My Philosophy of Intermittent Fasting | Brad Pilon's 'Eat Blog Eat'

My Philosophy of Intermittent Fasting | Brad Pilon's 'Eat Blog Eat'

by Brad Pilon

In a day an age where science is EVERYTHING, we sometimes forget that philosophy is the ‘thinking of thinking’ and needs to play an important role when we discuss how we should eat. After all, we shouldn’t confuse data collection with wisdom. The more we simply absorb data without truly critically analyzing its meaning, the more we can potentially fall victim to many of the diet and nutrition scams that are so prevalent in today’s world.

We have an unbelievable amount of data, and thanks to our  love affair with the ‘sound bytes’ that come from science we have all but abolished philosophy as a discipline, save for the quotes that occasionally appear on a person’s Facebook update status.

But philosophy is of critical importance if we are to truly understand how and why we eat.
It’s been said that philosophy calls us when we’ve reached the end of our rope. The insistent feeling that something is not right with our lives and the longing to be restored to our better selves will not go away.

I’d be willing to guess that ‘end of our rope’ ‘somethings not right’ and ‘restored to our better selves’ would accurately describe how many feel about nutrition and deciding what to eat.

We become philosophers to discover what is really true and what is merely the accidental result of flawed reasoning, recklessly acquired erroneous judgments, and the well-intentioned but misguided teachings of experts and gurus.  In this sense, philosophy and the scientific collection of data aren’t really opposites but rather necessary components of the whole ‘picture’.

No mater what nutritional beliefs you hold true, you will probably agree when I say that we simply cannot eat everything that is available to us on any given day. food is simply too abundant, too available and too cheap for us to live in a constant state of eating at raw impulse. Unless you are impoverished, the fact is there is more than enough food available to you – emphasis on more than enough. If you were to eat on impulse you would quickly become obese. We don’t need any more data collection to support this concept, but we do need to investigate what stops us from eating in this manner. Why we don’t all become obese by our tenth birthday.

In order to not gain an unbelievable amount of weight during our lives we must practice some form of restraint. In other words we ask ourselves, either consciously or subconsciously, “What is the right thing to do now – Eat, or not eat?”

The balance and proper use of this question is largely what determines whether or not we eat enough to gain weight.

This is the basic most fundamental philosophy behind intermittent fasting. If you consider Intermittent Fasting to be the ability to practice patience when it comes to the act of eating -  a conscious polite restraint when it comes to food intake, then the philosophy is simply - we do not have to eat all the time, therefore we are free to choose when we eat.

Intermittent fasting also involves minimizing the importance you place on large grandiose nutritional choices, instead, allowing you to concentrate on the small but significant inner food choice we make multiple times though out the course of any single day – should you eat or not eat?

In much of the world, how, what, and when we eat is a matter of habits. Habits that are learned, then reinforced over and over on a day-to-day basis. And while it is difficult, the truth is it IS possible to break old habits and it IS possible to create new ones.

You can think yourself lean and muscular. However, this is no easy task.

The first step is to separate yourself from the mob and decide to be extraordinary. As ridiculous as it sounds, simply accepting the concept that we do not have to eat all the time and therefore we are free to choose when we eat, is enough to already separate you from the way the majority of the population thinks about food.

Start with this fundamental belief then add in some concept of physical work, remembering that tentative efforts lead to tentative outcomes. Your physical work doesn’t have to be complicated but it does have to involve a high degree of effort.

Finally, be careful of slipping back into old habits. Once we fall, however slightly to im-moderation, momentum gathers and we fall right back into our old habits. This is one of the areas where Intermittent fasting can be extremely helpful. A break from eating can serve as a ‘reset’ when bad habits begin to creep back into our lives.  It’s a way to practice patience and to reinforce the understanding that it’s OK to wait to eat. You can wait for something better, or a better time, or a better person to eat with. You simply do not have to eat all the time.

My belief is that you can be a lean, muscular, healthy person without being obsessive about your food choices. You can accomplish this by being the type of person who realizes that since we do not have to eat all the time and we are free to choose when we eat, and by understanding the importance of physical training in this process.

