In Fitness and in Health
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It was interesting, and less dramatic than it sounds. I didn't walk away with any profound clarity or anything like that, and I didn't expect to. I didn't check my weight or body fat percentage during the fast either, because weight loss wasn't a goal. Honestly, I didn't even HAVE an actual goal in doing it, I just wanted to see if I cold do it (Like the 24hrs marathon I attempted last year, with 0 training lol)… A "gut check", I guess.
Biggest thing I took away from it is that "hungry never killed anybody", and eating is a habit more than a necessity. I mean, obviously we NEED to eat, but not nearly as much or as often as we do.
If you plan to fast, keep LOTS of water readily accessible to quell the hunger cravings. I had cases at my desk and at home, and a case in the car.
Around day 3 or 4 is when you start to feel the energy drain... From what I understand, that's when your body is starting to go in to ketosis, changing from burning sugars and carbs for energy, to using fat as a fuel source. The drained feeling only lasted about 2 days, then I was smooth sailing to day 10.
The REALLY difficult part is sensibly "breaking your fast"... Starting from 10 days without food, to juices, to light foods to regular foods. Suddenly slamming a plate of BBQ after having (fairly) empty bowels could be not good, or so I read.
You NEED salt!!!!! Every morning, in my first bottle of water I would put in one restaurant salt packet.
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@UnTucked There's a very interesting documentary in the BBC archive via iPlayer on this…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01lxyzc/horizon-20122013-3-eat-fast-and-live-longer
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@celik I am not a doctor, and I can't even find the Robb Wolfe article that talked about this from a few years back.
Real quick, here was my experience (take with a grain of salt).
Back in 2010, Paleo was the chosen diet among "functional fitness" people. It was relatively easy to follow, and allowed for a lot of variance. I followed it pretty religiously and stayed pretty lean. After a while, I started putting on weight, so I started following my macros through Zone principles, not necessarily following the RX blocks by Barry Sears. I consumer more fat and protein than carbs, and started to put on mass. Mostly muscle, but the strength gains outweighed the weight gain in my book because I could squat 1.75x BW, Clean& Jerk 1.25xBW, do 10 unbroken muscle ups and about 42 unbroken "kipping" pull ups. I also could run a 2:49 800m, all around 195# BW.
In 2012, when I joined in as a partner to my gym, I started following a higher volume, more strength biased program. There was not as much conditioning work, and a lot of repetitive strength programmed, so I started to up my calories to account for soreness and recovery.
Back then, the BIG fad was "Carb Back Loading." Essentially, you drink coffee and whey protein with coconut oil in the AM, and then don't eat anything until after you work out in the afternoon. You could drink a pre-workout shake with coconut oil, but essentially zero carbs until POSt workout. There were dudes talking about downing two bags of doritos after their workouts and eating a king sized MM box right before bed - all while getting stronger, losing weight, etc.
I did my best to follow this, but sadly, two things started to happen. Eventually, I was not even hungry after my workouts. I would drink a protein shake, and go to sleep without fuel. Since I was consuming only around 1,000 calories 3-4 nights per week, I would have figured I would "lose" weight due to caloric loss. Sadly, I started to lose muscle first, and then fat gain.
2 years later I was placed on thyroid medicine for because I had essentially destroyed my body's hormone levels.
To this day, I have the hardest time losing weight, no matter what I do. I have routine hormone checks, and my T levels are in line with what docs want to see, so that's not the issue. I just have a slow matabolism and hypo-thyroid issues now.
Two years ago, I decided to cut out beer completely from my diet, and start being more active with my workouts, and I did manage to lose about 20 pounds, but life took over, the stresses of multiple jobs and fatherhood caused me to skip more workouts than I was doing. Sadly, the re-introduction of pain from a slipped disk from back in 2012 has also kept me away from doing a lot of the CF workouts I program for my clients, so my training times are limited to what I can do quickly between deskwork at home, or after my classes are done at my gym at night.
I consider myself to have been the most "fit" and healthy when I was simply running, and then augmenting with strength style workouts a few times per week. This week I started back trying to get some mileage under my feet, and do a few strength workouts as well.
Overall, I believe that there is no "right diet" out there. What works for one person may not work for another. I think if you eat majority of your calories from Veggies, Nuts, Seeds, and a little fruit, add in lean proteins, and some additional healthy fats, you will always be doing the right thing.
Just my 2 cents, and take it as it is…
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Thorough reply much appreciated, @Appfaff! Actually between you and your brother (whom I've spoken to several times through IG regarding denims), you gentleman never fail to produce some very helpful, thought-out, and genuinely interesting discussions.
