fasting and exercise question

[jtyldesley30]

Recently I have read a lot of information about fasting and it seems really good, I have read Paul Bragg's book in which he has lunch and dinner and have read the fast 5 in which you eat in a five hour window from 5 - 10. I have tried both and liked them.

My question is how does this affect my training. I do the guts every morning and the miracle 7 and push ups last thing at night. Is it still okay doing this routine when only eating from 5 -10pm. It's a long time from the guts till my first meal of the day!

Can't wait for the new book.

I liked your post John on fear, I live in constant worry about the world and the only solution seems to be faith.

Thankyou

[michael]

Although I don't currently eat this way now I do have some experiance.I did this for about 3 months.
I have a physical job,with exercise,fasting all morningand afternoon,it took it's tool on me.I was doing
something at work and just ran out of gas.I don't want to discourage you, the was just my experiance.

My advice would be listen to your bodyand start slow.The first two weeks were the hardest for me.

I believe this does work and you will see you abs in no time.Hope this helps.

[Kyle]

I am following a similar diet. When i do an early workout i usually follow it with a post-workout shake. The key (from what i've read) is to keep the shake low-carb. For instance, the whey protein powder i use only has 5 grams of carbs. So perhaps you might want to look into going that route.

[MikeNY]

Donna you are doing the Paul Bragg diet, he also recommended fasting, such as one day per week, and juice fasting to start, where you learn fasting and limit yourself to just drinking juice & water only to start, then progress to a full fast with just water. For all you faster's it is important you remember to drink your water!

For me it is just easier to skip breakfast and eat lunch and dinner. Donna the classic Paul Bragg Diet works and has always worked well; and once you have been doing the Paul Bragg plan awhile, it is easy to skip that one meal to do the Fast 5. I decided to try the Fast 5 diet and next day didn't eat lunch (or Blunch as a couple Bragg followers have said); it was easy to move to the Fast5 plan because I've used the Paul Bragg plan awhile. Once anyone has been eating just lunch and dinner for awhile, skipping that one meal is something everyone can do.

For those that want to eat the Fast 5 diet and find it hard, try the Paul Bragg way to ease into it, your body will get use to eating two meals a day and the fasting window is about the same as the Fast 5 diet. For those that want another easier version the Warrior diet is very close the the Fast 5 but they consume small amounts of food in the day, a banana or juice, a snack of veggies, I know some folks that follow that.

The easiest way to start for most people is try the Paul Bragg diet and just skip breakfast, that is easy and once you can do that you can ease into the Fast 5 or Warrior diet without sweat.

[omad0n]

w/o having read Paul Bragg's work, I can't really comment on his take. I can however share my own experience.

jtyldesley30,

from what I have experienced, yes fasting after GUTS or any other highly intense workout will take a toll on you. At least from what I've had happened, that's how it goes. Your body needs protein to help repair and rebuild the muscles after something intense. What I've found is that over time my body starts to ache a lot more if I don't get something into it right away. I've also found that my strength doesn't increase nearly as fast either.

I may post more later if you're curious, but I've got to run to a wedding venue tasting.

[Flash11740]

I have a nearly 3 years experience of this so here's my take on it. Firstly fasting is excellent. While healthy diet and exercise will improve your health, the main benefit of fasting is that it makes you look younger. There are some theories as to why this is. I have a photo that portrays this if anyone wants to see it, just give me some guidance on how to post it...

Anyhow here is how I mix the fasting with the exercise and nutrition:

1) I work according to my anabolic/catabolic cycle. I'm 39 and from experience my cycle is 4 weeks anabolic and 1 week catabolic. I train at high intensity throughout the anabolic phase then very little during the catabolic week. To determine you cycle train at high intensity, and after a few weeks you'll wake up one morning and really struggle to get out of bed. I mean really struggle. You'll also have an elevated pulse in the morning. This indicates the onset of the catabolic phase which will last around 7 days. If you attempt to train while in this phase then you will be very tired, may be susceptible to colds and other infections, and are more likely to be injured.

