Intermittent fasting
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ppoiter
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Cheers mate, I'd probably cheat on the 6th within an 8 h window anyway, never been a fan of breakfast so I'd keep skipping it unless there was a specific benefit.
As we speak I'm 18 h into my first ever 24 h fast. Got pretty bad hunger pains around 16 h but feeling great now. Might even press through to 36 if I can sleep
- May 8, 2007
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Go the 36
I like a 4 day fast every 6-8 weeks, thats a great test of willpower, but after the first day its surprisingly easy and the energy and feeling you get when resuming with a quality small meal is amazing.
I have a few questions I hope someone can answer for me.
I'm going to give the IF a try, but have been taking a pre-workout of 2g L-Carnitine, 2g Green Tea extract, 500mg L-Tyrosine, 3g Creatine Ethyl Ester and 15g BCAA (containing a 1g dose of Citrulline Malate. I know I should cut my BCAA intake to 10g, but for the rest of the stuff, will this break my fasting state and if so, is there any way around it, or should I just drop the pre-workout stuff altogether?
Secondly, I've done a couple of days of IF and have so far found myself lacking energy during my workouts. What are IF'ers experience with this ... is it just something expected at the beginning, until the body's metabolic pathways adapt to the fasting state and will improve over time?
And lastly, I have read some suggestions to break the fast straight after a workout and others recommending to wait an hour to take full advantage of the fat metabolism. Does anyone have any opinions or experience about this they could share?
Thanks in advance.
I'm going to give the IF a try, but have been taking a pre-workout of 2g L-Carnitine, 2g Green Tea extract, 500mg L-Tyrosine, 3g Creatine Ethyl Ester and 15g BCAA (containing a 1g dose of Citrulline Malate. I know I should cut my BCAA intake to 10g, but for the rest of the stuff, will this break my fasting state and if so, is there any way around it, or should I just drop the pre-workout stuff altogether?
Secondly, I've done a couple of days of IF and have so far found myself lacking energy during my workouts. What are IF'ers experience with this ... is it just something expected at the beginning, until the body's metabolic pathways adapt to the fasting state and will improve over time?
And lastly, I have read some suggestions to break the fast straight after a workout and others recommending to wait an hour to take full advantage of the fat metabolism. Does anyone have any opinions or experience about this they could share?
Thanks in advance.
How do you go about this 4 day fast??Go the 36
I like a 4 day fast every 6-8 weeks, thats a great test of willpower, but after the first day its surprisingly easy and the energy and feeling you get when resuming with a quality small meal is amazing.
-what do you do in the lead up to the fast (ie, what foods do you eat before, how much)
-what time to you start/ finish
-what do you do upon resuming food (ie, what foods do you consume, how much in first sitting etc)
just really interested as i believe there could be a lot of benefits.
- May 8, 2007
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Generally i have my *first meal at 1pm and my last at 7pm (finish around 7.30pm) so from 7.30 on a Sunday after a normal meal i wont have my next feed until Thursday at 7pm, and its usually a big above ground green veg meal with a little fish and lots and lots of butter. I only consume water, black coffee and green tea in that period. After the first day its not as hard as you would imagine and its an amazing feeling to be so empty.
*Even though i have my first meal at 1pm i still have a 6am BP coffee, so technically i have broken my fast but that doesnt stress me one bit.
Also on my last 4 day fast i tried a little different by having 3 BP coffees spread through the day with the last no coffee and extra cocoa powder. Have to admit that was the best i can remember feeling and the night i broke it with a small feed i felt like i could run through a brick wall.
My next 4 day will be in 2 weeks and i will this time try a water only fast.
Geez, thanks for the helpful advice
I suppose if I wanted to be a dick, I could equally say you've already shown that having knowledge of one isn't requisite for having knowledge of the other.Don't take it personally mate. Did I say something wrong? If not, you should just be happy that someone can expand on your understanding. Isn't that what this board is about after all?
As for not knowing the basics of Leangains IF, yeah so what? IF is intrinsically more wide-ranging than just the Leangains method and it's this type of IF that I'm wanting some knowledge on. Despite having a loyal following, it's still a pretty young in terms of clinical data, but I am very interested to give it a go and see what results. So what's your problem?
