Free the Animal

A Fast, a Workout, and a Braised Pot Roast

Yesterday I tweeted that I was 24 hours into a fast and had yet to experience any hunger. How did that happen? Well, I can't be sure, due too many variables, but what's interesting is that I began the fast about 11 AM day before yesterday, and with only one meal instead of a breakfast & lunch. Eggs & bacon it was.

Then I decided to do something I've not done before. I did this high-volume workout at 4 PM, 5 hours into the fast. Then I did 6-7 minutes in the cold cold water. I had no problem with hunger before bed, slept for a good 6-7 hours, woke up refreshed and waited to get hungry. It just didn't happen. The plan was to head over to the gym when the hunger came, and do a cold-water plunge again, as I've used that before to rid myself of hunger. But, I was fixing a big braised pot roast for family guests and I needed to get that started 4 hours ahead of time. So, I never did the second dip and broke the fast without really being hungry at about the 27 hour mark, munching on some nuts as I was making preparations.

Here's what went down.

Clockwise from the top left, you've got the 6 lbs boneless chuck, browned on all sides (in leaf lard), then in the same pot I just added a bit more lard, a small yellow onion, a bit of pine nuts I had left, and a good handful of chopped raw Brazil nuts and almonds. Once that was well sautéed, I added in about 1 1/2 cup of my home made bone broth I had left, deglazed the pot, and added a half-handful each of frozen cranberries and blackberries.

Then I packed in the roast, and because it was such a good pack with 6 lbs (average recipe would be 4), even the small amount of liquid nearly covered the meat. In a normal braise, you usually get best results with your liquid to about half, then turn the meat every hour. In this case, I turned the meat halfway through the 3 1/2 hour cooking, covered, at 300 deg in the oven.

Continuing with the photos, you have the finished meat laid out on a cookie sheet where I placed it in the oven for warming as I boiled another onion, a few carrots, one large sweet potato, and one large parsnip in the broth, which you see at the bottom left. Took about 20 minutes or so for the veggies to get soft. Then I removed them with a slotted spoon to the serving dish.

I then dissolved 1 heaping teaspoon of brown sugar in a bit of water, dribbled it on the meat, and put it under the broiler for 2-3 minutes to glaze up. I also added two teaspoons of my Thai massaman curry paste to the broth -- just enough to create mystery; but this also alleviates the need totally for any other spices (there's no salt, pepper, or any other spice in this).

The meat went into the serving dish with the veggies and the well-thickened broth got poured all over. The finish line:

The meat was fall-apart fork tender, and the six of us present accounted for all but about a pound of leftovers. I think everyone had a couple of servings like this:

Next week I will do a post on the complete process of making the bone broths. It is pretty easy to do, just takes a couple of days with the work coming at the beginning and the end.

Workout Today

I don't post a lot about the specifics of my workouts. Why? Well, whereas all the diet & fasting stuff was very accessible and could be put into practice quickly -- with quick results to verify, repeat, verify, and so on -- workouts never struck me like that. I'm a neophyte (still) but that's changing.

Also, I have a trainer and he's proven himself to be unconventional and actually willing to listen to me. Right off the bat, he said all I need is two 30-minute session per week of high intensity. That told me he had a lot right. Now, he often sports my Free the Animal T-shirt. That's pretty cool.

There's a new book out there I may have mentioned. It's by reader and sometimes commenter Dr. Doug McGuff, Body by Science, which is soon coming up in my reading stack. In the meantime, workout guru extraordinaire, Keith Norris, has reviewed it in multiple parts here, here, and here. [Added later: Chris Highcock interviewed Dr. McGuff here, and here's another interview on video.]

There's a bit of a coincidence. When I first began this journey two years ago, I went to the bookstore to pick up a book on working out. I was already a bit familiar with Art DeVany's power law (endurance and intensity are inversely related, i.e., the more intense, the less you can endure, and it's the intensity that drive the gene expression you want). So, it was only natural that John Little's book appealed to me: Max Contraction Training : The Scientifically Proven Program for Building Muscle Mass in Minimum Time. I read it cover to cover. Essentially, it relies on the power law principle and takes it to the end point: the highest intensity would be muscle failure in under 1 second. How to do that? Well, that's the problem. You need one and possibly even two trainers and spotters to help get HUGE weight into a maximum contraction situation, where you then hold to muscle failure. You aim for enough weight to hold three seconds, then increase weight until you can do less than a second. John had some interesting photos, such as a normal woman on an old-style peck deck holding a contraction against a bunch of plates with two guys standing on them; so, hundreds of pounds.

