Intermittent fasting is a new way of eating that has been sweeping the country, specifically intermittent fasting for bodybuilding. Every fitness expert says that it helps you gain a lot of muscle while staying lean at the same time.
But people who have been lifting for a long time are always skeptical of claims like this, and rightly so.
Rarely is getting jacked as easy as doing just one thing. In reality, everything has its pros and cons, but could intermittent fasting be the exception?
I think that intermittent fasting is a great tool that can help you get in shape and make you more productive.
But.. how you use it makes a difference.
What is intermittent fasting?
Intermittent fasting, also called IF, is a diet plan in which you only eat during a certain time frame. So, for instance, you might decide to fast and skip breakfast and lunch. Then you only eat from 2 to 8 at night.
Or maybe you decide to go without food all day and eat a big meal at dinnertime (The Warrior Diet). Some people even choose to fast for two days a week, which is a more extreme form of intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting for bodybuilding is taken to the extreme.
No matter what kind of IF you do, the basic idea is the same: you fast for a certain amount of time and only eat during a certain amount of time.
People who support intermittent fasting say that it can help you build muscle and lose fat at the same time. They also say that there are many other health benefits, such as a better hormone profile and a lower risk of heart disease, that come with it.
There are a lot of good things about IF, but there are also a lot of lies about it. In this article, I’ll try to tell the truth from the lies.
Should you try intermittent fasting?
From what I’ve seen, there is no one diet or program that works for everyone. Your goals will affect everything in your life, like what you eat, how you work out, what you do for a living, and what you do for fun.
Yes, there are general rules and principles that you should stick to. Starting strength is usually the best workout for people who have never worked out before. If you want to build muscle, you should eat 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight.
But once you get past the basics, there is nothing that “fits all.” No matter if we’re talking about learning how to play a game, starting a business, or making our lives better, there is no one way that everyone should take.
In the end, whether you do intermittent fasting or not should depend on what you want to achieve. Intermittent fasting for bodybuilding is entirely based upon how your body will respond to it.
From what I’ve seen, intermittent fasting is great if building muscle isn’t your main goal. Intermittent fasting will give you more time and make you more productive. It will also help you lose fat like crazy.
But if building muscle is your main goal, intermittent fasting will hurt you. Why? Because you won’t have enough energy to go to the gym, you won’t be able to eat as much as you should, which means your body won’t get the nutrients it needs.
Now, can an IF diet help you build muscle? You can, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best thing to do.
Intermittent fasting is good for bodybuilders because it saves time.
In general, I only use an intermittent fasting diet in two situations: when I’m really focused on work and when I’m trying to lose weight. Intermittent fasting for bodybuilding works well when in cutting season.
Aside from this, I pretty much always eat like a traditional bodybuilder (where you eat every 3-4 hours). But, even with that in mind, intermittent fasting is a great tool.
It has a lot of benefits, but the most obvious is that it saves you a lot of time. Think about it: if you follow a bodybuilder’s diet, you have to cook and eat food every 3 to 4 hours.
Even if you do meal prepping, in which you cook and prep all of your food in advance one day a week, you will still be stopping your work flow. It takes a while to get back into the swing of things, which means you lose time and money.
With IF, none of these things happen. You can work for 8–10 hours straight without worrying about food.
This is why, in my opinion, IF is great when you want to get really into a business or game. If you want to start a business or self-publish eBooks to make $100/day, you need to be able to spend a lot of time on these things.
I’ve tried to start a business while also trying to get jacked as hell, so trust me on this. It’s very hard because you can’t give your full attention to a business project. You have to stop and eat every few hours, just when you’re getting into a good rhythm.
It’s very hard to do, too. You can’t go to clubs that often, you can’t drink when you’re out, you can’t lose sleep or your workout the next day will suffer, and you have to eat all the time.
Even worse, it got so bad that I tried sneaking protein powder shakes into clubs. Most of the time, the bouncers let me in because they thought it was funny and could relate, being big guys themselves. But it was still very hard to deal with.
But it’s much easier to learn how to play games or start a business while on IF. You won’t be as jacked as you could be, but that’s why you need to decide what’s most important to you.
With IF, you don’t have to eat for the first 8 hours of the day. Instead, you can go out clubbing and eat a lot of food at restaurants to make up for the calories you didn’t eat. You can spend the first 8 hours of your day working on your business without eating, and then after your first meal, you can do things that don’t require as much brainpower.
IF makes it much easier to build a business or improve your lifestyle.
Fasting Is Good For Your Health
IF also has a lot of health benefits, from lowering the risk of heart disease to improving the way hormones work in the body. I think IF is great if you want to lose fat because it makes you make more growth hormone and testosterone, which help you keep your muscle.
