Intermittent Fasting

By definition: a period of fasting alternated with a period of eating.

I don't know how many of you have tried the "warrior diet" or have done any intermittent fasting (either by accident or on purpose) but I found this article to be VERY interesting. From an athletic perspective, it seems that I have been playing Sisyphus for 2.5 years...

http://www.alanaragon.com/an-objective- ... sting.html

Any comments and links to other articles on the subject are welcome.

I have not ready Alan's article yet, but I have always been a fan of 1-3 day fasting. I do not regularly do 3 days fasts, maybe 1-2 times a year, but I do fast for 1/2 day - 24 hours occassionally and I find that it does not hinder muscular gain at all. For myself personally I also eat less food than most people would thnk for my size, opting for better digestion (betain hcl, digestive aids, etc) instead of force feeding.

I have tried every method of eating for the past 14 years, so I can pretty much give you a personal experience viewpoint.

If you know Mike O'Donnell his website talks quite extensively about IF.

Here is the 101 article: http://lifespotlight.com/health/2008/2/ ... rt-part-i/

I have IF'd for almost 1 1/2 years now. What I can tell you is there is a "break point", at least for me. At some point, the body will adjust to the IFing and you will require less caloric intake. Once you find this caloric break point (which may have moved from say 2,500 cal/day to 1,800 cal/day via IFing due to less load on the system) if you go over it, you will slowly gain weight (for me in the form of fat) no matter the macronutrient profile. I used my numbers for this example, for each person it is different. I noticed this because I tracked my intake for 6 months on www.fitday.com and well I was gaining weight on 2,200 cal/day which seems very unlikely due to my CrossFit workouts.

My $.02

If your food choices are good, IF is fine.

If your IFOC (IF on crap) does not work... it's probably even worse than not doing IF. Crap = generally processed foods

Fasting is not good for your body and muscles if it were, every elite athlete would fast once or twice a year.

After 24 hour without of any food, your body starts to eat it self (self-canibalism). And very first changes are not visual :wink:

Gregor said:

Fasting is not good for your body and muscles if it were, every elite athlete would fast once or twice a year.

After 24 hour without of any food, your body starts to eat it self (self-canibalism). And very first changes are not visual :wink:

I would say the elite athlete though is in a different category of training and has his/her nutrition set up with competition in mind. For your recreational athlete, and those with health in mind (and believe me this starts a completely different debate over health versus competition I know i.e. A-rod, Tour de France, doping in sports), IFing can be very beneficial. IFing does not have to be a 24-hour fast. Take myself for example, my fasts only range 15-18 hours and I eat the same amount I normally would in my eating time. My ability to perform has not decreased once and I have often done better working out in a fasted state.

It is different for each individual and I would recommend trying something, see how it effects you, and go from there.

One case in point - many Muslim NBA players have played in fasted states during Ramadan, and here is an example of Shareef Abdur-Rahim and Nazr Mohammed back in 2001.

And world champion didn't jump on sunday's competition ....If someone do it for religious belives, that don't mean it's good.

Of course you (in your case-recreation) wont feel any difrence and you wont suffer on a result, but this is not indicator fasting is good and in the last the only valuble opinion is a medical facts, ...

Gregor said:

And world champion didn't jump on sunday's competition ....If someone do it for religious belives, that don't mean it's good.

Of course you (in your case-recreation) wont feel any difrence and you wont suffer on a result, but this is not indicator fasting is good and in the last the only valuble opinion is a medical facts, ...

Medical science has proven that calorie restriction can increase the lifespan of animals 25%. IF takes CR to a new level in using the CR part, but not reducing calories. I know you may not be fully familiar with how IF works, so I would suggest reading some of the articles on www.lifespotlight.com.

Here are some scholarly articles of interest:

http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlse ... 40076&ct=1

http://www.calorierestriction.org/files ... reface.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie_restriction has a ton of references

And the valuable website full of information:

http://lifespotlight.com/health/2008/08 ... roduction/

and with experts

http://lifespotlight.com/health/2008/08 ... nd-health/

IF is something to try, and if it works for someone great, if it doesn't then find something else. But calorie restriction has been medically proven to increase the lifespan of mammals. IF is a method of using the positive benefits of calorie restriction (through fasting) without actually reducing calories.

