How can I gain muscle? It’s probably the first question that every gymgoer asks when they first...
Background
Intermittent fasting involves the shortening of an eating window during a day. Simple. A commonly used method is 12pm-8pm, where one has their first meal around midday and stops eating at 8pm.
There are number of reasons why people carry out intermittent fasting. A common approach is that the shortening of the window is helpful for weight lost and prevents snacking as all of the larger meals have to be consumed in this time, the following 16 hour period of fast causes the body to utilise the calories consumed and then burn the fat stores in the body, resulting in a reduction in body fat.
Others find that the delayed morning eating resulting in better sustained energy throughout the day and the early end time then results in better sleep, they both go hand-in-hand. The sleep improvement is as a result of the food consumed being fully digested by the time one goes to sleep and thus your body isn’t working to digest food at night. This causes a lower heart rate during sleep and improved rest and recovery.
My Experience
So now that the background is covered, I’ll approach it from my own personal experience with fasting. I’ve been carrying out a form of fasting in one sense or another for the past year. I slowly began increasing the time between waking up and my first meal and have found that for waking up at 5.30/6am, my preferred time to have a snack is around 11.30am in the form of fruit. Then at about 12.30pm I’ll have my first full meal whether that be eggs and meat or more fruit with peanut butter, yoghurt and honey.
Usually, my eating period will extend later into the evening and I’ll stop at around 9pm. I find this method is great for me as it allows me to consume enough food to fuel my workouts and put on muscle mass (for context I’m 6’2 and 108kg). Throughout the year I’ve gone from 97kg to 108kg of relatively lean mass and I’ll attribute a lot of this to my fasting. Currently I’m attempting to cut back on some of that excess body fat that has come with the additional weight and am strictly limiting myself to an 11.30am-8pm window with 2 large meals consumed in this time along with snacks of fruit, nuts and dark chocolate.
The sustained energy and mental focus improvements I’ve experienced since fasting have been very noticeable. Up until my first meal I never feel groggy or tired in the mornings and my ability to focus on work has improved. Beyond this, into the later afternoon I don’t feel a crash and have energy to carry out activities in the evening as opposed to sitting down and not wanting to move.
From a muscle building point-of-view, I’ve seen improved muscle gain over the last year. I work out in the morning before I go to work so I always end up working out fasted with no caffeine. I’m not sure on the science behind this, if there’s a reason why this happens, but I think the mixture of both consuming a calorie surplus and also maintaining a lengthened fasted period helps me to add muscle also burn fat stores during the fast. Alongside this, working out fasted may help me to dip into my fat stores during and post-workout for energy. Again, this is all speculation but just how I’ve experienced fasting.
I’d highly recommend giving it a go, even if just for the energy boost throughout the day.
If anyone has any questions feel free to ask!
Jack.