The punch line: John Little collaborated with Doug McGuff on this new book.

At the same time, my trainer wanted to do pretty intense, but it was mostly isolation. I was making gains, so I just shut up. Fast forward to a couple of months ago where I broached the subject of moving to compound exercises and big volume. Man, what a difference. I just love it. Rather than three boring, often excruciating sets of 10, it's now 5, maybe 10 sets, and most are only 2-3 reps, because the weight is so much. On squats, my form has improved to where I can easily do several sets of 4-5 reps at my body weight: 185. Once I am very confident of form, I'll start increasing it.

So, last Saturday I ran into my trainer here at my condos. He was training another resident in our workout facility. I invited him up, then thought of lending him John Little's book. And, so, he had a big surprise for me today.

The first was lat pulldowns. Fortunately, he had the pulldown straps that go across your elbows. It's amazing how much more you can do when you don't have to hold a grip. So, whereas 120-130 is a lot, I was able to warm up at 150, then a couple of reps at 220, and then a whole bunch of negatives at 300 pounds -- where we would have to use both of our full body's weight to get into full contraction and hold. 300 is max on the machine, and I could hold a few seconds in a full contraction, ease to half and hold a couple of seconds. We did that about 4-5 times and it was simply awesome. I'll never do boring reps upon reps again.

Next was a sitting chest press that's configured in a way that makes it easy for Mike to help me press it into a full extension. First was a warm up at 150, then to 220 to test an extension, ease, and hold at half extension. No sweat, so we maxed out that machine at 300 as well. What a delight! There's something just really cool about holding against 300 pounds.

Next was off to do some free squats, mainly to warm up and practice form. Did 4-5 sets of 4-5 reps at 135 going to 185.

To round out the 30-minute workout, we went to a lay down leg press machine. Just went right to the max, which I think was 300, again, and pressed to half extension and hold. I did two or three of those, holding for about 10 seconds each time, quads quivering like crazy.

I've just gotta say that I'm really loving this. Whole New World. But, be careful out there. Frankly, I have no idea of when I'd have been ready both physically and mentally to take on this sort of thing, and I don't begrudge at all almost two years of isolation conditioning. There's a fear factor, too, and you should not be attempting anything like this without assistance from someone who knows what they're doing; but more importantly, until you're sure you're up to it. You'll know when you're up to it.

You'll feel strong.

Losing 5 Pounds in a Day

I actually gave you a hint in the title of my previous post, Cold, Wet, Hungry, and Running For Your Life. Also, this is not the first time, and since I wrote fairly extensively on it before, I'm going to cover what I did differently and what I did on ocassions when this didn't work.

In a nutshell, it's the cold water, again. However, the gym has in the last few months managed to keep the water at a steady 40 degrees rather than the 50 it used to be. Let me tell you: huge difference and it took quite a while to adapt to spending minutes at that temperature.

So, the fast began around 1:30 PM, after a pretty big breakfast and lunch.

To the left is self explanatory. To the right is leftover sauerkraut, which was Alexander Valley fresh sauerkraut (not caned), which is simply awesome, even uncooked. I had made this in the crock pot a couple of days earlier, with about 3 pounds of pork sparerib, an onion, and lots of caraway seeds. All the pork was gone, but not all the kraut and broth, so I used it with some uncured, gluten free polish sausage. A great way to treat a leftover, making it a new meal entirely.

Around 7 PM or so, as I'm getting hungry, I head down to the gym. So, I'm about 6 hours or so into the fast at this point. The first thing I did differently was to do some intense intervals on the stationary bike under a bit of resistance. I only did 4, 15 seconds each, but I did them all out and I felt it. Amazing what just one minute of exercise can do.

Then I did the sauna, steam, hot tub routine and then hit the 40 degree water. It's really, really cold, but I mitigate by first tucking my fingers into my armpits. Then, I'm in a sqat, and I do leg kicks about as hard as I can, one leg at a time. Frequently and intense enough, I can actually become somewhat warm, and that's what I do until the cold finally has its way. On this night, I was in somewhere between 10-12 minutes. I was surprised. Longest ever in that cold of water. At 50 degrees, I can stay in far longer and don't have to kick or protect the fingers.

