRock13]

Are bcaas really necesary to train in a fasted state? Ive been doing fasted training (I hate working out with food in my stomach makes me feel weighed down). Ive came close to trying bcaas but I just havnt yet

For resistance training, I think some form of protein preworkout and post workout is ideal for protein synthesis due to the muscle breakdown factor. With fasted training BCAAs fill that void. If you are eating right after the workout, then they are less important and not nearly as necessary.

So the real answer is they are beneficial for fasted training but not required necessarily.

 

[George_Costanza]

I've been doing IF for about a year now and I decided to take a couple of weeks off the gym to settle a nagging lower back injury. In the process I also decided to take a diet break and throw in some breakfast. You mentioned that you throw in breakfast when you are bulking and I think it might be a good idea to stoke the metabolism fire. I base this on the fact that when I first started IF, I initially saw accelerated fat-loss before it eventually slowed.

Do you believe there is some validity to this observation and do you struggle at all with hunger when resuming IF?

Thanks,
Ken

 

[RickRock13]

I've been doing IF for about a year now and I decided to take a couple of weeks off the gym to settle a nagging lower back injury. In the process I also decided to take a diet break and throw in some breakfast. You mentioned that you throw in breakfast when you are bulking and I think it might be a good idea to stoke the metabolism fire. I base this on the fact that when I first started IF, I initially saw accelerated fat-loss before it eventually slowed.

Do you believe there is some validity to this observation and do you struggle at all with hunger when resuming IF?

Thanks,
Ken

I don't believe it has any effect on metabolism by staying on IF too long. What does have a negative effect on metabolism is continuous caloric deficit over a long period of time, or even extreme defecits for short periods of time.

That is why I highly recommend refeeds as often as necessary to keep the metabolism elevated and fat loss continuing. Refeeds will raise leptin back to normal. When leptin is low, fat loss slows. Refeeds also optimize grehlin (the hunger hormone), so hunger issues get controlled better when trying to cut.

I personally never have much issue with hunger, as I do refeed about 3 days per week. The only time I had an issue with it, was when I was about 2-3 weeks from my contest. Hunger was out of control and my refeeds were twice per week. I could have used another refeed in there, but it was crunch time and I had a deadline. Typically, the leaner you are the more you need to refeed, so as you can imagine at 4.6% body fat, decreasing my refeeds per week really took a toll on hunger. Those over 10% probably should only refeed every 7-10 days or so

 

[George_Costanza]

When you say "refeeds" is this independent of raising your carb and calorie intake on training days?

I generally take a "diet break" every 4-6 weeks when my fat loss stalls, for about 10-14 days (ala Lyle McDonald). However, even with this I have not been able to get any lower than about 8% bodyfat. Recently my strength dropped by about 20%, so I think it's time to bulk again before I shrink into nothing.

Always appreciate your input RickRock13.