Better Is Better

Super Availability

 

There’s just TOO MUCH FOOD available.

I’m on my way back from the big Circular Strength Training® Certification event in Bellingham, WA. I’ve decided to fast on the voyage home. It’s just the easiest way to avoid eating a bunch of junk.

I’m one of those people that can easily plunge down slippery slopes. Give me one piece of somewhat junky food, and the next thing you know I’m eating an espresso brownie from Starbucks.

It was my buddy Brad Pilon, author of Eat Stop Eat, who first gave me the idea to fast while traveling. And I’ve had good success with it on many occasions. For me, it just seems easier to turn off the valve completely than to try regulating the flow of crappy travel food.

But the problem is the sheer volume of tasty, but empty, food that’s all around me. I’m not particularly hungry. But the lemon cranberry scone over in the Starbucks display is weighing on my will power with the heft of a Bruiser Clubbell®.

So I’m thinking, no wonder we’re having so much trouble maintaining the kind of health and physique that we’d like and we deserve! We were never meant to have so much abundance. This Super Availability of sheer calories is completely counter to the bodies that our evolution has provided us with.

So the next time you bow down to “just one” espresso brownie (and you will–so will I) just give a moments thought to how long it would take you to gather that many calories if you were dumped into the wild. Assuming you had the skills to do it, how much energy would you expend to gather that much “food energy”?

It’s an interesting experiment...

Fast-5 Fat Loss - Part 2 Of The Bert Herring Interview

I’ve been posting interviews lately from various Intermittent Fasting authorities.  There’s the Brad Pilon series (Parts 2 & 3).  Then the Martin Berkhan Leangains interview.  And here you’ll find the second part of the series of posts dedicated to my discussions with Bert Herring about Intermittent Fasting for fat loss and his Fast-5 diet.

But I also wanted to throw in a link that deals more with the day-to-day side of fasting.  Richard Nikoley, of Free The Animal, posted a comment to this Intermittent Fasting post recently, and as a result I was treated to a little tour of his blog.  I thought you would find this link to his blog interesting.  This guy is writing about being in the trenches and doing the business of fasting.  It’s a fun read, take a look.

And without further ado, please enjoy the continuing conversation with Bert Herring, author of Fast-5.  You can download the full audio file from the first post of the Fast-5 interview.

***
Adam: Having the eating window completely open and free to eat according to your hunger, do you find most people will come to some kind of balance eventually? Because I would imagine when you start out you end up overeating in the window. Would that be safe to say?

Bert: Some people do and some people don't. One of the reasons that the daily schedule works well for people is that there is a lot of social eating, particularly during the evening. The window allows for that on a relatively routine basis.

People tend to overeat at first, but then they begin to trust their bodies and find that their appetite drops. After either a few days or a week or two of what I call compensatory overeating, that passes and they eat according to appetite and get into a curve where it's comfortable, predictable and very sustainable.

Adam: That makes sense. I wanted to ask you about hunger. I think any one that's tried fasting, will probably be a little bit more familiar with the different types of hunger that exist. You tend to experiment with it a little bit when you're fasting. You discussed certain categories in your book; can you just talk about that a little bit?

Bert: Yes, I refer to two types. One that's called somatic hunger. "Somatic" just means "of the body". The other is limbic hunger. Limbic hunger refers to the limbic system of the brain which is where your instinctive behaviors are.

The reason I make that separation is that there's hunger behavior when a person is driven to eat despite whatever they might feel in the rest of the body. The somatic hunger refers to the sensation of discomfort in the belly.

One of the things I became aware of, that's why I did my study on this, is that many people go through the behavior of eating and are driven to eat, and I had seen myself doing this, even if they had a conscious recognition that they were not particularly hungry.

And certainly a conscious recognition that the fat storage was certainly ample on fuel. So they knew they didn't need the food, they weren't necessarily feeling hunger in their belly, but it was still a compulsion to eat. So that's what I call limbic hunger. The somatic hunger is the crampy, uncomfortable feeling in the belly.

Adam: Interesting. It's driven a lot I would imagine by emotions, boredom and social aspects play a big role in driving those hungers. I liked in the book how you said that just shutting it off completely, just throwing the switch, helps you overcome that urge to eat.

Instead of saying, "Well I can just have a little bit of this and a little bit of that", which turns into a lot of something you didn't mean to eat in the first place.

Bert: That's one of the keys of any fasting regimen success, I believe. It's a lot easier to just not eat than to eat a little bit, because of the instinctive response that we have apparently acquired. When our bodies realize that food is available, it is a drive to eat more than what we need of it, so that we have some stored for later.

Adam: Which was probably very useful a couple of hundred thousand years ago.

Bert: Absolutely, because all we had for a refrigerator was what we could store in our bodies.

