Intermittent Fasting Program Trial

[MSmith19]

I have been reading up on this diet and I am going to try it for 6 weeks and then re-evaluate after that. I have two options:

9AM -Wakeup
10AM - Pre-workout Meal
11AM - Gym
12:30PM - Post-workout Meal
2PM-6PM - 1-3 Large Meals
6PM-10AM - Fast -- No food- water, vitamins, caffeine

OR

4PM - Pre-workout Meal
5PM - Gym
6:30PM - Post-workout meal/Dinner
8PM -12PM - 1-3 Larger Meals
12PM - 4PM - Fast -- No food- water, vitamins, caffeine

The latter is the traditional format, but does not really work into my daily routine. ALTHOUGH, I am not sure what effect having no food from 6PM - 10AM will have, especially because I will be sleeping for much of that. If anyone has suggestions, feel free. Also, you can take a look at these two threads: forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?p=64080343 and forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?p=65030233.

The idea is that you fast for 14 hours and then get in all your macros within an eight hour period. This is supposed to a) speed up metabolism, b) allow for fatburning and muscle building in the same day- having defecit and surplus calories at different times, c) increase overall health and mood. Why I like this: It goes against the often mythical and ignorant ways of the traditional bodybuilding diet (6 proportioned meals, adequate protein, blah blah) and is a new method. It has already been proven to increase the lifespan of primates and rats while providing an enjoyable and comfortable life for them. Previously, they proved that a lifetime caloric defecit would provide a longer life expectancy but at the cost of life's enjoyability.

Read the threads and give me any feedback or ideas you have. I will be logging my nutrition and workout in this thread.

[phil2007]

Sounds like madness. Link to article?

[MSmith19]

There are links in there and this guy's website can be accessed from the bb.com articles. Google intermittent fasting aswell.

For all you who would love MOD EDIT any T-Nation writer:

http://www.t-nation.com/tmagnum/read...dra?id=1227157

[MSmith19]

I will start tomorrow, right after I figure out which method I'll use.

[Recksaw]

a) speed up metabolism, b) allow for fatburning and muscle building in the same day- having defecit and surplus calories at different times, c) increase overall health and mood

Ive been told so many times you cant burn fat and build muscle at the same time. So I call BS.

[MSmith19]

a) speed up metabolism, b) allow for fatburning and muscle building in the same day- having defecit and surplus calories at different times, c) increase overall health and mood

Ive been told so many times you cant burn fat and build muscle at the same time. So I call BS.

You've also been TOLD so many other things. For years people were told that lead in paint and aspestos was perfectly fine to be exposed to even for years at a time? Were they wrong? Don't believe everything you are told and even if you do- atleast have the patience to educate yourself on the topic before labelling yourself with a big bold-fonted IGNORANT. Atleast read the articles.

And you are not burning fat and gaining muscle at the same time- read, please! And why is it that beginners often cut down fat weight while increasing lean mass? But I guess this process is still physiologically impossible?

Additionally, I am not preaching this as a heavily studied (because it's not) and the best method- that is why I am going to TRY it for 6 weeks. Anyone have any open-minded suggestions or takes on this?

[Turbomunkey]

well you have fun with that, as for me ill stick to eating 24/7 and getting bigger

[MSmith19]

well you have fun with that, as for me ill stick to eating 24/7 and getting bigger

Sigh.

[ahhmyeye]

Cool. I love it when people think out side of the box...that's the only way this sport will ever advance. I'd say go with the traditional...you need that food during sleep.

[Thaigga]

[MSmith19]

Here is my proposed diet:


9AM - Wake + Coffee + Multivitamin + Omega-3
10AM - Meal 1 - Preworkout: 1 Scoop Whey Isolate, 1 Cup Kashi Go Lean Crunch w/ 1 cup 1%MF milk. Total Kcal: 310
11AM - Workout w/ 200mg caffeine
12AM - Meal 2 - Postworkout: 2 Scoop Whey Complex w/ 1 cup 1%MF milk, 1 wholewheat pita w/ hommus. Total Kcal: 470
2PM - Meal 3: 1 chicken breast, 2 slices toasted wholewheat bread, 2 slices wholefat cheese, lettuce, tomato. 200mg caffeine Total Kcal: 420
4PM - Meal 4: Rice/Meat, Pasta/Meat (all wholewheat and lean meat source), avocado or almonds. Total Kcal: 600
6PM - Meal 5 - Dinner: Complex carb source- potatoes, wholewheat pasta or brown rice + meat source - lean ground beef, steak, fish, chicken + fibrous green and sweet coloured vegetables. Total Kcal: 1000-1200
11-12PM - Meal 6: 1 cup Lowfat cottage cheese. Total Kcal: 120

