Post by baubosboy on May 16, 2008 18:22:53 GMT -5
Hi everybody,
Thought I'd check in with my IF progress; I don't have anything quantitative this time, but I'm at well over a year now.
What I've kind of evolved into is a combination of fasts. I found that the alternate day fasts were a little too much, I think mainly because of the demands of my fairly brutal weightlifting regimen, combined with a fairly intense cardio program - I've never been much into cardio - and my adoption of another training regimen, YRG yoga, which combines power yoga and isometrics, and has been kicking me arse. In short, on my fast days I started just feeling horrible. But I was doing fairly long fasts: basically, 30 to 40 hours, three times a week. Wasn't intending on fasts that long, but daily circumstances just seemed to make it so; I'd stop eating at 9 or 10pm or so on, say, Sunday, intending to eat again at about 7am on Tuesday. But I'm really not used to the breakfast thing, and I tend to hit the ground running most days, so my first meal on Tuesday was generally noon or so. Or later. Too long. I looked at it the way I've looked at the whole exercise and diet question from the start: what are my strengths and weaknesses, what are my circumstances, etc; what is going to work for me over the run?
I ended up with a combination of the fast five and the ADF. I made the eating window for the fast five in the morning, instead of the evening - I'm a little worried about the effects of just eating in the evening, in terms of insulin and so on, which I worry about, plus I want to break the habit of night eating and get used to the idea of eating earlier. So my eating schedule now looks pretty much like this: I have normal days, where I can eat all day, as much as I want, but it has to be pretty healthy, and fairly paleolithic; days where I have a five-hour window starting from my first food of the morning, so 7 to 12, or 10 to 3, like that - on these days I can eat as much as I want, and the menu is more, um, open to the decadent. And then I have one solid fast day, 30 or so hours. So my week would look like: Monday, fast five; Tuesday, normal; Wednesday, total fast; Thursday, normal; Friday, fast five; Saturday, fast five or normal, depending on how I feel; Sunday, fast five. So far - several months now - this seems to working well for me. How this might change the suspected longevity effects of the fast, I have no idea.
I also rearranged my workouts a little; instead of trying to do everything - weights, yoga, cardio - every day, I'm trying a regimen in which I do weights one day, yoga the next, and cardio the next. But increasing the number, duration and quality of the workouts. I had found that when I was doing them all on the same day, I would use one to excuse slacking off on another; I still did everything, but kind of half-assed; this removes that cop-out. Weight day is an all-out, whole body, workout, mostly the big basic lifts, followed a few hours later by another, equally intense workout, but one that focuses more on smaller movements, such as curls and so on. Yoga day involves two or three shorter sessions, or one long one. Cardio day has at least two sessions, one of which has to be fairly long, at least an hour, but can be fairly mellow; the other of which can be fairly short, but is intense: wind sprints, tabata stuff, that kind of thing. I don't plan on days off, but I do plan on light days when I need them: just go for a walk, do the yoga without the isometric components, etc. No light days for the weights, because I'm kind of constitutionally incapable of that.
As a result of all this, I think my rate of weight loss/fat burning has slowed somewhat, but my waist is still wasting away, and I'm feeling much better. I think this more sustainable. I think my main vanity goal - washboard abs by 2010 - is still absolutely achievable. And hopefully, I'm experiencing enough hunger to get at least some of the benefits of fasting.
Has anyone else customized IF? Any thoughts?
Take care all,
Geoff
Thought I'd check in with my IF progress; I don't have anything quantitative this time, but I'm at well over a year now.
What I've kind of evolved into is a combination of fasts. I found that the alternate day fasts were a little too much, I think mainly because of the demands of my fairly brutal weightlifting regimen, combined with a fairly intense cardio program - I've never been much into cardio - and my adoption of another training regimen, YRG yoga, which combines power yoga and isometrics, and has been kicking me arse. In short, on my fast days I started just feeling horrible. But I was doing fairly long fasts: basically, 30 to 40 hours, three times a week. Wasn't intending on fasts that long, but daily circumstances just seemed to make it so; I'd stop eating at 9 or 10pm or so on, say, Sunday, intending to eat again at about 7am on Tuesday. But I'm really not used to the breakfast thing, and I tend to hit the ground running most days, so my first meal on Tuesday was generally noon or so. Or later. Too long. I looked at it the way I've looked at the whole exercise and diet question from the start: what are my strengths and weaknesses, what are my circumstances, etc; what is going to work for me over the run?
I ended up with a combination of the fast five and the ADF. I made the eating window for the fast five in the morning, instead of the evening - I'm a little worried about the effects of just eating in the evening, in terms of insulin and so on, which I worry about, plus I want to break the habit of night eating and get used to the idea of eating earlier. So my eating schedule now looks pretty much like this: I have normal days, where I can eat all day, as much as I want, but it has to be pretty healthy, and fairly paleolithic; days where I have a five-hour window starting from my first food of the morning, so 7 to 12, or 10 to 3, like that - on these days I can eat as much as I want, and the menu is more, um, open to the decadent. And then I have one solid fast day, 30 or so hours. So my week would look like: Monday, fast five; Tuesday, normal; Wednesday, total fast; Thursday, normal; Friday, fast five; Saturday, fast five or normal, depending on how I feel; Sunday, fast five. So far - several months now - this seems to working well for me. How this might change the suspected longevity effects of the fast, I have no idea.
I also rearranged my workouts a little; instead of trying to do everything - weights, yoga, cardio - every day, I'm trying a regimen in which I do weights one day, yoga the next, and cardio the next. But increasing the number, duration and quality of the workouts. I had found that when I was doing them all on the same day, I would use one to excuse slacking off on another; I still did everything, but kind of half-assed; this removes that cop-out. Weight day is an all-out, whole body, workout, mostly the big basic lifts, followed a few hours later by another, equally intense workout, but one that focuses more on smaller movements, such as curls and so on. Yoga day involves two or three shorter sessions, or one long one. Cardio day has at least two sessions, one of which has to be fairly long, at least an hour, but can be fairly mellow; the other of which can be fairly short, but is intense: wind sprints, tabata stuff, that kind of thing. I don't plan on days off, but I do plan on light days when I need them: just go for a walk, do the yoga without the isometric components, etc. No light days for the weights, because I'm kind of constitutionally incapable of that.
As a result of all this, I think my rate of weight loss/fat burning has slowed somewhat, but my waist is still wasting away, and I'm feeling much better. I think this more sustainable. I think my main vanity goal - washboard abs by 2010 - is still absolutely achievable. And hopefully, I'm experiencing enough hunger to get at least some of the benefits of fasting.
Has anyone else customized IF? Any thoughts?
Take care all,
Geoff
