But What About My Muscle
Am I going to lose all my hard earned gainzzzz!?
The short answer is absolutely not!
For 99% of the population who is just looking to lean up, look great naked, and lead a healthy life, then this passage is something you really dont need to stress over!
For the 1% who are looking to compete at the high levels and want to maximize every single facet of putting on muscle mass, then this is something youll want to take into account.
Dr. Layne Norton and his lab have found that in order to optimize something called Muscle Protein Synthesis , we need to be consuming protein more than just one time a day.
So spreading your protein intake out for 3-4 different feeding throughout the day would be best for maximizing this muscle protein synthesis. Not going to cover this too much but look at the example of my day later in the post to get an idea of how I navigate this.
Intermittent Fasting 1: : How
Thinking of trying 16:8 intermittent fasting? Here’s everything you need to know
Intermittent fasting 16:8 is a time-restricted way of eating where you fast for 16 hours of the day and only consume food within an eight-hour window. Some people follow this diet daily, while others choose to do it a few days a week.
Intermittent fasting is an increasingly popular weight loss method and there are numerous types of fasting diets, including the popular 5:2 diet, says Lucy Jones, associate nutritionist at Harley Street At Home .
So how does it work? When the body goes into starvation mode during a fast, due to lower glucose levels, it starts a homeostatic process known as autophagy, the body’s way of cleaning out damaged cells to regenerate newer, healthier ones.
As well as weight loss, lots of people do intermittent fasting for a range of other health benefits, with the National Institute on Aging finding that it can improve heart and brain health and lower blood pressure. If youre interested in giving 16:8 fasting a go, read on to find out how to get started. Also, check our beginner’s guide on intermittent fasting for top tips on how to get started,
How To Do It 1: 8 Fasting Schedule
The 16:8 intermittent fasting method, sometimes referred to as the 16 hours fast, restricts your eating to eight hours.
This form of intermittent fasting is particularly popular because you spend a large portion of the fasting window asleep.
To get started, begin by selecting the eight hours during which you will consume all of your meals and snacks.
Many people prefer to eat between noon and eight oclock in the evening, as this means that they only need to skip breakfast, while still eating a typical lunch and dinner.
Some eating windows include:
When developing your 16:8 plan, you may want to use your current sleep patterns and mealtimes as a guide.
Or perhaps your appetite is the greatest at night before bed. If this is the case, then you may decide on a 1 pm to 9 pm window to allow for an evening snack.
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Examples Of Healthy Foods
- Avocados are recommended because they have monounsaturated fats that are very satisfying. Taking avocado with your meals can make you full for hours longer than if you did not include it in the meal.
- A large egg contains 6 grams of proteins, which is important for keeping you satisfied and building muscle.
- Beans and legumes have low-calorie and high-fiber carbs.
- Berries have vital nutrients such as vitamin C that boosts immunity.
- Fish is rich in healthy omega-3 fats, protein, and vitamin D.
- Kefir, Kombucha, or Kraut are probiotic-rich foods that can be included in the meals.
- Nuts have good fats. For instance, the polyunsaturated fats in walnuts alter biological markers for satiety and hunger.
- Potatoes can help in weight loss. Just be sure to prepare them healthily. For instance, avoid French fries or potato chips and go for roasted, boiled, or mashed potatoes.
- Vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts contain fiber, preventing constipation, and making you feel full. This will help you feel comfortable without food for 12 hours.
- Whole grains such as sorghum, millet, and bulgur have fiber and protein, therefore making you feel full. They also turn up your metabolic rate.
Improved Workouts Thanks To Intermittent Fasting
According to PubMed, training with limited carbohydrate availability can stimulate adaptations in muscle cells to facilitate energy production via fat oxidation.
Which means, when you workout during the fasting window of your 12 hour intermittent fasting, your body gets better at burning fat for energy since there are no foods to pull from.
Also Check: What Does Intermittent Fasting Do To The Body
Types Of Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent fasting has become very trendy in the past few years, and several different types/methods have emerged.
Here are some of the most popular ones:
- The 16/8 Method: Fast for 16 hours each day, for example by only eating between noon and 8pm.
- Eat-Stop-Eat: Once or twice a week, dont eat anything from dinner one day, until dinner the next day .
- The 5:2 Diet: During 2 days of the week, eat only about 500600 calories.
Then there are many other variations.
Bottom Line:
There are many different intermittent fasting methods. The most popular ones are the 16/8 method, Eat-Stop-Eat and the 5:2 diet.
Managing Your Weight With Intermittent Fasting And Time Restricted Eating
Intermittent fasting and time restricted eating are techniques to help people lose weight, improve their overall health, and some say simplify their lifestyles. Intermittent fasting and time restricted eating are becoming increasingly popular so you are likely to hear about them more and more.
