Hello fellow hermanites,

today is my weigh-in after a one year and a half journey

[FOREWORD]

I have always been a chubby kid (even 25-28%bf) and have been pretty much around 18-20% bf until my 27 years. When I turned 28 I decided I deserved better and I started my research.

I have studied many resources critically, being a physician and everything, and I have to say that even and mostly in famous websites there is a LOT of misleading information and guidelines, that ultimately led to a great waste of my time and willpower.

On the contrary, I have to say that the informations provided by Scott and the SHF community have almost always provided:

1) Motivation

2) Real expectations and "eyes opening moments" against the BS floating on the web

3) Results

Accordingly, Scott's suggestions are always towards choosing the hard path in face of a crossroad: lift harder, eat better, squat further down.

For all of that I thank you , Scott and dear hermanites ;)

Now some pics. First one around March 2013., last one is Sep 2014 and I measured around 12-13% bf with the accumeasure body caliper. 84kg weight, 1,84 m

This is today : 11% bf (after 2 weeks from last pic), 83.5kg . Some questions below ;)

My training : Chest-Back-Shoulders-Arms-Legs with 50-60 secs rest between sets. 20mins brutal ladder HIIT x3 week (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZnsLVArIt8) . I try to squeeze 20mins more of running at high intensity on a treadmill if i can.

My Macros: 2200 cals , 220g prot, 165g carbs, 73g fats. I don't cheat on quality, but I do eat sometimes more than I'm supposed to. Especially fruits or veggies, but I'd say that overall I've been able to stay below 2300 daily on a weekly count (myFP)

Question 1 : Although I feel in my clothes that I've lost body fat even between Sep and Oct, how come that I am exactly the same weight ?

Question 2: Is this regimen going to bring me to around 8-9% bf or at some point I will be forced to decrease calories (nooo) or increase cardio?

Question 3: anything you would change for better results / lifestyle? :)

Thanks for your comments!

Ezio,

Excellent work so far! I knew you were lower than 12% BF. I am around the 11% mark myself +- .5% - So I am guessing either 10.5% or 11.5%.

As for your questions:

Question 1:

2 things happen with body weight when you are cutting: Loss of fat and some muscle gain and variance in water weight. It is possible to lose fat yet have your weight stay the same. This means you are losing fat and gaining a bit of muscle which is good :-) The second point is the best time to weigh yourself is first thing in the morning after emptying your bladder and bowels (if possible) and completely naked. Your water weight fluctuates througout the day as you eat food so this will show an increase or a stagnation of body weight if you measure yourself later in the day. If you are weighing yourself first thing in the morning as described and your weight is not moving and you don't appear to be getting leaner, then it is time to add a change in your eating regiment which is my answer to your questions 2 and 3.

Questions 2-3:

Getting below 10% body fat and into single digit levels is much harder than going from higher double digit body fat levels to lower double digit body fat levels. Your body is programmed to keep a certain amount of fat that is a survivial response. It is wired into our genes to help protect us from times of famine where the body can live off fat stores to stay alive. The amount of fat cells we are born with and the amount of body fat we keep is genetically pre-determined - some people are naturally leaner than others and some can lose BF easier than others. To make matters even more complicated, your fat cells have 2 different types of receptors - alpha and beta. Beta receptors are more conduscive to burning fat cells for energy when the body says than alpha receptors. Alpha receptor based fat is what people like to call "stubborn fat" - those areas that either don't get lean or take forever to do so. The amount and types of fat receptors and the distribution of your body fat is also pre-determined by genetics. So what you need to do to combat these obstacles is "trick" the body into burning all its fat naturally and use a different technique. The way to do this (and what I have been doing for over 3 months now with great success) is Intermittent Fasting (IF). You can read about it at www.leangains.com

IF is not a diet but rather an eating regiment. It naturally leverages your insulin and growth hormone levels to grow/maintain muscle while burning body fat. It doesn't require you to lower your calories any more than where you are at now and actually doesn't need cardio to be effective. Cardio will just speed up the loss of body fat but it is not a requirement if you are patient. I do what is called a 16:8 IF protocol. What this means is I eat all my daily calories and macros in an 8-hour window from Noon to 8PM. This means my breakfast is at Noon and my last meal is dinner at 8PM. You eat your biggest meal after you workout which for me is lunch at 5 or 6PM. I then fast for 16 hours (8PM until Noon the next day). That's it.

What IF does is it uses your insulin to force nutrients into your cells especially after your workouts - this is why your biggest meal should be immediately after your workouts. Insulin, however, also tells the body to store excess calories as fat. This is why you still MUST eat nutritious foods only and stay within your daily macros/calories or IF won't work. For the 16 hours you are not eating (from 8PM until Noon the next day), your body is in a fasted state. When fasted, your body secretes growth hormone to tell the body to use all fat as energy and preserve muscle. Growth Hormone only gets secreted when Insulin levels are very low. This only happens when you are fasted as the minute you eat and insulin is released, all growth hormone release is stopped. This works because the body is in a fasted state for 16 hours straight. It is only using insulin for 8 hours each day. When you eat the normal 4-5 meals every 2-3 hours, your body is only secreting growth hormone when you sleep which is typically 8 hours. Studies have shown growth hormone naturally spikes to levels 2000% higher than normal once you have been fasted 12 hours or more. Only growth hormone can unlock both alpha and beta fat receptors so the longer you are fasted the more fat you burn each day. You are "tricking" your body because you are still feeding it all the calories it needs each day just in a shorter feeding window so it knows you are not starving. You don't start losing muscle tissue or have your metabolism slow down until you have not eaten for at least 80 straight hours. Daily IF is just fasting only 16 hours each day so you lose no muscle you just torch fat.