Fasting will be 14hrs - 6PM until 10AM with small portion of cottage cheese during night. Feeding will be 8hrs - 10AM until 6PM. Total Kcal will be around 3000-3200. Minimum of 6 litres of water consumed each day along with 400mg total caffeine intake. HIIT cardio will be done 2 times per week and 2 maximum effort workouts per week with 2 dynamic efforts- following a modified version of Westside training for my specific athletic performance development and purposes.

Any suggestions/comments/questions are more than welcome (and is what I need!). Thanks!

[Thaigga]

Any suggestions/comments/questions are more than welcome (and is what I need!). Thanks!

yea, dont fast lol

[MSmith19]

yea, dont fast lol

Yeah you've made it clear what you think of this.

[MSmith19]

Okay, I don't really care what many may think of this; it's worth a try at the LEAST. I will post the details/updates here regardless of interest (hopefully there is SOME) but mostly to track my progress.

Day 1:

9AM - wake + caffeine (200mg, B-vitamin, multivitamin, omega 3)
12AM - 1 scoop whey, 1 glass 1% milk - 230 calories
1PM - workout
2PM - 1 scoop whey, 1 glass 1% milk - 230 calories
2:30PM - 2 large roast beef sandwiches - 800 calories
3:30PM - one large salad + chicken breast - 200 calories
4:00PM - 1/4 cup sunflower, sesamee and various seeds - 250 calories
5:00PM - orange juice - 110 calories
6:00PM - chicken breast + wholewheat pasta - 1110 calories
7:00PM - beef stick - 200 calories
8:00PM - yogurt + granola/peanut butter bar - 420 calories
9:00PM - 1 cup cottage cheese + 1 cup milk - 200 calories
9-3PM Monday - Fast

Total daily caloric intake: approximately 3250-3750 at 30%/40%/30% - 230g protein.

Workout was fine despite not eating anything 12 hours before it, excluding the pre-workout shake. Stomach feels fu cked up all day - either begging for food or stuffed- had strange dehydration-like symptons last night and this morning despite drinking near 2 gallons the day before.

Morning weight after emptying bowels+naked: 164lbs.

[BiggerWeighter]

Okay, I don't really care what many may think of this; it's worth a try at the LEAST. I will post the details/updates here regardless of interest (hopefully there is SOME) but mostly to track my progress.

Day 1:

9AM - wake + caffeine (200mg, B-vitamin, multivitamin, omega 3)
12AM - 1 scoop whey, 1 glass 1% milk - 230 calories
1PM - workout
2PM - 1 scoop whey, 1 glass 1% milk - 230 calories
2:30PM - 2 large roast beef sandwiches - 800 calories
3:30PM - one large salad + chicken breast - 200 calories
4:00PM - 1/4 cup sunflower, sesamee and various seeds - 250 calories
5:00PM - orange juice - 110 calories
6:00PM - chicken breast + wholewheat pasta - 1110 calories
7:00PM - beef stick - 200 calories
8:00PM - yogurt + granola/peanut butter bar - 420 calories
9:00PM - 1 cup cottage cheese + 1 cup milk - 200 calories
9-3PM Monday - Fast

Total daily caloric intake: approximately 3250-3750 at 30%/40%/30% - 230g protein.

Workout was fine despite not eating anything 12 hours before it, excluding the pre-workout shake. Stomach feels fu cked up all day - either begging for food or stuffed- had strange dehydration-like symptons last night and this morning despite drinking near 2 gallons the day before.

i say give it a try. make a log and keep reference. if you do and i learn from it i will rep you.

[Alley-oop21]

I'm starting IF tomorrow. I'll be fasting from 11 pm to 3pm.

[MSmith19]

i say give it a try. make a log and keep reference. if you do and i learn from it i will rep you.

I'm not looking for reps. I will re-evaluate in about 4 weeks (hopefully I will have gained a bit of weight, if not I will modify or stop it). I have been reading up on different methods of fasting and whatnot in the nutrition forum and they have been very helpful. Some say that while fasting they have more energy than they do when they are eating or on a different diet because your body utilizes a certain type of energy which has a stimulant effect (I will go look up the name) and increases metabolism. If this works, it will be excellent for during school when it's hard to eat anyways. Hopefully I will get used to the bloating and raw stomach quickly. Thanks for your interest.

