Once implemented, Intermittent Fasting (IF) is one of the simplest and most effective tools to enhance multiple levels of human performance. I was first introduced to IF a few years ago after reading a blog about its touted benefits. As with many things, these claims seemed to good to be true, but in sticking to my proactive skepticism I decided to try it out and see what benefits I could reap.
The IF protocol is simple, yet there are a few nuances and hacks that can be implemented that increases it’s ease without diluting the results.
In short, you don’t eat for a specific window of time. By doing so you are giving your body a much-needed break from the constant inundation of food. These fasts range from 12-24 hours, although they are typically recommended to be around 16-18 hours to reap the most benefits without any undue suffering.
The idea of IF stems back to the days of our Hunter-Gatherer ancestors who did not have set meal times (Breakfast, lunch, dinner) and would instead only eat then they were able to, obviously, hunt or gather. Therefore, they would intermittently fast until their next food source became available to them.
Nowadays we are constantly stuffing our gullets full of all sorts of food and food-like items. For most Americans, there is rarely a window of more than a couple hours (besides sleeping) when they aren’t popping something down their pie-hole. Because of this, their bodies are constantly in a fed state. This is explained in great detail by a leader in the IF community, Brad Pilon. In essence, there are two metabolic states of the human body, fed and fasted. As I mentioned, most of us are almost always in the fed state. However, it is in the fasted state that many of the benefits that people are looking for occur.
One of the most obvious results of Intermitent Fasting fat loss (not to be confused withweight loss). When the body is not relying on glucose for energy from dietary proteins and carbohydrates, it turns to itself in order to continue fueling the body. Now the body isn’t stupid. Therefore, when you stop eating the body knows to cannibalize stored fat before it turns to muscle tissue. The reason we have body fat is so that when food is scare we have an internal storage to utilize as fuel. (Unless you are a competitive power-lifter or bodybuilder, I would not worry about IF causing cannibalization of muscle tissue.) So by fasting for a certain period of time, the body can convert stored body fat to ketones (mobilized fat), which can then be burned as an alternate fuel source.
Another amazing benefit of IF is a process known as autophagy, which only happens when the body is in a fasted state. Autophagy is simply the body’s repair and replace mode. It is in this state that programmed cell death occurs. This is a GOOD thing. Autophagy causes cells to kill themselves if they have any sorts of damage or mutations to the DNA. Once the cell is killed, it’s component pieces are broken down, rounded up, and recycled throughout the body. Our bodies are pretty badass, sophisticated machines.
How to Intermittent Fast
There are a couple different protocols floating around on the Internet, I suggest finding one that fits your life and schedule and testing it out for a month. The two methods I alternate between the most are:
1) A condensed eating window. I will stop eating around 8 or 9pm and then don’t eat or drink anything besides water or tea until about 2pm the next day. When using this protocol I will do it about 2x per week.
2) My favorite and simplest protocol, Bulletproof Intermittent Fast, addressed below, with the noted modification. When using this method I can easily sustain it for 4-5x per week on an ongoing basis.
Here are a couple guidelines to help you find a protocol that fits you.
1) Use sleep to your advantage. I usually shoot for a 16-18 hour fast. Now it may seem intimating at first, but once you factor in the time you are sleeping, the amount of conscious hours that you are fasting is negligible. Use the eight or so hours of sleep to help you hit your targeted fasting window. Also, aim to have your sleeping portion of the fast happen during the hardest parts of the fast, which are typically from hours 4-12. Example: Stop eating at 8pm, go to bed at 11:30pm, wake up at 7:30am, and then eat again at noon. Easy.
2) Take a look at your schedule. Are you starting work early in the A.M. like most people? If so, then plan accordingly. I try to plan a fast during a time that I know I am going to be busy. This keeps my mind occupied so I am not constantly thinking about the fact that I am fasting. The mental clarity a fast can provide also helps make you more productive during these times that you are most busy, especially in the morning. This is one of my favorite benefits of IF. Without digestion causing a competition of bodily energy, your brain can function with full capacity.
3) Listen to your body. If this is your first time fasting, bring along some snack foods just in case you get a cranky. There’s no shame in stopping a fast early if your not feeling it. Then re-evaluate, figure out where you went wrong, adjust, and try again.
4) Try to IF once a week to start. As you get more comfortable with the idea then you can progressively incorporate it more often if you desire. Some weeks I will IF five days, other weeks I’ll only do it once. Again, listen to your body and progress slowly in order to minimize plateaus and mental burnout.
Tips, Tweaks, and Hacks
1) Remain hydrated during the fast. This can help stave off hunger because often when we feel hungry it is really just a misinterpretation of thirst, for more on this see Your Bodies Many Cries for Water by Dr. F. Batmanghelidj). You can also drink unsweetened tea or lemon/lime squeezed into water. The fructose dose is negligible.
