What does long fasting do for cyclists?

[Rainier]

Hello,

A week ago I saw a video on the benefits of long fasting, 24-72 hours.
All I heard tho was talk about how it benefits you when you do not do any exercise.
Does anyone here know what happens if you fast as a cyclist.
I know that doing this while training probably isn’t the best idea.
Just like doing it during a rest week.
But what I had in mind was doing a 24-48 hour fast at the end of a rest week when you are fully recovered. 48 hours should be about 5000 Kcal of 700-800 grams of fat that you burn.
Or I’ll try to do a 24-36 hour once a week and see what it does to my workouts.
Sadly I can’t find what it does for endurance athletes.

The goal for me with this is losing weight since I still got about 10 kg of fat that I want to get rid of before my hilly cycling vacation.

[onemanpeloton]

Since the benefits you’re seeking are weight loss AND performance, I’d recommend trying intermittent fasting. If you’re doing TR plans then that means you’re only going to be doing 1 fast every 6 weeks, unless you start having a knock-on effect on your training.

The key thing about this and other eating habits is they need to become a regular routine rather a diet. It needs to be a lifestyle. For me personally, I found that intermittent fasting, since I did it every day, was a lifestyle that was easy to adopt, whereas doing something once a week is much harder to maintain consistently over months and years.

The one thing I’ve learnt through experimentation is that general good, healthy habits that create a small but consistent calorie defecit are much easier to stick to and therefore more likely to be successful than other more faddy approaches such as fasting or strict diets.

[Rainier]

Well I get what you’re saying but what the long fasting is supposed to do beter is the decrease of muscle lose while in calorie deficit.
And as far as lifestyle goes. I’m willing to train 4 times a week and eat healthier but food discipline has always been a bitch for me. Eating les leafs a choice of what to eat and I miss use that. So not eating seems more doable.
I will try it at the end of this week. Sunday and Monday.
Here is the video I say btw.

Fasting and Muscle: How Long Term 1-2 Day Fasts BURN FAT but KEEP MUSCLE?

[trpnhntr]

@Rainier

The goal for me with this is losing weight since I still got about 10 kg of fat

Is this your only goal, or is it paired with another goal? Do you want to lose 10kg and maintain fitness? Lose 10kg and gain fitness? Simply lose 10kg?

Further, how far away is your cycling vacation? 6 days? 6 weeks? 6 months?

I think the answer to your question is different depending on what you are chasing and when you are trying to achieve it by

[Rainier]

Well losing fitness is never a goal so maintaining fitness or gaining fitness is the goal.
Vacation is now that I think of it in 6 weeks so 10kgs isn’t doable.

[trpnhntr]

@Rainier

Vacation is now that I think of it in 6 weeks so 10kgs isn’t doable.

Agreed.

I would go further and suggest that maintaining fitness while dropping weight is probably the goal you should aim for. Gaining fitness during weight loss is very challenging, particularly if you have struggled with your diet in the past and expect that to be a a tough hurdle for you to clear.

As @onemanpeloton mentioned - it is important to view diet changes as permanent and not as temporary solutions. If you want to use longer fasting as a technique by which you lose weight you should consider doing it on a consistent basis.

That said - I would gently steer you towards a better overall diet as opposed to any sort of fasting. Since you’ve mentioned that you struggle with self control an all or nothing approach like fasting will likely lead to you breaking down and binging at some point.

Instead I’d suggest that you introduce healthy foods that you enjoy in greater quantities over time. You can still have the unhealthy things, you just need to keep track of them. Whether this means you track your entire diet consistently using something like MyFitnessPal or a more casual approach is irrelevant (although - please consider doing 100% tracking including weighing your portions for 1-2 weeks just to get an idea of how much you’re consuming) if you can be honest with yourself about what you’re eating and where that is coming from.

Not only will this approach be more sustainable by the majority of people but it will also avoid the fast/binge paradigm that many ‘dieters’ end up following.

[cyclingrobin]

Just look at the thumbnail of that video and ask yourself if you honestly want to base a decision as severe as not eating for three days on that.

[T_Field]

If you want a deep dive into what happens with prolonged fasting, check out Rhonda Patrick’s presentations on the subject. 2 years ago I did a 4 day water fast. I had been doing a prolonged intermittent fast (6 wks) consisting of one meal/day prior to that. The 4 days were actually pretty miserable. I read you have to go 5 to 6 days before you completely convert to burning fats. I lost about 8 lbs (4 kg), but it all came back once I started eating. Weight loss was not my goal.

[ErickVH]

You’ve been intermittent fasting every day of your life, that’s what sleeping is.

Fuel your workouts either with complex carbs 2+ hours prior or simple carbs during. Eat at a small deficit, 200-400 kcal/day, for the rest of the day if you want to lose weight.

There’s no magic to any of this. Track your weight, track your intake. Make the number of calories going in slightly smaller than the number going out. Everything else is layers of bullshit to sell books.

[FatBoySlim]

The longest I’ve gone is 13 days fasted. Had no effect on my training. After 36 hours I felt great. But on the 13th day my family ordered pizza… I’m so weak… lol

[Shrike]

13 days!!

