Intermittent Fasting Questions
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Helpful info here! I have been experimenting with IF, too, and find it suits me better to listen to my body's cues for when to eat. Glad to see other people having good results with IF! I especially struggle with breakfast, even when I workout in the morning, I am often not hungry until late morning.0
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From what I have gleaned, it may not matter. My reasons for fasting on cardio days is for the possible benefits of IF as well as calorie control.You said you fast on cardio days and eat at a surplus on strength training days, I realize now that my fasting days land on my strength training days. Should I be fasting on cardio days instead?
On my cardio days I eat at deficit.
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Not because I believe a certain way, but I am a breakfast lover and I find that I am hungry and ready to eat not long after I wake up, but that is probably because I typically don't eat much at night, once again, not because I think its bad to eat at night, that's just the way I always have done it. Also, breakfast-type foods are my favorite, I could eat them anytime of day. So I always looked forward to waking up and immediately eating my favorite foods. I too became the type of person to never skip breakfast and I thought it was the most important meal of the day. Since starting IF however, I find that even though I initially wake up very hungry, after I drink a bit of water or plain black coffee, my hunger diminishes and isn't as bad as I initially thought it was. Then I am able to wait until around noon to eat, preferably right after I workout. The first 5 minutes or so of my workout can be a bit tough but then I surprisingly start feeling pretty good for the rest of it. The best benefit of IF I have found however is that for the remainder of the day, I am able to consume much less calories than if I had started eating earlier in the day and I feel much more satisfied from my meals. I still do enjoy eating breakfast, especially with my morning coffee (coffee is just so much better with breakfast foods!) but I am realizing that I can go without it or at least go longer without it. I agree that we have became so ingrained to believe we have to eat first thing in the morning and I am starting to see that maybe that's really not the case.0
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I did IF for about six months. I had no issues with fasted training or my fasting window. Main problem for me was that based on my schedule I had to get majority of my eating fit into the evenings and I felt like I did was make food in the evenings, so eventually I just stopped and went to four meals a day.
I will say this...if you want to add muscle, lose body fat, etc. YOu can accomplish that with a good ole fashioned calorie deficit and heavy lifting. IF is not some magical fat burning principle. If you find that IF makes it easier to create said deficit, then go for it..just don't except the results to be any better than any other method out there...0 -
I will add, I started Leangains 16:8 five days ago. I am enjoying it. There have been periods in the AM it has been a little tough and I am pretty sure it is mental, but I expect that will change after a couple weeks. For the most part my fasted, early AM workouts have been phenomenal. I even had one day I couldn't work out till 12:30 and still had an awesome workout 17 hours fasted.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy breakfast, but I think most of the time I didn't eat it because of hunger, it was because "it was time". So now, I will just have my sausage, hash browns, toast and eggs for lunch or supper.0 -
I will say this...if you want to add muscle, lose body fat, etc. YOu can accomplish that with a good ole fashioned calorie deficit and heavy lifting. IF is not some magical fat burning principle. If you find that IF makes it easier to create said deficit, then go for it..just don't except the results to be any better than any other method out there...
Exactly, and I realize this. I mainly wanted to try IF to help me distinguish true hunger and not eat out of habit. As for the fat burning principal....I think IF could have somewhat of an effect on that, but I think maybe it needs to be researched a bit further to be able to say 100%. It makes sense however that your body will choose to use the food you've just eaten as energy rather than the fat you have stored and if that is true, then it seems more optimal to work out while in a fasting state. Then of course by essentially skipping a meal, it has helped me to eat at a lower deficit by having less of a time frame to eat. I don't typically eat very big meals anyway, but I was getting into a habit of "grazing" throughout the day and I wasn't really paying attention if I was really hungry or not. So after fasting I'm certain that I AM HUNGRY and I eat a regular good sized meal which essentially helps me stay full until my next meal later in the day (maybe a small snack in between) and then I'm done eating for the day and low and behold I've eaten less but stayed just as full. Win-win! I'm still in the very early stages of being in this trial of IF so I'm still learning what is working and what isn't.0 -
There is a very real bio-physiological reason why powerlifters especially should work out in the morning, and have their first meal of the day afterwards. I think if you continue with this protocol you will be very very pleased with the results.
