After that "Yes, You. Eat!" post, I got lots of e-mails and comments from Turbulence Training people who practice intermittent fasting as outlined in Brad Pilon's Eat Stop Eat. (If you bought TT during the promo period a few weeks ago, Eat Stop Eat was one of your free bonuses.) So with a little prompting, I read Brad's whole e-book and then started researching intermittent fasting. I read until I was bleary-eyed. I learned all about mouse studies, insulin sensitivity, longevity, growth hormone, Alzheimer's, and our Paleolithic ancestors. Ok, so perhaps there's more to it than just a kooky weight loss scheme, and perhaps you won't actually flop over and die if you go more than 3 hours without a protein and carb balanced meal.
In addition to reading about hungry mice, I picked up a couple of important logistical details. One, intermittent fasting doesn't necessarily mean decreasing your weekly food intake, just spacing it differently. Two, going 24 hours without food doesn't mean you go a whole day without a meal. You can stop eating after 6:00pm one day and start eating at 6:00pm the next day (or noon to noon, or 9:00am to 9:00am, whatever works). That way you're eating every day, it's just kind of a banzai zig-zag.
You know what's coming next don't you? I had to try it just to see what all the fuss was about. Yes, Skwigg, the most enthusiastic eater of all, went 24 hours without food! I was fully expecting to go crazy, pass out, feel like hell, binge eat, hallucinate, and possibly consume the television remote while daydreaming about Hostess Ho-Hos. Do you know what actually happened? Nothing. My stomach growled once in awhile, but other than that I felt good.
I stopped eating after dinner on Wednesday. That was no big, I just skipped my bedtime yogurt. I got up Thursday morning and did my Turbulence Training workout and walked the dogs. I drank my tea. I went to work. No problemo. No headache. I didn't get shaky or sleepy, and I didn't lapse into a brain fog. And I was really worried about my concentration because I have a very technical, numbers-oriented job. All day, I think things like 22 hours 34 minutes 30 seconds, plus 18 minutes and 35 seconds equals 22:53:05. And if I make a mistake, commercial breaks hit wrong and I cost the company thousands of dollars. (No pressure or anything.) But I was actually sort of weirdly alert and energetic, like a crackhead, only without the twitching and talking to myself.
I planned it so that I would finish my 24 hour fast when I was at work. That meant that I would come off of it with nothing around to eat except for the healthy food I'd brought with me. When it was time for me to eat again, I wasn't overly hungry and didn't have any urge to binge. That surprised me more than anything. I was expecting that a day without food might trigger my old binge/starve cycle, but it felt nothing like that, maybe because I'm well-fed in general, maybe because I've lost my old weight hang-ups. I don't know, but I resumed my normal meals like nothing had happened.
If you wanted to use intermittent fasting to create a calorie deficit, I can see how going a few hours without food once or twice a week might be easier for some people (certainly not everyone) than daily calorie restriction. For myself, I found that it was actually a relief to take a day off from planning food, preparing food, packing food, eating food, and then washing tupperware (my normal daily existence). I was surprised that I felt good. I was sure that the workout would kill me, or at least make me nauseous, but it was fine.
So, what does all of this mean? I have no idea. I haven't really drawn any conclusions. I did it out of curiosity more than anything else. I did lose 4 pounds in one day, all water I'm sure, but I can see how that kind of thing would make scale-watchers dizzy with glee. As long as you're lifting weights and eating enough overall, you're not supposed to lose any muscle with IF. I gather that "intermittent" is the key word in all of this. There's no way I would recommend a consistently low calorie intake or a week-long juice fast or anything nutty. If you're training hard, the fuel has to come from somewhere, but maybe it doesn't have to come in 6 evenly spaced meals every single day. Maybe you could deliberately jack up the pattern, randomize it a little bit, and get even better results with a sharp zig-zag on your daily intake. Maybe. I'm certainly not saying that everybody should run out and try this. There's probably a whole slew of people who should never try it under any circumstances. If you want to read more, both pro and con, google "intermittent fasting" and you'll pull up all kinds of interesting stuff.
Anybody else out there tried this with good or bad results?
....wish me luck! I'll look forward to my next healthy lunch tomorrow!