intermittent fasting ok for athletes?

[MMouse]

did my research here on this board and read nothing but good things about IF in comparison to keto or paleo diet....

i was wondering if someone who trains 2x a day would be fine on IF?

i believe for sessions in the am, one should take bcaa's preworkout?

 

[FierceRedBelt]

I tried a 2 hour IF feeding period with two a days and it was a disaster for me. That's not to say others haven't thrived on it but I crashed and burned. The first day was alright but I never seemed to recover from the second work out by the next day. I tried it twice and made it to the third and forth day before quitting. Both times I kept my feeding period after my first work out and with enough time to digest my food before the second.

I'd suggest you try to do it anyway, see if you can make it work. I think if you kept a rather large feeding window like 6:18 and ate a large meal right after your second work out you'd do a lot better than I did.

 

[anaconda]

If you're working out twice a day and only eating for two hours then of course it won't work.

If you want to try IF with 2 a days it just depends on the time of your workouts. Do you do 2x a day every day? What time?

 

[MMouse]

i usually train in the am first session, anywhere between 8am-12pm for an hr or 2. and second session in the pm anywhere from 645-930pm for an hr or 2...

time usually varies for myself depending on my schedule

 

[MMouse]

also how do you guys deal with hunger if you get up 8hrs before your first meal?

 

[Modern Warrior1]

I've almost always done two a days, and have been IFing for two years of straight two a days. I eat after my morning training, and after my evening training. I generally have a banana before evening training.

 

[MMouse]

I've almost always done two a days, and have been IFing for two years of straight two a days. I eat after my morning training, and after my evening training. I generally have a banana before evening training.

do you load up on slow digesting carbs?

 

[shunyata]

also how do you guys deal with hunger if you get up 8hrs before your first meal?

Black coffee.

 

[Cygnus-X]

What would be the point?

 

[InZain]

You can do it. I like gettin all my calories after all my workouts.

 

[Easto]

Eat Stop Eat might be something to look into. Brad Pilon's take on IF. I find it is the easiest for ME to stick to.

2, 24hour fast per week.

I like the 2pm-2pm fast.

 

[VegetaGD]

First question is what is your goal with IF?

If you are doing it for weight management, body composition, and enhanced recovery and healing you might consider doing a once-per-week fast of 36 hours which is what I've been doing for about 6 weeks now.

I'm actually fasting today so, for example, my last meal was Friday night at around 8pm and I'll eat when I wake on Sunday morning.

You can sync it up with an off day so your performance doesn't really drop off. I'm currently down from 222 morning weight to around 206 and still dropping. I have lost a little strength, but not enough to offset the amazing fat loss that I'm experiencing.

If you want to be more aggressive, you can increase the frequency from 1 in 7 days to 1 in 6 , 1 in 5, etc.

Keep in mind however that you if you are fasting (IF full-day) too often, it will tend to disrupt your fitness output so start with 1 to 7

 

[Cygnus-X]

What's the deal with always trying to fit squares into round holes?

It doesn't take a genius to realize IF won't be optimal for an athlete training twice a day, so why would you do it?

 

[VegetaGD]

What's the deal with always trying to fit squares into round holes?

It doesn't take a genius to realize IF won't be optimal for an athlete training twice a day, so why would you do it?

Again, it really depends on the way you go about actually fasting. If you read my post above, you'll see that taking a full day off of food during an off day may actually have utility for fighters as it speeds repair/healing and helps with weight management.

It's not inconceivable to think that a fighter who skips a full day of food during training camp might perform better on fight night even with a marginal (theoretical) decline in performance during training camp. This, because fasting might keep the fighter 5 to 8 pounds closer to fight-night weight mitigating the obvious performance drop from a big cut.

 

[MMouse]

Again, it really depends on the way you go about actually fasting. If you read my post above, you'll see that taking a full day off of food during an off day may actually have utility for fighters as it speeds repair/healing and helps with weight management.

It's not inconceivable to think that a fighter who skips a full day of food during training camp might perform better on fight night even with a marginal (theoretical) decline in performance during training camp. This, because fasting might keep the fighter 5 to 8 pounds closer to fight-night weight mitigating the obvious performance drop from a big cut.

