Today I want to talk about Intermittent Fasting which I think is the best adjustment anyone can make to their lifestyle if they are looking to lose weight. I myself have been doing Intermittent Fasting (IF) for almost 2 weeks now and while I am not the top authority on it I can definitely say I am experiencing its results first hand and in this short amount of time. In this blog entry I will explain the theory behind IF as well as including a multitude of video and written references so you can better educate yourself on the subject and make an educated choice on whether or not it's something you want to try.
Intermittent Fasting Explained
Intermittent: coming and going at intervals : not continuous
Fast: to abstain from food
Broken into simpler terms we can see the IF means to "Fast in intervals." The intervals take place over 24 hours, the maximum time in a day. The most common intervals of IF are 16/8 for men and 14/10 for women. In these examples the practitioner of IF would Fast for 16 or 14 hours and then Feed for 8 or 10 hours depending on gender; from here on I will use the 16/8 model as the primary example. This might sound like a pretty big task to take on but ideally you do most of the fasting while you are asleep. Let me explain a simple way someone would be able to acclimate themselves to IF for the first time:
Pretend today you are going to start IF today. Assume you want to adopt the 16/8 model and will go to sleep no later than 12am. You finish dinner at 8pm and go all the way to 12am without eating any food (because you shouldn't eat before bed anyways), you are now already 4 hours into your fast. If you sleep for 8 hours till 8am you are now 12 hours into your fast. Instead of eating breakfast right when you wake up you instead just wait out the remaining 4 hours till 12pm before you eat your first meal of the day. From here you are allowed to feed from 12pm to 8pm. IF IS NOT A DIET! There is no cutting calories or eating any less than you regularly would in a normal day. Instead you just concentrate all the calories you would normally get into an 8-hour "window" instead of over the entire 16 hour day.
Here's a video of 2 YouTube Fitness Gurus who have been doing IF for almost a year now explaining IF:
Why IF? What are the Benefits?
Ok so why the hell would anyone decide to subject themselves to an eating model such as this? It seems very contradictory to the common/popular belief that eating multiple times during the day keeps your metabolism functioning at an accelerated rate, which leads to burning more calories right? What if I told you that there is no scientific evidence that suggests that the more you eat the faster your metabolism works? That's right it's all a bunch of bullshit being circulated by the health/fitness industry in efforts to make them more money. Now I won't get into conspiracies created by the fitness industry but I will instead tell you that the only thing that makes your metabolism work faster or slower is the amount of lean body mass you have. Basically the more lean you are the harder your metabolism works and the more fat you are the slower it works. It has nothing to do with how often you eat. With IF you can just eat 3 big meals in 8 hours instead of cooking every 2 hours 5 times a day. I don't know about you but I have always hated this "5+ meals a day model" because of how often I have to think about what and when I am going to eat next.
What about "Starvation Mode?" When you don't feed your body it ceases to burn calories and instead holds onto everything you give it and stores it as fat because it can't judge from how inconsistently you feed it when it will get its next source of energy, right? Starvation Mode is a real thing but it only kicks in when you starve your body for incredibly long periods of time (usually around 3 weeks) and we are only talking about not feeding your body for about 4 hours a day in all actuality. Contrary to popular belief Fasting actually decreases the levels of Insulin in your blood which is the hormone that regulates the storage of glucose as fat. Fasting also increases the amount of Glucagon in your blood which is a hormone that readies fat to be broken down into energy. So by fasting you actually store less fat and burn more stored fat, the best of both worlds. You get to have your cake and eat it too... just as long as it's within 8 hours.
If you want to hear an actual nutritionist explain the benefits of Fasting here is a great video on the subject, but I basically gave a pretty accurate summary of what he says.
In short by fasting for a small period every day instead of giving your body new energy via food, you force your body to resort to its stored energy (fat) to get you through the day which results in fat loss/weight loss. This method is also really great for losing fat in those common problem areas (lower abs/love handles) because that is where people tend to store a majority of their fat.
My Personal Experience with IF.
Unfortunately I did not discover IF till about Day 50 of Insanity. Unhappy with the progress of my results thus far with Insanity (I only lost about 2% body fat in 2 months; 14% to 12%) I decided to give IF a try for the last 10 days. Within 3 days (while still working out) I started to see results. I could see my waist get smaller, the skin on my abs get tighter, and that small bulge on my abs start to shrink. It was amazing! I was no longer cooking all day and instead was able to devote a lot of my free time to things I actually enjoyed (one of the reasons I wrote so many newsoflegends.com articles at the end of February/beginning of March). I only wish I had discovered IF at the same time I started Insanity because I think my results would have been truly Insane. This is why I am sharing this with you so early because this is by far the most revolutionary thing I have learned about in my fitness journey. Now since I have only been doing it for a short time I haven't gotten any recent measurements done, I want to do it about 30 days before I compare my IF lifestyle to my last measurements.
There are a lot of other benefits to IF, such as increased production of HGH, but I would rather not go to in depth on stuff like that since it gets very confusing with all the health jargon unless you are knowledgeable in that field. I would suggest that anyone who is skeptical to just try and do it for 1 week and see if you notice any results. It may not work for everyone but it is definitely worth trying because if it does work you will love the results. The first day is definitely the hardest but once you get through it it becomes pretty easy. JUST MAKE SURE YOU DRINK LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS OF WATER!
Finally before I finish I would like to include the website of the person who first developed the IF eating Model.
http://www.leangains.com/
I also recommend you read this interview with him as it gives a pretty good in-depth look on how to start using IF and also goes over some of the other in-depth benefits:
http://www.leighpeele.com/martin-berkhan-and-intermittent-fasting-interview
Thanks for reading and I hope this helps everyong.
Love, Dcgreen
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