I agree. Unfortunately with my lifestyle and work schedule, I dont get the opportunity to have an early workout. At least no earlier than 11:00 or 11:30 a.m., but even that seems to be working pretty good for me. I just try to either go longer on the fast or eat my pre-fast meal later the previous day. I'm going to continue on this protocol for now and see how it goes. So far, so good!
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You can't make a single case for eating breakfast. Not one. Even those of normal weight are better off without it. You can make a GREAT case that even kids should not get loaded down with breakfast- but kids are worshiped in our society and what better way to express love than to make someone eat crappy food first thing in the morning?!!
i think you have to take cultural history into account.
if you remember, immigrants coming to america prior to the industrial revolution had two options: stay in the cities, or strike out on their own working the land. those who became farmers would have needed a decently large meal after caring for the livestock to provide energy for the rest of the morning's work. i grew up in the midwest, and the same still kind of holds true for the families who are working farms... dad and kids get up and take care of the livestock, mom makes breakfast, everyone eats, then the kids go off to school while dad works on the farm. so breakfast becomes purely a matter of "hey i need something to eat so i'm not so distracted by hunger that i can't get the stuff done i need to do."
personally, i've never really been a breakfast person. i'm not a fan of most of the foods (except bacon.... LOVE bacon), and i'm fine with just coffee and 2-3 tablespoons of light cream. with just that, i'm ok to wait until lunch. if i try to eat something more substantial, then i end up starvingly hungry at lunch and will easily overeat.
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I'm super new to all this.
I'm 27, 5'10 and I weigh 225 lbs. I've been bigger my whole life (in fact, bigger than this at many points)
Weight loss has always been a struggle, and I recently heard about this kind of fasting as a way to make the fat "melt off you". It does seem tempting, seeing as how every other day I can still eat the foods like I like.
I guess my real question is, should I be eating at all on the fast days, or would it be more beneficial to just not eat at all every other day?0 -
Leon- From what I've read there isn't a lot of benefit to going below 25% of maintenance on fast days.
The fat isn't melting off of me, so I'd go in with tempered expectations. There is no magic bullet, just various methods that might appeal to some more to create deficits.0 -
for those of you who are doing JUDDD or ADF and are also on a regular workout schedule, do you adjust your workouts to align with your "up" and "down" days?
i've been playing with the idea of ADF, and it's a dangerous concept for me (history of ED), but i'm hoping it might be the tweak i need to get my rate of loss up into the calculated/expected rate. currently i work out 4-5 days a week, with full body circuit/weight training 3x alternating with focused ab work and cardio 2x. both seem to be equally intensive, so which workouts would go on the "up" days and which on the "down" days... or should i adjust to put the heavier workouts on the "up" days and just do cardio on the "down"?0 -
Leon, read the thread linked below. He has a good write up. He did a self experiment with IF and he tried each version for a month each. It is a really good read and helped me get a good understanding of the differences. I wish he would have done Leangains 16:8 first so I could see if he had similar weight loss, but I will do my own experiment.
precisionnutrition.com/intermittent-fasting/introduction0 -
I do 18:6 every day and on top of it do 5:2. I have Lupus and no longer have a thyroid and this way still have lost 55 pounds. I do not suffer because of an ultra low calorie limit and feel fine. I eat 1200 calories, because I am over 65, under 5 feet and moderately active. Without IF I would have to go so low in calories that it would not be very health conscious. This way I easily get all my macros, eat a decent amount of food in the way I prefer by eating two really big meals instead suffering on anywhere from 3-5 meals that are nothing more than snacks.
IF works for some people and for others it does not. You have to play around a bit to see what suits you. I do however think, with all due respect, that a nine hour feed and 15 hour fast is not much of an IF regimen.0 -
Thanks for the insight guys. I'll try and post results as I go along.
-LG-0
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