Skip a Few Meals to Burn Fat or Build Muscle?

If you’re like most people you probably tend to have a pretty consistent routine.  Everything that you do in a given day week or month is probably somewhat similar to the previous day, week or month.  Your good habits, bad habits, and anything that could be considered “in between” all seem to repeat themselves.  For instance, if you’re like most people you might go out to eat on the weekend.  Maybe Friday nights out are a pretty typical occurrence.  And, if you’re like a lot of us, you eat a lot of meals at home and might find yourself pressed for time when it comes to making dinner.  It’s the one meal of the day that always has the potential to take a lot of time to whip up but it demands that time when you don’t have it.  Or when you want to sit on couch.  Maybe just grabbing a beer or glass of wine and relaxing is all you have the energy for….

But I’m here to tell you that’s ok….

You see, nobody is perfect.  I think I tend to say that a lot in my blogs but it’s true.  And what I’m trying to hit on this time in saying that is that our lives aren’t perfect.  We’re running around at the speed of light half the time and there just isn’t enough time in the day.  Or we don’t plan.  Or we’re not organized enough.  Or we get lazy.  Or tired. Or have food cravings. Or. Or. Or.

But believe it or not, at least when it comes to diet, some of this craziness is ok.  In fact, at times it might even be beneficial.  Here’s why:

When it comes to eating our bodies are actually designed to deal with both a lack of food and a surplus of food.  Our bodies haven’t changed much since the development of agriculture and advanced technology.  The problem now is that most of the time we overeat.  We overload our metabolic processes with too much too often.   They don’t react differently when our brains tell us that there is food in the pantry.  They don’t magically speed up our metabolisms because they know that nowadays (at least compared to hundreds of years  ago) we eat more and exercise less.  They don’t release fat burning hormones when you go out to eat on the weekends and relax on the couch.

The body’s physiology is designed to release insulin and other hormones when we consume food and to use these same hormones to allow our bodies to use fat as an energy source when we can’t eat as much or, simply, choose not to eat as much.

In very simple terms our bodies are designed to eat both a little and a lot.  They are designed to eat food when it is available and go without it, when it is not available.  Eating a few small meals and then not eating for a set period of time.  Or, eating one meal and not eating for a few hours.  Occasionally not eating can be beneficial for our bodies whether it means eating less total calories on a given day or just not eating at all.

That’s right, not eating at all can help your body.  It’s a bold statement but it’s true.

Good Different

Now, before I keep rambling on, let me just mention that I’m not advocating starving yourself.  Most of what is written in fitness magazines and thrown around in conversations between people about eating six meals per day, keep the nutrients coming in, etc. is somewhat correct.  I’m not going to make a big argument about that here.  What I will say though is that one more thing that you can add to your arsenal of fat burning, muscle building tools is the idea that controlling your food intake can have an awesome impact.  And, again, I’m not referring to macro cycling or calorie cycling or just eating more protein.  In this case it’s all about manipulating your total food intake.

While this concept has been around for a very long time, most fitness enthusiasts, and even fitness experts continue to spurt out many of the cliche ideas about diet.  They say to eat more protein, take in less carbs, less sugars.  They say to eat smaller meals more frequently and to avoid eating late at night.  They might even talk about how helpful it can be to get calories into your system both before and after you workout.  And, while those are all great ideas, none of them hit on the idea of manipulating total food intake.  They don’t talk about changing the amount of food you eat so that your body uses fat as a fuel source while maintaining (or even building) muscle.

They don’t talk about Intermittent Fasting.

Which is why I’m going to.

Intermittent fasting is, well, exactly what it sounds like.  It revolves around the idea that occasionally not eating can be helpful for both burning fat, building muscle,and improving our overall health.  And while fasting in general is often used for other purposes – cultural, spiritual, religious, intermittent fasting in an of itself (because it is very short term) is more focused on the physical benefits it provides.

So what’s it all about?

Intermittent Fasting is used by people who want to:
1. Burn fat

2. Build muscle

3. Do both simultaneously

4. Improve their overall health

Intermittent fasting is not purely about starvation. It is more about manipulating calories to improve the body’s metabolic profile.  It can help with:

1.  Improving insulin sensitivity

2. Decreasing blood sugar

3. Increasing lifespan (animal studies show that any type of dietary restriciton or calorie restriction can increase longevity)

4. Decreasing cognitive decline

So how do I try out this whole intermittent fasting thing?

There are a few different ways to do it.  What you pick depends on how aggressive your goals are and how much you can tolerate an empty stomach…

Method # 1: The Hardcore approach

Pick one day out of the week and simply don’t eat anything.  You are allowed to drink water – and even drink a little juice if you need to, but the idea is to not eat anything.  I find that the best day for most people to attempt this is on Sundays.  If you don’t have to work and you don’t have to do any physically activity, then this is the day to do it.  Just to reiterate, if you didn’t already assume this – do not do physically activity on this day.

Method # 2: The Hardcore(er) approach

This approach can be performed a couple of different ways.  The first way it to simply go “one day on, one day off”.  This basically means you are eating your normal amount of calories one day, and eating nothing the next day. Follow the above advice for your non-eating days.

Alternatively, if your goals aren’t as extreme or if you just can’t tolerate going the entire day without eating (which many people can’t) you can alternate between one day of normal calorie eating and one day of eating 40% of your typical calories.  A more aggressive version of this is to consume even less: 20% on your non-workout days.

Method # 3: The Level-Headed approach

This method is the easiest of the three.  Although it can take some getting used to, it is often not as hard to stick to as the other ones and it is great for building muscle while burning fat.  It involves 16/8 split which means that each day you are able to eat for eight hours while fasting for sixteen hours.  The idea is to start the fast when you go to sleep so that for between 6 and 10 hours (depending on how long you sleep) you are able to initiate the fast and put the hours behind you while your body is resting and doesn’t need as much energy.  Then you are only responsible for fasting for whatever is left while you are awake until you hit the beginning of your eight hour feeding period.  The simply strategy that I use with this method (and the one that I recommend to people) is to eat fro 10AM to 6PM and to fast the rest of the time.  Not fun, but certainly not impossible.

None of these methods are easy, but pick your poison and you’ll burn fat like a furnace!

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