I thought good nutrition helps speeds recovery even during off days to help prepare for the next intense and/or daily training?

 

[Cygnus-X]

Yeah, NOT eating will help recovery :icon_neut

 

[Seriously-Dead]

Again, it really depends on the way you go about actually fasting. If you read my post above, you'll see that taking a full day off of food during an off day may actually have utility for fighters as it speeds repair/healing and helps with weight management.

Yeah, no evidence this actually happens.

I thought good nutrition helps speeds recovery even during off days to help prepare for the next intense and/or daily training?

It does, and I'm sure your own experience probably backs that up.

 

[VegetaGD]

Again, it really depends on the way you go about actually fasting. If you read my post above, you'll see that taking a full day off of food during an off day may actually have utility for fighters as it speeds repair/healing and helps with weight management.

Yeah, to my knowledge there is no evidence this actually happens.

Fixed that for you. I don't mind if you dismiss IF in your own training routine, but don't scare other athletes away from experimenting with it. See below:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23582559

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23266375

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23171320

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130426115456.htm

IF is admittedly in its early days of serious scientific study so there will surely be more studies to come and more specificity around its benefits. That said, it's patently erroneous to state that evidence doesn't exist showing that fasting has a positive effect on repair, healing and weight management.

Additionally, the community of individuals who use fasting regularly for its benefits largely drive interest from the scientific community to validate these benefits with studies. Water fasting has been a therapeutic protocol since antiquity and for reasons that we're just now understanding biologically.

I thought good nutrition helps speeds recovery even during off days to help prepare for the next intense and/or daily training?

I agree with your statement in full. I'd just add that I (as do many others) consider fasting as part of a nutritional regimen. In other words, what and when you eat and what and when you DON'T eat both have a bearing in healthy diet.

 

[VegetaGD]

Yeah, NOT eating will help recovery :icon_neut

Don't let a counterintuitive concept deter you from further investigation. Think about over-training...it's widely accepted that too much training can negatively impact athletic performance, but a lot of that hard data has only become available to us in the last 20 years. I still chat with many guys who truly think that more is better.

Even though the concept of intentionally forgoing food in return for a performance benefit may be alien to you at the moment, it doesn't mean it's wrong. You probably acknowledge that overeating is bad, but I'm guessing you do so from the framework of overeating at a specific meal.

Our paleolithic ancestors evolved during a period when it was very common to go 3 or more days without food. Therefore, the human body evolved to make the most of these periods of feast or famine. One of those adaptations was becoming very good at recycling unhealthy cells and forming new healthy tissue.

The human body will use fat and glycogen for energy and sparingly use skeletal muscle.

As a stated, if you are a fighter who enters training camp at 240ish and needs to be at 205 by weigh in, water fasting once a week on an off day could theoretically allow you to stay closer to fight weight allowing for an easier weight cut. This, while enjoying some of the known benefits of periodic fasting.

I know, I know...I'm a heretic...all I ask is that you do a little digging on your own and see what you come back with.

 

[Seriously-Dead]

Fixed that for you. I don't mind if you dismiss IF in your own training routine, but don't scare other athletes away from experimenting with it. See below:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23582559

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23266375

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23171320

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130426115456.htm

IF is admittedly in its early days of serious scientific study so there will surely be more studies to come and more specificity around its benefits. That said, it's patently erroneous to state that evidence doesn't exist showing that fasting has a positive effect on repair, healing and weight management.

Additionally, the community of individuals who use fasting regularly for its benefits largely drive interest from the scientific community to validate these benefits with studies. Water fasting has been a therapeutic protocol since antiquity and for reasons that we're just now understanding biologically.



I agree with your statement in full. I'd just add that I (as do many others) consider fasting as part of a nutritional regimen. In other words, what and when you eat and what and when you DON'T eat both have a bearing in healthy diet.

I'm on my phone right now and can't fully comment, but essentially you've misinterpreted all of those studies and you're making incorrect conclusions. I've read all of those papers and know the literature on fasting like the back of my hand. I'll go into more detail when I get to a computer.