It has been shown that intermittent fasting lowers insulin levels, which makes the body burn more fat, and that it speeds up the removal of cell waste.
In addition to these benefits, IF has been shown to speed up your metabolism by about 10%. This means that just this one benefit will help you lose fat 10% faster.
The ability of IF to lower nearly all heart diseases, from high blood pressure to high cholesterol, may be its biggest health benefit.
In general, IF is a great way to improve your health, which is why I think it’s best to use it during a period of immersion to design a business, game, or way of life.
Even when I’m in the middle of a muscle-building phase, I’ll sometimes do IF on my days off. This lets me take a break from all the food I’m eating and gives my digestive system a break. It also makes me healthier and more productive.
“Will I not get hungry?”
16 8 diet bodybuilding
Many men can’t even imagine going without food for a few hours after waking up, let alone for 8–10 hours. I can totally relate to this because I was the same way for a while, until I realized two things. First, your body has to get used to intermittent fasting. The first week or two will be awful. You’ll feel irritable, tired, and cranky until you eat something.
If you want to try intermittent fasting, you should do it slowly. First, skip breakfast for an hour, then two, then three…
and so on, until you wait 8 hours after waking up to eat your first meal.
The most important tool in intermittent fasting for bodybuilding, though, is coffee. Coffee has no calories, makes you feel less hungry, and speeds up your metabolism. Caffeine and pre workout also work.
When combined with intermittent fasting, coffee will speed up the rate at which you lose fat while making you more productive and making you feel less hungry. When I do intermittent fasting, I always have a cup of my favorite strong fucking coffee about two to three hours after I wake up. This does more than one thing.
First, if you don’t drink coffee for a few hours, you let your body’s natural cortisol spike do its job. When you wake up, your body makes a hormone called cortisol. This hormone makes you feel less hungry and more awake.
This is why most people don’t feel hungry when they wake up. So, if you wait a few hours (or until you’re hungry) before drinking your coffee, you’re taking advantage of how your body works.
Second, coffee helps me concentrate, so I can get a lot done before I eat for a big chunk of the day. Third, coffee makes your metabolism go faster, which makes you burn more fat.
And finally, coffee makes you feel less hungry, which makes it much easier to do intermittent fasting.
When it’s not a good idea to do intermittent fasting
As I’ve already said, intermittent fasting for bodybuilding isn’t all good, just like anything else. The worst thing about IF is that it can’t be used to get big.
A lot of really ripped guys say that you can do IF and get ripped at the same time…
First of all, they use steroids, even if they say they don’t. Second, this might work for some people, but it won’t work for most people.
First of all, you need to eat a lot of calories if you want to get big.
ESPECIALLY if you’re a hard gainer. If you want to eat 4,000 calories a day of good food, you can’t do it all in 6 hours.
Second, you need to eat before your workout to get the most out of it. If you’re trying to lose weight, fasting before a workout can be helpful. But if you want to build muscle, you MUST eat before a workout to give your body the carbs it needs as fuel.
This means that you can’t work out in the morning if you are doing IF and trying to build muscle. This might not be a problem for everyone, but I love working out in the morning and wouldn’t want to give that up.
Also, if you want to get big, you should usually give your muscles a steady supply of energy so they can grow and repair themselves. This is why there are no bodybuilders who do IF. All of them eat every 3 to 4 hours.
If you’re trying to build muscle, IF is usually only a good idea on days when you don’t work out.
This is a great way to build muscle and get some of the benefits of intermittent fasting. I don’t always do intermittent fasting on my days off, but when I do, I wake up early, have my coffee, fast until about 2 p.m., and then have a huge meal.
This way, I can be very productive for the first 8–10 hours of my day. I also get some of the hormonal benefits of intermittent fasting, but I don’t do it too often so that on workout days, I can give my body fuel every 3–4 hours.
Conclusion
Overall, intermittent fasting for bodybuilding is a great for shredding. It has a lot of pros and a few cons. IF is a great way to save time, be more productive, burn fat, and improve your health. But it isn’t the best way to build muscle, especially for people who need to gain weight quickly.
In the end, it all comes down to your goals. You need to figure out what your goals are and then act on them. You want to lose weight, right? Then think about IF. Do you want to get stronger? Then I’d suggest that you eat every 3–4 hours.
To be fair, everyone’s body is different. Some people respond well to intermittent fasting and can easily build muscle while on it. Some people can’t even use IF to lose weight because it makes them too tired and foggy. You’ll have to give it a shot and see if it works.
I hope the article was fun for you. Please let me know below if you have any questions, comments, or concerns… I’ll see you next time, as usual.