Many studies are emerging that show that both IF and TRE can potentially lead to longer life, improve your health, and even enhance your brain function.
Those who are underweight or have a history of eating disorders should consult with their doctor before trying intermittent fasting or time restricted eating. Those with diabetes or poor blood sugar regulation should also consult their doctor before trying intermittent fasting or time restricted eating.
Fasting is done today for religious reasons and practiced by many faiths. Advocates of intermittent fasting argue that not eating for periods of time is more natural than having several meals a day along with snacks. The argument is that our ancestors did not have unlimited access to fast food, refrigerators, and convenient stores. As a result, we have evolutionarily been designed to not eat for periods of time until we could find food. So, intermittent fasting and time restricted eating attempt to recreate that potentially natural process.
Three common approaches exist. These are:
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Should You Do Intermittent Fasting And The Keto Diet
We have a crazy extensive guide on the Keto Diet in case youre not familiar with it, so here it is in a nutshell:
This process is called ketosis, and there are two ways for a body to enter ketosis:
- Eating in a way that induces ketosis .
- FastingHey, thats what youre reading about right now!
We actually have an amazing success story here on Nerd Fitness, Larry, who followed our strategies, went Keto and start intermittent fasting. He ended up losing weight, getting stronger, AND overcame the challenges of rheumatoid arthritis !
Heres how the fasting portion of it works:
As your body enters a fast period when there are no sources of glucose energy readily available, the liver begins the process of breaking down fat into ketones.
Fasting itself can trigger ketosis.
Fasting for a period of time before kicking off a Keto-friendly eating plan COULD speed your transition into the metabolic state of ketosis, and fasting intermittently while in ketosis could help you maintain that state.
I personally love fasting for the simplicity: I skip breakfast every day and train in a fasted state. Itâs one less decision I have to make, itâs one less opportunity to make a bad food choice, and it helps me reach my goals.
WHY KETO + IF WORKS = eating Keto can be really challenging. And every time you eat, itâs an opportunity to do it wrong and accidentally eat foods that knock you out of ketosis.
Youâre also tempted to overeat.
Your value may vary!
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Why Does Intermittent Fasting Work
Intermittent fasting works because it allows your blood sugar and insulin levels to drop to a low level.
Insulin is your fat-storing hormone. When insulin levels are high, fat flows into your fat cells and gets stored when insulin is low, fat can flow out of your fat cells and burn.
Also, since insulin is not pushing the sugars that remain in your blood into fat storage, those sugars are available to provide energy for the repair of cells.
This healing advantage is why intermittent fasting is getting a lot of attention right now in the research world for the treatment of chronic disease .
Ready to Try Intermittent fasting? Let me start you off with the easiest method
Variations On The Theme
There are also many variations on the theme. There is no biological reason to not eat for exactly 16 hours. In fact, some people are talking about 18-6, 19-5 and 20-4 intermittent fasting now. A 4 hour window is very restricted, but you can still manage a large meal at 12pm, a snack at 2pm and then another large meal at 4pm, and get enough energy to fuel muscle growth. However, it will become harder to manage. Some people reduce the eating window to just 4 hours, and do a 20 hour fast, while others make a compromise and reduce to 6 hours, doing a 18 6 diet fast.
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How Often Should You Do 16/8 Intermittent Fasting
You can do 16/8 intermittent fasting as often as you wantbut it may be smart to ease in. Ease your way into fasting to keep it sustainable, encourages Lindsay Wandzilak, NASM celebrity trainer, nutritionist and founder of The Daily. Pushing the hours to a crazy, uncomfortable place can lead to deprivation, binging, and guilt.
Starting slow and increasing your fast by intervals every few days can make it easier for your body and mind to adjust to a new eating window . If you approach intermittent fasting as a lifestyle shift, you are more likely to find success sticking to the fasting schedule on a daily basis.
Related: What Studies Say About Intermittent Fasting
Special Notes If You Try The Extreme Intermittent Fast
1) If youre going to try a fat fast or do extreme intermittent fasting, you want to ease into it.
You do not want to jump into these extreme fasts if you currently eat a poor diet that is filled with fast foods, processed foods, and refined carbs.
If you take this leap, youll find yourself in the bathroom for most of the day. Instead, work your way up to doing these extreme forms of intermittent fasting by first doing a 16:8 fast by itself and getting off the junk food.
2) There is some research that talks about doing a fat fast for a few days up to a few weeks at a time.
My husband and I do not have any personal experience with doing a fat fast for this long and dont promote staying on an extreme fast for more than a day.
When my husband utilizes this fasting technique, he does it one day at a time. This one-day extreme intermittent fast is a good way to change things up, which can stimulate a sluggish metabolism.
Reference:
Mattson, M. P., Longo, V. D., & Harvie, M. . Impact of intermittent fasting on health and disease processes. Aging research reviews, 39, 46-58.
