Eat Stop Eat PDF - Review and Download

Eat Stop Eat PDF Download Free - You Won't Believe The Results

Isabella+ • February 26, 2013 • 6 Comments

The Eat Stop Eat PDF Download is based on the concept of intermittent fasting, its written by Brad Pilon. Which supports everything referenced in the Eat Stop Eat PDF with scientific evidence by explaining intermittent fasting and it is benefits.  

Typical diet advice is usually to consume six small meals each day, don’t skip breakfast and eat simply a certain amount of calories.  This type of fasting is the practice of completing a couple of 24 hour fasts during weekly, consisting only of water, and after that eating sensibly the rest from the week.  It is very accommodating and helps your overall nutrition plan.  

Some things were simpler than I was expecting, and some were shockingly troublesome.

This is a Eat Stop Eat PDF Review – Visit The Official Site Here

Who is Brad Pilon?

Brad Pilon recently worked at on of the top supplement companies in the world as a ‘Research & Development Manager’. He would travel all over the world to meet with the industries leading researchers of weight loss and muscle building. Brad Pilon takes his years of expertise to debunk all the garage the food and supplement companies tell you. He’s an expert when it comes to intermittent fasting when its related to weight loss and gaining lean muscle. He goal has always been to share the truth about the weight-loss and supplement industry, and to help people lose weight and gain muscle. You can read more about Brad Pilon over at the – Brad Pilon Blog.

What is Eat Stop Eat PDF?

The Eat Stop Eat PDF is a compilation of research studies related to the health, weight-loss, and muscle gaining benefits of intermittent fasting. Its a very short but thuro read, its a must read for anyone that is considering fasting for weight loss, or looking for that “magic pill”. Because, intermittent fasting is as close to a magic pill as your going to get. Brad Pilon mentions the different ways we are brainwashed by marketing from the supplement and food industry.

What are The Eat Stop Eat Benefits?

• Insulin levels decrease & insulin sensitivity increases


• Blood glucose levels will decrease


• Increased lipolysis and fat burning


• Weight loss and fat loss increases


• Chronic inflammation decreases


• Increase growth hormone production


• Helps prevent cancer


• Detoxifies the body of toxins and impurities


• Better mental clarity

Check out these other health benefits of fasting , and there are even more benefits of fating discussing in the Eat Stop Eat PDF…

Does Eat Stop Eat Work?

 

Yes, it does. It works be decreasing you overall caloric intake for the week by up to 25%. How does it do this? By using the intermittent fasting techniques suggested by Brad Pilon. Everything suggests you follow in the Eat Stop Eat PDF is backed 100% by scientific references to the suggested studies Brad is talking about.

The Eat Stop Eat PDF does not provide diets to lose weight, it actually promotes a health lifestyle unlike most of the popular guaranteed weight loss books on the market. Eat Stop Eat does on the other hand promotes “healthy weight loss”. Providing you with a simple to follow intermittent fasting “diet” that will have you losing weight effortlessly. I personally believe that if you choose to follow the intermittent fasting diet outlined by Brad Pilon, you will find that its the best way to lose weight. While I’m actually writing this review while I’m 13 hours into my fast.

Eat Stop Eat is definitely the easiest and most effective weight-loss plan I’ve even been on. You won’t have to eliminate the food you love, the Eat Stop Eat PDF suggests that when you’re on an intermittent fasting program that you’ll be able to burn fat during your fasted days and maintain/loss fat on your feed days (this of course depends on your daily calorie consumption).

The first couple times I did intermittent fasting I found it quite difficult to not give into the cravings that would always creep up on me around the 12-14 hour mark. But none-the-less after 3-4 fasting days you’ll be able to power through the “hunger pains”. I also find I have so much more energy and I don’t need to take mid-day naps.

The Good

• Very short but very descriptive (takes less the 2 hours to complete)


• Professionally written and based off research and not theory


• Doesn’t try to persuade you this is the best fat loss method around, but gives you the scientific facts as to why it works and is effective


• Advocates a healthy lifestyle that includes exercise rather then putting you on a fad diet


• Compared to other diets I’ve been on, the Eat Stop Eat program aims for flexibility


• Teaches you everything you’ll ever need or what to know about how to fast successfully

The Bad

• Brad talks about his past about how he’s just an average guy, wasn’t needed. I was sold once I purchased the PDF


• Near the end Brad Pilon seemed to contradict himself from the earlier declarations made about metabolic results due to fasting


• Also near the end facts start to get a bit repetitive

Eat Stop Eat PDF Conclusion

The Eat Stop Eat PDF is a very good book explaining the different health benefits of fasting for fast loss and gaining lean muscle. I found eat stop eat to be much better than ‘The Miracle of Fasting’. I would definitely recommend this book to everyone I know that workouts out, eats healthy, and just overall wants a healthier lifestyle. I dont regret buying this book. It takes the minimalist approach to weight-loss and will require little effort if any from anyone who tries it.

