In this one I’ll share with you my personal experience with intermittent fasting. I’ll tell you how it changed my life and go through all of the important lessons I’ve learned, because it. But firstly I’ll cover: For how long I’ve been actually doing it. And what are all of types of IF I’ve ever messed with.
I started experimenting with different forms of IF at the very end of 2013. And continue using one of them as I’m writing this. My introduction to it was through the most popular and commonly used version: The 8/16. By making my daily fasts longer and longer, I later transformed that into 6/18 and then into 4/20.
Same process continued until the last months of 2014, when I finally I got rid of my feeding window and started eating only once per day. The total number of years of me doing IF is close to 5. For a little less than 4 of them, however I’ve been almost strictly following the One Meal A Day plan (OMAD).
I’m saying almost, because once in a while I as well incorporate 1 to 2 weekly 48 hour fasts. When that happens, I don’t consume food for more than 5 or 6 times, per week.
The reason of clearing those details, is because I want to help you understand that everything I’m about say comes from the perspective of someone who eats one meal a day. Although the other protocols I just mentioned also work great, nothing’s better than OMAD in my book.
You should also keep in mind that… Most of the things I’ll tell you are scientifically proven, but the others are not. The 2nd, I figured on my own, through self experimentation, tracking and by listening to my own body’s signals.
Honestly I think that: By doing enough research, anyone could find plenty of evidence to both, support or deny particular statement or method. And because of that, nowadays I prefer doing things more intuitively. Whether or not they are backed by science… So, with that being said let’s begin…
Energy
There was a thing I noticed almost immediately, after I began skipping most of my daily meals. That was the change in my energy levels during my fasting and feeding windows. No, my diet wasn’t good as it became later, but I was already exercising with weights and even doing NoFap for quite a while.
Despite, that difference in my overall vitality was extremely pronounced. While through my fasting hours I felt alert, full of energy and completely awake, that was certainly not the case only few moments after the beginning of my feeding phase.
Sometimes I felt like being 2 different people: a very high energy one and a low energy one. Yet, the more I was shortening my eating phase, the longer I was able to maintain my energy levels high.
In total controversy to what I’ve been told since forever, it appeared that fasting and not eating food is what truly gives me energy. I learned that having a lot of energy, mostly boils down to not wasting any. And since food digestion is one of the most energy demanding processes in our daily life, fasting helps tremendously.
Regardless of the meal’s macronutrient profile, in order to turn the newly ingested food into energy, the body always has to spend some. Available to us that energy however, could be used in other, certainly more fun and productive ways. For instance: getting stuff done, exercising or being involved in some creative endeavours.
Now you probably wonder… Where that energy comes from? Isn’t there a chance to run out of fuel? And how long a person could actually stay without food?
It happens that on average humans have close to 40000 calories stored in form of body fat. Many studies have shown that same amount could easily last for whole month of fasting.
When a person fasts, his or her body begins utilizing those calories as primary fuel source. After completely exhausting all of the previously ingested carbohydrates, which at maximum btw are not more than 2000 calories, the body starts mobilizing fat for fuel. To me at least my own stored fat is fuel more efficient than any food or calories I’ve ever tried.
It takes between 24 to 48 hours for the body to burn all carbs and then, it starts making its own energy by converting the stored fat into ketones. There are 3 types of ketones or ketone bodies:
·Acetoacetate (in urine);
·Acetone (in breath);
·Beta hydroxybutyrate (in blood);
While the first 2 the body excretes through breath and urine, the last it uses as fuel.
That state is called nutritional ketosis. But I’m sure that in 2018 everybody including my cat, already know that.
Time
Besides sucking a lot of my energy, eating frequent meals was also taking good chunk of my time. It varies from person to person, but for me it required roughly around 15 minutes to sit down and eat relatively small meal. Although adding some time for preparation was making the minutes around 25, that was not all.
Call it an OCD. But I personally can’t stand walking around and doing things, while also having bits of food in between my teeth. I simply hate that thing. Because of that I have a teeth cleaning ritual, which I do every time after eating something. Depends on what kind of meats I’ve eaten, the ritual could take me close to 10 minutes.
Summing things up shows that eating 4 meals was automatically stealing up to 2 hours and 20 minutes of my day. And that having a conventional bodybuilding regimen or in other words (eating 6 small meals) takes me close to 3.30 hours.
Yet that’s only when ignoring the so called experts who recommend having snacks between the meals. Otherwise, I’ll probably have to end up spending most of my time on food consumption and teeth cleaning. By doing quick calculation, we can find how much time that is for a week. And then do the same for a month… Honestly those numbers scare me to death. And I don’t think life has been given to us to waste it on stupid sh*t like that.
Thanks to fasting, I have that time back. So I can reinvest in meaningful practices and things with real value to me. All that while having better physique and truly enjoying my food.
Hunger
Along ago, I used to believe that fasting was all about having strong willpower, but I was terribly wrong. Being able to stay without food boils down to 2 things: One is having stable blood sugar levels and the other is to simply not be hungry. Luckily I found that both of them are controllable and there are 2 ways to that.
The first one is through fasting. The sense of hunger is triggered by a hormone called Ghrelin.
A research shows that when a person fasts for long enough, the levels of Ghrelin in their body start to decrease. And after 3 days that persons hunger is completely gone.
Which means: You don’t get hungrier the longer you don’t eat. In fact it’s the totally opposite.
The longer you abstain from food and calories the less hungry you become.
Another study shows that when someone’s following IF protocol for long enough, his or her body becomes accustomed to it. And eventually the desire for food during the fasting phase disappears.
That also means you can actually train your body when to be and when to not be hungry. All you have to do is going on fasting regimen and fast and eat during the exact same hours of the day. Do that for a while and your body will start having appetite only at that time.
You can find more about both of those researches by visiting those links to Dr. Jason Fung’s web site.
Although it could be fairly unpleasant for a while, apparently controlling hunger through fasting produces fantastic results. Yet, back in 2014 I had no idea of any of that stuff, and how took control over my hunger was mostly by accident…
Despite the fact I was addicted to food, fasting became effortless almost immediately after I started eating LCHF. As if by magic, my blood sugar levels became stable, my cravings disappeared and I started reducing the duration of my feeding window. Later I found what the reasons for my success with fasting were.
It happened that processed sugars and other carbohydrate rich foods elevate the levels of Ghrelin almost twice after eating a meal. Which means eating those foods, was making me even hungrier than I previously was. Besides that I also learned about hormone called Cholecystokinin or CCK. Same one massively suppresses the production of Ghrelin.
A controlled study showed that people injected CCK actually experienced less desire to eat in general and reduced the amounts of food they eat. Cholecystokinin is released when there is an increase of ketone bodies or free fatty acids. And exactly what happens when someone enters the ketogenic state.
Despite I no longer eat keto year around, I still believe it’s the best tool one could use to stabilize blood sugar, get rid of hunger and start fasting. I think it not only mimics fasting, but also prepares the body for it.
Mood And Brain Performance
Fasting promotes neurogenesis, which means we grow new brain cells when we fast. Studies show that fasting drastically reduces the chances of developing both Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. Not consuming food and calories boosts cognitive function and reduces inflammation. It helps the body to deal with stress and the brain to grow new neurons, nerve cells and mitochondria.
2 very important things which I’ve learned during my fasting journey are that I’m really not that distracted as I previously though I was. And for me being sharp as fuck and focused to the max naturally starts not consuming any calories. Yes, just in case you wonder that includes butter and MCT oil. To me there’s another much more powerful way to hack my coffee without ending my precious fast.
You can take the following as metaphor: To me is no wonder that fasting became a hit in silicone valley. The feel of fasting is like being on a very light and gentle, yet awesome stimulant or nootropic. Eating food on the other hand is a f*cking downer which quickly puts me into slow mo… Obviously that affects my thought processing.
However I don’t think my mental clarity comes from the hunger itself. Although certainly sharper, when I’m hungry I am distracted and because of that I really can’t take advantage of it. To me the following things are the real reasons why I experience the mental clarity of fasting:
·My body is using fat for fuel;
·My brain runs on ketones;
·I feel light and even fly due to the fact my stomach is empty;
·I’m not distracted with food and hunger
Not eating food makes me incomparably more happier, satisfied and genuine and I’m enjoying and appreciating my day much more.
Diet
Do I think the food choices still make difference, when someone’s doing IF/OMAD? I believe they certainly do. Despite all it’s benefits, I really don’t think fasting could turn a shitty food into good one. Although I eat only once per day, my body still needs the nutrients to recover from my training and eventually grow. I need high quality proteins to build muscle and carbs or fats for energy.
Eating junk while staying thin was never goal of mine, the reasons why I do what I do are completely different. I want to look, feel and perform in very specific ways and attain all of it naturally. Which means: I want be as muscular and as lean as I can, while feeling amazing and being able to stay focused on my daily tasks.
All that while avoiding stimulants and nootropics and by any means staying away of steroids and recreational drugs. I also don’t have time, nor any desire to deal with cravings. Therefore I carefully pick and prepare the foods I consume. Regardless of my fasting regimen, not doing things in that manner always gives me the following side effects:
A) I’m not getting the results in terms of muscle gains, recovery and brain performance;
B) I feel like shit, have lower levels satisfaction and my mood suffers;
Relationship With Food
Completely free of cravings, I realized that by itself eating is really not that exciting, as I thought for close to 23 years. Since there are so many truly exciting things to preoccupy my existence, nowadays I couldn’t even imagine spending my precious time on it. Luckily I also feel no need to do so.
