Mass Bulking up whilst remaining fit

[evo]

I wasn't planning on blogging about my fast, but something weird happened this morning during my first 24 hour fast that I thought I would document.

Yesterday I had usual breakfest of porridge and honey, did a workout between 10am and 11 had a post workout shake. I then had my last meal before the planned fast at 2.30pm. I was a bit apprehensive so had what i would usually have for an average dinner: Roo steak, peas and mash potato.

I went pretty well for the rest of the day - no real hunger pains until about 10.30, got a bit niggly and started thinking about food - had a Pepsi Max (1cal). Went to bed and got up still feeling good. As mentioned above I was planning on easing in by doing a 16 hour first up, but I didn't feel particularly hungry so thought I may as well go for the 24 hour.

About mid morning I was feeling pretty energetic so thought, what the hell, while i'm in this fat burning zone I might just go for a brisk half hour walk, burn off a couple 100 calories - I was kinda curious if I was going to be lethargic or light headed or whatever. About 20 minutes into the walk a weird thing happened, I got this real energy surge, it felt like a dopamine surge or something, very similar to the feeling you get from a couple of scoops of pre-workout drink. Even though it's about 12 degrees outside, I had to take my hoody off. Anyway, I thought I would go with it, and ended up walking for 2 hours straight, doing exactly 10 kms for the round trip.

If the first up effort is any indication, I reckon working out heavy weights after a 24 hour fast should be no problem. I'm really surprised how much energy I have. I'm that pumped I feel like going another 24 hours, but I won't. The 'Eat Stop Eat' guy recomends doing 2 fasts a week if you're really keen so might try another one in 5 or 6 days.

About to break the fast as it's right on 24 hours. Just weighed myself, I'm 91.1k that's 2.3kg lighter than I was on Wednesday. Most of that will be waterweight, I guess. .

 

[fairdinkum]

Thanks for the feedback, keep it coming.

Coincidentally, I didn't intend to go on a fast but, due to a few things that came up, didn't eat (or drink anything but water) between 6.30pm yesterday and 10.30am this morning. That's 16 hours and I felt fine. No dopamine rush, though.

 

[evo]

So I did another 24 hour fast yesterday -it was a spur of the moment one. Had normal dinner at 8PM. Woke up next morning and wasn't hungry so decided to hang out until dinner that night. Was a fair bit easier this time. Just drank water and had a diet coke mid afternoon.

Went for a walk just before the breaking of the fast , ~7kms. Had an energy rush again but not as much as last time.

Weighed myself just now: 89.1kg. That's over 4kg lighter in a week. Pretty staggered how easy it has been actually.

My maitenance daily calories is ~3000, and I'm burning 500-600 calories extra on that walk, so I figure I'm burning an extra 3500 calories as fat every time I fast. They reckon back of the envelop that amounts to one pound. So by rights I should've lost 2lbs of fat over the 2 fasts. I guess the other 3kg is water weight?

I set new highs in my deadlift and bench press this week, so no compromise so far in strength.

It seems too good to be true.

 

[fairdinkum]

It seems too good to be true.

I was afraid you would say that.

 

[ThePezDispenser]

Where did the 24 hour fast come from?

Everything I read from that Martin bloke was about 16 hour fast followed by 8 hours of eating to hit your macros. I can't see the sense in eating no food.

 

[lysp]

24 hour fast is from eat-stop-eat. Pretty sure martin links to that book on his site.

There are a few diff variations of IF though.

16/8 - leangains
20/4 - warrior
24-36 hour fast once per week - eat-stop-eat.

 

[evo]

yep, what cfol said.

leangains you could actually apply every day - you just eat in the 8 hour window. And for you fellas who want to get into single digit body fat you could get really keen and do leangains every day, then do eat-stop-eat fast once a week as well. That's what the hodgetwins I linked to above are doing.

I like the eat-stop-eat method because it only inconveniences you once a week. The rest of the time you can carry on the way you have always eaten.

 

[Syphoncom]

Any decent examples of this? I'd happily do eat-stop-eat depending on the effects on strength. Just take the day off the gym? Cardio mixes?

I've gotta duck out and will read up more on it later, but for anyone kind enough to give some basic info that'd be much appreciated

 

[lysp]

Big article on it here, comparing different methods.

http://www.precisionnutrition.com/intermittent-fasting

Otherwise go through www.leangains.com

 

[evo]

Big article on it here, comparing different methods.

http://www.precisionnutrition.com/intermittent-fasting

I liked the start of his essay. It was the same for me:

It's weird. You know that hunger feeling you get about 4-5 hours after your last meal? Where you stomach is reminding you it has been a while? I'm not even that hungry.

