[Intermittent Fasting, Etc] Dr. Berardi's experience with popular methods

[AndrewGpv03]

This was a good read - and I wanted to share with you folks.

Dr. Berardi experiments with many of the popular fasting protocols, such as: EOD fasting, 16/8 fasting, Once/Twice a week fasting, etc... and he documents his experiences, lessons learned, blood work, approach, etc.

I thought this had some valuable info as well as being relatively entertaining.

I know many of you are into reading peer-reviewed scientific journals on the shitter (Homon? :dancingna) -- so you might find this interesting!

http://www.precisionnutrition.com/intermittent-fasting/download

Have a good one folks!

[DCBliever]

This was a good read - and I wanted to share with you folks.

Dr. Berardi experiments with many of the popular fasting protocols, such as: EOD fasting, 16/8 fasting, Once/Twice a week fasting, etc... and he documents his experiences, lessons learned, blood work, approach, etc.

I thought this had some valuable info as well as being relatively entertaining.

I know many of you are into reading peer-reviewed scientific journals on the shitter (Homon? :dancingna) -- so you might find this interesting!

http://www.precisionnutrition.com/intermittent-fasting/download

Have a good one folks!

Yeah it was definitely a good read, I find fasting hard being at a desk job, I don't have a cut off at night other than bed which is 10pm and my first meal is 10am, So I guess I do 12/12 with the carb back loading protocl from Kiefer. Something I'm trying out, just started this week.

[DOHCrazy]

Yeah it was definitely a good read, I find fasting hard being at a desk job, I don't have a cut off at night other than bed which is 10pm and my first meal is 10am, So I guess I do 12/12 with the carb back loading protocl from Kiefer. Something I'm trying out, just started this week.

I think one of the main things I learned from IF was that we won't all of a sudden lose muscle if we don't eat every 2.894 hours on the dot.

I pretty much eat in a 12 hour window too, from 10-10. The best thing is I don't race to eat breakfast in the mornings when I'm not hungry anyways. I just wait until I'm truly hungry. I also eat progressively more carbs as the day goes on, since most of us crave them at night, not at breakfast.

It's working for me :noidea:

[DCBliever]

I think one of the main things I learned from IF was that we won't all of a sudden lose muscle if we don't eat every 2.894 hours on the dot.

I pretty much eat in a 12 hour window too, from 10-10. The best thing is I don't race to eat breakfast in the mornings when I'm not hungry anyways. I just wait until I'm truly hungry. I also eat progressively more carbs as the day goes on, since most of us crave them at night, not at breakfast.

It's working for me :noidea:

Exactly, it's at night I find my self craving the carbs and it's working for me. You can make most diets work, but a lot of us overlook the things we can follow long term. If it's too much of a pain in the ass who's going to do it anyway? If it's your job to compete that's one thing, if you're and engineer and compete for fun like me, not likely.

EDIT:Just started sugar free aplle cider and that stuff is awesome to compliment coffee and green tea in the morning.

[homonunculus]

I think one of the main things I learned from IF was that we won't all of a sudden lose muscle if we don't eat every 2.894 hours on the dot.

I pretty much eat in a 12 hour window too, from 10-10. The best thing is I don't race to eat breakfast in the mornings when I'm not hungry anyways. I just wait until I'm truly hungry. I also eat progressively more carbs as the day goes on, since most of us crave them at night, not at breakfast.

It's working for me :noidea:

Exactly, it's at night I find my self craving the carbs and it's working for me. You can make most diets work, but a lot of us overlook the things we can follow long term. If it's too much of a pain in the ass who's going to do it anyway? If it's your job to compete that's one thing, if you're and engineer and compete for fun like me, not likely.

EDIT:Just started sugar free aplle cider and that stuff is awesome to compliment coffee and green tea in the morning.

What are your goals, guys?... (What tells you that it's working?)

-S

[DOHCrazy]

What are your goals, guys?... (What tells you that it's working?)

-S

I've used it to diet in a deficit and also to gain muscle. When gaining I haven't gotten as fat as I did before, although I also don't overdue protein anymore, train smarter, and eat smarter these days. It fits my lifestyle, and allows me to study as much as I need to, allows me to have fun in college, have fun with my girlfriend, and not be a boring bodybuilder. This is a serious hobby for me, but I don't have the genetics to ever make money in this sport. I have other priorities, like enjoying what little time I have left in college and building good relationships.

For me, this means this style of eating works for me. I make physique changes while keeping my priorities in line.

*NOTE: I realize peoples priorities are different, and I am only speaking for myself. If someone wants to devote 100% to bodybuilding and setting alarms to eat meals, yet never even win a show, there is NOTHING wrong with that.

[Doberman]

What are your goals, guys?... (What tells you that it's working?)

-S

My goal when I started this diet was to get myself to a decent bodyfat before my precontest phase started.