I no longer look on food as an entertainment, but as fuel and building blocks for my brain and body. Therefore I don’t get excited about the actual eating/chewing process, but about the following things.
·How it’s g going to make me feel during my fast on the next day;
·What kind of a pumps I’ll get when training, because of it;
·The gains I’ll make
·How lean I’m going to be able to stay
·My brain performance during my fasting on the next day;
·The quality of the food products used in it;
I’d say people eat frequent meals, simply because they look on food as an entertainment. An easy accessible drug or distraction they use to escape the boredom in their lives. But I guess, that’s exactly what the million dollar food companies want. That hunger however is not physical, but psychological. And some scientists call it “Hedonic Hunger”.
I surely enjoy eating, but that certainly is not only because the food consumption itself. But because things like spending time with my family, and watching Netflix or BMX videos. Removing them on the other hand makes my eating plain and really not that interesting. Therefore I will probably not want to do it at all.
In that regards, I’ll also share a discovery I’ve made. Although I eat my meal around 8pm, not preparing it before 5 or 6 pm makes me lose interest in doing it. Which means I’ll not do it and skip the whole day of eating. Then I go straight to bed on empty stomach. And yes! Just incase you wonder, that will automatically turn into a 48 hour fast.
However what massively helped me reaching that point wasn’t my diet and fasting by themselves. But the fact that together they allowed me live life without restrictions, moderations, limitations.
The Things That Changed
Apart of my feeding window restriction, they were few things that changed through my close to 5 years IF journey.
Change 1
I switched from only meats, eggs, butter and full fat cream consisting ketogenic diet to a lot more palatable way of eating. No, I never mix carbs and fats, but I started cycling things. Now I alternate periods of ketosis with ones when I eat remarkably higher in resistant starch paleo diet. Although I still believe HFLC the best for those new to fasting, I as well learned that same, may not always be true for bodybuilders, cross fitters and other athletes.
Two of the books which made me rethink my take on carbs were: Ashley Tudor’s “Sweet Potato Power” and Rob Wolf’s “Wired To Eat”.
Change 2
In the past and especially during my first year of OMAD, I had some inexplicable, yet great excitement about frequently checking my blood sugar. Due to that I was doing it all day every day. However during 2017, my curiosity about those numbers started fading away and finally it disappeared. Now that rarely comes to my head. Truth to be told I was surprised of finding out how much can save from not buying test strips for my glucose meter.
Change 3
It happened at the very end of 2017. Despite I hated it for so many years, my body simply started wanting to do cardio. Yet, that doesn’t mean I’m wasting my time on the treadmill. I do HIIT on a stationary bike and my sessions never last more than 10 or 15 minutes at the very maximum.
Although that certainly happens, increasing the fat burning processes in my body is not the reason why I do it. I do it because it makes feel better, more alert and improves my endurance for when I do my high volume resistance training at the gym. Due to the fact right I after I wake up I also feel it makes my body start using the nutrients from my meal on the previous day immediately. But I guess that could be some sort of placebo effect.
Change 4
The last change occurred at this (2018) year’s beginning. That was the remarkable decrease of my appetite. Like my body doesn’t want to eat that much, I started getting full a lot quicker and with a lot less food. And because of that I started adding few scoops of protein to my meal.
Meal Timing
Do I believe meal timing makes difference? Well, since all I want to do after eating is to sit back, relax, watch Netflix for a little and then go straight to the bed, at least to me it surely does. Breaking my fast puts my body completely different mode and my desire and motivation of doing anything, immediately drop.
We’ve been told for decades the breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Now some evidence proves that by nature humans are nocturnal eaters. Due to the fact our ancient ancestors, the paleo men were hunting during and eating at night. Other studies however say that higher insulin levels could prevent melatonin (sleep hormone) from doing its job. Therefore not eating prior bed time could improve quality of sleep. Which of them is right? I think you should find that on your own.
To me personally eating and doing things afterwards simply don’t go hand to hand. I found that going through my day with food in my stomach is not only unpleasant, but also very counterproductive to my crafts and whole lifestyle. Despite we can train ourselves when to be hungry, it’s almost not possible for me to sense hunger during the day. Or at least it is, if I don’t eat junk and other craving causing foods.
When in the past I was doing the 8/16, with only steaks and eggs, I was technically training my body to be hungry for lunch. But I guess my body simply refused to be trained in that manner. Because despite I did it for months, I was really not hungry always searching for an excuse or reason to push my fasting further. And if not entirely skip it, at least eat my lunch later. Not eating started feeling so natural and that is how I began transforming my 8/16 into OMAD.