I've learned that hunger peaks at that point and immediately diminishes. After a while, even if you haven't eaten, you get less hungry.

 

[evo]

G'day mkicksolo. Was just wondering how you were doing on the Leangains. I have read a lot of very promisingf reports on this fasting buiso.

I've just finished reading a book he recommends on that site: 'Eat Stop Eat'. I was quite impressed by the claims that it raises your levels of HGH. A bloke my age can probably do with all the HGH he can naturally get, I figure.

Thinking of trying it out by going one day a week where I fast for 24 hours. The rest of the weeks diet and weight training will remain the same. I'll see if I can stick at it for 3 months. I work out 2 days on 1 day off - will probably fast on a day off.

Thought I might document my weight in this thread.

Just weighed myself 93.4 kg. I'm 6'1, BTW.

Just a bit of an update on my experience using IF combined with weight training.

Weighed myself this morning and it was 83.5kg, so I've lost a point under 10kg in 8 weeks. Originally I estimated that 10kg would be my goal but I slightly underestimated how much stomach fat I was carrying. I probably have to drop another ~4kg to be genuinely lean.

I've gotta say I've found IF a fantastic way to lose weight without having to suffer too much. Granted it is probably not for everyone's dispostion, but it suits me perfectly. What I have been doing is an intermittent fast once every six or seven days - when I'm not fasting I actually overeat by about ~500 calories / day just to be on the safe side as I'm still trying to build more muscle.

The first few times I did 24 hour fasts; but after doing a bit more research found that 36 hours fasts are really the ultimate sweet spot for maximal weight losses for the amount of 'suffering' without muscle loss. If you have your last meal as a big dinner at say 8PM, then go without food the entire next day, you only have to get in that extra sleep to make the 36 hour fast. It is the that last 12 hours where you really make the big fat losses in my experience. That second night without food usually results in a .5 kg loss alone by morning.

Earlier in the thread I was doing cardio, (long walk) just before I broke the fasts but gave that away, mainly due to bad weather or laziness. I did however weightlift fasted sometimes. Generally I found that working out fasted didn't affect my intensity overly but i did have to wait a little longer in between sets to recover. You can actually feel your heart working a little harder when you work out fasted. From the reading I've done, it does take the body a little longer and it has to work a little harder to get energy from fat stores than it it does if you were just getting energy from glycogen ( blood sugar stores). i did use a pre-workout drink (Jack3d) which helped.

THe interesting thing about fasting I've found is that after 5 or 6 hours of not eating you go through a bit of tough patch where you feel really hungry, but if you drink a cold water or a diet coke that feeling quickly passes. After that it gets way easier than you would imagine. You actually forget that eating is part of your daily life. A couple of times I woke up after a 36 hour fast and still didn't feel hungry at all. I could've easily have gone another 24 hours but given that I have read that after 48 hours you can start to burn muscle thought that that wouldn't be wise.

I'm fairly confident I haven't lost any muscle overall over the last 8 weeks and in fact have put a bit of muscle on chest and shoulders. Unfortunately I have had a bicep tendon injury so haven't been able to do any pulling exercise, so may have lost a little off the lats and biceps. Tendon is nearly recovered so hopefully I'll be able to get them to catch up over the next few months. Having said that a lot of my my maximum lifts haven't gone up much, if anything, so perhaps I'm being a bit deluded about new muscle. I have been off Creatine for the last few weeks, just to take a break from it, so that may account for lack of strength gains ( it also probably accounts for an extra KG in weight loss)

Generally I feel a lot healthier than I did 8 weeks ago. Skin feels better and a gastric reflux problem I've had for the last 5 years seems to have almost been cured. Also obviously being 10 kg lighter is going to make you feel better too.

Anyway, I'll lose another 4kg or so over the next few weeks and then post pics.

I think the most positive thing to come out of this is the knowledge that in future I'll pretty much be able to eat as much as I want during the bulking phase and have the confidence to just do a 24 or 36 hour fast every 3 or 4 weeks just to take off that bit of extra fat. Given that I'm a bit of a 'hard gainer' due to body type and age, this is no small thing.

Hope this helps anyone considering Intermittent Fasting, especially any middle aged guys like me whose metabolisms have begun to be compromised and are gradually getting fatter year by year. Intermittent fasting is perfect for anyone whether they be hard training athletes or middle aged slobs, I reckon.

