First post

So basically I've created this blog for a number of reasons. Mainly to get my ideas out there, but also to become more organized with my thoughts about various things that I find interesting. I've named it SelfEx because I love to experiment on myself, and would like to motivate myself to do it more. My most recent interest has been inspired by a fantastic blogger by the name of Martin Berkhan (www.leangains.com). Highly recommend checking it out, he is basically a nutritional consultant/ personal trainer/ writer who has very successfully implemented fasting into a weight lifting/fat loss program. So here goes, gonna just start discussing

His model is based on short periods of fasting (16 hours/day) with low rep weight lifting.

First a little background info

Meal Frequency

Basically the modern nutritional guidelines that is mostly perpetuated for losing weight, or building muscle, is small meals spread out throughout the day, the logic being that it "keeps metabolism up" but

-controlled studies
- looking at varied number of meals ( 1 vs 3 vs 6 etc)

show that the net metabolism increase is the same assuming constant calories, for each respective meal frequency.

For a really in depth look at meal frequency discussed from multiple perspectives check out :

http://www.leangains.com/search/label/Meal%20Frequency

and the concept of "starvation mode" was (as discussed in leangains) based on observational studies that showed people skipping breakfast weighed more. However

Correlation does not mean causation
Studies that actually control for overall caloric intake (each day throughout study same # calories) suggest it doesn't matter and in fact there might be better nutrient partitioning if foods are timed later in the day, especially after a workout.

Just to note: starvation mode IS a real phenomenon, but realize that it means just that, literally starving- many days without food (~ >72 hours)

Not 1-2 meals or even 1-2 days.

So how many meals Not really important

What is important is what is eaten, rather than when ,which leads to

Thermal Effect of Food


This is basically the amount of energy it takes the body to actually break down  food ingested. Researchers have found evidence supporting the highest TEF for protein. This helps with satiety which is very important for adherence to any eating regimen. A high intake of protein is also crucial for muscle building/ recovery. A good rule of thumb is to eat 2.0 g of protein / kg body weight/ day.

Example: 165lb= ~75 kg
~150/day grams of protein.


Pretty simple : Eat high amounts of protein. 


Fasting


This ties in with the discussion of meal frequency. Fasting, or rather the concept in general of not eating has received a bad reputation. However (taken from the book Eat Stop Eat by Brad Pilon- READ IT) here are some findings in the research of fasting.

Shorts fasts 16-72 hours increases and causes:


-Human Growth hormone(muscle retention, fat burning)
-Uncoupling protein-3 (protein found in muscle, increases 5 fold during fast correlated with fat burning)
-higher Glucagon
-low insulin (thus increases insulin sensitivity, reducing insulin resistance)
-increased norepinephrine and epinephrine (aka adrenaline,noradrenaline- increased energy)
-decreased blood glucose
-reduction in body weight(not muscle if on muscle resistance program) 


These findings are interesting because they clash with the common ideology to basically "eat to lose weight" 
Or the emphasis on a certain 
meal frequency
super food
supplement (remember, a lot of the research backing these claims is funded by supplement, food companies)
etc. 


The leangains approach is basically taking 14-20 (he does 16) hours of fasting/day to receive the benefits above and to perhaps have better nutrient allocation (into muscle cells rather than fat) due to increases in markers of health such as insulin sensitivity. 


Take away message: Short fasting with controlled calorie intake is beneficial for fat loss. 


Weight lifting


This is a very important aspect of the fasting lifestyle, here are links to actual research. The best way to conceptualize these findings below when reading them is to think of resistance training as a means to tell your body to hold onto muscle. 

STUDY 1


http://www.jacn.org/content/
18/2/115.full

This study consisted of 20 subjects (mean age 38), on a very low calorie diet (800!) for 12 weeks and it was a liquid diet. They were separated into two groups, one was on a resistance program the other aerobic.

A direct quote:

"what is known is that resistance training three times per week while consuming a VLCD was associated with a significant large loss of clinically relevant body weight and that this loss was almost entirely fat weight."

I recommend reading it in its entirety but basically people that were on a very low calorie diet and lifting weights only 3 times per week lost almost exclusively fat mass. Its interesting to note that they were only eating 80g protein per day and increased in strength according to 1 rep max at end of 12 weeks.

This is the group that was in the weight lifting, body mass change: (IN KG) 

PRE POST

97.7 ±15.2 83.3 ±12.6* (OVERALL WEIGHT (-14)

44.9 ±19.9 30.4 ±5.3 (Fat in KG) (-14)

51.6 ±7.9 50.8 ±9.0 (Lean Body Weight) (NON SIGNIFICANT)****

1737.1 1800.4 RMR (kcal/day) (INCREASED METABOLIC RATE!)


This is the group that was in the aerobic group: 




93.8 ±15.1 75.7 ±10.6* (OVERALL WEIGHT (-18)

40.8 ±9.1 28.0 ±6.47 (Fat in KG) (-12)

51.4 ±10.6 47.3 ±7.0* (Lean Body Weight, kg) (-4) *****


1569.2 ±202.4 1358.5 ±297.1* RMR (kcal/day) (significant decrease)


This study shows that people on an insanely low (compared to the standard) calorie diet with 80g per day of protein was a fantastic way to lose fat mass. Limitations include high fat to start in subjects as well as the low amount of subjects (20) but still interesting, especially the resting metabolic rate increase.

Study 2

http://care.diabetesjournals
.org/content/22/5/684.full
.pdf+html


"1,000 Calories less per day than they normally ate for 16 weeks. They took part in a weight
training program 3 days a week and were able to maintain all their muscle mass while losing over 20 pounds of body fat!"

Study 3
"In yet another study, women undertaking a reduced calorie diet for 16 weeks were also able to maintain their muscle mass by training with weights three times per week"


My point to providing these studies is to show that fat loss can be achieved on very low calorie diets while not impacting lean muscle composition AS LONG AS ON A RESISTANCE PROGRAM. Also in the first study there is reference to severe restriction ( less than 600) yielding the same results. The second study discussed the improvements on markers of health (insulin resistance) of losing visceral (abdominal) fat to which the subjects that lost 20lbs of weight lost a high amount of this type of fat. So not only could you make the argument that calorie restriction is good for the right kind of weight loss, but also improves markers of health (to which the two are undoubtedly related).
 
In conclusion

So, many weeks worth of long term calorie restriction (intense calorie restriction) yields very good results. I think this just points to the advantages of calorie restriction in general. Therefore intermittent, short term, controlled, sensible fasting should give similar results and if anything this should provide insight into the level which we are conditioned to believe that we need to eat the amount that we do, or the way we do. 


Definitely a lot of info and ,kinda all over the place, but I am going to attempt to use this blog as a means to track my progress using my own version of leangains, as well as try to keep up to date on ways to improve it. In the next post I'll put up a more concise plan and my modifications to the program.