Intermittent Fasting Protocols and Muscle Sparing

[madyogi Moderator Member of the Month April 2020PEGym Hero Find all posts View Profile Close madyogi]

There is greaat info here for the other thread have you posted to that ?

Yeah, I know. I haven't synthesized it for that specific purpose yet, but will try to soon.

[madyogi Moderator Member of the Month April 2020PEGym Hero Find all posts View Profile Close madyogi]

Umm you do realise that not only does "fruit veg blend" contain calories but so bcaa's . Look it up if you do not believe me . So this becomes a very low calorie diet because bcaa's have calories . One could make the argument that the calories are so low it is effectively the same thing but hmm.

Yes, I already posted something very similar (post #35), so we're tracking the same lines here.

[Pegasus AdministratorPE Gym EditorPEGym Hero ☺ Admin of the Month Mar 2015 Find all posts View Profile Close Pegasus]

More to the point you should be able to do ANYTHING you want especially when calculating optimal methods to achieve goals..

If that includes supplementing crucial nutrients during these fasting periods i don't see the point in arguing semantics..

If i were to make my own IF diet i would never purposely leave out crucial nutrients if it were necessary.
(Or any diet)

As i said this fad is youngish and is open to interpretation..
Simply arguing "but this is against the rules" (Of which there are none) Does not invalidate the core of an IF regime..

Like I said by all means do this and find the most effective method . Thing is though that a fast by definition contains no calories .

As both bcaa's and "fruit veg blend" contain calories this is no longer a fast .

I suggest you call it modified fast or very low calorie diet . As you say somewhat semantic.

I am liking the info on general benifits particularly on blood sugar .

[madyogi Moderator Member of the Month April 2020PEGym Hero Find all posts View Profile Close madyogi]

Like I said by all means do this and find the most effective method . Thing is though that a fast by definition contains no calories .

As both bcaa's and "fruit veg blend" contain calories this is no longer a fast .

To be fair, I think the bcaa's piece is still up for debate. My feeling is there is probably some metabolic function related to breaking down calories from, say 1 g of constructed protein from chicken breast, that isn't involved in 1 g of bcaa's, but that's just a feeling at this point.

The fruit/veg powder thing is probably the same as a smoothie.

Whatever, we're getting somewhere good here, so thanks for hanging in there, guys!

[closed297 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close closed297]

Like I said by all means do this and find the most effective method .

Now that's some great advice

[madyogi Moderator Member of the Month April 2020PEGym Hero Find all posts View Profile Close madyogi]

Okay, so two links for today, just to close the loop on the bcaa subject.

• Do BCAA (Branched Chain Amino Acids) Break Intermittent Fasting?
• Do BCAAs Spike Insulin? The Answer Here Is Not What You Have Read Elsewhere

The short of it all is that Peg is right. In the most technical sense, taking BCAAs is ingesting macro-nutrients, and doing so is breaking the fast, but only in a very minor, technical sense. The reality is that BCAAs do cause a slight insulin response, but one that is dramatically less than the increase caused by taking glucose and only slightly more than just drinking water.

So, it appears if we are interested in finding the best IF protocol possible, one that will preserve the potential benefits of spending more time in the fasted state while catabolizing structural protein as little as possible, supplementing with BCAAs on fast days could be part of that protocol.

Hopefully more soon on the Water Fast study and the concept of positive nitrogen balance.

[madyogi Moderator Member of the Month April 2020PEGym Hero Find all posts View Profile Close madyogi]

So, Peg put a graph in Post #10 of this thread, which was taken from a blog post based on a very interesting study. I tracked down the study, and I'm going to get really nerdy in order to break down what it means.


First off, we need to learn a bit of physiology. In the absence of incoming energy sources (ie, calories from food or drink), to keep running the body will use up whatever easily accessible stores of carbohydrate (various forms of sugar) it has available (usually in the form of glycogen from muscle and liver tissue). Then the body will enter what is known as a catabolic state, in which it begins to generate energy by breaking down its own tissues. This includes fat, muscle, and organ tissue. The study in question was specifically interested in why people (particularly obese people) die of starvation. The hypothesis is that the body essentially runs out of muscle tissue to catabolize, even while fat is still available. Somehow the energy gained from protein metabolism is more critical to survival under starvation circumstances than the energy gained from fat metabolism. That investigation is interesting enough in itself, but that's not what's most applicable to our current discussion.


Each of these metabolic pathways to energy (via fat and via muscle) generates its own byproducts. As protein is metabolized, nitrogen is its byproduct, and that nitrogen is excreted in the urine at a predictable rate. So this study used urine urea nitrogen levels to measure the degree of protein breakdown in the participants. Grams of nitrogen in urine can be converted to grams of protein broken down at a rate of 1g nitrogen to 5.57g protein. That is roughly how the graph posted by Peg was generated. So on Day 1 of that graph the urinalysis indicates 69g of structural protein was broken down for energy. What we don't see in that graph is that the urinalysis on Day 0 of this study indicates 34g of structural protein was broken down for energy. This is a super interesting fact that I'll return to in a minute, but first I'll say a bit more about the results of the study.


