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Health & Fitness Redefined
Health and Fitness Redefined with Anthony Amen. Take a dive into the health world as we learn how to overcome adversity, depict fact vs fiction and see health & fitness in a whole new light.Fitness Is Medicine
Health & Fitness Redefined
Intermittent Fasting: Fact vs. Fiction
Skyrocketing in popularity over the last five years, intermittent fasting has positioned itself as the diet trend du jour. But beyond the simple concept of timing your meals within specific windows, does this approach deliver on its promises?
This deep dive explores what research actually tells us about intermittent fasting versus traditional calorie restriction. Spoiler alert: when calories are equal, the results are identical. We tackle common misconceptions about metabolism slowing, optimal protein timing, and who should think twice before jumping on the fasting bandwagon.
The protein puzzle proves particularly interesting – your body can only use about 30-40 grams of protein for muscle synthesis at once, no matter how much you consume in a sitting. This creates a fundamental conflict with many fasting protocols that limit eating windows. For those seeking muscle gain or retention (which should be everyone looking for sustainable weight management), spreading protein intake across 3-4 daily meals provides significantly better results than cramming it all into one or two meals.
Women face unique challenges with intermittent fasting, as it can wreak havoc on hormonal balance, especially during menopause. Meanwhile, those with eating disorder histories might find fasting provides a socially acceptable mask for unhealthy behaviors. But it's not all negative – people struggling with insulin resistance or lacking structure around nighttime eating might benefit from strategic meal timing.
Whether you're currently fasting, considering it, or skeptical about the whole concept, this evidence-based breakdown helps you make informed decisions about your nutrition approach. Share this episode with friends contemplating intermittent fasting – because fitness truly is medicine, but only when applied correctly.
Learn More at: www.Redefine-Fitness.com
Hello and welcome to Health with Ministry Defined. I'm your host, anthony Amen. And today we've got another great episode for all of you today. Today you get strictly me, so good for you guys.
Speaker 1:Anyway, without further ado, we're going to break into today's topic. This one is top of mind for me because it's something that for the last couple of years I'm seeing a lot of. So a lot of people are coming into the gym. They're talking about different things they're doing. A friend told me to do this, a coworker told me to do this. My friend lost 10 pounds trying A, b, c, d, e.
Speaker 1:So the big thing today is intermittent fasting. What is intermittent fasting? So, for those that don't't know, it's a trend going on in exactly what it sounds like. So it's intermittent meaning pausing, fasting and meaning just not consuming any food. So the most common thing is 16 hours off, eight hours on, so you're not eating for an extended period of time, and then you're giving yourself a window to eat, or even some people switch that 16 hours on, eight hours off, so it controls the time of day that you're eating. It's really risen in popularity. Uh, google actually just reported that it's up like 1500 in the last five years of people searching it. So it was super interesting how this is the new thing. We kind of skewed away from the keto diet. You don't hear it anymore. Now we really hit into the intermittent fasting. And who are the people trying it? Pretty much everyone that wants to try something a lot easier.
Speaker 1:I would say that intermittent fasting, as far as what you're allowed and not allowed to eat, is probably one of the easier diets. So there's no restrictions as far as different types of foods you can eat Carts, proteins, fats, everything's on the table. It's just more associated with time of day that you are consuming specific foods. With that being said, a lot of people use it, just like I said, for simplicity. Then appetite control, then obviously insulin levels, just controlling how their blood sugar throughout the day.
Speaker 1:Now, anthony, does intermittent fasting work? That's the million dollar question. Work is arbitrary. Work for you, meaning it helps you because you have certain underlying conditions? Yes, work for the general public? I don't know.
Speaker 1:Let's see what the research says. So, according to a study done a couple of years ago, intermittent fasting versus calorie restriction. So calorie restriction just meaning consuming the amount of calories you eat per day. Pin that against intermittent fasting. There was similar fat loss when all calories were equal. All calories were equal. So meaning those that consumed 1600 calories while doing intermittent fasting lost exactly the same as those consuming 1600 calories not doing intermittent fasting and this really isn't surprising. Kind of covers the baseline that we've always talked about. Calories in, calories out is a really good, simple way to control how many calories you're eating and really how to lose weight.
