Intermittent Fasting

After tearing my cruciate ligament and not being able/wanting to do any cardiovascular work I spoke to a friend and personal trainer, Martin, from the SCI. I wanted to keep a relatively low body fat % but still increase my lean muscle tissue. As you can see in the photo my left leg is pretty small (not saying my right is huge) due to having surgery, so there was not much strength there. The plan was to strengthen my leg (rehab) and try to become more defined in my upper body (which I feel I did).

After 6 weeks of intermittent fasting and not really changing my usual training plans I managed to reduce my body fat% from 7% down to 5%. This is not the bit I was most happy with as I am what most people of the fitness world would call ‘a hard gainer’ which is better described by Phil Learney as an ‘easy loser’. This term ‘easy loser’ pretty much describes my body type down to a tee, I can lose weight very easily, I find it hard to maintain lean muscle mass and I can eat pretty much what I want and not gain weight.

However, whilst intermittent fasting I managed to add 3lbs of muscle and maintain this whilst continuing with the intermittent fasting (not so much of an easy loser now).

As you can see from the picture my back got more defined as the body fat came down and muscle mass went up. All in all I would say intermittent fasting worked for me.

The Intermittent Fasting technique I used was the 16:8 program also known as the lean gains program. This is whereby you fast for 16 hours and eat for 8. Carbs are cycled dependant on training days and is reliant on a high protein intake. Training is best done fasted and sipping BCAA’s (like i said my training pattern didn’t change so I did not always do my training fasted).

For more information on intermittent fasting please feel free to contact me via my website www.craigsfitness.com