Adam: Exactly. Another thing you talk about in the book which has become a bit of a buzzword lately in a lot of circles, is ketones. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about ketones, what they are, what ketosis is. Address some of the people that say ketosis can be dangerous and things like that.

Bert: I think that the people who say that ketosis can be dangerous are confusing it with ketoacidosis which is a condition associated with diabetes which really is dangerous, where the pH of the blood is altered from [garbled]... It a dangerous state, but it doesn't have anything to do with ketosis which is the state of having a normal level of ketones in the blood.

Somebody who eats frequently may have no ketones in the blood, but as soon as fat starts to become the source of fuel then ketones can be found in the blood and they are what the body uses as fuel when it is drawing on fat for that fuel supply. So it is an alternative to glucose that the body can use as fuel. It is the currency of energy.

Adam: That is great. People need to hear that, because there is just a lot of confusion surrounding it. All it is is just an alternate fuel source.

Bert: Correct.

Adam: Great. Would you give us an idea...? Do you use Fast-5 for yourself regularly?

Bert: Yes.

Adam: Do you have any recommendations during those five hours? If you want to be optimal, what kind of things do you recommend eating?

Bert: Well... The same kind of things that someone's mother or grandmother would tell them to eat, lots of fruits and vegetables. The more we can get away from processed food, I think the better off we are.

An approach that avoids contaminants and pollutants would be best, but, in our typical society's way of eating, it is hard to get away from everything. So, I don't approach anything religiously or with absolute rules but the more fresh vegetables, the more fresh fruits, we can have I think the better off we are, with a balance of protein, carbohydrates, and fat.

I don't see any reason to establish very rigid lines with that, because people are different with different preferences. To have any kind of successful eating plan means to have one you can stick with and that means having some stuff in it that you just enjoy, even if it is only once in a while.

I think that is a lot easier to adopt than something that has hard and fixed rules about this and that.

Adam: Sure, that makes sense. My friend Brad talks about obsessive-compulsive eating which is what I think you are alluding to when you have such strict rules that you cannot enjoy something with friends or enjoy a little treat from time to time. That makes a lot of sense.

Bert: I think that just the fact that something is forbidden in some diets may make it somehow more attractive. So, if nothing is forbidden, you have it when you want it and you do not have it other times. It does not have any special lure or attraction about it.

Adam: Sure, it just becomes more reasonable. OK. Good. One thing I wanted to talk about. Some people will report feeling listless or dizzy or fuzzy often during their fast. Often this is more when they first start trying fasting as well.

It seems pretty unlikely that it would be low blood sugar. Most people say, oh, I have got hypoglycemia, or something like that, but if you measure blood sugar, it does not seem to be varying that much. Do you have any theories about what that could be from?

Bert: Well, I think it is a process of adaptation to the alternate fuel supply of ketones, but what exactly people are feeling, I don't know. It may be fluctuating hormone levels, but what you said about the hypoglycemia is absolutely correct.

If people check their blood sugar, it would be very unusual for someone to actually have low blood sugar at that time, but it seems like half the world says that they have hypoglycemia so they can't do it.

It's a very common myth, but a very entrenched one. And, it's one that people frequently refer to when they consider fasting and say; 'Oh, I can't do that.' In fact, if they check their blood sugar periodically, they'll find that it's not a problem.

***
Stay tuned for part 3...

Intermittent Fasting - Fast-5 Fat Loss

Better's Better regulars will know that I have a keen interest in Intermittent Fasting.  Generally, I follow the principles outlined in Brad Pilon's Eat Stop Eat.  But lately I've been seeking out other perspectives on fasting, for my own information and experimentation, but also to share my discoveries with you.

For example, I recently interviewed Martin Berkhan of Leangains.  And now, I have the pleasure to introduce you to Bert Herring of the Fast-5 Diet.  Like Leangains, Fast-5 is what I call an "eating window" approach to fasting.  I'll be posting the text version of the interview with Bert in 3 parts in order to make each piece a bit more digestible.  But you can download the audio file in its entirety at the bottom of this post.  Enjoy!

Fast-5 Fat Loss - Part 1

 

Adam: Welcome, everybody. We're here with Bert Herring, the author of Fast-5, a book about the principles of intermittent fasting. I think what I'll do is, I'm going to turn this right over to Bert. Bert, can you just tell us a little bit about yourself and your background?

Bert Herring: My background consists of a variety of medical education and medical experience. The interest in intermittent fasting started while I was working at National Institutes of Health.

After trying several different ways to avoid getting hungry during the day, I realized that if I just didn't eat breakfast or lunch I was less bothered by hunger interrupting my day. That served me well for my productivity and attention. I realized that at the same time I was losing weight that I had wanted to lose.

