Lessons from nearly a decade of Intermittent Fasting (The 2X2 Method)

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Better part of a decade of IF

1. With any injury ive suffered, ive tried to put a positive spin / implementation on it
   1. Or at least just ensure I learn something
2. How I started
3. Pro’s of  IF 
   1. running…
   2. Almost Never needing to fuel prior to a run
   3. Great way to lose some weight of stay lean
   4. Rarely suffered from any type of blood sugar issue and generally avoided spikes 
   5. Some would argue insulin resistance is disproportionate to distance runners who focused on simple carbs, I have not seen data on this
   6. Credit to UCAN - sonoma 50 miler
   7. More time in AM
   8. Autophagy
4. 
   
5. Cons
   1. I would not recommend combining IF with Low Carb for endurance athletes
   2. When it made sense to fuel prior to an event I couldnt risk it
      1. My stomach was just not ready 
   3. Reflux issues - seemed to be greatly exacerbated by running
      1. Some combo of the jostling motion?
      2. If I had to guess some part of this was due to the amount of fat in my diet
      3. Coffee didn’t help, 
   4. Simple Sugar intake during events has haunted me
   5. Missing out on speed and muscle gains

1. 
   
2. For managing my life now, It works well…. Mostly…
   1. Peter attia “It will take you between 1 - 2 years to adapt”
   2. I never sweat about # of hours anymore
   3. My # of hours awake impacts my appetite
   4. If i wake up / get up around 4:30, I’m generally hungry between 9 - 10 am
   5. If I am going to lift hard after 10am I’ll generally have a light breakfast prior
   6. I rarely wait till I’m famished to begin eating
   7. Mostly I’m drawn to food when I’m a bit bored.  Having basic rules helps
   8. I try to focus on getting a light brunch or slightly early lunch with @ least 20 grams of protein
3. I generally do 2, 2 course meals a day
   1. I call this the 2x2 approach

The Study I mentioned

1. Does time-restricted eating impair muscle protein synthesis?Original paper
2. January 31 2023
3. 
   
4. 
   
5. https://examine.com/summaries/study/dGV6K9/
6. 
   

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Transcript

 Hi, it's Daniel Lucas. And welcome to chasing energy episode number 47. I'm your host. I did about a decade as an endurance athlete. And today we're actually going to talk about some of the lessons I learned during that decade and that I still use today. And that is with intermittent fasting. So here's the agenda for today. 

I'm sorry, it's just me. There is no guest today. This is a solo episode. But I'm going to tell you the pros. The cons, how I use intermittent fasting, Ted day. And then we're going to cover a study, which is what made me want to share this message with you. I started, I signed, I I'm registered with examine.com. 

And I read, I started reading the studies and there was one on intermittent fasting and muscle protein synthesis. Here I am reading the study going, oh, this is really interesting. I should read this on a podcast. And then I go, wait a second. I've been doing intermittent fasting for almost a decade and has never talked about it. Maybe, maybe I should share that with the audience. So with that being said, let's get started. 

Intermittent fasting. What is it? Okay. The general consensus is that you go in 12 hours without food, which means if your last calories at 8:00 PM, you don't have another calorie till 8:00 AM. That's a basic. Intermittent fasting structure that we'll call that phase one phase two would be, you don't have breakfast til 10 o'clock, 14 hours. 

And again, it doesn't matter which meal you ate last or first it's just the gap of no calories. Stage three would be about 16 hours, I think. And then. From there people, some people will have one meal, every 20 ma 24 hours. It's called OMAD one meal a day is what it's called. I never wanted to do that, but I do know people who have done that successfully. 

Your mileage may vary. So. That's what intermittent fasting is now. How did I get started with it? Well, About seven and a half years ago. I think it was, I tore a hamstring while I was training and I was running a whole lot of miles at this time. Um, A lot of trail miles. And I thought, well, I've always tried to put a positive spin. Anytime I get hurt. 

Or injured. So in this particular case, I knew I was not gonna be able to run a lot of miles and I. 

I'm laughing when I say this. Uh, I thought the, the hamstring would be four to six weeks based on some Google searches before I was back on my feet. Literally, proverbially, whatever you want to call it. 

