Intermittent Fasting and Interval Training

I'm trying to put together a schedule for eating and exercising and am having some problems. I'll need to workout from 6-8pm. After reading Mercola articles you want to eat protein within 30 minutes of working out and not eat a large meal for 2-3 hours after working out. This would put my large meal as late as 10 pm. I plan on going to bed by 11 so I can wake up around 7 am. My first meal of the day would be at least 16 hours after my late night meal. I can't exercise while fasting because of my schedule but I'll plan on trying it on the weekends.

"Break your fast with a recovery meal on workout days: On the days that you work out while fasting, you need to consume a recovery meal 30 minutes after your workout. Fast-assimilating whey protein is ideal. Then fast again until you eat your main meal at night. It's very important that you eat an appropriate recovery meal after your workout session, as this will prevent brain and muscle damage from occurring, so do NOT skip this meal. "

http://fitness.mercola.com/sites/fitness/archive/2012/11/02/interval-training-and-intermittent-fasting.aspx

This article says you should eat your large meal at night.
http://fitness.mercola.com/sites/fitness/archive/2012/09/14/intermittent-fasting-benefits.aspx

"So it's important to avoid carbs, especially sugar or fructose-containing foods, in the two hours after your workout, and this includes sports drinks, to be sure you're getting the full HGH benefits."

http://fitness.mercola.com/sites/fitness/archive/2013/02/01/whey-protein-improves-hgh.aspx

Then there is this thrown in with no references...
"Whatever times you choose, it will be very helpful to avoid having any food or calories for three hours prior to going to bed as this will minimize oxidative damage to your system and give your body a major jumpstart in intermittent fasting."

So, you can't eat for 2-3 hours after exercise and also not 3 hours before bed? I can't imagine eating before bed is that big of a deal and results in "oxidative damage" (especially if you eat antioxidants, veggies, fruit) but I'd like some other opinions.

Here is one rule I'd let guide you a little bit when taking diet/exercise advice from online docs or gurus: take any advice with a grain of salt if that person does not have the results you'd want for yourself. Now I'm sure the good doctor is healthy as a horse, but I by no means find him to be a fitness expert and he by no means trains for strength or muscle gain.

For a better perspective on intermittent fasting, I'd look at the blog LeanGains. He presents some good science and he has had pretty great results. He also has some good evidence of results for his followers.

Trying to maximize your GH is going to involve trade offs. First of all, you boost GH by limiting carb consumption after a workout. I'd imagine even just 30 minutes of restriction would provide some boost, and there would be diminishing returns for all of the time afterward. Where the maximum level is reached I'm not sure. But you also boost GH by fasting at all, hence the merit of the intermittent fasting diet. But if we tried maximizing both of these we'd end up eating one meal at 10 p.m. like you said and that isn't realistic for most. LeanGains has a few different plans for different lifestyles and as far as I'm concerned the optimal one involves one pre-workout meal. Obviously it isn't going to be a huge meal, but its something to fuel performance in the workout (fasted workouts are fucking awful, if fat loss is strictly your goal they're great, but any type of muscle gain/bulking requires higher performance).

So in your case you'd eat a small meal around 4:30 or 5:00 pm, workout at 6:00. Now, to me there is absolutely no sense in waiting 2-3 hours to eat carbs. You will get benefit from waiting an hour. Not to mention, the benefit of the fasting period is going to see you boost GH during the better part of the day. So let's say you get done exercising at 7:00 or 7:30. Have your huge meal at about 8:30. If you are done eating by 9:30 (might be later), and don't eat again until the following day at 5:00, that's 20 hours fasting. That's a smaller feeding window than most people do. Most people shoot for around 16-18 hours fasting, 6-8 hr feed window. So in your situation you could split your recovery meal into two large meals at around 8:30 and another at 10. Alternatively, you could have your pre-workout meal around 3:00 in the afternoon and keep your recovery meal as one huge one at 8:30. Use the guide at the site and it will explain how to break up the calories for the meals, but your macros are pretty much up to you, and I wouldn't limit your carb consumption by way too much. The very low carb diets aren't worth the fat loss they provide unless your bf% is dangerously high.