BTW, if any mod reads this could they perhaps move the last couple of pages to the Intermittent Fasting thread, I should've really started a new thread in hindsight.

 

[Chief]

Just a nyah nyah to say I did better (6 kilos in 3-4 weeks) with no weird diet or fasting

I WIN!!!! PAY UP!

 

[Contra Mundum]

Any decent examples of this? I'd happily do eat-stop-eat depending on the effects on strength. Just take the day off the gym? Cardio mixes?

I've gotta duck out and will read up more on it later, but for anyone kind enough to give some basic info that'd be much appreciated

Is the increased burn of fasted cardio a load of bullshit - did a 10K run after a 24 hour fast - it felt great. Don't know what to believe with this because even when the articles cite peer reviewed journals you don't know if they are like that tobacco company sponsored research

 

[saj_21]

Is the increased burn of fasted cardio a load of bullshit - did a 10K run after a 24 hour fast - it felt great. Don't know what to believe with this because even when the articles cite peer reviewed journals you don't know if they are like that tobacco company sponsored research

To paraphrase Layne Norton in a recent podcast. Fasted cardio will induce a greater response to fat burn immediately following exercise, however will slow down during the day whereas feed cardio won't induce as great immediate fat burn but will remain at higher levels during the day vs fasted cardio. So it comes down to personal preference. For me getting up sipping 5g of BCAA's and a splash of C4 for flavour is much better than eating and running on a full stomach.

 

[Contra Mundum]

To paraphrase Layne Norton in a recent podcast. Fasted cardio will induce a greater response to fat burn immediately following exercise, however will slow down during the day whereas feed cardio won't induce as great immediate fat burn but will remain at higher levels during the day vs fasted cardio. So it comes down to personal preference. For me getting up sipping 5g of BCAA's and a splash of C4 for flavour is much better than eating and running on a full stomach.

I work out in the very early AM anyway so I probably have not eaten for 8 hours in any event. Sounds like Zero Sum Game from what you are saying.

 

[evo]

Just a nyah nyah to say I did better (6 kilos in 3-4 weeks) with no weird diet or fasting

I WIN!!!! PAY UP!

what % body fat are you now? Anyone can go from say 30% -25 % body fat just by giving up bickies and coke. Half of it is prolly water weight.

 

[Chief]

Water weight? How do you figure that? If I were on a low carbohydrate diet water might arguably be some sort of issue. But I'm not. I've just removed a big fat pile of daily calories -carbs, fat, protein, whatever - in the form of restaurant lunches and cans of Coke.

I still eat all sorts of carbs, fat and protein every day. I still put a big heap of sugar on my breakfast cereal (Weet Bix or muesli mostly, sometimes bacon and eggs on toast). I still drink up my bourbon and coke most Fridays and have a takeaway about once every week or two. I still sit down to the dinners my wife cooks and finish off the kids leftovers. I still make myself a glass of Gatorade most days, Qld summers are pretty hot. I still drink a bit too much milk. I'm still very intermittent at the gym but have a go at walking some shorter distances I used to drive.

A bit of everything, not too much of anything on average. Fewer calories, more exercise as has been recommended for decades. No fad diet books needed.

 

[saj_21]

Water weight? How do you figure that? If I were on a low carbohydrate diet water might arguably be some sort of issue. But I'm not. I've just removed a big fat pile of daily calories -carbs, fat, protein, whatever - in the form of restaurant lunches and cans of Coke.

I still eat all sorts of carbs, fat and protein every day. I still put a big heap of sugar on my breakfast cereal (Weet Bix or muesli mostly, sometimes bacon and eggs on toast). I still drink up my bourbon and coke most Fridays and have a takeaway about once every week or two. I still sit down to the dinners my wife cooks and finish off the kids leftovers. I still make myself a glass of Gatorade most days, Qld summers are pretty hot. I still drink a bit too much milk. I'm still very intermittent at the gym but have a go at walking some shorter distances I used to drive.

A bit of everything, not too much of anything on average. Fewer calories, more exercise as has been recommended for decades. No fad diet books needed.

Fact is you have cut back on carbs (as well as fats, maybe protein has remained some what the same) obviously not to levels adhered to by LCHF-ers but you have cut back on carbs and calories. In doing so your body is burning excess glycogen, one part glycogen can hold up to 3 parts water. This why some, well most people experience such a big weight loss early on in a diet.

For the record im not for or against LCHF, i just believe in doing what works for you!