It. I I'll cover it another time. It was not four to six weeks. It may have been if I had like a professional physician seeing after me, but I didn't, I just sort of suffered through it and tried to train through it like an idiot. And. Probably drug it out two or three times longer than it should've been. So I have this torn hamstring. 

I'm running a whole lot less miles, and then I decide. I know I've heard about this intermittent fasting thing. I wanted to try it, but I was always too afraid to implement it while I was training so hard. So why not do it now? It would be a way for me to keep from gaining any weight while I'm, uh, injured in not running many miles. I was still just, just for the record. I was still lifting with the torn hamstring. I was able to. 

To exercise every other day. But when you're talking about somebody who's addicted to exercise, like I was, uh, taking, you know, only working out every other day is kind of an unacceptable. So. That was my positive spin. I had a hamstring tear and I thought, what can I take away from this? I know I'll do intermittent fasting for a few months. 

It was not hard for me to start intermittent fasting. My mom has always instill, always does not eat breakfast. She's a late night snacker for sure, but she's never even breakfast. And I always thought it was kind of silly. I thought of that whole, you know, breakfast is the most important meal of the day, which is not true. I totally disagree with that. Even if I wasn't intermittent fasting, I think that's a terrible piece of advice, but. 

I digress. W we'll talk about that later. 

So now I'm in this thing where I'm going, okay, I'm going to do the interrupt passing. I started immediately. I think within a week I was like, oh, it's not that bad to skip breakfast and just have a coffee instead. I'm good. So. Here are the pros. Of intermittent fasting. I do have one or two of the cons weaved in here, but here are the pros of intermittent fasting. 

If you are an endurance athlete. If you are not an endurance athlete. It's I think for the most part it's very sound. I don't think there's. You want to implement it slowly, but there's there's if you're not having a train very much, if you're just hitting the gym here and there. It's actually a really good way to keep yourself from overindulging on food. 

For me personally, having rules in place. That are smart rules that are, will justify it and help me achieve a goal. I love having good rules and I'm going to tell you how having dumb rules is, is can hurt you. We'll get to that. So. Running, I never had to fuel. This is we're going to start down the pros list here. I never had to feel prior to a run. I could didn't matter if it was a 50 K. 

10 mile or a five mile or a 10 miler. I did not have to have fuel prior to a run. At most. I'd be an hour or two into the room before I would start having calories. 

It's a great way to lose weight and stay lean. Um, and in fact, we'll talk about some of the cons too, but if you were looking to lose weight, Intermittent fasting will. Really restrict you to these times in. To sort of teach your body how to work off of body fat during the, um, depleted stages, if you will. 

Reflux issues. Now, this is where I say it's a little bit of a pro and a con mixed in. I started having reflux issues specifically with running. I didn't have it most of the time outside or running, but. Or at least bad, but there were the last couple of years I was running distance. I never knew when it was going to flare up. And man. 

When, when that reflux flares up in the middle of a run, there is nothing you can do. I mean, even water burns your throat. It's a terrible experience. I haven't had it and hears, and I'm smiling as I say that, because I honestly thought for a while I was going to have it the rest of my life. If I had to choose between dealing with that reflux and continuing to raise, I would have definitely thrown in the towel, looking back. 

And being without it. So for those of you who have ever had any type of GERD or acid reflux issue, My heart goes out to you. , I was never willing to give up the coffee. I have. I still am not willing to, but I did manage to get it to word the coffee doesn't bother me anymore. So I'm really happy about that. 

Now, why am I bringing up the reflux issues? Well, it seemed to be exacerbated by running and, uh, I don't know how much of that was the fact that I was doing paleo. At the same time. I was very, very. Close to being complete paleo. But while I was doing intermittent fasting. I do not recommend endurance athletes do both of those at the same time, I would say you could probably get away with one or the other. 

I lean towards intermittent fasting, being a better strategy for an endurance athlete. Then paleo. Just, this is my personal opinion that the studies we covered today. I don't relate to that, but this is my personal opinion. And I'm allowed to give it here. I certainly have probably had more experience with paleo and urban fasting than most professional doctors have. 

But that's just one man's opinion here. I think both of them are great. Improvements over the standard Western diet. But I wouldn't combine the two of them. If I was an endurance athlete there I've said it. 

