In 2008 I began experimenting with Intermittent Fasting (IF). Intermittent Fasting means alternating feeding and fasting periods with a goal of extending the fasting portion to stimulate positive hormonal changes. For health and fat loss purposes, a period of 16 to 24 hours is the most common.
In addition to eliminating bread completely, I would say Intermittent Fasting is the best thing one can do to improve their health. Going without food builds resilience. It toughens you up. You will conquer your fear of hunger. Hunger becomes preferable to poor food choices. The confidence you build from controlling your hunger will spill over into other aspects of your life.
My Intermittent Fasting mentors are Arthur De Vany and Brad Pilon. If you are interested in learning more about the science of IF, I highly recommend the e-book Eat Stop Eat by Brad Pilon. I bought it in 2008 and read it twice. It really helped me understand how the human body responds to fasting.
In the post Leanness Defined, I went over the 4 Levels of Leanness defined by Christian Thibaudeau and Chris Shugart. I also added a level. They are:
Level 0 – You are mostly lean, but your abs arent quite flat.
Level 1 Flat stomach with no ab definition.
Level 2 Level 1 + some upper ab definition.
Level 3 Level 2 + lower ab definition.
Level 4 Level 3 with deep cuts and dry (no water weight)
Moving to Level 1 Leanness
This is the most straight forward. As you get leaner you will see everything tighten up. I was at Level 0 Leanness from basically the 9th grade until 2 years ago. In order of importance, here are the steps I took to get to to Level 1 Leanness.
Reduced carbohydrate intake. Cut the sugar, bread and alcohol.
I was already doing the weight training, so really it was the first three items on the list that made the most difference. Note that nowhere on the list did I say go jogging, biking or spinning. The role of exercise in fat loss is way over stated. You are far better off spending your time in the kitchen cooking. Lift something heavy for 20 minutes a week and then focus your effort on food.
Moving to Level 2 Leanness
Going from Level 1 to Level 2 is like flying a plane in a storm. You can’t see where you are, so you have to trust your instruments. I’d like to quote Canada K, who I introduced in the post 17 Lessons For Fat Loss. He refers to this period as the Fat Loss Dead Zone.
Once you slide below 15%, the returns really diminish. You can lose a boatload of fat and it seems invisible. Its not until you get below 10%, or even 8%, where abs start to appear, where your waistline starts to get really tight, and where veins really start to show up.
So basically, there is this giant dead zone in the middle where youre making real gains but theyre incredibly unsatisfying. You must hang in there anyway. If you dont, youll never be lean.
This was an important lesson for me to learn. Going from Level 0 to Level 1 is highly rewarding. Every month you get a little but leaner and your clothes feel a little looser. This isn’t true for the journey from Level 1 to Level 2 Leanness. You’ll start to doubt your plan and be tempted to try new tricks, but patience is rewarded if your plan is solid. One day you’ll see your upper abs. Although I followed the same core principles as stated in the Moving to Level 1 Leanness, I added a few to assist with the process.
Improve Omega 3- Omega 6 ratios. I only eat 100% grass pastured animals or seafood and I stopped consuming seed oils.
Omega 3 fat cells are elongated and flexible, which places the hormone receptors on the exterior of the cell facing outward. This allows them to interact with hormones that trigger fat loss. Omega 6 fat cells are less flexible and have the hormonal receptors facing inward, which makes fat loss more difficult. Fixing your n-3 ratios is not something you can do overnight. It can take over 2 years to make the correction. Restaurants are notorious for using factory farm meat cooked in seed oils. You’ll need to source and cook your own food.
I reduced my caffeine intake so I am now sleeping a 8+ uninterrupted hours a night. Sleep helps you target fat loss over lean muscle. When I lived in DC, I would wake up at 4:45 AM and go to the gym. Sleep deprived and tired, I would eat carbs all day. I was never in worse shape.
Improving your gut flora can help you lean out. From the excellent post A healthy gut is the hidden key to weight loss by the Healthy Skeptic:
Other studies have shown that changes in the gut flora can increase the rate at which we absorb fatty acids and carbohydrates, and increase the storage of calories as fat. This means that someone with bad gut flora could eat the same amount of food as someone with a healthy gut, but extract more calories from it and gain more weight.
What have I been doing to improve my gut flora? Eating raw kimchi almost daily.
I have no way to measure the effect of cold weather training, but since it has become a daily part of my life, I feel I need to include it on the list.
Moving to Level 3 Leanness
I have yet to hit Level 3 Leanness. This is the stubborn fat. It has been camped out there for decades and it doesn’t want to leave. I don’t expect it to go easily. I mostly believe that Level 3 Leanness will come by following the same strategies I used to get this far. I’ll be patient and keep plugging away.
Soon I will be posting the winter version of Fall Strategies For Nutrition and Fitness. I believe winter is the optimal season for fat loss.
Moving to Level 4 Leanness
That topic is covered in detail in the article Shredded in 6 Days by Christian Thibaudeau and Chris Shugart.
Last Words
This is just a reminder that I am not a certified personal trainer or nutritionist. I’m just a hobbyist in the art of physique hacking. There are many paths to leanness. This post details what has worked for me.
Does Leangains intermittent fasting work? Yes, intermittent fasting helps you gain muscle and lose fat
but the reason why it works is unclear. It’s also unclear if it works
better than other nutritional programs – maybe, maybe not. What IS
clear that more basic research is needed. So, cut to
the chase, do I recommend that you follow Leangains style intermittent
fasting? I would say “Yes” if you are sure it’s the best thing since
sliced bread and “No” otherwise. If you are unsure, I recommend my top-down bodybuilding nutrition
approach. I will also continue to recommend 3+ meals a day because I
believe (but cant prove) it is a great tool in satisfying hunger with
fewer calories as well as a great aide in maximizing muscle gain. I
would also say it’s far more important what and how much
you eat than when you eat it or in how many meals you consume it in.
