is fasting better than a bad diet?

Intermittent fasting is something that is very recently coming into popularity. But the scientific community is still not sure whether or not it is actually effective. There are some studies that show benefits, and others that show none (or even negatives). In addition to that, sometimes studies are flawed, so you must be careful what you read and what your sources are.

I, personally, have found success with IF. I even did an "experiment" with my body where I did standard dieting for a while and then Leangains-style intermittent fasting. Long story short, IF worked better for me than standard dieting. Now this is just anecdotal evidence, so don't really put too much trust into me .

I've read quite a few studies on IF on various websites (leangains.com, pubmed, etc.), and I came to my own conclusion that the alleged benefits outweigh the alleged lack-of benefits. I use the term allegedly, because as I stated before, studies can be flawed.

But it worked FOR ME. That's how it is. You have to find what works FOR YOU. IF is most certainly not for everyone. Marathon runners and athletes of that kind of endurance nature probably should not do IF. If they can, then wow. Kind of hard to believe.

I personally recommend Leangains-style intermittent fasting if you are an athlete who is not one who participates/trains in endurance-style events and want a pretty hassle-free way of counting calories/eating.

Have a good one.

Blairbob said:

Do you think that most GBers are gymnasts though?

Generally no but technically yes. If you do gymnastics, you technically are a gymnast. Now you can further classify this to competitive gymnast or recreational gymnast or a gymnastic fitness enthusiast.

For those working the GymnasticBodies program, you'll be doing more gymnastics than say a CrossFitter who does a lot of CrossFitGymnastics (L's, MU, HSPU, pistols, floor kips, standing back tucks). For those doing Carl Paoli's program, they actually call for more gymnastic skill work possibly than the GB WOD I'd say but OTOH, Carl's program is more of something done in addition to CF as an assistance program not a primary workout program such as GymnasticBodies, CrossFitGymnastics ala Rusty/Tucker, or GoldMedalBodies, or the DragonDoor gymnastic programs (ConvictConditioning and RaisingTheBar) or OvercomingGravity.

By skill work, I mean stuff beyond gymnastics strength feats and progressions. Bar kips, handsprings, cartwheels, HS balancing, uprises, etc.

You really know your internet gymnastics! Never heard of most of those programs. Funny to say perhaps but I've learned more about athletics through the internet than I ever did at school. Our great-grandchildren will probably have interactive holographic gymnastic tutorials delivered through the net.

Back on subject, any diet (reduced calories) sucks - IF or straight CR. 90% of the time the weight comes back on anyway.

Maybe it's neccessary for the obese, but I'm not sure it is worth it to go from 15 to 12% bf say. How much will life be better after that 3% fat is gone? The body fights those changes the leaner you get, and there is a price that is paid. Doing it

with a minimal deficit (if that can be accurately assessed) or extra activity is my preference in that case, even if it takes a lot longer.

bajramovic92 said:

Intermittent fasting is something that is very recently coming into popularity. But the scientific community is still not sure whether or not it is actually effective. There are some studies that show benefits, and others that show none (or even negatives). In addition to that, sometimes studies are flawed, so you must be careful what you read and what your sources are.

I, personally, have found success with IF. I even did an "experiment" with my body where I did standard dieting for a while and then Leangains-style intermittent fasting. Long story short, IF worked better for me than standard dieting. Now this is just anecdotal evidence, so don't really put too much trust into me .

I've read quite a few studies on IF on various websites (leangains.com, pubmed, etc.), and I came to my own conclusion that the alleged benefits outweigh the alleged lack-of benefits. I use the term allegedly, because as I stated before, studies can be flawed.

But it worked FOR ME. That's how it is. You have to find what works FOR YOU. IF is most certainly not for everyone. Marathon runners and athletes of that kind of endurance nature probably should not do IF. If they can, then wow. Kind of hard to believe.

I personally recommend Leangains-style intermittent fasting if you are an athlete who is not one who participates/trains in endurance-style events and want a pretty hassle-free way of counting calories/eating.

Have a good one.

That's true, and I have to be pretty clear here: On this site, I would like people to distinguish between Leangains and standard IF protocols. It is such a wide spectrum that saying IF literally means just about as much as saying "dessert". There are so many different kinds that without any kind of specificity it's a nearly useless word. Could be fruit, could be water, could be tomatoes, could be a hot fudge sundae. Could be a giant bowl, could be a teaspoon.

Please, help spread this around the forum: Don't say IF if you mean Leangains. Say Leangains.