Again, tradeoffs. If you are trying to build muscle, which is probably a better metabolic investment in the long run, you definitely do not want to wait to replenish glycogen until 3 hours after a workout. You want to wait about a maximum of 1 hour, load up on simple sugars and protein. Utilize that period after intense exercise to maximize your insulin response and get all of that protein into the muscle. Starving them will not help with gains at all. Remember that GH is a preparatory hormone, there is a reason it is raised during stressful times like fasting. You don't want to gear your entire lifestyle to trying to maximize GH output. IF and intense resistance training/HIIT are stressful enough. When your workout is over and your feeding window arrives, really reward yourself. Its not feasible or healthy to restrict yourself all the time. That said, this really applies more to a work day (resistance day). If its a rest day and you are just doing HIIT, then you could probably get away with waiting a bit longer.

Cool, thanks. I think Mercola is basing his advice on other people's research and his own experience, but yeah, he's not an Olympic trainer or anything (although if you look up Michael Phelps' diet I'm not sure those guys even know what they are doing). So no real danger in eating right before bed then? Also, I know you want to avoid vitamin C around exercise correct? What about other antioxidants? Does that rule still apply? I'm thinking I'll wake up at 7, drink a green powder antioxidant drink, maybe take some supplements although I'm not sure if they should be taken with food only. I'll wait as long as I can before eating lunch. If I ate at 9 the night before I'll try to go until at least 1 pm, nothing too heavy, maybe some beans, peas, carrots, fruit and some lean protein or powder. I'll take a second round of supplements/antioxidants. Then eat another small meal a few hours later, maybe around 5. My workout will be around 6-8 depending on when I get home. It'll be lifting for upper body and core one day, interval training, maybe some leg lifts the next day. I'll take some protein within 30 minutes and eat a huge meal after 1-2 hours along with most of my supplements. I'll add in the fats: coconut oil, ghee, olive oil, avocado, some nuts and seeds and eat lower carb veggies like spinach and broccoli.

I'll try to get around 2000-2500 calories in, mostly carbs and protein for the first 2 meals and mostly fat for the last meals. A very high fat meal makes me tired. For the supplements I'm just focusing on the essential vitamins/minerals for now along with antioxidants that you could get from food. No herbs or anything that isn't essential like CoQ10. I'm not convinced your body doesn't just stop producing something on its own if you are supplementing. I know if I take Melatonin for a few days I have a much harder time falling asleep without it. Herbs can just be drugs so I'll avoid those for now also.

Normally I would eat breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack, then workout at 6-8, then eat a huge dinner right after so this changing it up. That is probably what the average person who works during the day and works out at night does and it's not bad but maybe they could get better results by timing their meals a little better.

ngb,

Are you strictly looking to boost hgh for hair and anti-aging purposes, building muscle or both?

TrueGround wrote:ngb,

Are you strictly looking to boost hgh for hair and anti-aging purposes, building muscle or both?

This isn't really for hair loss, hopefully it doesn't hurt anything. I guess if it's good for health it can't be bad for hair, right? I already lift weights and run and have done interval training over the years since I was in high school in the 90's. I usually just try not to eat 2 or 3 hours before a workout and eat right after if I want. I just read that you should get protein only within 30 minutes and hold off on eating for a couple hours. I guess if I'm not worried about hgh I could just eat right after. I'm going to experiment with fasting for insulin resistance. I read you can do oxidative damage if you eat before bed and should wait 3 hours so that kind of threw me off as well. I also remember reading about the vitamin c thing. There are just so many issues and you can go crazy if you try to get it perfect.

Yes, I'd avoid Vitamin C post-exercise. I'd take it in the morning prior to the workout and perhaps in the afternoon but not afterward. In that setting vitamin C can actually become oxidative.

I definitely wasn't trying to deride Mercola. I really like the guy and think he sends a good message, even if his products are way too damn expensive. But in terms of intermittent fasting, I think Marty at LeanGains has it right, although he has gotten his bodyfat % lower than what I think is healthy or aesthetic. I'd pour over his site. He has a lot of scientific literature on nutrition and nutrient timing there, good for perspective anyway. There is one particdular post called "The Guide" that lays the whole program out bare and is incredibly useful.

In fact, there is a subreddit at www.reddit.com/r/leangains. If you look at the resources on the right side of the page there is a very useful calculator that automatically generates caloric needs and macro breakdowns for you, and also allows you to edit it to your preferences.

Mercola mentions LeanGains in this article...

http://fitness.mercola.com/sites/fitness/archive/2012/05/04/fasting-effects-on-human-growth-hormone.aspx

and here...

http://fitness.mercola.com/sites/fitness/archive/2012/06/15/why-bmi-is-not-a-great-indicator-of-body-composition.aspx

I'll check it out. Thanks!