Intermittent fasting 2x week

I've been reading a lot about this versus doing a bulk cut. Has anyone tried it had success with this? Would this plan seem viable?

Fast till 1 pm 2x a week on my non lift days - I will do cardio kickboxing these days

Lifting 4x a week eating at 2500 calories.

And off day eat at maintenance.

Thoughts?

I'm 5'9'm
150
12.5% BF

Looking to add
Muscle and curb total fat gains and this program seems to be one approach to take.

Any thoughts welcome.

Thanks

Replies

  • sardelsa
    sardelsa Posts: 9,812 Member
    IF is an eating schedule, it is not a way to change body composition or gain muscle. Unless I am misunderstanding your post.

    What is your calorie intake at the end of the week, are you in maintenance or surplus? That will determine your results.
  • jseams1234
    jseams1234 Posts: 1,216 Member
    edited March 2018
    OP, you have been trying to gain muscle and lifting for over a year now. This type of thread is a recurring theme with you. I'm curious - in that year, what program have you been running and what kind of progress have you made on your lifts? For example, what was your starting bench Jan 2017 and what is it now? I have a feeling that you have been spinning your wheels for a while and not only your diet but your program might need to be reevaluated? Your first year of lifting should have been a year of your greatest gains in both mass and strength.
  • HvymetalMG
    HvymetalMG Posts: 93 Member
    I went from 177 to 135 when I was strictly cutting calories and reached that in about month 9 while lifting and doing a lot of cardio. About 5 months ago I upped my calories - adding about 300 calories a day, cut down on cardio and changed my lifting plan. My bench went from 135 to 165 today. Squats and desdlift also increased. And over the last 2 months my weight went from staying at around 142 to 150 last I checked.

    So I am assuming this is muscle gain, my waist still fits pants same when I was at my lowest.

    So does that help?

    What I want is to keep adding muscle. I am just terrified of gaining too much fat.
  • AnvilHead
    AnvilHead Posts: 18,344 Member
    HvymetalMG wrote: »
    I went from 177 to 135 when I was strictly cutting calories and reached that in about month 9 while lifting and doing a lot of cardio. About 5 months ago I upped my calories - adding about 300 calories a day, cut down on cardio and changed my lifting plan. My bench went from 135 to 165 today. Squats and desdlift also increased. And over the last 2 months my weight went from staying at around 142 to 150 last I checked.

    So I am assuming this is muscle gain, my waist still fits pants same when I was at my lowest.

    So does that help?

    What I want is to keep adding muscle. I am just terrified of gaining too much fat.

    Intermittent fasting is going to make zero difference in that regard.
  • jseams1234
    jseams1234 Posts: 1,216 Member
    edited March 2018
    HvymetalMG wrote: »
    I went from 177 to 135 when I was strictly cutting calories and reached that in about month 9 while lifting and doing a lot of cardio. About 5 months ago I upped my calories - adding about 300 calories a day, cut down on cardio and changed my lifting plan. My bench went from 135 to 165 today. Squats and desdlift also increased. And over the last 2 months my weight went from staying at around 142 to 150 last I checked.

    So I am assuming this is muscle gain, my waist still fits pants same when I was at my lowest.

    So does that help?

    What I want is to keep adding muscle. I am just terrified of gaining too much fat.

    Yes, it helps a lot. Thank you for clearing it up. You are making progress... which is fantastic. Spinning wheels is demotivating and depressing. Some of those strength gains can most likely be attributed to CNS adaptation but that usually only takes a couple of months to reach a plateau but some are also going to be muscle. You often hear experienced lifters say something along the line of "you don't start gaining muscle until you reach your first plateau" or something similar. What they mean is that real muscle development typically starts to accelerate once the body learns to use what it already has available.

    Yeah, you worked very hard to lose the fat and being worried about gaining it all back is a valid fear. Just keep the gains slow and steady and keep track of your fat gains. You can always do a mini cut if you get too uncomfortable - just be cautious. You are lean enough that any cut has to be very precise - the leaner you are the more likely you can be to lose muscle mass if you do it wrong (too quick, too little protein, not enough intensity, etc.) and also let yourself bulk long enough that you aren't just cutting your gains along with the fat. Even if you cut perfectly there is a probability that you will lose some lean mass.
  • HvymetalMG
    HvymetalMG Posts: 93 Member
    Got it. Thanks. So the take away I'm seeing as this fasting approach won't mater either way.