Speaker 1:Interesting parts about it skipping meals won't slow your metabolism. So you see a lot with people who do starvation diets, their metabolism over time does start to slow. Why does it slow? Because your body strips away all that muscle tissue and the more muscle tissue we lose, as we know, we burn less calories a day at rest, therefore dropping our metabolic rate. So with intermittent fasting it doesn't have any effect on your metabolism if you are skipping meals meals. But there's a caveat If you do starve yourself for three plus days, that's when you turn over that line and you actually will do negative effects to your metabolism.
Speaker 1:Now we tie that into something called thermic effect. What is thermic effect? It's the amount of calories or energy right that you need to break down food, and what's really interesting to a lot of people is different types of food, so your different macronutrients, so your proteins, your fats and your carbs all have a different thermic effect, meaning each macronutrient requires a certain different amount of energy to break down that food. And what's surprising and not surprising, protein has the highest thermic effect, meaning, as it takes a lot of energy for your body to break down and utilize protein, upwards of 20% of it actually. So even though protein is four calories per day, if it's, if per gram, you're using 20% of the calories to break down the protein. It's not a true four calories a day. That knocks it down to 3.1, let's say, as opposed to the true four, where carbs have like a five to ten percent roughly thermic effect and then fats are your lowest. They require the least amount of energy to break down because they are super slow digesting.
Speaker 1:Now, is there a difference between thermic effect and when you eat? So, if we tie that into intermittent fasting, is there a difference between time of day when I consume foods or how often I consume foods to how many calories my body will use to break that down? The answer is not really so it's more based upon the food quantity, not so much meal timing and frequency. So it causes a big thermic effect if you have a giant meal. So a really cool study showed that if you take 1600 calories and you eat 1600 calories all in one meal and that was your only meal per day, and then you ate 1600 calories spaced, the one who ate one meal per day didn't need a true 1600 calories. It it caused, cost more calories to break down that food. So therefore they technically consumed a little less. But there are other caveats of why that's not healthy. So I'm not recommending you do that, but just really interesting to know.
Speaker 1:So how does intermittent fasting thermic effect play into protein? We talked a little bit about the percentage of calories used for protein. But what if I want to build muscle? Right, everyone wants to build muscle. Every pound of muscle in your body burns an extra seven to 10 calories a day at rest. So that should be my ultimate goal if I ultimately want to increase my metabolism and at least have a substantial weight loss and sustain it over time. So does it make a difference when I consume protein? And the answer is yes. So muscle protein synthesis peaks roughly 0.4 grams per kilogram per meal, so the average person can consume in one time between 30 and 40 grams of protein at once.
Speaker 1:With that being said, they did a study back in 2013 that eating all protein at once will equal less muscle built, and so it's better to then spread it out over time to make sure you're eating your protein consistently, because only 30 to 40 grams of the protein you're eating is being used for muscle protein synthesis. Of course, protein is other jobs besides building muscle protein, but there is a cap to how much your body will use at once. The rest will be used for other things and it will. Excessive protein will basically would just be oxidized out. It doesn't necessarily get stored as fat, which is also pretty interesting. So, with that being said, just as an example, you can eat 150 grams of protein at once and call it a day. Buddy body can't use all of it for muscle, so most studies show that you need to have three to four protein rich meals each day to optimize muscle gain and retention.
Speaker 1:Now take that into intermittent fasting, especially those that require, let's's say, every other day fast. You're not now getting the appropriate amount of protein and never doing yourself a harmful effect of not building muscle. You're not optimizing your body to encourage protein synthesis. So doing intermittent fasting, especially the more spread out versions, or even just eating one meal a day isn't going to optimize you building muscle, which is ultimately what the goal should be. And, as we said originally, there's no difference between intermittent fasting and calorie restriction. So if I want to build muscle, I actually need to make sure I'm spreading my protein three to four times per day to help make sure that I'm optimizing the protein. So that'd be like every three to five hours if you're counting. So making sure you're eating some kind of protein for three to five hours.
Speaker 1:Now, another interesting part of our protein is a lot of people and thank God this is slowly fading away where too much protein you're going to destroy your kidneys and you're going to have so much issues and blah blah, blah blah. High protein really isn't dangerous, I mean, unless you have any underlying health conditions, which obviously recommend go check by a doctor. But you can eat 4.4 grams per kilograms per day and still be safe. Here's the catch, spaced out throughout the day. So don't eat 4.4 grams per kilograms per day in one meal. You will probably do damage to your kidney. I could tell you from experience. I think I did this once. I ate for like two and a half hours. No joke, maybe 10 pounds of meat at an LA Can Eat buffet and I definitely had some underlying kidney issues from that. Damn that hurt.
