Fasting For Muscle Building

The Bulking Diet Delusion by John Meadows really lit a fire under my heinie.  It reminded me of all those people that tell me they’re in bulking mode but never seemed to be in cutting mode.

So basically what you want to tell me is that you’re fat and too damn lazy to do anything about it?  But you still want to tell all the girls that you’re a bodybuilder, right?  As you stuff your face with pizza.  Come on now, you can do better than that.

What You Need To Know

• Intermittent fasting won’t burn your hard earned muscle.  That’s not an excuse anymore.
• Insulin sensitivity is the key to both muscle building and fat loss.
• Lifting weights but being fat all year round doesn’t make your a bodybuilder or an athlete it just means you’re fat and lazy.  Pony Up.

Fasting for Muscle Building

Slow down buddy, pick your jaw back up from the keyboard and try not to scream needless profanities at me through a computer screen, tough guy.  You read it right; fasting for muscle building.

I’m about to tell you how fasting CAN help you build muscle and of course burn fat.  OK, think logically for a second.  To build muscle you need to be in a caloric surplus, correct?  So right away I haven’t a hope in hell of explaining to you how not eating can help you build muscle do I?

That’s because it can’t.  But, now pay close attention, what it will do is prime your body for muscle building.  Here’s how young Padawon;

You know all about blood sugar.  Do you know about insulin though?

If you give a hoot about building muscle and given that you’re a Critical Bench follower then you’ve at least heard of insulin before.  I’m going to give you a quick crash course anyway.  When you eat you break down the food in to sugar.

That sugar likes to hang out in your blood until you do something about it.  You really better do something about it though because just like a bunch of kids hanging out on the corner, all that can happen after a while is trouble.  You’re just going to get fat.

You use insulin to take the sugar out of your blood and shuttle it around your body.  Treat insulin right and it will make you look like Hercules.

Points to remember:

1. Every time you eat you spike your blood sugar and in turn your blood insulin.
2. If you have insulin in your blood you cannot burn fat.
3. Eating too often will cause insulin resistance.  Insulin resistance means you will get fat, become sick and not build muscle.*

*insulin resistance means your body has to secrete more insulin than normal to take less sugar from your blood.

That can’t be that big of a deal for muscle building, can it?  Oh it can my dear friend, it can.  You know all those guys that claim they are bulking all year round for years on end?  Well my bet is they have f****d with insulin so much that they literally can’t burn fat.

The same goes for their muscle building quest.  Have they gotten any bigger this year?  My guess is they haven’t.  Why?  Because insulin isn’t working as effectively as it could.

Moral of the story; make friends with insulin.  I mean cuddle up and get real cosy.

How Fasting Can Help

Intermittent fasting is the cure for those of you that have been mean to insulin for quite a while.  It’s like the judge in a divorce hearing; it will decide who gets what. Fasting is the perfect fix for insulin resistance.  It works by giving your body a break from eating and constantly secreting insulin.

If you stop secreting insulin for a while your body is going to get the chance to catch up with itself and start being more efficient when you eat.  Think about it this way; if you were asked to work overtime every night for a month would you be as productive?  No way, you would just burn out.

It’s the same for insulin.  If you keep acting like your beak can hold more than your belly can then insulin is going to burn out.

It’s not going to be able to shuttle your post workout drink in to your muscle cells as effectively as before.  Fast every so often and give your body a break and things are about to start looking a whole lot different for you.

The more sensitive you are to insulin (which you will be from fasting) the more likely your body is to respond well to you and start slapping pounds of muscle on to your frame rather than mounds of fat.

Basically you will reset your insulin switch.  You will thank your lucky stars you read this article when you see the difference it will make to your muscle building.

I just had to include this picture.  It doesn’t exactly have a whole lot to do with fasting or muscle building, but it’s hot and I love strong women.

How to Fast for Muscle

I’m going to give you two options, both of which are very effective.

Option #1:  Fast Once Per Week

This will sound like hell on earth to a lot of you but I urge you to give it a go.  Once per week you will fast, ideally not a workout day.  Yes that means you eat NOTHING.  You can drink water, black tea and black coffee.  That’s it.

There are no more rules.  If you’re hungry suck it up, you shouldn’t have ate like an elephant for the last ten years.

Option #2:  16/8 Intermittent Fasting           

This is a more long term method and it works great.  It’s going to really force you to burn fat while simultaneously resetting your insulin switch for muscle building.

