I know that this will no doubt spark “conversation”( or is that consternation), been experimenting with IF and concentrating on fuelling rides correctly too. The issue is……. well working life of a very middle aged man.
Quick brief : Was away from training for a good while and starting the long road back, gained a few KG so looking to lower this but not at the detriment of long term health. Now doing 4-5 rides, maybe 2 unstructured, one normally an absolute smash fest chain gang with far faster folks than I and a solo ride on a Sunday to maybe meet my wife for a coffee. Total time on bike per week is between 5-7 hours. So slowly coming back into it.
I’m up at 5.30/5.45 walk dogs, shower and stretch/Yoga and out the house before 7 am to sit at work from 8am. I now realise I’m breaking fast with my milk in my flat white I take to work with me but I can fix that. I usually eat breakfast at 12-12.30 so when I get home I can get on the bike at 7pm with a carb drink leading into the ride to help complete a 1 hour training ride then have food with my wife. I normally head to bed @ around 10.30pm to get my rest
Few issues clearly that you will all have seen, if I’m eating at ~8.30 I’m within a 3 hour window of eating before bed, that’s bad. If I wake at 5.30 and wait 7 hours before eating ….. yup that’s bad. Been doing this for a wee while now and I feel great and training is going well again but concerned I’m not benefitting from IF. I’m doing all this not for a short term goal but trying to get/stay fit for years to come.
Exercising at this time of night is the only time I have, early morning is NOT an option. My wife and I like to spend some time together and eat so want to keep this going. so want to avoid taking a packed dinner with me to work on the days I train.
How on earth do normal people do this, thoughts on this would be appreciated.
Intermittent fasting just isn’t compatible with endurance cardio exercise, you need to be carbed up to train properly
You can move to a programme where you only fast a few days a week, when you’re not training.
But better still, just scrap the concept and just eat healthily, adjusting your carbs based on the training you’re doing each day, and don’t try doing endurance cardio while fasted, which both sucks and gives worse results
IF is just another gimmick diet, it’s no more effective that eating healthy throughout the day. I recognise that it does make it easier to stick to a calorie deficit for some people though.
So first question would be why incorporate IF? I’ve found it useful for improving body composition in the off season and for not piling on weight during periods when I’m not training much (e.g. Travelling with work when I have a tendency to snack…). It’s not particularly necessary if you’re a healthy weight though, and it doesn’t really offer any benefits in terms of performance. Or at least any benefits it offers are when you’re already an elite athlete doing everything else and you’re looking to eke out the last few fractions of a percent of gains.
Is eating less than 3 hours before sleep causing you any problems? It’s maybe not optimal but I do it frequently with no issues as long as the meal isn’t too large.
And if the goal is general health and fitness you likely don’t even need to do as long as 1 hour of training. Can cut it down to 30 minutes if it enables the rest of your busy life to work better, then maybe go longer at the weekends if you have time. If that improves your consistency, sleep, eating, etc then long term it’s likely better.
Ironically I’m not really concentrating on a calorie deficit and that’s not the reason behind the IF. Been reading about IF and there is a consensus its the timings of food that play a role in long term health benefits and even consuming the same calories intake but within the 8-10 hour window has healthier results.
Been dealing with gimmick diets most of my life being a vegetarian for over 36 years My diet is reasonably healthy and if crisps didn’t exist ( chips for ya’all in the states) it would be a whole lot better.
@cartsman I’m being honest I haven’t had any detrimental effects to my sleep, no more than training late has anyhow, but trying to optimise life as if that were possible.
Given that you appear to be spending ~11 hours a day out at work I would say the rest of your life is likely in top few percent of optimal compared to other normal people with full time jobs! So wouldn’t worry too much. Fitting in exercise, dog walking, stretching, time with the wife and a decent night’s sleep is pretty good going. Now if you have the option to do shorter hours, exercise at lunch break, work from home a couple of days a week and eliminate the travel time, or cycle to work to turn that travel time into exercise time you might fit more in. But as long as you’re working around that 11 hour block I think you’re doing a great job of it already.
I second @wooger’s opinion, it seems to me intermittent fasting is not a good fit for your. When it comes to exercise and diets, many roads lead to Rome.
I never said there is no one saying there are benefits. I said that saying there is consensus that doing IF is healthier than not doing IF is a stretch. Basing your whole life on this misconception isn’t something I would recommend. There was nothing at all ad hominem in my statement. In fact, I’d argue that you’re the one who attacked someone, not me. And no, I don’t listen to Huberman or Attia or any of those people. I kind of assumed OP did though, which is why I used the word “influenced”, so my bad if I’m wrong there.
I do agree with a lot of the rest of what you’ve said though.
@wintermute many thanks for the considered response and good to hear from someone who is following a similar diet structure. I will take an in depth look over but initial thoughts we are on a very similar thought process. I think you maybe more focused than I, I still slip into bad habits with unhealthy foods.