Leangains is probably NOT going to hurt you. I won't go so far as to completely endorse it, particularly when I start hearing ridiculous things like "I can eat anything I want and be fine" because we should all know by now that this is not true. Your health is more than a body fat %, so please don't encourage people to follow Leangains just so they can eat coffee cakes all day or something

This is more than just a fitness board, this is a community and we all need to try and help each other by stepping in and reminding each other about the basics, like "Even if you stay at 7%, you will still end up with coronary heart disease if you eat nothing but garbage. You obviously don't HAVE to include lots of healthy stuff, but it will help keep you from dying horribly and unexpectedly later on."

You really know your internet gymnastics! Never heard of most of those programs.

Well, I am one of the mods here and it helps to keep track of what is out there.

Joshua Naterman said:

M K Mossop said:

Joshua Naterman said:

You're looking for a yes/no answer but it doesn't work like that. As a general rule, no I do not think IF is a smart way to go. There is an enormous amount of medical evidence linking IF to all sorts of problems. Search intermittent fasting on pubmed if you want to satisfy your curiosity.

If you WERE to go IF, I would recommend you go leangains.

How exactly do you decide what to believe? I mean there's contradictory evidence for everything. I haven't read any official studies, but there seem to be a number of people who swear by the benefits of fasting, including Mark Sisson, who a lot of people seem to respect. Benefits cited include improving glucose tolerance, longevity, and stimulating "tissue repairing" hormones.

I'm not looking to go full on IF, however I'm also not allowing myself to get concerned every time I get hungry, and am starting to workout in a fasted state (after getting up in the morning).

If it were to cause such rapid lean tissue loss how to you explain the gains of people who fast for 16 hours a day and eat within a very small window. If they're making solid muscle gains, then what lean tissue is their body using? Bone? Organs?

I'm not saying this to argue, I'm just curious about your opinion.

M K Mossop said:

How exactly do you decide what to believe?

In general you take what you know (or believe) and find something that strokes with that. Then when you learn something new, you reevaluate all that.

It's the basis of science, really.

M K Mossop said:

How exactly do you decide what to believe? I mean there's contradictory evidence for everything. I haven't read any official studies, but there seem to be a number of people who swear by the benefits of fasting, including Mark Sisson, who a lot of people seem to respect. Benefits cited include improving glucose tolerance, longevity, and stimulating "tissue repairing" hormones.

I'm not looking to go full on IF, however I'm also not allowing myself to get concerned every time I get hungry, and am starting to workout in a fasted state (after getting up in the morning).

If it were to cause such rapid lean tissue loss how to you explain the gains of people who fast for 16 hours a day and eat within a very small window. If they're making solid muscle gains, then what lean tissue is their body using? Bone? Organs?

I'm not saying this to argue, I'm just curious about your opinion.

Excellent questions. I will respond by the end of the weekend! Just letting you know I have seen this.

Sorry for bumping without adding much to the discussion. But, as someone who's used (Leangains) IF for the past two years or so, this topic is of interest to me. Naterman, I appreciate your contribution thus far and am looking forward to reading your forthcoming response, assuming/hoping that you're still planning to make time for it.

Just a quick note about Alan Aragon.. His stance on IF has changed quite a lot since he published that "An Objective Look..." article back in 2007. These days he's more or less fine with it, at least for the usual fitness enthusiast (i.e. people training 3-5 times a week). As for gymnasts training 20 hours a week, I'm sure that'd be a different story.

edit: oh, wow, didn't realize this is my first post! been lurking with an account for about a year now, apparently. (and lurking without one for a fair bit longer.)

Alan Aragon's stance these days seems to be that the timing of your food intake doesn't matter all that much at all, as he made clear in this post: http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=131821473&p=678321011&viewfull=1#post678321011

I too, have had success both cutting and bulking on an IF protocol for the last 6-7 months. It helps me control my appetite more than if I'd snack on stuf all through the day, which just leaves me always wanting more and never being satisfied.

But I don't believe there's any specific advantage to IF body composition-wise.

Though by no means a "scientific" read, I found this article to be pretty interesting: http://www.goldmedalbodies.com/holiday-diet-advice/. I like how they call it intermittent feasting rather than intermittent fasting... To me this makes more sense as a general rule of thumb, and I have naturally followed this pattern in one form or another my whole life and have never been anything other than lean.

I like this intermittent feasting.

I just eat as much turkey and gravy as I can till I'm full and repeat during the night. Thirdsies.

Ham is good, my family is ethnic so we eat some other stuff like pork fried rice and lasagna (though we ain't Italiano).

At dad's it would be eat meat and maybe some mashed potatoes for the helluva it.

This year since I'll be alone I will just go for the all-I-can-eat of meat and gravy.