Health & Fitness

Let's Get Healthy GAG

UncagedAgent

Let's get healthy GAG



Intermittent Fasting (IF) What is it?


IF is not a diet, its not a meal plan. Its a way of dividing a day into a feeding and starving periods to force the body into a fat burning state. By creating an eating cycle you can give yourself a way to lose weight and build muscle without using an overly stict diet or exercise plan.


Despite what you may think, IF is not about skipping meals or eating less, its about rescheduling your meals so that you can maximize fat burning.


So going on, lets all make sure we know that IF DOES NOT MEAN NOT EATING.


So lets start



How to start intermittent fasting, and what you need to know




The Basics


Intermittent Fasting is a a timed eating plan. During a 24 hour period, a person will divide their day into two periods: Eating Period and Fasting Period.


While this may sound crazier than the 2016 presidential race, you already fast. Assuming you get mroe than 6 hours of sleep a night, you will fast from dinner to breakfast. Thats why the first meal of the day is called "Break-fast." Did I blow your mind or what, no, keep reading, it gets better.


Lets start with fasting


Lets get this straight. Fasting does not suck. No matter what you may think, I would like you to forget that and remove any bias you may have and have an open mind for this MyTake.


Fasting is a body state, it comes after an amount of time of not eating. For men that comes after 10-12 hours while in women it takes 8-10. While in this state, the body works at a defecite meaning it burns fat stores to use as energy, burns calories, because you haven't consumed any. What this does is allow your body to burn fat while you do nothing, literally nothing. Its like exercising with out the activity.



Before I explain nutrition more lets get this straight, During your fasting period you:
CAN: Drink water, diet sodas (they taste trashy tho so why would you, no judgement), tea, and other Zero Calorie drinks, you may also chew gum and eat Zero (very low) Calorie foods (rice cakes, cucumber, anything green and light really)
CANNOT: Drink sugary sodas, eat candy, or consume any spreadables (Peanut butter, cream cheese, mustard) as a topping


IMPORTANT NOTE: ZERO CALORIES DOES NOT ALWAYS MEAN ZERO CALORIES, DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH BEFORE HAVING A DIET COKE



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What can you eat


So, you're ready to give IF a try, good on you. You're a step ahead of all the other couch potatoes.


While fasting, like any fitness/diet plan, you want to maintain a healthy diet, high proteins, low carb, pretty standard stuff. To lose weight its easiest if you lower your (simple) carb intake, this is some 1st grader stuff which, as a highly intelligent reader, you already know, but reviews never hurt. The reason you want to drop carbs is because they are simple sugars, they are easy to digest and do not have long lasting energy (sugar crashes). More complex carbs, fiber and starch, are a much better alternative because they take longer to digest and give more steady energy. This long energy release is why athletes will eat spaghetti the night before a game.


While you will want to drop your carbs, DO NOT purposfully decrease your protein intake. Protein is the building blocks of muscles, trust me, I'll teach you some new shit soon, we just gotta review one more thing. Since you'll be restructruing your meals, your muscles will decay more between each meal (16 hour of no food vs 8 hours of no food) so you have to counteract that longer time with higher protein amounts. While this sounds more complicated than fiber *bu dum tis*, its really really simple, buy some protein powder, Chocolate is the only flavor you should even look at, and make a shake in the morning when you wake up (assume for this that protein shakes are equal to 0 calories, because in reality they are close enough). If you like peanut butter, put it on everything. PB is a solid choice for protein and it even has some healthy fats, so plus plus.


Now the fun part, the true benefits of IF.


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So I've explained the obligatory restrictions on diets, if I didn't I couldn't very well call this a fitness piece could I, but most likely I haven't really sold you on IF. Thats about to change.