- May 8, 2007
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I kinda agree with Ablett, your knowledge on nutrition seems beyond reproach yet the questions you asked appeared to be so basic a quick google would have given you the answer. It just seemed a little odd.
Anyway
Fasting has been around since time began, and leangains isnt nothing new its just a trendy name put to a time frame. As long as its over 12-13 hours which is the time frame for the digestive tract to empty it can be any spread.
The best long term data available was the great depression in America, and the most interesting stat was the average adult life span increased 9 years. (source "Eat, fast and live longer)
It will take 3 days to a week. When i started i monitored myself with a Sunto doing cardio 5 mornings and my times/data were well down the first 3-5 days and then slowly started to climb. After 3 weeks my averages were up about 10% on pre fasting, so it definitely worked for me.
And i cant see that being to different with weight/strength training. Once your body adapts it should be business as usual.
Anyway
Fasting has been around since time began, and leangains isnt nothing new its just a trendy name put to a time frame. As long as its over 12-13 hours which is the time frame for the digestive tract to empty it can be any spread.
The best long term data available was the great depression in America, and the most interesting stat was the average adult life span increased 9 years. (source "Eat, fast and live longer)
It will take 3 days to a week. When i started i monitored myself with a Sunto doing cardio 5 mornings and my times/data were well down the first 3-5 days and then slowly started to climb. After 3 weeks my averages were up about 10% on pre fasting, so it definitely worked for me.
And i cant see that being to different with weight/strength training. Once your body adapts it should be business as usual.
Cheers for the advice. I use Xtend during workouts, will this affect the advice given? Or should I still be taking tradtional BCAA (capsule form) pre and post workout?
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Just did a google search, it seems its 0 carb and 0 sugar which is good. I am far from an expert on all ingredients but it's a good start. If it helps you during the work out keep using it.
ppoiter
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Just thought Id post some quick thoughts on my first 24 hour fast for anyone thinking of having a go. The first 16 hours were a piece of cake since I've already been doing 16/8 for over a month. After about 18-19 hours I didnt feel even hungry at all. After about 22-24 hours I started feeling very lethargic and slow, (trouble focussing, getting words out of order, sort of a similar feeling to being jet-lagged) so I gave in and had a meal, which didnt really help that feeling tbh but this morning I woke up feeling fine. I think in hindsight I could have pushed through, its really more a mental battle with your mind telling you you need to eat rather than a case of your body urgently requiring nourishment.
For anyone who is used to 16 hour fasts, it really isnt much of a leap to go 24, next stop 36!
For anyone who is used to 16 hour fasts, it really isnt much of a leap to go 24, next stop 36!
General bio-chem/nutrition and Berkhan's IF method are hardly the same topic. I have no idea why an understanding of one would demand or disqualify an understanding of the other at this point.
Re my questions. I have the idea that the pre-workout stuff wouldn't be too insulinogenic, but thought that here would be a good place to check, particularly from an experiential point of view. I also assumed my in-training energy levels would improve as the metabolic pathways changed, but again, was interested in others experience of it and the time-frames I could expect. And on my last question, I've seen differing suggestions and both seem to make sense in theory, so yet again, I was just looking for those who have experience to give me some insight and guidance on the journey. What's the problem with that?
Yes, I could have googled it, or run with my own assumptions ... or I could have just posted on a health and fitness forum in the thread about IF that I happened to be reading when the questions came to me. I don't see what the problem is. I didn't realise that I required a minimum level of knowledge to qualify me the privilege of asking questions here without it being odd.
Thanks. I assumed this would be the case. I used to 24hr fast on a weekly basis years ago, but never trained in a fasted state, so the experience is all new to me.
Just on The Depression stuff btw, it's not clinical data. But yeah, IF has been around since the dawn of time, it's just that Leangains has it's own way of doing things that I'm just learning now.
Thanks for that. Any one else care to shed some light on this? Should I be restricting my BCAAs to just pre workout then continue to have Xtend during workout? I.e. if I have BCAAs pre (capsule), intra (within Xtend) and post (capsule), is this too much or going to affect my body?
