Does the Leangains Fasting Method Work

So it’s pretty much establiched that this
approach → leangains

Works great for fatloss, but how well does it work for building muscle and getting stronger?

Have anyone here had experienced with this sort of dieting?

I’ve gained muscle while doing this protocol, although I do not train fasted (still do a pseudo-Anaconda protocol kinda thing with cheaper ingredients).

Works pretty well. Good for building muscle with minimal fat gain, probably not the quickest way to build muscle though. (My rate of muscle gain is less than when I just bulked straight out, but it is still pretty good)

i swapped to that style ( 16/8 ) about a year n a half ago out of convinience ,for fatloss its easy n strips fat easy while maintaining strength i do my training fasted with 10g bcaa. but when im on a gainin phase i dont train fasted and for me its to hard to get 3500/4000 cals in 8 hours so i use a more conventional method of diet ( 6 meals a day).

[quote]silverhydra wrote:
I’ve gained muscle while doing this protocol, although I do not train fasted (still do a pseudo-Anaconda protocol kinda thing with cheaper ingredients).

Works pretty well. Good for building muscle with minimal fat gain, probably not the quickest way to build muscle though. (My rate of muscle gain is less than when I just bulked straight out, but it is still pretty good)[/quote]

What do you use for your pseudo-protocol?

ive been gaining rapid…RAPID strength increases working out fasted with just some BCAAs. defies all bodybuilding nutrition advice but you cant fight the results. ive been breaking PRs ive been trying to break for 2 months now. as for muscular gains, as long as youre still hitting your target calories in the feeding window im sure it would work (im cutting right now).

[quote]wannabebig25 wrote:
ive been gaining rapid…RAPID strength increases working out fasted with just some BCAAs. defies all bodybuilding nutrition advice but you cant fight the results. ive been breaking PRs ive been trying to break for 2 months now. as for muscular gains, as long as youre still hitting your target calories in the feeding window im sure it would work (im cutting right now).[/quote]

did you notice how when you switched to cutting the fat/weight went down but lifts kept going up .i ask as it was a surprise for me but i only use a slight defeciet to lose slowly

Yes. It works well.

[quote]ultralars wrote:
So it’s pretty much establiched that this
approach → leangains

Works great for fatloss, but how well does it work for building muscle and getting stronger?

Have anyone here had experienced with this sort of dieting? [/quote]

How well it works is relative and VERY subjective. At the end of the day it is very simple, calories in/calories out. Deficit = loss, surplus = gain. It tends to attract people for its convenience when it comes to eating. It will work for some and others will just not be able to adapt to working out fasted and will mentally fail. Having said that, it does work for gaining LBM. You just have to keep track of your macros and kcals so you know what your taking in. Play around with it and watch the scale every 2 weeks to see how the scale is moving. In the beginning if you are holding a greater amount of BF you will notice that the scale won’t move a whole lot but body comp will change. This will be the case if you follow 20% kcals over maint on lifting days and 20% under maint on off days. I have been using this protocol for a few months and making very small adjustments to kcals and macros to see exactly where I need to be. Body comp has changed for the better and lifts are still going up. The only thing that is harder are deads. I do all my lifts fasted with the exception of a BCAA custom mix that I take 20 min before lifting and the mental awareness and clarity is crazy. There is alot to be said for the sympathetic nervous system.

[quote]lia67 wrote:

[quote]wannabebig25 wrote:
ive been gaining rapid…RAPID strength increases working out fasted with just some BCAAs. defies all bodybuilding nutrition advice but you cant fight the results. ive been breaking PRs ive been trying to break for 2 months now. as for muscular gains, as long as youre still hitting your target calories in the feeding window im sure it would work (im cutting right now).[/quote]

did you notice how when you switched to cutting the fat/weight went down but lifts kept going up .i ask as it was a surprise for me but i only use a slight defeciet to lose slowly[/quote]

my weight has stayed the same but i visibly look leaner, its weird as hell. and the strength increases are nuts. added 40lbs to my deadlift 1RM already .

At the end of the day, lean gains is just a different way of arranging your meals. if you are ingesting a caloric surplus no matter how you do it you will get bigger and stronger over time, the amount of time depends on how far above maintenance you are going. even with dieting if your not eating few enough calories to lose weight then it wont work simple as that. It bother me when approaches like this or that are questioned, the approach matters far far less then overall calories (and adequate protein) no matter what your goal is.

