Since my ‘research’ is ongoing, I’ll post updated versions of this post as I formulate my plan. At the top of each post, I’ll list the changes I plan to implement, updating them if I drop them or find new info that sways me to change my mind. Please keep in mind that this is a ‘working’ document. There are bound to be statements here that could be contradicted in other parts of the document.
10.21.21
THINGS TO CONSIDER …
- Focus on metabolic flexibility
- Change primary diet to keto-Carnivore Hybrid and eventually work carb re-feeds back into the mix
- If eating primarily fat + protein, your body will tell you when you’ve eaten enough. You will not need to track calories FALSE? I initially became interested in carnivore due to the lack of calorie tracking needed. This idea primarily came from multiple posts on Facebook as well as a Dr. Fung video talking about how calories in/calories out (CICO) and calorie daily restriction are not effective long term strategies. It seems that not tracking will work to a certain point, but may not get me all the way to where I want to be (10% bodyfat).
- Right now, I’m planning to got keto for a few weeks to see if it will help me get through this plateau. If/when that happens, I’ll work on adding carb re-feeds.
- Don’t think of IF as a diet, but instead think of it as a timing tool. Ultimately IF shouldn’t be primarily used to restrict calories.
- Reduce fasting to only 3-4 days per week. Complete one long fast per week (36-48 hrs), in addition to two or three 18:6 fasts.
- On non-fasting days, you want your body to think there’s no ‘shortage’ of food. Work out early and eat big.
- Longterm, your body will adjust to chronic caloric restriction. It is more effective to add longer fasting periods and eat more freely during other periods (Fung, [LINK NEEDED]. Overall to lose weight, there needs to be a calorie deficit, but it’s better to think of this deficit over a longer period (a week vs. 24 hours, Delauer, [LINK NEEDED]. Considering these two statements together, it seems that you could eat at your TDEE for 6 days and on day 7 fast for 24 hours and lose weight. If in ketosis, your body should use stored (visceral + subcutaneous) body fat as a fuel source, resulting in fat loss.
- No snacking during eating window— consolidate consumption into 2-3 meals so that insulin level has a chance to rise and fall again between meals
- I’m a chronic snacker, once my eating window starts, I essentially eat non-stop. This will be a tough change for me.
- Stop eating by 6pm
- This will be another tough one for me
- Since I was a child, I’ve always gone to bed with a full stomach, essentially eating a meal right be bed.
- Conflicting info – Delauer says to stop eating by 6pm, but in his “fasting over 40” video he says to eat until 8 or 9.
- This will be another tough one for me
- Break Fast Meal – most say that this meal, especially being post-workout, should be primarily lean protein. Delauer also states that there are advantages to eating the majority of your fat earlier in the day; I’m not sure how to navigate this…
- Work towards elimination ‘dirty’ keto from intake
- Minimize/eliminate sucralose intake —while sucralose (in liquid form ) is typically viewed as fasting/keto safe, it messes with gut microbiome
- Omega 6
PLAN IN ACTION (so far)
- Week 1 (09.26 — 10.02.21)
- Work towards eliminating carbs from diet
- Not tracking kCals
- Loosely tracking protein intake (goal ~200 grams/day)
- Stats:
- weight: 180.2
- waist: 34.3
- fat fold: 6.583
- Week 2 (10.03 — 10.09.21)
- Cutting down on sucralose, aceK + aspartame intake – replacing with stevia and monk fruit
- 40 hour fast, Sunday night through Tuesday
- Likely way overcompensated on several ‘eating’ days. May need to fast most days.
- Binged on all the carbs Saturday night
- Stats:
- weight: 181.4
- waist: 34.375
- fat fold: 6.500
- Week 3 (10.10 — 10.16.21)
- No long fast — tried a couple of days but ultimately gave in between 6pm + 8pm
- Nearly switched back to LeanGains after ‘stats’ made a big jump in the wrong direction.
- Stats:
- weight: 185.5
- waist: 34.9
- fat fold: 7.000
- Week 4 (10.17 — 10.23.21)
- 36 hour fast, 8pm Monday through 8am Tuesday
- Trying to finish eating by 6pm most days
- Adding HIIT with 3 early morning workouts
- Started quick reference spreadsheet for clean keto friendly foods
- Started eliminated dirty keto foods
- Journaling behaviors (ie times: start fast, break fast, workout) to better help understand what works or does not work
- Stats seem to be headed in the right direction again. Stats:
- weight: 183.0
- waist: 34.75
- fat fold: 6.917
RESOURCES
- Mountain Wellness Podcast
Corey Reed Michael Maina - Thomas DeLauer
NOTES: I saw this on Facebook right after I published this post. It’s honestly confused me as the meal timing outlined below contradicts much of what I’ve seen in his videos. Ironically, the timing is quite close to what I was doing before I decided to make changes based on his recommendations!- Example Week (Workouts and Diet)
- Monday:
- Full Body Strength Training with lower body emphasis (lower rep range, higher intensity on legs), 3x Sets per Muscle group with 45 second rest periods. 20 Mins HIIT bike, sprints, battle ropes or rowe
- Intermittent Fasting Day – Train in the morning about 5 hours prior to breaking my fast. Total calories around 2700
- Tuesday:
- Longer Distance Cardio. 5-8 mile run or 60 mins bike at 65-70% MHR
- Higher Fat, Low Carb diet day. Eat immediately after running to stop catabolic response. Total calories around 3,000
- Wednesday:
- BFR Training – Blood flow restriction training. Upper body – shoulder press 30 reps x4 with 30 sec rest, Gorilla Rows 30r x4 w/ 30 sec rest, Alternating Bicep Curls 30r x4, overhead dumbbell tricep extension 30r x4 (20 mins total) THEN BFR LEGS – 30r goblet squats 4x sets 20 sec rest, Bulgarian squats 4x sets 30 reps. Follow Up with 20-30 mins functional HIIT at 70% intensity
- 16-18 Hour Fasting Day, eating 5-6 hours after workout. Total 2900ish calories (note I don’t really track anymore)
- Thursday
- OFF – still aim for 15,000 steps on an off day, just much more casual.