Beer and protein shakes at the “right time” is far inferior to a big
pile of vegetables and a chicken breast at the “wrong time”.If you want
to do intermittent fasting, I recommend the book Eat Stop Eat.
The Hodgetwins have made Martin Berkhan’s Leangains Intermittent Fasting (IF) program even more famous. Is the incredible buzz about intermittent fasting deserved? In this article, I give you my un-biased opinion on what intermittent fasting is, if intermittent fasting works, and why it works.
For those of you who won’t read this whole article, let me give you the conclusion first. The Leangains intermittent fasting program will definitely help you gain muscle and lose fat, the question is why and whether it’s really works better than any other training and nutrition methods. If you want to know more, I suggest you get the book shown on the right, Eat Stop Eat. I know I say this all the time but I will say it again:
“Bodybuilding is not an exact science, you need to experiment and find what works best for you” – Scooby Werkstatt
There are an incredibly complex array of factors that goes into determining what workout style and nutritional style will be best for you. The only thing for certain is that it probably wont be the same as for the guy standing next to you at the bench press. For some people, P90X, Insanity, or Crossfit works the best. For others, 5×5, SS, or a bodybuilding style workout like my home workouts give them maximum results.
It’s all about finding what works for you and helps you achieve your goals. Nutritionally, many people find eating frequent, smaller meals too stressful and time consuming – for them intermittent fasting provides optimal results. Others find that frequent small meals help them keep hunger at bay with fewer calories so they can lose fat and get ripped easier. Again, find what works best for you.
“It’s far more important WHAT you eat and HOW MUCH you eat than WHEN you eat it.” – Scooby Werkstatt
Although I am still recommend to people that they frequent small meals, I would much rather someone eat just two healthy meals a day in an intermittent fasting protocol than eat five meals consisting of BigMacs! What you eat is far more important to your success in health and bodybuilding than when you eat in my opinion. If you do follow intermittent fasting, remember that your work does not stop when you decide to constrain eating to an 8 hour window. The biggest nutritional task for any bodybuilder is deciding what to eat.
What is Intermittent Fasting?
Intermittent fasting is just like you would expect from the name. There are many other kinds of intermittent fasting, like alternate day intermittent fasting, but I will focus on the kind that Martin Berkhan at Leangains presents which is intra-day fasting – basically extending the night time sleeping fast a bit longer. Normal people fast for 8 hours during sleep and then eat for the other 16 hours. In the leangains intermittent fasting program, it’s the other way around – you fast for 16hrs and eat for 8 hours. If Leangains was just that the webpage would be just one sentence and we wouldn’t be talking about it now, Martin Berkhan’s Leangains website has hundreds of pages of information which I am going to try to boil down into a few bullet points below. I apologize profusely to Martin for this oversimplification of his program but for those unfamiliar with his program I need to give them a quick idea of what it involves:
Fasting 16 hours, eating window 8 hours long – number of meals irrelevant
TDEE +20% calories on lifting days, -20% on non lifting days. (TDEE is your Total Daily Energy Expenditure,if you eat at precisely your TDEE you will neither gain nor lose weight.)
Nutrition, consume at least 2.5g protein per kg of bodyweight
Intermittent fasting isn’t as new as it sounds, in fact it is thousands of years old. Ramadan is the most sacred month of the year for Muslims. During the month of Ramadan, they do not drink nor eat anything (nor sex, nor smoking either) from sunrise to sunset. This is a rather brutal type of intermittent fasting, brutal because the fasting period is during the day. Trying to concentrate and perform normally all day long without food is very, very difficult. If intermittent fasting by itself was the magical key to bodybuilding success then the pro bodybuilding contests would be won by practicing Muslims but this does not seem to be the case. In fact, a 2007 study of two Algerian soccer teams (practicing Muslims) showed that it significantly decreases athletic performance during Ramadan. As bodybuilders, this study is our first warning that we need to proceed very carefully with fasting.
Does Intermittent Fasting work? Yes, Intermittent fasting does work well for a lot of people. If you are getting good results from it then keep using it! You will note this is very similar to how I responded when people wanted to know “What Scooby thinks about YouTube trainer …” Before I take a critical look at Intermittent Fasting , lets look at why I make the above statements – I’m not being wishy washy. If intermittent fasting gives you the desired results, the reason *why* it works is irrelevant in my opinion. Intermittent fasting will help you gain muscle and lose fat if you believe it will. “WHAT?”, you say! Please hear me out. It doesn’t matter if it works because it is a superior program synergizing nutrition with Starting Strength workouts or if it works because of placebo effect.
Brain – Ally or Enemy?
The brain is the most powerful and important part of our bodies, it determines what you can and cannot do. If the brain in convinced that your life is in danger it will pump out adrenaline like a geyser and give you super-human strength. On the other hand, if you are pessimistic and convince your brain that you cannot do something then you will not be able to do it. If you make a P90X enthusiast do 5×5, I can guarantee you they will whine and complain the whole time and they will have very poor results. This is the reason it pays to have a positive attitude, there is something to it. In a very poorly understood process, if you believe that something will help you then it will.
Placebo Effect
This poorly understood process is called “The Placebo Effect“. The placebo effect is well documented in medical literature which is why all good research studies include a placebo group to make sure that the benefit is from the drug itself and not because the peoples brains have been fooled into healing them thru positive thinking. The term “placebo effect” is most often used when talking about drugs but it’s just as applicable when it comes to training programs. In my opinion, this is one of the reasons that there is so much heated disagreement from all the experts about what is the “best” training program. It’s because what is “best” depends on what the person believes is best. If someone is completely convinced that GOMAD and 5×5 is the optimal way to get stronger and more massive – then it will work! If it’s a reasonable workout strategy and you believe it will work, then it will give you great results. If you don’t believe your workout program is good then you wont have results no matter how well it works for everyone else. I am serious when I say that bodybuilding is equal parts mental and physical, leave out one half of the equation and you get poor results. When you choose a workout strategy, you need your brain as an ally – it’s gotta be 100% convinced you are doing the right thing. Work against your brain and it’s you are wasting your time.