Cold shower, which on full cold feels warm, so I just rinse. I feel super invigorated. After a time, I get that feeling that's like you've been in cold but active for an extended period (such as skiing), and while you're cold to the core, you're warm on the surface. I find that a very pleasant feeling and it persits until I hit the sack a few hours later.

And sometime the next morning when I got around to weighing? 4-5 pounds lighter.

The last time I did that, everything was pretty much the same, except for the intervals. That's an idea that came from this post, the idea being to get a good jump on HG production. At any rate, here's what I know doesn't work, as I've tried it many times: eating anytime soon after the cold water.

Most of my workouts are toward the end of a fast, I always hit the cold plunge (sometimes only for 1-2 minutes), but then I typically eat within a couple of hours. I never get a weight drop like that, so, I speculate that even if there's something to this (which I fully admit is speculative in itself), then it must have something to do with performing it at the beginning of a fast, not the end.

And even in this instance, and the reason I delayed this post is that I had my workout the next day at 1:30, at the 24-hr fasted mark. I then did another 6 minuted in the cold plunge, waited until 3:30 and weighed in: no change.

There's quite a lot of stuff out there about the benefits of cold water therapy (it's a huge list). Mark Sisson did a work-up on it a while back, and here's Stephan's treatment. Both posts contain links to actual scientific studies proving a clear health benefit to episodic bouts with extreme cold. I'm sold on it, myself, and would be even without these curious and welcome rapid weight loss escapades.

I've searched in vain to come up with anything related to using cold water to lose fat. Anyone else?

Also, anyone brave enough to duplicate the experiment? If you don't have access to a gym with a cold plunge, perhaps you could find a cold swimming pool, bathtub, or something. However, I'd say that if it's over 50 deg (10 C) that you're going to have a tough time and would have to greatly extend time in water. It's probably some sort of geometric or exponential function with warmer water.

Cold, Wet, Hungry, and Running For Your Life

So, did any of you come up with some tweaks after yesterday's read? I've receive one email with some good ideas.

That was really a good refresher for me, but I'm not going to tell you what I did yet. The reason is that I still have 9 hours to go on my 30-hr fast, a workout early this afternoon, followed by a "secret" technique, and I'm already down 5 full pounds from where I was when I began the fast.

I want to see where I end up. Then I'll post.

Working Out Fasted

I haven't talked much about this in a while, but on the heals of yesterday's post on fasting, Andy left a comment referencing a post by Rusty Moore of Fitness Black Book.

Fasted Workouts and Fasted Cardio vs EPOC - For Fat Loss

For the longest time, I didn't understand why I had more energy after fasting. I have my most productive hardcore workouts after fasting for 5-18 hours. If I ate anything in that 4-5 hour window before training, the workouts just weren't as intense. Ori Hofmekler explained where this "hidden" energy source came from…the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS).

Go over and read more about the SNS.

As readers know, I have been working out fasted (18-30 hours) for a bit more than a year, now. I can't imagine doing it any other way. As an added benefit, take a cold plunge or sit in a totally cold bathtub after the workout, for as long as you can stand (in the summer, I somtimes remain in the 50ish degree water for 10 minutes). Then, don't eat until you're actually hungry, which, for me, is usually a couple of hours after the workout.

Fasting in the LA Times

Two articles on fasting in today's LA Times, and both are very good in large part.

Running on empty: the pros and cons of fasting

"There is something kind of magical about starvation," says Dr. Marc Hellerstein, a professor of endocrinology, metabolism and nutrition at UC Berkeley, who studies fasting.

Adds Mark P. Mattson, chief of the laboratory of neurosciences at the National Institute on Aging: "In normal health subjects, moderate fasting -- maybe one day a week or cutting back on calories a couple of days a week -- will have health benefits for most anybody." Mattson is among the leading researchers on the effects of calorie restriction and the brain. [...]

"We've been finding that putting an animal on a reduced-calorie diet for a couple of weeks dramatically slows cell proliferation rates," Hellerstein says. "This is the case in pretty much every tissue you look at: prostate, skin, colon, liver, lymphocytes."

Intermittent fasting and calorie restriction have also been shown in animals to reduce cognitive decline in diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease, Mattson says. [...]

Among 448 people surveyed, intermittent fasting was associated with more than a 40% reduction in heart disease risk. Fasting was also linked to a lower incidence of diabetes. The study was published in October in the American Journal of Cardiology.

Pretty much substantiates everything I've been blogging about all this time with respect to IF. Of course, an article like that wouldn't be complete without a quote from a useful idiot.

Not all nutrition professionals see the merits of fasting. Some think of it as a recipe for disaster, setting up a person for binge eating and metabolic confusion.

Ruth Frechman, a registered dietitian in Burbank and spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Assn., , says she frequently sees such extreme strategies backfire. "You're hungry, fatigued, irritable. Fasting is not very comfortable. People try to cut back one day and the next day they're starving and they overeat."

Credentialed gibberish from a certificate holding, know nothing. Literally: she knows nothing about fasting and its practices. She's just quoting a textbook she read and got tested on. These people are contemptible, at every level.

The second article has some anecdotes of people who've seen success with fasting. Fasting strategies and pitfalls. Of course, they had to haul out another useful idiot.

Many people find that cutting back on calories causes their metabolism to slow and weight loss becomes difficult, says Andrea Giancoli, a Los Angeles-based nutritionist and spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Assn.

"The real danger of fasting when it comes to weight loss is you risk slowing down your metabolism, and that defeats the whole purpose," she says. "As soon as you start eating again, your body wants to store those calories."

Such ignorance, and they are the ones called on to render "expert" opinion. ...As America gets fatter and fatter.

Every dietician and nutritionist in America ought to be fired on the spot, and then be pelted in the town square with rotten tomatoes. (Those of you who shouldn't, know who you are, and why you shouldn't.)

Fasting Note & Food

This is the best fast in a while. My last meal was left-over braised short ribs yesterday at 2 pm, and here it is the following day at nearly noon (22 hours in) and I haven't experienced even the slightest bit of hunger. I'll work out at 4, and dinner will be around 6 or 7.

By the way, here was the braised short ribs. This one took a while. Initial prep was about 15 minutes to preheat the over to 300 and then brown the ribs nicely in the covered pot I'd be using (I used leaf lard). Once browned, I removed the meat, deglazed with some red wine, place the meat back in, then added enough beef stock to just cover the meat. I also tossed in a vegetable bullion cube and some garlic. Then it cooks for three whole hours in the oven. At the 2:15 mark, add your vegetables (onion, carrot and celery in this case) so they only cook for 45 minutes. Otherwise, they'll be mush. Once done, I put everything on a cookie sheet, covered with foil, and in the oven to warm (140) while I reduced the sauce. This took a whole hour because I was unwilling to use starch other than what was already there from the vegetables. I added some almond meal, which helped. Be patient. Braised short ribs should have a nice thick reduction.

I Guess It's Gonna Be a Fast

Stepping on the scale this morning, I note that I made it through the holimonth unscathed. I haven't fasted for 2-3 weeks (nor worked out in two), we just returned home last evening having been out of town for 13 days in all, and I ate well and quite a lot.

Drank far too much -- with a 3-day abstention stint tossed in -- too, and that stops today.

A few cheats, here and there; like a few cookies and maybe two or three Sees candies. Two small slices of apple pie, over two days. Had a piece of good bread as well, but with a 1/4" spread of butter. And so on. Not too much, considering, and I actually weigh a couple of pounds less (but I never count fluctuations of 2-3 pounds either way). As a final cheat, I made my famous sausage country gravy for guests up at the cabin, and had a biscuit and a half, along with a modest helping of gravy, three eggs and about 5 slices of bacon.

However, what ought not be overshadowed is that amongst those cheats, I ate very, very well. Seemed I was always in the kitchen preparing something, having all the time in the world to do so. Family members cooked, too, as well some friends who love to cook. We ate amazing food, all real, all prepared by our own hands. Do that, and all the holimonth food laying around is far less appealing and when you do indulge, it's infrequent and modest.

I had just got the computer set up at home last night when I got an email from one of my uncles who was in town, having dinner at a restaurant that just happens to be across the street from my office. I had just put on to reheat some chicken soup I'd made and brought back from the cabin, then went to pick up my uncle only 5-10 minutes away. He stayed until nearly 10 pm when I drove him back over to the hotel (he's just across from the airport and flies out after his morning meeting, so he didn't get a car).

