Experience and references about intermittent fasting
I have read about and tried intermittent fasting in the past few months with some great results. The only hiccup was getting sick for about 3 weeks and losing that will to continue with it, until I restarted it recently. I was wondering what others experience were with intermittent fasting and also any recommendation of websites, books, research, etc on the subject. My personal experience is that when I am fasting I actually feel better and seem to be a bit more engergized. I even feel more energy when I workout in a fasted state.
-rich
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Fasting for an extended period of time (usually more than 3 days) places your body into a state of ketosis, and you begin burning any excess fat on your body. If you are overweight and have fat that you can safely lose (safe is relative, but definitely over 3% body fat), then fasting will not hurt you as long as you get plenty of liquids. (see my answer to "At what point do I start to burn muscle on a calorie deficit diet?"
That being said, if you fast for 3 days and then eat like a pig for 3 days, you're going to do yourself some serious harm. There are no known benefits to intermittent fasting exceeding the benefits of simple calorie reduction. If you're looking to lose weight, restrict your calories first.
Personally, I'm a big fan of the Atkins diet. It places your body into the same state of ketosis as fasting, but you still get to eat as well. Even with Atkins though, you will still gain or maintain your weight if you eat too many calories. Atkins is safe while you are sick under most circumstances. Fasting can be seriously detrimental while you are sick if not done properly.
www.leangains.com/
This is the site of Martin Berkhan, who is a guy who has based his entire coaching on the concept of intermittent fasting. He is a Swede, but the site is in English. It's quite a large repository of info, and it includes a bunch of before / after testimonies from some of his clients.
Personally, I've had very good results with the Leangains approach of a 16hr fast each day, combined with a paleo diet. I've dropped at least one pant size in the first 2 - 3 weeks. I don't know how much of that is due to the paleo or the IF. I try to do some walking or short, intense exercise while fasted (it wouldn't be a good idea to do a metabolic conditioning type of training as those require a lot of glucose and you could end up in glucose deficit.)
Alternatively, Tim Ferriss advocates a protein fast once a week, to trigger autophagy and other cell renewal mechanisms.
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