How does that work? You just don’t eat for 13 days, or you do eat a bit at certain times? Are you able to function at all?

[ErickVH]

I recently cut 7 lbs from 158 to 151 using calorie counting and TDEE calculators, while doing vo2 and threshold work. It’s pretty brain melting doing it for more than 3 months but it works. For maintenance using Endurance Diet techniques and ‘eating clean’ are going to be way more sustainable.

[Rainier]

How you state things you will never find anything new and that is not what I’d like to do here.
Questioning the common knowledge is what led to SKY dominating the sport.
Simple calorie counting is an effective but old methode.
What I tried to do with this tread is to ask, what if you let go of this and try this.

[Darbycurrie]

Sleep, on point and its SO MUCH EASIER.

[Shrike]

Going through MyFitnessPal seems to confirm this for me. I’ll calorie count for a month or three then stop. Repeat after a few months…

Just couldn’t see myself doing something like this daily. Bet most Pros don’t either. Maybe some people go full on and just eat the same thing daily so they can simply do a few swipes each day and have a pretty accurate calorie track for the year.

[simo]

Intermittent fasting + a well thought through keto. I went from 105kg mid-june, to 92-ish in less than a month, down to 82kg after 2m and half. (always weighed in the morning, fasted).

I used cronomoter to make sure I got all vitamin and mineral groups from my foods. A staple meal would be like a 400g steak (only grass-fed 0km), 100g broccoli, 50g brussel sprouts, any other small quantity of other variations. Avocado, a small punch of sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, 30-60g of fat nuts (like brazil nuts, macadamia). 2-6 eggs, some double cream because I love it. Some cheese, pref aged <lactose. Also made a lot of desserts/creams and indulged quite a lot. Ate till I was full, and more often than not the meat quantity was higher than that (because it’s just too good here).

Granted, I already had a good form, gym about 4 days a week, powerlifting but switched to more volume, pushups. Increased intensity a lot, shortened workouts. Bycicling quite a bit, sometimes 2-4 hour heavy runs. I get really hyped so I often do quick bouts of sprinting, end up using vast amounts of energy.

I lost an insane amount of weight, and got visible abs after less than a month (granted, I do dragon flags everyday). Energy levels to the sky, unending. Physical job too. Never in my life got even half as fit… it just took once done with the right intensity and eating right.

Even when I eat ‘‘wrong’’, I make sure I get at least most of the vit. and minerals from my foods (used 0 supplements, just cod liver oil, which i dont really consider a supplement… it’s oil from fish). I try to have more of minerals/salts if I bike for long/sweat a lot.

A lot of ‘‘cheat’’ days, but I guess with that amount of activity, quite a few extra net carbs can be allowed. Also, I never want to be in a deficit for too many days in a row, so had quite a few 8-10k calorie days (with all types of foods), to keep metabolism always sky high.

It seems that even with a heavy negative, great results are obtainable, with no supplements. Granted, it’s a lot of work at first to figure out the foods and quantities you need. But the effects are so gratifying you’ll be hooked on it if you do it right. A lot of common keto mistakes would make it unhealthy.

last one is 2 months after the first picture.

[ArHu74]

There is plenty of evidence for the health benefits of fasting and refeeding, fro. immune system rejuvenation to chemotherapy being less toxic (look on pubmed for the work of Valter Longo)

[ArHu74]

I did a 92h water fast once too, only the first 36h were miserable after that food really didn’t cross my mind but nowadays I just take an mtor-inhibitor, much easier

[jiffylush]

Congrats on your results!

[simo]

As an update, I’ve gone more ‘‘cheaty’’ on the keto, but it seems that once the ball is rolling it is still quite sustainable to cheat more often. I’m drinking a bit more often (not in the becoming an alcoholic sense!).

I am also very restless, not in the best mental spot. So physically that makes me use a vast amount of energy throughout the day, in addition to the workouts themselves. I think that may be the reason that in this moment it’s easy to maintain a good shape, even without an overly meticulous diet (although, if I eat ‘‘crap’’, i also always make sure to eat at least most of the nutrient stuff I would usually eat, on top of it).

It’s now been 5 months since I started the last big change (from the mid-end of june approx.). I’m shifting between 82-87kg mostly, even up to 90 with bloating from weekends. I’ve recently got a few cramps in my hamstrings, especially while… having fun in bed, hence I should increase my magnesium intake (from what I understand?). Meantime, I started supplementing some magnesium, not overly happy with it so far, doesn’t seem my stomach appreciates supplements as much as food. Never really believed in added vitamins, I try to take all from diet.

My knee feels pretty good, so I’ve started shadowboxing at home, and tried 2 days ago squats in strength again (after 2m+ break due to the knee problems). Surprisingly I haven’t lost too much strength, the intense bicycling/uphills kept a lot of the strength, not just the stamina.
A friend took pictures and I honestly never ever had a shape even remotely similar to this; I’m really happy about the results, and my belly is always full.

A bit fearful of the coming winter, where I wont be able to cycle as much (especially due to the very strong wind over here), while my appetite will always be excessive. But for the time being I’d like to brag!: