New Video: Intermittent Fasting and Fasted Training
Every Fitness YouTube person has to make a video with their take on certain “hot topics” in fitness. If you pay enough attention, you see them post videos about debates other youtube guys are having with each other.
In that spirit, this is my mandatory Intermittent Fasting video. While the topic has been covered by tons of people in tons of ways, I think I have a unique take on intermittent fasting that I’ll share now. I wrote a blog post on it as well, which you can read here.
While there is no real magic to intermittent fasting, there is one key positive reason for giving intermittent fasting a shot, at least for a little while, in my opinion.
I no longer “do” intermittent fasting, but there was a three year period leading up to maybe about 8 months ago, when I strictly adhered to an intermittent fasting protocol.
For most of that time, that protocol included me training and lifting heavy weights fasted, on an empty stomach. My eating window would begin right after training every morning and last only around 4 hours. That meant that nearly every time I trained during that three year period, it was after 18-20 hours without eating. Looking back on it, it seems like a dumb move to train with no fuel if I my goal was to get stronger, but I was also paranoid about staying lean, and fasting was a major tool I used to get lean to begin with.
Eventually I did shift my eating window up by a couple of hours and broke my fast immediately upon waking, then I would train, then I would still stop eating around noon.
Breaking the Fasted Training Spell
As it relates to nutrition and training, more recently, something Greg Doucette said in one of his videos really hit home. He basically said your ability to train as hard as possible depends on having energy, why should you train on an empty stomach with no energy. You won’t be able to train as hard and therefore won’t maximize your training session. Basically it broke my lingering belief in the concept of fasted training.
It clicked because intermittent fasting taught me that meal timing does not matter. If timing doesn’t matter for body composition purposes, then why would think training on an empty stomach somehow would burn extra fat? You can’t have it both ways.
Training hard is necessary for achieving whatever goal and having fuel is necessary to train hard. So, nowadays, I eat before I train, usually it’s simple overnight oats with whey protein. A cup of oats, a scoop of protein stirred up with a 3/4th of a cup of water.
Fasting Gave Me Confidence to Bulk
More recently, I have stopped doing intermittent fasting altogether, which coincided with my first ever on-purpose sustained calorie surplus, or bulk. Now, I tend to eat throughout the day, maybe every 2-3 hours, but still weighted towards right after I train.
But, I still believe intermittent fasting is a great tool for overall health and fitness. Not for any physiological reasons, but for psychological reasons. It gave me tons of confidence that I could go for long periods of time without food and not have it be a big deal.
It has helped show me that I can continue to function as a human while being hungry. When I eventually do shift back to a calorie restricted state at some point, to lean out a bit, or whatever, I KNOW I have the ability to do it, because I’ve proven to myself that 20-24 hour fasts are a walk in the park.
How Intermittent Fasting Made Me Stronger
In calendar year 2017, I recorded 75 separate 24 hour fasts, more than 1 per week. That was clearly sub-optimal for growing muscle, and counter to my goals right now, but I will be able to draw on the experience again someday. So, to quote the paradox that Jocko Willink has made famous, discipline equals freedom, fasting enabled me to try a legitimate bulk.
