Intermittent Fasting Setup
Intermittent Fasting is what we are talking about today. Is it effective for fat loss? Who should and shouldn't do it? What are some popular protocols and how do you build your own? In this episode I will try to answer these questions. So let's dive right into it!
So by now you've heard about Intermittent Fasting and probably have a pretty good idea about it. But I still get lots of questions on this topic. Chances are some of you might have similar questions. Let's see if I can answer them for you.
As a working definition I'd like to use the one by Martin Macdonald, a British nutritionist, whose work I greatly respect. In his words "Intermittent Fasting (IF) relates to any diet that cyclically restricts energy intake for a predetermined time period." Simply put you create an extended time frame that you choose not to eat and then a time frame when you consume food.
There are several different fasting protocols. Here are a few of the most popular ones (and you can find what they are all about by searching their names on the internet):
- Alternate Day Fasting
- Eat, Stop, Eat
- Warrior Diet
- 5:2 diet
- 16:8 diet (where you fast 16 hours, including the time you sleep...and then fit your meals into an 8 hour window)
This last one is the most popular currently, and I will share with you my own experiment with it in a little bit.
For the purpose of fat loss one condition must be met for certain - caloric deficit. I see people who state they are doing IF and not losing weight. That's because they manage to eat their maintenance calories during the feeding time frame. In order for IF to work as a fat loss tool, you need to eat lees energy than you are expending. Certainly that can be accomplished with a straight daily Calorie Restriction method, so why choose Intermittent Fasting?
When you are dieting and have a decent caloric deficit, your meals are not that big. By shortening the eating window you automatically have less 'feeding opportunities' thus making your meals larger in size and more satisfying. For some people it's a much more pleasant way to diet.
If you are a guy dieting down on 2000 calories...4 meals of 500 calories might not be very satiating. And you might wind up 'snacking your way out' of your daily deficit. For a small female on 1200 calories...4 meals of 300 calories each might not even register and she'll be constantly thinking about her next meal. But if you only eat 3 or 2 meals within your feeding window, your meals will be quite a bit more sizable. For the same guy, if he eats twice he can enjoy 1,000 calorie meals, and the small female's meals become 600 calorie meals. That really helps with adherence and makes dieting easier.
That said IF is not for everyone. Since Intermittent Fasting involves restricting food for a set period of time, people with a history of eating disorders, like anorexia, bulimia, binge eating or food anxiety... shouldn't do it. I would definitely advise pregnant women against it, as well as people who tend to go hypoglycemic without regular and frequent meals. If athletes want to implement IF, professional care and attention must be taken when setting up a protocol to ensure daily energy and carbohydrates requirements remain optimal as well as recovery nutrition.
But if you are a healthy individual that has to eat a very low calorie diet to lose weight, you might find one of the IF protocols extremely helpful.
Also, if you really struggle with hunger while dieting to low body fat, IF actually has been known to take the focus away from food due to long periods of not eating.
Before sharing how to set up your protocol...a few myths to dispel. Have you heard these statements before?
- Eating smaller meals and more often will stoke your metabolism
- Skipping meals will put your body in starvation mode
- Intermittent Fasting raises cortisol
- Intermittent Fasting is catabolic
- Breakfast is the most important meal of the day
What does the actual research say? Without getting into too much detail (you can always email me for references to the related studies) none of the above statements can be proven scientifically.
So now for setting up your IF protocol if you so desire. We will look at 16:8 as an example. For simplicity, I will use my own that I've conducted in the past.
For the purpose of reference: I am a 5 feet 8 inches female in my 40's with over 10 years of weight training experience and with 70 lbs of muscle mass. After a period of working on putting on some more muscle I've gone up to 156 lbs (from 145) and been maintaining this weight for a few months. I decided it was time to trim a little.
In order to create a deficit, all I needed to know is my maintenance calories. You can find formulas on line that will help with determining your approximate BMR. Another way to estimate your daily maintenance calories is to take your current body weight in kilos and multiply it by 22. Then multiply that number by an activity multiplier.
If you are sedentary with little to no activity, having a desk job 1.1 - 1.2
Lightly Active (some of the day standing/walking) 1.3 - 1.4
Moderately Active (on feet most of the day e.g. car sales person 1.5 - 1.6
Very Active (hard daily activity, manual labor e.g construction worker) 1.7 +
Once you know your daily maintenance calories, then you can create your deficit.
I tracked my food for a week and the average of my daily calories came out to be around 2,200. I wanted to lose more than 1 lbs a week, since my diet was going to be short (4 weeks), so I was ok with going a bit more aggressive. So instead of a traditional 500 cal daily deficit I went with 700. That put me at 1,500 calories a day of food. I was going to eat starting somewhere around 1pm and be done by 9pm. This protocol worked very well for me, because I am not a huge breakfast person anyway. I usually wake up and sip on my black coffee as I train clients at my gym. When I am done around noon, and do a few things around the house it's time to eat my first meal. Most of the time I have 3 meals with the 1st one being the largest. My second meal is around 4-5pm which is more of a pre-workout shake, and the last one of the day is between 8-9pm that I get to enjoy with the family. It's another good-size meal. So all in all I never felt like I was restricting myself.
Before I talk about the results I must mention that I kept my protein pretty high at 2.5g pre kg of bodyweight. For me it was 160g. That was in order to maintain muscle mass and keep satiety high. Fat was at 1.4g per kg of body weight - around 45g of fat per day. Adequate fat intake during this time ensures proper micronutrient uptake, helps to maintain immune function, and most likely plays role in aiding with hormonal status. The rest was carbs - about 120g a day. I made sure I had greater amount of carbs around my training sessions - for energy and then for recovery. Carbohydrates have a lovely protein sparing effect. I also opted for whole, unprocessed foods, that are rich in fiber - it kept me feeling full and helped with digestion. At my last meal of the day to maximize anti-catabolism I had my biggest protein portion along with lots of veggies and some fat.
So what about the results???
In 30 days I:
- Lost 11 lbs of scale weight (from 156 to 145 lbs). 3 lbs of it was purely water, because I was 3 lbs lighter on day 3 of the diet. So technically I lost 8 lbs of fat. That would be 2 lb per week. Like planned.
- My body fat dropped from 19 -ish% BF - about 14%BF while maintaining muscle. So all in all I consider my mini cut to a success.
For me I found this IF protocol worked very well and made the process of dieting sustainable for 4 weeks. If you give up on the whole dieting process because it's taking you too long, you might like this 'get in and get out' approach.
Important to Note: My weight loss did not happen as a result of IF, but rather as a result of adherence to the deficit calories, and IF was just a tool to facilitate that. Also, there is no perfect IF protocol. You need to play around with different ones and find what suits you and your goals.