As the name suggests you will fast for 16 hours each day leaving you with an 8 hour eating window.  Trust me you’ll be able to get in the amount of calories you need in 8 hours.

Just make sure to take full advantage of your new friend insulin and eat like a pig** directly after your workout.

Get a protein and carb drink in to you immediately and then 1-2 BIG carb and protein meals afterwards.

Why? Well your muscles want energy at this time and now that you’re friends with insulin it’s going to help you like a best friend should and take all those calories in to your muscle cells and your muscle energy stores.

This method will work a lot faster than option #1. I like fasting until noon each day and eating until 8pm.  Figure out what hours fit your schedule and do that.  Just remember that if you workout in the morning your 8 hour eating window has to start in the morning so that you can take full advantage of your post workout meals.

** Now listen closely. The whole point of this article was to get you to stop eating like a pig.  I was being facetious here.  Do however eat a lot.  Just make sure it’s good wholesome muscle building food.

Stay Healthy,

Andrew Beatty

 

About Andrew

Andrew was born and bred in Ireland. Having the stature of a leprechaun he forced himself to learn how to build muscle and burn fat.  As a muscle building and fat burning expert he studies the most cutting edge nutrition and training practices to deliver the best muscle building, fat burning results to his clients and to YOU.

Discover The “Holy Grail” Nutrient Timing System That Builds Mounds Of Rock Solid Muscle in LESS Than 3 Hours a Week

Intermittent Fasting and Growth Hormone

A Fat Loss 1-2 Punch that TRIPLES Fat Loss
Guest Post By John Romaniello creator of Fat Loss Forever

Yesterday, I told you about Intermittent Fasting, which is quickly becoming one of the hottest and most successful nutritional practices around. Today, I want to focus on one of the (many) reasons why: hormones.

We briefly touched on the hormonal benefits of fasting in yesterday’s article, including an increase in one of the most powerful hormones around: Growth Hormone, or GH. Also known as “the fitness hormone,” GH has a myriad benefits, ranging from increased sleep quality to enhanced metabolism.

While a full description of this amazing hormone is beyond this writing, it’s enough to say that the more GH your produce, the faster you can lose fat and gain muscle.

And so today, I want to share with you the top three instances when you naturally produce more Growth Hormone, and show you a way that you can combine all three to get the best possible outcome–a synergistic BURST of GH production, all leading towards incinerating fat.

Let’s take a look.

Three Instances of Naturally Increased Growth Hormone

1) When you sleep
2) When you are in a fasted state
3) When you train with weights.

That’s correct — you product the MOST growth hormone when you sleep, when you eat, and when you train. So, how do we use this knowledge to increase fat loss?

Well, let’s look at it. We know you’re producing tons of growth hormone when you’re fasting–which means you’re NOT producing it when you’re eating. We also know you’re producing it when you sleep.

So, if you’re producing GH when you sleep…why do you STOP producing it when you wake up? EASY–because, when most people wake up, the first thing they do is EAT…which we just said stops growth hormone production.

Which means that by doing something as simple as skipping breakfast you can extend the natural secretion of growth hormone that occurs during your sleep cycle; in addition, staying in a fasted state will actually help you product MORE growth hormone.

With just that simple change, you’ve double your fat burning production of GH. And…forgive me for sounding like an infomercial host, but this is the perfect time to use this line…

“But wait, there’s more!”

Because, it actually does get even better.

You see, we also know that you produce a ton of growth hormone during and after your weight training session; now if only we could figure out a way to combine that knowledge with the previous points to increase GH further…

Oh, wait: that’s exactly what we did!

You see, imagine what would happen if you put your GH producing weight training session at the end of your GH-producing fasting session…which was used to extend the effect of your natural GH-producing sleep?

Exactly: you would create a perfect storm production, sending growth hormone production into overdrive, allowing your body to burn fat at an accelerated rate, while you’re already in a calorie deficit.

Here’s the abbreviated cheat sheet:

1) Get a good night’s sleep
2) Push your breakfast back until after your workout
3) Train with weights any time between 12 and 2pm.

Follow those three simple steps, then have a healthy mea—do those things, and you’re on your way to losing fat, and keeping it off forever.

Can you imagine that? By simply skipping breakfast and having a workout, you can burn triple growth hormone secretion and burn up to three times as much fat.