Intermittent Fasting and Placebo Effect
So what does all this have to do with intermittent fasting ? I think you see where I’m going here. Since there is SO much buzz in locker rooms and gyms across the world about the leangains intermittent fasting program, a lot of people are totally convinced it will give them the results they want. Since their brains believe this, it WILL work. When they believe in the program, they will workout more intensely, they will workout longer, they wont skip days, and they will be religious about their nutrition. The leangains intermittent fasting program has an incredible momentum behind it. This is why in my blogpost “What does Scooby think about ..” I say that if a program is working for you and giving you the results you want that it is absolutely the best for you – no matter what it is. If intermittent fasting works, does it really matter *why* it works? Does it matter if it’s placebo effect or if their is some magical synergy between intermittent fasting and Mark Rippetoe’s SS style workouts?
The Newbie Effect.
This is a good time to point out that rank beginners to bodybuilding can do virtually any workout program, no matter how stupid, and get stronger and more massive. They can also use any nutritional program, no matter how stupid, and get stronger and more massive. Rank beginners can do the “curl monkey workout” where every day they do 100 curls and 100 pushups and have great results. The reason this is important to bring up is that as you will find in the following critical look at intermittent fasting, there is a severe lack of applicable, well done research – almost none. With a lack of good research, all workout programs (mine included) resort to anecdotal short term “before and after” comparisons are used and these folks are often beginners. A great before and after of a beginner on my website is just as useless as one on the leangains website. What matters is, can an advanced bodybuilder overcome a false genetic limit and make further gains with the workout system and what is the maximum that someone can achieve on the program.
Recompositioning.
Leangains program seems to be associated with the term “recompositioning” in peoples minds. What is recompositioning? It’s what I have always referred to as gain muscle and lose fat at the same time. Every day on bodybuilding forums across the world people argue about whether bulking and cutting is the fastest way to a ripped, muscular physique or if recompositioning is. Many bulker/cutters seem to think that *everyone* has to bulk to gain muscle but the success stories pages of P90X, my website, and the leangains website suggest otherwise. Remember what I said earlier, that beginners and intermediates can do virtually anything and make good gains? From everything I have seen, beginners achieve their goal of obtaining a muscular, lean physique much faster with a recompositioning type nutritional program (set goal = recomp on my calorie calculator) than with bulking/cutting. This is true for many intermediate bodybuilders as well. It’s my experience that only when you get to within 20% of your genetic max that you need to start playing tricks with your body, like bulking/cutting, to coax out further gains. Leangains and I are in complete agreement on this issue, recompositioning is the way to go for beginners and most intermediate bodybuilders – in other words, workout hard while eating at your TDEE. If you are obese, then perhaps eating 5-20% under your TDEE is called for depending on your level of obesity. For advanced bodybuilders, that is, those within 20% of their genetic potential it appears that bulking/cutting is the way to go.
Examination of Intermittent Fasting.
First it’s important to ask, does intermittent fasting work for *what*. What is the criteria that we are judging intermittent fasting on? Gaining muscle? Losing fat? Athletic performance? Endurance? Disease prevention? Reduction of cancer risk? Improved cardiovascular health? Better health markers (blood pressure, lipid levels, etc). Since most people here are young and healthy and are only concerned with the cosmetic aspects, we will stick to those: strength gain, mass gain, and bodyfat reduction.
Often in bodybuilding, arguments about nutrition or lifting programs turns into a ping pong match where the opponents take turns sending research volleys over the net to the opposing team where they point out the faults of the study which render it useless then smack their research paper over the net which ‘proves’ their point – and the game continues. At the end, if both players have the hundreds of hours at their disposal to find, read, and analyze the research, the game ends in a draw with both players exhausted both admitting that their needs to be better research done. In my opinion, this is basically what has happened with intermittent fasting between Alan Aragon and Martin Berkhan. I’m not going to re-invent the wheel here nor am I going to pretend to know as much about nutrition as Alan aragon. If you want to see the definitive critical analysis of intermittent fasting based upon research, then see Alan Aragon’s An Objective Look at Intermittent Fasting. Alan Aragon is one of the top bodybuilding nutritional specialists in the world and he makes a living doing unbiased, critical analysis of published researched papers with a bodybuilding eye. If you argue with Alan’s opinion then you had better have done your homework and have a stack of research to back you up. If you don’t read his whole paper, please read at least the conclusion. I don’t want to copy it here but I think I can safely include one sentence from the two paragraph summary that gives the flavor of the whole paper without stepping into copyright issues:
“In the world of fitness, recommendations for improving performance and body composition often gain blind acceptance despite a dearth of objective data.”
In an objective review of intermittent fasting, thats not a very positive outlook! OK, so lets look at some of the main points of intermittent fasting.
Health.
I know most are not interested in the health aspects of leangains intermittent fasting program but I have some big concerns about it so I will cover it quickly. A bad omen is that as far as I can tell, the words “vegetable”, “fiber”, and “anti-oxidant” do not seem to appear anywhere on the leangains website but there is a whole section on supplements. I’m a bit concerned about what the people following the Leangains program are actually eating. As far as the health of the intermittent fasting itself. It does appear the following the leangains intermittent fasting program does improve your cholesterol levels but according to this study, it appears that the same benefit can be achieved by exercise alone. The other concern I have about the health aspects of the leangains program is that it does not include cardio. In my opinion, daily cardio is the kernel of any fitness program that has overall health and well being as a goal.
Performance.
