As I'm getting older, dropping the excess weight is getting harder. As you might have seen if you've followed my journey, it's been quite a commitment to lose the 14kg (31 Ibs / 2.2 stone) so far. And that is with aggressive changes to diet and some serious training.
It's not been easy.
I was performing fasted long runs up until the mileage went high. As a recap this is simply where you go for your weekly long run having not eaten since the night before. This forces your body to seek energy from its own stores and is also why the Maffetone training helps as you works at a lower intensity which naturally uses fat for fuel rather than muscle glycogen.
I'm not ashamed to say that since the event I've pretty much eaten what i wanted and my eating plan took a back seat. It was good for the soul, but also didn't do too much damage to unravel the significant majority of the gains I've made since the start of the year. Now it's time to switch up a gear and develop my fat adapting, where my body naturally prefers fat for fuel the majority of the time. Even at rest. For this I'm going to go harder with intermittent fasting (IF)
Level 1: Was clean up the diet (cut right back on grains, sugars, starchy carbs, etc) and drop out the vast majority of carbs while increasing good fat content. (Check out early posts)
Level 2: Was to move more i.e. my training progression
Level 3: was to start fasted long runs at the weekend
Level 4: The level I am adding in now is to use Intermittent fasting...
In order to kick start the next level of fat loss I am commencing intermittent fasting (IF for short). I've mentioned previously that I've been looking at doing this. The problem was when I was ramping up the mileage leading up to the ultra, my body didn't want to know so much. Now I have time on my side. So now it's time to have at it and kick off the next level. How I'm Going to Do It
I'll be doing all the same stuff, largely as before with cleaning up diet, training and fasted long runs as before. It worked well. But now I'll be adding in two 24hr food fasting days. The simple part here is to pick two days where I eat no food from dinner one evening until dinner the next.
The logical choices are days when I'm in the office (which are usually busy) and NOT days that are back to back. My choices are Monday and Wednesday. Monday allows me to kick start the week after any potential weekend events, gatherings or slips. Wednesday allows me to be busy and I also have Aikido that evening meaning that I'll break that fast late in the evening with a quick meal.
Generally I tend to only have a coffee with double cream (almost no carb) as breakfast because it gets some fats into my body to let it know it's not starving and help kick start me for the day. This will be the only thing I have other than water on full fasting days where I eat nothing from dinner the night before to dinner of that day. It's a pretty aggressive strategy to be fair, though having competed the Monday fast this week, it feels doable. Why Fast?
There are a number of benefits to fasting in line with what |I'm working towards. These are the main ones for what I'm most interested in:
Helping break plateaus I seem to be meeting, generate a kick start shock to the metabolism and forcing it to adjust
Accelerate fat adapting forcing the body to prioritise fat for fuel
Hormone impacts where fasting (not starving yourself) increases hormones such as Insulin dramatically drops, and Growth Hormone dramatically increases (something highly important to the body to heal and grow, which drops as you age).
Improved metabolic rate further improving your body's ability to process its fat stores
improves autoimmune system
balances energy levels through the day
reduces inflammation
reduces water retention (but you MUST drink plenty of water and get your electrolytes in as well)
has a major impact on fat storing/releasing and hunger control hormones (leptin, ghrelin and insulin (as previously noted)
Balances thyroid function and T3 & T4 production
Calorie deficit. Each 24hrs removes approx 2500 calories. In a week, these two sessions should remove approx 1.5ib of body fat (3500 calories = 1 Ib of fat) on their own
There's a more detailed breakdown here: https://drwillcole.com/functional-medicine/a-guide-to-intermittent-fasting
The key for me here is no more than 2 days per week for 24hrs (jack Bauer style) and they cannot be continuous back to back days.
I'm back on the mission now and still have a lot to do. Given the benefits of the approach it's definitely worth the test.
There are some rules though...
Not too much fat during the day. No more than 3 cream coffees
LOTS of water
increase my salt intake (otherwise you can get headaches)
Keep exercising as normal
Do NOT over compensate when you eat you first meal. Something light and moderate calories (no, not a Pizza)
DO NOT over indulge through the rest of the week. I'm still going to eat clean and healthy for the most part, though likely to throw in a cheat meal at the weekend to keep me sane.
I'll keep you posted on the results....
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