A lot of you guys have been
Commenting for me to dive into the topic of intermittent fasting and there has been a lot of buzz in the fitness community
Surrounding IF and its fat loss and muscle gain benefits in fact
You can find examples of people getting great results with IF everywhere from
testimonials of fitness professionals movie stars
And of course the people you follow on social
Media so after trying it out for a few months and doing a lot of research
I'm finally ready to review and share with you guys my results but first off. What is
intermittent fasting? Well for those of you who are not familiar with IF there are several different variations
But all of them revolve around the premise of strictly eating inside certain eating windows and not eating anything at all
During your fasting window however water no calorie drinks and BCAAs are allowed and are usually
Recommended during fasting as they will not affect the fasting window or break your fast, but if you really think about it
Technically each and every one of us is already following a version of IF because we're not eating at night while we're asleep
well
Unless you tend to sleepwalk to the kitchen and then sleep snack
Which if you do set up a camera because I want to see that
But for everyone else we're fasting for about 8 to 10 hours a night while we sleep however the most common IF
Variation is the 8 to 16 model that simply means that you consume all of your calories inside an 8 hour window
And then you fast for the remaining 16 hours of the day now. This is not very extreme since many of us are already
Accidentally following it by sometimes skipping breakfast and not eating late at night, so it's not too far from reality
But if we deviate from the 8 to 16 model there are other variations
Such as the 6 to 18 and the 4 to 20 model which are a bit more extreme and then there are even certain
variations of intermittent fasting where you don't consume any food for 24, 36 or
48 hours I mean I think I would die if I had to do that but
Latter of course is more of a more of a cleansing and detoxifying tool
Used like once every six months or so rather than like a viable diet plan
so if an eight to ten hour fasting window is what's natural and normal for the majority of us why extend this window to
16 or 18 hours? Well here's the science behind it now the reality of the situation is that
Intermittent fasting has not been thoroughly studied and not definitively proven to work in any way
But the preliminary trials suggest that by cutting or eliminating calorie intake for a period of time or fasting
This causes your body to dramatically
Deplete its glycogen stores this in turn directs the body towards using stored fat as its primary source of energy
Resulting in reduction of intramuscular fat stores and fat loss in general. This is also very similar to the thoughts behind fasted cardio
But alright if this is how intermittent fasting promotes fat loss what about muscle gains?
Well with a reduction in fat on your muscle tissue your muscle
Cell has become more sensitive and responsive to insulin and insulin is a powerful anabolic hormone that promotes
Protein synthesis thus increasing muscle mass and short this means that when you reach your eating window
Your body's ability to take in all of those important nutrients is significantly enhanced causing your muscles to grow
Another common claim is that during a long period of not eating or fasting human growth hormone is
considerably boosted causing more protein synthesis and more fat loss and with that being said
Intermittent fasting does seem like a powerful combination creating a snowball effect where your body loses fat
Causing it to become more sensitive to insulin which helps you grow more muscle which in turn increases your metabolism
Resulting in more fat loss and so on so let's quickly recap the intermittent fasting benefits
Well to summarize the alleged claims of intermittent fasting are improved insulin sensitivity
boosted HGH production enhanced fat loss and muscle building
improved oxidative blood markers
improve brain function and focus improved overall health and prolong life
expectancy with less chances for chronic diseases like diabetes cancer or heart disease etc
But before we move on to the actual review of these claims, and I deliver my final verdict
Let's first examine a major concern most people have with intermittent fasting
Which is muscle breakdown during the fasted state if you've been watching my channel for a while now
Then you know that muscle loss does not occur that easily. It's not like if you don't eat food for 16 hours
You'll all of a sudden burn through all your muscle mass you just your body is much smarter than that guys
Your total amount of muscle is always the result of the equation muscle synthesis - muscle breakdown
both processes happen
24/7 and there's not much you can do to
Considerably influence them of course major lifestyle changes such as prolonged
Eating on extreme calorie deficit will likely increase the occurring muscle breakdown
Whereas consistent weight lifting will likely increase overall muscle synthesis
Leading to more muscle mass so to answer the question of whether or not intermittent fasting will cause muscle loss
The short answer is no because meal frequency is not nearly as important as overall
calorie intake if you look at the big picture
Week after week you're getting the same amount of calories and the same amount of protein
You're just changing the timing of nutrient delivery
Intermittent fasting is not a new diet with different food
It's the same food with a different diet schedule
But if you're still not convinced or need some peace of mind during your fasting window just supplement with some
BCAAs like BSN's amino X and that would pretty much eliminate any muscle loss risk or concern that you might have now the
problem with intermittent fasting is that if you look at all the research and studies they all have a lot to do with
caloric restriction so while the subjects are indeed on an intermittent fasting eating plan
They're also on a caloric deficit which is very different from what we do as bodybuilders
And I will link to those studies in my pin comment section below
Now of course you're going to lose weight if you eat less food right guys nothing new here in fact
This is why intermittent fasting works, so well it
Restricts you from eating the majority of the time
So you will not be able to eat as much as you normally would within your normal eating window which was
Basically any time you weren't asleep now
You're limited, and of course if you lose weight your insulin sensitivity will likely improve leading to more muscle gains again
Nothing new here guys
Personally I would be far more interested to see a study where they compared a standard caloric
