A few days back, I made mention in a blog post that I had gotten a question about Intermittent Fasting (IF).

If you’ve been reading my blog or newsletters for any decent amount of time now, you should be well acquainted with IF. But, just in case you’re not, a quick primer to IF is this:

-eat
-don’t eat for an extended period of time (anywhere from 18 to 36 hours) – usually during the day
-eat
-repeat

Simple enough, right? Sure is. But why would you go on an eating plan like this? I could give you a laundry list of reasons, ranging from:

-fat loss (it’s an easy way to reduce calories)
-freedom from food and eating (not having to cook, eat, bring food with you, or find food can really free up a lot more time during the day than you think)
-muscle gain (when you starve your body of protein, it can go into “oh shit!” mode, and when it gets it again, it goes into overdrive to utilize as much of it as possible)
-simply giving your digestive system a “rest”
-increased energy (you’d be surprised how much better you have when you simply just don’t have food in your system all the damn time)
-the feeling of just not being full all the time
-getting to enjoy a nice meal when you’re done

In fact, you do IF long enough, and you’ll find that you almost “re-program” your body to an extent. I’ve found that when I do IF very strictly for a number of weeks, the amount of food I end up needing – or even wanting – ends up radically decreasing. (Which incidentally, ends up leading to even more fat loss and more energy. Just sayin’.

Now, more than once I’ve recommended Brad Pilon’s book “Eat Stop Eat” as a great initial resource to IF. I know there’s a lot of science to the “why” of IF and it working, but truth be told…just between you & me…I don’t care. I know it works, and I’ve talked to enough other people who tell me the same (both “gurus” and regular joes). Good enough for me. No need to beat the thing to death, you know?

What Brad recommends in “Eat Stop Eat” is a virtually perfect way for most people to get started down the path of IF, and for many, it’s all they’ll ever need. I’m not gonna give away the farm, but Brad’s method of IF involves fasting completely for a couple days/week, and eating fairly normally other days.

To get Brad’s complete recommendations, not to mention to learn the “whys” behind what he says works, then be sure to pick up a copy of “Eat Stop Eat”. I highly recommend it b/c not only is it a great book on IF, but is also written for us “regular guys” in mind – no fancy language or overly complex terms when it’s not needed. Definitely worth the purchase price.

As for myself, what I do is something slightly different. I actually do IF every single day, but do it for shorter periods. So, instead of fasting for an overly extended period of time, I just fast overnight and through the next day. Come the evening time, I break my fast with a protein shake first, then a good meal, and maybe even a snack or two. I try to keep all my caloric intake for the day in a 4-5 hour window, and not eat the rest of the day. So, if I have my protein shake at 5:00pm, I won’t eat again after 9:00-9:30pm until the following evening.

But what do you do if you just can’t make it that long without eating? Well…you just friggin’ eat a little something. Duh.

For example, say you have a serving or two of a high-fiber cereal in skim milk or a little rolled oats in water plus a scoop of protein powder in the AM. If you can get away with doing just that, you’ll have taken in likely less than 300 calories. If that isn’t enough, have a small whey protein shake during the day, or maybe a can of tuna or a piece of grilled chicken. When all is said and done, by the time you get to your evening meal, you’ve still only taken in likely 500 calories total for the day…maybe 600. Hell, you could have a very large and fulfilling evening meal then, and still have taken in maybe only 2000 calories for the day.

Keep the overwhelming majority of the calories protein, plenty of fibrous veggies (which tend to be very, very low calorie anyway), and you end up full, plenty of protein, and losing weight.

See, you wanna keep the big picture in mind here – in the end, the thing that’s gonna help you with losing the weight the most is the fact that you’re simply taking in fewer calories than you’re burning up. You know?

And Intermittent Fasting is a great way to do that – about my favorite way.

Seriously – I highly recommend you try it. But don’t necessarily jump in with both feet right away. I do my little style of IF virtually everyday – I might only have one day/week that I don’t. (And when I don’t, I generally end up feeling like crap the next day.) Being hungry sucks ass, and when you first get started on IF, I won’t sugar-coat it – you’re gonna be hungry.

Like real hungry.

Like “get the hell outta my way and gimme damn some meat to eat before I tear a hole in your ass” hungry.

LOL

So ease into at first. Go get “Eat Stop Eat” and go by Brad’s instructions. When you find yourself going good on that, then progress from there.

=>CLICK HERE to pick up “EAT STOP EAT” and get started on your own Intermittent Fasting eating plan

Train Hard, Rest Hard, Play Hard-
Matt “Wiggy” Wiggins
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