But that was just a quirk of mine at the time; I didn't have the realization at the time that it could work for other folks as well. But when I started looking into it a few years ago, it became clear that it was just a predictable function of it.

Adam: So you stumbled upon the practice of it by mistake and then looked into the science, the theories of it afterwards? Is that correct?

Bert: That's correct. There have been lots of people who have chosen to eat only one meal a day for one reason or another or they have a certain window. You probably have heard of models' diets or models' recommendations that they only eat after six PM. So there are lots of variations on a theme.

That was just my particular approach that I'd stumbled on and that's what's worked for me.

Adam: A lot of people listening to this will probably be familiar with the idea of the 24 hour fast once or twice a week, because I've interviewed Brad Pilon before. Can you just outline a little bit what your approach is?

Bert: My approach is a daily schedule of at least 19 hours of fasting which allows for a five hour window during which one eats according to appetite. For some people that means eating one large meal, for some people it means eating a meal and then grazing their way through the window, and some people have chosen to make two meals within the five hour window.

People have had different [inaudible 03:05] has been successful. The reason that I have supported this approach is that it's in the general public's eye a more approachable, a less intimidating stretch of food. Because the 19 hours include sleeping, and most people can see it as a reasonable goal to just delay rather than going the full day without eating.

Adam: Is there any significance to the 19 hours mark? Is there anything biologically, physiologically important to that hour, or did you just through experimentation find that that's the best approach for you and your clients?

Bert: That's just what works for the bulk of the people who have tried it. [inaudible 04:04] and I don't know what the difference is. Sometimes it's been somebody who's on a medicine and it may have to do with that, it's not clear. I have just gone with the approach of what I see working for most people who try it. And the most accessible.

Download The Fast-5 Interview MP3

Stay tuned to the blog for Part 2 of this interview in the coming days.  You can also visit the Fast-5 website for more information.

Do you fast?  If so, is it for health or body composition?  And what do you like about it, hate about it, find difficult, etc?  If you haven't tried it, what would make you give it a go?

Fasting Fact & Fiction - Brad Pilon Talks About Obsessive Compulsive Eating & Intermittent Fasting

Few people can do damage to a Starbucks Espresso Brownie the way my friend Brad Pilon can!  That’s why I love hanging around with the guy.  He maintains an incredible physique and optimal health while still enjoying the finer things in life through moderation.  As many of you will know, one of the backbones of Brad’s approach is Intermittent Fasting.  In fact, Brad is one of the foremost authorities in the world on fasting and has authored a book on the subject called Eat Stop Eat. A while back, I did an audio interview with brad about Eat Stop Eat that provided lots of great insight and tips for intermittent fasting.

I got to spend a couple days in Toronto this week with Brad and a few other friends and colleagues, exchanging notes about health, fitness and the industry in general.  At the end of our meetings, Brad and I stuck around for coffee and casual conversation.  I knew he had a Flip cam with him, so I suggested we find a quiet spot to continue our chat on video.

The result is this little series of clips in which you can sit in on an informal discussion about fasting, eating, and all the emotional and psychological issues surrounding food in our society.  We had no idea what we were going to say.  So sit back and enjoy this candid conversation about...

• Societal and individual preconceptions about food
• Obsessive compulsive eating
• Fasting for fat loss or health

If you can't view the clip here, you can see it directly on YouTube at:
Brad Pilon Intermittent Fasting Video Interview

Stay tuned for parts two and three.  Post any questions you have for Brad in the comments and I’ll do my best to make sure I get answers for you.  And as always, feel free to share your own experiences with or reflections on intermittent fasting.

You may also be interested in this interview with intermittent fasting expert Martin Berkhan, author of Leangains.

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Intermittent Fasting Tips - Go "low carb" pre-fast

I’m fasting today, and it has reminded me to write about something that has been on my radar for some time now.  If you’ve experimented with Intermittent Fasting, you’ll know that not all fasts are the same.  The ease or difficulty - even the feel - of each fast differs.  Sometimes the cause is a mystery.  But there are some factors which clearly affect the fasting experience.  You’ll find a few of those in earlier Intermittent Fasting Tips on this blog.

The Carb Connection

One of the biggest factors determining the ease of your fast is the carbohydrate content of the meals leading into your fast.  I have consistently found that high carb consumption the day before a fast will dramatically increase my feelings of hunger and my cravings during a fast.  The lower my carb consumption going into a fast, the easier the fast seems.

This week, I cooked a delicious Sunday dinner.  It was entirely healthy, but contained relatively more carbs than I am used to lately.  We had a beautiful bison shoulder roast, cooked rare and to perfection, a mouth watering roast beet root recipe, and some irresistible roast potatoes.  And indeed I could not resist the potatoes, which I rarely eat.  Obviously, both the beets and the potatoes are relatively high-carb foods.  Today I am absolutely famished.

