Fasting: What, Why, and When?

Several people have asked me to explain the ins and outs of Intermittent Fasting. I understand the interest because the way fasting has been applied goes against most of what everyone has heard about nutrition for fitness, so there's a lot of fear and confusion associated with the subject. I've followed an intermittent fasting program off and on for over a year now and have noticed several great benefits from regulating your feeding phases and controlling your intake. I'll get to all that in a moment though. First of all, I want to address what fasting is exactly.





What?

Fasting is simply not eating for an extended period of time. There are a lot of different programs out there that promote different lengths of fasting but most of them are interested in achieving more or less the same goals. Some people suggest simply skipping meals at random, others say to skip an entire days worth of eating on certain days of the week, some consume only calorie free drinks for 24/36 hours once a week, while many more advocate following a fasting/feeding schedule where a portion of every day is spent not eating, while the other portion allows for the days entire calorie consumption. Time frames are usually written as (fasting hours/eating hours) and, depending on the author of the program, can range from 14/10, 15/9, 16/8, 17/7, etc...

I can't prescribe what would be the best long term regimen for any individual over the internet without meeting and working with them for some time, but I can tell you that I began by first going paleo/primal. When I eat the right types of food I naturally feel full for longer and I found that I could, after some time, go all day on one meal with absolutely no problem. Not even a stomach rumble. My next step was to go a full 24 hours without eating. I  was personally amazed because I had never believed I could go that long without eating, much less end up feeling great throughout the whole duration.

This method was comfortable, but really random. I didn't have a real strong schedule or guideline other than "don't eat sometimes". I didn't manage or control my nutrient intake while I was in my eating phase (other than staying primal) and I didn't bother to think about how my exercise might relate to not eating.

I eventually stumbled upon Martin Berkhans website  LeanGains.com. Here is where I found the holy grail of fasting.

Why?

Let me take a step back and explain why someone would want to subject themselves to varying periods of famine. I mean, conventional wisdom would have us believe that not eating will send us into a starvation mode where our bodies will store fat like a hoarder on TLC and eating 6 small meals a day will not only keep us full but will keep our metabolism burning all day long.

Hogswallop.

All of it.

This isn't just me making bold claims, not one of those notions above is supported by scientific studies. In fact, when you fast for anything over 8 hours, your body is burning mostly stored fat for fuel. Our metabolism is dictated by how many calories we eat, not our meal timing, and in my case, small meals don't do anything but make me want to eat more. Maybe you're different on that point, but chances are you will feel far more full after a massive steak and vegetable dinner than after a light salad and a couple of hard boiled eggs.

So what else does fasting do? Let me take a quote from John Berardi, PhD who has been fasting for 9 months and has dropped his already lean 10% BF to 4% BF:

"Beyond vanity, the reported health effects of an intelligently designed Intermittent Fasting program read like a laundry list of live longer, live better benefits including: reduced blood lipids,blood pressure, markers of inflammation, oxidative stress, and cancer. Increased cell turnover and repair, fat burning, growth hormone release, and metabolic rate. And improved appetite control, blood sugar control, cardiovascular function, and neuronal plasticity."

I left the links intact so you could check them out. It's amazing stuff, and all of it makes sense in the light of evolution. If you are a hunter-gatherer, you may go days without a kill, or maybe a particularly difficult winter makes you unable to find any food to forage. If your body were to shut down and start to die as soon as you went a day without eating then your species would not survive, obviously.

When?

A good IF program can enhance your work out program by leaps and bounds if done right. For a long time I fasted 16-20 hours a day and did heavy strength training 3 times a week, usually on an empty stomach. During this time, I increased my bench press from 175 to 215, my deadlift from 135 to 280, my squat from 135 to 250, and my pull ups from body weight x 5 to BW+40lbs X 8. The whole time I didn't gain any weight which tends to happen in a bulking phase. This was achieved by following the Lean Gains guide of fasting 16 hours a day, working out 3 times a week (M,W,F) and cycling my macronutrients so that on work out days I was eating a 500 calorie surplus, and on rest days I was eating a 500 calorie deficit. High protein every day, low carb, moderate fat on rest days, high carb, low fat on work out days. I would usually go to the gym with only 10g of Branched Chain Amino-Acids (BCAA) which helped preserve muscle mass during my lifts. After my work out I would consume a high calorie, high protein, high carb, moderate fat meal. This would usually be the biggest meal of the day. I would then space out the rest of my meals to fill the following 8 hour period. My final meal would be smaller with either a slower digesting protein, or lots of fiber so that it would process throughout the entire night.

Martin Berkhan outlines a few other possible fasting/workout/meal schedules here for you to take into consideration. The best regimen is the one that you can stick to for the long haul, there's no point in doing something that flat out doesn't work for you, so check that link out if you're interested.

The method I followed above was geared towards building strength and burning fat, I didn't do hardly any cardio besides walking and it worked great until I stopped lifting/dieting/fasting during the holidays. There are different variations that one can follow to focus on burning fat or building muscle. Depending on what you're trying to achieve it can take a lot of number crunching at first but once you get into the grove it's stupidly simple.

Even if you're not looking to workout a whole lot like I do, I still highly recommend playing around with different variations of IF. Try not eating for 24 hours, if that's easy, try it 2 or 3 times a week. Maybe even make it as simple as only eating when you are naturally and honestly hungry. Just make sure that you are eating a decent diet high in protein and low in processed/refined/sugary foods.

I will most likely be revisiting this subject again, so please toss me some questions or comments and I'll do my best to answer them in the next post.