Sleep
Told that going to bed on full stomach was bad, when eating small frequent meals, I always avoided having the last, at least 2 hours prior bed time. Yet I was very often having difficulties for hours when trying to fall asleep, at night. As a result I was oversleeping and my mornings were total mess.
However things changed as soon as I started doing the totally opposite. Which means eating one big meal, before bed. I not only began falling asleep in matter of minutes, but accordingly to my sleep trackers started entering the deepest phases of sleep much quicker. As a side effect I began needing less sleep and depends on what I’ve eaten to often have vivid or lucid dreams.
Apart of feeling most natural that schedule is the one to make most sense to me. I have the whole day to take care of my tasks, work on my projects and train. Or in other words to live my life and then when ready to settle down, eat some food and call it a day.
Training, Muscle Gains & Bodybuilding
Before
In the past I though that I had very shitty, for bodybuilding genetics and that I had to stay on extremely low calories, in order to have just a bit of vascularity and visible abs. I also thought that due to the fact I’m 6’4, with fairly long and heavy bones I’ll never be able to truly become lean, muscular and full.
Usually being tired, back then I was never able to hit the gym more then 5 times a week. And just incase you’re still not getting it, regardless of how strict about my 6 meals, calories, 4×10/12 routines I was, I wasn’t happy at all with the results I was getting.
The increase of my energy undoubtedly reflected on everything in my life and that included my training. Although at first I was a bit scared to start doing it, my body simply began wanting to train a more.
Afraid of losing my gains, my primary concern was about becoming catabolic. After all, the following was another thing I’ve been told for years: “Fasting makes people catabolic, but eating food every 2/3 hours prevents the catabolic processes and builds muscle.” Yet, I was more than pleased finding out, the statement couldn’t be further from the truth and was actually made up by food and supplement companies.
It happened that the ketones are actually very muscle sparing and that in order to build muscle, the body has to alternate between periods of fasting and feeding. The first optimizes the hormonal production, but during the second the person ingests the needed nutrients.
While eating food shuts down its production growth hormone, fasting raises the levels of growth hormone. And only a simple 24 hour fast can boost person’s growth hormone by 2000%. Studies show that refraining from food can increase the levels of both Testosterone and its precursor hormone LH (Luteinizing Hormone). Combined with the fact it lowers insulin, that becomes a sure recipe for efficient fat burning…
So what happened …
Despite I drastically upped my calories and later stopped tracking them, I got lean and hard. My physique not only got much fuller, but I started adding size in very symmetrical and proportional manner. Probably due to the fact, it no longer had to digest and store food, my body actually started making a really good use of that I’m ingesting my one meal a day. The previously completely unavailable to me vacuums with my stomach became effortless. And now they are even not that painful.
My training changed also. Instead of being afraid to hit a body part more than once a week, I started training all of them very frequently. Although I never lift heavy and barely use any resistance on some movements, often that frequently is 2 times a day.
I understood that to grow I not only need to alternate between very short feeding window and really long fasting phase. But to train in very specific manner. One designed to throw the already floating in my blood nutrients from my meal on the previous day into the muscle cell. Due to that I train for one thing and one thing only and that is attaining nastier and crazier pumps.
The way I do it is by having very intense and short sessions during which I’m striving to maintain prolonged periods of time under tension, by mostly using isolation movements. In other words: I keep constant tension on the isolated area, while barely rest between the sets. Doing so for a while helped me realize 2 things:
A) My genes are much better than I thought;
B) Eating frequent meals and was not giving my body a chance to do its best when it comes to building muscle and developing symmetry and proportion.
I made and continue making my best gains following lifestyle, only made of banned by the fitness industry and conventional wisdom things:
·Eating one meal a day, but sometimes not more than total of 5 per week;
·Having 2 fasted workouts almost every day;
·Barely taking supplements;
·Never doing PR’s, nor heavy weight while Rarely messing with the 3 big lifts;
·Always using light weight and sometimes doing sets of up to 30 reps;
·Never restrict myself;
Despite not many people talk about it, fasting has been used by legendary bodybuilders like: Vince Gironda, Mohammed Makkawy, Frank Zane and of course Serge Nubret.
Apart from that I also never felt better. However, I really don’t believe that all of it is only because of my fasting, but because of its combination with the diets I use and the fact I stay on NoFap for almost same period of time. To me all of those things are equally important.
Self Help & Final Words
I truly believe that IF and particularly OMAD is one of the things people could use to immensely improve their whole existence. That includes health, mood, physique, brain performance and appearance. When combined with proper diet, daily exercise and NoFap it could easily provide one with really healthy and sustainable alternative to things like nootropics, steriods and other pharmaceuticals.
I hope that makes sense.
Yours Truly:
Peteonthebeat