At any rate, I could not agree more that there isn't really a "right diet" for every person. For instance, I would prefer to skip breakfast and eat a little more for lunch and dinner meals; whereas my wife needs to have food in her system every few hours otherwise blood sugar issues lead to headaches and mood issues.
Fasting for a day or several days certainly piques my interest, but I don't think I have the willpower, nor would I even want to subject my body to future issues with thyroid or anything else in that vein. For me, at least right now, I don't think that loading up on a huge amount of food when I feel hungry is bad - so long as it's nutritional foods and not the baked goods and cookies that I more often than not feel the need to gorge.
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I’m glad the Pfaff-Bros can be of service
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I've done a 7-day fast and several 3-day fast. I generally IF since I don't eat breakfast most days. My interest in fasting is mostly reg. the possible gains in terms of general inflammation and cancer prevention stemming from apoptosis / autophagy and the like. There's some reasonably solid research on this in animal models.
There's a guy who was morbidly obese and did a 385 day water+minerals fast, under medical supervision. He obviously lost all his excess weight but he didn't develop those huge flaps of loose skins you see in those cases most of the time. Very interesting.
My experience was similar to @UnTucked 's wrt hunger and energy. Also, I found that boredom is a larger problem than hunger per se. Once you've set your mind to doing a moderate length fast, it's not that hard. During my 7-day fast I was cooking 3 meals a day for my kid or kid+wife. I lifted heavy three times and I went to BJJ 2 or 3 times.
Re-feeding is a bitch.
WRT intermittent fasting to loose weight I think it is just a means to the end of lowering overall calories. Some people find it easiest to lower calories while doing IF, others low carb, others low fat, paleo, etc. You need to find the recipe that works for you in the context of your life.
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Overall, I believe that there is no "right diet" out there. What works for one person may not work for another. I think if you eat majority of your calories from Veggies, Nuts, Seeds, and a little fruit, add in lean proteins, and some additional healthy fats, you will always be doing the right thing.
I agree with @Appfaff here. In fact what he's saying is along the lines of the Mediterranean Diet, which is considered to be the healthiest option there is. If you're looking for other scientifically backed plans, the DASH Diet is up there, and good for reducing hypotension, and the Portfolio Diet is good at reducing cholesterol.
There doesn't seem to be any compelling evidence that three meals per day is worse than six for weight loss or building muscle, or that low carb diets are better than low fat. So go with what you can stick to.
If I was giving dietary advice, it'd probably be:
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Try to eat five to ten servings of fruit and vegetables today. That's about 400 to 800g, or 1 to 2 lbs.
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Make sure you get enough fat. (20% of calories seems to be the cutoff, which is still a pretty low fat diet.)
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If you're building muscle, there's not much scientific evidence that you need more than 1.6 to 1.8 g per kg (of bodyweight) of protein. (About 0.7 to 0.8 g per lb.)
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Try to keep red meat consumption down, and avoid processed meats.
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Random follow up,
The flick is called the science of fasting
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Did my first proper CrossFit workout today. Loved it I gotta say. I managed to get through the WOD which was main concern. Over box burpees sucked big time though!
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Those are a joy, aren't they?
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I thought normal burpees were bad but these were another level.
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Nice @spitfiredealer - burpees and all of their variations never get easier, you just just better at them.
For anyone looking to try something kinda weird, we did these at the gym this week and our clients loved them.
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Hello everyone. Not sure if we do this here, but…
This will be my second year cycling 104 miles with the ‘5am crew’ to raise money for those suffering from Lung diseases and to help raise awareness. We are riding as TEAM HANNA again this year. Hanna is 22 years old and has been living with Cystic Fibrosis, a rare genetic disorder that affects the Lungs and digestive system. There is treatment but no cure, and the average life expectancy is the mid 30’s.If you can, please follow the link to my Reach the Beach page and donate to help people like Hanna. Your donations are greatly appreciated and any amount helps.
Here is a link to my donation page:
http://action.lung.org/goto/Brockjohnson
Thank you!
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Thank you Joss! I agree, it really is a terrible hand to be dealt. I hope that the research can be done within their lifetime to find a cure and all we can do is help fund it and raise awareness.. thank you again on behalf of team Hanna!
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Good for you Brock - my dad is a CF specialist. It’s been great to watch the progress treatment has made over the last 25 years, but they Have a lot of work to do.
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That’s awesome, hats off to your pops! If we all did what we could to help each other out the world would be a much better place.
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Thanks to my employer my wife and me are to use this crazy gym for little money and it even has a pool and kindergarten. Awesome!
I feel totally out of place among the rich and beautiful though
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That gym is Epic! Wish we had something like that around here.
Cheers to a new year!
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Thanks @Brock i have yet to see the spa… ???