[MSmith19]

I'm starting IF tomorrow. I'll be fasting from 11 pm to 3pm.

as in 14 hrs not 3, right?

[BiggerWeighter]

I'm not looking for reps. I will re-evaluate in about 4 weeks (hopefully I will have gained a bit of weight, if not I will modify or stop it). I have been reading up on different methods of fasting and whatnot in the nutrition forum and they have been very helpful. Some say that while fasting they have more energy than they do when they are eating or on a different diet because your body utilizes a certain type of energy which has a stimulant effect (I will go look up the name) and increases metabolism. If this works, it will be excellent for during school when it's hard to eat anyways. Hopefully I will get used to the bloating and raw stomach quickly. Thanks for your interest.

alright. but please log it as i want to learn

[MSmith19]

"I get so many questions about this that I thought I would give a quick summary and guide to my approach to intermittent fasting (IF). I am not recommending this, it is what I do and find works for me. Discuss this with your doctor, if your doctor knows anything about the subject. I find it is rare to find one who knows the subject. IF is safer than crash dieting or even than most diets that are out there, but it is really your choice.

1. The research has not established the benefits of IF conclusively. There are many studies by now, most of them done on rats (poor lab creatures that seem to have only a bit in common with our species or even the wild species). One on humans confirms the rat research. There are doubtless others by now.

2. Wild animals do IF. They cannot avoid it. So did wild humans, when they lived more like wild animals than they do now. So do I.

3. It is well-grounded in the evolutionary evidence as well. My study on "Why We Get Fat" at the Research link above reviews some of the papers on this subject and gives a detailed statistical model on paleolithic energy expenditure and intake. I find that the energy landscape (peaks and valleys of energy balance) is rugged like a fractal. There were deep energy excursions into stored energy and other periods of great abundance. None of this was chronic. It was all episodic, random with a seasonal component, and highly intermittent.

4. About one third of the time our ancestors were in negative energy balance. This is about what I strive for over a period of about a month. You can eat sparingly every third day, every 10 days, or every 15 days, and so on. A good model might be half of your normal intake on the "lean hunting" day and enough to make up for that on the other two days in a three day cycle. But, again, there should be no routine cycles; it should be randomized.

5. The test of effectiveness is your body composition and your insulin sensitivity or serum insulin level. If your blood insulin level does not respond and decline, then you haven't got it.

6. Your total energy intake needn't decline, it should just be made more random. Research does confirm this point on rats and humans (studies are cited in earlier posts).

7. Stay active on your "hungry" day. This signals a GH response, which conserves your protein stores and burns fat. Don't jog or run any distance, but do walk. You do not want to metabolize protein by running very far. A sprint burst - walk form of playful walk is excellent.

8. The hunger ought to hurt a little bit in order to evoke a mild stress response. It is theorized in the research on IF that by triggering an acute, but not long-lasting, stress response IF maintains this essential genetic and metabolic response for really stressful incidents.

9. It is also theorized that IF turns on genes that maintain and repair tissues and some of these genes are now being discovered. The evolutionary element is that when you are hungry you will not successfully reproduce so the genes switch to maintenance programs to keep you alive until you can reproduce later when times are better.

10. You will generally be more active when you are a bit hungry. This seems to be an evolutionary program that makes you look for food when you are hungry. When you are full, you become inactive.

11. All this will work better if you have elevated your energy expenditures into the evolutionary range. This seems to be the range to which the active genotype is adapted. Twice basal metabolic rate is about right for an average energy expenditure.

12. Similarly, if you are active your appetite will become a better guide to your nutritional requirements.

13. Many people may have damaged their hypothalmus with excess food intake and neurotoxins (some doctors think or claim that aspartame attacks the hypothalmus and contributes to obesity but I am not so sure). Giving the hypothalmus some "rest" instead of a constant assault of energy dense food may help to restore its function. Like other organs, the hypothalmus responds to pulses of inputs and puts out pulsate responses. The information in the signal is diminished through neural fatigue when it is constant. Try it yourself with a scent; after trying three colognes at the department store, you won't be able to tell one from another.

14. You will not become weak and get sick. Obesity is far more dangerous to your health and your immune system. In fact, prisoners who are underfed in prisoner of war camps get sick less often than people outside the camps. Or even their guards. Only when they lose so much muscle mass that their organs begin to shrink and decline are they likely to become ill.

15. Finally, IF will help to alter your attitude toward food. Living through a hungry day will make you look at food and how people eat in a different way. It helps you realize that you don't need all that food to feel good. You will see that being, like Cassius, "lean and hungry" is the way to live.

Mom wasn't right when she said eat to keep your strength or you'll get sick. Quite the opposite, particularly in the present environment of energy excess.

One of the most difficult parts of IF or Evolutionary Fitness eating is the social pressure and conventions. Restaurants are particularly difficult. If you eat out often, you are bombarded by cues that evoke your evolved senses and behavioral patterns. These are patterns evolved during a time of uncertain availability of food. If it is in front of you, you will eat it. Our ancestors had to do it. We don't. So, be careful what you let your server put in front of you. Send the bread back or ask that it not be brought to the table. Ask for fresh vegetables in place of potatoes, rice, beans, and other dense energy foods. Or just skip the side dishes and eat the meat with the salad (no croutons). Or, just skip that meal altogether.


Something that made me aware of the social aspects of eating, or how conventional it becomes and how eating becomes a pattern of behavior and expectation is the intimate familiarity that many people seem to have of the locations of fast food joints. When I was first learning my way around St. George, Washington, and Hurricane I would sometimes ask where is that? (Not stopping, just in conversation with someone. I never stop to ask for directions.) I would then get an answer something like "Turn right at the Burger Barn on Bluff." Or, "It is right behind the House of Fries". Or things like that. Places I never heard of.

I never had a clue where these places were. Never ate there. But, fast food joints seem to have become a marker on the landscape to most people. So deep into our thinking that they are almost a new guidance system.

So, take some steps to change your relationship to food.

? written by Evolutionary Fitness"

A good article if anyone is open-minded enough and not brainwashed to insanity.

[MSmith19]

Anyone who is a regular reader of this blog will have noticed that the last post on intermittent fasting generated an enormous number of comments, just about all of which I tried to answer. Most of these comments were questions about intermittent fasting or people giving their dietary histories or people informing us that they were starting an intermittent fast. Other comments asked for answers to specific medical questions while others wanted to know if MD and I had abandoned the low-carb diet in favor of intermittent fasting. I figured that this would be a good time to set the record straight.

MD and I feel strongly that we as a species have a genome that was molded by the forces of natural selection over the past few million years to operate optimally on the food that was at hand during those few million years. What was available? Mainly fairly high-protein, high-fat fare. There weren?t a lot of carbohydrates readily available until the advent of agriculture a few thousand years ago. For the time that we developed our ancestors ate meat, fish, insects, clams, reptiles and pretty much anything live they could get their hands on. This primarily protein and fat diet was supplemented with whatever fruits, nuts, berries, roots, shoots and tubers were in season. Work done by Loren Cordain shows that, based on the Ethnographic Atlas, modern day hunter gatherers get about 65 percent of their calories from animals and the other 35 percent from plants. Most researchers believe that Paleolithic man got more than that from animals because during Paleolithic times many more large animals roamed the earth than do today. In fact, Paleolithic man hunted many of these large animals to extinction.

It is pretty safe to say that the macronutrients that set our genome were fat and protein. Many unenlightened people seem to believe that early man lived in land of carbohydrate abundance, and, consequently, thrived on a high-carbohydrate diet. It can easily be seen that this wasn?t the case simply by calculating how much food would have to be consumed to get enough calories from the available plant sources.

Taking 3000 kcal as being the average (it?s probably on the low side) daily energy intake of our Paleolithic ancestors and looking at how much plant food would be required to obtain those kcal is an eye-opening experience. I ran just a few foods through the USDA nutritional calculator and found that it would take 48 cups of blackberries?that?s 3 gallons of blackberries?to provide 3000 kcal. I don?t know how many readers have ever picked blackberries, but I have, and I can tell you that picking 3 gallons takes a lot of time. And, much though I love blackberries, I couldn?t come anywhere near eating 3 gallons of them in a day. How about blueberries? 36 cups; over 2 gallons. Spinach? 103 cups. Celery? 111 stalks. Apples? 42.

It was only after the advent of agriculture that calorically dense carbohydrate foods came into existence and became the common fare for man. Until then, our ancestors, if they were to subsist on plant foods only, would have had a pretty rough time of it getting enough without eating all the time. Which is exactly what the mountain gorillas do. Although mountain gorillas have the same carnivore GI tract that we do, early in their evolution (probably lead by the gorilla version of Dean Ornish) they opted for vegetarianism. These animals eat constantly to get enough plant food to meet their energy needs. They take food to bed with them so it will be available when they first awaken. They roam through the jungle throughout the day eating non-stop except for brief rest periods.

Given the above facts, it?s pretty clear that early man ate a fair amount of meat. After all, it takes only a couple of 16 ounce fatty steaks to provide 3000 kcal, which is a whole lot easier to down than 3 gallons of blackberries. It would then stand to reason that as a species we would perform better on a meat, or at the very least, a higher protein, lower carb diet since that?s what we had to eat for a few million years. In one of my favorite quotes, Dr. Blake F. Donaldson, a crusty old physician from New York who wrote a book called Strong Medicine, says:

During the millions of years that our ancestors lived by hunting, every weakling who could not maintain perfect health on fresh fat meat and water was bred out.

When we saw patients in our clinic for obesity and the other so-called diseases of civilization, MD and I successfully treated them with diets that approximated what we?based on the anthropological evidence?believed early man ate. We basically gave them the food they were designed by nature to eat. Obviously we couldn?t have them eating fresh mastodon steaks or cave bear fillets, so we had them eat the modern day equivalent (or as equivalent as it could get in the modern day) that could be found at the grocery store or in restaurants. We had to develop a diet that was palatable, not overly difficult to obtain and prepare, and that would allow them to live their regular lives and go about their business. After refining and tweaking, the diet we came up with is what we described in the book Protein Power. We diddled with it a little more and added a few supplements and made some more lifestyle recommendation such as getting more sunshine and getting rid of excess iron that went along with our Paleolithic origins and published the Protein Power LifePlan.

Since that time we?ve continued to think about the optimal diet and experiment with different permutations of the Paleolithic diet. We still believe that a low-carbohydrate, higher-protein, higher-diet is the optimal one for humans. In thinking about how to make a low-carb diet better, it dawned on us that there is another factor besides the actual food eaten in any particular diet: the timing of the eating. We began to think about how often Paleolithic man ate. We looked at data from modern day hunters and found that most of them didn?t eat all that often, and that when they did eat, they gorged.

Once we decided that meal timing was probably important in the development of our genome just as was the kinds of foods consumed, we started looking for evidence in the medical literature. There we came upon the studies on intermittent fasting (IF).

I covered intermittent fasting at length in the previous post. I was amazed that whatever goes on during the fasting process is potent enough to overcome the health negating effects of ad lib feeding because the animals that were underwent the IF had the same health benefits as did those that were calorically restricted yet the IF animals ate the same as the (ultimately sickly) ad libitum fed animals. And the IF animals lived as long as the calorically restricted animals despite eating as much as the much less long-lived ad lib fed animals.

Clearly something powerful takes place during a fast. What is the mechanism? Who knows at this point. But it?s something that should inspire a battalion of researchers to get busy looking into.

Now, based on the IF research data, MD and I are of the opinion that a Protein Power style diet interspersed with a little fasting is probably the optimal diet. We ourselves follow this diet. We eat one meal a day sometimes, a couple of meals others, and sometimes three squares. If we?re not hungry we don?t eat. We try to fight off the culturally induced feelings of, Oh, it?s lunchtime, so I must we must be hungry: let?s eat.

We tried the IF as written up in the post because we wanted to see if there was a particular regimen we could give people wanting to try it out. We know from many years of taking care of people on diets, that dieters want rules. The more we would write our material in such a way as to give patients (and readers) a lot of lee way in how they could prepare their low-carb diets, the more calls we got from these patients asking for us just to give them a set of meal plans. We found that the IF was easiest for us with a 6 PM cutoff; that?s why I described it that way.

There is probably no magic in the 24 hours; who knows, maybe it?s 15 hours. It just isn?t known at this point. I?m firmly convinced, however, that there is an advantage to going without food for periods here and there. I?m convinced for a couple of reasons. First, all the data on IF is pretty persuasive. Second, all the Ornishes, Barnards, Grundys and the other AOE (Architects of the Obesity Epidemic) recommend that we all eat a lot of small meals throughout the day. Given the track records of these people alone, it militates that we should eat large meals separated by long periods of time.

