Intermittent Fasting: Leangains

[quote]Siouxfan wrote:

[quote]Gl;itch.e wrote:

[quote]BlueCollarTr8n wrote:

[quote]Siouxfan wrote:
From what I remember I read that you keep PWO nutrition to an hour PWO to allow your body to use up the stuff (I think it was free fatty acids) that is/are floating around in the blood.

I know it’s vague but did anyone else happen to read about the same thing? [/quote]

That is the reasoning…if the body is fed to soon they may be re-absorbed as bodyfat. If I recall correctly they advocate a protein only feeding at about 30 minutes post. The thinking is you can extend the ‘sensitivity’ period if carbs are withheld for a period after the workout. [/quote]
This sounds more like Ori’s work than anything Ive read from Martin. [/quote]

Also advocated by kiefer in CBL. the PWO shake is 1 hour after lifting is over. [/quote]
I meant more the protein only thing. both leangains and CBL advocate heavy carbs at this point but I didnt know CBL suggested waiting an hour before eating.

Gl:itch.e, I was talking about the skinny fat for ectomorphs article by Anthony Mychal that was on T-Nation earlier this year. The author suggested carb cycling to bulk up for the skinny fat. I would fall into that category; when i bulk, i get a very fat stomach, but little muscle growth elsewhere… I followed the authors follow up Articles online, where he advocates the lean gains approach or something similar.

But surely, in order to put on muscle mass, (the window of opportunity is within 20 min’s of training to consume a post workout meal) I was thinking of taking in 40-50gr of Isolate and 20-40 gr of fast digesting carbs directly after workout, then have a solid meal of rice/potatoes and chicken/fish an hour later.

[quote]JJSchmidt wrote:
Gl:itch.e, I was talking about the skinny fat for ectomorphs article by Anthony Mychal that was on T-Nation earlier this year. The author suggested carb cycling to bulk up for the skinny fat. I would fall into that category; when i bulk, i get a very fat stomach, but little muscle growth elsewhere… I followed the authors follow up Articles online, where he advocates the lean gains approach or something similar.

But surely, in order to put on muscle mass, (the window of opportunity is within 20 min’s of training to consume a post workout meal) I was thinking of taking in 40-50gr of Isolate and 20-40 gr of fast digesting carbs directly after workout, then have a solid meal of rice/potatoes and chicken/fish an hour later.
[/quote]
Ahh I see. I think youd do very well with Leangains or Carb Backloading. Dont stress the timing of your postworkout feeding. If you are eating throughout the day prior to your workout you still have plenty of nutrients feeding the muscles during and after the workout. Plus if you wait a little while after working out you are going to burn a little extra fat in theory. Something that would benefit your type. I have a BCAA drink during my workouts, but then after training its all solid food.

For you Id actually recommend Carb Backloading over straight Leangains. The low carb off days and the low carb until after training days would benefit you as far as fatloss and muscle gain is concerned.

I dont know if I really believe the whole skinny fat thing though. When you say you get a fat gut but little muscle this sounds like you are not eating right at all. Wat sort of foods do you eat daily? Timing of foods and types is one thing but you still need to nail the quality and quantity of these foods.

The leangains IF method worked great for my last weight cut. I used to cut down to 145, and decided to drop to 135 lbs for my last fight. This was my best cut, despite being the hardest I’ve ever tried.

Oh yea, and my biggest meal was dinner, around 8 pm, after my last training session. Usually 50 g lean protein, 150-200 g starchy carbs (sweet potato or white rice), fat as by-product from lean protein.

Everyone is different so there’s only one way to find out. Give it a try and post your results!

The whole post workout choke down food or your shake immediately post workout was solely based on a study testing over night Fasted guys weight training. if you eat anything before the gym, you can relax on the immediately choking down a meal as you walk out of the gym.

and where do you see eat 1 hour later?
I see fasted state
12-1 PM: Training
1 PM: Post-workout meal (largest meal of the day).
that looks like he’s gym to home and eating.

1 preworkout meal
12-1 PM or around lunch/noon: Pre-workout meal. Approximately 20-25% of daily total calorie intake.
3-4 PM: Training should happen a few hours after the pre-workout meal.
4-5 PM: Post-workout meal (largest meal).

There was some relevant discussion in this recent thread.

