Hopefully this will help you!

Ryandecheney314

I am over three months in on my transformation. I have had great success so far in plans I have been sticking with. As far as fat loss I am averaging 1 pound a week while maintaining the majority of my lean muscle mass ( I get check ups once a month to make sure) The past three months I have been experimenting with carb cycling (eating moderate carbs on lifting days and eating less then 10% carbs on non lifting days, while increasing fat and protein intake). 4-5 days a week I make sure I lift weights and 6 days a week I do some type of cardio exercise, once in the morning (after lifting weights if I am lifting that day) and a few times a week I do cardio at night, usually on lifting days.

During this time period people have brought to my attention this thing called Intermittent Fasting (IF). I thought they were crazy! Who wants to go 16 hours or more without eating, just seemed like to much. So I listened and still kept to my 4-6 small meals a day, well until exactly 7 days ago.

Last week Wednesday I came across a youtube channel called TheHodgeTwins. The experimented with IF and had nothing but great things to say about it. Being the nerd I am I began to do hours of research. There is not much science behind IF to back it up but the amount of Bro Science is pretty plentiful. The thing is during my research I have not found one single video or article about a bad experience or dangers of IF. So I decided I would give it a shot. I told myself I will give it one week and then evaluate from there. And here is my results so far!

Going into this, I kept the foods and calories I eat the same, I drank the same amount of water, My workouts I kept the same and the amount of cardio was THE SAME! The only thing I changed was just my eating schedule. I worked out in the morning (6-730am) and broke my fast at 12pm sometimes stretching it to 1pm depending how I felt. I stopped eating between 7-8pm. Rinse and repeat. The first day or two I felt pretty hungry but I never felt like I was starving. After the second day my energy levels increased tremendously especially during my workouts. I increased my strength and the fat loss is AMAZING!

Keep in mind I have been losing about a pound a week for the last 3 months and I have kept my diet and exercise the same. During my experiment with IF I have weighed myself every morning. Every single morning i had to do a double take on what the scale said. I seriously couldn't believe the numbers I was seeing. Since last week alone I have lost nearly 4 pounds! I wanted to make sure this was in fact fat loss, So I met up with my coach and he took measurements. My Lean Muscle Mass actually increased about .5 pounds and the weight loss was all fat!

So why does this work so good especially when I am eating the same amount of foods and calories? This is nothing but my personal opinion on why I think it works. Think about this for a second. I stop eating a 8pm. I go to bed around 10pm. wake up at 5am and start training at 6am. I am training fasted so my body is going to use the little energy left from last nights meal and then turn to body fat for energy. After I finish training, roughly around 730am, my body is nothing but a fat burning machine. As soon as I would eat a post workout meal my body would then turn to that for energy but instead I am going to ride the storm and for the next 4-5 hours let my body keep using fat for energy. During this time I drink tons of water and of course still take my BCAA's and fat burners. Once I break my fast I flood my body with tons of nutrients! I eat healthy carbs, fats, and proteins along with taking my vitamins. Now my body is getting everything it needs to build / repair muscle and recover from the workout.

I am for sure going to keep going with IF. I almost wish I would of started with it months ago. IF definitely works for me. Will it work for you? I dont know, everyone is different. Do I think you should try it? Sure, if you can be disciplined enough I strongly believe you should give it a shot. Experiment with it for a week, if it works great! If not dump it and move on. Just like anything else in the fitness world. Do your research on it and see if it would be a good fit for you.

I hope this article will help someone out there. Maybe it will help someone who is in a slump and get kick start to some more fat loss. if you have tried IF before and had results I would love to hear your story on it.

toadg53

good info. thnx. this is kind of like the info my trainer gave me. She said that unless I am able to eat at least an hour before I work out, then do so on an empty stomach, and wait at least 2 hours after working out before eating. That's what I've done, and my weight loss was consistent and not ever up/down. maybe won't work for everybody, but it worked for me too. And I never lost muscle mass in the interim either. and I do a high protein/fat and low carb diet. I am in maintenance and at 21% BF, so pleased with the outcome.

Ryandecheney314

toadg53 wrote: »

good info. thnx. this is kind of like the info my trainer gave me. She said that unless I am able to eat at least an hour before I work out, then do so on an empty stomach, and wait at least 2 hours after working out before eating. That's what I've done, and my weight loss was consistent and not ever up/down. maybe won't work for everybody, but it worked for me too. And I never lost muscle mass in the interim either. and I do a high protein/fat and low carb diet. I am in maintenance and at 21% BF, so pleased with the outcome.

its incredible! IF is for sure amazing. I cant wait until what the results are a month or two down the road. Congrats on your outcome BTW!

suppakana

I, too, have been following IF 16:8 for a while... It's lovely! I do wish there was more research going on about it, but in the meantime I suppose we can use ourselves as guinea pigs!


The one big benefit I feel that I receive from intermittent fasting... Is that not only am I less hungry most of the time, but most of my desires for "bad" food are gone. Yes, there's chocolate. No, I don't really need it right now!

JustinAnimal

So glad you posted this, as I was starting to think about IF. I just didn't have a great working definition and hadn't done any real research. I was thinking about fasting one day per week, meaning I would stop eating the night before (at no particular time) and not eat at all the next day, then resume eating the following morning.

However, I wanted to clarify your plan. So you stop eating at 8 p.m., then resume at about 12 or 1 p.m. the next day? That's all of the fasting you do, just about 16 hours? I think I could get into that, if that is the case. Thanks, again, for your post. I may not do this every night, but I think I might do it 2-3 times per week.

Ryandecheney314

suppakana wrote: »

I, too, have been following IF 16:8 for a while... It's lovely! I do wish there was more research going on about it, but in the meantime I suppose we can use ourselves as guinea pigs!


The one big benefit I feel that I receive from intermittent fasting... Is that not only am I less hungry most of the time, but most of my desires for "bad" food are gone. Yes, there's chocolate. No, I don't really need it right now!

Thanks for adding the point that you dont have much desire for bad food. I am experiencing the same exact thing. I really dont care to eat any "bad" foods and dont have any cravings.

Ryandecheney314

JustinAnimal wrote: »

So glad you posted this, as I was starting to think about IF. I just didn't have a great working definition and hadn't done any real research. I was thinking about fasting one day per week, meaning I would stop eating the night before (at no particular time) and not eat at all the next day, then resume eating the following morning.

However, I wanted to clarify your plan. So you stop eating at 8 p.m., then resume at about 12 or 1 p.m. the next day? That's all of the fasting you do, just about 16 hours? I think I could get into that, if that is the case. Thanks, again, for your post. I may not do this every night, but I think I might do it 2-3 times per week.

There are basically 3 types of intermittent fasting you can follow. I personally feel the daily16:8 method works best. although I am thinking about adding a 24 hour fast once a week into the mix, but that will be later down the road if at all. check out this article that may answer some of your questions.

http://www.niashanks.com/three-methods-of-intermittent-fasting/

But to answer your question, yes that is all the fasting i do. seems to be working great so far. if you do follow 16:8 I would suggest that you try to do it every day. I do hear that people do it during the week but not on the weekends, but it usually ends in binge eating and losing all progress.