But I wasn't hungry. My wife even put some nuts out and I didn't touch them, nor the soup. So, by 11 pm I decided that since I was already about 14 hours from last eating anything, why not make it a fast? So here I am, next morning, and I think that sleep was about the best and deepest I've had in weeks. I always sleep best when fasted.

I'll probably take it right out to dinner and toss in a workout this afternoon.

Traveling: The Perfect Time to Fast

I have found over the last year that my absolute favorite time to fast is while traveling, either by car or through those awful airports.

For one -- especially when on a long drive -- you eliminate any sort of discomfort from whatever food might do to you gastrointsestinaly. For another, it just makes the trip easier, as you don't have to worry about when and where to eat, like, damn, wish we'd have gone there, at that exit back there. And most applicable to driving, it really shortens the trip when you don't have to stop for an hour to sit down at a restaurant to eat -- since I almost never do fast food joints, even the healthier choices some now offer.

Here's a photo I snapped the other day at a refueling pit stop.

That's the line at the Subway sandwich shop inside the gas station. I note that's the big thing, now: fast food joints at all the major gas stations. You'll be better off with some nuts, jerky, or even pork rinds.

It's really mind altering, this Paelo way. It seems to far off, now, to be obsessed about food all the time. No sooner would a meal be complete and I was thinking of the next one.

More on Fasting

Jan, in comments, wrote:

I've been doing intermittent fasting of 15-18hrs most days a week (for about month or so), but I can't seem to get past that 18hr mark. So 24-30 seems unimaginable!

Well, I was going to respond in comments but figured this could be of help to others who may not see it, so here goes.

My guess with regard to getting past the 18hr mark is that, as it turns out, fat burning during a fast -- though there's some prior -- really kicks in earnestly at around 18 hours and increases more and more up to about 30 hours. This is why I do 30 hour fasts -- in order to take maximum advantage of fat burn. At about 30 hours, your body begins to increasingly adapt, and fat burning tapers off to a steady state rather than increasing rate. What you seem to be indicating is that your body is really complaining about getting into a full-on fat burn. It's not used to it, and it's no surprise. Depending on your age, you've likely been feeding regularly and continuously for decades, day in and day out. Your body isn't even aware that it can go months without anything but water. In a sense, it's not much different than any other kind of addiction -- and we all have them. But don't be your body's fool -- or anyone's, for that matter. You know better, and it's just like getting off caffein, nicotine, alcohol, assorted drugs -- prescription or otherwise -- that your body has become comfortably accustomed to. Your body is going to put up a big fuss when denied.

If you want to get really technical, a 30 hour fast is really about a complete 24-hr fast, which is to say that the fast really begins about 6 hours after your last meal -- at about the point you would have your next meal -- 'cause you're hungry and ready to eat again. You can only be fed or fasted:

Think of it this way: everything begins with hunger. An animal — any animal, including the human kind — can only exist in two states with respect to food: fed or fasted. From the point we’re hungry to the point when we eat, we’re in a fasted state. From the point we eat until we’re hungry again, we’re in a fed state.

In any case, I don't advocate the daily fasts lots of people do because I consider it chronic fasting, not intermittent or flexible. Now, the fact that I do two per week in a rather programmed and organized way is also less than total intermittency -- but I'm doing it to lose fat. Another 15 pounds and I'll be around my goal of 10% BF and my fasting will become once weekly and will be totally intermittent, totally flexible, i.e., sometimes 24 hours, sometimes 36. ...Maybe even a 48 every now and then -- and perhaps a 3-4 day once or twice per year. I'm trying to model an evolutionary, primitive existence, as that is what programmed our genes.

All that said, here's how I've found to make a 30-36 hour fast as easy as I think it can be: have your last meal mid-afternoon, like around 2pm -- or maybe 3-4pm initially -- and go until dinner the next day. The reason is that if you have a good breakfast, then a good lunch at 2pm, it's not a big deal to go to 10 or 11 pm without food. You may be a bit hungry, but it ought not be gnawing and super unpleasant. Then, you go to bed, sleep like a baby, get up 6 or 7ish, your body has prepped you for fasting during sleep (hGH release), and you're already at about 18 hours. Then, just keep yourself busy until dinner around 7pm or later, depending on how long you wish to extend it. When you get really hungry, get really busy, or, depending on your personal circumstances, take a nap. If you can, get in a workout early afternoon, around the 22-24 hour mark. If you get your intensity up (lotsa weight, little to no rest between sets), it will kill your hunger for a few hours, though the first 5-10 minutes can be a bit daunting. What I've found, however, is that the hunger that returns in the later afternoon is of a very pleasant and warm kind. That signals that you've broken through and your body is now adapted to the fast pretty well and is easily releasing enough fat to keep your energy levels up and hunger at bay. Take a 3-5 minute dip in 50 degree water in your bathtub for an even more pleasant afternoon leading up to dinner. I guarantee that you will be amazed at how your body responds by kicking up the fat burning, thereby keeping you warm, cozy, and ferociously content. You will begin to gain insights into your long ancestral past and how wondrous it must have been to exist completely by one's wits. It's deeply contemplative at a point. That's the source of my "spirituality," if I've got any. And it's the real thing.