1b) Think of it this way... W1 breaking myself back in. W2 ramping up. W3 hitting peak performance. W4 past peak sliding into catabolism. W5 catabolic phase, very little training.

2) I train 5 days per week, and take 2 consecutive days off. The second of these days is a fast day. My final training session is on a Friday, then I stop eating at 1800 on Saturday, and fast through till 0600 on Monday. I alternate between water fasting and juice fasting week about.

3) One the catabolic phase starts kicking in, I train through till the Friday to close off W4, then water fast from 1800 Sat till 0600 Monday. Then I juice fast from 0600 Mon through till 0600 the following Sunday. I juice my own juice with a low speed juicer. This really detoxes my system, but thanks to the juice I exhibit good energy levels. My colon gets cleaned out, my digestion gets rested, my blood sugar gets reset, and I burn off some excess body fat. I do very little training throughout this week, just a couple of sparring sessions.

The beauty of this schedule is that I'm never attempting to train in a fast day, I get a detox week, and I hit progressively higher targets every peak week.

Hope this helps.

[ezekial1925]

Flash,
That is fascinating stuff! I had never heard of that cycle. I just rest when my body tells me, but your routine and observations are really interesting. Certainly, some form of calorie restriction lends itself to "youthing", etc. but your take on it was very provocative.
Thanks,
Jim

[Flash11740]

Flash,
That is fascinating stuff! I had never heard of that cycle. I just rest when my body tells me, but your routine and observations are really interesting. Certainly, some form of calorie restriction lends itself to "youthing", etc. but your take on it was very provocative.
Thanks,
Jim

One thing worth adding is that I never lose any muscle during a fast.

During the catabolic week my muscles get a rest and all the aches and pains disappear.

My actual routine consists of:

Mon-Fri = 20mins DVRs / DSRs every morning.

Mon, Wed, & Fri evenings = 1 hour of calisthenics. This consists of 4 sets of pushups, 3 sets of pull ups, 1 set hanging knee raises, 1 set hindu squats, 1 set of dips. Every set comprises a different form of the exercise with no one form repeated throughout the week. Every set is performed to failure. Two of the sets of pushups involve handstands.

In addition I also perform a single slow moving rep of each class of exercise, in other words a slow pushup, a slow pull up, a slow HKR, and a slow dip. I try and make these reps last anything up to 60 secs, and work the full range of motion. I consider these to be moving isometrics (although that may be a contradiction in terms) as 10 secs is effectively spent working through each of the 6 different angles in ultra slow motion. This is really great for developing strength.

On top of this I also attempt 4 static gymnastic holds, the iron cross, and 3 forms of planche, although I am as yet unable to achieve a full planche. I'm pretty close to mastering the iron cross but that's taken 6 months of effort and counting.

Cramming all this into an hour doesn't leave much time for rest periods so I get a good cardio workout to boot.

On Tuesdays I spend an hour boxing, and on Thursdays I teach a self protection class for 2.5 hours. Usually I cram in another 30mins of sparring on Friday nights.

Mon-Fri I also speed walk 2 miles most lunchtimes.

That's pretty much the level of intensity required to fully experience the anabolic/catabolic phases of the cycle. When I was younger my cycle was 5 weeks / 1 week but it shortened during my late 30s.

During the catabolic phase I stick with the walking, boxing, and self protection but lay off everything else. As part of the self protection class I teach them some cals and slow moving reps but they all tend to crap out after 20-30 reps so it's not much of a workout for me, and I'm able to keep talking the whole time LOL!

[Flash11740]

Please delete this post i screwed up!

[Flash11740]

Here is a photo which starkly illustrates the effects of fasting:

http://www.transformetrics.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=457&stc=1&d=1265677048

The left most image shows me at 225lbs. This was taken 8 months after I quit smoking and drinking. During the first 4 months I walked 3 miles a day. Then from months 4 onwards I resumed martial arts and weight training.

The centre image hows me at around 185lbs. This was just prior to commencing fasting and ditching the weights for kinetic tension, bodyweight, and gymnastic type exercises.

The right most image shows me after 2 years on that regime. In September 2009 I also switch to a mainly organic whole food diet incorporating a juicing regime. All photos were taken in the same photo booth.

[CecilS]

Great info Flash. Thanks for sharing. Your pictures are wonderful.

[Flash11740]

I'm actually on my catabolic week and juice fasting right now. My last meal was on Saturday. I water fasted from 6pm Sat to 6am Mon then started on juice. I juice my own veg and blend my own fruit then stir it together. I get through around 5-6 pints per day.

Today I boxed for an hour, which was pretty intense sparring and my energy levels were absolutely fine. No light headedness and no exhaustion. I'm getting all the essential fats, amino aids, vitamins, and nutrients from the juice. I don't have to worry about protein to much, because as this is a catabolic week my body is breaking down it's own tissue and recycling it.

All in all I feel great. My digestion is pretty much running at a minimum so no feelings of hunger. Feel like I'm walking in air and this will only get better as the week wears on.

My teeth, hair, nails, skin and eyes are all glowing already. Perhaps I'll post another photo at the end of the fast.

[tom]

Flash, thanks for the information and inspiration.

I have one question. I often say the success of a diet is how invisible it is, how it blends with our social lives. So I am curious, are you married? Is your diet invisible? Does it has to be? Has that mattered? Huh? Huh?

Great job,
Tom

[Flash11740]

Flash, thanks for the information and inspiration.

I have one question. I often say the success of a diet is how invisible it is, how it blends with our social lives. So I am curious, are you married? Is your diet invisible? Does it has to be? Has that mattered? Huh? Huh?

Great job,
Tom

The worst part is fasting on a Sunday. This is to fit in around my training pattern. The training pattern fits around the days I box and teach self protection. Ideally I would prefer to fast on another day as opposed to a Sunday. As it is we just have Sunday dinner on a Monday instead.

The week I juice fast isn't really problematic for anyone. I just carry 3-4 flasks of juice to work with me.

So yes my lifestyle may seem a little extreme, but it's a lot less extreme than when I was drinking. And most people who know me would prefer I had a week on the juice than a week on the sauce :)

[Flash11740]

MASSIVE CLARIFICATION:

At present I am detoxing every catabolic week until I reach my body mass targets (which is basically a six-pack, yes I'm vain). Subsequent to that I'll cut the fast weeks down to every fourth catabolic week, so around 3 week long juice fasts each year.

[mikey]

My question is how does this affect my training. I do the guts every morning and the miracle 7 and push ups last thing at night. Is it still okay doing this routine when only eating from 5 -10pm. It's a long time from the guts till my first meal of the day!


Hi,

If you are interested in learning more about the physiology of fasting you may like to do a search for "Eat Stop Eat", and ebook by a guy named Brad Pilon. This was my first introduction to intermittent fasting, which I have practiced for over a year now (I have since also read Fast 5, and my fasting resembles F5 more than ESE at the moment).

Brad has a science background so ESE contains much well-researched study into the effects of fasting on the human body. His take is basically that for short periods (less than 3 days) without food the body regulates blood sugar, hormones etc. so that it can function normally. In fact, Brad actually recommends training while fasted since your body doesn't need to process food at the same time, giving you more energy.

At the moment when I fast I only eat dinner. I train in the morning (isometrics) and don't eat until evening without any ill effects. However when I was doing more intense weights I didn't like training on an empty stomach; I was able to train fine, it just didn't feel right. My suggestion is to experiment with what training and fasting schedule best suits your lifestyle and do whatever feels best - from Brad's research training while fasted shouldn't be a problem.

Hope this helps,

M.