That is my philosophy of Intermitent Fasting, and it’s the basis of Eat Stop Eat

Introduction to Intermittent Fasting | Brad Pilon's 'Eat Blog Eat'

Introduction to Intermittent Fasting | Brad Pilon's 'Eat Blog Eat'

The following are a collection of the best posts for explaining my specific approach to Intermittent Fasting:

Introduction to Intermittent Fasting

My Philosophy of Intermittent Fasting

Beyond Intermittent Fasting

How to Approach Intermittent Fasting

What will fasting do for you

Intermittent Fasting – Setting the Record Straight

Intermittent Fasting and Acne

Intermittent Fasting and Depression

Intermittent Fasting – A Primer | Cogito Ergo Edo

Intermittent Fasting – A Primer | Cogito Ergo Edo

irst thing first, just to get it out of the way, intermittent fasting is not a miracle cure for all that ails you. I think that there is a lot there to recommend it to people, I practice my version of it, and have been at it for coming on five years now, and I fully intend to keep doing it. I do recognize, however, that it cannot be all things to all people. If anyone tries to tell you that one size fits all, then you are dealing with a blatant charlatan and you ought to govern yourself accordingly.

What is intermittent fasting?

There is no clear cut definition, unfortunately, which contributes to the misunderstandings.  Wikipedia maintains that “Intermittent fasting (IF) is a pattern of eating that alternates between periods of fasting (usually meaning consumption of water only) and non-fasting.”  This definition is less than useless, as it practically suggests that eating the traditional three meals a day, and drinking water in between meals, which constitutes a pattern of eating alternating between fasting and non-fasting, is intermittent fasting.

For my part, I suggest that we adopt a pragmatic definition: “intermittent fasting is a pattern of eating that involves a greater interval between meals than generally culturally prevalent.”  So, if you habitually skip breakfast, you are fasting intermittently by our definition.  Skip breakfast and lunch?  Great, you fit the bill too.

One thing ought to be glaringly obvious in this definition due to its conspicuous absence: nobody said anything about calories. Should you choose eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner all at 7:32 PM EST every day, then you are intermittently fasting by this definition.  With that out of the way, we can dispell the first myth of IF – it is not starving.  Starving yourself does fit within the definition, but it is a degenarate case.  If you have some masochistic need to starve yourself and then call it IF, you certainly can, but the definition in no way requires it.

Why would you fast intermittently? The Intuitive Answer.

Going back to the intermittent fasting definition, at some point someone realized that to a large extent in modern society meals and meal times are culturally rather than biologically determined.  It didn’t always use to be that way, and we have the linguistic archeological record to prove it.  The word breakfast (as said by Sean Connery, the best of the Bonds in my opinion)  used to define a functional meal, the one that broke your fast, even if that were daily at 7:32 PM EST.  In modern society, the word has been co-opted and transformed from a functional definition into a cultural one where breakfast is your morning meal, generally consumed before heading off to work.  I expect that this arose as a consequence of industrialization given that factories thrive on predictability and conformity.  It is not clear to me that people thrive on conformity to the factory whistle, a point most eloquently made by Connery’s Bond who eats because he is hungry ( a biological imperative ), not because the time is appropriate for the meal ( a cultural imperative ).  The question is then, what is an eating frequency that is compatible with a biological imperative?

Another intuition that helps us answer the frequency question is the realization that there is a continuum of possible feeding schedules, and most of it represents ridiculous extremes.  Assuming we are aiming at a 3000 kCal diet, and sleep for 8 hours a day, we could eat 0.05 kCal for the 57600 seconds that we are awake.  That is, we could literally be constantly eating, albeit a miniscule amount of food each time.  This represents a practical upper bound on how frequently one could eat. For a practical lower bound, consider attempting to eat a week’s worth of food at one sitting, or 21000 kCal at one meal.

Assuming that our diet consisted of the most energy dense food we know, dietary fat, we would need to eat 2.33 kg, or 5.1 lbs, of fat at this meal.  Never mind the practical aspects of actually digesting this amount of fat, just the thought of attempting to do this is enough to revolt me.  So, it would seem that a reasonable continuum has once a week at one end, and once a second at the other, with the true value probably being much more narrowly banded.

I think enough of us know someone, or perhaps we are that someone, who does not eat breakfast because they do not feel hungry in the morning, even though they do not call that IF.  Given this it is not much of a stretch to make the intuitive leap from not eating breakfast, to just eating dinner, as being a reasonable bit of the meal frequency  continuum.

Why would you fast intermittently? The Appeal to Authority Answer.

