Beginners guide to intermittent fasting Option 1

The best way for any beginner to get on intermittent fasting is with Dr Michael Mosley’s 5:2 approach.

As we discussed in the previous post, the 5:2 diet requires you to restrict your calories to 600 calories if you are a man and 500 calories if you are women for any two days in a week.

There is also no restriction as to how you want to have those calories.

You can either have it in two small meals preferably divided into breakfast and dinner or even lunch and dinner or even in a single meal preferably dinner.

Now, in the previous post I have giving guidelines on how to make most out of  your fast (even if it is periods of undereating like in the case of 5:2 diet or even the warrior diet). So make sure to check that out.

I guess this is pretty straightforward now in the next lecture lets discuss Option 2 for beginners.

Beginners guide to intermittent fasting Option 2

Leangains pattern is also good when starting off with intermittent fasting.

Recollect from what we discussed in the previous module, your fast starts the moment you have dinner. Now, I do strongly recommend that you leave a gap of at least 2 hours before dinner and bed, you’ll sleep better this way.

So let’s say you finish your dinner at 8 pm, and then fasting starts. Some people have a habit of eating something before going to bed, whereas there are people who work late nights and for them, this pattern could be an issue, as late night usually means cravings for people.

If you work late night then this approach may not be the best for you, and the 5:2 may suit your better.

But if you are an early sleeper like me and sleep definitely before 11 pm, then this can work best.

If you feel like having some nice green tea before going to bed by all means. Zero calorie beverages are allowed during fasting.

Why I suggest the leangain style of pattern for beginners is that 70% of your fast is while you are sleeping and that’s what makes it easier to  follow.

Now, let’s say you wake up at 6 am.

And you know you still have 5 hours of fasting still to go.

I also wake up at 6 am and survive on Apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, matcha tea and black coffee until breakfast.

Depending  on  my  work,  energy  levels,  and  my mood,  I   break  my fast either around 11 am or sometimes fast until 1 pm.

Fasted State: 8pm to 11am – Total: 16 hours. Now let’s talk about the fed state.

There is a LOT of flexibility when you are in the fed window. You can eat breakfast and dinner, or you can eat lunch and dinner, or perhaps you can have breakfast, a light snack in the afternoon and then a dinner.

Either way, meal frequency is not an issue. Starting from 11 am until 8 pm is the time you can have any number of meals you wish to eat.

Personally what works best for me are 2 meals and maybe a small snack.

I like to entertain the idea of really feasting when eating meals, and that’s why I suggest meals which are at least 500 calories and going up to 1000 calories.

and then once you are through eating, you forget about it, for at least 5-6 hours.

Since I do recommend calorie counting, its best to divide your 2 meals  into half of your total calorie target, plus leave few hundred calories for a snack.

That’s it. IF. is simply and let us not try and complicate it further.

I have provided some sample diet plans for you to have a look including a nutrition guide that contains close to 40+ recipes. Hope you enjoy it. All  the best and the next lecture is how an intermediate can get onto I.F. eating pattern.

Intermediate guide to intermittent fasting Option 1

Let’s start with Brad Pilon’s Eat Stop Eat.

Before I start with this section, one very important point to note is that I am not trying to categorize particular methods for beginners or intermediates. All I am trying to point towards the fact that shorter fasts are easier and better for beginners to start off with before moving on longer fasts like the one we will discuss in this post.

I consider myself an advanced intermittent faster, and my main fasting method is still the leangains one. Becuase what is important to me is that it matches with my lifestyle, my work and my family commitments.

So recall , Eat stop eat approach requires you to fast for 24 hours one or two times a week.

Ideally, its best to start off with one full 24 hours fast.

Select a day you want to fast. Ideally, choose a weekend when you are  not at work. It’s easy this way, as when doing a longer fast, may feel funny at first as your hormones will try and adjust and temporary it may result in lack of focus which obviously you don’t want at work.

So let’s say you choose Sunday as your fasting day.

Now, have your dinner on Saturday preferably before 8 pm.

After that, it’s fasting. The next morning you can choose any zero calorie beverages like water, black coffee/tea, no milk, no sugar (however one teaspoon of milk and some stevia won’t do any harm).

And then you fast the whole day until 8 pm. This is when you can have your dinner.

The beauty of this routine is that you can go through the rest of the week, without fasting.

Eat as you would normally eat. Fasting for one whole day will allow you to stay in a caloric deficit even when you eat your maintenance rest of the 6 days.