deficit diet with an intermittent fasting calorie deficit diet
Both with the same total calories and of course there aren't any because the results would be the exact same now having said that though
Intermittent fasting subjects might be more successful as I stated before
Because it would be difficult for most people to consume
2,000 or 3,000 calories within a four to six hour window which could induce more fat loss because they can't hit that calorie goal
They'll be in a deficit as for the improved blood markers and less oxidative stress intermittent fasting can lead to again
It's all a matter of perspective guys, and that's the key word
perspective eating less food overall
Usually means eating less junk food as well, which will positively affect your health again
Nothing new here, and I think that's why some people go nuts for intermittent fasting if you're eating crap
And then you all of a sudden clean up your diet any
Type of meal schedule or diet that you now pick up that's clean will work because the main
Deterrent, which is the junk food is now gone, but what about brain function though because that comes up a lot as well
Well, we know that our brains main fuel source is glucose which is essentially carbs, so yes
I mean guys the brain can use ketones as well
But let's save the ketogenic diet for another day now we need carbs to function think and move and in my opinion
Being on being in a carb deprived state in the morning will not help improve your alertness or awareness
Instead it will most likely cause dizziness and maybe some loss of performance and lastly the HGH boost
Which everybody talks about
guys the teeny-tiny increase of HGH you may experience
Will simply do nothing for your fat loss or muscle gain endeavors. I mean elite bodybuilders and athletes
Inject two three or four times more HGH than their body's natural
potential can produce plus all other kinds of anabolic substances
But we won't get into that in order to get extreme results from increased HGH levels
So why would you think that as a natural lifter of five to ten percent HGH boost
Would give you any like any kind of drastic results in terms of muscle growth the answer is it doesn't make any sense again
however
If you had a bad diet and suddenly cleaned it up it might look like the results are drastic
but at the end of the day
I mean you can't out train a bad diet so if all of a sudden you're eating clean
And you were eating junk you will see results no matter what time you eat the food
But in all fairness all we prove so far is that intermittent
Fasting may or may not work if you already
Started using it and are having success with it then who am I to argue with you? Keep doing
What works for you
And if this diet plan helps you stay on the right track
Then it's suitable for you my main problem with intermittent fasting is that for me
It's not a long-term viable solution but more or less
It's a short-term fat loss tool in fact. I just want to interject something here
You know we're all about lean gains on this channel
So if you were bulking properly in the first place
You wouldn't have any need for any short-term fat loss tool and with that being said it could work if you use it for maybe
Like two to three months to shred some fat before a contest or before summer
But I just don't think it's a diet that you can follow forever for the majority of you
It's not going to be sustainable eating six hours a day for the rest of your life, and let's be honest here
I don't just care about getting you guys to look good and shredded
I also want to improve your quality of life by helping you adopt a healthier
Lifestyle so getting on a diet schedule such as intermittent fasting will eventually mean you'll get off of it
And that's not what my advice is all about a lot of people
I know who tried intermittent fasting that ended up binge eating hating their diet and not being able to eat
consistently enough to get results
Also, if you think about it on a social level intermittent fasting is a bit anti-social for example
Let's say you're eating window is noon to 6:00, and you have a date at 8 o'clock at night
Are you seriously not gonna eat
Just kind of like sit there watch the person you're on a date with eat their food while you just kind of stare at them
And what about like a family dinner?
Are you just gonna stare everyone else eating food like a family dinner is a nice time to interact with family and have fun
Now of course you could move your window around on certain days, but again. It's not very sustainable
I don't believe it's worth all the hassle at least for my lifestyle and lastly guys if you're a hardgainer
And are having trouble building muscle. I firmly believe intermittent fasting is not for you, and it's because if you're a hard gainer
99% of the time it's because you're already
Not eating enough food so to think you're all of a sudden going to going to start shoving down
4,000 5,000 calories in a smaller window of opportunity it's not going to happen if you have a hyperactive
Metabolism you need to fuel that fire as often as possible and not deprive your body of calories for 16 to 20 hours straight
So to wrap this up guys who is intermittent fasting for and does it work?
Well I don't believe that the actual fasted state equals more
Results I do believe in intermittent fasting though as a short term solution
Especially if you're a bit overweight to start with and want to drop down to a healthier body fat percentage
But if you're currently using intermittent fasting and feeling great with it by all means carry on guys
It's something that may or may not work and has virtually no
Disadvantages so why not stick with it it all comes down to calories in
Versus calories out and at the end of the day the best diet plan is
Plan that works for you. If you're seeing results with intermittent fasting
It's because the structure of the plan is one that works for your
Lifestyle if you're a binge eater every night a diet schedule like intermittent
Fasting will prevent these additional calories because you will not be allowed to eat at night
It's all relative to your lifestyle guys. There's no big secret that you don't know about and everyone else does
It's just all about finding what works again for your lifestyle however
I do suggest that you watch my meal plan video and use that information to construct your own meal plan and
stick to those calories and macros then it just comes down to training consistently following your meal plan and
Getting those results each and every one of you has the potential to accomplish your goals and much more you just need to be
Consistent so be sure to give this video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it if you have any questions or future video
Suggestions leave them down in that comment section below and as always guys more good stuff coming soon see ya