By performance I mean strength, endurance, speed, balance, and coordination. The before mentioned study of Algerian soccer players during Ramadan clearly showed that Ramadan style fasting is detrimental to performance. What about leangains style intermittent fasting, is it detrimental to performance? We don’t know as there is no research other than the soccer study. It’s clear that Ramadan style fasting where no food nor beverage can be consumed during the day has a far worse effect on performance than leangains style intermittent fasting where eating can happen 8 hours during the day. So leangains style intermittent fasting isn’t as bad as sunrise to sunset fasting on performance but is it still a problem? My guess is it depends on when the athletic event is. If the athletic event falls in the feeding window like a football practice would, my guess is that there is no performance degradation at all with leangains intermittent fasting. On the other hand, if your athletic event occurs during the fasting window then I’m willing to bet there is a significant performance degradation. Research done by Bird points to me being correct in this assumption. There are many anecdotal reports of people “having so much energy” in the morning before they eat. To those people I say, “see you at the race”. If you have so much energy while fasting lets do a Half Ironman and see who wins – you keep fasting during the race and I get to eat my normal 5000 calories or so in energy drinks, gels, and bars. Well see how much energy you have then As I discuss in when to do cardio, I personally find that when I attempt cardio before eating in the morning my cardio session is much shorter than if I do it after a small meal. What works for me is to eat a small well balanced meal and then exercise.
Ability to Lose Bodyfat.
Lets start with something that is very clear. Meal frequency does not affect how many calories per day your body burns, your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE). If the number of calories is the same, it doesn’t matter if you consume then in one large meal a day or ten small meals a day – your TDEE remains constant, as long as they are regularly scheduled meals. It does appear that an irregular feeding schedule can decrease your metabolism and make losing fat harder but nothing increases it and makes losing fat easier.
What about decreasing your feeding window from the normal person’s 16 hours to a leangains intermittent fasting participant’s 8 hour feeding window, does that make losing fat easier? Let the ping pong match between Alan Aragon and Martin Berkhan begin! As far as I can see, all the studies used when talking about this are seriously flawed and both sides agree that more research is needed.
According to Alan Aragon, the main study used to show the benefits of intermittent fasting has a number of serious flaws and I agree with him. There were only 20 participants and 5 dropped out which most likely means those 5 participants were having poor results. Leaving out all the people who have poor results out of the study doesn’t make it much of a study does it? The other huge problem is that they used a very inaccurate method for determining body composition, basically just measuring body impedance as the cheapo digital bodyfat tools do. Couple the inaccurate body composition measurements with the extremely short study period (6 weeks) and you get questionable results at best.
It’s clear that many, many people have gotten muscular and shredded from the Leangains style intermittent fasting. The question is why. Let me bring up something related, carb cycling. It’s clear that carb cycling works great but it’s very complicated to make a meal plan (which is why I made my automated carb cycling meal planner) so anyone who does carb cycling is making a huge commitment.
Does carb cycling work because there is some biochemistry behind it or does it simply work because it’s followers watch their macros and calories so carefully as the old admin of the AskScooby forum suggested? It’s pretty clear to me now that he was right, it’s not carb cycling that makes you ripped quickly without losing any muscle mass, it’s the fact that you get plenty of protein, lots of vegetables, enough good fats and EFAs, and run a tightly monitored caloric deficit. The same question applies to intermittent fasting, is something inherent in the intermittent fasting itself that makes losing fat easier or is it just the fact that you are paying more attention to your nutrition? Again, I ask the question – does it really matter if it works? No! Leangains intermittent fasting works for many people in helping them get ripped while gaining strength and muscle mass so who cares why? So does intermittent fasting help you lose bodyfat? Maybe, maybe not. What is clear is that more research needs to be done.
Ability to Gain Muscle.
So, will leangains style intermittent fasting help you gain muscle? As far as I can tell, Martin Berkhan’s Leangains program recommends that you follow Mark Rippetoe’s Starting Strength (SS) program. Yes, of course! Following Mark Rippetoe’s lifting program while following Martin Berkhan’s leangains intermittent fasting program WILL make you bigger and stronger. A number of questions arise though. First, is SS the best choice for you based upon your goals, age, and limitations? Second question which is more important, is it the SS alone giving Leangains participants their mass and strength gains or is it a symbiotic relationship between SS and leangains IF that causes some amplification of results? If you did a year long study of SS+IF vs SS+GOMAD, who would have the better muscular and strength gains? If SS+IF produces better results, is that because IF people on the whole are more educated about nutrition than GOMAD folks? So then you have to do another study, what if everyone did GOMAD and SS but half the group did GOMAD in the intermittent fasting style? You will see here that we have far more questions than answers. As far as I know, there has been no study to date that shows you can gain muscle mass and strength faster with an intermittent fasting protocol than with normal eating.
Summary
Does Leangains intermittent fasting work? Yes, intermittent fasting helps you gain muscle and lose fat but the reason why it works is unclear. It’s also unclear if it works better than other nutritional programs – maybe, maybe not. What IS clear that more basic research is needed.
So, cut to the chase, do I recommend that you follow Leangains style intermittent fasting? I would say “Yes” if you are sure it’s the best thing since sliced bread and “No” otherwise.
If you are unsure, I recommend my top-down bodybuilding nutrition approach. I will also continue to recommend 3+ meals a day because I believe (but cant prove) it is a great tool in satisfying hunger with fewer calories as well as a great aide in maximizing muscle gain.
I would also say it’s far more important what and how much you eat than when you eat it or in how many meals you consume it in. Beer and protein shakes at the “right time” is far inferior to a big pile of vegetables and a chicken breast at the “wrong time”.If you want to do intermittent fasting, I recommend the book Eat Stop Eat.
Ori Hofmekler is a fellow renaissance man; not only is he a world renowned artist, but he is also the author of the ground breaking Warrior Diet and many other health and fitness books. With a tagline like "Not actively surviving... is passively dying!" this guy is no joke, and is a wealth of information and knowledge.