Brad Pilons approach to the weight-loss industry is a fresh approach that I enjoyed, Brad Pilon focuses on explaining the scientific facts of fasting and not focusing on what you should and should not be eating. You’ll should be able to read the book in just over an hour, which will give you a few life changing tips to add to your weekly regime.

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

Intermittent Fasting – Brad Pilon responds to critics ...... | Brad Pilon's 'Eat Blog Eat'

Intermittent Fasting – Not My Fight | Brad Pilon's 'Eat Blog Eat'

The truth about the intermittent fasting is bad for you movement is this: There are a group of people who have made millions of dollars convincing you that weight loss has to be complicated, and that you absolutely need their expertise to cut through this confusion to create the ideal weight loss diet. For these people there is a large financial benefit to attacking IF.

There are also people who are genuinely curious about IF and have found some sort of information in the scientific community that troubles them, so they decided to broadcast it and their ideas to the world.  I don’t mind this second group, since they help expand our understanding of how IF works. However, they are the minority.

Intermittent Fasting – Not My Fight

by Brad Pilon

I promised myself that I wouldn’t take it upon myself to DEFEND intermittent fasting…mostly because I do not see that as my role.

I enjoy intermittent fasting, and it is what I do to stay lean. I am educated in intermittent fasting, and I enjoy writing about it, but I don’t see it as my child that I need to defend when someone kicks sand in its face on the playground that is the internet.

Yet, here I am.

Hopefully, you’ll see that I’m not about to defend Intermittent Fasting, but rather defend logical thought.

Most of (but not all) the slander about intermittent fasting that is popping up on the net is a mix of purposeful attacks (typically to gain traffic and Google rankings) and logical fallacies – ideas that seem logical, but on further investigation are lacking in soundness and validity.

I really don’t mind when people discuss possible negatives of IF, since it forces me to expand my understanding of the research. However, I do mind when people cloud the science of IF with logical fallacies.

I want to start with an obvious logical fallacy – that a high protein diet is exactly the same as intermittent fasting because it has almost identical effects on hypocretin neurons. Fine, then by that rationale, intermittent fasting is exactly the same as a high protein diet.

Obviously this is incorrect, since high protein diets have  myriad of health effects the intermittent fasting simply does not have. Which is exactly my point – intermittent fasting also has a myriad of health effects that a high protein diet does not have. The fact that they share many similar health effects does not make them the same.

(as an analogy: I am not a twin of every other person on earth who is 5’10″ with brown curly hair.)
Secondly, as to the negative health affects of intermittent fasting I can say two things:

1) There is no diet style is so perfect that it works for everyone who tries it – hopefully this is obvious and doesn’t need any further discussion;

2) I find it sad that this myth is often perpetuated by people who are supporters of the Paleo way of life. While I have no qualms with paleo, I do know that they have had to fend off their share of scientific attacks – including that a high protein diet increases the rate of Cancer, Diabetes and Osteoporosis. So it’s sad to see a group of people (or rather one or two members) jump on the ‘IF is bad for you’ band-wagon based on a couple of comments made in the scientific community, when they themselves know how frustrating it can be to be attacked by incomplete-science.

The truth about the intermittent fasting is bad for you  movement is this: There are a group of people who have made millions of dollars convincing you that weight loss has to be complicated, and that you absolutely need their expertise to cut through this confusion to create the ideal weight loss diet. For these people there is a large financial benefit to attacking IF. There are also people who are genuinely curious about IF and have found some sort of information in the scientific community that troubles them, so they decided to broadcast it and their ideas to the world.  I don’t mind this second group, since they help expand our understanding of how IF works. However, they are the minority.

Moving to the intermittent fasting and insulin resistance story – I wish I could say that the people who perpetuate this story should know better, but sadly, I think they DO know better, and that this was a purposeful scientific oversight. There is a transient decrease in insulin sensitivity when fat burning is elevated. This is pretty standard physiology. As long as fat burning is increased there will be a slight compromise in the amount of glucose that can be transported into your muscles, because those same muscles are busy burning fat and have no reason to be taking up glucose while this is happening. So the results do illustrate that after longer fasts (36+ hours)  there has been (but not always) a finding of a reduced amount of glucose entering muscles, but we do need to look at other situations where fat burning is elevated for more than a couple hours and you will see similar transient levels of decreased glucose disposal because again the muscles are busy burning fat.

