I've gotten quite a few emails from people wanting to know my take on a rat study showing that intermittent fasting may lead to increased belly fat.
Thankfully, two very smart people have already taken the time to go through the study and point out some of the reasons why this type of research isn't applicable to humans.
So I'll point you to to these two articles if this topic interests you.
So Does Intermittent Fasting Now Make You Fat?
But I also want to add my own take on things from a top-level perspective: People aren't rats. And athletes aren't people. I think the first part of that statement is pretty self-explanatory. But athletes aren't people? Huh? 'splain please!
The simple fact is this: If you engage in regular resistance training and metabolic conditioning activities, you are a very different "test subject" than the average couch potato. As such, general diet advice that works fine for "regular people" will not apply for the athlete. For example: The government's take on how you should eat might be a fine recommendation for a normal person. But an athlete would eat dramatically different.
Let me give you another example: If you fed a rat a steady diet of carbohydrates and sugar products, you would expect the rat to get fat.
If you fed a regular human a steady diet of carbohydates and sugar products, you would expect the human to get fat.
But ultra-marathoner Dean Karnazes regularly eats an entire whole pizza WHILE he's running, along with copious amounts of sugar.
And Dean Karnazes is anything but fat.
People aren't rats. And athletes aren't people.
I’ve read articles that show the results of intermittent fasting. Turns out, the real reason for the gain in belly fat is not due to the fasting per se, but to the binge eating that occurred when the subjects came off the fast.
I’ve used intermittent fasting from time to time and never felt the need to gorge myself afterwards. I’ve done 48 hour fasts consuming only water and the only real need I felt at the end was to get some coffee, Advil for a headache and something on my stomach so the Advil wouldn’t cause problems and even that wasn’t much food.
Many benefits to fasting. As with anything else, you can’t just strive for comfort and convenience all the time.
Hi Matthew,
I recently purchased your High Rep Training Protocol and am so sore that I can barely reach my ass to scratch it. Looking forward to the next workout. 🙂
Perhaps you can help me answer another question that has been on my mind for a while. At the beginning of this week I ran a 44-hour fast and have followed up with one meal/24-hour fasts. The fat is already coming off! Prior to this I did loads of fasted (8-hour) cardio. I know IF and fitness gurus disdain cardio but it was effective up until my douchebag body began preserving weight. According to Wikipedia’s ‘Starvation response’ article, it takes a body roughly 24-hours to deplete liver/muscle glycogen stores. Would cardio post 24-hour fast accelerate the fat loss? I’m someone who doesn’t mind first getting skinny-fat and then bulking if the fat melts off faster.
To give you an idea of what I was doing, I would often burn 750-1000 calories before breakfast.
Cardio at any point (post-24 fast or not) will accelerate fat loss. Anything that creates a larger caloric deficit will accelerate fat loss. It’s just that cardio typically a poor use of time for most people.
Ah, then please answer this. When does body fat loss actually occur? We talk about (weekly) deficits but I’m sure the body doesn’t know the difference. That’s why the idea of our bodies turning to stored body fat post 24-hour fast makes sense to me. Suppose I expend 2500 calories in a day. Is that body fat used immediately or does it take another day to break down in to energy?