Intermittent fasting: Effective?
Or Destroyer Of Worlds...
If you shave the fat off of your body, you will be faster, and you will be able to last longer in just about any physical activity.
Boom. This newsletter is still technically martial arts related.
It would also just be nice to see my abs again before gluttony sends me to an early grave.
Nevertheless, dieting fads come and go... but one of the most recent to sorta 'take over' is the concept of intermittent fasting; which was the most commonly Google searched in 2019.
I mean, how can it get easier? Instead of preparing healthy food, you just prepare NO food. Brilliant!
Any break from eating is obviously a 'fast', but how long is too long? For example, when your body is pumping out the catabolic hormones that help you burn fat, those hormones are not necessarily doing 'good' things for your muscles. So how deep into a state of starvation should an athlete really be going?
"Over the course of the study, participants in the fasting group lost about three and a half pounds. But the bulk of pounds lost wasn't fat.
Crucially, it was lean mass, including muscle. Typically, about 20 to 30 percent of total weight loss is lean mass. In this study, the proportion of lean mass loss was 65 percent.
"You don’t want to lose lean mass. You want to lose fat mass," Weiss (the study's author) says. "Here we found that two-thirds of weight loss came from lean mass."
So CALORIES BEING HELD EQUAL, both groups lost the same amount of weight, but the intermittent fasting group experienced a greater reduction of muscle.
THAT... will not make you faster.
In fact, that will make it harder for you to burn fat in the future... since fat is burned within muscle cells during exercise.
More muscle = More fat burning potential
The truth is, intermittent fasting fan / support groups post some very compelling before and after shots... but it's very rare to see anyone looking "strong" in that after shot.
Joe Rogan may be the only exception:
Go
...but Joe also fully admits to "supplementing his testosterone," which means that his test-tickles no longer need to produce it naturally.
Since his nuts no longer have to do any work, they will atrophy into fuzzy functionless raisinettes; a fate unbefitting a warrior such as Joe.
Or perhaps I'm just not man enough to let go of the fullness of my nuggets.
As such, as I continue the endless quest to restore my abs of old, but I will do so by eating undesirable food more regularly.
Yay.
Have a fantastic weekend.
Go burn some fat.
-Trav
This very thing has happened to me. This is timely. When I get on the scale after a couple of days of intermittent fasting (I have a smart scale) I see a loss of muscle mass, an almost no loss in subcutaneous fat, and no movement on the visceral fat front. I am 6 ft. More or less Anthony Joshua build at 227-230.
What’s up, Trav? Interesting article. I don’t have an article to cite, neither for nor against, regarding the effectiveness of fasting. However, if I may offer just some opinions, hopefully avoiding any forehead swatting. I think fasting comes from the idea that this was more than likely a way in which our ancestors lived, but not by choice. In our hunter-gatherer days, I’m sure it was common for us to go a while without food. And, then, when we got it, we probably gorged. But, I think one key difference between us today and us-as-ancestors is that we are extremely sedentary. This seems to be the case with the study you posted – all of the participants were overweight/obese, meaning they probably didn’t have any sort of exercise in their lives before, during, or after the study. I, also, noticed that the mean age was in the mid-40s, at least for the men. Well, most dudes that age have significantly lower T than those half their age. If you combine a sedentary lifestyle, with who knows what for food, and low T to begin with, the results probably won’t be too accurate. Perhaps a study should be done with younger folks who work out. And, their actual dietary intake would need to be closely monitored. Who knows if the folks in this study even followed their eating regimen.
Good insights, and glad I came across this article. I recently began a fasting protocol to induce autophagy, which would include the catabolism of muscle, because I am dealing with severe neck pain (I’ve used other modalities in an attempt to clear the pain up…) and have notice that I have lost muscle mass elsewhere, even though I am still taking in a lot of calories…eating up to 2.5 pounds of meat/day (every 24 hours.) I know this is anectotal, but I can relate to what is being stated here. Thankfully, I haven’t lost any strength and my performance has not declined too much at this point. Thanks for sharing. MJY
Well colour me impressed, I never knew you were a scientific nutritionalistic guru guy, Trav. Very cool. My own opinion on Intermittent Fasting is that it works for average joes because they tend to eat less, ergo, lose weight. I’m not a fan. I am a firm believer in balance. Input should match output (with adjustments for gain or loss goals). The hard part is that I like to eat. I’m looking for my abs too, I haven’t seen them for a while. Oh yeah, this all gets harder as you get older. cheers, Mick
Groan. I have been trying to do intermittent fasting but because of the WuFlu and the gyms are closed, I have had no success. You aren’t suggesting that I should eat a healthy diet without gimmicks, are you?
Thank you I will be participating in this study to find out I got your email and It looks like you want someone with actual proof to support their comment I have to test this claim I will use a bodyfat Scale and counting calories. Today 10/20/20 I am 306lbs and 28.9% muscle mass I have been strength training right now my bodyfat scale (That is not in Athletic mode) says I’m 41.2% bodyfat and I am incorporating some cardio. 8 months ago I weight 265lbs fat and muscle were both 30’s give or take. Right now I am drinking some lemon water I should probably stop. I will update you in 1 & 2 months if anyone want a third month and has money then don’t hesitate to reach out today I just need to get organized.
Love it!