In today's show we talk about:
Why human are nocturnal eaters
How not eating food can improve health and performance
What it's like to be a bonafide renaissance man
And the critical difference between grass-fed & pastured dairy
I started doing Intermittent Fasting over three years ago. My strategy has always been to just deal with the hunger. If you ignore it, it goes away. When I first began fasting, I’d think about my hunger constantly. These days, it barely grabs my attention.
Recently, I was inspired by a post over at my favorite nutrition website Perfect Health Diet to try an alternate approach to Intermittent Fasting.
Before I go into the changes I tested, let me go over two benefits from Intermittent Fasting.
By restricting carbohydrates for an extended period, you can shift your body into a state of ketosis. Ketosis has a host of health benefits. One of which is you burn fat at a quicker pace.
By restricting protein, you can trigger autophagy. This is the process where cells consume and recycle their own damaged material. This results in many health benefits, including life extension.
The Perfect Health Diet post Ketogenic Diets, I: Ways to Make a Diet Ketogenic is a detailed explanation of the ketogenic metabolic pathway. The part of the article I found most interesting was how the use of coconut oil, which is loaded with short chain fats, can accelerate the production of ketones.
This means that if you eat a lot of coconut oil (which is 58% short-chain fats), you deliver a lot of fat to the liver for disposal. The disposal process for fat is conversion to acetyl CoA followed by either burning in the TCA cycle or conversion to ketones.
Since that post was written, I have done many fasts where I consume nothing but 1 to 3 tablespoons of coconut oil. I find it has a slightly sweet taste and it does lower my hunger level. To confirm I was still hitting ketosis, I used Ketostix to measure ketones. After a 16 hour fast with coconut oil, I was measuring Small to Moderate ketones. Pretty cool.
Ketostix
Well coconut oil by itself may not be enough for the hungry. Have no fear, the Perfect Health Diet book came up with another idea. It said you can consume fermented vegetables on a fast. Wouldn’t the carbs from the vegetables interfere with achieving ketosis? Nope. From the book:
Most vegetable carbohydrates are intercepted by gut bacteria, which digest vegetable fiber into short-chain fatty acids.
If the book is correct, I could eat coconut oil and sauerkraut and still go into ketosis. I decided to test it out.
Monday night: My last food intake was at 10 PM.
Tuesday 10 AM: 1 tablespoon of coconut oil, 100 grams of cortido sauerkraut.
The cortido sauerkraut has some carrots, so I was concerned that those carbs might be enough to prevent ketosis. But it didn’t. At 2:30 PM, I tested Moderate ketones on the Ketostix. Victory!
Cortido Sauerkraut – Ketosis never tasted so good!
So if you’ve put off Intermittent Fasting, because you can’t deal with the hunger, you now have no excuses.
I have done 2 fasts so far. Only for autophagy purposes. I haden’t eaten anything for about 21 hours in both instances. I just kept busy and drank a lot of fluids and was fine. It is probably good to feel hungry every once in a while. I can tell you, no matter what I eat at night after a fast tastes GREAT and I eat like a ravenous animal. Haven’t lost weight either which is fine by me.
Still doing IF once a week, MAS (doing one today as a matter of fact). I have not had a cold/flu/sinus infection since starting them 2 years ago
I have not tried the coconut oil part but might start that shortly.. take some after the 15 hr fast for women that you recommended or at the 13/14 hr mark?
This post is really interesting. The idea that coconut oil and femented veg won’t disrupt ketosis has given me some great “food for thought.”
I recall Mat Lalonde saying that his breakfast was often 1/2 cup of coconut milk, which provided a sense of satiety but, he believed, didn’t interfere with autophagy. Not sure whether the carbs in the coconut milk would be sufficient to disrupt ketosis, but there’s only about 6g in a 1/2 cup, so I’d be inclined to doubt it.
With the colder weather coming on I am ramping up my IF again. For October I’m starting back easily with just two 16-hour fasts a week. The number of weekly fasts will increase throughout fall, followed by increasing their duration in winter.
@Geoff – That is exactly the same strategy I follow. Less daylight, less carbs, more fasting.
Coconut Milk has almost no protein, so Mat is probably right in believing it wouldn’t interfere with autophagy. It is the amino acids in protein that interrupt autophagy. As for interrupting ketosis, that might vary from person to person as well as the timing of the beverage.
hi,
I have been doing my own little version of this, but
with romaine lettuce and olive oil, as a meal for dinner
only. Just as a light three day thing.
Problem, as I was re-checking my data on romaine lettuce, I was dismayed to find that it has a substantial amount of sugars. I don’t know if this interfered with ketosis as I can not afford keto sticks.
But, I do feel like I am in ketosis.
What do you think of romaine lettuce as part of this “experiment” ?
@Sheila – I don’t have an opinion on romaine lettuce. Perfect Health Diet does make a convincing case for using coconut oil over all other fats.
Ketostix are dirt cheap at Wal-Mart.
Cool experiment – thanks MAS.
I gotta admit though that I’m concerned about the possibility of over-consumption of coconut products. I doubt my genetic line (Northern European) feasted on coconuts over the past few millenium – but who the heck knows…
I suppose I could try to replicate the experiment with pork lard and/or duck fat…
[...] Interesting posts this week: Michael A Smith of Critical MAS tests our ideas about ketogenic fasting and finds that he can eliminate hunger while fasting by [...]
I have been doing IF with coconut oil a few times a week for the past two weeks. This week I broke out in a horrible rash. I have eaten coconut oil for years though by cooking with it but this is the first time I am eating it straight. Why do you think it is having this effect on me?
@Alex – Water fast are great too. One downside to fasting is that feeling of getting cold. By consuming saturated fat, you can stay in ketosis and increase your body temperature.
[...] of a few ounces of kimchi and one tablespoon of coconut oil. If that seems odd, read the post Intermittent Fasting – The No Hunger Method. It describes a wonderful hack that I tested from The Perfect Health [...]