Quick, name the first organized religion that comes to mind, and I’ll bet you that they have a tradition of fasting.  Whether Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, or Jew, people have been fasting for better or worse for thousands of years now.  I really don’t have much to say about a religious justification for fasting, but I will say that in Islam, we have a population that fasts every year for the month of Ramadan, eating and drinking nothing between sunrise and sunset.  Studying Muslim fasting populations allows scientist great insight into the effects of fasting on the human body, which brings us nicely to:

Why would you fast intermittently? The Scientific / Metabolic Answer.

One interesting aspect of fasting during Ramadan is that people tend to compress their eating schedule as the same quantitiy of food is ingested, but this is done in what amounts to one large meal in the evening. So, an interesting question to ask would be whether a greater interval betwee meals had any metabolic effect.  It turns out that if you fast during Ramadan, you can expect:

• A decrease in LDL cholesterol, and a concomittant increase in HDL (as found in this study, as well as this one. )


• A decrease in serum triglycerides ( same source as above.) 


• No change in your plasma cortisol concentration.


• No change in thyroid hormone levels (T3, T4).


• Lowered levels of homocysteine and C-reactive protein ( indicators of inflamation ).


• A pronounced lowering of insulin during the daily fast portion “favor[ing] a predominant lipolytic state.”


• You may experience some changes in body composition, but the studies are contradictory, although you are unlikely to gain weight.

Like I said, fasting during Ramadan has been extensively studied, and I could go on, but I think you get the point.  I have linked to all of the studies, but unfortunately, only some of them provide the full text.  The remainder are just abstracts, but worth reading, all the same.

In the above list, pay close attention to points 3, 4, and 5 because they relate to the hormonal impact of Ramadan fasting, and basically allow us to conclude that metabolically speaking, as far as the body is concerned, it’s all business as usual, if not better.  I make this point because invariably, when discussing intermittent fasting in the form of only eating one large meal in the evening, someone will start frantically beating the “starvation response” drum.  You can politely ask them how eating a day’s worth of calories in one meal can possibly constitute starvation, and then point them in the direction of the studies cited in 3, 4 and 5.

For me, this is absolutely fascinating because all you have done is monkeyed about with the timing of your meals, and derived a pretty good benefit from it for your effort.  It is almost as though you may have gotten something for nothing. Almost, but not quite.  Even the most basic understanding of the digestive process must include the realization that not all the things you put in your mouth are good for you.

Consequently, a large amount of digestive energy is expended in performing triage, separating the desirable aspects of our diet from the undesirable, assimilating the good bits, and disposing of the bad.  It would seem plausible that the observed benefits of Ramadan fasting might be due to the fact that the body is not continuously engaging in this metabolically taxing process throughout the day, but rather doing it all in one concentrated batch.

In the interest of full disclosure, I do not follow Ramadan style fasting insofar as I find the proscription on drinking during the day too strict.  I understand that this means that the conclusions reached in the studies I referenced therefore may not apply to me, as the observed effects may be due to the drinking behaviour in conjunction with the eating.  I don’t believe that this is the case, but my beliefs do not seem to affect objective reality, much to my consternation.

Stay tuned for part II …

Posted by pklopp on Apr 22, 2012 in diet | 5 comment

Intermittent Fasting - The After Report

Intermittent Fasting - The After Report

Thursday, June 14th, 2012

Written by: Kevin Cann

At the beginning of February of this year I started an individual experiment using a restricted feeding window to take in all of my calories (my initial article can be found here: http://robbwolf.com/2012/03/08/eat-eat-question/).  My schedule is never constant, and I am extremely busy between finishing graduate school and working two jobs.  Decreasing the amount of meals I had to prepare made my life much easier, and I saw some fantastic results, but buyers beware.

A recent study came out that showed the potential benefits of eating within a restricted feeding window.  Mice fed within this restriction showed to be protected against obesity, hyperinsulinemia, and inflammation,  had better motor control, and other important metabolic factors were better than the mice allowed to eat throughout the day.  The most interesting piece of this study is that both groups ate the same amount of calories from a high fat diet (Hatori, 2012).  In my personal experiment throughout the last 4 months, a lot of this has held true.

I have leaned out more during this period then I did playing college soccer.  I am able to maintain 6% body fat without any downside.  In the past any drop below 8-10% had negative consequences on my energy levels and recovery.  The crazy part of all of this is I haven’t even been eating as well as I have in the past either.  In fact there was a 5 week period where I was eating 60% paleo and 40% crap when alcohol consumption is added in.  There have been splurges on junk food, pizza, and the late night drunken fast food run a few times during this time period.  Amazingly, I was able to maintain 170lbs and the 6% body fat.  This is not all as good as it seems.