Uh, another one of the pros. I rarely suffered any type of blood sugar issue, uh, when I was training. So even though my 10 milers or even 12 miles repeated because I needed so few calories while I was doing it. I generally didn't have those blood sugar spikes. And in fact, uh, I used a product the last several years. I was running that pretty much eliminated sugar spikes, and that is a product called you can it's cornstarch. 

There was a race, uh, The Sonoma. I think it was the Sonoma 50 miler I did. And when I finished that race, I specifically remember saying I will never touch another jail. Um, just so if I see another jail, I'm going to throw up. And they, they messed me up so bad in that race and that's it. At that point I got into the UK and product and it served me pretty well. 

Um, one last thing on the. Reflux issue that I was going to miss you mentioned was I think part of my reflux was when I was on paleo. I had a lot more fat in my diet. That does not serve me well. Um, I thought. Uh, what everybody preaches about fat being such a high satiety food and being, you know, good for you. 

I personally don't think it is a high satiety food compared to protein compared to protein. It's not. Um, if you want to compare it to a donut and that's probably a better art. So if you have like a scoop of. Peanut butter or something like that. And. You have, I think it's like a donut or something like that. You're probably going to be happier with the peanut butter. 

But if you took the same amount of calories in a large scoop of peanut butter, we'll say two tablespoons and you have. You know, Chicken breast or something like that. That chicken breast is to keep you full a whole lot longer. And this is, uh, this is where I think the whole satiety thing with fat got overplayed. 

I'm not anti-fat don't get me wrong. But I think. My personal experience is. That, when you talk about a high fat diet, make sure you weigh out the pros. And in my case, when I gave up the high fat diet, one of the first things I noticed was my reflux went down and I was like, oh, thank you, God. I was so sick of it. 

All right. So let's talk about some of the cons of intermittent fasting. 

I would not recommend it again. If you are doing paleo. Um, When it made sense. This is, this is a con. When it made sense to fuel prior to a race? Uh, I CA I generally couldn't do it because my stomach was not trained on how handling calories prior to a race. And I was nervous to do it. When it made sense to eat during your race? My stomach rarely could handle it. I don't know how much of that was due. 

To intermittent fasting, but I just could not run with much calories in my stomach anymore. My stomach had just adjusted to running on next to nothing. So you can cornstarch. Uh, a little bit of simple sugars and electrolytes was generally what I took when I was competing. 

Uh, missing out on speed and muscle gains. So the, I can tell you the exact. One of the last races I did. I completely dropped all paleo and intermittent fasting protocols to just focus on speed. And my gosh, did it work? Um, I followed a program. I hired a coach. And I started having gels during my run. 

And calorie or just calories in general during my run. And I was able to nail some of these 10 and 12 mile runs at a tempo pace that I could not. I D I just don't think I could have done it without calories. Um, For it as far as like your days where you're doing these key interval days. You really need to make sure you're not depleted when you go into those. 

I did it for years. I don't recommend it. It puts such a drain on my system. And when you're talking about going to the whale in a workout, You don't want to be depleted when you go to the will. Cause then you're given out, you knew your willpower's already weak. When you're trying to do a hundred percent on this particular interval that you need to have all your effort focused on nailing that interval and not being hungry at the same time. 

So missing out on some of my speed gains and definitely when it came to,  muscle gains, I was by the way, this whole time that I was running, I was lifting. , probably about three days a week. , it's a little tricky when you haven't eaten anything and you go in and work out. In the afternoon and then your first meal of the day. 

You know, you've gone. Probably 16, 17 hours, at least without a calorie. And, , you know, you're working out, it's hard to kind of get those quality workouts. And then by the time you get to the food, you just want to shove it down your mouth as fast as you can. So that leads me to, how do I manage intermittent fasting now? Well, 

While we're on the topic that last point about shoving food down your mouth. One thing that I do now, By the way I do practice intermittent fasting now, but I'm not strict about it. 

I do it because I feel better. There are some advantages that I'm missing out on. For example, if I wanted to put on significantly more muscle than I have now. 

I, it would not serve me to intermittent fast. I think it would be best to get up and start having protein. As soon as I wake up prior to the gym prior to. You know, and, and probably having something like a casing protein shake right before bed. I've I've got the strength and muscle right now that I, I feel like I I've hit those goals. 

