Intermittent Fasting – Scott Laidler

Did you know that the ancient Greeks used to say that one should earn a hunger before the first meal of the day?

One of the optional tools we have in our pursuit of healthy recomposition is intermittent fasting. It’s a practice I use personally on a daily basis and have done for many years. Intermittent fasting allows us to lose body fat and become more anabolic without a large caloric deficit. Further then, this means that we can get leaner, without eating less food purely by eating in a time-restricted eating window. Let’s examine how it works.

Intermittent fasting does not specify which foods to eat, nor call for a reduction in overall calories. For these reasons, it’s not a form of dieting and should instead be considered an eating pattern.

When we fast there are mechanisms that happen in the body that wouldn’t otherwise have occurred or would not have occurred in the same manner had we eaten food.

These mechanisms include:

An increase in growth hormone
A reduction in inflammation
Improved insulin sensitivity
Enhanced cellular repair
Expression of genes that function to enhance longevity and protect against disease

These mechanisms may lead to the following health benefits:

Weight loss (via fat reduction)
Improved heart health
Anti-cancer properties
Enhanced brain health
Anti-ageing effects
Increased anabolism via human growth hormone

Types of intermittent fasting

There are various types of intermittent fasting protocols some skewed more towards performance and others skewed further toward health and longevity.

Typically to assist with our fitness goals and contribute toward enhanced health we will work somewhere between:

12-16 hours of fasting vs 12-8 hours of ‘feasting’

Based on the information you provide me on your consultation form, I may suggest an intermittent fasting protocol for you. This is optional, but shouldn’t be underestimated in its influence on your overall chances of successfully achieving your goals for your course of training, both because of its physiological and behavioural benefits. For example, the vast majority of people will make their major dietary slip-ups in the ‘unwinding’ hours of the evening when it is all too easy to reach for the wrong things. With a self-imposed intermittent fasting rule, past a certain time in the evening food is at least in theory ruled out, which means that there is a built-in mechanism against snacking and evening indulgence.

How to practice intermittent fasting

Here are some basic rules for how to integrate your intermittent fasting protocol into your lifestyle:

Aim to keep your fasting vs ‘feasting’ windows consistent each day
Coffees, teas, and herbal drinks are fine before your break your fast, but you must not consume any sugar or milk before your break your fast, as the insulin response will negate the benefits of the fast
Draw a line under consuming food after your final meal of the day - it is best to think of food as if it ‘does not exist’ again until it’s time to break fast the following day
Your intermittent fasting protocol will take precedence over ‘pre’ and ‘post’ workout nutrition, in that you will not need to consume food immediately after exercise, you would wait until your break-fast is due
Meals and snacks within the period of feasting are interchangeable - you may have traditional breakfast food in the evening or a sit-down dinner style meal to break your fast. Plan your day based on the most logistical solid plan rather than pre-defined notions of eating certain meals at certain times in the day.
Do not be afraid to exercise in a fasted state - counter-intuitively the vast majority of people report a marked increase in performance
Intermittent fasting does not have to be consistent in the same way a ketogenic diet does, for example, i.e. if you do not fast for a day or two, you are not ‘Out’, you just start on again the next day you are able to fast
During the first few days of fasting, you may find that your energy levels are a little lower, hunger has increased and your performance suffers. It can take the body a few days to adjust, and the vast majority of people then experience the feeling of having more energy than they had previously

Remember that intermittent fasting is optional for your program. Your program may or may not already have an intermittent practice as a daily habit, based on my thinking that you would benefit from it based on either a call we’ve had or your consultation form. If your program does not have an intermittent fasting practice but you would like to discuss one, drop me a message within the app.