2) If you are struggling with cravings, especially for carbohydrates, trying using 15g of Branch Chain Amino Acids (BCAA’s) during the middle of the fast to help mitigate these cravings. 10grams of L-Glutamine has also proven to be beneficial for me in terms of carbohydrate cravings, as well has muscle tissue repair and healing of gastrointestinal permeability.
3) Experiment with Bulletproof Coffee. This is the method I have most recently been using most often with great success. In the A.M. have a cup of coffee blended with unsalted grass-fed butter(KerryGold) and Medium Chain Triglyceride (MCT) oil. This has many benefits, one of which is the fact that I get absolutely zero hunger pangs using this method. Check out the work of Dave Asprey on the Bulletproof Exec Blog, especially his posts on Bulletproof Coffee where he explains the science behind this incredible tool. (The tweak I make to this method is that instead of drinking the entire cup at once, I put it in a travel mug and strategically sip it throughout the day, often over the course of six plus hours. I take a sip every time I start to feel the tingling’s of hunger start creeping into my mind.) Note: If caffeine affects your sleep than you should be cautious about having coffee later in the day, as caffeine has a half-life of about six hours.
My Experience
For me, the hardest part of IF was the first night (where I was experimenting with a 24 hour fast). I found it to be much more the mental game than the actually feeling of hunger. I found it difficult to sleep the first night, not because I was hungry, but rather because I was so fixated on the fact that I wasn’t eating. As I laid in bed that first night all I could think about was what I was going to eat next. It was a challenge for me because it was the first time I had ever intentionally gone without eating for an extended period of time. (Besides a time in high-school where I tried to fast during Lent each day till sunset.)
After the first night it got progressively easier. I ended up doing multiple 24-hour fasts that week and for the following few weeks. As you can see, I have a tendency to go full-force into something when I begin.
Now I have tapered off and have been on the Bulletproof Intermittent Fasting protocol for about a year, doing it about 4-5x/week, as noted above.
Final Thoughts
Pick a method that seems reasonable and achievable to you and your schedule/lifestyle. There is no sense trying a method that you know will not be sustainable over the long-term (Even though that is exactly what I started with J). It’s better to do a 16-hour fast once a week than to try a 24hr fast and then never do it again. Start small, get a quick win, and then if you want you can scale up to a longer fast.
Let me know what works for you and any tips or tricks that you have used successfully!
Resources
Mark Sisson’s Guide to IF
Dave Asprey’s Bulletproof Intermittent Fasting Protocol
Brad Pilon- Eat, Stop, Eat
The IF protocol is simple, yet there are a few nuances and hacks that can be implemented that increases it’s ease without diluting the results.
In short, you don’t eat for a specific window of time. By doing so you are giving your body a much-needed break from the constant inundation of food. These fasts range from 12-24 hours, although they are typically recommended to be around 16-18 hours to reap the most benefits without any undue suffering.
The idea of IF stems back to the days of our Hunter-Gatherer ancestors who did not have set meal times (Breakfast, lunch, dinner) and would instead only eat then they were able to, obviously, hunt or gather. Therefore, they would intermittently fast until their next food source became available to them.
Nowadays we are constantly stuffing our gullets full of all sorts of food and food-like items. For most Americans, there is rarely a window of more than a couple hours (besides sleeping) when they aren’t popping something down their pie-hole. Because of this, their bodies are constantly in a fed state. This is explained in great detail by a leader in the IF community, Brad Pilon. In essence, there are two metabolic states of the human body, fed and fasted. As I mentioned, most of us are almost always in the fed state. However, it is in the fasted state that many of the benefits that people are looking for occur.
One of the most obvious results of Intermitent Fasting fat loss (not to be confused withweight loss). When the body is not relying on glucose for energy from dietary proteins and carbohydrates, it turns to itself in order to continue fueling the body. Now the body isn’t stupid. Therefore, when you stop eating the body knows to cannibalize stored fat before it turns to muscle tissue. The reason we have body fat is so that when food is scare we have an internal storage to utilize as fuel. (Unless you are a competitive power-lifter or bodybuilder, I would not worry about IF causing cannibalization of muscle tissue.) So by fasting for a certain period of time, the body can convert stored body fat to ketones (mobilized fat), which can then be burned as an alternate fuel source.
Another amazing benefit of IF is a process known as autophagy, which only happens when the body is in a fasted state. Autophagy is simply the body’s repair and replace mode. It is in this state that programmed cell death occurs. This is a GOOD thing. Autophagy causes cells to kill themselves if they have any sorts of damage or mutations to the DNA. Once the cell is killed, it’s component pieces are broken down, rounded up, and recycled throughout the body. Our bodies are pretty badass, sophisticated machines.