I personally am not too fond of this approach, as I prefer intermittent fasting every day not just once or twice a week. And full-day fasting is something that does disrupt my working pattern. I don’t want to sound stupid by saying again and again that I work very hard, but that’s the reality and I am in need of fuel and the latest I can delay my breakfast is

until 11 am and then taking a break and enjoying a nice meal is something I look forward to.

It’s  very  tough  for  me  to  go  without   food   until    evening. However,  I   do make an exception which I will discuss in the last module.

But you are your own judge. Think about this for a while.

Brad recommends 2 days complete 24-hour fasting a week. This would mean eating in fact overeating a lot of food the rest of the 5 days.

For me personally, this is hardcore. Let me explain:

Say your TDEE is 2500 and you are trying to lose weight and decide to  eat 2000 calories per day.

2000 * 7= 14000 calories per week.

If you fast for 2 days, then you need to eat 2800 calories on the remaining 5 days to make it to 2000 calories average per day (2800*5=14000). Sure you can eat less and create an even bigger deficit, but then that’s beside the point, as creating larger than 20% deficit of TDEE for a longer time, may result in some issue. This, of course, is outside the scope of this diploma but this kind of diet is a big yo-yo for me.

Few days you are not eating anything and then you give yourself too  much food. Not something that I want to indulge in.

But maybe you simply fast once a week. This can work for a majority of people.

The next approach is also suitable for intermediates and its called the warrior diet.

Intermediate/Advanced : Guide to  Intermittent Fasting Option 2

I strongly recommend this pattern of eating for intermediates/advanced trainees who have some sort of intermittent fasting experience before.

If  you  decide  to  embark  on    warrior   diet,  then    let’s  be  very clear about what is allowed during undereating phase.

The Undereating Phase will pretty much extend during the whole day.

Ori recommends ‘Live’ foods like fresh fruits and vegetables that will aid   in detoxification of the body on a daily basis.

Live foods have enzymes, vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients in them  in an active state. Now, these enzymes are super helpful during the time

when you eat, that is during your overeating phase as they readily help you digest and absorb your food.

Most people suffer from inflammation, bloating, gas because they lack enzymes to effectively digest and absorb food.

A word of caution about fruits and fruit juices. Now, pre-packaged fruits juices are simply out of the question as they have preservatives  and added sugar in them. Even natural 100% fruit juice is something you need to be conservative with. Ultimately fruit juices break down into fructose which is processed by your liver and cause an insulin response, opposite of what we desire during the undereating phase.

Stick with low sugar fruits like oranges, apples, berries, etc. And yes, have them as a whole, as you then get the necessary fibre as fruit juices are devoid of fibre intake.

The prime bet is vegetable juices. Freshly squeezed vegetable juices are the best live and functional foods on the planet. You can have few glasses every day.

and just a reminder no carbohydrates including bread,  cereals, pasta, rice, potatoes, sweets, sugar, anything starchy not allowed during the undereating phase.

What to eat during the overeating phase

Before I provide info on the overeating phase, do note to check out the lecture on fasted training in Module 5 Intermittent fasting for maximal fat loss and muscle building.

The word ‘overeating’ may be a misnomer. What we are simply trying to  do in this phase is overcompensating the lack of food during the undereating phase.

Remember, an intermittent fasting way of eating is not starvation. Its  simply controlled fasting by priming our metabolic machinery to burn maximal fat and help our body utilize the protein better to build more muscle.

Its evening time now, you had a long day, you survived merely on fresh fruits and vegetables (juiced and steamed), and had a boiled egg and few nuts. You also have few cups of black coffee sweetened with stevia and now you are ravenously hungry.

Rightly so, you have restored your enzyme pool, and your body is primed to digest and absorb the food without gaining too much fat. Now,  let’s    see what Ori has to say about the overeating phase.

Ori says that your stomach is sensitive after a day’s of undereating so try and always start with light foods like raw veggies and then move on to cooked vegetables and other protein sources before moving on with

carbs.Now, you need to let go of the restraint and let your instincts guide you.

If you and your partner are cooking at home, enjoy the aroma and smell of the food. This will get your stomach acid flowing. Start with salads and move to protein sources like lentils or meats.

Include carb sources now. And don’t forget healthy fats like coconut oil, ghee, nuts and seeds.