We still fully believe in Protein Power. We haven?t abandoned it in favor of IF. We have added IF to our own lives from time to time, especially if we go off the Protein Power wagon. But, we also IF using strict Protein Power, too, In short, IF is just an adjunct to the Protein Power diet that makes it work better by making it even more like the Paleolithic diet we cut our collective teeth on.

Once again I have to reiterate that I can?t answer specific medical questions over the Internet. Unless you?re my patient (and by that I mean someone who I have examined) I can?t tell you why you?re having this reaction or that. If your ankles are swelling, I don?t know why unless I can take a medical history and examine you. If you?re exhausted on the IF or any other regimen, it could be that you need a little potassium, or it could be something else. Whatever it is, I can?t give you an answer unless I take a medical history and do an exam.


proteinpower.com

[MSmith19]

"catecholamines"

[Delgadido]

Sigh.

well if you want to try it out go ahead.
you can be the guinea pig.

if it works. awesome
if it backfires, well you're ****ed

[MSmith19]

well if you want to try it out go ahead.
you can be the guinea pig.

if it works. awesome
if it backfires, well you're ****ed

I won't let it backfire too much. If I start losing weight, I'll adjust something or stop it.

[Alley-oop21]

as in 14 hrs not 3, right?

16 hours.

I was thinking about doing this for at least 4 weeks as well.

[MSmith19]

Today's fast was alot easier despite it being a longer 17 hours. I ended it with a medium pizza (semi-dirty calories) at 3:30PM.

Morning weight: 163.2lbs

Diet for the day (will update until 12:00PM)

3:30PM - one medium pizza - 1200 calories
4:00PM - 1 cup milk, 1 scoop whey - 130 calories
5:30PM - gym
6:15PM - 1 cup milk, 1 scoop whey - 130 calories
6:45PM - chicken burger, lean ground beef burger (w/ onions, lettuce on wholewheat), mixed greens salad - 800 calories
8:00PM - 1 orange, sweet&salty granola bar - 230 calories
9:00PM - meal shake (strawberries, 1 scoop whey, 0.75 cup steelcut oats, 1 cup milk, 0.5 cup blueberry juice, 1 small banana, 1 medium egg), green tea - 600 calories
10:00PM - peanuts - 100 calories
11:00PM - 1 cup milk
11:30PM - 1 can tuna, vitamin a,d, calcium, ginko biloba, aloe vera, holy basil

Total calories - 3100-3600

Workout - Maximum Effort Lower-body:

Parallel Squat -
15 x Bar
8 x 165
5 x 205
4 x 225

Deadlift -
8 x 135
6 x 205
5 x 225

Barbell Row -
12 x 95
10 x 115
8 x 135

Leg Curl -
8 x 80
8 x 90
8 x 110

Barbell Calf Raise -
12 x 380
12 x 380
12 x 380

Workout was decent, energy was usual despite a long fast although I had a large preworkout meal. Couldn't manage to push out 5 reps of 225 on the squat after doing deadlifts (I hate doing both on the same day, but it's the way it works). My legs were fried after this workout which is a good thing.

Does anyone know how to bold and colour certain type?

[blkbelt42]

Do you think it would make a difference if you had one BIG meal around 7 rather than 3 or 4 smaller ones throughout the evening?

[MSmith19]

Do you think it would make a difference if you had one BIG meal around 7 rather than 3 or 4 smaller ones throughout the evening?

As in a 3500 calorie meal or close to at once? I have been reading the nutrition forum thread about IF and some do this with good results. The reason why I break it up is because I can't handle nor enjoy eating a MASSIVE meal at one time. Also, I think the idea is to constantly supply food for 6-8 hours because if you eat it all in one hour, you are basically fasting for 23 hours and eating for one. There is no doubt however that you could have a very large meal and snack before and after (100-200 calorie servings).

[blkbelt42]

23 hour fast? Not really, because you're breaking the fast with a pre & post workout meal or nutri shake. So it might end up being like a 20 hour fast. I think I'm going to try - pre w/o shake, workout, post w/o shake and then 2 hours later I'll do the big healthy meal.

[MSmith19]

23 hour fast? Not really, because you're breaking the fast with a pre & post workout meal or nutri shake. So it might end up being like a 20 hour fast. I think I'm going to try - pre w/o shake, workout, post w/o shake and then 2 hours later I'll do the big healthy meal.

Apparently it's just as a valid method- I just can't stomach a huge meal like that.