Uh, my workouts are solid. And I don't feel the need to put those things in, and I don't have more energy when I add excess calories. That's one thing and I don't enjoy eating calories when I'm forcing it down. So those are a couple reasons why I still intermittent fast today. A third reason that I am intermittent fast today is I function better. 

Cognitively, especially in the mornings when I have little to no calories in my system. Now. If there's a very hard workout at like 6:00 AM. And then I go into meetings and right. 8:00 AM. It's not uncommon for me to just nibble on, you know, Mike, an orange or an apple with my coffee or something like that. But I generally won't eat a big breakfast in the morning. 

Just because it slows me down a little bit. And when I say big, I mean, forget that, you know, Waffles and pink and, you know, No eggs. And I'm talking anything over 300 calories, 350 calories is where I start to notice is start slowing me down. 

Peter Tia. One of the world's foremost experts on longevity. He has probably one of the top health podcasts in the world. I remember him saying in an interview years ago. Cause he did. Uh, 



Quito. And all that type of stuff where he was, and he was an endurance athlete as well. And he said that. Some, a trainer or sports scientists told him when he started it, it'll take you a year or two to get the hang of it. And that he thought to himself, oh, I I'll have it within a month. And then when he looked back on it, he said it took me a year and a half from my body to adapt. 

To basically being deprived and using fat for energy. I have to say that's probably the case. Um, it's not immediate. You still, you know, the bonking and things like that. Still come. The discomfort that the hangry. It takes time for your body to adapt, to being in a fat managed state. Having said that I am not a ketosis person anymore. 

Uh, I used to. I used to, uh, have a lot more fat in my diet. I don't, I don't miss it. Um, I don't think it's as beneficial unless you are in a state where you it's, it's a health crisis for you to lose weight. If it's that important for you to lose weight. Some of these things like ketosis and. Fasting and things go into the dramatic style of it can serve you. 

Uh, I do not sweat about the number of hours I have fasted anymore. I don't. I used to sit there in my head and think. You can make it to 16. You can make it, make it to 16. You can do this even when I was starving and we now I don't sweat it at all. In fact, I do the opposite. When I start to get hungry. 

I'll have a small snack so that I don't. Don't wait till I'm famished and then shove a bunch of food down my stomach and slow my system down. Do you see what I'm doing there? I'm breaking it up into small courses. So. While typing the notes for this podcast. I CA. I did not realize I was doing this till I was typing up the notes, but I came up with this methodology. I call the two by two. 

And that is this. 

I don't make an intention out of this. It's not something I do on purpose. But I noticed that I started doing two. Two course meals a day. I have my first meal at about 11 o'clock, 1130, right in there. And I'll have something. Like a S. Uh, large salad. With sardines. And some other vegetables in it. 

In a homemade dressing. And I'll follow it. Maybe 30 minutes later, 20 minutes later with something like a yogurt with granola. Okay. That's my two courses right there. And by the way, it's not uncommon for me to add like an apple or something to that. 

Um, That's that's the first one. And then I will not generally be hungry until about six o'clock. And that's when I'll have, uh, two courses for dinner. And so I'll have a main entree. Almost always the emphasis is going to be a protein. And either vegetables or some complex carbohydrates. And then I'll follow that up about 20 minutes later with some type of healthy-ish dessert. And I say, Healthyish, it's usually something like. 

Um, yogurt. With, uh, blueberries and granola or something like that, or a half an apple sliced up in there. Something where I feel like I'm having a treat, but it still has some protein in it. By the way, with both of those yogurt meals, I generally throw in some college and for extra protein. So that is the two by two approach. I'll say it one more time. It's too. 

The two by two approach is to. Two course meals a day and it's usually one larger course and one smaller course. And I sometimes I'll have the smaller. Course first and sometimes I'll have it as a dessert, but this is just my experience. So with that being said, you now know the pros, the cons, and how I manage it today. 

I'm not strict about it. Like I said, if there's a day where I wake up and say, mercy, I'm hungry. I just go with it. 

There is a one last thing I want to cover about that. And that is when it comes to workouts. 