How to Intermittent Fast
There are a couple different protocols floating around on the Internet, I suggest finding one that fits your life and schedule and testing it out for a month. The two methods I alternate between the most are:
1) A condensed eating window. I will stop eating around 8 or 9pm and then don’t eat or drink anything besides water or tea until about 2pm the next day. When using this protocol I will do it about 2x per week.
2) My favorite and simplest protocol, Bulletproof Intermittent Fast, addressed below, with the noted modification. When using this method I can easily sustain it for 4-5x per week on an ongoing basis.
Here are a couple guidelines to help you find a protocol that fits you.
1) Use sleep to your advantage. I usually shoot for a 16-18 hour fast. Now it may seem intimating at first, but once you factor in the time you are sleeping, the amount of conscious hours that you are fasting is negligible. Use the eight or so hours of sleep to help you hit your targeted fasting window. Also, aim to have your sleeping portion of the fast happen during the hardest parts of the fast, which are typically from hours 4-12. Example: Stop eating at 8pm, go to bed at 11:30pm, wake up at 7:30am, and then eat again at noon. Easy.
2) Take a look at your schedule. Are you starting work early in the A.M. like most people? If so, then plan accordingly. I try to plan a fast during a time that I know I am going to be busy. This keeps my mind occupied so I am not constantly thinking about the fact that I am fasting. The mental clarity a fast can provide also helps make you more productive during these times that you are most busy, especially in the morning. This is one of my favorite benefits of IF. Without digestion causing a competition of bodily energy, your brain can function with full capacity.
3) Listen to your body. If this is your first time fasting, bring along some snack foods just in case you get a cranky. There’s no shame in stopping a fast early if your not feeling it. Then re-evaluate, figure out where you went wrong, adjust, and try again.
4) Try to IF once a week to start. As you get more comfortable with the idea then you can progressively incorporate it more often if you desire. Some weeks I will IF five days, other weeks I’ll only do it once. Again, listen to your body and progress slowly in order to minimize plateaus and mental burnout.
Tips, Tweaks, and Hacks
1) Remain hydrated during the fast. This can help stave off hunger because often when we feel hungry it is really just a misinterpretation of thirst, for more on this see Your Bodies Many Cries for Water by Dr. F. Batmanghelidj). You can also drink unsweetened tea or lemon/lime squeezed into water. The fructose dose is negligible.
2) If you are struggling with cravings, especially for carbohydrates, trying using 15g of Branch Chain Amino Acids (BCAA’s) during the middle of the fast to help mitigate these cravings. 10grams of L-Glutamine has also proven to be beneficial for me in terms of carbohydrate cravings, as well has muscle tissue repair and healing of gastrointestinal permeability.
3) Experiment with Bulletproof Coffee. This is the method I have most recently been using most often with great success. In the A.M. have a cup of coffee blended with unsalted grass-fed butter(KerryGold) and Medium Chain Triglyceride (MCT) oil. This has many benefits, one of which is the fact that I get absolutely zero hunger pangs using this method. Check out the work of Dave Asprey on the Bulletproof Exec Blog, especially his posts on Bulletproof Coffee where he explains the science behind this incredible tool. (The tweak I make to this method is that instead of drinking the entire cup at once, I put it in a travel mug and strategically sip it throughout the day, often over the course of six plus hours. I take a sip every time I start to feel the tingling’s of hunger start creeping into my mind.) Note: If caffeine affects your sleep than you should be cautious about having coffee later in the day, as caffeine has a half-life of about six hours.
My Experience
For me, the hardest part of IF was the first night (where I was experimenting with a 24 hour fast). I found it to be much more the mental game than the actually feeling of hunger. I found it difficult to sleep the first night, not because I was hungry, but rather because I was so fixated on the fact that I wasn’t eating. As I laid in bed that first night all I could think about was what I was going to eat next. It was a challenge for me because it was the first time I had ever intentionally gone without eating for an extended period of time. (Besides a time in high-school where I tried to fast during Lent each day till sunset.)
After the first night it got progressively easier. I ended up doing multiple 24-hour fasts that week and for the following few weeks. As you can see, I have a tendency to go full-force into something when I begin.
Now I have tapered off and have been on the Bulletproof Intermittent Fasting protocol for about a year, doing it about 4-5x/week, as noted above.
Final Thoughts
Pick a method that seems reasonable and achievable to you and your schedule/lifestyle. There is no sense trying a method that you know will not be sustainable over the long-term (Even though that is exactly what I started with J). It’s better to do a 16-hour fast once a week than to try a 24hr fast and then never do it again. Start small, get a quick win, and then if you want you can scale up to a longer fast.
Let me know what works for you and any tips or tricks that you have used successfully!
Resources
Mark Sisson’s Guide to IF
Dave Asprey’s Bulletproof Intermittent Fasting Protocol
Brad Pilon- Eat, Stop, Eat