How To Plan A Fast
If you have finally been convinced to give fasting a try, here are some of the things you will need to think about:
Remove As Many Temptations From Your Surroundings As Possible And Align Your Lifestyle
Why even struggle with keeping temptations around when you can cut those bad boys out?
And Im not just talking about foods you swore you wouldnt eat during your weight loss transformation.
Im also talking about social events, habits like sitting in front of the TV and eating, and driving past that burger joint where you usually get the double, double on Friday nights.
This is a whole lifestyle hunty. If you really want to make intermittent fasting work on your weight loss transformation goals, youre going to have to shape a lifestyle that aligns.
Cut out habits that trigger eating outside of your fasting window. Switch things up by getting a hobby or doing things that keep you too occupied to eat.
Work on identifying triggers and temptations that make intermittent fasting hard for you.
My Negative Reliance On Fasting
I was actually this way for a period after my Feb 2011 fast. While I had lost my excess weight and achieved my ideal weight with the fast, I regained my excess weight later on for a period of time. This led me to be frantic and seek out fasting to lose the extra weight gained, because fasting was the way through which my original excess weight was lost. As it turned out, my fast revealed a chunk of my emotional issues with food, but I still had other deeply embedded problems with food that needed further digging. These were problems deeply linked to my self-image, my inner psyche, and all the years of conditioning that my parents instilled in me when raising me. My fast helped me see the tip of these issues, but more work had to be done.
Since 2013 I have been at my ideal weight of 56-58kg. The weight changes +/-1 kg as part of normal weight fluctuations, but I no longer struggle with my weight or emotional eating. Most importantly weight really isnt that important to me anymore being healthy is. I no longer have erratic eating or binge eating episodes and I share more on how to resolve this in my emotional eating series and my emotional eating course. Weight is just the effect of our diet intake, while what we put into our mouth every day is really the key.
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Can I Build Muscle And Gain Weight While Intermittent Fasting
Youre damn right you can!
In fact, I have been intermittent fasting since 2015 while building muscle and decreasing my body fat percentage:
I still eat roughly the same number of calories I was consuming before, but instead of eating all damn day long, I condense all of my calorie consumption into an eight-hour window.
- 11 AM Work out with heavy strength training in a fasted state.
- 12 PM Immediately consume 1/2 of my calories for the day .
- 7 PM Consume the second portion of my calories for the day in a big dinner.
- 8 PM 12 PM the next day: Fast for 16 hours.
In a different method, my friend Nate Green packed on a crazy amount of muscle while fasting for a full 24 hours on Sundays so it is possible.
Im not kidding when I say this has revolutionized how I look at muscle building and fat loss.
Ultimately, this method flies in the face of the typical bulk and cut techniques of overeating to build muscle before cutting calories to lose fat and settling down at a higher weight.
I prefer this method to the bulk-and-cut technique for a few reasons:
A note on BCAA consumption. Martin from LeanGains recommends consuming Branched Chain Amino Acids as a supplement with regards to fasted training to aid your muscles through your workout.
Now, it should go without saying that if you want to build muscle while fasting, you need to work out. Specifically, by lifting heavy.
If you want help building a workout routine designed to create muscle, I have 3 options:
To Minimize Uncomfortable Side Effects Consider Taking A Laxative Before A Modified Extended Fast
In studies of modified extended fasting, participants typically take a laxative, usually 2040 g Na2SO4 in 500 ml water according to body weight. This helps with the transition into fasting mode, minimizes feelings of hunger, removes food remnants from your intestines, and gets rid of bile secretions that can cause nausea, indigestion, headaches, and fatigue. Purging is recommended for those prone to headaches and indigestion, and those with low blood pressure.
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Theres No Need To Tell Others About Your Fast
When you resolve your internal barrier, the next biggest barrier youre going to face next isnt detox, discomfort or abstinence from food. Its having to deal with reactions from others.
If your family and friends are people who are knowledgeable about non-mainstream lifestyles, theyre probably open to alternative healing methods like fasting. However, if they arent, they might not be receptive to the idea of fasting, and would likely react violently, even disapproving you from doing so.
Ideally, its good to inform your loved ones and loop them in on whats going on in your life, but the mainstream society isnt ready to accept fasting as a form of healing yet. Most people will go berserk and panic if you bring up the idea of not eating for one day, and I find that its tiring to deal with violent, fear-based reactions from others. Fasting is already hard enough by itself , and to deal with negativity from others is even harder. Lifestyle-related endeavors that go against the societal norms tend to invite the most violent reactions because they touch on deep-set beliefs cultivated since young. The general person will defend their beliefs without a desire to consider other modes of thought.
