Intermittent Fasting
Something I wrote over at my Facebook page which helped transform me, thought some of you might like to read it if you haven't seen it already.
I thought i'd get onto doing a little few paragraphs about something that was staple in my fat loss, some of you may have heard of it! You may find this extremely useful for you, whether it be now or in the future.
Intermittent Fasting. I discovered Intermittent Fasting a long while ago, actually but I never really read into it too much as it seemed too complicated.. how wrong was I.. It is one of the most simple methods I've ever introduced into my life, and created so many benefits for me and removed so many negatives. For the most part credit goes to Martin Berkhan at leangains.com - all information about Intermittent Fasting is there, he is the go-to guy for this stuff.
For so long I was obsessed with the idea that I had to eat 5-6 meals per day, at certain times to boost my metabolism, and as you may have seen earlier the picture I uploaded.. that is not true, It is so far from the truth that it angers me when I still see people following that protocol as if it is the 'only' way. Of course it works, there is no doubt about that (when I say it works, I mean in terms of fat loss, providing you're eating the correct quantity of food). Along side the eating 5-6 meals a day, people are obsesssed with the fact you NEED breakfast, or obsessed that if you don't eat your body goes into starvation mode, THIS IS NOT TRUE.
After following the 5-6 meals a day way of life, I noticed I was constantly hungry, I was kinda depressed too because all I was doing was preparing the same boring meals, because along with the 5-6 meals a day, comes the "clean" eating crowd for the most part. Now, despite what you've been told clean eating for 'fat loss' is a myth, you can lose fat eating any food on the planet, whether it be Oreo's, McDonalds, KFC or the healthiest salad with no dresssing and just plain chicken.
Now, I'm not saying Intermittent Fasting is the answer, or that you have to do it by any means, but its an option, and it cured a lot of things for me.
Firstly, Intermittent Fasting is where you pick an eating window of around 8 hours.
Within this 8 hours you eat all the food you are supposed to consume in that day... here is an example of an eating window
First Meal ~ 1:00 pm
Second Meal ~ 9:00 pm
So you eat nothing upon waking, until 1pm in the afternoon, you then eat your next meal at 9pm and don't eat again until the next day, at 1pm. This is just a sample set up, there is many other ways to achieve 'Intermittent Fasting' to suit your needs.
There has been lots of research done with Intermittent Fasting, there has been some noteable evidence scientifically such as..
It has shown to prevent high blood pressure.
It has been shown to prevent cancer.
It has been shown to increase life span.
It has been shown to keep you more alert throughough the day and make you feel less lethargic.
It has shown that it decreases the amount your body has to work, to digest food because you are eating less.
There are some things I know for sure;
It removes my hunger pangs, where as eating 5-6 meals I was ALWAYS hungry.
It helped me with MY weight loss, others have reported this too but there is no actual scientific hard evidence to support that.
It helps me sleep in the evening, especially if I eat before I go to sleep.
It keeps me OUT of the kitchen and gives me much more time to do things I actually want to do.
There is plenty of other benefits which you can find from personal experiences, I've never really heard anyone speak down about Intermittent Fasting other than the "old school" bodybuilders who refuse to believe anything else can work, than what they do. But just remember there is always more than one way to skin a cat.
I suggest if this topic interests you, head over to Martin Berkhans site, Leangains (web address earlier in this post). He is the guru of this stuff, and whilst he is very strong with his opinions, there is endless information there and his information changed my life. There is also links to endless studies which show the hard evidence for some of the things I linked above.
If you managed to get this far, and you have any questions.. ask away and I'll do my best to answer them!
