Viking Muscle
Eat - Train - Pillage
Intermittent Fasting – The Viking Muscle guide
Starve yourself, every day, and get … bigger?
No, really. This works and is quickly emerging as the gospel for many serious athletes and bodybuilders.
I’m by no means telling anyone to develop an eating disorder and wither away… Quite the opposite, a Leangains approach will require you to stuff yourself full everyday. I’m suggesting you fast for most of the day and eat all your calories within an 8 hour period.
At the core of this movement, there are two serious researchers providing thought leadership in this field. Martin Berkhan, the founder of Leangains, and Brad Pilon, who created the Eat Stop Eat approach. In a nutshell, Intermittent Fasting works because you are eating less (if you are cutting) total cumulative calories throughout the week, cycling macro-nutrients (high carb / low carb), all while boosting hormone levels that help optimize fat loss and muscle-retention. At first glance, it is easy to write this off as so obvious that it is stupid (“If I eat less, I will lose fat? NO WAY!“), but there is much more going on here that makes this diet approach so appealing and successful. The big difference with this approach is a fun little hormone called leptin, a ‘spike’ in this hormone usually occurs after about 16 hours of fasting.
But wait, if I’m starving myself, wont I lose all my hard-earned muscle?
If done correctly, no, quite the opposite actually. There is a myth that to “Fuel the Metabolic Furnace” you MUST eat every 2-3 hours. This has created the 6 meals a day trend that is now considered an untouchable law among bodybuilders and athletes. The truth is, we simply aren’t wired to be eating so often. It is true that each time you eat you will get a slight metabolic boost for several hours known as the Thermic Effect of Food (TEF). The major limitation however, is that this effect is directly correlated to the amount of calories you take in, basically your metabolic rate increase only enough to process the food being ingested. There are major studies that have determined that food frequency has no effect on your quest for rock hard Abs.
…The premise underlying the present study was that increasing meal frequency would lead to better short-term appetite regulation and increased dietary compliance; furthermore, it was hypothesised that these predicted beneficial effects of increased meal frequency could have resulted from more favourable gut peptide profiles, potentially leading to greater weight loss. Under the conditions described in the present study, all three hypotheses were rejected.
There is also the myth of “Starvation Mode”, where after several hours your poor feeble body begins to sacrifice precious muscle in order to keep you alive… This is ludicrous. Our bodies are wired to work efficiently for up to three days without food. As a species, we used to track our food for days just to get a meal. The average human can go about 60 hours without food before any decrease in metabolic rate occurs.
Leptin:
Leptin is one of the essential hormones involved in metabolism, signaling hunger and the control of how energy from macro-nutrients (carbs and fats) get stored and retrieved for use in the body. It also has effects on other hormones related to metabolism as well (T3/T4, neuropeptide-Y, epinephrine).
-Leptin sends signals to your hypothalamus that you have eaten enough and need to start burning fat.
-Leptin production in fat cells will tell your hypothalamus that you need more or less body fat.
-Leptin is also regulated based on how fat you are, in other words, Obese people have very high levels of Leptin (with a resistance to the positive effects) while lean people have generally low levels.
What this means is that if we can optimize leptin levels in people who are in decent shape (not obese) we can realize these benefits to make your quest for a six-pack much more effective.
Why Intermittent Fasting works
I am a major skeptic, and I won’t recommend something unless I know it works and have witness the results myself. This protocol has changed the entire way I look at the modern diet and I will be recommending it to anyone that can make it work for their lifestyle. Here is why:
- After the first week on this protocol, I am never hungry and do not get any psycho cravings anymore
- Fasting helped me stop worrying about food. When I used to eat 6 meals a day, I would spend the entire day focused on when and what my next meal would be
- I have made serious strength and endurance gains since starting this approach (Benched 335 and ran the Wild West Relay in the same week)
- I am able to fine tune my macro-nutrient goals and stick to them better when I only eat 2-3 meals over 6-8 hours
Putting it all together
Sound interesting? Here is how you can start today:
- Calculate your calories and macros using THIS TOOL
- This will tell you how many calories you need broken into carbs, fats, and proteins
- You can then use this TOOL to build a daily diet that will meet the macro’s you just identified
- Set up a schedule
- You need to fast for at least 16 hours each day, so if you last ate at 8pm last night, you would eat again at noon (12pm) today
- There is no right or wrong time of day, just find a schedule that works best for you
- Set up a workout program
- Most people see the best results when their training is focused on basic strength training
- I have seen good results using a 5/3/1 protocol
- Go HERE to create a weekly 5/3/1 program based on your current strength
- If possible, train Before you eat.
- This gives us an additional spike in leptin levels and has been shown to produce the fastest results
- Before your workout take in Ten (10) Grams of Branched Chain Amino Acids (BCAA)
- Taking in BCAA’s before a workout helps to optimize protein synthesis and limit muscle breakdown through your workout
- I highly recommend Xtend BCAA Supplement because of its high quality and awesome taste
- Feast like a Viking!
- After fasting all day and training hard on an empty stomach, it’s time to feast!
- Your largest meal should be eaten right after you finish your workout, usually over 1500 calories!
- This is why the diet doesn’t feel like a diet for me, eat, be full, and happy
- Eat the rest of your calories a few (4-5) hours later trying to take in some good protein before you start the fast again
- Be sure not to overcompensate and eat too much, stick to your macros!
- See the results
- As with any program, you should be tracking measurements along with weight
- Pick a time and day each week to update your progress
After a few weeks you should be able to see and feel the benefits of Intermittent Fasting as you get your body Viking Strong. For more help making this work for you, add a comment below or contact me.
*For further reading on Intermittent Fasting you can read Brad Pilons book “Eat Stop Eat”