- Non fasting keto day, approx 2800 cals. Yep I eat more on non training days to bolster recovery.
- Friday
- 3-4 Mile Run fasted + Full Body 3x sets per muscle group with focus on upper body moves (higher intensity with upper body here). 60 second rest between moves. I also weekly Periodize if I want to focus more on posterior or anterior chain.
- Non Fasting Day – apx 3,000 calories, veggie day. Try to cycle days where I add more veggies just to switch it up.
- Saturday:
- Full Body HIIT style (think CrossFit style but with more strategy and periodization in terms of progressive overload). Example would be lots of thruster like movements, Olympic lifts, high intensity cardio – burpees etc. Finish with 20 mins low intensity cardio.
- Usually a longer Fasting Day like 20 hours.
- Sunday
- Hike, Beach, Walk, maybe jog. Usually aim for active recovery about 15-20k steps. Focus on skill training training to keep it fun. Sports etc.
- Non fasting day and usually have it pretty relaxed with diet. If keto, maybe dirty keto
- Monday:
- Example Week (Workouts and Diet)
09.26.21
I have been kinda stalling around 180 lbs — I’ll dip below for a bit, but can’t stay there consistently. I’ve run across a few different videos and serendipitously had some random conversations with have prompted some thinking and research. Here are some changes I’d like to implement.
THINGS TO CONSIDER …
- Focus on metabolic flexibility
- On average, only fast 3-4 days per week. Complete one long fast per week (Sun-Tues, 36-48 hrs), with 2-3 IF style fasts. Fasting ‘shifts’ should be … shifted … if you fast every day.
- Change primary diet to Keto-Carnivore Hybrid
- If eating primarily fat + protein, your body will tell you when you’ve eaten enough. You will not need to track calories
RESOURCES
Here are the videos that I got some of these ideas from
- These 17 Things are MY Rules for Fat Loss (& Keeping it Off) | Thomas DeLauer
- no coffee for 30 – 60 minutes when waking.
- train fasted.
- use a sauna or hot bath
- ONLY fast 18 – 24 hours, 2-3 x per week
- big breakfast on non fasting days, less with next meals
- clean keto calorie surplus days
- stop eating at 6:30 pm
- breathing exercises
- cold bath or shower
- full body workout routines
- hiit training
- bfr training
- small amount fructose, glucose, protein
- red light therapy
- limit mixing fats and carbs
- supplements magnesium, electrolytes, fish oil, non, lions name, q10, probiotic
- ACV
- What Carbs I Eat When I Am NOT on Keto | Thomas DeLauer
- Chickpeas
- Lentils red/green
- Sweet potatoes
- pre workout -Red potatoes
- post workout -Cassava
- as a snack, later on a day -Berries–> blue and black
- Coconut sugar and flower
- Building Muscle Over Age 40 – Complete How-to Guide | Thomas DeLauer
- Protein requirement – harder time utilizes protein, so need to consume ~30% more.
-
- 170 lbs (goal weight) x 1.3 = 220 gram
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- Need higher volume but less intensity
- Train fasted increases autophagy, burns more fat,
- Best time to work out – at the end of the fast in the afternoon
- Only fast 3 days per week
- Save fasted workouts for biggest workouts of the week
- Omega-3 post-workout
- TUT important
- Consume foods that:
- induce autophagy
- green tea
- ginger
- curcumin
- reishi mushroom
- induce leptin spike
- ACV
- induce autophagy
- Supplement with Vitamin D
- Protein requirement – harder time utilizes protein, so need to consume ~30% more.
- Over Age 40 Fasting Mistakes to Avoid | Thomas DeLauer
- Intermittent Fasting over Age 40 : The Complete Guide | Thomas DeLauer
- You should fast for 20-hours at 3-4 times per week every other day; rather than an 8-hour fast for 7 days a week. In other words, have a long fast with restricted calories one day, and the next day have a day of a regular calorie intake. Longer fasts have a higher anti-ageing (telomere length) affect. At 40+ years old, with fasting every day and restricting calories every day, you have more of a potential to slow down your metabolism. And HGH increases really come into play with longer-term fasts and HGH is increasingly important as you get older.
