Intermittent Fasting

IF really got me into black coffee, I love it now.

Also got me into real whole leaf tea, namely green tea. I never liked the commercial tea bag stuff before but trying the real thing was something completely different. I can recommend ;).
 
I pretty much fast these days until at least early afternoon, sometimes a lot later. I'm not consciously deciding not to eat until later in the day, it just seems that I naturally gravitate towards feeling much hungrier in the evenings and nightime. Sometimes eat my main meal at midnight or later.

It's Partly due to working shifts and having a pretty messed up body clock, but I honestly don't think it matters a diddly-squat when you eat, aslong as you eat enough food for energy/repair/maintenance, and it's a good natural diet that's free of all the modern processed junk.
 
I love IF especially the big meals.

Ive been following leangains and just this last week started moving my calories up to recomp values as ive been in calorie deficit for far too long and need to bring them up and re asses.

Now sat at 153lbs at 6ft 2 at around 11ish% body fat.

See how I feel in a few weeks with regards too cutting a bit more or lean bulking.
Made the mistake of last bulk of listening to people saying I was too skinny and too eat a lot more.

3000ish calories a day = 11 st to 14st in 8 months with far too much fat....hence spending the best part of this year getting rid of it.....you live and learn!

Looking better for it though, abs starting to come through....so close...but then my mind is telling me i should just bulk a bit as im far too light for my height and im going to need a good 20lbs of muscle at least to start getting anywhere to what I want to be like, which is going to take a looooong time.

anyway...

for anyone thats interested, heres a couple of handy links:

If calculator to help you work out your calroies/macros:
http://www.1percentedge.com/ifcalc/

This fella has taken a lot of what Martin started with leangains and set out a nice guide of how to work your macros out:
http://rippedbody.jp/2011/10/23/how-to-calculate-leangains-macros/

all this has just been advise...you can do what ever the **** you wanna do...haha!!
(Only discovered Hodge Twins this week)
 
I couldn't eat all my calories in a short time window. I'd rather eat loads of calories, ALL the time! :D :D :D And I hate the bulk/cut thing - it's just pointless (to me).

However, it's definitely a good method if adhered to, to shedding some weight. :) If I ever put on too much weight I'd definitely go this route. However, I get sleepy and grumpy if I don't eat and bloody miserable - especially if I don't have breakfast!

Fortunately, I'm pretty well versed and know what I'm doing (though still learning - always learning! :cool: ), but for people who are interested in getting solid results fairly easily, then yes, it makes sense, and if you can make it fit your lifestyle - then even better! :)
 
If coffee doesn't count as eating if it's got a splash of milk in it, I might give this a go. A big problem of mine is a big appetite, and I'll often have a large meal at dinner... Which could work for me.
 
The best type of Fasting is Juice Fasting...

Its drinking pure Vegetables and only some fruits with low sugar. Vegetables contain Micro-nutrients which is the best form of food for you.

I suggest you go and watch... Fat, Sick and nearly Dead and watch the videos on Youtube

Once you see how it works you wont want to try any other fasting methods.
 
The best type of Fasting is Juice Fasting...

Its drinking pure Vegetables and only some fruits with low sugar. Vegetables contain Micro-nutrients which is the best form of food for you.

I suggest you go and watch... Fat, Sick and nearly Dead and watch the videos on Youtube

Once you see how it works you wont want to try any other fasting methods.

No it's not, it's complete crap. Yes I've watched the documentary.
 
The best type of Fasting is Juice Fasting...

Its drinking pure Vegetables and only some fruits with low sugar. Vegetables contain Micro-nutrients which is the best form of food for you.

I suggest you go and watch... Fat, Sick and nearly Dead and watch the videos on Youtube

Once you see how it works you wont want to try any other fasting methods.

Micro and Macro nutrients exist in everything, what do you think food is?
 
I have been experimenting with IF for a couple of weeks, since watching the Panorama documentary about the health benefits of fasting.

Here is an article by the guy in the documentary:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19112549

I tried fasting for a whole day initially. Then I tried going one day on, one day off, before settling on something like a 16/8, as it very easy to maintain. I have actually found my appetite is smaller and I am having smaller meals.

Going 1 day without food was actually quite liberating. I am someone who militantly ate 3 meals a day, and always at the standard times. In the past if I didn't eat, it would play on my mind and I would feel hungry/low on energy. When I fasted I didn't actually feel weak, when was able to cope with exercise. The realisation that I can cope fine without constant feeding, was liberating in the sense that I could see my desire for food was psycologically driven, and I will actually cope fine with a little less food.