Also, with the zero sugar and carbs, will this not break my fast? I don't train fasted (I fast 8pm to 12pm next day and train around 6pm). Is there an optimal time to use Xtend?
Thanks!
Xtend is a good product but contains Sucralose as it's artificial sweetener, Sucralose is derived from sugar by a chemical extraction so it has to have a carb count but there is a loop hole that if a product contains only a certain % of sugar supp companies can claim its sugar free.
Make your own Xtend & then your can control what's in it & what dosages.
Add 15g raw BCAA to 2litre of water , add 100ml of lemon juice & some stevia to mask the BCAA taste .
Start sipping on it 15mins pre training-during training & finish the rest after training.
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I do 36 hour fasts semi-regularly and the 20-24 hour period is definitely the hardest part.
Once I get past that I usually wake up the next morning not hungry at all and have no problem pushing through until lunchtime.
ppoiter
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Say your last meal is dinner and at bedtime the following day you're ~26 hours into your fast, do you ever have trouble getting to sleep? Worrying about that was the main reason I gave in and ate, hunger wasn't really a huge factor
pressurepoint
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This is sage advice. As a beginner I am getting the 16:8 down pat first - which is 1 - 9 pm. I am currently exercising after my last meal at 9pm. That is probably not the most optimal time for working out but its a start.
I will gradually work towards exercising in the morning while fasted.
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evo
Let's hit the f*ken road!
I do regular 36 hour fasts and find that if I'm having a bit of a struggle around the 22-24 hour mark I just have a cup-a-soup. It temporarily puts you out of the fasted state, but it would only be for an hour or so and then you are back to burning fat again and can comfortably push on to the full 36 hours.
It's a good compromise.
Fasting is mainly a mental battle but you don't have to be an absolute Spartan about it. If a super light snack, a diet coke or some sugerless mints help you, then use it i reckon.
evo
Let's hit the f*ken road!
Having trouble sleeping can be one of the pitfalls of fasting. There's no real way around it. Digesting food is a big part of your daily energy expenditure. Ergo if u aren;t eating your body sense it doesnt need the full 8 or 9 hours
Sorry for the noob questions but just trying to make sure I'm doing everything correctly.
1. I've already got nearly a whole tub of Xtend, so I'll use that before trying your recipe. Will using Xtend during a fasted workout break the fast? I know you said it contains Sucralose and therefore must contain a carb count - but will this completely break the fast?
2. I currently train around 6pm in the middle of my 8 hour eating window. Should I be consuming BCAAs in another form (capsules or powder) other than Xtend pre or post workout?
Once I get in to IF a bit more (it's only been a few weeks) I'll be looking in to switching my workouts so I train in the morning during my fast.
Thanks for your help!
There is an approach (I think it's Atkins) that counts Sucralose as one teaspoon being equal to 0.5g carb and around about 2 calories.
While this wouldn't seem to be an issue with fasting calorie allowances, my concern with Sucralose is that studies have shown it to trigger an insulin response. The mechanism behind this hasn't really been figured out yet, but it's likely due to the fact that digestion of sugars and starches starts in the mouth, with receptors on the tongue detecting sweetness and releasing salivary amylase - an enzyme that initiates carb digestion - and triggering an insulin response in preparation for sugars being released into the blood. While Stevia is a natural and far better option as a sweetener overall, I think the jury is still out on how it affects in people in this regard.
I don't know how you would go chugging down your Xtend or Stevia alternative in one gulp and immediately washing your mouth out with some warm salty water, but it might be worth a shot at trying to neutralise this effect to some degree if you're concerned about it. Just an idea I had while writing this, completely unsupported by any scientific study.
evo
Let's hit the f*ken road!
If it's only a few calories who cares? Even if insulin rises there is no calories to be stored as fat.
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Yeah there are varying degrees of fasting, if you want to follow it to the tee then you would just consume BCAA within noting else, but you could only do this with capsules i don't know anyone who could down pharmaceutical grade BCAA powder and nothing else. Or the other end of the scale BP Coffee where you consume larger amounts of calories from fat that doesn't affect insulin levels. Each to their own.
For me i fast between 8pm and midday only consuming Green tea, super greens with 5g of BCAA.
