So on my quest to reach nice, lean 170 pounds in standard USA pounds Ive decided to employ yet another tactic. Fasting! Not like running faster, that would go against my Maffetonian beliefs (did I just create a belief system?), but not eating for set amounts of time.
I know lots of people think this is some crazy idea and that its unhealthy and Ill have severe side effects and heres starving kids in Africa that dont get food so its wrong of me not to eat mine and all that good stuff, but I dont buy it. It doesnt make sence to me that a human being, as highly "advanced" as we are (more on that in another future post) should HAVE to eat every few hours in order to not crash and burn. It doesnt seem plausible that paleo man, all super fit and healthy, had a refrigerator or pantry that he could pull food out of every 3 or 4 hours so that he would have the energy to later on stock said food storage device. It seems more plausible that there were times where paleo man (Ill refer to him as "Ugg" from now on) would go awhile without eating. More than likely Ugg didnt eat as often as most people like to think necessary in order to survive. I imagine Ugg would sometimes go a day or two between meals, maybe even longer in some extreme cases!
Now, dont get me wrong here, I dont intend to go for multiple days without food. Unlike Ugg, I dont have those situations in my life where thats necessary, plus I like food too much to abandon it for so long. No, my "plan" is to fast for roughly 18~20 hours, and eat for 4~6. How will I do this? Its simple really!
I wake up at 4:00 everyday and get to work by 6. I will drink lots of water through the day like I already do, but I wont eat any food or calories. Work ends at 3:00, then I typically go running till 4:30 or so. On the way to running I will down some V8 and a few servings of fruit. This puts me at around 12 waking hours before any caloric intake. After running I pick the kids up and fight traffic to get home. This puts me home around 5:30, which is around the same time my wife gets home. After we settle in and get dinner ready and start eating ts already 6:00~6:30 in the evening. Ill eat dinner, and then graze while we continue about our evening duties of cleaning and caring for the children, making sure to get in as many servings of fruits and veggies as I can, and finish everything around 7:30~8:00. Then its past my bed time, so I go to bed thus starting another period of fasting.
Im eating from 3:30ish till about 7:30ish which gives me 4 hours of feeding, and 20 hours of fasting.
The common thought against this is that the human body will go into "starvation mode" and will burn muscle and store fat. This is true, but only after extreme periods of fasting (read 70 something hours...) and I have no intentions of going that far. The other popular reasoning behind it is that it slows down your metabolism. This is also true, but if I reduce my caloric intake by say 25%, and my metabolism only slows down by 9%, Im still creating a deficit (side note, I dont remember the exact numbers, but it is a deficit).
For more information and scientific explainations regarding this, a good site to check out is Lean Gains for a better understanding.
Oh, at the time of this writing Im at 185.4 pounds, so Ill see how welk this works / doesnt work!
I know lots of people think this is some crazy idea and that its unhealthy and Ill have severe side effects and heres starving kids in Africa that dont get food so its wrong of me not to eat mine and all that good stuff, but I dont buy it. It doesnt make sence to me that a human being, as highly "advanced" as we are (more on that in another future post) should HAVE to eat every few hours in order to not crash and burn. It doesnt seem plausible that paleo man, all super fit and healthy, had a refrigerator or pantry that he could pull food out of every 3 or 4 hours so that he would have the energy to later on stock said food storage device. It seems more plausible that there were times where paleo man (Ill refer to him as "Ugg" from now on) would go awhile without eating. More than likely Ugg didnt eat as often as most people like to think necessary in order to survive. I imagine Ugg would sometimes go a day or two between meals, maybe even longer in some extreme cases!
Now, dont get me wrong here, I dont intend to go for multiple days without food. Unlike Ugg, I dont have those situations in my life where thats necessary, plus I like food too much to abandon it for so long. No, my "plan" is to fast for roughly 18~20 hours, and eat for 4~6. How will I do this? Its simple really!
I wake up at 4:00 everyday and get to work by 6. I will drink lots of water through the day like I already do, but I wont eat any food or calories. Work ends at 3:00, then I typically go running till 4:30 or so. On the way to running I will down some V8 and a few servings of fruit. This puts me at around 12 waking hours before any caloric intake. After running I pick the kids up and fight traffic to get home. This puts me home around 5:30, which is around the same time my wife gets home. After we settle in and get dinner ready and start eating ts already 6:00~6:30 in the evening. Ill eat dinner, and then graze while we continue about our evening duties of cleaning and caring for the children, making sure to get in as many servings of fruits and veggies as I can, and finish everything around 7:30~8:00. Then its past my bed time, so I go to bed thus starting another period of fasting.
Im eating from 3:30ish till about 7:30ish which gives me 4 hours of feeding, and 20 hours of fasting.
The common thought against this is that the human body will go into "starvation mode" and will burn muscle and store fat. This is true, but only after extreme periods of fasting (read 70 something hours...) and I have no intentions of going that far. The other popular reasoning behind it is that it slows down your metabolism. This is also true, but if I reduce my caloric intake by say 25%, and my metabolism only slows down by 9%, Im still creating a deficit (side note, I dont remember the exact numbers, but it is a deficit).
For more information and scientific explainations regarding this, a good site to check out is Lean Gains for a better understanding.
Oh, at the time of this writing Im at 185.4 pounds, so Ill see how welk this works / doesnt work!
posted from Bloggeroid
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