As you know I've been doing the UP DAY/DOWN DAY Diet which I thought was insane when I first heard about it. Fortunately, the person that introduced it to me was my friend and coach Jeremiah Forster, whom I've got a ton of respect for. He was always hovering at about 9-10% using a 9 site test. He got down to 5-6% while actually gaining muscle using this diet. His cardio consisted of light walks with the family. He did this in 6 weeks.

As for me I started out at 14% bodyfat at 200 lbs. We had my high day at 5000 and my low day at 500. We cut that to a high of 4000, a low of 500, and another high of 5000, followed by another low of 500. In about 6 weeks I'm at about 193 at 8% bodyfat. All of my weight training is on my "UP DAY". Cardio only consisted of 30 minutes of LISS which usually meant walking at a moderate pace.

Scott, I'm sure you will have a more technical reasoning on this and I'd love to hear it, but here are my thoughts: With any diet that is effective you need to balance periods of catabolism and anabolism. If you do that correctly you can minimize muscle loss and maximize fat loss. With this diet I believe that this basic requirement is met, albeit in a much different fashion. You are dealing with a different hormonal environment during the fast compared to a standard diet that some say will be beneficial to fat loss. I don't know if this is true. People can say what ever they want as far as studies and another one will refute it a few months later. I just know it seems to work for me. As far as the "UP DAY", I feel that using moderate to high protein, and high carb meals supports muscle maintenance or even muscle growth. Whether this is due to higher insulin on this day or that more nutrients are absorbed on this day I don't know, but I definitely don't feel flat on this diet like I have on other diets.

Do I think this is magic? NO, but it has worked fantastically for me. For anyone dieting I think there is a level of sacrifice. With this diet you don't feel like you are sacrificing for more than 16 hours and there is something nice about eating huge meals on the day you train. It just makes sense to me that the majority of you food intake should come after your training. Also, I've noticed that I enjoy the challenge of trying not to eat. My body also seems to feel better. I've noticed more energy, especially on my "DOWN DAY" and I seem to have a perpetual pump. Anyhow, just my 2 cents.

I'd love to hear your take on this Scott since I know you experimented with something similar.

[Imprezivr6]

What are your goals, guys?... (What tells you that it's working?)

-S

I can say for me, it allows me to have some sanity. I have never really used it for the specific goal of gaining muscle, although I would say I have added some while using the principles, however for "dieting" it has helped me tremendously in the mental sanity aspect.

Since my metabolism is fairly slow, eating 6 x 200-300 calorie meals, is just torturous. I had been doing IF for a while, and actually tried to go back to a more "normal" approach, mid diet, and made it a week before going back to IF.

With IF(16/8) I can eat 3 meals, with my large meal being 900-1k calories, which is actually satiating, and feels like I am actually eating a damn meal..lol And the two remaining meals, are still of a decent size.

I have also managed to keep calories, and carbs a bit higher then normal, and achieve my condition to date(still not as lean as I would like, but eh).

I mean I don't think it is magic, and just another way of restricting calories, but I do feel it provides some benefits for certain situations.

That said, I am SURE, I will be going back to a more traditional approach in the next month or two when it comes time to try and gain some size.

I see people bitching and whining about having to eat so much food, and think to myself "I wish I had that problem" ...lol

[DCBliever]

What are your goals, guys?... (What tells you that it's working?)

-S

At this point Homon I'm not looking for size, I'm looking purely to lean out while increasing/maintaining strength, basically recomping for lack of a better term. I am able to drop a weight class with little effort while increasing my lifts. I'm also doing a nother bodybuilding show in april and gaining any more size for will make it near impossible to make the weight class I am aiming for me. My priotities have changed lifting wise, getting stronger and leaner is where I'mm at, size serves no purpose for me at this point, I'm big enough for my liking. I'm dropping bodyfat and still enjoying some of the foods I enjoy but aren't traditional bodybuilding foods per say

[Ashers]

Great thread and great OP.

[RedSkull]

I see people bitching and whining about having to eat so much food, and think to myself "I wish I had that problem" ...lol

x2

interesting link too, thanks for posting

[Doberman]

By the way, great post. Reps added

[trucelt]

awesome read....

[RedSkull]

Do you guys actually feel like the IF was beneficial vs spreading the meals out more? It seems a lot of the time reading peoples feedback that they focus on how much nicer it is eating 3 meals vs 5-6, which is understandable depending on goals, but you can do that without fasting 16 hours obviously...

[Imprezivr6]

Do you guys actually feel like the IF was beneficial vs spreading the meals out more? It seems a lot of the time reading peoples feedback that they focus on how much nicer it is eating 3 meals vs 5-6, which is understandable depending on goals, but you can do that without fasting 16 hours obviously...

The way my day is set-up it isn't an issue at all.

I go to bed at 9pm, so start fasting at 8pm, wake up at 6am, in the gym by 7 or so. By the time I am done training, cardio, get home, I may be fasting for a couple hours.

Even if I stopped eating at 8pm, which I usually did anyway, I would be fasting 11-12 hrs anyway before I ate.

I do consume BCAA's upon waking, intra wo, and maybe 1 more serving post.

I actually like to train fasted better.