What types of Intermittent Fasting do you do? For example is there like one day a week where you don’t eat anything (besides the above mentioned coconut oil maybe), or do you not eat from 12am-12pm.
Just curious, thanks!
@Becca – I vary the strategy. However, these days I mostly do 14-16 hours fast with a small amount a fermented veggies and coconut oil. I fast more in the winter months and less in the summer.
Very interesting. I’ve been trying out a 12pm – 9pm eating window… but find that I often get very hungry around 1am. Like the hunger will wake me up… think i might try just eating a little coconut oil when this happens.
Thanks!
[...] idea: I came across this cool recommendation from Michael at Critical MAS (great thing about IF is the community of people finding new things to try). For those who want to [...]
2 Shannon:
That rash was likely a fungal infection from funghi that live on ketones. GOOGLE site:perfecthealthdiet.com RASH FUNGAL and let us know how you got rid of it
@Steve – I got the answer. Paul explained it in his comment thread.
“… short chain fats in our lingo encompasses the standard “short-chain” and “medium-chain” — 12 carbons or fewer. Since they’re handled similarly biologically, we thought it made more sense to use a descriptive term instead of technical jargon.”
Makes sense. Comparing with long-chain fatty acids found in most saturated fats coconut oil, which also contain saturated fat, has short chain fatty acids in comparison but not as short as some other fatty acids. At least that is how I am making sense of this.
[...] time (see Paleo 2.0 by Dr Kurt Harris). Besides eating a low inflammatory diet, I also practice a nutrient timing strategy that forces my body to use autophagy as a
Getting Stronger is a blog about the philosophy of Hormetism, based on the application of progressive, intermittent stress to overcome challenges and grow stronger physically, mentally and emotionally. For additional background, click here for the OVERVIEW and AUTHOR pages.
My recent post on Why I don’t take vitamin D supplements generated a lot of interest and a few misconceptions. In that article, I did not suggest any practical alternatives to taking high dose vitamin D supplements. Here I will suggest a way that may provide the benefits of vitamin D without popping any pills, spending all day in the sun, or ingesting copious amounts of fish.
Some readers got the idea that I believe vitamin D is not beneficial, and that I discount the evidence from studies that show the benefits. I want to dispel that notion. I do acknowledge the key role that vitamin D and the vitamin D receptor (VDR) play in bone mineralization and regulation of innate and adaptive immunity, and among other things. I further acknowledge that many (but certainly not all) studies support an association between higher vitamin D3 levels and reduced incidence of diseases such as cancer.
As I wrote:
Nobody doubts the important role of vitamin D in the body. But are higher levels of a hormone like vitamin D–whether or not provided as a supplement– always a good thing?
My doubts are focused on several points:
Under-appreciation of the fact that vitamin D is a hormone with diverse and dose-dependent systemic effects, still not fully understood
Misleading claims that vitamin D supplementation is “equivalent” to vitamin D from sun exposure. While the two forms are chemically identical, levels of vitamin D3 synthesized from sun exposure are self-limiting due to feedback regulation. What happens when we chronically exceed natural limits?
Inadequate study of the possible long term adverse effects of chronic vitamin D supplementation. Few studies look beyond 4 years. Hormone replacement therapy was in favor for 50 years before the risks came to light . Things don’t necessarily look any more promising when synthetic hormones are replaced bioidentical hormones.
My article created a dilemma for several commenters. These people acknowledged the risks, but nevertheless cited benefits they personally experienced from supplementing with vitamin D–ranging from fewer colds and flu, to relief of autoimmune symptoms, and even lessening of depression.
For these people, a key question remains:
Is there a way to get the benefits of vitamin D supplementation, while avoiding the dependency and risks of taking vitamin D capsules daily for the rest of your life? While I don’t have a definitive proven answer to that question, recent research leads me to speculate here that there is a promising approach that is within everyone’s reach.
It lies within a powerful natural biological process called autophagy.
What is autophagy? This term derives from the Greek roots for “self eating”. It refers to a process that normal cells in every organism can use to derive energy by breaking down and recycling unneeded or “damaged” components. Autophagy typically kicks in when a cell is temporarily deprived of externally supplied nutrients, or subjected to other stresses such as low oxygen, infection and chemical exposure. In the most common type of autophagy–known as macroautophagy–the cell constructs a special membrane enclosure, called an autophagosome, that floats around inside the cell. The autophagosome is a kind of miniature recycling factory that detects, engulfs and digests damaged proteins and larger organelle structures. After trapping the cellular components, the autophagosome fuses with a packet of degradative enzymes, known as a lysosome. It then degrades these large molecules down to their component amino acids, sugars and fatty acids, which can be used as fuels and building blocks for repair and growth. This recycling of damaged parts ensures an uninterrupted supply of energy and structural components need by the cell.
But the benefits of autophagy go far beyond fueling the cell, and ridding the cell of useless “junk”. Autophagy’s cellular housekeeping function actively counteracts many of the degenerative processes of aging!
Damage to cell structures and proteins is cumulative, and if allowed to proceed without correction, it can lead to malfunctioning of cellular processes and the genesis of illness. For example, a diet high in reactive sugars such as sucrose and fructose can glycate proteins, creating cross-linked structures known as advanced glycation end-products (AGEs), Similarly, oxidative stress can damage lipid bilayer membranes. The accumulation of these abnormal molecules has been implicated in the genesis of degenerative diseases such as diabetes, Alzheimers, cardiovascular disease and stroke.