If Im Perfectly Healthy Why Should I Torture Myself By Fasting
You brush your teeth right?
Well, fasting is the same thing, but for your body. It keeps your body and brain clean and hopefully working well for a long, long time. And there are not dentures for your body or brain .
Also, if you read through the other water fasting tips, hopefully youll realize fasting isnt torture. It may not be as pleasurable as eating cake or nachos, but it is an enlightening experience.
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Approximately 8 Hours After Your Last Meal Depending On How Big It Was Your Body Completes The Process Of Digesting Absorbing And Assimilating It
So says Alejandro Junger, MD, founder of international health and wellness company CLEAN. This, according to the expert, is when the body refocuses from digestion to other vital matters such as detoxification. Detoxification doesnt stop while digestion is taking place it is simply slowed down, just as thinking and moving are, he says.
Cut Back On Your Calories
Oh, did you think calories didnt matter because you werent eating for 16 hours of the day?
Haha, me too until my little bubble got busted when I stepped on the scale after a week of starving myself for 16 hours a day and losing nothing but a few measly ounces.
I mean, yay, but boo. That was whack.
When I started paying attention to my calories and eating at a healthy caloric deficit, my results improved.
Calculate your caloric needs and then add a 20% to 25% deficit.
Eat enough to be comfortable, but dont overdo it and eat crap because youre intermittent fasting.
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Fasting For 2 Days A Week
People following the 5:2 diet eat standard amounts of healthful food for 5 days and reduce calorie intake on the other 2 days.
During the 2 fasting days, men generally consume 600 calories and women 500 calories.
Typically, people separate their fasting days in the week. For example, they may fast on a Monday and Thursday and eat normally on the other days. There should be at least 1 non-fasting day between fasting days.
There is limited research on the 5:2 diet, which is also known as the Fast diet. A involving 107 overweight or obese women found that restricting calories twice weekly and continuous calorie restriction both led to similar weight loss.
The study also found that this diet reduced insulin levels and improved insulin sensitivity among participants.
A small-scale study looked at the effects of this fasting style in 23 overweight women. Over the course of one menstrual cycle, the women lost 4.8 percent of their body weight and 8.0 percent of their total body fat. However, these measurements returned to normal for most of the women after 5 days of normal eating.
How Can I Suppress Hunger During Intermittent Fasting
- Eat high-fiber foods, such as nuts, beans, fruits and vegetables and high-protein foods, including meat, fish, tofu or nuts, during your eating window, Varady advised. Chewing high-fiber gummies can also help.
- Drink lots of water. People tend to think they’re hungry, when they are really just thirsty, she said.
- Go for black coffee or tea, or cinnamon or licorice herbal teas. These beverages may have appetite-suppressing effects, Varady noted.
- Watch less TV. I know this sounds strange, but while you are watching TV, you are bombarded with dozens of ads for food. This can make you feel hungry, when in actuality, you are not hungry at all, she said.
Remember, being “a little hungry” is the best thing that can happen to you, wrote Madelyn Fernstrom, health and nutrition editor at NBC News, calling it a “true mind-body connection” that helps you recognize fullness.
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A Brief History Of Extended Fasting
Obesity treatments in the 60s and 70s consisted of long water-fasts lasting 60 days and longer. But this approach was almost entirely discontinued due to complications, including low blood pressure, anemia, heart problems and death. Since then, water-fasting has taken less extreme forms, including, for instance, alternate-day fasting, which consists in alternating between a day of no calorie consumption and a day of normal food intake.
Most of what we know about the benefits of water-fasting has come from studies of alternate-day fasting and other fasting methods, such as time-restricted eating and the 5:2 diet. Although these shorter fasts are beneficial, there are health reasons for wanting to go beyond 48 hours with no or minimal calories. These include reducing heart disease risk factors, breaking through a weight loss plateau, rejuvenating your immune system, or tapping into autophagy to rid your body of damaged cell components.
Working Out While Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent fasting and exercise are components of cultivating longevity, but should you combine them? Lets review all the questions regarding exercising while fasting. We will explore the benefits of exercising in a fasted state, including the difference between cardio, sprint training, and weight training, as well as some simple tips on how to implement it to reap the most benefits of your fasted workouts.
Can I Exercise While Fasting?
Yes, it is OK to work out while fasting because the key to weight loss and muscle gain is not just calories and exercise, but hormone optimization. Studies demonstrate amazing benefits to intermittent fasting alone, but combining fasting with sprint training takes the benefits of each to a whole new level. Combining the two raises growth hormone and makes you more insulin sensitive, which is the key to staying youthful and lean.