- What you can have during the fast: water; black coffee; black tea; green tea (this goes for every age group).
- Increase your sodium level with salt. This makes sure you get the benefits of fasting at 40+ and helps prevent you feeling fatigued and stiff during your fast. Use high-quality salt, for example, Himalayan pink salt, Celtic sea salt, Redmond real salt (not regular iodized salt). Have one teaspoon of salt per half-gallon of water.
- Keep your caffeine intakes to the morning only. You’ll avoid adrenal fatigue. You’ll get better results and you’ll feel better.
- Train in the morning in a fasted state – you’ll get a lot more benefit for working out in this state because you’ll burn 2-3 times more intramyocellular lipids (fat droplets next to you muscle fibers). The benefits for 40+ people are that you can do lower intensity workouts for the same effect and help preserve your body and recover more easily.
- Avoid vitamins and supplements especially antioxidants during the fast. They negate the effect of your fasting.
- Break your fast with a smaller meal, lean and high in protein. This is a psychological thing that helps you from raiding the fridge. And then have a larger meal 1-2 hours (or even 3 hours) later. For 40+ people, you want to break your fast with a meal higher in protein because of muscle atrophy. When breaking your fast, eat 25-35% of your body weight (in pounds) in grams of protein. Recommend to keeping it just lean protein. When you have your main meal later, you can eat a regular meal as you’ve had your protein.
- Pay closer attention to prebiotic fibers. You can get them from vegetables such as asparagus, artichokes bok choy and cabbage. It feeds the good gut bacteria. You can introduce these in your second meal. Artichokes especially promote bile salts or bile activity (which reduce when fasting – and when this activity reduces, it’s harder to digest fats).
- On your fasting days, avoid grains (e.g. rice, barley, corn, rye, quinoa – even the so-called healthy grains) – because of their wheat germs agglutinins, or WGAs). The WGAs can cause leaky gut and you’re more sensitive to it on fasting days. This can be very unhealthy and unpleasant, and you won’t know it until you take them away and realize how good you feel. Some of the starches and carbs you can get away with are potatoes (red or white), sweet potatoes, parsnips, beetroot, cassava, plantains…
- Switch your proteins out. Don’t have the same protein every day. This will give you a diverse bacterium in your gut. If you usually do whey protein, try a pea protein; if you usually do chicken, try to go for beef. Try to switch it up as much as you can.
- Consume more saturated fats. [Sugar and stress are the result of inflammations and blockages, not saturated fats.] Saturated fats are good for myelin – critical for nerve signaling.
- There are lots of little things you can eat, for example, seaweed, to get iodine (critical for your thyroid).
- Keep supplements to a minimum. For a male, consume boron. You need 6-9 mg of boron per day. It helps you unlock bound up testosterone to make it free testosterone (most of the testosterone in our body, 98-99%, is bound-up and not usable in the body). It will help you get more muscle mass, more strength, more energy, more libido.
- For men and women, saw palmetto is great. For men, it gives prostrate support.
- Coenzyme Q10 – good for both men and women. It’s everything when it comes to energy. It’s recommended for everyone but especially if you’re over 40 years old, and even more so when you’re doing intermittent fasting. When you’re intermittent fasting, you’re consolidating eating windows, which means your body must become ruthlessly efficient at utilizing nutrients. Coenzyme Q10 helps take energy (in the form of electrons) from the food we’ve eaten and takes it to electron accepters within the cell. It takes you to that last mile. You don’t always have to take a supplement with Coenzyme Q10. If you do take a supplement, 300-600 mg of solid. If you want to get it without supplements, eat lots of fatty fish, for example, salmon and halibut, and organ meats, such as liver, kidney, and hearts. Additionally, broccoli, cauliflower and spinach are pretty high in Coenzyme Q10 (although nowhere near as high as the animal sources). On a side note, the broccoli gives anti-estrogen effect which is good for men and women over 40.
- Take a diet break. This isn’t the same as a cheat meal. This is even more important for any older population, for 35-year old plus people. When we diet, we have a severe decrease in our metabolism. It doesn’t take long to happen: 3-5 weeks, maybe 6 weeks. The metabolism slows as much as 28% when we reduce our calories. When we’re intermittent fasting, a lot of the benefits are coming from the change in hormonal changes and the different things we’re doing with growth hormones etc., but a lot of the benefits are coming from simple calorie restrictions. That means we’re not immune to this overall metabolic slowdown. One study took two groups of individuals: Group 1 did 16 weeks of continuous dieting; Group 2 did 16 weeks of dieting with a break every few weeks lasting for 1-2 weeks. Group 2 had significantly more muscle and significantly less body fat because the body had a chance to get the metabolism back up. The whole purpose of our metabolism is to preserve – our body sees we’re hurting; one cheat meal doesn’t solve the problem. Hence, we need to go back to 1-2 weeks of normal eating (not surplus eating!). Go 4-6 weeks with intermittent fasting aggressively, and then go 1-2 weeks of no fasting where you make sure you get back to a normal maintenance level. This will help prevent an obesity rebound.
