Paciv1 's Journal, 19 September 2014

I personally wouldn't recommend doing that 5:2 diet if that's what you're doing. you'll put your body into starvation mode. It's up to you of course. If your serious about fat loss check out burn the fat feed the muscle by Tom Venuto, get the audio book it's very informative or anything by Michael Matthews. I'm a qualified PT so when clients come to me i adjust their macro nutrients to around 40-40-20 for males and 35-35-30 for females, by that i mean carbs-protein-(good)fats in percentage of total calories, and then divide over 5-6 meals. Every one of my clients lose up to 2lbs per week this way. But if you insist on the 5:2 then good luck with it, it'll be tough.  

Hi Leonski3, are you sure about the starvation mode thing? Cos I heard that that (lowered metabolism & tendency to store carbs as fat) doesn't kick in until about the 3rd day when all your glycogen stocks has run out?? 

Starvation mode does not happen if you cut your calories for a day. 

Intermittent fasting, which is what you are doing right? Is a natural state, high cals one day or several days, then really low cal days, keeps your metabolism guessing. If you can get into the groove then great. I have been having a go myself, nothing to eat after lunch, until lunch the following day works for me. It's only recently we humans have been having 3 meals a day. It's a trial and error exercise, whatever works for your body or lifestyle.  

Intermittent fasting, which is what you are doing right? Is a natural state, high cals one day or several days, then really low cal days, keeps your metabolism guessing. If you can get into the groove then great. I have been having a go myself, nothing to eat after lunch, until lunch the following day works for me. It's only recently we humans have been having 3 meals a day. It's a trial and error exercise, whatever works for your body or lifestyle.  

Hello Ebivr, If one was to strictly just diet to deplete glycogen by having less than 20% of total daily calories(given that the daily calories are still in deficit), it would take a VERY long time for them to deplete their glycogen. There are some parts of your body where they can store glycogen independent of insulin. So it's always better to exercise while dieting to speed this up. Just remember that your body is always trying to evaluate and adapt to how much energy you’re taking in (calories and macro-nutrients) vs. how much energy your expending (burning off). Remember, the minute your body thinks you’re on a diet, it will do anything and everything it can to hold on to as much fat as possible because it knows you’re going into starvation mode. Your brain will send the rest of your body a signal to conserve energy for the coming dry spell. That means it shuts down body temperature, reduces the absorption rate of food, and slows down your metabolism, all with the intention of storing more fat so it will have plenty of energy “just in case.” So when you restrict your calories too much the body will burn the fastest energy it can, which will be muscle first. The body will thinks that by reducing muscle it will no longer have to maintain it but if you give the body no excuse to hold on to fat then it will release it as energy. This is one of the main reason people become "fat skinny", this means they do get lighter because of the loss of lean body mass, but the body fat percentage stays the same. I get this situation all the time from new clients. Instead of wasting time on extreme caloric restriction just calculate your total daily expenditure (TDE) and initially reduce that number by 500, if results are slow, reduce further but 100 or 200. But go no further -1000 of (TDE) This is EXACTLY what sports professionals do.  

Well, it is working for me so far, i started at 117 kgs 3 weeks ago, i am now at 111 kgs, i exercise no most day either swimming or cycling, and the fast days are fine, even though i am a chef. With a TDE of 2700, it is alot easier cutting out the calories. I'll stick with it for now and see how it goes, cheers. 

I would die... 

Way to go!