So what if everything you knew about dieting was wrong? What if our theories today about eating were as wrong as they were back in the 60’s, when everyone was supposed to eat 6-11 servings of carbs a day?
Well, that’s what we’ll be taking a look at today. If you read about bodybuilding at all, you’ll know that it’s recommended that you break your eating into 4-6 small meals a day. That way, your body never gets too hungry, which signals it to start storing fat. Right? Also, by keeping your meals small, you prevent excess calories from a meal from becoming fat. Right? Seems so logical. The model is so basic – like your body is a tube with a bucket at the bottom. Just don’t get the bucket too full.
I was looking around the other day and I came across this site. It introduced me to intermittent fasting. Here’s the basics on intermittent fasting. You limit your eating to 8 hours of the day and don’t eat for the other 16 hours. During the 8 hours, you can drink water, but that’s it. Here’s some guidelines:
- On a workout day, make your first meal meat, veggies, and a fruit. Don’t make it a big meal.
- After your workout, have a big meal. Add good complex carbs in this meal, like rice, pasta, or potatoes. You can even have a dessert, as long as it’s not high in fat.
- On a non-workout day, eat low/no carbs. Focus on high-protien and high-fiber meals.
- For the last meal of the day (either workout or non-workout), try to eat a slow digesting protein, like casein. This can come in egg protein or non-fat cottage cheese.
So why should this work? What’s the physiology behind this? First off, it should be noted that there is a lack of solid research on this method. Aside from that, the theory of it is building off of my post on insulin. By incorporating a fast, you are increasing your body’s sensitivity to insulin. Increased sensitivity to insulin means less insulin floating around in your body during the day. Less insulin during non-workout times means less nutrients going to building fat. Then, but focusing your insulin and carb levels to after workouts, you maximize nutrient uptake to your muscles, while keeping your carb uptake low at other times of the day. Get it?
Looking at the results some of his clients are getting, there may be something to it. There are some very impressive physiques going on there.
I tried it, and I couldn’t stick to it. I was hungry after 16 hours – CrazyHungry. After reading around on his site, he mentions that it might take 3-4 days for your body to get used to the different eating schedule, but that it gets much easier from there. I’ll go back on it and keep you guys posted with the results.
Another note, this diet is obviously for your cutting phases, not your bulking phases.
If you want to adjust to fasting you can start first by having your breakfast later. Then moving the breakfast time every day until it merges with lunch. Then do the same with lunch. Until you come close enough to dinner. That is decrease your eating window incrementally.
Fast5 program actually has only 5 hour eating window.
Oh wow..that’s a really smart way to go about that! Thanks for the comment, look forward to contributing and learning from everybody as much as possible!
Zade, that’s a great idea! I’m definitely going to do that.