I don't claim this will be easy the first, second, or even third time; but just like anything else, you get good at it and it becomes a familiar path. Then, enjoy. And every once in a while, throw your body a curve and even extend the fast to breakfast the next day. It ain't gonna kill ya. We've got millions of years of evolutionary adaptation that says your body is built for survival in very sparse and inhospitable conditions. Fasting is the path to expressing those long dormant genes, and you will not believe how it will Free the Animal in you -- and by this I mean a languid, content, focussed Animal -- one completely free of rage, frustration, and other unhealthy toxins.

Fasting Tidbit

An email from reader J:

Phew, gonna pull off a 30 hr fast. Man these are difficult. Only a few hours to go. I wonder how you deal with these.

It gets easier, and sometimes even enjoyable -- but always different. For instance, I did 29 hours last Monday, from early afternoon to Tuesday dinner 'round 7pm, with a workout from 1-1:30 Tuesday afternoon. That one was easy, fun, and the hunger that re-established about 3pm in the afternoon was of a dull, warm, enjoyable and invigorating kind.

I'm 21 or so hours into my second and last fast for the week, and also will be working out in about 1 1/2 hours, at 1pm. This one is not nearly as easy and fun. I almost caved last night around 10pm, but made it through. This morning was fine, my hour walk with doggies in 43 degrees and sunny (in shorts and light sweatshirt) was divine, and I had zero hunger or thought of food until about 10am or so. But now I'm a bit too uncomfortably hungry. I'm counting on the workout quashing the hunger throughout the early afternoon and leaving me with an invigorating hunger in the late afternoon on up to dinner. Well see.

Perhaps it's because I've been thinking about what I'm making tonight. I've decided to take the rest of my homemade stock and do a beef stew (sirloin, probably) with vegetables. I can almost taste it. I've got to stop that!

Brain Fuel

Chris Highcock emailed this interesting bit of info the other day and I'm just now getting to it. The brain seems to be able to shift to lactate for fuel during strenuous exercise (info: lactate).

Purely speculating, but this may be why some people who get headaches while fasting (low glucose levels) can make them go away with a bit of iron pumping. Also; it suggests, once again, that most exercise experts -- those who counsel you to feed before, after, and often -- just have no serious clue about complex energy pathways naturally selected for over millions of years. 

The evolutionary life way is so much smarter.

From an evolutionary perspective, the result of this study is a no-brainer. Imagine what could have or did happen to all of the organisms that lost their wits along with their glucose when running from predators. They were obviously a light snack for the animals able to use lactate.

As another example of this sort of modern ignorance, anyone recall the fasting and blood glucose experiment performed by myself and others a while back, where our glucose levels increased markedly during exercise and remained elevated for some time, even though fasted for many hours? It's along the same lines as those unnecessarily obsessed (i.e., otherwise healthy people) with hypoglycemia during any sort of strenuous exercise. I've been doing most of my workouts fasted for many months, sometimes as much as 30 hours or more. It's my preferred way to work out and some of the really fabulous results I've obtained in huge strength increases (100-200% in many cases) with only an hour of training per week suggests to me that -- go figure -- our genes are best expressed the more we seek to model and simulate our evolutionary heritage.

Short version: predatory animals don't often hunt on full bellies.

Fasting: Why?

Those who've followed my path from the beginning know that things really accelerated for me when I incorporated intermittent fasting back around the beginning of the year. To my surprise, it not only accelerated the fat loss, but also the muscle and strength gains.

I still read so much stuff out there that talks about many small meals per day, never skip, eat a hearty breakfast, make sure to eat before and after a workout, and on and on. Many of these sources of info get it largely right otherwise, i.e., they are into the brief and intense workout, limiting aerobics (in favor of intervals or sprints), getting off the processed junk (non-food), and so on.

