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Old 05-26-2019, 12:06 PM   #6
Sabaki
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Join Date: Apr 2019
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jrod View Post
How do you do it?
The answer to this question depends upon your body composition and goals. The idea behind IF is that you alternate periods of fasting with periods of feeding. If your goal is to achieve the longevity and health benefits including cognitive improvement, extended fasting periods will produce the best results. You can start out with short fasting periods like 16 hrs, and build up to longer periods. During the fasting period, you should only consume water, electrolytes and vitamins. Avoid artificial sweeteners because even though they contain no sugar they tell the brain to produce insulin, etc. and are counterproductive. Data indicate that during the fasting periods your body will conserve muscle mass and during the feeding periods will produce more muscle mass, so even if your overall caloric intake remains constant your body composition will shift from fat to muscle.
If your are a lean, competitive athlete with very little body fat concerned about muscle loss, you should keep the fasting periods relatively short. It is also very important to break your fast with protein, not carbs, especially leucine and other BCAAs. Leucine activates the mTOR pathway which promotes myogenic hypertrophy and muscle growth. During the feeding period, the increase in growth factors, increased insulin sensitivity and increased activation of myogenic precursor cells (satellite cells), etc, etc. will all boost hypertrophy resulting in a long-term increase in permanent muscle mass.
How short is short? Most of us can fast for much longer periods than we realize. The record for fasting is 382 consecutive days with no caloric intake. Obviously, that guy had alot of excess energy stores. The current world champion lifter (in his weight class) eats only one meal per day and fasts 23 hours every single day. He deadlifts nearly 700 lbs, which is impressive for his size. (Of course, much bigger guys can lift over 1,000 pounds.) He is also a vegan and claims not to use any AAS. In this case, I believe him. (BTW, I don't promote veganism. Humans are biologically designed to consume meat.) But the fact that he can do this shows that many of our preconceptions about diet and nutrition are myths.
Here is a video. Also check out these videos. None of these videos existed a few years ago. I was writing articles about the benefits of IF and the myths of the need for constant feeding over a decade ago when nobody believed in IF. Not only were we right back then, but new experience and data show that IF is much more powerful than early proponents imagined.

Last edited by Sabaki; 05-26-2019 at 12:08 PM..
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