Another fast I did several days ago followed on the heels of a more normal day (for me) of simple fare; meat, veggies and good fats.  The fast was over before I knew it and I barely noticed being hungry.  Both days were similar as to the amount of activity during the day, the level of “busy-ness” etc.

Granted, this is anecdotal, but it’s also consistent as clockwork.  And there are several factors which support this notion and reassure me that it is not all in my head.

Hormonal Hunger

In his book, Natural Hormonal Enhancement, author Rob Faigin introduces the concept of Hormonal Hunger, as contrasted with real or physiological need for nutrients and / or energy.  Fasting is one of the best ways to learn the difference between the two, as you really get to know the qualities of hunger.  At any rate, hormonal hunger is the result of the interplay of various hormones in your body, independent of the body’s physiological needs.

Here’s how Faigin explains Hormonal Hunger:

Hormonal Hunger results from widely fluctuating insulin levels, and is responsible for the intense hunger pangs and wild, irrational cravings that can overwhelm even the most determined dieter.  Insulin naturally ebbs and flows in dynamic tension with glucagon.  This dynamic tension is maintained as long as insulin levels remain relatively stable, which was not an issue for most of human existence.  However, ...the diet consumed by civilized societies in the modern era is a drastic departure from the diet on which humanity evolved over millions of years.
…
When the metabolic control imposed by insulin and glucagon becomes disrupted, blood sugar and the neurotransmitter serotonin go haywire.  Unnatural alterations in these two parameters - blood sugar and serotonin - conspire to produce the syndrome I call “hormonal hunger.”  While carbohydrate craving is the hallmark symptom of hormonal hunger, irregularities in mod, mental outlook, and energy levels, too, are associated with hormonal imbalance; and they can reduce productivity and quality of life

This is rather simplistic, as many other hormones play a role in hunger.  But the important message here is that hormones all play off each other, and are triggered by catalysts such as the foods that you eat.  If you throw a huge stimulus at one of your hormones - like throwing sugar at insulin - it is conceivable that you could set off a cascading cycle of hormonal imbalance that could last for many hours (if not days).

You can think of this like putting a rambunctious kid into a room with a bunch of quiet kids.  The rowdy one will rile up the others and set the whole room abuzz.  And even when the original wild child starts to get tired or wind down, the others will rev him or her back up into action.

Once you get your hormones revved up and bouncing off each other like this, it’s going to take a while to get them simmered down to the point where Hormonal Hunger is normalized and you have a better sense of real hunger.

3 Tips To Make Fasting Easier:

Don’t eat a huge meal right before you start your fast. 
Especially when you first start using Intermittent Fasting, it can be very tempting to pig out before a fast.  This is part of the psychological fear of “starving,” a fear which has been well reinforced by the food industry.  But a huge meal before starting your fast will set off that hormonal imbalance we are trying to avoid, regardless of the macronutrient (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Macronutrient_and_micronutrient) composition.

Avoid sugars before your fast
Obviously, I would recommend you always avoid processed white sugar.  But before your fast you might also want to think about reducing other sources of simple sugars such as dried fruits, high GI fruits, such as bananas, and milk.  All these will tend to rile up your hormones.

Avoid starchy carbs
There’s nothing wrong with a good sweet potato, some succulent butternut squash, or a nice bowl of steel-cut oatmeal, but before a fast all these things could represent enough of a stimulant to insulin release that they could make your fasting Hormonal Hunger more prominent.  As far as grains and potatoes go, I’d try to avoid them most of the time at any rate, but pre-fast I wouldn’t want to touch them with a ten foot pole.  And of course, any processed food-like substances made with white flour should be trimmed to a bare minimum at any time.

So what CAN you eat before your fast?  Protein, good fats and veggies should be the staples.  The menu could include beef, chicken, bison, fish, turkey, lamb, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, spinach, cucumbers, peppers, green onions, olive oil, coconut oil, etc.  Of course, that list is woefully incomplete, but it gives you the idea.  You can pad that out as much as you like, as long as it runs along similar lines.

Give those three tips a try, and I’m convinced your next fast will be significantly easier than one that follows on the heels of a carb-rich day of feast.  Drop me a comment to let me know how it turns out.

Intermittent Fasting For Serious Physique - Leangains Martin Berkhan Interview

There are only a handful of big names in the Intermittent Fasting game.  As many of you will know, I'm a big fan of Brad Pilon and his Eat Stop Eat approach.  But another name that continues to attract my attention is Martin Berkhan of Leangains.  His approach is quite different to that of Brad, so I contacted him to see about getting an interview with him.  To my great pleasure he agreed.