I stretched myself out too thin between school and work, and I got behind.  This caused my stress levels to rise, and now that I had less time to myself, my personal stress management was the first thing to go.  This caused my energy levels to get flushed down the toilet.  Instead of stopping this downfall then by seeing the signs, I decided to handle my energy levels by drinking more coffee.  I got up to about 6 cups of coffee on average per day.  The increased stimulation decreased my quality of sleep, and my mood started to become negative.  My workout performance and recovery were declining, and I actually got my first injury in my 5 years of mma training.  This is where my diet began to decline.

I wrote an article on how stress affects neurotransmitters and our cravings for food here: http://robbwolf.com/2012/04/26/diet-stress-biochemistry/.  I cited a study by Dallman that showed how our glucocorticoids increased our cravings for calorically dense sugary foods.  Dallman also concluded in her paper that she believes that people actually eat these foods to help alleviate the chronic stress response (Dallman, 2003).  I found this conclusion interesting at the time, but wasn’t sure what to think.

I have never been a person to be driven by food addiction.  When I started eating paleo I was able to cut out all the crap without any issues.  When I became stressed these cravings were so strong that I would actually convince myself, through self-talk, that it is ok to eat these foods.  From this experience I believe that Dallman’s conclusion may be right.

Maybe our bodies have adapted to handle the chronic stressors of daily life by increasing our cravings for calorically dense, high sugar foods.  These foods are in abundance and found literally everywhere.  It would make sense in a logical perspective that our bodies would drive us to these easily obtainable foods to counter a stress that we do not handle otherwise.  To further support this conclusion my cravings for these foods went away when I fixed my stress.

Once I realized that I was falling apart I decided to prioritize my problems and fix them one by one.  I got a melatonin supplement to help with sleep and I also went to bed earlier.  I continued to eat the 2 meals a day, but if I became hungry in-between I would have a paleo-friendly snack.  I also added in more safe starches to meals to make sure I was not too low with my intake of carbohydrates.  Doing this helped me decrease my caffeine consumption.  I focused the majority of my workouts on corrective exercises to scale them back.  Within a week I was back to normal.

I was able to keep my eating within the restricted feeding window while reversing a pretty stressful situation.  Throughout this entire process I have not gained any weight or body fat which is a really interesting factor considering my increasing cortisol and high sugar foods.  However, I have maintained this approximate weight and body fat percentage for quite a while now.  My experience also increases my belief that intermittent fasting can play a crucial role in health and well-being if we can maintain proper stress management, sleep well, and exercise wisely.

References

• Dallman, Mary (2003). Chronic Stress and Obesity. www.pnas.org. Retrieved on April 17, 2012.


• Hatori, Megumi (2012).  Time Restricted Feeding Without Reducing Caloric Intake Prevents Metabolic Diseases in Mice Fed  A High Fat Diet.  Journal of Cell Metabolism.  Retrieved on June 9, 2012.

Written by: Kevin Cann

 Kevin is owner of Genetic Potential Nutrition. He is a holistic nutritionist, wellness coach, and strength coach. He works with people fighting illness, to competitive athletes. Check out his site at www.geneticpotentialnutrition.com.

Intermittent Fasting and meal frequency.

Intermittent Fasting and meal frequency.

Thursday, March 8th, 2012

Written by: Kevin Cann

A hot topic in nutrition groups for a while now has been how many times a day should one eat, and intermittent fasting (IF).  Are more meals better, or fewer meals?  Should I try IF, or is it bad for me?  The problem with these questions is that it all depends on the individual.  In a study done by Holmstrup in 2010, he showed that eating fewer meals had better results on insulin production.  In normal weight individuals the group consuming six meals had higher glucose and insulin levels than the group that ate 3 meals (Holmstrup, 2010).  I took this study a little bit further.

I wake up every morning at 4:40am to open my gym at 5:30am.  I will have a cup of coffee with a small amount of coconut milk and one teaspoon of Stevia around 5:30am.  I workout Monday through Friday at 7:45am.  Workouts consist of various speed and agility drills, single leg squatting movements, various jumps, and strength training is done a couple days a week.  The strength training days consist of heavy squats, cleans, and presses.

