[quote]MODOK wrote:
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
[quote]MODOK wrote:
Here is a way to think about it that may help. Food itself is a pharmaceutical. Everything you eat, and any time you eat it, you elicit a powerful hormonal and physiological response. What you eat, when you eat it, and how many times you eat are all very important variables. Every time you introduce food, drug, or foreign object into your body, you push the closed biological system that is your body OUT of homeostasis (dynamic equilibrium for you chemistry people). Your body then spends resources in the form of energy and hormones to store and burn the food you just ingested to return your body to equilibrium. Ok, so thats a little background to get the thinking in the right plane.
Now, not only is when you eat important, but when you DON’T eat is important also. When you skip breakfast, you have no means of blunting the already high levels of cortisol floating around in your body. Cortisol is a powerful catabolic hormone which increases blood glucose, prevents bodyfat loss in stubborn areas, causes large increases in catecholamines, and takes glucose and other nutrients from your muscle cells and liver for energy. I don’t have to tell you that that isn’t good for a bodybuilder. Also, as the body is now starving for 12+ hours, it sees the event as a significant stressor, and maintains a stress response. Catecholamines are high, mineralocorticoids are high, ( which lead to water retention). Glucagon is also high, which is a good thing in a fat loss diet, but it has a tendency to run into an issue at a certain bodyfat level in dealing with the cortisol and mineralocorticoids. Puffiness and “thick skin” are often seen due to this interaction and is one reason why many folks who try IF never can seem to break through the 10% barrier. In addition, I do not believe the body can partition nutrients as efficiently. It is likely that the body will be less efficient due to the hypercortisolemia, higher blood glucose, and mild to moderate insulin resistance that would entail. More carbs would be diverted to de novo lipogenesis instead of being stored as glycogen, leading to the “flat muscle” look.
In order to look your best, you need full muscle bellies (low cortisol, timely and frequent insulin), thin skin (low mineralocorticoids), combined with a sizable portion of time each day where glucagon and the SNS does dominate to release FA for energy. What I believe is detrimental is leaving that stress response running rampant in the body through the day. If anything, if you are going to IF it makes MUCH more sense physiologically to eat the first part of the day and fast through the end. Cortisol is much lower at the end of the day, many of these concerns would be addressed. Its a tricky thing for many of us (obviously not ectos…as you can see), which is why there is all this confusion and not very many big, ripped people walking the earth.
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It’s interesting that you actually mention becoming insulin resistant, when the buzz is that fasting is supposed to keep you insulin sensitive.
You are considering IF a stressor, but I’d be interested to know if the body adapts to a feeding schedule. Certainly in my experience hunger does. Once IÃ?¢??ve gotten used to it, I don’t get hungry until the afternoon. If the hormonal triggers for hunger adapt to short regular fasting, is it not possible cortisol does too? Martin seems to claim it does. Essentially that your body knows it isn’t starving and is going to be getting food later in the day.
It at least would seem unfair to draw conclusions from a study based on people used to eating throughout the day and then suddenly fasting outside of their normal schedule.
Thanks for taking the time to humor me, I’m not a nutritionist or a biological chemist.
For the record, I’ve had pretty good success doing it so far, but I started pretty pudgy.
According to the calipers (measuring myself) I’ve gone from 235 @26% BF to 218 @18% (as of a few days ago) which would technically be an increase in lean body mass of about 4 pounds (according to the electronic measure I went from 28 to 22%). Though like I said, some of that success could be due to starting out pretty fat and it hasn’t been exceptionally quick (8 months or so though I wasn’t IFing for several months in there). I’m not to a low enough % to know what that struggle might be like and how that may change my body chemistry.
And no I don’t want to end up with thick skin or flat muscles. Hah!
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Its the cortisol, glucagon, and catecholamines which are responsible for the appetite suppression you are referencing at mid-day. They release glucose and fatty acids from liver, muscle, and adipose stores. That is the bodies “adaption” to going without food. As I’ve said, this is both good (weight loss) and bad (insulin resistance secondary to cortisol).
I don’t want to come off as completely negative on diets such as this. They are effective, although they come with issues that no one is talking about that you must be very aware of if you are going to do the diet for longer than a short term fat loss deal. If you don’t really care how much muscle you carry, or the “aesthetic” look of your physique and simply want to be lean, it may be just what you need.
For bulking, I do not believe it has any place and could be harmful. Take home for all this is, learn everything you can about physiology. That way, you can trouble shoot your diet, training program, etc on the fly.
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What time frame are you referencing with short term vs. long term?
I think the biggest advantage is psychological for me anyway. It’s just plain easy to do. I feel good through the day. I’m dieting and losing fat, but it doesn’t seem like a chore or like I’m denying myself things.
I’d also point out I’m not exactly doing leangains.
And I’m also going to ride the horse till it stops working, but I do appreciate the info. I’m not that interested in getting to the sub 10% range as of now. I just mainly want to see some definition, be healthier, and maybe get my lifts into a lower weight class. I want to stop telling myself how good I’ll look in the future and start enjoying some of my hard work.
