Intermittent fasting is back in the public consciousness Largely because of the recent Joe Rogan podcast featuring Georges St Pierre (I haven’t lestened to this, but here’s the link: http://podcasts.joerogan.net/podcasts/jre-mma-show-28-with-georges-st-pierre)
If you don’t know about GSP, he’s probably the greatest athlete the UFC has ever seen.
GSP being profound
So apparently (I haven’t listened to it) Joe & GSP mentioned the value of IF
Which means my clients ask me about IF
To which I tell them that I’m a big fan.
Now, I’m not a nutrition guy, but for the most part, you don’t need to be. Food is simple.
You have:
Meat
Vegetables
Fruit
Nuts
Bacon
And everything else
You can categorise them into:
Protein
Fats
Carbs
You don’t have to. But it’s a good idea to have a handle on which category which food falls into.
It’s not complicated. Eat your meat and veg. Snack on fruit and nuts. Stick to foods of one ingredient, unless you’ve mixed the ingredients yourself.
Not rocket science.
The cakes, the pizza, the “food like edible products” can wait till the weekend. Look at any successful diet protocol anywhere, and this is the foundation of them all.
Now that thats sorted.
Intermittent fasting. Why?
Reason number 1: Convenience.
This why I personally love IF. My day does not revolve around food. I don’t worry about missing a meal Meal timing doesn’t phase me. So when I’m flat out busy, I’m all good. And when the day calms down, I can sit and enjoy eating without hurry.
Reason 2: Self Awareness Realising that feeling hungry is not a problem. Here’s an analogy:
You feel tired. Do you: Immediately go for a nap? Carry on until bed time and sleep then? Most do b) But what about hunger. Do you immediately reach for food ordo you carry on, same as you would if you were a little tired. IF helps you learn that hunger is not a problem. You are only hungry, you are not starving.
Reason 3: The health benefits. There are a bucket load of studies into the effects of fasting on the body, hormone production, immune system function and more. The best guy for this is Brad Pilon. Brad wrote Eat Stop Eat one of the best and easiest to read resources on the subject. He updates it fairly regularly. If you want to know WHY you fast, read Brads work.
There are many styles of IF.
The newspapers/culture magazines have been talking about the 5:2 diet for a while. This is pretty much a rip off of Brads Eat Stop Eat method.
Brad advocates normal eating 4-6 days of the week with 1-3 full (24 hour) days of fasting. The fasts usually last from dinner time today until dinner time tomorrow and are non consecutive. So you still get to eat every day.
The other method is daily short fasts. The two big players here are: Ori Hoffmekler, who authored the Warrior Diet way back before this stuff was cool Martin Berkhan of Lean Gains
Both advocate a limited window in which to get your calories in, usually 4-8 hours. The remainder of day is a fast, but lets not forget 8hrs of that is spent asleep
As long as you are getting in your required calories and nutrition as average measurement taken over say 10-14 days, you are fine.
Check out those links, have a read. IF may be for you, it may not be. Only you will know and only if you give it a fair go.
But what is important is the idea of getting in enough good food, keeping a good average score, and not feasting on crap “because I deserve it”
Regards Dave Hedges www.WG-Fit.com
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