Intermittent Fasting
So my latest thing is trying intermitant fasting. It came about after asking Greg Everett for some nutirition advice to help me drop down a weight class.
The basic idea of it is to go ~15+ hrs without eating and then eat within a 6-8 hr window. I’m going to situate the “feeding times” around training times typicaly eating from 12-7 allowing for pre and post workout meals.
Its not about restricting calories, you are still eating the same amount of calories, just in a compressed window, however there are two interesting processes at work: (Credit goes to Susie Rosenberg for summing them up in plain language)
Second, fasting not only is a rest, it’s a stress. When we stress, then rest our muscles, they get stronger. Apparently, when we fast, we impose a unique metabolic stress that also makes us stronger in a metabolic sense. We become primed to use food more efficiently. Our sensitivity to the actions of insulin increases—which means we need to put out less insulin to get the needed response. Hormones that have positive effects in our bodies increase: growth hormone increases, as do certain brain neuropeptides that are protective against Alzheimer’s. Immunity to disease seems to strengthen as part of this neuroendocrine response to fasting.
They key being that you still need to be putting good food in your body to get results out of it, however it allows you to process the food you are eating more efficeintly. My attempt is going to be to keep my protein intake to around 110g a day (my lean muscle mass) keep my carb blocks low to mainly veggies an ensure I’m getting plenty of good fat!
I fixed your title spelling mistake
So I’ve been doing Intermittent fasting for 14 days now and am down 1.5kg! Only 2 more KG to go to get down to 58kg weight class.
But what I have found interesting about intermittent fasting has nothing to do with the weight drop, but rather how I feel. Ya I get hungry in the morning, but typically it is just a thought that passes through my mind so that aspect hasnt been nearly as difficult as I expected. When I do eat, food tastes Oh so good and feels like my body is able to digest it right away. I could eat a steak dinner and then do a crossfit work out 20 minutes later-I think this has to do with the increase in absorption rates and improvement in enzymatic processing and energy efficiency that your body is able to develop. And to top it off, I’m sleeping great!
hmmm how does this affect your workouts? As I find I really need to recharge after each workout and I can see this really getting in the way of it (especially doing 2 a day in some cases), you shall have to keep us uptodate on how it affects your strength etc as I’d be interested in that.
Since I started intermittent fasting, my workouts have looked like this:
Monday-Olifting 5:30-7:30
Tuesday-Olifting 5:30-7:30
Wednesday-Olifting 5:30-7:30
Thursday-4pm Angie
Friday-Olifting 5:30-7:30
Saturday-11am Grace/Zoe Mashup, 1pm Core workout/OH Squats
Sunday-Olifting/Core Workout 10am-12:00
Monday-Olifting 5:30-7:30
Tuesday-Olifting 5:30-7:30
Wednesday-Olifting 5:30-7:00
Thursday- 6am Crossfit workout (12 days of crossfit), 7pm Core workout, 5k row
Friday-Flying to Florida-4mile walk
Saturday-Olifting Certification 9-4-2 mile walk
Sunday-Olifting certificaiton 9-4-4 mile walk
Monday-Olifting 5:30-7:30
Tuesday-Olifting 5:30-7:00
So I typicaly schedule my “Feeding Times” 12-8pm so I do eat before and after all O-lifting workouts. I have only done limited crossfit workouts in the past two weeks, but overall it does not seem that my times are being affected (Angie time was 3 minutes PB, Zoe/Grace mashup was done in under 20 minutes, 5k row was a gym record) and my strength is increasing steadily-we do a whole lot of back and front squats at the Olifting sessions and the 3 sets of 3 at 90 and 100kgs are getting easier and easier.
I think its a matter of trying to adjust the feeding times to align with the workout times as much as possible, but everybodys bodies will respond differently.
I’d really like to know how this works out for you. Are you only eating from 12-8pm? or is there some daily alternation involved?
12-8 is the standard I tend to go by just because
(1) it usually fits into my schedule
(2) I’m usually busy enough in the mornings that I don’t even notice that I’m hungry until 12 (or when I do notice it is easy enough to push the thought aside and continue with my regular business)
However, if I am not training at night, I tend to cut it off by 6:00 (I always make sure I get food pre and post workout), and sometimes if there is a brunch or something I may start it earlier. On weekends I haven’t found it a problem working out on an empty stomach in the mornings, but I think I will always have some flexibility in it.
I don’t really understand why it seems to be working for me, but Im not going to complain as I have definitely noticed a difference in how my body is able to process foods and the energy levels and quality of sleep that I have. I found another advantage of it this weekend when I weighed in for my first O-lifting competition and then you have 2 hours between weigh in and competition start time so you have about an hour to cram enough food in you to sustain your strength and explosive power throughout the competition, so since I was used to eating larger meals at once and able to digest them quickly, it was not a problem, where as other people were sitting there full finding it hard to warmup.
But I have only been doing it for about 2.5 weeks, so I will keep you posted on how it goes, especially as I start to integrate more crossfit workouts back into my day.
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