Many people obsess over calories in versus out, and fear muscle loss that theoretically happens when you exercise without having refueled. But when you understand the beneficial impact that exercising during a fasted state has on the bodys hormones, youll see that fasting and exercise arent only OK, they are actually the optimal way to boost your health and body composition.
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Our 3 Water Fasting Tips
1. Share the Experience and Results
Practice with a friend, group or partner. This means you have someone to share the experience with and they can keep you on track. It is always easier knowing that someone else is going through the same experience and you will both be able to share the benefits.
2. Keep Your Schedule Free
Dont plan anything too strenuous or physically difficult. Enjoy the last 24 48 hours of the fast at home and try not to plan any social engagements around a meal. Instead you could go for a walk or have a cup of tea.
3. Keep Your Mind Busy
Although you dont want to be doing anything involving food, it is a great time to read, study, do some mindfulness or complete those tedious jobs that you have been putting off. You will see that you will have a lot more time in your day, so planning to get some of these activities and jobs done will pass the time quicker.
4. Use Hemp in Transition Periods
Before & after the fast are the key times for getting the most benefits. Food with high fats and low carbs are perfect. Drink hemp seed oil and eat hemp seeds! to explore The Brothers Green product range.
Cardio And Intermittent Fasting
The hormonal benefits you get from exercising in a fasted state are related to the depleted muscle and liver glycogen stores that occur when you fast. Doing cardio while intermittent fasting is fine, but your performance will hinge on how fat-adapted your body is . If youre new to fasting and exercise, you can expect your performance to drop a little it can take up to six months for some athletes to fully adapt their endurance to this new fuel source. For example, if youre a competing athlete, and your race performance is your primary goal, dont switch to fasted training a couple of weeks before a competition.
If you are doing cardio in a fasted state, avoid extending the fast post-workout, and opt to refuel after you finish.
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Dealing With Irritability Or Frustration
I tend to be a highly active person and the initial stages of fasting can make me irritable since I dont feel great physically and cant work out the way I would like.
Tips to try
- Hot yoga Hot yoga also has the added benefit of suppressing my hunger, focusing my mind, and soothing my body. Go easy if you are not a regular practitioner.
- Walks Gentle hikes outside in wide-open spaces tend to help with my need for movement while also providing a mental distraction with things to observe, dogs to play with, birds to spot, etc.
Should I Eat 6 Small Meals A Day
There are a few main reasons why diet books recommend six small meals:
1) When you eat a meal, your body does have to burn extra calories just to process that meal. So, the theory is that if you eat all day long with small meals, your body is constantly burning extra calories and your metabolism is firing at optimal capacity, right? Well, thats not true.
Whether you eat 2000 calories spread out throughout the day, or 2000 calories in a small window, your body will burn the same number of calories processing the food .
So, the whole keep your metabolism firing at optimum capacity by always eating sounds good in principle, but reality tells a different story.
2) When you eat smaller meals, you might be less likely to overeat during your regular meals. I can definitely see some truth here, especially for people who struggle with portion control or dont know how much food they should be eating.
However, once you educate yourself and take control of your eating, some might find that eating six times a day is very prohibitive and requires a lot of effort. I know I do.
Also, because youre eating six small meals, Id argue that you probably never feel full, and you might be MORE likely to eat extra calories during each snack.
Although grounded in seemingly logical principles, the six meals a day doesnt work for the reason you think it would , and generally only works for people who struggle with portion control .
Thats why we made this:
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Should I Try Intermittent Fasting
Now that were through a lot of the science stuff, lets get into the reality of the situation: why should you consider Intermittent Fasting?
#1) Because it can work for your goals. Although we know that not all calories are created equal, caloric restriction plays a central role in weight loss.
When you fast, you are also making it easier to restrict your total caloric intake over the course of the week, which can lead to consistent weight loss and maintenance.
#2) Because it simplifies your day. Rather than having to prepare, pack, eat, and time your meals every 2-3 hours, you simply skip a meal or two and only worry about eating food in your eating window.
Its one less decision you have to make every day.
It could allow you to enjoy bigger portioned meals and STILL eat fewer calories on average.
Its a point that Coach Matt makes in this video on intermittent fasting:
#3) It requires less time . Rather than having to prepare or purchase three to six meals a day, you only need to prepare two meals.
Instead of stopping what youre doing six times a day to eat, you simply only have to stop to eat twice. Rather than having to do the dishes six times, you only have to do them twice.
Rather than having to purchase six meals a day, you only need to purchase two.
#5) It can level up your brain, including positively counteracting conditions like Parkinsons, Alzheimers, and dementia.
#6) Plus, Wolverine does it:
You can try out the app for free right here:
