Thoughts On Intermittent Fasting

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Ben Bruno

Two weeks ago, I made a blog post asking a simple question: What is the biggest thing holding you back from your fitness goals?

I received a ton of great responses, but by far the biggest answer was….DIET.

More specifically, it was CONSISTENCY with the diet.

A lot of people eat well for a little while only to undermine their efforts with an all-out binge fest that cancels out a lot of the progress you made. Sound familiar?

There are a ton of good diets out there that will help you to get lean, build muscle, and do whatever else it is you want to do. The key is to find one that works for your lifestyle so that you will stick to it over the long run. If you struggle to find the time to cook and prepare all of your meals ahead of time, the odds of sticking to your diet plan aren’t great.

With that in mind, you may be interested in the idea of Intermittent Fasting (IF). I am just getting into reading more about it myself and I don’t have a ton of experience with it yet, but the more I read, the more I like it. Lots of my friends have used it and/or are currently using it with good success, and I am seeing more and more believers by the day. At the end of the day, I’m a results-based guy, so any time I see a lot of people doing something that works, I pay close attention.

There are many variations of IF, but the basic idea is that you eat less frequently than on a standard 4-6 meals a day diet. Supposedly there are hormonal benefits to this style of eating, but to be perfectly honest, the most appealing thing to me is the CONVENIENCE factor.

I hate cooking, so the idea of eating fewer meals is very appealing. Plus, since you’re eating less frequently, you have a little more “wiggle room” to eat things that might not be 100% perfect without doing as much damage, which makes it easier during social gatherings, etc. I like that a lot, too.

I don’t necessarily think IF is better than other forms of dieting, but I do think it is a viable to get lean that works particularly well for people that struggle with nutritional consistency or for people with busy schedules that don’t want to cook all the time.

If that’s you, I’d definitely suggest looking into it more. My friend John Romaniello just came out with a really comprehensive guide to IF that I really enjoyed reading, so much so that I’m going to give it a shot myself. I suggest you give it a look and see if it’s something that you think could work for you as well. He also includes a very comprehensive training program to work synergistically with the diet to augment your results even more. You can find out more about the program HERE.

It’s on sale right now (more than half off, actually) and there’s a bunch of cool bonuses that come along with it if you act fast, so definitely check it out.

Have you tried Intermittent Fasting already yourself? Please let me know your experiences and results in the comments below. I’m very interested to hear what you think as I move forward. I’ll also be sure to share my experiences as well.

  • Daevid

    Hi Ben,

    I’ve been trialling IF (leangains method) for just over a month now. I should have done more measurements, but weight has stayed the same, yet body fat has gone down noticeably. (Currently around 100kg – 6’5″)
    Also, lifts have still been progressing at the usual pace, which is nice. In fact I set a couple of PRs this month.
    I started with an easy week in the gym to get used to it, and I’d say the only negative is that without eating I struggle a little more with motivation to do any intervals or conditioning. I’ll still do it, but probably not as much as I would have before.
    Lastly, I’ve still been eating three meals, just only between 1-9pm. In fact, it’s pretty much the same three meals as before, just with ‘breakfast’ in the late afternoon (I loves me some bacon and eggs).

    With all that though, I’d still only recommend it to someone who already is eating the right things in the right amounts, and training correctly. I think it’d be too easy for IF to become an excuse to under-eat, which too many people do (coupled with excessive cardio).

    Anyway that’s my 2c

    Cheers

    Daevid

    • Ben Bruno

      Thanks Daevid- Sounds like a positive experience for you so far. The list of people who like it just continues to grow, and I feel left out hahaha! I appreciate your feedback.

      • Daevid

        For someone like you, who eats well and trains hard, I think it could be really beneficial! You might miss your breakfast though :)

        • Ben Bruno

          Yea, I do love me some breakfast :) So that part will be hard. We’ll see. Like I said in the post, it’s not for everyone, but if so many people just results you’ve got to give it due credit.