I stay hydrated by drinking plenty of water and generally will come home and make my breakfast around 10:30am because it is generally about the time that I begin to feel hungry.  If I am hungry before that I eat and if I am not hungry then I will wait.  At that meal I will eat 4-6 omega 3 enriched eggs, leftover meat from the night before, 2 pieces of fruit (typically an orange, and a banana, sometimes with almond butter), and a heaping serving of veggies topped with olive oil and lemon juice.  In essence I combined breakfast and lunch.  I will then go back to work, come home and eat dinner at around 7:30pm.  This will consist of a large serving of meat or fish, and a substantial amount of vegetables.  On a night I have mma training I will add in white rice or a sweet potato with my meal for the extra carbohydrates.

The results I have seen have been outstanding.  I have been under 10% body fat for quite a while and found it difficult to reach the next level.  I enjoy my occasional cheat and also to indulge in a few alcoholic beverages on the weekend.  Most of my clients were similar to me and I wanted to find a way to help improve results without having to mess even more with people’s lifestyles.  My performance in my workouts and in my sport increased all while I dropped a little girth from my midsection.

Eating two meals a day forces me into periods of intermittent fasting.  I eat dinner at 7:30pm and then eat breakfast about 15 hours later.  Intermittent fasting has had some positive results in studies on a few different aspects.  One aspect is on insulin sensitivity.  In a study performed by Halberg he showed that a 20 hour fast every other day for 15 days increased insulin uptake by the muscles (Halberg, 2005).  Calorie restriction (CR) and intermittent fasting may also be a way to slow down aging.  Bronwen showed in his study that CR and IF can actually extend life by acting upon certain metabolic and cellular signaling pathways (Bronwen, 2006).  With all this being said, IF is not for everyone.

Jack Kruse has a great write up explaining the reasoning why IF should not be attempted if you are leptin resistant, and that can be found at www.jackkruse.com.

To sum it up briefly he explains how our body utilizes fats and glucose as energy, and leptin’s role in this whole process.  If our leptin signaling is not functioning properly then our metabolic pathways cannot handle the stress of IF and it can result in undesirable effects.  He also supports the notion that if we are doing everything right, IF can yield an increase in muscle mass and decrease body fat (Kruse, 2011).  IF is also a stressor to our bodies.  If we are over-trained, sleep deprived, or generally stressed out, then IF should not be attempted until all of those factors are taken care of.

If you are a competitive athlete looking for a change to peak performance, then fewer meals and daily IF may be what you are looking for.  If general weight loss is your goal, start with 3 paleo meals per day and keep IF as a potential game changer down the line.  IF is something that can definitely be beneficial but sleep, performance markers, and stress levels all need to be well taken care of or IF can have some negative results on body composition, performance, and mood.

References

Kruse, Jack (2011).  Intermittent Fasting and Leptin.  www.jackkruse.com.  Retrieved on March 1, 2012.
Halberg, Nils (2005).  Effect of intermittent fasting and refeeding on insulin action in healthy men.  Journal of Applied Physiology.  Retrieved on March 1, 2012.
Bronwen, Martin (2006).  Caloric restriction and intermittent fasting: Two potential diets for successful brain aging.  www.pubmed,gov.  Retrieved on March 1, 2012.
Holmstrup, Michael (2010).  Effect of meal frequency on glucose and insulin excursions over the course of the day.  The European Journal of Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism.  Retrieved on March 1, 2012.



Written by: Kevin Cann

Kevin is owner of Genetic Potential Nutrition. He is a holistic nutritionist, wellness coach, and strength coach. He works with people fighting illness, to competitive athletes. Check out his site at www.geneticpotentialnutrition.com.

All About Intermittent Fasting, in Under 10 Minutes

Intermittent Fasting E-book | Intermittent Fasting | John Berardi

A growing number of experts claim short fasts can accelerate fat loss and make you healthier. So we spent 6 months testing the most popular Intermittent Fasting (IF) protocols ourselves.

Find out what IF is, whether you should do it, and if so — how.

For years, Dr. John Berardi, Chief Science Officer of Precision Nutrition, has advocated frequent meals, spaced 3-4 hours apart, consisting of nutrient-dense, healthy food. That strategy — when combined with a smart exercise program and world-class coaching — has helped thousands of our clients drop over 120,000 pounds of fat in the last ten years.