Incredible results with minor changes—that’s what Fat Loss Forever is all about.  To put this concept into practice right now visit: http://criticalbench.com/goto/Fatlossforever

CLICK HERE FOR FAT LOSS FOREVER

Fat Loss Forever (FLF) Review

For most guys, shedding unwanted body fat is a persistently difficult task. And while there is no shortage of fat loss diets and programs, few of them seem to work as promised. However, few fitness professionals know and understand the dynamics of fat loss better than John Romaniello, the well-known fitness author, expert and founder of Roman Fitness Systems. Based in New York City, John has worked with clients of all kinds and is regarded as one of the premier body transformation specialists in the fitness industry.

For his latest effort–Fat Loss Forever–John has teamed up with Dan Go, an internationally-renowned fitness boot camp instructor and real-world fat loss expert.

The basic premise of FLF is that many of the supposed experts are either using the wrong approach to fat loss or they are touting a strategy that only works for those who are overly or morbidly obese. For example, the metabolism of the very obese man functions very differently from the one in the guy who just needs to shed a few pounds of excess fat. So what works to shed fat in the very large guy will not be effective in ‘not-so-fat’ guy. The fact that they have built-in, self-sabotaging ‘guilt triggers’ is another reason that John and Dan say many other fat loss programs miss the mark. FLF is a breakthrough program that overcomes those inherent and takes an entirely different approach to fat loss. Let’s take a look at the program and see what it’s all about.

First, let me start by saying that Fat Loss Forever is not just another ‘fat loss’ book. In fact, it’s not a book at all but a complete program that includes a nutrition manual, training manual, diet calendar, food guide and grocery list, supplementation guide and a complete set of workouts, all of which total 10 volumes. Of these, the Nutrition Guide is really the heart of the program because it really all starts there. If you don’t have the proper nutritional foundation, you’ll never achieve your fitness goals, whether it’s shedding fat, gaining lean mass, or both.

Strategic Fasting Boosts Anabolic Hormones!

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FLF is presented as a 12-week program that John and Dan say is intended to do two things: 1) help you burn fat faster than ever before; and 2) help you maintain your results throughout your entire lifetime. That second point is important because studies show that the overwhelming majority of people who lose weight or fat end up putting it back on over time. This is because most diet or fat loss programs are only geared towards short term results. They don’t really care what happens to you in the long-run.

The Nutrition Guide opens with a brief introduction and discussion about the basic problem with most diet approaches, which is that they focus on the symptoms, not the systems. Focusing on the symptoms is like treating a headache (the symptom) by taking aspirin, when in reality the cause (system) of the headache is the fact that you’re hitting yourself in the head with a hammer. In other words, treat the system (the hammer hitting you in the head) and you eliminate the symptom (headache).

A concept known as Intermittent Fasting is the core component and underlying foundation of the FLF approach to nutrition and fat loss. Intermittent Fasting is defined as strategically alternating periods of not eating (fasting) with times where you are allowed to eat (feeding period). FLF includes varying levels of fasting, depending on where you are in the program. While Intermittent Fasting may sound unpleasant, it really does produce remarkable results. It does so because it stimulates the production of powerful fat-burning hormones—including muscle building Growth Hormone—while simultaneously suppressing the fat-producing hormones.

The rest of the Fat Loss Forever Nutrition Guide outlines the various approaches to Intermittent Fasting that you can utilize to achieve your fat loss and muscle-building goals. The book also includes a section that helps you determine the appropriate levels of macronutrients (protein, carbs and fats) that you should be consuming every day. It also includes a brief section on pre- and post-workout supplementation and some tips about organization and water intake.

The Food Guide and Grocery List and Diet Calendar provide all the support you need to carry out the nutritional component of the FLF program. The Training Manual presents four different training modalities: 5-4-3 Dynamic, Growth Hormone Surge, Density-Based and Complexes. Each of these focuses on a targeted approach towards burning fat, increasing strength and gaining muscle. The Training Guide provides the overall direction of each modality, with each being supported by a specific workout guide.

I’m happy to say that John and Dan have put together an excellent program that presents a solid foundation for effective fat loss. The guys use a straightforward approach that’s easy to follow and not difficult to read. For anyone who has been frustrated in his efforts to shed unwanted fat, you ought to consider the FLF approach—it’s built on solid science that can deliver the desire results!

http://criticalbench.com/goto/Fatlossforever