As you'll see, Martin's focus, like Brad's, is mainly on physique.  However, the evidence supporting the health benefits of Intermittent Fasting just keeps piling up and I think that no matter what approach you take you'll reap the rewards of vitality and wellness.

Enjoy!

Adam: When asked to tell us a bit about his background and how he became interested in Intermittent Fasting, Martin was gracious enough to offer this excerpt from his upcoming book.

Martin:

"When I got into weight training and healthy eating, my goals were no different than most people’s; I wanted to get stronger and look better. I started out overweight and quite out of shape, the consequences of years of bad eating habits and a sedentary lifestyle. Because I put in work at the gym and eagerly learned everything there was to know about nutrition (or so I believed at the time), I  made decent improvements over the years to come. Most noticeably, I lost a lot of weight.

I did it all according to the rules of the game, or at least how I had read and been told I should be doing it. And I was a slave to many rules. These rules dictated that I had to eat small meals throughout the day, that I needed “fast” carbs and whey protein after workouts, and  that I should cut out carbs in the evening. Everyone that has spent some time reading fitness magazines, or browsed around on some of the countless fitness/bodybuilding forums on the net, should know what I’m talking about. There are many rules to follow if you want to optimize your results. Or so we are told.

This escalated to a point where I would get obsessed with my diet and everything pertaining to it; when to eat, meeting the right amount of protein and carbs in my meal plan, and so on. Whenever something happened that would interfere with my meal plan, I would get anxious and my mood would take a turn for the worse. Social interactions became crippled and my diet would basically dictate my daily routine. Simply put, I was obsessed with food and meal timing.

It was draining on me, mentally and socially, but I persisted because I feared breaking the rules in any way would have detrimental effects; muscle loss, a slowed down metabolism, or something else born out of irrational thinking.

I dabbled in many different approaches; low fat, low carb, cyclical ketogenic diets, the Paleolithic diet and others, always looking for that magic diet that would be easy to integrate into my lifestyle and one that wouldn’t feel like a neverending diet. I was always envious of guys that managed to look muscular and ripped without much effort.

At one point, I reached a point of diminishing returns. I didn’t think the amount of effort I put in was remotely proportional to the results I got. I had basically been spinning my wheels for years.  I didn’t like how my life had become so centered around my diet, and I was starting to get fed up with my own behavior. I couldn’t justify it any longer.

Enter intermittent fasting

 The high meal frequency diet I followed for years, called for eating around the clock. I always got too fat, too fast, when trying to gain muscle. The frequent eating also made cutting a chore and very challenging; contrary to popular belief, frequent feedings seemed to trigger my appetite, rather than keeping it at bay. Yet I never questioned the method - I questioned my discipline for my poor results.

It wasn’t until after some experiments with a lower meal frequency that I began to question the methods I had used in the past. This lead me to explore the research surrounding the topic of meal frequency - reading the studies myself and not letting so-called gurus, magazine and supplement companies give me their skewed and biased interpretation. My findings will soon be presented, but suffice to say, I discovered that the diet I had been following for so many years was based on one big hoax, with no scientific foundation.

Gradually, I started to lean into a more relaxed approach, which also felt more natural to me; fasting throughout the morning and not eating my first meal until 1-2 pm. I would eat more later in the day, often enjoying my largest meal around 9-10 pm in the evenings after workouts. I was never fond of breakfast, but always hungry in the evening, so this approach fit me perfectly. At a later point, I would move the first meal to 4 pm and then feed until midnight.
 
Suddenly, everything started to come easier for me. I got into great shape (177 lbs at 6% body fat), with relative ease. I played around with the approach some more, and gained a good amount of muscle mass with little fat gain (202 lbs at 9% body fat). And finally, I achieved my peak condition (195 lbs at 6% body fat) by combining periods of fat loss with periods of muscle gain; what some people would refer to as body recomposition. I revamped my body completely in 18 months.

After embarking on the intermittent fasting regimen, I also became more productive, focused and had lots of energy during the day. Contrary to my initial concerns, hunger was almost never an issue during the fast. I felt great. My head was clear and I didn’t spend much time thinking, or obsessing, about when, or in what form, my next meal was going to arrive. Worrying about such things had been my default behavior for a good amount of time and it was a relief not having to spend any more mental energy on it.

I wanted to look better and get stronger, and do it in a manner that appealed to me. Intermittent fasting turned out to be the approach I had been looking for all these years."

 

So, now you know how it all started. As for my education, I have a bachelor’s degree in Medical Sciences and Education and my major is in Public Health Sciences. But most of the things I've learned about nutrition and weight training is purely self-taught.

 

Adam: You've developed your own unique approach to fasting.  Can you tell us about the guidelines of your methods?