[quote]Blackaggar wrote:
At the end of the day, lean gains is just a different way of arranging your meals. if you are ingesting a caloric surplus no matter how you do it you will get bigger and stronger over time, the amount of time depends on how far above maintenance you are going. even with dieting if your not eating few enough calories to lose weight then it wont work simple as that. It bother me when approaches like this or that are questioned, the approach matters far far less then overall calories (and adequate protein) no matter what your goal is.[/quote]

i thought the whole point of leangains is that your fatty acid metabolism is elevated from the gh release while you sleep, and extending the fast and keeping insulin low while working out fasted burns those fatty acids. thats how i interpreted the method.

[quote]wannabebig25 wrote:

[quote]Blackaggar wrote:
At the end of the day, lean gains is just a different way of arranging your meals. if you are ingesting a caloric surplus no matter how you do it you will get bigger and stronger over time, the amount of time depends on how far above maintenance you are going. even with dieting if your not eating few enough calories to lose weight then it wont work simple as that. It bother me when approaches like this or that are questioned, the approach matters far far less then overall calories (and adequate protein) no matter what your goal is.[/quote]

i thought the whole point of leangains is that your fatty acid metabolism is elevated from the gh release while you sleep, and extending the fast and keeping insulin low while working out fasted burns those fatty acids. thats how i interpreted the method.[/quote]

I basically just meant that as long as your calories are high enough or low enough for your goal any method will work. for example if you need 3500 cals to put on size it doesnt matter if you get all that food in one meal or in 6

where does one find this method?

Just do a search for Intermittent Fasting or for Martin Berkhan. That will give you the info you need.

intermittent fasting is great. In a class I’m in, we actually just went over an intermittent fasting study. specifically, there were four groups of mice.

group 1 = AL/ad libitum (eat whatever they want every day)
group 2 = IF/intermittent fasting (access to food every other day, can eat whatever they want on that day)
group 3 = LDF/limited daily feeding (ate everyday, but only 60% of the ad libitum group)
group 4 = PF/pair-fed (ate daily, but food intake was kept equal to the intermittent fasting group)

what they found:

  1. food intake (g/mouse/day) was nearly equal among the AL/IF/PF groups. LDF group ate less, obviously.
  2. bodyweight increase was nearly equal among the AL/IF/PF groups. LDF group weight stayed the same, more or less.
  3. serum glucose and serum insulin levels were significantly lower in the IF/LDF groups, compared to AL/PF groups. in both glucose/insulin levels, IF was actually slightly lower than the LDF group, which is surprising (at least to me).

what does this mean:

well, I noted earlier that the intermittent feeding group gained almost the same bodyweight as the other two groups (ad libitum/pair-fed). BUT, the intermittent feeding group had better insulin sensitivity, and more stable blood sugar levels. for us muscle heads, this is good, because you gain see similar increases in bodyweight, while staying LEAN!

but then again, this is just a study done on mice. :stuck_out_tongue:

Study: Intermittent fasting dissociates beneficial effects of dietary restriction on glucose metabolism and neuronal resistance to injury from calorie intake. Anson, et al.

(No, I did not mention the neuronal resistance part of this study. but basically, IF mice group had better [significant] survival of CA3 and CA1 neurons than AL mice. Also, IF is superior to LDF in protecting brain cells from excitotoxic injury).

Ok, I swear this isn’t a troll post. I;m just curious about how IF even works, because for YEARS I’ve read this is exactly how fat people eat, they go forever without eating then the binge for a few hours. I’ve also read the ‘eat more frequent meals = faster metabolism’, so I’m just curious if the previous stuff was just BB dogma?? Hope this isn’t too dumb of a question…

i think you can sum it up as this , yes it works just as does any diet as long as you monitor intake and macs.
for me it gives me freedom from 6 meals a day bearing in mind all the research that has been done about frequent feedings and IF style feedings with regards to slowing of metabolisam etc all it proves (IMO) is that it dosent matter when you eat as long as you get your appropriate cals n macs for the day and pay special attention around work out time (this applys whether you IF or graze) .

[quote]Spidey22 wrote:
Ok, I swear this isn’t a troll post. I;m just curious about how IF even works, because for YEARS I’ve read this is exactly how fat people eat, they go forever without eating then the binge for a few hours. I’ve also read the ‘eat more frequent meals = faster metabolism’, so I’m just curious if the previous stuff was just BB dogma?? Hope this isn’t too dumb of a question…[/quote]

I think it’s just associations.

Fat people are likely to skip breakfast, but then they’re also likely to snack on junk food during the day, eat unhealthy meals, and be inactive.

People who eat a healthy breakfast are more likely to be unfat, but that’s because they’re just paying better attention to their diet in general.

And then there are folks who start the day with an unhealthy breakfast and proceed to eat crap during the day. Those folks are the overachievers.

Interesting Andy. Is there a link you can provide for this study or was it just in a textbook for your class?

Thanks!

[quote]PB Andy wrote:
intermittent fasting is great. In a class I’m in, we actually just went over an intermittent fasting study. specifically, there were four groups of mice.

group 1 = AL/ad libitum (eat whatever they want every day)
group 2 = IF/intermittent fasting (access to food every other day, can eat whatever they want on that day)
group 3 = LDF/limited daily feeding (ate everyday, but only 60% of the ad libitum group)
group 4 = PF/pair-fed (ate daily, but food intake was kept equal to the intermittent fasting group)

what they found:

  1. food intake (g/mouse/day) was nearly equal among the AL/IF/PF groups. LDF group ate less, obviously.
  2. bodyweight increase was nearly equal among the AL/IF/PF groups. LDF group weight stayed the same, more or less.
  3. serum glucose and serum insulin levels were significantly lower in the IF/LDF groups, compared to AL/PF groups. in both glucose/insulin levels, IF was actually slightly lower than the LDF group, which is surprising (at least to me).

what does this mean:

well, I noted earlier that the intermittent feeding group gained almost the same bodyweight as the other two groups (ad libitum/pair-fed). BUT, the intermittent feeding group had better insulin sensitivity, and more stable blood sugar levels. for us muscle heads, this is good, because you gain see similar increases in bodyweight, while staying LEAN!

but then again, this is just a study done on mice. :stuck_out_tongue:

Study: Intermittent fasting dissociates beneficial effects of dietary restriction on glucose metabolism and neuronal resistance to injury from calorie intake. Anson, et al.

(No, I did not mention the neuronal resistance part of this study. but basically, IF mice group had better [significant] survival of CA3 and CA1 neurons than AL mice. Also, IF is superior to LDF in protecting brain cells from excitotoxic injury).[/quote]

http://www.pnas.org/content/100/10/6216.abstract

[quote]ds1973 wrote:
Interesting Andy. Is there a link you can provide for this study or was it just in a textbook for your class?

Thanks!

[quote]PB Andy wrote:
intermittent fasting is great. In a class I’m in, we actually just went over an intermittent fasting study. specifically, there were four groups of mice.

group 1 = AL/ad libitum (eat whatever they want every day)
group 2 = IF/intermittent fasting (access to food every other day, can eat whatever they want on that day)
group 3 = LDF/limited daily feeding (ate everyday, but only 60% of the ad libitum group)
group 4 = PF/pair-fed (ate daily, but food intake was kept equal to the intermittent fasting group)

what they found:

  1. food intake (g/mouse/day) was nearly equal among the AL/IF/PF groups. LDF group ate less, obviously.
  2. bodyweight increase was nearly equal among the AL/IF/PF groups. LDF group weight stayed the same, more or less.
  3. serum glucose and serum insulin levels were significantly lower in the IF/LDF groups, compared to AL/PF groups. in both glucose/insulin levels, IF was actually slightly lower than the LDF group, which is surprising (at least to me).

what does this mean:

well, I noted earlier that the intermittent feeding group gained almost the same bodyweight as the other two groups (ad libitum/pair-fed). BUT, the intermittent feeding group had better insulin sensitivity, and more stable blood sugar levels. for us muscle heads, this is good, because you gain see similar increases in bodyweight, while staying LEAN!

but then again, this is just a study done on mice. :stuck_out_tongue:

Study: Intermittent fasting dissociates beneficial effects of dietary restriction on glucose metabolism and neuronal resistance to injury from calorie intake. Anson, et al.

(No, I did not mention the neuronal resistance part of this study. but basically, IF mice group had better [significant] survival of CA3 and CA1 neurons than AL mice. Also, IF is superior to LDF in protecting brain cells from excitotoxic injury).[/quote]
[/quote]