Thanks for the great answers Lani!

B

A lot of this depends on your age and training status. Simply put, a 40 year old man with 20 years of training experience is not going to gain 25 pounds of muscle. If you are in your 20′s and just starting to train seriously than it is possible.

I think the connection between GH and muscle mass is becoming clearer, however from a hormonal point of view, the strongest relationship is between testosterone and muscle.

That being said, I think it all comes down to the structure of your workouts.

B

B

Stats really can’t lie, but they can be misused, misinterpreted, poorly explained, or falsely used to support a lie..

The numbers don’t lie, the people using them do.

B

I’m not Brad, but have feedback for you nonetheless!

If we take the model of calorie intake decrease averaging 20% for a reasonable yet definite weight (fat) loss, then you can test that in your equation – would the total deficit for you be in that range?

Also, recall from Brad’s book that it takes fasting for several days in a row OR extreme undereating for long periods of time to create any kind of metabolism rate problem.

Hope this helps until Brad can stop by!

Lani

I must say this an interesting article and i will start to look at scientific studies from another point of view from now on…

I have an unrelated question that has been pestering me for quite some time now… Is it somehow possible to use the GH spike that occurs during fasting for my advantage during a mass gaining phase?? I used fasting methods similar to what you describe in your blogs/videos (1 fast per week, 24hrs combined w/VERY clean diet)to drop weight for previous MMA fights and it’s worked wonders for me…not to mention allowing for more time training instead of eating.

But lately I’ve fallen in love with bodybuilding/powerlifting, and made a goal for myself to weigh 190lbs by April 1st. I currently managed to get myself up to 175 and i’ve come to realize the food bill is really starting to burn a hole in my pocket

I know there is some speculation whether GH itself actually builds muscle or not. Let’s say for the sake of argument that it doesn’t…but it does for sure stimulate the release of IGF-1 which would undoubtably build muscle. I was thinking to maybe plan my fast around a night time meal, like for example eat at 10pm then not eat again until 10pm the next evening, the reason being that when u sleep u also secrete GH within your body, so it would be like a double dose of GH (during fast + during sleep), and i would have protein/nutrients available for the synthesization of the hormone to the muscle due to my night time meal.

If i were to combine this method of fasting with a caloric surplus diet the rest of the week would it speed up my results due to the increase of GH in my body?? Or would various mechanisms prevent me from making as much of the hormone as i think is possible?

I guess the bottom line is: is it worth it to fast if your goal is to gain a fair amount of muscular weight?

Sorry for the long post, but i love these kinds of topics (there isn’t a day when i don’t think about fitness stuff )

Bobby, that sounds fine. Refeeding near or above maintenence really only gets important when you approach a single digit BF% (which is much lower than people think – For example, in Fight Club Brad Pitt was likely about 7-8%, despite people claiming him to be about 5% – and he was ripped). It’s even skeptical at that point.

But if you want to be safe, fast twice per week and eat at maintenence the other 5-days. Again, if there is any impact on your metabolism (which there shouldn’t be), it will be relatively insignificant. Good luck.