  • http://www.facebook.com/jeffthetrainer Jeff Teta

    I personally like the Warrior Diet by Ori Hofmelker. His Anti-Estrogenic Diet which is the same as Warrior but has more guidelines is pretty easy to follow. Since I wake early and usually have long days of training people I find this style of eating to be the most convenient.
    As far as performance in the gym I saw a bit of a dip but nothing to severe. Eventually I feel like you get use to fasting and you pick up your strength gains.
    When I first started the diet I was 190lbs and I dropped to 163lbs.. Little too much of a weight lost. I stay about 175lbs right now, which feels right. I also stop doing it year round. Since I like to lift a little heavier in the winters and perhaps it just me but tend to want to eat more too, I began to just fast 2-3 times a week.
    As far as recommending this style of eating. I train mostly females so I am hesitant about suggesting they should try IF. To be quite frank, most people have some kind of eating issues so I make sure they are just developing proper eating habits first. I have recommended a few clients, but I make sure they purchase the proper literature first and then we can discuss it and walk through it.
    Overall I like IF or under eating. Food taste so much better when you get to eat and like you said less wiggle room for cheating.

    • Ben Bruno

      Very interesting thoughts Jeff! Thank you for contributing. I have read about the Warrior Diet extensively, but I have never heard of the particular variant you mentioned so I’ll look into it. I also appeciate your comments regarding your clients. I can see where you’re coming for sure.

  • Greg

    Ben, over the last few months I have been intermittently intermittently fasting.

    I started out with Brad Pilon’s Eat.Stop.Eat program with 1 full 24hr fast a week. After a few weeks I bumped it to twice a week. I changed pretty much nothing in my diet (not fabulous but not quite cringe worthy) and still rarely exercised, but even still I started seeing results.

    Once I started getting used to it, I had a change in medication with a side effect of dizziness so I stopped fasting for a few weeks while I adjusted.

    The entire time I have been improving my diet and my working out. I have also since read Roman’s article as well as Dr. Berardi’s about his experience with IF. This is where I learned about the leangains method of 16/8 fasting.

    I also read some interesting research that indicates there is a possible maximum fat burn [well, energy transfer] based on our metabolism and body fat (ie – our bodies will only ever be able to burn x per whatever)-1. After that I started fasting again, this time with the leangains method. Just recently, I started incorporating ESE again.

    So now I do 1 fast in the 16/8split method, and 1 full 24 hr fast a week.

    I feel better in general, have noticed no negative changes in strength mood, sleep, or mental capacity. And my bodyfat is melting away slowly, but surely.

    One thing for people to keep in mind is that IF is a great program, but it’s not magic. Meaning you can’t binge all week then fast and expect to lose fat. You also can’t expect to lose 2lbs of bodyfat a week from fasting alone; it just doesn’t work that way.

    From my reading and my experience though IF is a great, convenient supplement to a healthy lifestyle.

    -1 sources:
    http://www.burnthefat.com/how_to_lose_a_pound_of_fat_per_day.html
    http://www.bodybuildingsecrets.com/articles/stubborn_fat_and_how_to_get_rid_of_it_pt1.php

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2266991/
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15615615

  • Rockydb

    I started a week ago on the 168 IF. I feel it better fits my lifestyle. May be more natural for me. Over all I have been feeling better. More driven when I train. I eat from 1:30 – 9:30. My training is ussually after 6:00 PM. It is early to fully critique, but I have cronic sinus and digestive issues, I am curious to see if I am better able to tolerate a restrictive diet.

    • Ben Bruno

      That’s awesome. Glad it’s working well for you. That method seems to fit a lot of people’s schedule much better, which leads to greater consistency.

  • Patrick Koch

    Ben my name is Pat Koch CSCS, CISSN wanted to introduce myself as I have been a long time reader but this is my first post. A couple things I have noticed about my own experiments with IF. Started doing warrior diet for a couple months have shifted more towards a lean gains approach.

    Pros
    - Never Hungry (Weird because when I eat multiple meals a day I am ravenous)
    - Convenient as hell.
    - No decrease in performance

    Cons
    - Found it easy to rationalize poor food choices much more often.
    - Actually had to monitor portion size because I was losing weight to quick. Never hungry.
    - May be tough for clients who have active jobs (construction, highway etc.)
    - People who haven’t heard about IF will throw poo at you. Explaining it to them seems to yield no results.

    As with most diets, some personalities mesh well with IF. I could see how an obsessive dieter or a person with a history with disordered eating could use IF to their detriment. As the eating window becomes another thing to obsess about.

    Excited to hear how you find it
    -Pat

    • Ben Bruno

      Hi Pat, thanks for commenting! Please chime in more often! These are some great comments, and I really appreciate your feedback based on your own experiences!

  • Mike

    I tried it for around 8 months, and found it worked pretty well. The advantages to it were -

    - Easy
    - Get to eat big meals
    - Great results for fat loss.

    Disadvantages -

    - If I trained early in the morning (ie.6-8am), it meant having to wait until at least midday for my first proper meal.
    - Difficult if you’re meeting people for breakfast, or going to a breakfast meeting.
    - Hunger in the early stages.

    I’d encourage everyone to give it a go though. You don’t know how you’ll do with it until you try.

    Mike
    http://www.mikesamuelspersonaltraining.co.uk

    • Ben Bruno

      Thanks Mike! I appreciate the feedback. My biggest hesitation is that I’m a morning person as well, but like you said, you don’t know til you try.

      • dlevan

        You don’t have to make your eating times 1pm to 9pm, you make it fit for you, that’s the beauty of it, it’s flexible. I workout early in the morning and make my eating window 5am to 1pm, so i was well fueled before/after workouts. flexibility is key.

  • Tymurds

    Hey Ben

    I’ve been doing IF for a year now and its great. Last year I was shredding up for spring break in Panama City Beach and stumbled upon Leangains. Read a whole bunch and experimented. Have since gotten my cousin into it and great results for him as well. Its easy, convenient, and I love eating large meals. I’d rather feast a couple of times a day than “snack” on 6 small meals. That was nerve-racking having to eat every 3 hours.

    Training fasted is no problem, and I have plenty of energy during the day leading up to my lifts. If I am somewhere on the weekend on vacation or at a friends and they’re serving breakfast, I’ll eat it. No biggie. I highly recommend experimenting with it and find out what works best for you. Some of my friends think I’m crazy for this diet schedule, but its all gooooood. Constantly hitting PR’s and stayin swole.

    Oh yeah, it freaks people out when you break your fast with a massive meal!

    • Ben Bruno

      Thanks man! I look forward to trying it. I’ve learned not to worry what other people think. A lot of times people judge what you’re doing based on insecurity and lack of willpower. I’m curious how it goes. Sounds like it’s great for you!

  • Guy

    Just my personal POV on intermittent fasting… I think it’s great if used properly and downright dangerous if used incorrectly. I find it funny how people are suddenly jumping on the IF bandwagon but Robb Wolf was touting IF as a way of life back in 2005.

    I call BS on LeanGains. Just because you’re lean doesn’t make what you do healthy. IF in that regard is basically just starving yourself to justify binge eating junk food like cheesecake and binge drinking. Martin is a smart guy, but seriously, I don’t care how lean you are or how much you lift, if your “healthy diet” includes cheesecake and hard liquor, you’re missing the point of IF.

    If you practice IF the way that Art DeVany does, then yes. I do believe it is healthy and advantageous. You’ll increase SIRT-1 expression (which isn’t that what everyone jumps on resveratrol for?), and you’ll improve your insulin sensitivity.

    Done correctly, IF can help people lose fat, even stubborn fat, while gaining good quality muscle and even improving performance due to improved glycogen replenishment and nutrient partitioning. I’ve used IF protocols to help my athletes peak for events like the NFL Combine. However, done incorrectly, IF is just another eating disorder.

    • Ms.Inquisitivesoul

      Please share the correct way of doing IF.

  • http://twitter.com/Georgiaa91 Georgia M

    ….

  • http://refusingtotiptoe.com/ Cristal

    I am so very thankful for your article. I have been led to IF for reasons not related to weight loss/fitness (although that’s a wonderful perk).

    I have been tweaking my diet (manner of eating) in an effort to control some hormonal/insulin resistance issues. I believe women can find GREAT success in controling female issues by changing their manner of eating (I hate to say “diet” because people get the wrong idea).

    I’ve seen tremedous changes but am looking to really find complete healing. So, your article is confirming to me that I need to become even more serious about fasting. However, I want to do this safely and in the method that is right for me, personally. So, I’m thankful for the information you provided.