Jon Mills Tries Intermittent Fasting (Part 1)

 In Diet, food, Health, Lifestyle, Nutrition, Recipe

What’s is all the fuss about?? Can starving myself really be healthy for me??

We’ve all read something about it or seen some super ripped fitness pro in a video talking about it being their mantra, but what is all this fuss about Intermittent Fasting? Is it just another diet fad? We’ve all seen Survivor right?? Obviously if I starve my body for hours or even days at a time I’m going to lose body fat but how am I going to be able to function at work without my “hanger” getting the best of me? How will I have the energy to get the most out of my work outs? Surely I’m going to lose the muscle that I have worked so hard for! Taking all this into consideration can Intermittent Fasting actually be healthy for me?

Believe it or not Intermittent Fasting has been claimed to not only help with fat loss, but there is a lot of science that points towards IF’s ability to improve metabolic health, helping to regulate blood sugars, protecting against disease and even extending your lifespan! Oh and for all you guys and girls out there concerned with muscle wastage, during periods of fasting levels of growth hormone spike. This means that if we are able train in a fasted state not only can we to tap into these elevated levels but we will also be tapping into our Fat stores for energy because we have depleted our glycogen stores. Too good to be true right? So what’s the catch and why isn’t everybody fasting?

Having played around with IF a few years ago with some success (I lost a decent amount of body fat) I’ve decided to attempt a more structured and controlled approach. The great news is that I’m going to share my experience and findings with you all over the coming weeks and months! I actually started using a method of IF three weeks ago and started a video blog on Facebook, but before we go into any of that lets look at a number of the most popular IF methods being used today.

16/18 Method – This is one of the most popular ways to use IF. This method uses a fasting period of 16 hours where like all IF methods you can only consume coffee, tea (no sugar) and water which is followed by a feeding period of 8 hours. So if you eat your last meal at 7 pm, you will not be able to eat until 11 am the next day.

Eat-Stop-Eat Method – This is a more challenging form of IF which involves fasting for full 24 hour periods either once or twice a week.

5:2 Method – This involves 5 days where you would eat normally, consuming your usual amount of calories and 2 days where you consume ¼ of those daily calories.

As all these methods combine fasting with calorie reduction. It’s strongly advised to avoid binging or eating junk foods during feeding periods for obvious reasons.

Over the coming weeks and months I’m going to test drive all 3 of these methods for you! I’ll give you my honest feedback on the challenges, observations and the results that I achieve. My hope is to gain a better understanding of how IF works, the difference between the 3 methods and to pass on any other findings or information to you all, so that you can make some well informed decisions for yourself.

Stay tuned to the to the Fitness Junction blog and the JM  Training Facebook page www.facebook.com/JMPersonalTrainerGuelph for regular video updates and Part 2 of this blog. Please let us know if you have any questions about this or any other topics we are covering. “Keep being inspired and inspiring others”

You can find the recipe for the JM Training Korean Beef here www.jmfitfood.com/recipes/korean-beef

 

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