Is Intermittent Fasting The Best Way To Lose Weight?
by: Manny Aragon
As many of you know, I have long been a proponent of intermittent fasting or a structured “skipping of meals’, so to speak, as a means to keep the body in fat burning mode. Here’s why:
Our ancestors didn’t have food available 24/7 like we do.
Based on this logic, it makes sense that we are genetically optimized to eat not on a predetermined schedule but at random times- like when we were able to find food to eat. To this end, a practical application for the modern day is to cut one meal out in the day (breakfast is easiest to cut out) in order to get the maximum time between the finish of our previous meal (dinner) and the start of our first meal of the day (lunch or brunch).
Schedule wise that looks something like: eat dinner by 8pm and don’t eat till noon the next day. That gives 16 hours between the end of the last meal (dinner) and the start of the next meal (lunch or brunch).
The key here is to eat nutrient dense, low glycemic index foods that will keep you satisfied.
Additionally, by adding exercise into the program (in the morning) you will up the fat burn while suppressing your appetite. This is something that takes a little getting used to- as it is a new schedule for our bodies and they will take a couple of days to adapt. Mind that you do not try to starve yourself.
The type of exercise you do also has a bearing on your metabolic energy production mode. You want it to be fat burning- so a mix throughout the week of short, intense resistance exercise, body weight training, and aerobic training is a great combo for overall fat burn. No more than 3 high intensity workouts per week to maintain maximum results.
Here’s how it works: when you sleep, your body goes into fat burning mode (producing a greater amount of its energy needs by burning fat stores rather than carbohydrate stores- as your carbohydrate stores are limited and fat stores far more calories per gram than carbs).
When you wake up, you are still in fat burning mode and don’t switch to burning a higher percentage of carbohydrates until you eat your first meal (also depends on what the macronutrient balance of the meals is..).
By exercising BEFORE you eat, you do two things: first- you demand more energy output from your body but don’t provide the carbs to burn so your body kicks up its ketogenic (or fat burning) output. Second exercising fasted can boost your body’s output of human growth hormone (HGH) by up to 1,300% in women and by up to 2000% in men.
HGH has been called the “fitness hormone” because of its role in muscular development and tissue repair amongst many other positive traits. Additionally, exercising while fasted triggers acute oxidative stress resulting in your body’s production of a powerful anti-inflammatory cascade- aiding in tissue repair.