Here’s a random thought on Eat Stop Eat style Intermittent Fasting, mostly brought on by questions I get on my facebook page.
It has a lot to do with people posting asking about various ultra-minutia nutrition questions, usually brought on by the latest contrarian nutrition guru…
“So and so says breakfast is the most important meal is it true?”
“So and so says always eat at night…what should I do?”
“So and so says I have to take X supplements… do I?”
When I see questions like these I always wonder if the person asking the question has actually read Eat Stop Eat.
With Eat Stop Eat your fasting is flexible. This is an extremely important part of the overall philosophy.
You want to eat dinner every single day, fine, it’s completely doable.
You want to have breakfast every day? Fine…you can do that too with Eat Stop Eat.
If you want to workout during your fasts… that’s OK. If you don’t want to workout during your fasts… that’s OK too. Truthfully, I’m just happy you are working out… And if you want to know the very best time to workout the answer is simple: The best time to workout is when you have your best workouts.
Here’s the thing – I’ve made a living out of researching intermittent fasting. From my review of the available research the style I like best is the style I wrote about in Eat Stop Eat.
So yes, there are hundreds of different ways to fast (after all, we’re really just talking a break from eating, there are lots of ways to do this…) many of them are great, but Eat Stop Eat is the one I like best.
Since you only fast once or twice a week, you also have the rest of your meals to ‘optimize’ ‘synergize’ or any other fancy way of saying ‘play with’.
If you’re worried about building muscle while still fasting… you have 144 hours of eating that you can play with every week. If you are REALLY, REALLY worried about it, then don’t fast. Because no one is saying you have to fast. It’s an option. that’s it.
If you are having problems managing your fasts and your post-workout nutrition goals, you are either working out too often or fasting too often. Be smart & know your goals, then build your fasting and training around those goals.
I think sometimes people get a little to caught up in what is right and wrong, instead of what’s possible when you keep it flexible and adjust it to your own life.
DO WHAT WORKS FOR YOU.
Make sure you are tracking metrics so you know whether or not something is actually working. (and please, don’t just use ‘weight’ it’s a horrible metric)
If things aren’t working then try changing them, but if things ARE working for you, don’t change them just because some on-line person told you to.
There are no incorrect ways to eat.
As hypocritical as it is (and it is very hypocritical, I know) this is one of my all time favorite quotes on nutrition:
“Preach not to others what they should eat, but eat as becomes you, and be silent.”
BP