So, I think the area of fasting for fat loss (and even muscle gain) is the area of the whole fitness picture that really needs serious attention.

But what if you're already lean, or, maybe skinny fat, which is someone who appears skinny and trim, but is still fat, which I personally consider to be anyone over 10-13% BF for a male or 15-17% for a female. Admission: I'm still too fat, but I'm getting there.

If you're lean, you can actually use fasting to help build muscle. Fasting promotes the realease of growth hormone (as does intense resistance training, sprinting, and sleep). Combine fasting with your workouts and great sleep and you stack the deck. But there are lots of other health benefits as well, which only makes perfect sense if you consider the millions of years of evolution where we usually didn't eat three squares per day.

Over at Modern Forager, Scott Kustes has done a fabulous job in a six-part series on what happens to your body when you fast. All the links to the previous five parts are there. I highly recommend you take the time to really dig in.

The Hunger Returns: Fasting

I had intended to do a 30-hr fast beginning at noon, yesterday, with both a hearty breakfast and lunch prior. It didn't work out that way.

I wasn't really hungry in the early morning (never am, anymore), so I didn't fix anything until about 9am. I hadn't had bacon & eggs in a while (really), so I fixed five strips and fried up two eggs in my newly acquired lard. I had intended to add in some red grapes, but apparently Bea absconded with those for her packed lunch. Oh, well. Then came noon; then 1pm, and still not hungry. Oh, well; again. I guess my fast begins at 9:15am.

By around 4pm I was getting hungry and didn't really relish going until bedtime. What to do? I decided on walking the five minutes over to the gym for some self-experimentation.

Let's back up. Some will recall around the first of the year when I began experimenting with intermittent fasting, the idea being that we are evolutionarily adapted to going long periods without food, and that when we do, we turn to burning fat in place of muscle glycogen (stored carbohydrate). The body also releases growth hormone in response to prolonged hunger, the purpose being a perfectly logical evolutionary adaptation: GH serves to protect lean muscle tissue, while also opening up the floodgates of fat burning (low levels of insulin also get the fat moving the other direction -- meaning high levels of insulin keep fat in place, or store it).

Now, follow the logic. Stored glycogen (from all those grains you're told are so wonderful) lasts a few hours, maybe a day, at low activity. Go out running? You've got about 2 hours, tops. It's what long-distance runners call "hitting the wall." First one that punches through (to sustained fat burning), wins. Now, how long can you go with zero carbohydrate? Indefinitely; your body can synthesize the tiny bit of essential glucose you need from gluconeogenesis. How long can you go without eating anything? Months, and it's because you have stored fat and lean tissue (protein). That's true starvation, of course, but the point is that carbohydrate is not required to sustain life. It was entirely depleated on fast-day 1. The fact: we are adapted -- indeed it's perfectly natural -- to go without food for a day or so now and then. We're adapted, because: that was the nature of real life in most environments under which we evolved. Today, in recognition of that fact, some of us go hungry now and then on purpose. There are various reasons for it, including losing fat, gene expression (some forms of gene expression lay dormant until triggered), healing (What do animals do when sick? They don't know it, but they are turning full resources to healing. Acquisition and digestion of food takes a lot of energy.), and "cleansing." Scare quote on that last one to poke fun at all the foolish cleansers out there who fall for all those marketing scams for products to ingest to "cleanse." There's actually a biological function, and it's called autophagy, or self eating. Art has a post on it. You want to cleanse? At the cellular level, perhaps? Fast.

Alright, I took the time to revisit the background on fasting to get to one point, before I get to the final point. Last evening I was reading a book by a well-known fitness guru who generally does good work, but the diet recommendations are off, significantly ("avoid processed foods" is there, however, and that's worth at least 50%). Anyway, same old saw: eat six small meals, always eat a hearty breakfast, and NEVER (he used caps) skip a meal under any circumstances. And, and... never do an intense workout without eating. Why? Going hypoglycemic (low blood sugar).

Right. Can you imagine Thor going into diabetic coma while running down prey as though his life depended on it (it just might have), because he'd been really unlucky on the hunt and hadn't eaten for a few days; and after all, the invention of the fridge was about 250,000 years away?

I just hate that sort of modern ignorance. You should note the emphasis.