If you work out first thing in the morning. And you're trying to hit this intermittent fasting window. My advice to you is you can wait until you're hungry, but don't wait until you're starving. That that just sums up. What years of playing around with it? That just sums it up right there. If you work out in the morning. 

And you're wanting to hit that window. Uh, 16, 18 hours. Wait until you're hungry, but not starving. There's not a lot. I just don't think there's a lot of benefit. To hitting that 16 on the mark when you worked out four hours prior and you're just famished by then. 

These are, these are the opinions of a podcast, host people. I'm not a doctor. 

All right. So this is a, um, study that I pulled up from examine.com. The link is in the show notes does time restricted eating repair, impair protein, muscle synthesis. So. In other words, when people fast, how much muscle building potential are they missing out on? 18 healthy men. Uh, they do, um, 

Uh, a very ICIC caloric protein match diet. It was actually kind of neat how they set up the study, where it was this very strict shakes based on their body weight. And then they did a muscle biopsy before. And after the intervention, the one thing I do want to point out is this study was only, uh, 10 days. 

That's not a lot to do, uh, an intermittent fasting study it's but I know that if I were on the other end of the study, they would say, do you know how hard it is to manage 10 people? Or, you know, or I'm sorry, 18 people for 10 full days, every calorie, they it's a lot. And I would say you're right. 

God bless you for doing that work. Well, Let me skip to the chase here. The evidence suggests that, um, Muscle protein response to protein ingestion is relative, relatively short-lived. So, uh, part of that is that when you have the protein it's available in your body for a very limited amount of time, carbs and fat, the body stores, those pretty easily protein, it does not. 

Which is why when you see people eating a higher protein diet, it's very, it's a lot harder to get overweight because when you get so full on that protein and the proteins are not stored as easily. 

The, um, What they found was the two separate studies have reported that a 12 hour period following resistance, exercise and consuming. This is one of the findings they had. When it came to muscle protein synthesis. And it has a graph here and I'm just going to spell it. It's basically what I would call the Goldilocks effect. There's low, medium, and high. They tried giving, um, 

Uh, 10, 10 grams of protein for breakfast, 15 for lunch and 65 for dinner, as opposed to 30, 30, 30. Uh, breakfast, lunch and dinner, 30, 30, 30. And what they found was that muscle protein synthesis was much better when the protein was distributed evenly through the day, instead of lopsided, it would dinner. 

Now, back to the intermittent fasting part. 

The, um, in this study they had an eight hour eating window. So, what is that? Um, Like 16 hours, a 16 hour fast. Um, It did not turn out to be a. Cop catastrophic or catabolic to the muscle. If you had an eight hour eating window, now they even say at the bottom of the study, if it had been for. We think you might start seeing catabolic effects, but all that to say. 

If you are intermittent fasting and still getting enough protein during that eight hour window odds are you're probably not going to lose. Uh, noticeable amounts of muscle, the lean mass and stuff like that, I think is probably going to work in your favor. Not because you're fasting. But. Well, that's probably part of it, but probably because you're just not eating as much food because you during, you know, what, 16 hours of the day, you're not eating at all. Do you know how many people who are not intermittent fasters are going to naturally go 16 hours without food? It's it's not that many. 

So you rule out midnight snacking, which is a horrible idea for your sleep and your blood sugar. So. The study, I will put it in the show notes, but the nutshell of it is. You're probably not going to lose. Much muscle. If you eating. A steady diet of protein broken up within an eight hour window. I'd say you could probably pull it off with six, although you'd probably have to eat. Um, you have to have a pretty busy eating schedule inside that six hours. 

So, this is a thank you for listening. This has been a little, a fun journey for me with intermittent fasting. I still play around with my fasting and I've made peace with it. It serves me now. I don't feel like I'm a. A slave to it. Um, And if there's any intermittent fasting questions you have, I'd be more than happy to share you. My opinion. If I can find a study to back it, I will. Otherwise it'll just be my opinion. 

Thank you so much for joining this episode.  📍 If you made it this far, please like, and subscribe, follow the podcast. Look me up on actually go to my webpage chasing.energy. And subscribe to the newsletter. That'd be fantastic. Love to hear from. You would love to see review. Thank you so much for listening to JC energy.