Timeline said:

Gregor said:

And world champion didn't jump on sunday's competition ....If someone do it for religious belives, that don't mean it's good.

Of course you (in your case-recreation) wont feel any difrence and you wont suffer on a result, but this is not indicator fasting is good and in the last the only valuble opinion is a medical facts, ...

Medical science has proven that calorie restriction can increase the lifespan of animals 25%. IF takes CR to a new level in using the CR part, but not reducing calories. I know you may not be fully familiar with how IF works, so I would suggest reading some of the articles on http://www.lifespotlight.com.

Here are some scholarly articles of interest:

http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlse ... 40076&ct=1

http://www.calorierestriction.org/files ... reface.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie_restriction has a ton of references

And the valuable website full of information:

http://lifespotlight.com/health/2008/08 ... roduction/

and with experts

http://lifespotlight.com/health/2008/08 ... nd-health/

IF is something to try, and if it works for someone great, if it doesn't then find something else. But calorie restriction has been medically proven to increase the lifespan of mammals. IF is a method of using the positive benefits of calorie restriction (through fasting) without actually reducing calories.

1.

Abbreviations: CR, 25% caloric restriction group; CREX, caloric restriction group with 12.5% caloric restriction + 12.5% increased energy expenditure; DETA-NO, 2,2′-(hydroxynitrosohydrazono)bis-ethanimine; EE, energy expenditure; FFM, fat-free mass; mtDNA, mitochondrial DNA; NO, nitric oxide; qRT-PCR, quantitative real-time PCR; ROS, reactive oxygen species; siRNA, small interfering RNA; TMRE, tetramethylrhodamine ethyl ester./quote]

That is just diet in caloric deficit and not fasting.

2.

Negative effects

[edit]Underweight

Being on a CR diet can lead to an individual becoming underweight. One study has shown that having a BMI lower than 18 is associated with significantly increased mortality from noncancer, non−cardiovascular disease causes. The results were the same when not accounting for those who were underweight because they might have been already sick or were smokers. However, the study focused solely on BMI and did not look specifically at diet.[9]

[edit]Starvation

When in starvation mode the body burns lean tissue and muscle in order to conserve fat reserves.[10] That combined with low protein/carbohydrate intake can result in muscular atrophy which leads to lower quality of life. The breakdown of tissues to supply energy during the biochemical process of starvation can have its own adverse effects on the body. If a low calorie diet involves an alternating process of periodic starvation, later followed with other alternating periods of weight and muscle gain, it might potentially do more long term harm than no calorie restriction at all./quote]

As I said to large deficit is not good for people. Best results have been shown at 10-15% caloric deficit to 6-10% of BF.

3.simillar diet

The CRON-diet in theory

The first step towards undertaking the CRON-diet is determining one's "set-point". Believers feel that the set-point is a weight at which you would naturally stay if you ate your usual, everyday intake. This posited set-point is believed to be different for each of us, and determined through heredity and childhood eating habits. One is expected to remain 10-25% under this set-point to reap the full potential advantage of the diet. [9]

A guideline to determining this set-point is measuring your body fat content; according to followers of the diet, this should be between 6-10% for a male person and between 10-15% for a female person. [10] Measurement of this body fat content can happen through commonly available, cheap tools as skinfold test tools (the "Fat-O-Meter" is proposed in the Health Plan-book) or certain digital scales. In addition, besides and amalgamation of skinfold measurements, densiometry and/or bioelectrical impedance analysis can also be used to help determine your correct set-point. Depending on the current weight and the required (below set-point) weight that needs to be attained, a preliminary diet is prepared and followed.

Next, one should determine the amount of caloric restriction you wish to implement in your regular eating pattern. Generally, 20% is recommended. [10] The caloric restriction is deducted from the regular amount of calories a person normally consumes a day. As a general number, 1800 calories/day is usually taken [11], yet variation to this number is likely, depending on one's Basal Metabolic Rate. It is noteworthy that although the basal metabolic rate may be determined through certain (computer) BMR calculating tools, the verifiability of this has been doubted by Dr. Walford./quote]

4.

For those who’s goal is to maintain a low body fat at all times, instead of doing endless cycles of bulking up and cutting down, IF is a very easy and attractive approach. It’s an excellent ‘lifestyle’ diet./quote]

Hahahaha like you can't have with normal diet all rime low BF. That's way gymnast have all time low fat????? No, simply because they train hard and have nutrition adjusted to training. Normal people can do the same.