Martin: 8 hrs feeding, 16 hrs fasting. Fasting means abstaining from food, not from fluids. You may drink coffee, tea, diet coke, whatever you like, as long as no calories are ingested. Trace amounts are acceptable - such as a tiny splash of milk in your coffe or the 1-2 calories found in a diet coke.

So, you might be eating between 1-9 pm, for example. On workout days, you train in between those hours and eat the absolute majority of your daily calorie intake post-workout. I usually set it up with three meals, as that is what I have found most practical. Some of my clients prefer two or four meals, but most do three meals.

Calories and macronutrient intake is always cycled, being higher on training days and lower on rest days.

That's the gist of it.

Adam: From what I understand, you have a very unique and effective approach to nutrition timing around workouts.  Can you share with us how you approach workout nutrition (pre / peri / post) and what principles lead you to your approach?

Martin: I like to keep pre-workout nutrition to a bare minimum. Enough to satisfy a psychological need, enough to support and enhance the training session. No more. The greatest amount of calories should be ingested post-workout. By providing calories when they are needed the most, and are more likely to be used for muscle anabolism and recovery, you will get an edge. The insulin sensitizing effects of intermittent fasting on muscle cells further enhances the effect. There's more to it, but I'll save that for now.

That's the kind of theory and thinking that I'm basing my method on. I should note that there isn't a lot of research that can be applied in this context. So, unlike gurus that claim to have found The Truth or a magic pill, I'll put in a disclaimer saying that I might be crazy.

For me, writing the book has been about finding theoretical/scientific support for a practical approach that has turned out to work very well and not the other way around. For me, my clients and for many others that tried it.

Adam: There has been great anticipation for your book and I'm very much looking forward to reading it.  Can you tell us a little bit about it?  Do you have a release date?

Martin: No, and I need to keep my mouth shut, because I keep failing the deadlines I set up for myself. When I said I was going to have it out during the first quarter of 09, I was really in the flow of things and it seemed realistic at the time being. Then I got distracted. Work kept piling up. Moved to another city. Etc. Anyway, it's done when it's done.

Adam: Is there anything else you would like readers to know?

Martin: Be careful who you listen to. There's a lot of clowns and conmen in this industry. Also, egg whites and peanut butter. Don't frown until you try it.

Adam: Where can people go to find out more about you and your methods?

Martin: My site www.leangains.com

Yes, I'm lousy at updating. I'll get better when the book release draws closer. Right now I'm just busy as all hell.

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I want to thank Martin for taking time out of his busy schedule to do this interview.  His approach is well worth some experimentation.  I hope you are inspired to at least look critically at the mainstream nutritional information with which we are so effectively imbibed on a regular basis.  Question everything (even me...).

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Intermittent Fasting: One more round before the feast begins

It's the 24th of December.  This evening, the festivities begin.  I've decided to dedicate this day to one last reminder of self-denial and discipline before I allow myself to fully enjoy the delights of Christmas in all its culinary splendor.  This means a day of Intermittent Fasting.

Although I generally follow Brad Pilon's approach of 24 hour fasting, today's fast will end up being in the 20-22 hour range.  I ate an early diner yesterday and will break my fast with a big salad and some bison meat this afternoon.  Breaking my fast with a bunch of veggies and protein before the feast will help reduce the tendency to over-compensate for the fast (polite way of saying it will prevent me from totally pigging out...).

You don't need to actually fast, but try to think about balancing out your caloric intake over the coming days.  Feast when it is time to feast, practice a little denial when it is not.  Eschew a few things that you might normally indulge in.  Save it up for when you are in the company of good friends and family.

And most importantly, tell someone about your plan.  Why do you think I am writing this post?  Now it's out there for everyone to see.  That means I am ultimately much more likely to follow through.  So tell someone about how your day or week is going to unfold.  Divulge your plans for training and your nutritional strategy for the coming days.  Chances are that just by telling someone how you plan to enjoy the holidays and stay within striking distance of your health and physique goals, the likelihood of success will be much higher.

It is early morning here.  There is a beautiful white snow falling softly.  The scene outside my window is lifted straight from a Christmas card.  Enjoy the holidays and everything they have to offer.  Practice balance and shun guilt.  Merry Christmas!

Intermittent Fasting Tips

I've mentioned recently that I've been delving back into Intermittent Fasting after taking a little break from it.  It was tough to get back into the swing of it, but it is getting easier again (though not without effort).  I find IF particularly useful around the holidays, since I must admit that I enjoy partaking in the feasting that is going on around me.