@Pbase as has been said we are all influenced one way or another throughout life but in this case I looked over peer reviewed papers and not the podcasts your referred to, not heard of Huberman or Attia so none the wiser. I appreciate may have used consensus a tad strong.
Yeah, my apologies for not being clearer when using “influenced” in a sentence. It’s something my friends and I do to reference when people take something to be “generally accepted fact” because all the influencers are talking about it or it’s the “in” thing. Based on the feedback I’m getting, it’s clearly not as widely used as I assumed.
I’ve done some IF in the past to lose weight, and it worked for that, but my morning workouts suffered as a result, so I don’t do it any more. I was not criticizing the concept of IF, rather trying to say there is not consensus that IF is healthier than other types of eating in all cases.
I should have been clearer and elaborated on my point.
I’m a normal people and my solution was to abandon IF after trying to make it work for way too long. It was forcing me to adjust my life around a diet rather than adjust my diet around my life. I’ll eat on weekday mornings when I feel hungry, so it depends what I did the evening before. It can be between 8 and 10AM. Weekend mornings are dependent on what I plan on doing that day. I try to finish eating before 9PM (asleep between 10 and 10:30), but I’m sometimes not finished with a ride or workout until around then, so I’ll have a protein drink later than proscribed by a diet schedule. It’s not optimal, but it’s the only option that’s compatible with my life at this stage. I do count calories pretty consistently (I weigh almost every home meal, for instance), but it’s less about weight loss at this point than it is about making sure I’m eating enough. It also serves as a pretty good reminder to go easy on the junk food. I also like tracking numbers, so it works well for me.
You have to find what works for you and your daily routine, even if it violates some popular protocols for “best practice”. Listen to your body, it’ll be a better indicator of what you need and what works for you.
Is there a paper that recaps the current thinking?
I went down the IF/TRE road five years ago reading Fung’s book and others. I read the research available at the time and the chief mechanism of action seemed to be less calories in because of a shorter feeding window.
IME, doing such a program makes you think about food much more consciously all day since you are doing more planning. It also eliminated a lot of snacking.
Anyway, I’m asking because @wintermute said they were up on the science and the last time I looked, which was like 7 years ago the conclusion, was ‘less calories coming in’ because of the restricted eating window.
I know someone who implemented a 12 hour window and lost an enormous amount of weight. It surprises as 12 hours isn’t that short. When i tried TRE, I did not lose weight.
I was under the impression that IF led to worse outcomes than regularly spaced food consumption, given the same calorie deficit, since it creates starvation windows that lead to your body breaking down muscle for energy.
Bodybuilders will take this to the extreme, and eat protein every 3 hours in a cutting phase…but successful bodybuilders are probably the most disciplined people in the world when it comes to nutrition.
Don’t give up, @wintermute shared some good advice.
I’ve effectively followed IF since 2010, and although I’m not spending too much time cycling I’ve spent most of those years (since 2010) weight training. Fuelling appropriately is as applicable for strength training as it is for cycling in my opinion.
Most of these years I’ve started my eating window at noon and my experience tells me that you’ll adjust quickly to starting off your day in a fasted state. Some people argue you can ingest BCAA/EAA’s a few times until noon but I haven’t done so since 2014, not sure to what detriment. I only drink black coffee.
I became a father two years ago and decided to join my wife for breakfast and later on our kiddo, more as to socialize and play a somewhat active role in their morning rather than drinking an espresso and reading the news it’s led me to actually shift my entire eating window to the morning and I’ve found this to work well. I eat a carb rich breakfast and lunch and find it always keeps me fuelled throughout the day.
since you’re used to waking up early, would there not be an opportunity to do your workouts before work and have your wife supporting with dog duties on training days? You could walk the dogs before sleep, which could become a relaxing routine free of stress. This might also match your weekend rides assuming they happen before noon rather than later in the day?
I’ve tried to keep my evenings free of activities and more focused toward family or recreational tasks and it’s (mostly) working out well. The occasional gym workout when the day doesn’t go to plan.
I’m guessing that most athletes on this board would not try to do, for example, a 5/2 IF schedule (5 days of eating / 2 days of fasting). You’d be fasting on recovery days and probably be a wreck or at least kill your gains and recovery.
I agree, but I get it. Even though everyone I know calls it IF, he’s a doctor and he’s being a stickler for strict definitions. I don’t know if he’s right or not, but I do know that most everyone in the general public is going to still call it IF.
It’s kind of like when one of the dentists on here posts about how consuming ANY sugar is bad for the teeth. I get it, but it’s not really something the average person is going to consider.
My diet is reasonably healthy and if crisps didn’t exist ( chips for ya’all in the states) it would be a whole lot better.