Calorie counting is not really required here but in order to trust your instinct, you need to eat slowly and deliberately. Your stomach has a signaling effect on your brain and once you start to feel more thirsty than hungry it’s about time you had enough food.

Then you also need to savour different taste and textures of food from   hot, cold to warm and cool, to sweet and sour to salty and bitter, from  spicy to plain and from pungent to tart.

I personally am not a great cook and fail to include so many ingredients in my cooking that’s why the day my family plans a buffet is a day I follow  the warrior diet, more details in the last lecture of this module, where I provide my weekly intermittent fasting protocol by combining different patterns we discussed in Module 4.

Now all that we are left with is meal recipes and since this is not a course in diet or meal planning, I won’t go into the details, but I can definitely do this for you:

In the bonus module, I have not only included at least a dozen diet plan but also included a nutrition guide which contains more than 40+ recipes of which I personally cook and consume. Make sure to download that. Now, let’s look at my weekly intermittent schedule before I end this module.

MY WEEKLY INTERMITTENT FASTING SCHEDULE

I wll discuss my weekly intermittent fasting eating pattern. This pattern has evolved in the past  four years after years of hit and trial to see what perfectly suits my preference, lifestyle and family commitments.

What I have done is combined 3 patterns that are lean gains, warrior diet and eat stop eat.

For 5 days a week, I simply follow the leangains method where I have a delayed breakfast. Works best for me, as the morning without food gives me energy, helps me detoxify daily and saves me time.

In fact my hormones are so used to working this way, that I do not feel hungry at all until about 11 am or sometimes even until 1 pm depending  on heavy my last night dinner was.

So far so good.

Now, one thing that I and my wife and my son love are healthy buffets.  You know a buffet which has a complete salad bar,  soups, meats both  cold and hot, and even a dessert section.

Let’s assume my caloric target is 2000 calories. Now, I have done calculation whenever I visit my buffet and every time I easily consume 1500 calories or more. The dessert itself can range close to 300 calories.

My goal is always to stay close to 2000 calories and never cross it.

So let’s say Wednesday is a buffet day for us. You know in fact, Wednesday was, in fact, a buffet day for us for a very long time, as the place we go to eat our buffet had a 20% discount.

So the moment I have my dinner on Tuesday my fast starts and I follow a eat stop eat pattern of eating by fasting until the buffet the next day which is always after 6 pm.

Do note, there have been times when we had a lunch buffet. So the fast was not exactly for 24 hours, but then after the buffet I  didn’t  had  anything to eat until 11 am the next day so it’s kinda cool. You should  allow this much flexibility in the way you eat.

So when the buffet comes, I always follow Ori’s advice on how to start off feasting.

Always start with light foods preferably salads..as

our stomach is sensitive after a day’s of undereating so try and always start with light foods like raw veggies and then move on to cooked vegetables and other protein sources before moving on with carbs.

Now, you need to let go of the restraint and let your instincts guide you.

This is the time, where I truly enjoy a wide variety of fresh vegetables, spices, soups.

You see what I cook at home is from very limited ingredients, but now in this buffet, I got a chance to savour different taste and textures of food from hot, cold to warm and cool, to sweet and sour to salty and bitter,  from spicy to plain and from pungent to tart.

And then when I stop when I am more thirty than hungry. I have stopped counting buffet calories anymore, and rely on my instincts. Sometimes, its tough to stop on desserts as they are so tasty, but then that’s fine.

After few burps, I am done and this really satisfies me and I am ready to come back to the leangains style of eating the next day.

Then for the past year or so, I have started to include another day of very similar type of eating, but its not complete abstinence  from  food, and what I simply do is eat some fruits, maybe a 2 boiled eggs, close to 500 calories in total, half of what I usually have when on again style of eating.

This is when I am super busy and don’t want to take a break from shopping and cooking an elaborate breakfast.

Then I compensate the remaining calories at dinner may be but eating out (not a buffet though), but something heavy like a pasta meal or perhaps a bif fish.

Do note at all times, I am mindful of the average calories I am consuming in the entire week, and I still follow the same pattern even when I am planning to get absolutely ripped.

In fact keep an eye on my next course, titled Ripped: Sixpack masterclass where I will tell you exactly how to build a six-pack and get shredded at 6-7% body fat and trust me intermittent fasting plays a major role  in helping me achieve that look.

Hope you enjoyed this module, where I provided you with a weekly approach to different patterns you can choose from based on your preference and lifestyle.

There is still a lot of information left as coming up in the next module.