But as I say, it ain't always easy.  So I'd like to share a few of the tips which have come back to me as I dive back into Intermittent Fasting as part of my overall wellness strategy.  First off, I prefer to use the 24 hour fast touted in Brad Pilon's Eat-Stop-Eat.  It is the most flexible plan in my mind and allows me to feel like I'm not on some kind of extreme fasting regimen.  Some of the "daily window" fasting protocols just don't work for me, but that is a personal choice.  I know a lot of people really like the LeanGains approach, which is a daily window program.

Now, to the tips.

Do...

• Start with the end in mind: And by this I do not mean your long term goal.  I just mean that it helps me to think about how I will feel at the end of the 24 hours.  By projecting into the future and reminding myself that when it is over it never really seems like it was all that tough, it makes it easier.  I also like to think about how happy I will be with my mini-accomplishment when I make it to 24 hours.
• Avoid idle hands and mind: Nothing reminds you how hungry you are like idleness.  I find that I absolutely must keep busy while fasting.  This does not have to be physical.  Engrossing yourself in any task will do the trick.  Last night, I had my nose buried in the computer screen trying to finish the Bodyweight Exercise Revolution ebook that I am launching any day now with my colleague Ryan Murdock.  The next thing I knew it was time for bed (way past time actually) and I had not once noticed any signs of hunger.  And I had been fasting since noon.

Don't

• Finish your fast at a buffet Christmas party: Yes, I am guilty!  Today my family attended a buffet Christmas lunch.  I broke my fast at the party (yes, I realized even beforehand what a dumb idea it was - but hey, you get to learn from my stupidity...).  It's not a bad idea to fast when you know you are going to feast, but break the fast with an enormous salad and some high quality protein before you head to the party!
• Get too hung up on time: Brad suggests a 24 hour fast.  It is a nice round number and a cool thing to shoot for.  But the benefits seem to peak from about 18 hours on (check out the ebook if you like to know all this kind of geeky stuff).  So if a 20 or 22 hour fast is most convient or most achievable for you, go with that.

Cycles of fasting and feasting are a perfectly natural part of the human experience and have been throughout our history.  But in this day and age the feasting is easier than ever and the fasting is pretty much non-existent unless you actively seek it out.  If you haven't tried it, do some research and see if it is for you.  There is a lot of information out there to be had.  For a small investment you can pick up Brad's book and save yourself a lot of headache though.  He pretty much lays the whole thing out for you.  Actually, I read and enjoyed it even though at the time I had absolutely no intention of trying Intermittent fasting.  It wasn't until a couple months later that I actually decided to give it a try.  Click here if you want to check it out.

If you do try it, or if you have tried Intermittent Fasting in the past, drop a comment below and let me know what your experience has been like.  Sharing tips will help us all get more benefit form it.

Cheers,
Adam

PS Visit this post if you would like to listen to Brad Pilon speak about Intermittent Fasting.

Holiday Weight Gain - Tips for December Damage Control

The holiday season is in full swing.  Occasions to make merry are aplenty.  And temptation to deviate from your nutrition and exercise plan lurks around every corner.  In fact, it’s Sunday morning and I’m currently suffering from the aftereffects of a rather indulgent Saturday.  Yes, fitness professionals fall prey to the holidays too!

I think it is more a question of when you will fall prey rather than if.  Unless you are much stronger than most, you are going to break from your clean eating and perfectly timed exercise.  The trick is getting back on track quickly.

But getting back on the wagon the day after a slip can be a challenge.  I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.  Just a little bit of this and a touch of that wouldn’t hurt today would it?  I’m already off track, I might as well just take advantage of it for a while longer.  Maybe I can just ease back into my regular routine later.  I could put my training off until tomorrow, right?  It’s a slippery slope that we’ve all been on before.  What you might not know is how much of it is due to the hormonal aftereffects of everything you pumped into your body the day before.  And it takes a monumental act of will to press the reset button and get your engine running right again.

The real danger is to just let yourself go through the holidays with the idea that you will make everything right in the new year.  And if you are a guy, you might even listen to that little devil on your shoulder who whispers the suggestion that December would be a good time to embark on the mythical “mass gaining phase” (in other words - the “let yourself get really fat” phase).  I should know, I came within a hairs breadth of succumbing to this very idea this morning in the shower.

Chances are you won’t be losing much weight for the next month or so.  But you can put a plan in place to ensure that you limit the damage as much as possible.  A few simple rules can help you weather the storm and come out on the other side of the holidays ready to forge ahead rather than spending time lamenting all that you have squandered.

Tips For December Damage Control

90/10

This one is pretty straightforward, eat impeccably 90% of the time, do whatever you want with the other 10%.  Generally, this should keep you from doing too much harm over the season of mirth (and girth). 

What don’t you eat?