Anyway, I and others thoroughly disproved that notion some time ago. Go take a look, and follow the links to others who had similar results. Long story short: if I measure my blood glucose well into a fast, say 20-24 hours, it's going to be in the high 70s, low 80s. Then I go work out with very heavy weights, very intensely, for 30 minutes, with little rest in-between exercises. At the end, my blood glucose will be in the low 100s. How's that? I didn't drink any "energy" crap, and I still haven't eaten anything. Well, you can be a fool to modern ignorance, but I'll have no part.

Now for the next experiment, which I mentioned back at the beginning. I went down to the gym for a simple sauna, steam bath, Jacuzzi, and then the cold pool. As I said: I was hungry and wanted some enjoyable activity to get my mind off it. I spent about 10 minutes or so in the sauna, just a few in the steam room (now I'm really pouring sweat), then into the Jacuzzi. The reward for all that torture (it's really stressful, for me) is the cold dip, which they keep around 50 degrees or so. I go in after the workouts because it's like an energy reset button. I've worked myself up from about 30 seconds to now bouts of 5 minutes or so. That's what I did yesterday, but even longer. I stayed in until I had a pretty violent shiver going, then I got out, took a cold shower, and went home.

Before I did, I weighed myself at 199 (after the sweating). I remained a bit chilled for quite a while, but then noticed something: no hunger. Not at all. Then, 11pm rolls around and I hit the sack. Slept great for eight hours, got up for the customary 3.5 mile walk, and I'm still not hungry. Not at all. I go home, got ready to shower, and stepped on the scale for a big shocker: 194. I had dropped 5 pounds in a matter of hours. And, it's now 1:30pm (when I began this post), 28-hours into the fast, and just now the hunger begins to return. I've got to suspect the ice-cold water to the point of a pretty good shiver for both the unusual lack of hunger and the extreme weight loss. I'll have to see if I can duplicate on the next fast.

Now, before anyone gets all excited, I will surely gain some of that weight back once I begin feeding tonight, a couple hours after my workout at 4pm (the workout will shut down hunger 5 minutes in). However, since I'm still in fat-loss mode, the idea is to keep my food intake normal and not try to make up for the deficit. Maybe I'll get 2 pounds net out of it, and I'd be really happy with that.

I woke up feeling exceptionally strong and taught (very common when I fast). While there may have been some lean tissue in that mix of loss, I doubt very much. Recently, I have been increasing weight at the gym almost every week.

Wow. This turned out to be far longer than I'd planned. But I've been feeling exceptionally exceptional, lately, so look for more as the days roll by.

Later: I went to the gym for my workout this afternoon, 31 hours in and had a great workout. After the sauna, steam, hot tub and cold dip, I was at 4.5 pounds of loss from the night before, not 5. My home scale hovers between 4-5 pounds lighter than the weight & balance scale at the gym, so the 5 was an estimate. 4.5 is the real number.

Also, the workout was one of my highest energy ever. I stayed in the cold dip (55 degrees or so) for eight minutes and didn't develop any shiver as I did the night before at only about 6 minutes. One speculation is that by then I'd reached a sort of homeostasis in the context of the fast and had steady energy, plus some from the intense workout.

I'm going to see if I can duplicate this on my next fast.

Lean Gain Basics

Here's really an excellent all-in-one from Mike at The IF Life that covers all the basics for how to improve your ratio of lean mass to fat. I can personally attest to the simplicity and completeness of this, and it's really all right there; everything you need.

By the way, I got an email asking about my own progress since I haven't posted anything lately. Very interesting. Even with 24-30 hour fasts twice per week I have lost next to no net weight in nearly a month. I hit 212 and it's like a brick wall. But I feel great and my back, legs, and triceps are definitely larger. I also changed up my routine, such that rather than chest, triceps, abs & legs one day, then shoulders, biceps, back & legs the next, I now pack a full-body workout into that 30-minutes twice per week. It's almost CrossFit in the way my trainer stages each exercise and I just go from set to set to set, never stopping or resting much at all. Overall intensity has increased dramatically, and so I'm pretty certain my failure to lose more net weight recently is due to lean gain.

I'm contemplating a 48-hr fast at the beginning of next week just to see if something needs to be shaken loose somewhere. Of course, ultimately your weight is just a number. I'll want to get my BF down to around 10%. If I do that then it doesn't matter what I weigh.