    Ideally what I wanted to do was keep eating at a little surplus over next few weeks and then continue lifting but eat under goals slightly ahead of the summer. But still looking to get 175g protein a day. It's very vein plan but I would like to look as lean as possible before summer.

    This is all still a learning process for me
  • sardelsa
    sardelsa Posts: 9,812 Member
    Have you read these articles in this thread? Really helpful when it comes to the mental aspect of bulking and fear of fat gain:
    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1069962/the-former-fat-boy-girl-syndrome/p1

    At the end of the day being terrified of some fat gain will hold you back in the muscle building department. You can keep your surplus ultra small but staying lean all the time and putting on significant muscle will be conflicting goals. Alternatively you can recomp, but again it can be very slow going so it depends on your goals.

    My advice would be to learn to get over the mental hurdles of some fat gain if you are serious about putting on mass. Otherwise as soon as a bit of weight comes on you are going to be trying to figure out ways to cut calories, add cardio and do all kinds of suboptimal things that can really hold you back in the end.
  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,937 Member
    HvymetalMG wrote: »
    Got it. Thanks. So the take away I'm seeing as this fasting approach won't mater either way.

    Ideally what I wanted to do was keep eating at a little surplus over next few weeks and then continue lifting but eat under goals slightly ahead of the summer. But still looking to get 175g protein a day. It's very vein plan but I would like to look as lean as possible before summer.

    This is all still a learning process for me

    IF only matters if it aids you in complying with whatever your dietary plan is. It doesn't have any magical benefits beyond that. If you want to gain muscle, you have to accept the fact that you are going to gain some fat. Keep the surplus at 250 cals per day to minimize it but some fat will still happen with the muscle growth.

    You have to decide what is most important to you.
  • fb47
    fb47 Posts: 1,058 Member
    edited March 2018
    HvymetalMG wrote: »
    I've been reading a lot about this versus doing a bulk cut. Has anyone tried it had success with this? Would this plan seem viable?

    Fast till 1 pm 2x a week on my non lift days - I will do cardio kickboxing these days

    Lifting 4x a week eating at 2500 calories.

    And off day eat at maintenance.

    Thoughts?

    I'm 5'9'm
    150
    12.5% BF

    Looking to add
    Muscle and curb total fat gains and this program seems to be one approach to take.

    Any thoughts welcome.

    Thanks

    Diets are only tools, all of them. Making them bigger than what they are is wrong, the only thing that matters for body composition is CICO (Calories in vs Calories Out), that's it. I find too many people in this forum thinks that diets are the reason a person will lose weight. It can help, but the only thing sure in life is that if you eat less calories than you burn, you lose weight....if you eat around the same calories as the calories you burn, your weight stays the same....if you eat more calories than you burn....well guess what? You will gain weight....and this is universal with any diet out there. Do IF only if you like to have 2-3 big meals opposed to 5-6 small meals, but other than that, don't bother wasting time on find the holy grail of diets, there isn't one.
  • omar57
    omar57 Posts: 10 Member
    IF isn't some magic formula you have to eat in a surpluss to put on muscle/gain weight and eat in a deficit to lose weight.....so with that said you can fast all you want but if you're trying to put on muscle you will have to eat all your surplus calories within your time window
  • jessef593
    jessef593 Posts: 2,272 Member
    HvymetalMG wrote: »
    I went from 177 to 135 when I was strictly cutting calories and reached that in about month 9 while lifting and doing a lot of cardio. About 5 months ago I upped my calories - adding about 300 calories a day, cut down on cardio and changed my lifting plan. My bench went from 135 to 165 today. Squats and desdlift also increased. And over the last 2 months my weight went from staying at around 142 to 150 last I checked.

    So I am assuming this is muscle gain, my waist still fits pants same when I was at my lowest.

    So does that help?

    What I want is to keep adding muscle. I am just terrified of gaining too much fat.

    I agree that you should stop worrying about fat gains and just maintain a slight surplus along with an actual program.

    You've definitely made progress. Both in weight and lifting. But a 30lb increase on your bench is quite minimal compared to what you are capable of in your first year of lifting. With proper diet, training, and technique you could've added that in 3 months.
    I was terrified of fat at first as well but once I learned to embrace it. The possibilities really started to present themselves.