I've been reading on IF and Paleo eating and am thinking of introducing a variant of both of these into my eating plan. Emulating how the hunters worked and ate seems to make sense... it seems natural to me. And if you ever watch animals in real life, they do it this way naturally.

I'm a bit concerned, though because of doing the workouts and wanting to maintain as much LM as I can. I know the traditional recommendation is 5 or 6 small meals throughout the day, which is what I do now. This is quite comfortable for me and fits well with my lifestyle. I'm losing a little over 1 lb of body weight per week, with about 2/3s of it being FM and 1/3 LM.

I'm still lifting fairly light (heavy for me, but light compared to a lot of other people ). I don't really want to rock the boat too much since this is working... but if I can do something to lose more fat/retain more LM, that would be good.

I've seen 2 concepts posted around the net wrt IF and workouts. First is to not to eat on WO day (just like the hunter's lack of food before going on the hunt) and then break the fast the day after. Second idea is the reverse, eat on WO day and fast the day after. I suspect this comes from folks who are worried about trying to WO on empty.

What I'm actually thinking of trying is eating less food and less variety one day then eating regular lc/mixed meals the next. So for example, on the "less food" day, maybe eat simple whole foods, like cucumbers and broccoli, along with a little chicken for protein. Then maybe the next "less food" day I would change it up and eat just fish, tomatoes and celery. On the "less food" day is when I would do any cardio WOs. On the regular lc/mixed meals day, I would eat the 6 small meals I'm currently doing and do my lifting, with the normal PWO shake, etc.

Has anyone tried IF or anything like what I'm proposing while lifting? I know that most people would say not to eat the meat on the fasting day, but I'm just leery of not having enough protein to sustain my muscles. Any thoughts or ideas on this?

Oh my goodness. I have been on vacation and I had some remodeling going on. I feel bad that this went unanswered. I do my form of IF by fasting 24 hours and eating within a 4 hour period.From what I have read about the human growth hormone this should be ideal. To activate the human growth hormone in an adult, one must do it on an empty stomach and not eat for another hour after the workout. Now from my experience, I can definitely see a difference in the way my body responds to exercise even though I don't do the weights. I do Curves and I walk and although the concept of exercising on an empty stomach and not eating for an hour after the workout pertains to weight training, it has helped me to lose weight. I haven't had any insulin spikes. I don't get shaky and I am not dying for food when I end my fast. I think that eating meat at the end of a fast is even more important especially since this is the key dietary compound to build growth hormone. I hope you get this message.

Mary

Thanks for sharing this Mary! I haven't yet tried changing anything with diet. I've been changing my workouts, but may try changing things on my off days to be more IF like. Thanks again!