Usually I find it is most helpful to concentrate on the things that you do and should eat.  But there are certain times when you must concentrate on what you don’t and won’t eat.  During the 90% of your time that you are “eating clean” over the holidays you should make some resolutions about what you will not indulge in.  For example, if your weakness is cheese or macadamia nuts, strike them from your list.  Even though they are whole and healthy foods, you have to be ultra-disciplined during your 90% right now because the other 10% is likely to be a total washout.

On/off switch

At most times, the “all things in moderation” motto is entirely applicable.  But when you are trying to execute a damage control strategy, I believe in the “all or nothing” approach.  So when you are not indulging, you are eating perfectly.  Make a plan and stick to it.  The simplest strategy is to go paleo when you are in your 90% phase.  That means if it did not recently walk, run, swim, fly, or if it’s not green and from the ground , don’t eat it.   Pretty simple, huh?  But not necessarily easy.

Law of averages

This one takes a little more calculation, but if you like running numbers it can be useful.  For those who keep track of their daily caloric needs, averaging out daily calories can be a valid approach.  If you generally need 2400 kCal to maintain a stable body composition, and you estimate that you ate 5000 kCal on the day of your office Christmas party, then you would have to eat somewhere in the ballpark of 2000 kCal the day before and 1500 kCal for the two following days in order to maintain a stable intake and avoid fat gain.  Obviously this is just a crude example, but it gives you the idea.  Of course, fat gain is a lot more complex than just calories, but calories definitely do still count!

Partition your calories

This is not a science, but if you train intensely before eating you increase the chances that at least some of those building blocks you are consuming will be used to replenish muscle stores and rebuild tissues instead of going straight for the fat cells.  If you pig out, you’ll still store lots of it as fat, but every little trick counts.  So if you know you are going to be indulging later in the day, try to schedule one of your more intense training sessions for the hours directly preceding the event.

Hit the reset button

One final strategy that I sometimes use is Intermittent Fasting.  The other day, I fasted for the first time in about a month or so.  And it was much tougher than it was when I was doing it regularly!  So if you are not used to it, I don’t necessarily suggest that you start now.  Wait until you stabilize your diet in the new year and then give it a try if you are interested.  But if you have played around with it in the past, the holidays might be a good time to use it to good advantage.  I prefer the 24 hour fasting approach promoted by Brad Pilon.  Not only can it help you with the Law of averages, but it can also provide you with a reset for your hormonal balance and with a break for your digestive system.  But be careful in how you break your fast, or you can start a whole new swing of hormonal mayhem in very short order.

Even with a solid strategy in place, you may still gain a few pounds of fat over the holidays.  Don’t beat yourself up about it.  Enjoy the season.  Enjoy the food and drink.  Enjoy the company.  Stressing out about weight gain will just make you gain more weight (there are hormonal and biochemical mechanisms at play behind that statement that I won’t get into here…).  As long as you keep things reasonable, you’ll quickly drop the extra weight once you get back on a regular schedule of exercise and solid nutrition.

Intermittent Fasting Advice

Paul Chek would categorize my "metabolic type" as a Protein Type.  And he characterizes that type as people who "live to eat."  And I have to tell you that he is spot on!  I am barely done one meal when I start thinking about the next.  I truly love food.  Which is one of the reasons I have latched on to Intermittent Fasting.  It forces me to unyoke myself periodically from eating, whether I like it or not.

However, I also find that I have a tendency to want to break my fast in a BIG way, which can be quite detrimental.  So I have had to make sure that there are strategies in place to either avoid that big "break-fast," or mitigate it.  Brad would probably tell me having that big meal post IF is the wrong way to go about it, but psychologically it sometimes just seems to be what I need.  And my method for attenuating the impact is to load my plate with a ton of green veggies.  This is not to say that the meal is not high in calories, but the bulk of the veggies serves to provide that feeling of fullness and reduce the likelihood that I will gorge on the totally calorie dense foods while looking for that full feeling.

Today's break-fast meal was a great example, and delicious to boot:

4 big baby bok-choi steamed (despite the "baby" moniker, these were huge)
Sautéed green onion and Spanish onion in olive oil
Leftover chicken and ground beef (6-7 oz in all)
2-3 tablespoons country cream (35%)
2-3 tablespoons parmesan cheese
salt and pepper
->Everything stirred together and topped with some organic cheddar, leaving it time to melt, and then piled onto a big plate with more freshly ground pepper.

It was simple to make, tasted great and satisfied all my senses.  The four baby bok-choi were quite huge (not really babies anymore...) and made up most of the bulk, although I admit there are still tons of calories in there.  That meal was at around 1 PM, after a 24 hour fast.  My next meal will be light (broiled pacific salmon and some sautéed snow peas).

This may not work for everyone, but it is one of the things which works for me and just thought I would pass it along.

Cheers,
Adam