I have lost approx 9lbs in 2weeks, down from 13st 7 to 12st 12.

I would guess that part of the weight loss can be attributed to having less food sitting in my belly! I estimate I should be losing 2-3lb a week based on the calory defecit I am aiming for.
 
So your doing 1 day with food and 1 day without and that's working?

Are you doing any exercise at all?

Me?

I started off doing one day on, one day off but only for 4 days. Since then I have been either eating once a day, at dinner time, or eating twice, but with a fairly small lunch.

I also changed my diet a fair bit, much less carbs. (I.e much less bread, rice pasta and potatoes, still eating a lot of fruit and veg). So it will be a number of things combined. Fasting, as long as you don't gorge afterwards is an effective way of reducing daily calorie intake. I think cutting breakfast out, and having a low carb lunch prevents big insulin spikes which used to make me hungry.

As for exercise, when possible I have gone for longish walks at lunchtime. E.g 45min to an hour. I have done a bit of running, 2* 10k and 1* 5k. No weight training.
 
I'm doing 16/8 with a feeding window of 10am-6pm and going to the gym or for a run at about 4pm for an hour. The first few days were a bit weird as I've always been used to having breakfast at 7am but I adjusted quickly and find it no problem at all. My energy levels don't seem to have changed but I have noticed my overall appetite has dropped and quite often I won't eat until lunchtime.

What I like about IF is unlike other diets is that you just eat sensibly in a smaller window rather, it's a very on/off approach, you simply don't eat outside of certain times and that means you can't even try to justify eating a snack at 9pm. Previously I often found I would have a yoghurt or banana at about 8pm, not unhealthy but unnecessary since I wasn't really hungry just 'peckish'!

IF helps you eat when you need to do not just because you're used to eating at certain times, my wife is doing 14/10 (apparently better than 16/8 for women) and she really likes it as well. She used to snack a lot so finds the ban on food outside of her grazing time a very good rule.

I've lost about 2kg since starting on IF 4 weeks ago, wasn't really setting out to lose weight as I've already dropped 22kg in the last 10 months but I feel good and I like the other potential health benefits so will stick with it for now.
 
I've done IF in the past which I had no problems with, but after a while and to be honest I don't even know the reason I stopped doing it.

I'm trying to lose the last bit of the weight I want to lose though so I've started back up with a 16/8 routine. Hoping to drop around half a stone in the next month or so, to bring my weight loss to a total of 10 stone.
 
I am to understand that missing breakfast has now been given a cool name. "I didn't miss breakfast I'm IF!". So all these years I've been IF as I don't eat breakfast*, so I'm on a18/6 routine for the most part.... What have I missed?

*exception to this is before a race.
 
Last edited:
IF/Leangains convert here, thanks to Andy @ rippedbody.jp getting me into it. Think I could do this for the rest of my life.

It's easy, I'm getting the results and combined with careful application of IIFYM nothing is 'off the menu' - so while I won't be having that chocolate souffle every week on a rest day, a quick glance told me I could enjoy guilt-free as long as I was careful with the rest of my carb/fat intake that day.

Doing a cut-centric body recomp so the meals aren't massive, particularly on rest days, but when I get super lean and start slow bulking I can look forward to some Epic Meal Time action.
 
I am to understand that missing breakfast has now been given a cool name. "I didn't miss breakfast I'm IF!". So all these years I've been IF as I don't eat breakfast*, so I'm on a18/6 routine for the most part.... What have I missed?

*exception to this is before a race.

That's one of them. The leangains diet requires a fair bit of weight training though compared to others. Fast-5 for example is 5 hours window for eating which gives a longer fast or the warrior diet which is 20/4. I like you am not completely convinced by the 16/8 fast, but there are plenty of people out there with ripped bodies that swear by it...
 
IF isn't going to lose you weight by itself, you still need to eat sensibly and exercise but it certainly helped as it fitted with the structured approach that seems to work best for me.

I've lost quite a bit of weight from 16/8 combined with daily cardio/weights and haven't ever felt like I was on a 'diet' which has been great as I love good food and didn't want to cut down every single meal or always order salad/light options.

Before/recent pic in spoilers so don't open if you don't want to see a fat belly (or aren't interested ;)) and excuse the chopped up first pic, had to montage from two photos from a mole mapping in December.

214705x.jpg
 
Back
Top Bottom