EDIT: Specifically, I found this post interesting.

[quote]tolismann wrote:
Berardi commented on that article in his forum.
His reply was:

"The author is wrong about a lot of his physiological points.
But his practical strategies are fine for fat loss.

For example: the body IS NOT insulin resistant after exercise!
In fact MRI/MRS data suggest that the greatest period of glucose disposal in the muscle is immediately after exercise.
So much so that type II diabetics have normal glucose disposal for the brief post-exercise window.

Also: carb intake doesn’t shut down fat burning post-exercise.
Fat is preferentially burned for a short period after exercise even in the presence of high insulin and carbs.
For fat loss, the plan in the article could work… but only because it helps control calories and keep them lower… which leads to body fat losses."

PS: I deleted all the references to his forum and his coaching programs.[/quote]

Glitch.e, foods were good quality… the best, really. lean beef, chicken, turkey, oats and brown rice, green veg and a little fruit. Simple carbs post workout, with a isolate protein. I was eating every 2-3 hours, felt lethargic some days and bloated too. I seem to gain weight, but the few kg’s are clearly around my mid section.

I know one should not care about abs during a bulk, but when they are well hidden behind a layer of fat, and no noticeable muscle gain in other areas, well that’s just depressing… i’ve tried 8 week bulks, 12 week bulks, god, I’ve even tried a full year bulk, only to feel like shit for most of the year… (maybe it’s a hormonal thing, that is a separate issue altogether) Because my experiences of bulking have been so poor, the IF or Carb backloading sounds interesting…

I might follow your advice, and try CBL for a couple of months. Thanks.

My opinion is simply that “skinny fat” does not exist. Everybody stores fat when bulking. The difference relies in the fact that some are skinny, others are bigger.

Look.

A beginner weighing 160 lbs, squatting 150 lbs, with 40% muscle mass, will use far less energy than the 200 lbs guy with 50% muscle mass squatting 400 lbs raw. He WILL need to eat far less.

That’s why when bulking that “skinny fat” guy will store fat and get a round belly and waist fat etc. The genetic excuse is not verified and won’t lead you anywhere.

And that’s eventually when you don’t lift huge weight (and I am a beginner too), you should either not eat 3 tons of carbs and everything if you don’t want to get fat or either not give a fuck about your belly if you want to optimize your gains.

Considering this, I chose to use IF Leangains 16x8 personnally because I train 1st thing in the morning.

My plan is :

  • 7 AM wake up
  • 7:30 AM I take 15g BCAA that taste ugly + a coffee
  • 8:00 AM I lift for 1 hour
  • 9:00 AM I take 10g BCAA
  • 11:00 AM I take 10 g BCAA
  • 1:00 PM I eat
  • 9:00 PM I stop eating

I eat low carb on rest days and 300 carbs on workout days

I lost fat and my weight is the same than before. So I guess I took muscle.

You can eat a lot in 2 / 3 meals with IF Leangains. Not sure it’s the best way to go but…

Anyway my personal experience is that when I try to bulk I become fat more than I gain muscle. So I started to work on strength and heavy lift and guess what, with rather simple diet (just very high protein), I gain weight.

When you lift seriously, you will be able to go all out and gain less fat.

Just my opinion, open to critics.

Interesting Vince, interesting. How do you find (heavy) lifting without food? and when you say; 1pm eat - 9pm stop eating, do you mean one meal at 1 and another at 9? OR you eat shit loads between the hours of 1 and 9? Just curious.

[quote]JJSchmidt wrote:
Glitch.e, foods were good quality… the best, really. lean beef, chicken, turkey, oats and brown rice, green veg and a little fruit. Simple carbs post workout, with a isolate protein. I was eating every 2-3 hours, felt lethargic some days and bloated too. I seem to gain weight, but the few kg’s are clearly around my mid section.

I know one should not care about abs during a bulk, but when they are well hidden behind a layer of fat, and no noticeable muscle gain in other areas, well that’s just depressing… i’ve tried 8 week bulks, 12 week bulks, god, I’ve even tried a full year bulk, only to feel like shit for most of the year… (maybe it’s a hormonal thing, that is a separate issue altogether) Because my experiences of bulking have been so poor, the IF or Carb backloading sounds interesting…

I might follow your advice, and try CBL for a couple of months. Thanks.

