Is Intermittent Fasting More Effective for Fat Loss?
What is it?
Is an Eating protocol that involves fasting for 16 hours and having an 8 hour eating window
How do you do this?
Wake up drink a black coffee or have a zero calorie beverage, water, sparkling water is great for appetite suppression
You head out, go about your day then around 1pm – 2pm you break your fast and eat your first meal and this finishes up around 9 pm
There’s a few myths that having breakfast speeds up for metabolism has been completely debunked
The thermic effect of food is actually based on how many calories you eat in a day, not the amount of meals you eat
Some people like to say that fasting in the morning boosts your growth hormone and this is true in a sense that your body not producing any insulin spike during the fasting period allowing for more natural spikes of growth hormone.
But even still the effect of this isn’t going to make a noticeable difference is far as fat loss is concerned
Why do people do intermittent fasting?
It is great for appetite suppression. You know those people that eat something, they get hungry again and they keep eating and eating especially carbs. Some people when they eat in the morning they get hungry again around 11, so its good for those people
– Eat bigger meals
Obviously if you’re eating fewer meals a day your going to be able to eat bigger more enjoyable meals. I myself did intermittent fasting while dieting for my last completion and having more food to look forward to while dieting makes you very adherent, so adherence is another benefit
– Easier to track and log
Say you use my fitness pal, the app I use to track my macros, it’s going to be a lot more difficult tracking 6 meals as opposed to 3-4 bigger ones.
-Less planning and simple to follow
So less meals means there’s less time spent on meal prep and just very simple and easy to follow. The only guideline is an 8-hour window and don’t eat your first meal until 2 pm its that simple
Disadvantages
I would not be giving you a fair representation of intermittent fasting if i didn’t give disadvantages. Again, I am completely not biased towards intermittent fasting
I eat regularly, I do intermittent fasting somedays, I not trying to sell you some intermittent program – No bias
– It is not exactly optimal for muscle protein synthesis. Basically, the research has shown us that for optimal muscle protein synthesis we want to eat a serving of protein every 5-6 hours in a day so that’s typically 3 meals, breakfast lunch and dinner
– A 16 hour fast goes against this but I personally, my friends and my clients that have done IF – I have seen little to no muscle loss. So that’s what the research says but I’m not sure how this pans out into practical application or real life situations
– I personally think once your hitting your macros and your protein requirements then you will be just fine
Some people just feel much better having breakfast
– That’s absolutely fine, some people love breakfast , it’s their favorite meal of the day and it’s not sustainable for them to do IF – That’s cool.
– For the people that find it tough to gains weight, then IF is probably not for you as you’re trying to cram your intake into a small eating window
– I’ve done IF and achieved some great results with it and same with my clients and I’ve had clients go from easting regularly to following IF and seen great results too and also myself as most days I do eat breakfast
So this is my approach to IF that I recommend you do on a cut
Basically for breakfast you have a protein only breakfast so something like protein shake, egg white omelette, protein bar, steak and eggs, there are loads of high protein low calories options once you get creative
The reason why I think this approach give you the best of both worlds is that you stimulate muscle protein synthesis in the morning, you have that feeling of having breakfast – which can often be a placebo for a lot of people – Some people just feel good eating something in the morning
Protein is very satiating – Keeps you fully for longer and stops you forms getting hungry and you still get to save all your fats and carbs for the evening time. Similar to carb back loading – Lets face it fats and carbs are delicious!
This is the best approach I have put in place for people myself and it’s also what I used in the final stages of my prep to help me get extremely lean while retaining muscle mass.
So everyone that’s it just a real article going over Intermittent Fasting. There’s no magic to it! Some people, like to say it is but it’s just going to come down to total macronutrient intake and your adherence, how you like the plan and if it suits your schedule and lifestyle.
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