Autophagosomes have also been shown to engulf and remove intracellular pathogens, such as the tuberculosis bacterium. Most intriguing, while autophagy regenerates the viability of normal cells, it has been show trigger the self-destruction (apoptosis) of some cancer cells and other abnormal cells. In short, regular and recurrent autophagy is a key defense against a range of degenerative diseases. The vitamin D connection. What does autophagy have to do with vitamin D, you ask? In mammals, the vitamin D receptor (VDR) sits at the beginning of a important cascade of biochemical pathways. Vitamin D3 or 25-D, from supplements or cutaneous synthesis, is converted to the active 1,25-D form in the kidneys in response to pituitary hormone (PTH). Renal 1,25-D plays a key role in the regulation of bone mineralization and waste excretion. But the VDR is also distributed to widely in cells throughout the body. After the kidney has converted vitamin D3 (25-D) to the active form of vitamin D (1,25-D) it is transported through the circulation to extra=renal sites by a protein known as vitamin D binding protein (VDBP). Within the cell, the active vitamin D interacts with the VDR to provide local control of a range of metabolic functions, including cellular immunity, anti-inflammatory, anti-infective, and anticancer responses.
And recent research indicates that one of the key functions of the VDR is to regulate autophagy!
Studies by several research groups have elucidated this signaling pathways that connect the VDR and calcium metabolism to autophagy. According to Shaoping Wu and Jun Sun at the University of Rochester Department of Medicine,
The signaling pathways regulated by vitamin D3 include Bcl-2, beclin-1, mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), the class III phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase complex (PI3KC3), cathelicidin, calcium metabolism, and cyclin-dependent kinase (Table 1). These pathways are critical in host defense and inflammatory responses. Hence, vitamin D3 and autophagy are associated with innate immunity…Vitamin D3 is a major regulator of calcium metabolism. Increased circulating vitamin D3 activates VDR, leading to increased intestinal calcium absorption. In excitable cells such as neurons, calcium is released from the sarcoplasmic or endoplasmic reticulum (ER) to activate calcium-dependent kinases and phosphatases, thereby regulating numerous cellular processes, including autophagy. ER calcium induces autophagy when stimulated by vitamin D3. This process is inhibited by mTOR, a negative regulator of macroautophagy, and induces massive accumulation of autophagosomes in a beclin-1- and ATG7-dependent manner since they are not fused with lysosomes. Vitamin D3 can down-regulate the expression of mTOR protein, thus inducing autophagy by inhibiting the mTORC1 complex.
A review by Høyer-Hansen et al., of the Institute of Cancer Biology at the Danish Cancer Society, elucidates the mechanisms by which vitamin D (“VD” here) induced autophagy selectively target cancer cells:
VD analogs are potent inducers of autophagy in different cell types, and autophagy is crucial for their cytotoxic activity towards cancer cells….[T]he signaling pathways connecting VD compounds to autophagy induction are similar in breast cancer cells and monocytes [7,12]. Autophagy induction in both cell types relies on an increase in [Ca2+]cyt, which could result from VDR-mediated changes in the expression levels of calcium-regulating proteins and the subsequent endoplasmic reticulum stress.
…Autophagy usually exerts a cytoprotective function in stressed cells; however, in EB1089-treated breast cancer cells, the enhancement of the autophagic response by ectopic expression of Becn1 increases cell death… Importantly, 1a,25-(OH)2D3-treated primary monocytes do not show any signs of cell death even though their autophagy response is similar to that observed in cancer cells. Thus, it is tempting to speculate that 1a,25- (OH)2D3-induced autophagic cell death could be specific for cancer cells; if true, this would represent a new cancer-specific treatment.
The Danish group has also shown that vitamin D acts to contain and eliminate the tuberculosis bacterium by inducing autophagy, perhaps providing an explanation for the historical use of cod liver oil and vitamin D as early therapies against TB before the advent of antibiotics:
In tuberculosis, M. tuberculosis resides in phagosomes and evades host antimicrobial mechanisms by blocking phagosome maturation and fusion with the lysosome. Ultimately, the host must overcome this evasion strategy to destroy the pathogen. Accumulating evidence suggests that this occurs via the autophagic degradation of bacteria-containing phagosomes and the subsequent killing of the bacteria in autolysosomes. Interestingly, a recent paper links the 1a,25-(OH)2D3- and autophagy-controlled antimycobacterial defense-pathways.
They conclude:
Recent data link autophagy to two of the beneficial effects of VD: the induction of cancer cell death and the clearance of M. tuberculosis. This opens the possibility that autophagy could be a general mediator of the health-promoting effects of 1a,25-(OH)2D3. Accordingly, there is a striking overlap among the diseases promoted by VD deficiency and defective autophagy. The new data linking the two health-promoting pathways open an interesting research field that could lead to new options for the treatment and prevention of many common diseases.
All very interesting. But if the vitamin D receptor is an activator of cellular autophagy, with its many apparent health benefits is there a way to activate the process without taking vitamin D capsules or spending all day in the sun?
How to activate autophagy without vitamin D. While vitamin D is one potent way to turn on the autophagy switch, it’s by no means the only way. Autophagy is a phenomenon that occurs throughout the animal kingdom, not just vitamin D utilizing mammals like ourselves. For example, Morselli et al. have shown that autophagy is a requirement for the demonstrated life-extending benefits of caloric restriction in nematodes, mice, flies and worms.
In fact there are several ways you can naturally activate autophagy in your body. It turns out that all of them involve one form of hormesis or another:
Calorie restriction and intermittent fasting. In my post on Calorie restriction and hormesis, I summarized some of the research on calorie restriction in humans, primates and other animals. including the role played by autophagy and other mechanisms. This is also described in my talk on Intermittent Fasting for Health and Longevity.
Brief, strenuous exercise. A 2012 paper in Nature by Levine et al. in mice found that “Exercise is even faster than starvation” at inducing autophagy… “If you just exercise the mice for 30 minutes on a treadmill, autophagosomes start to form. Thirty minutes of running induces autophagy 40 to 50 percent.”
Hormetic stress in general. A wide range of short term, intense but sublethal stressors have been shown to activate autophagy via a common pathway. Criollo et al. showed that multiple stressors, including nutrient starvation and numerous chemicals, trigger the activation of the IKK (IκB kinase) complex, inducing the classical autophagy pathway involving p53 depletion, mTOR inhibition, AMPK and JNK1 activation, and release of the pro-autophagic protein Beclin-1. How many of the other hormetic stressors we’ve discussed in this blog– such as cold showers–might effectively activate autophagy?