Speaker 1:But I can now space it throughout the day and actually have upper limits. So it's more important when you're counting protein to count a minimum as opposed to a maximum. So as an example, I firmly believe guys, especially guys that are lifting, should be between one and one and a half grams per pound. So if I weigh 200 pounds I should be having a minimum 200 grams of protein every single day. If I space out the 200 grams every three to five hours, so it's actually three to four meals. Let's say it's four meals, that's 50 grams of protein I should be eating every single meal. It's a little above that upper limit, but I'm still making sure I'm getting my body. Obviously it makes it very difficult and there's no negative effect to having more, but it does make it difficult to really spread out, especially when you're at 200, 300, 400 grams of protein every single day, so damn. So that's one group of people trying to build muscle which ultimately, if you're trying to lose weight, you should be trying to build muscle. That will hurt.
Speaker 1:Other interesting things about intermittent fasting is women with the hormonal imbalance, especially women going through menopause, throws your hormones a whack. Doing intermittent fasting tons of studies showing that it actually makes your hormones go crazy and you get highs, lows, crash. Not fun, really not recommended in a way to fasting for women. Men does not have any of those side effect issues, which is pretty interesting. Other people, obviously athletes, for the exact reason I just explained with the protein, and even with a history of eating disorders, because take someone who's anorexic, for example. You're not giving them excuse to be anorexic. They can just now say I'm fasting when really they just have underlying mental health condition of anorexia disorder. So fasting should be used more as a tool, just not a magic bullet. But who can help and I do want to give some reasons why I can like it, because it is not all bad right. So those that are insulin resistant it can help spacing out food throughout the day. On top of that, those that are busy and those that are snack prone, especially the latter. The latter, I think, is the most important thing.
Speaker 1:If you don't have self-control and you don't need an excuse not to eat shit, it's a good excuse. So, for example, a lot of people late at night. So the hours between like 7 pm and 10 pm tend to sit in front of a computer and just eat shit, or sit in front of a TV. Whatever your ice creams, your high sugary foods, whatever your ice creams, your high sugary foods, your fried foods all tend to be consumed before bed, and no one's craving like a salad before they go to bed, like I want some carrots before you're out there. You're craving garbage, right, because your cortisol level is at all time low, but you want this stuff. So if you need an excuse not to go eat that stuff, ultimately it's better just to do intermittent fasting to not eat that stuff than it is to go and binge out.
Speaker 1:Another really interesting 10 point to add into this for those that say well, what about time of day? There's no such thing as time of day optimization for food. So eating food at 10 pm at night isn't gonna make you gain weight. I could eat a steak and go to bed and it's gonna seem effective. I ate the steak three hours over, but it's four hours and I just went to bed. The only difference is because of the thermic effect. I'm burning a lot more calories, right, so my body's working harder before I fall asleep.
Speaker 1:On top of that, it can cause gastric issues for those that have a history of it. So I think a lot of people always learn not to eat before bed because there could be underlying gastric issues for those that do have it, and it's just important to note that if you don't have it, then you really have nothing to worry about. So most of intermittent fasting's benefits can come from reduced snacking and structure. If you fast super important make sure you still hit that one gram per pound body weight protein per day. For women you can get down to like 0.8, but I still recommend just being on the higher side. There's no harm in it. So making sure you at least have two to three meals per day from 30 to 40 grams of protein. And as a really cool bonus for those that want to know something else about protein, there's a slow digesting protein it's called the casein Really awesome and a lot of positive effects to take that actually right before bed, because it's just slow digesting, so your body will constantly utilize it more beforehand. So if you want to fast, great, just don't forget the protein.
Speaker 1:Fat loss is good, but losing muscle in the process isn't redefining fitness, it's sabotaging this. So send this to a friend who you think is doing intermittent fasting or someone who may know that is thinking about it. It's the only way the show grows, guys. I really appreciate it. If there's any more topics you want me to do, just reach out, happy to help out. And thanks for listening. Y'all, don't forget, fitness is medicine. Until next time, thank you. Outro Music.