A prime example would be the decreased glucose disposal after a marathon event. Running marathons do not cause diabetes. As with most scientific findings, we have to ask does glucose disposal remain decreased for weeks and months or is this something that only occurs during periods of elevated fat oxidation? This does not mean we should ignore these scientific findings, but maybe we should stop using them as a scaremongering tactic. Especially without fully explaining the intricacies of the study in question.

Keep in mind, the other day I reviewed a scientific study that suggested that lazy-boy style recliners caused diabetes by crushing the pancreas under the weight of your stomach. You can find at least one study that says just about anything – that’s why we always analyze the information from the total body of research, and not just one or two studies.

Finally, I’d like to talk about my old favorite – Intermittent fasting and muscle building. I’ll just cut right to the chase with this one. From my understanding of the available science, weight training DOES NOT cause muscle growth. It SENSITIZES the muscle to the anabolic affects of eating protein.

• No workouts, no muscle growth.


• No protein, no muscle growth.


• Workouts plus protein = muscle growth… at least for a short while.

THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT PROTEIN NEEDS TO BE EATEN EVERY TWO HOURS, AND IN MASSIVE QUANTITIES, OR EVEN RIGHT AFTER A WORKOUT

And here’s the key to this whole equation… MUSCLE GROWS SLOWLY, and if you are training consistently with a high amount of effort (Practicing the art of ‘consistency of effort’ as I like to call it) then EVERY protein meal you eat will be anabolic. And, since muscle grows slowly, any growth you see over a 2-3 month period is actually the result of 100′s of workouts and potentially 1000′s of protein containing meals.

The questions “how much protein” and “how often” are still being debated (and will probably continue to be a topic of debate for decades). This however doesn’t change the following point…there are no magic windows of time when you must eat protein, the ‘sensitization’ from your workouts can last for days if the volume and/or intensity was high enough, and quite frankly, there will come a time when all the protein in the world will not force you to gain any more muscle.

Don’t blame intermittent fasting for that last fact.

The bottom line is that no diet is perfect, and to be honest, I hate that fasting is becoming trendy just as much as you do… It’s not perfect by any means and it’s not for everyone.

When you’re reading the latest internet diet-gossip (which is what diet advice on-line really is becoming) keep in mind that sometimes (but not always) the person on the other side of the computer may not be using sound logic, and they may doing so on purpose.

I know it’s difficult, because to figure out if someone is telling the truth you would have to track down every single reference and read through the scientific findings to make sure it supports the claims made in the article (which is part of the reason I no longer read other peoples blog posts or articles unless they are people I find truly entertaining)

Again – no diet is perfect, IF probably isn’t going to cure cancer and turn you into the most muscular person in the world. It’s a tool… a very useful one in your arsenal against obesity. For many people it is the simplest and easiest approach to weight loss that fit into their lives without having to make drastic lifestyle changes.

The various forms of IF have helped thousands of men and women get in fantastic shape, yet there are some people who tried and simply thought “this isn’t’ for me” , and that’s fine too.

The end goal of IF, at least from my view, is simply to allow people to be comfortable with the idea that it’s OK to eat when they are hungry, and not eat when they are not hungry.

Like I stated in the beginning – I enjoy intermittent fasting, and I enjoy writing about it. I do not see the need to defend the concept of IF but I do see a need to point out when the fight isn’t fair.

It is very difficult to tell a person’s intentions on-line, and it is also difficult to tell whether or not their opinion should count. It is really is up to you and your ‘feel’ for the person. If you start to notice logical fallacies being a reoccurring theme in their writing, it’s time to let them go. (great resource for logical fallacies here)

My goal is to have this post serve as my ‘evergreen’ answer for when people what me to review a blog or article about fasting written by some on-line personality or coach. To be clear, if they raise a valid point worthy of true scientific thought, I will absolutely review it and include in the next edition of Eat Stop Eat, but I will not argue it on-line. If their point is not valid and is a logical fallacy or simply an attack to raise awareness of their site, or an attempt to keep their personally-designed scientifically-validated supplements selling , then I am not going to take it upon myself to be the whistle blower and attack them.

IF is a method of weight loss that really doesn’t take much expertise, you don’t need coaching or special supplements, and it’s becoming very popular – so it is NOT going to make a lot of friends in the next couple years.

In the end, I want to help people understand and explore IF, but it’s not my goal to try and change peoples minds or opinions.

My last couple blog posts were dedicated to helping people get the most out of intermittent fasting, however I did omit one last piece of advice that I will now add – If you don’t like IF, if it’s not fitting into your life, then you don’t have to do it. Simple, it’s not a failure, just not a good fit at the moment.

Eat when hungry, rest when tired.

BP

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

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.