It ultimately concluded that during a 21-day water fast, participants lost an average of ~12 kg (~26 lbs), split evenly between fat-free mass (muscle) and fat mass. So, this should really put to rest any advocacy for long-term fasting as a means of healthy weight loss. Sure, you can lose a lot of weight quickly, but it's a very unintelligent and potentially dangerous way to do so. The study summarizes its findings by saying, "The data suggest that morbidly obese persons subjected to prolonged periods of starvation can die from protein depletion because there is constitutive amino acid oxidation for energy production, which can lead to depletion of vital proteins before the huge fat stores are consumed."


Now that we've established that, what might this study say about Intermittent Fasting?

Well, the fact that Day 0 (following a night's sleep after the last normal feeding day) showed enough urinary nitrogen to account for 34g of structural protein loss shows that humans shed a decent amount of structural protein as a matter of everyday living. Therefore, this notion that the subjects of this study shed the most structural protein (69g) after Day 1 might not be as scary as it sounds. These patients were morbidly obese, and the only exercise they got was taking shorts walks around the clinic in which they were confined. Hardly your average person trying to use intermittent fasting to lose a 20 pounds while staying active.


The truth is, human bodies are constantly recycling themselves, so a certain amount of tissue of all kinds is shed and regenerated every day. We tend to think in terms of calories in and calories out, or pounds on the scale from one day to the next, but bodies are more dynamic than equations. Equations are beautiful, and they approximate reality in a way that makes it easier to comprehend, but the map ain't the territory, folks.


That's all I have time/energy to say at the moment. Hopefully I'll get to a detailed discussion of positive nitrogen balance and tie that back to this study and the stuff about BCAAs in the near future.

[closed297 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close closed297]

Can you look into creatine as well please

I'd love to know if creatine would be considered "against the rules"

And if it is can you find another suitable source of quick energy to compensate for pre workout..

Asking as i specifically have added in the past from people who insisted on IF as a suitable pre workout (although i prefer egg whites when not in IF)

This was my non educated reference..

Serving Size 1 tsp

Amount Per Serving

Calories 0 Calories from Fat 0

% Daily Value*

Total Fat 0g 0%

Saturated Fat 0g 0%

Trans Fat 0g

Cholesterol 0mg 0%

Sodium 0mg 0%

Potassium 0mg 0%

Total Carbohydrate 0g 0%

Dietary Fiber 0g 0%

Sugars 0g

Protein 0g 0%

Vitamin A 0% • Vitamin C 0% Calcium 0% • Iron 0%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.

Additional Serving Size Recommendations

Serving Size 5 grams

Amount Per Serving

Calories 0 Calories from Fat 0

% Daily Value*

Total Fat 0g 0%

Saturated Fat 0g 0%

Trans Fat 0g

Cholesterol 0mg 0%

Sodium 0mg 0%

Potassium 0mg 0%

Total Carbohydrate 0g 0%

Dietary Fiber 0g 0%

Sugars 0g

Protein 0g 0%

Vitamin A 0% • Vitamin C 0% Calcium 0% • Iron 0%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.

[Pegasus AdministratorPE Gym EditorPEGym Hero ☺ Admin of the Month Mar 2015 Find all posts View Profile Close Pegasus]

The semantics are taken care of by calling it a modified fast .

Yogi and I have been talking by pm about the amount of rise in blood sugar that would be caused and any possible downside .

[closed297 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close closed297]

Yogi and I have been talking by pm about the amount of rise in blood sugar that would be caused and any possible downside .

Do you mean glucose levels?

[Pegasus AdministratorPE Gym EditorPEGym Hero ☺ Admin of the Month Mar 2015 Find all posts View Profile Close Pegasus]

Yes the amount of glucose carries in the blood.

[Pegasus AdministratorPE Gym EditorPEGym Hero ☺ Admin of the Month Mar 2015 Find all posts View Profile Close Pegasus]

Yogi seems to feel the rise would be minimal.

[closed297 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close closed297]

Yogi seems to feel the rise would be minimal.

I don't doubt that..
As a general rule their both safe to give to a type 2 diabetic..(obviously looking to lower their glucose levels)

Also yogi after this research.. make a diet program including a IF protocol we can all follow to see if results vary (i'm the perfect candidate as i have type 2 diabetes)

[not2big Senior Super ModeratorPEGym Hero Find all posts View Profile Close not2big]

I don’t eat between breakfast (9:00 am) and dinner (6:00 pm) is that considered intermitant fasting?

[Pegasus AdministratorPE Gym EditorPEGym Hero ☺ Admin of the Month Mar 2015 Find all posts View Profile Close Pegasus]

It is not quite long enough but dinner to breaky might be