[/quote]

What I have highlighted in bold sounds like me a couple years ago. The problem? Eating so many meals. You are never really burning fat and are always storing it. I used to feel really tired after lunch when I was eating throughout the day. It was quite miserable trying to bulk this way.

If you have fat to lose I recommend Leangains to start (IMO to teach the body how to burn its own fat stores) and then transition to Carb Backloading as you get leaner. If you are already happy with your leanness and want some muscle and recomp then go with CBL.

I am now convinced that the body (at least my body) needs periods without food in order to maximise fat loss.

[quote]JJSchmidt wrote:
Interesting Vince, interesting. How do you find (heavy) lifting without food? and when you say; 1pm eat - 9pm stop eating, do you mean one meal at 1 and another at 9? OR you eat shit loads between the hours of 1 and 9? Just curious.[/quote]

Well I am lifting heavier and heavier but I am not benching 315 raw… I noticed working out fasted helped me to focus. I just take a cup of coffee + BCAA before training. Another thing I noticed is that after 20/30 min workout, I always had a stimulating, exciting feeling, and when training fasted, this feeling is stronger and last longer.

It would be interesting to see if the heavy lifters here have tried this and if they feel that they can lift heavy. For some reason, I do believe that at one point, you will need more carbs if you want strength / hypertrophy, before the workout.

For the meals, I basically start eating at 1 PM. I take a big meal (1500 to 2000 cals, 70 to 100g prots) then I eat a protein snack at something like 4 PM, with 50g protein + some carbs on training days, or some fats on rest days, and at evening, another meal (1000 to 1500 cals on training days, less on rest days, but always a lot of prots). Before closing the feeding window at 9 PM, I usually have a casein shake or some cottage cheese.

I noticed a very slight increase in weight and a very noticeable appearence of abs, very fastly.

I have done 3 bulks in my life :

  • The very first one (6 months), I gained something like 60% muscle, 40% fat, and was quite happy
  • The second one was the cleanest, and I gained 50% muscle, 50% fat
  • The third one is very recent, it was not so clean and I gained 30% muscle 70% fat

I got ectomorph skeletal : my bones aren’t wide. My strength gains are slow, I am injury prone and I learnt two things in the past :

  • I can gain fat around my waist and on upper legs, very fastly, despite was I believed when kid
  • My gains will be slow

Now, I am not jacked. I plan to be, but I cannot stand having a huge round belly when I work out 3 to 4 times a week. And I cannot eat 6 clean meals a day because I work 50 hours a week.

The only thing I don’t like about leangains is that a lot of guys in the report just want that Tyler Durden style. That’s not my plan. But I will stick to it for some weeks and see what happens.

Some of my best training sessions are fasted - though if fasted for too long then they can take a hit. Before I squat I rarely have any food, just some coffee with heavy cream (mainly because we start squatting at 10:30 and I tend to roll out of bed at 9:45 so no time for food). If I’ve had a big meal the night before it doesn’t really bother me much and lately I’ve been hitting some PR’s while dropping weight as I prep for this meet on Saturday. I tend to be affected more if I’m lower on calories and it’s a late training session - say 7:30 PM or so.

Appreciate the feedback guys… Gli:tch.e, your advice is great, thanks.

I was on the warrior diet and gaining muscle.

[quote]Tech-Junkie wrote:
I was on the warrior diet and gaining muscle.[/quote]
Cool story bro…Had to


Fasting is catabolic… there is NO WAY you can grow while doing that…

The PWO recovery period lasts up to 24 hours
I dont think waiting 1 hour is going to be harmful

[quote]eightohfive wrote:
Fasting is catabolic… there is NO WAY you can grow while doing that…[/quote]

Lol. I’m IFing AND not running a traditional bodypart split… I think that means I’m just going to waste away and die or something.

no, you’re already dead, and this is your mother posting, having gone mad with grief

[quote]eightohfive wrote:
Fasting is catabolic… there is NO WAY you can grow while doing that…[/quote]

I always wondered how bullshit this catabolic thing was. I remember fearing being in a catabolic state if not feeding every 3 hours. Catabolismophobia sucks.

Anyways, iirc, catabolism is fuel for anabolism. Using my brain, I can just think of fasting a way of burning fat to release energy and using this energy to build muscle when that good amino acids are feeded to the body.