Why I prefer natural stressors. So perhaps you might be persuaded you to at least consider trying intermittent fasting and exercise (better yet: fasted workouts) to activate your autophagy. If you are one of those who finds that vitamin D helps reduce colds or asthma symptoms — try skipping meals and snacks, and cut back on carbohydrates and excess protein. I eat one or two small meals a day, mostly low carb or Paleo, and I can’t remember the last time I had a flu or cold.
But taking vitamin D supplements is so much more convenient, right? I mean — why go to all the effort to subject yourself to uncomfortable hormetic practices when you can just pop a tiny, inexpensive gel capsule once day? Or even if you go in for exercise and intermittent fasting, why not hedge your bets and throw in vitamin D supplementation too, just to strengthen the brew?
Ultimately a decision like this is a personal one. You can read all the studies and science that’s out there, but each of us has a different way of balancing considerations of risks and effort, science and intuition. I can’t make that decision for you. But I’ll leave you with one thought:
The human species has existed on earth for about six millions years, mammals for 160 million years. Basic cellular defense and repair mechanisms, including autophagy, have played an essential role in protecting us against degenerative diseases during most of that history. Real world stressors act broadly and in a varied manner. And we have evolved to experience these stressors in their full variety. As Art DeVany likes to point out, real world stressors have ”fractal” pattern that keeps our metabolisms guessing. To the extent that vitamin D is protective against these diseases, it is likely because vitamin D activates the autophagy signaling pathways. But as David Agus notes in the video I linked above, vitamin D hits a single node in the signaling pathway. Supplementation protocols provide the same fixed amount of vitamin D, day in and day out.
Our ancestors did not have access to a highly purified, concentrated vitamin D pills to activate their autophagy at a fixed dosage every day. They did it the old-fashioned way: they “earned” their autophagy with natural and varied stressors like intense physical activity and more sporadic access to foods (and foods with lower insulin and mTOR activation potential). And they got their vitamin D from the sun and certain fatty foods — again in a varied pattern.
This old-fashioned way of activating autophagy is a experiment that has been running for millions of years. Chronic, life-long supplementation with high doses of vitamin D is a relatively recent innovation. Do you want to be so dependent on a single compound you take every day? What happens if you are away from civilization for a few days without your vitamins?
The key fat loss recommendation in this latest article, as well as the previous one (“Obesity starts in the brain”) to apply hormetic stress.
Intermittent fasting, high intensity exercise (not slow aerobics), and cold showers will lower basal insulin, increase BDNF in the brain, stimulate norepinephrine and alter fat metabolism. A secondary recommendation is to minimize (not necessarily avoid) foods that contain compounds known to inflame the hypothalamus — principally high levels of fructose and sucrose, or palmitic acid (found in meat and dairy that is grain-fed rather than grass fed). You can also add anti-inflammatory oils (fish oil, coconut oil) and anti-inflammatory vitamins and minerals (vitamin D, magnesium, zinc) to your diet.
The above recommendations concern direct modification of hypothalamic function. The second main point I made in the article is that regulation of body fat (and other drives) can be changed via “deconditioning” of behavioral responses to cues that are coded in the amygdala.
The most specific advice I can provide is given in my article on the Deconditioning Diet (http://bit.ly/x2EvOh). In short: (1) cut back on carbohydrates and cut out snacks (2) use cue-exposure therapy to extinguish your conditioned cravings; (3) cut out occasional meals and attempt intermittent fasts of 12-20 hours.
Changes to the hypothalamus typically take weeks to months, so don’t expect an immediate benefit. On the positive side, the resulting adaptations are typically quite robust and sustainable.
Hope that helps give you a more specific idea of how to apply these ideas.
As I discuss in 
I have not tried the coconut oil part but might start that shortly.. take some after the 15 hr fast for women that you recommended or at the 13/14 hr mark?
I recall Mat Lalonde saying that his breakfast was often 1/2 cup of coconut milk, which provided a sense of satiety but, he believed, didn’t interfere with autophagy. Not sure whether the carbs in the coconut milk would be sufficient to disrupt ketosis, but there’s only about 6g in a 1/2 cup, so I’d be inclined to doubt it.
With the colder weather coming on I am ramping up my IF again. For October I’m starting back easily with just two 16-hour fasts a week. The number of weekly fasts will increase throughout fall, followed by increasing their duration in winter.
Coconut Milk has almost no protein, so Mat is probably right in believing it wouldn’t interfere with autophagy. It is the amino acids in protein that interrupt autophagy. As for interrupting ketosis, that might vary from person to person as well as the timing of the beverage.
I have been doing my own little version of this, but
with romaine lettuce and olive oil, as a meal for dinner
only. Just as a light three day thing.
Problem, as I was re-checking my data on romaine lettuce, I was dismayed to find that it has a substantial amount of sugars. I don’t know if this interfered with ketosis as I can not afford keto sticks.
But, I do feel like I am in ketosis.
What do you think of romaine lettuce as part of this “experiment” ?
Ketostix are dirt cheap at Wal-Mart.
I gotta admit though that I’m concerned about the possibility of over-consumption of coconut products. I doubt my genetic line (Northern European) feasted on coconuts over the past few millenium – but who the heck knows…
I suppose I could try to replicate the experiment with pork lard and/or duck fat…
- Alex Zinchenko
Just curious, thanks!
Thanks!
That rash was likely a fungal infection from funghi that live on ketones. GOOGLE site:perfecthealthdiet.com RASH FUNGAL and let us know how you got rid of it
“… short chain fats in our lingo encompasses the standard “short-chain” and “medium-chain” — 12 carbons or fewer. Since they’re handled similarly biologically, we thought it made more sense to use a descriptive term instead of technical jargon.”