Proponents of IF, on the other hand, eschew the idea of eating so frequently. Many claim to have achieved quicker fat loss and better health by deliberately skipping meals and sometimes going entire days without eating.
The IF research is still in its infancy — indeed, it may be 5-10 years before it reaches critical mass and becomes a mainstream nutritional idea — but in certain quarters, the benefits of intermittent fasting have reached almost mythical proportions.

With research lagging behind at a snail’s pace, but enough anecdotal evidence to go off of, we decided to do what we do here at Precision Nutrition: test it ourselves.
Here’s what Dr. Berardi found, in his own words.

Why Experiment With Intermittent Fasting?

I’m a professional dieter. In other words, I’ve done nearly every diet or nutritional protocol that’s around to test its efficacy.

Intermittent fasting has a very small, yet strong, following and enough research to pique my curiosity. I wanted to test it myself to see what kinds of physiological and psychological changes would come from it.

Also, as a competitive, masters-level track athlete and life-long fitness enthusiast, I wanted to test a new way to drop fat and get extremely lean, while staying strong and powerful.

What Did You Test?What Happened?What Are The Big “Takeaways”?So Intermittent Fasting Is Good, But Not Necessary?

Since there isn’t one definitive intermittent fasting protocol, I decided to test six different methods over the course of six months.

I kept meticulous notes on everything from scale weight, body-fat percentage, and blood/hormonal markers, to lifestyle markers like energy levels, cognitive thought, and pain-in-the-ass factors.

Over the course of six months, I dropped twenty pounds of weight, from 190 pounds to 170 pounds. I also reduced my body fat from 10% to 4% while maintaining most of my lean muscle mass. Finally, I found two intermittent fasting strategies that I could follow indefinitely with no problem.

Simply, I accomplished the goals I set for myself in a way that was easier and less time-consuming than “traditional” dieting.

I think there are four main takeaways that readers of this book should come away with.

1. Trial fasting is a great way to practice managing hunger. This is an essential skill for anyone who wants to get in shape and stay healthy and fit.


2. More regular fasting isn't objectively better for losing body fat. While my IF experiments worked quite well, the intermittent fasting approach (bigger meals, less frequently) didn't produce better fat loss than a more conventional diet approach (smaller meals, more frequently) might have.


3. More regular fasting did make it easier to maintain a lower body fat percentage. Intermittent fasting isn't easy. However, I did find that using this approach made it easier for me to maintain a low body weight and a very low body fat percentage vs. more conventional diets.


4. Intermittent fasting can work but it's not for everyone, nor does it need to be. In the end, IF is just one approach, among many effective ones, for improving health, performance, and body composition.

Exactly.

Intermittent fasting can be helpful for in-shape people who want to really get lean without following conventional bodybuilding diets, or for anyone who needs to learn the difference between body hunger and mental hunger. (And for the latter, I only recommend the Trial Fast.)

It’s a helpful tool and one I’ll continue to use periodically. But it’s not the end-all, be-all of nutrition or fitness. People have been getting in awesome shape — and staying in awesome shape — for decades without the use of intermittent fasting.

How Are IF and "Grazing" Similar?

Successful nutrition plans, whether they use smaller, more frequent meals or larger, less frequent meals all share a few commonalities. These include:

1. Controlling calories. When calories are controlled, progress is made. Whether you control them by eating frequent small meals or infrequent larger meals is up to you.


2. Focusing on food quality. Fresh, unprocessed, nutrient-dense food is a must, regardless of which eating style you adopt.


3. Regular exercise. Exercise is a critical part of the equation.

Once those three have been taken care of, it’s a matter of personal preference and lifestyle considerations.

I'd Like To Learn More. What's Next?

Have 10 minutes? Read Appendix A. It's a cheat sheet that shows you exactly how to do intermittent fasting, including specifics on our three favorite protocols.

Have 30 minutes? Read about the individual fasts in Chapters 4, 5 and 6. Then read the cheat sheet in Appendix A. Then check out Appendix B for some tips and tricks we learned along the way.

Have an hour or two? Read the entire Experiments with Intermittent Fasting book. We spent a lot of time researching, conducting the experiments, and writing. We’d love to share it with you and hear your thoughts.

Leangains Intermittent Fasting - Scooby's Home Workouts

Leangains Intermittent Fasting - Scooby's Home Workouts

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.

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.)


• For lifting, SS (Mark Rippetoe’s Starting Strength Program)


• 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.