5.objectives:

Objections

[edit]No benefit to houseflies

One of the most significant oppositions to caloric restriction comes from Michael Cooper, who has shown that caloric restriction has no benefit in the housefly.[39] Michael Cooper claims that the widely purported effects of calorie restriction may be because a diet containing more calories can increase bacterial proliferation, or that the type of high calorie diets used in past experiments have a stickiness, general composition, or texture that reduces longevity.

[edit]Catabolic damage

A major conflict with calorie restriction is that adequate calorie intake is needed to prevent catabolizing the body's tissues. A body in a catabolic state promotes the degeneration of muscle tissue, including the heart.

[edit]Physical activity testing biases

While some tests of calorie restriction have shown increased muscle tissue in the calorie-restricted test subjects, how this has occurred is unknown.[citation needed] Muscle tissue grows when stimulated, so it is possible that the calorie-restricted test animals exercised more than their companions on higher calories. The reasons behind this may be that animals enter a foraging state during calorie restriction. In order to control this variable, such tests would need to be monitored to make sure that levels of physical activity are equal between groups.

[edit]Insufficient calories and amino acids for exercise

Exercise has also been shown to increase health and lifespan and lower the incidence of several diseases. Calorie restriction comes into conflict with the high calorie needs of athletes, and may not provide them adequate levels of energy or sufficient amino acids for repair, although this is not a criticism of CR per se, since it is certainly possible to be an unhealthy athlete, or an athlete destined to die at a young age due to poor diet, stresses, etc.

[edit]Benefits only the young

There is evidence to suggest that the benefit of CR in rats might only be reaped in early years. A study on rats which were gradually introduced to a CR lifestyle at 18 months showed no improvement over the average lifespan of the Ad libitum group.[40] This view, however, is disputed by Spindler, Dhahbi, and colleagues who showed that in late adulthood, acute CR partially or completely reversed age-related alterations of liver, brain and heart proteins and that mice placed on CR at 19 months of age show increases in lifespan.[41]

[edit]Possible contraindications

Both animal and human research suggest BUD CR may be contraindicated for people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Research on a transgenic mouse model of ALS demonstrates that CR may hasten the onset of death in ALS. Hamadeh et al therefore concluded: "These results suggest that CR diet is not a protective strategy for patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and hence is contraindicated."[42] Hamadeh et al also note two human studies[43][44] that they indicate show "low energy intake correlates with death in people with ALS." However, in the first study, Slowie, Paige, and Antel state: "The reduction in energy intake by ALS patients did not correlate with the proximity of death but rather was a consistent aspect of the illness." They go on to conclude: "We conclude that ALS patients have a chronically deficient intake of energy and recommended augmentation of energy intake." (PMID 8604660)

Previously, Pedersen and Mattson also found that in the ALS mouse model, CR "accelerates the clinical course" of the disease and had no benefits.[45] Suggesting that a calorically dense diet may slow ALS, a ketogenic diet in the ALS mouse model has been shown to slow the progress of disease.[46] More recently, Mattson et al opine that the death by ALS of Roy Walford, a pioneer in CR research and its antiaging effects, may have been a result of his own practice of CR.[47] However, as Mattson et al acknowledge, Walford's single case is an anecdote that by itself is insufficient to establish the proposed cause-effect relation.

[edit]Negligible effect on larger organisms

Another objection to CR as an advisable lifestyle for humans is the claim that the physiological mechanisms that determine longevity are very complex, and that the effect would be small to negligible in our species.[48]/quote]

4.

For those who’s goal is to maintain a low body fat at all times, instead of doing endless cycles of bulking up and cutting down, IF is a very easy and attractive approach. It’s an excellent ‘lifestyle’ diet./quote]

Hahahaha like you can't have with normal diet all rime low BF. That's way gymnast have all time low fat????? No, simply because they train hard and have nutrition adjusted to training. Normal people can do the same.

I totally agree. 8)

From what I've read of the literature, IF seems to work in some instances and not in others, much like the vitamin A,C,E studies that were done on cancer/cardiovascular disease. Given this my two cents would be that because there is conflicting evidence it seems wise to avoid until more definitive evidence is published.