Baron
ET Founder
This thread is a follow-up to the original thread I started a few years ago. I will contribute some ideas that I've found to be helpful in my constant quest to build muscle and lose fat in hopes that others can use these ideas, or even contribute ideas of their own. I certainly don't claim to have all the answers when it comes to health and fitness, but I will do my best to answer any questions you may have along the way.
The first thing I'd like to talk about in this thread is a way to lose fat while eating somewhat normally and not appearing to your friends like you're on some weird restrictive fad diet, and it's called intermittent fasting.
Earlier this year I felt like I had hit a brick wall in regards to fat loss under my old way of doing things, so I knew I needed to switch things up. I investigated a lot of different diet plans but ultimately decided I would try out intermittent fasting. Basically what that means is that I only eat between the hours of noon and 8pm, so my window of eating is 8 hours and I'm fasting for the remaining 16 hours. At around 11:30am, I do my 30 minute weight training workout, and since I haven't eaten since 8pm from the previous night, the training is done completely on an empty stomach. The logic is that when your stomach is completely empty, your body has no other energy stores to pull from to fuel your workout except for stored body fat.
The main problem with intermittent fasting is that the workouts pretty much suck. When you're working out on an empty tank, you feel weak and lack motivation. So to combat that, I take a stimulant loaded pre-workout drink about an hour before the workout. Then I sip on a BCAA drink the whole time during the workout, as that prevents muscle loss while training on an empty stomach. After the workout is done, you can eat your first meal of the day, which is your post workout meal. This can be a massive meal if you want. In fact, you can consume almost 80% of your daily calories in that single meal! I don't do it that way, but prefer instead to eat 3 times per day, which translates to noon, 3:30pm and 7pm.
Sometimes I may only eat two large meals, depending on what I have going on that night, which brings me to the following conclusion. Of all the diets I've tried, I like intermittent fasting the best and the reason why is simple: You never feel like you're dieting when you go out at night and hang with friends or family because you can eat somewhat normally, instead of the typical bird picking on micro-meals like you'd be forced to do if you were on a traditional diet. So if I know I'm going to go to dinner one night with a group of people, I may skip my 3:30 meal so I can have pretty much whatever I want when I go out: Steak, baked potato, bread, you name it. And the reason why you can do this, and this is very important to understand, is that the fasting portion of your day is the diet. So instead of watching every little thing you eat, you are narrowing the time frame that you eat in, letting the following extended period of fasting burn through whatever you consumed in the 8-hour feeding period. But beware, this doesn't give you a license to eat like crap, but it does give you way more wiggle room than you would normally have trying to eat perfect in 5 - 6 small meals spread throughout the day and fighting the constant temptation not to cheat when you're out and about with "non-dieters".
The hardest part by far is acclimating yourself to this new eating schedule. The first two weeks are very difficult to be honest with you, especially if you're a breakfast person and wake up every day hungry. So what you have to do is come up with a strategy to keep your mind off food and moving forward until noon. And what I recommend is drinking lots of zero-calorie fluids non-stop throughout the entire morning. So here's how my morning usually goes:
Your 8-hour window of eating doesn't have to match mine. It can be whatever you want, but no matter what, you need to set your day up so that you have 8 hours of eating time followed by 16 hours of no eating. So if you're more of a night person for example, your window of eating might be 4PM to Midnight.
If anybody has any questions, fire away.
The first thing I'd like to talk about in this thread is a way to lose fat while eating somewhat normally and not appearing to your friends like you're on some weird restrictive fad diet, and it's called intermittent fasting.
Earlier this year I felt like I had hit a brick wall in regards to fat loss under my old way of doing things, so I knew I needed to switch things up. I investigated a lot of different diet plans but ultimately decided I would try out intermittent fasting. Basically what that means is that I only eat between the hours of noon and 8pm, so my window of eating is 8 hours and I'm fasting for the remaining 16 hours. At around 11:30am, I do my 30 minute weight training workout, and since I haven't eaten since 8pm from the previous night, the training is done completely on an empty stomach. The logic is that when your stomach is completely empty, your body has no other energy stores to pull from to fuel your workout except for stored body fat.
The main problem with intermittent fasting is that the workouts pretty much suck. When you're working out on an empty tank, you feel weak and lack motivation. So to combat that, I take a stimulant loaded pre-workout drink about an hour before the workout. Then I sip on a BCAA drink the whole time during the workout, as that prevents muscle loss while training on an empty stomach. After the workout is done, you can eat your first meal of the day, which is your post workout meal. This can be a massive meal if you want. In fact, you can consume almost 80% of your daily calories in that single meal! I don't do it that way, but prefer instead to eat 3 times per day, which translates to noon, 3:30pm and 7pm.
Sometimes I may only eat two large meals, depending on what I have going on that night, which brings me to the following conclusion. Of all the diets I've tried, I like intermittent fasting the best and the reason why is simple: You never feel like you're dieting when you go out at night and hang with friends or family because you can eat somewhat normally, instead of the typical bird picking on micro-meals like you'd be forced to do if you were on a traditional diet. So if I know I'm going to go to dinner one night with a group of people, I may skip my 3:30 meal so I can have pretty much whatever I want when I go out: Steak, baked potato, bread, you name it. And the reason why you can do this, and this is very important to understand, is that the fasting portion of your day is the diet. So instead of watching every little thing you eat, you are narrowing the time frame that you eat in, letting the following extended period of fasting burn through whatever you consumed in the 8-hour feeding period. But beware, this doesn't give you a license to eat like crap, but it does give you way more wiggle room than you would normally have trying to eat perfect in 5 - 6 small meals spread throughout the day and fighting the constant temptation not to cheat when you're out and about with "non-dieters".
The hardest part by far is acclimating yourself to this new eating schedule. The first two weeks are very difficult to be honest with you, especially if you're a breakfast person and wake up every day hungry. So what you have to do is come up with a strategy to keep your mind off food and moving forward until noon. And what I recommend is drinking lots of zero-calorie fluids non-stop throughout the entire morning. So here's how my morning usually goes:
- 8AM - Large black iced coffee with one tablespoon of unsweetened cocoa powder (gives it that mocha flavor without the sugar).
- 9:30AM - Large iced green tea (unsweetened). This really helps curb any hunger you're feeling. You can brew your own with two tea bags or just buy bottled green tea.
- 11AM - Stimulant based pre-workout drink.
- 11:30AM - Work out while sipping a BCAA drink.
- 12 Noon - Eat your first meal of the day.
Your 8-hour window of eating doesn't have to match mine. It can be whatever you want, but no matter what, you need to set your day up so that you have 8 hours of eating time followed by 16 hours of no eating. So if you're more of a night person for example, your window of eating might be 4PM to Midnight.
If anybody has any questions, fire away.
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