Quote: (08-16-2017 06:35 PM)Kurgan Wrote:
I've recently started intermittent fasting after doing some research on various sites. I decided to start off the 16:8 schedule and the first few days, I've felt a lot better. I feel more calm and less of an inclination to have the sugary crap they give at work.
It feels good to eat around a window. But there were some questions I wanted to ask for those who do it.
1. Is it better to start off with one day of fasting 16:8 or just do it all of the week?
2. Is it best to exercise during the eat period or in the morning when you're fasting?
I have done intermittent fasting for years, to answer your questions:
1) In my opinion, it is better to do it every day
2) I work out during the eating period.
Now on to my experience, I will be concise. I was never a breakfast person, I don't need a breakfast. I was a smoker as well so that helped to keep the stomach busy; cigarettes and coffee. My fasting hours are from whenever I go to bed to around 6 to 7 PM. So basically, the last thing I do before going to bed is to eat. On work out days, my belly sticks out and it looks like about to blow. Some days you can fast longer, on non work out days. Also, after you are into it a couple of months, a day of non-fasting every couple of weeks will not kill the program.
I never had problems with getting fat, so my challenge was to gain weight and I achieved it only with intermittent fasting and the correct macros intake. When I say gain weight, I mean gain muscle and no or little fat. I struggled with gaining weight, I was stuck at 145 lbs for a couple of years no matter what -I thought - I ate. Intermittent fasting and the correct diet put me in 170 lbs in a strong and lean body. My height is 5'6", or 1.67m
On work out days, eat something and work out after one hour or so. After the work out, pig out. On non work out days, fast for 16 to 18 hours, then the first meal dinner at around 8 or 9 PM.
If you do intermittent fasting, you must do the correct diet: this means (for most people, and until you know your body 100%) cycling carbs and fat. High carbs (and low fat) on work out days, and high fat (and low carbs) on non work out days. This is particularly important if you are looking to keep fat off your body, and you gain or lose weight doing what they call body recomposition. High or low carbs numbers could be whatever it means for you and your goal, everybody is different, experiment with intake and see how it affects your body. I used to keep an excel file detailing for each thing I ate: the food consumed, the amount, the carbs, fat, protein, and calories. Then a summary of the day, and then a summary of the week.
When, I kept track of it, my goals were:
2400-2500 calories in non work out days
3000+ calories on work out days
After a year or so, I stopped keeping the excel file because your knowledge of each little thing you eat comes natural and keeping tally of cals and micros comes natural + you already know your body in such a way that you know exactly what will happen depending on what you eat. Every week I had a cheating day, to go out and eat and drink whatever ... it normally fell on a work out day so I just pig out and drink beer ... It is so sad when you know exactly the cals content of every kind of beer hahahahahahahahah
Other thing to keep in mind is to eat clean, except on cheating day ..... the good thing of this lifestyle is that you can literally eat anything on a cheating day and it will not affect your body.
For me, the secret to make it work, is to eat things I like. So, for example, a non work out typical day will look like this:
food-portion size-cals-protein-carbs-fat
Oats: 80 grams -301,10,54,6
Shake- each 1- 350,47,33,3.5
Quinoa - 75 grams- 276,10.5,48,4.5
Corvina -1000 grams- 810,187,0,7
chocolate- 20 grams -120,2,6,11
shake - 1each -350,47,33,3.5
Penut Butter - 64 grams -360,16,12,30
Totals: 2567 cals, protein: 319.5 - carbs: 186 - fat: 65.5
You can easily substitute each shake by two glasses of milk, for example. Substitute corvina with tilapia, or chicken.
Work out day:
Oats- 160 grams - 602,20,108,12
Chicken- 300 grams-495,75,0,24
Croccantini -2each -200,6,38,2
Chocolate-20grams -120,2,6,11
Quinoa-75grams -276,10.5,48,4.5
Pork-500grams - 720,130,0,17.5
Shake- 1each -350,47,33,3.5
Penut Butter -64grams -360,16,12,30
Totals: cals: 3123, protein:306.5, carbs: 245, fat: 104.5
That's a day that fat was higher than it should had been, but again a day or two a week in which the micros are not perfect is not a big deal, specially if you are working out hard. And in my case in particular, I wasn't looking to lose weight but to gain weight so the cycling of carbs in particular wasn't very steep, but I assure you if you keep the carbs under 100 grams a day on low days, and over 200 a day on high days, you notice a huge impact.
Anyways, this extended a little more than intended. Shoot any questions.