The best part of fasting for me is that, there is really NO set meal plan or food I can't eat. Because you are in a fasting state you can consume anything you want, WITHIN REASON. While I don't mean I only eat chocolate cake, I can eat potato chips, have an occasional soda and eat like a fairly regualr human. When you are fasting you create a nice little hole in your daily allowance of calories that you, if timed correctly, physically can not eat. I have two meals a day, a small one to break fast (roughly 500-1000 calories) and a large one before I go to sleep (1000+ calories). Since my second meal is so close to when I go to sleep (less than an hour) I can't get hungry again until I wake up. I don't have late night snacks, I have late night dinners. This is a little trick that helps me avoid snacking and control my calories. Since I fill my stomach before bed I don't have urges that would put me over my chaloric deficite.


Doesn't make sense, I appologise, here's another review.


Eat what you want when you fast, just don't eat like a hippo. Its better to time your meals so that you can limit when you get hungry than to just eat "whenevs."



Lets take a break before the final piece of this myTake, ya.


This part is optional reading. I've been fasting for the last 6 months, and a few on and off weeks before then. So far I've noticeably lost fat and put on solid muscle mass. Obviously results will vary, but of the four other people I know who have done IF, three of them have lost over 50 lbs. The fourth guy didn't exercise but still lost about 15ish lbs over the course of a school year.


Of course I don't rule your life, but I would highly recomend you give this a fair shot.


Also, sorry if this looks like a research paper, I'm writing one for English right now so the styles may be clashing.


Now back to facts



Let's Get Healthy GAG



Exercising, why you should do it


You know in mario cart how you get mushrooms and they make you go fast as shit, thats what exercise does to you when you fast. Makes you lose wight fast as shit, pardon my French.


Even I don't need to review the benefits of exercise, and if I do, just leave a comment, because we all know what they are.


"But I'm Fasting, Why do I need to work out" you ask. Well because going fast is fun. Exercising while fasting is honestly like a superpower. You burn calories when you do nothing during the day, then you burn EVEN MORE when you lift weights or do cardio.


Math isn't fun, but lets do a little right now.


If I eat 1800 calories a day


the body burns 2000 calories a day (fasting calories = 200)


now I'm at -200 calories


If I exercise and burn 200 more calories, I will have lost 400 calories that day. 400 CALORIES IN ONE DAY, doesn't seem like much, prepare to be amazed


400 calories times 365 = 146000 calories a year


Since there are 3500 calories in a lb of fat, that leaves us with 41.714 lbs worth of calories.


Assuming you only lose 400 calories a day, thats some pretty good return on investment.



What I do


I have my first meal between 4-8 p.m. depending on what I'm doing that day. I'll start with a light snack to munch on while I make my first meal which is usually between 500 and 1000 calories. After that I'll have my second, larger meal when ever I get hungry which is close to 9-11 p.m.ish again depending on when I ate my first meal. The second meal I have is almost always over 1000 calories because my first meal has expanded my stomach fully which makes me feel more hungry. As well, I want to make sure that I have consumed enough calories by the time I go to sleep so that I don't feel sick.


I try to exercise before I break my fast which is why there's a 4 hr variation between the first meal times. I like to lift weights so I'll have a protein shake before I go and then one when I finish at the gym. After a workout is when I try to position most of my carbs because thats when I need it the most, rebuilding muscles takes more energy than sleeping.


Again, this is what I do, don't take it for anything thing mroe than that because I'm not a rapper, and I'm even less of a doctor.


Let's Get Healthy GAG




Final Thoughts


This myTake was only on one very specific version of IF, there are dozens of ways to do it. Some of you who try this will like this method, some will hate it. Thats fine, there is no right answer to this.


Note: you can do every other day fasting, once a week fasting, 48-72 hour fasting.... endless posibilities


I hope you give this a try or at least don't blow it off life some sort of hippie voodoo.



-Your Friendly Neighborhood Chris


Sources:


https://www.healthline.com/health/food-nutrition/simple-carbohydrates-complex-carbohydrates#4


https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2013/08/06/a-beginners-guide-to-intermittent-fasting/


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzfsaXsV-T4


https://generationiron.com/intermittent-fasting-why-eating-less-can-lead-to-massive-gains/

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