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Can I Have Cream And Sugar In My Coffee While Fasting
To stay in a fasted metabolic state, its best not to add any sugar to your coffee. Cream is a better option. If youve already fasted overnight for 12 or so hours and you just cant drink black coffee, a bit of cream, butter , coconut oil, MCT oil or other healthy plant fat likely isnt going to kick you out of ketosis or a fat-burning state.
At most, these coffee fixings might lengthen the time it takes you to get into ketosis after an overnight fast. They can slightly and temporarily activate your insulin and mTOR pathways, telling your body that nutrients are around and thus delay entry into some fasting metabolic processes such as autophagy . However, its normal in human clinical studies of fasting to allow participants up to 500 calories on fasting days fasting benefits occur regardless of these few calories!
Sugar is another beast, as it can quickly raise your blood sugar levels. Try to avoid adding sugar into your coffee, opting for cream or other healthy fats instead. Also watch out for sugar-added creamers.
What Can You Eat On The 1: 8 Diet
- Whole grains: Rice, oats, barley, wholegrain pasta and quinoa.
- Protein: Meat, poultry, fish, eggs, nuts and seeds.
- Fruit: Apples, bananas, berries, oranges and pears.
- Vegetables: Broccoli, spinach and other leafy greens.
- Healthy fats: Olive oil, coconut oil, avocados.
The great thing about the 16:8 diet is that you can eat anything you want, within reason, but it’s important to choose whole foods and those high in vitamins during the eating period.
“Many people fail the 16:8 diet by packing in too many calories into the 8-hour period, often trying to get some in before the 8 hours ends, says Jenane. You should still be following a strict diet with a complete nutritional breakdown, to ensure you are consuming a targeted number of calories, not to mention macro nutrients and ensuring youre not consuming too much sugar.
Also Check: Fasting In The Morning For Weight Loss
Our 16 8 Fasting Method Conclusion:
The 16 8 Fasting method is best suited for men that eat healthy and want to establish the health benefits from fasting 16 hours and eating their daily caloric intake in 8 hours a day.
Yes, the way I am describing this, it seems simple in theory. However, I have tried this method before and as a woman, it did negatively adjust my hormones and reduced my metabolism. Carefully consider 16 8 Fasting and work with your doctor before embracing this method.
How I Feel After 2 Years Of Intermittent Fasting
1. The biggest benefit of intermittent fasting is simplicity.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, President Obama described an interesting strategy he uses to make his life simpler. Youll see I wear only gray or blue suits, he said. Im trying to pare down decisions. I dont want to make decisions about what Im eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.
What President Obama is referring to is a concept called decision fatigue and it can drastically impact your ability to make decisions throughout the day. I explained the science of decision fatigue in this article.
For the President, simplifying his clothing choices is a way to make life simpler and improve his decision making abilities. For me, intermittent fasting provides the same benefit. Eliminating breakfast and not thinking about food until 12pm each day has allowed me to reduce the number of decisions I make in the morning, thus reducing decision fatigue and increasing the willpower I have for the rest of the day. That means I have more energy to put toward doing work that is important to me.
One of the best ways to find happiness and success in life is to strip away the unnecessary things and focus only on what is needed.
2. Intermittent fasting is an excellent travel strategy.
The solution? Treat your travel days as a fasting day and then eat twice as much good food the following day.
3. So far, intermittent fasting has not hurt my long-term health.
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How Can I Fast If I Work The Night Shift
We recommend fasting through your shift and having your meals at home. Eat at home before you go to your night shift. While you work, use bone broth or coffee while you adjust. When you get off in the morning, have your breakfast at home and go to sleep. This way you get in 12 hours of fasting and avoid eating during the night when digestion is slowest. Another alternative is going to sleep immediately after you get home. When you wake up, have your first meal and eat again before your night shift.
Schedule #: Skipping A Meal Sometimes
Though it may not offer all of the physiological benefits of true IF, meal-skipping offers an easy way to ease into IF.
What it involves
There are a couple of ways to try this schedule.
Level 1: Wait until youre hungry to eat. You might remember this from chapter 4 as IF Lite. So if youre not hungry for breakfast when you wake up, for example, you might wait to have your first meal until 11am.
Level 2? Sometimes, dont eat a meal youd normally eat.
For instance, if youd normally eat dinner, and youre not actually hungry for it dont. Or skip lunch. Or breakfast. Try intentionally skipping a meal once or twice a week and see how you feel.
People who benefit
This is an approachable way for beginners to explore how their bodies and minds respond to hunger.
Youll discover: Are you the type of person who can experience hunger, ride it out, and use what you learn to graduate to more intense fasting schedules? Or are you better suited to regular meals and snacks?
If you try it
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