You can adjust the feeding window to fit yor schedule but best results are seen when you fast 16 hours per day. So if you eat breakfast at 7am, your last meal will be at 3PM as you will now be fasting from 3PM until 7AM the next morning. You can also train fasted if you consume at least 5grams of BCAAs (Branch Chain Amino Acids) to protect your muscles. You can also drink plain tea or coffee (no sugar, no cream) during your fasting window. You also need to re-train your brain to the new feeding regiment. The hunger you feel in the morning is mental not physical. You are hungry because you have trained your brain to expect food at certain times. True physical hunger does not occur until fasting for over 24 hours. It only took me a couple of weeks to re-train myself and now I don't get hungry until Noon time - which is now when I have my first meal versus 7-8AM like before. IF has been working great for me and I haven't had to cut my calories further or increase my cardio :-)

John

John you always give great advice.

I have been "caressing" the idea of intermittent fasting for quite some time now. I also believe that working in a fasted state (not only working out) gives you a clearer head, especially in the morning.

To be honest, I've always been an emotional eater. Hence, IF has alway scared the hell out of me. One more good reason to try it, I guess.

So, I've decided that this morning's has been my last breakfast, at least until my next weigh-in. I'll try the 16-8 for two weeks without chaning anything on my diet or my training. Let's see what results it brings, if any ;)

My brain will heavily fight this, especially since I'm used to fall asleep in a very well fed state. I know I will wake up in the night with hunger cravings. Has this ever happened to you?

I think I'll buy some camomile to drink before bed.

Thanks as always, keep you posted.

I would really like to know Scott opinion on Intermittent Fasting.

Ezio,

Glad I could help. You shouldn't have any major issues with trying IF. The hardest part is re-training your brain to get food at a different time and for a shorter eating window. You shouldn't have cravings because you are still eating the same amount of calories and the same nutritious food just in a shorter period of time. You could also push your feeding window out where your first meal is at 2PM and your last meal is at 10PM. If you go to bed at 11PM or so, you won't be doing it completely empty. IF takes time and is not a quick fix. 2 weeks won't be enough to gauge its effectiveness. You need to give it at least 8-12 weeks unless you want to dramatically cut your daily calories or exclusively train in a fasted state for the 2 weeks.

Once I made the adjustment, I have been fine. When I do get the occassional hunger pangs, I use it as motivation knowing Growth Hormone is being released in large quantities and I am burning body fat. That quickly kills any desire to eat just to satisfy what is really more a mental urge :-)

John

Leslie,

I can't speak for Scott but I know Erica has done or may be still doing IF as she wrote an article on it and has mentioned it in past videos. The bottom line is IF isn't for everyone. There are plenty of people who can get ripped the old fashioned way and don't need eating manipulation like IF. It is just another tool available for those who hit a plateau and want to try something else to push into the single digit body fat levels. The same way people change or modify their workouts when they hit a plateau.

For me, IF is the only thing that has worked and allows me to still eat a meal plan that doesn't require deep cuts in total calories as well as require many days of cardio. I eat extremely clean and nutritious 24/7 within my alloted daily calories and I pump iron 4 days a week and do cardio 4 days a week with a couple sessions being HIIT sprints. Some people have to work out more, do more cardio, and cut their calories more to get really lean. For me at my age, 4 days/week is enough as I need the other 3 days for total rest. IF allows me to do this while still cutting body fat :-)

John

Thank you John, I didn't know about Erica article. I've read it, and I've also dene some other reading, and now I'm convinced to give IF a try. My body fat is pretty low (8-8.5%), but a lot of it is resting on the belly, while I would prefer to see my abs ;)

Leslie,

Let me know how it goes. As you said, you are pretty ripped already at 8% so I would love to know how IF works for someone already very lean :-)

John

Hello friends,
I wanted to update you on my experience after two weeks of 16:8 Intermittent Fasting (Leangains). After receiving John's advice, I basically read everything there is about IF.

Unfortunately, I have not improved on IF. Let me tell you how it went :
WEEK 1
2200 cal , 83,5 kg, 40 35 25 P-F-C . 5 days split, 20 mins HIIT at the end.
- Mon / Fri : religious IF from 8.00 pm until 13.00 am.
- Saturday : not so precise on the fasting, but inside the calories range.
- Sunday: all hell breaks loose. I have overtraining symptoms take control of me (depression, instoppable cravings, not able to get out of bed). I can't stop thinking about chocolate and Ice cream and I make it up to 3.000 - 3.500 cal for that day. Not too much junk food but still a lot of food.

Then I realize that IF is not to blame here, but that I'm simply training too much and am not recovering enough. I work all day (desk job with high stress levels being in a hospital) and I have no time to make up for that much workout. But to be honest I have never experienced so much stress in a single day before IF. Maybe the added willpower drain from trying something new cracked the barrel.

So I switch things around for the following week 2: 3 days split with HIIT, 1900 cals on non training days, 2200 on training days. And I keep the IF going.
Quality of life gets easier and I'm getting used to the IF. I even manage to recuperate one day in which I got brekfast by doing a 8 a.m. - 19.00 pm IF. Not many troubles in staying inside the caloriess range.

During workouts I've never felt weak, but I've never had the opportunity to train fasted. Instead, I trained more fed than usual, having a bigger pre-workout meal. I broke also some personal records and had the deepest squat yet.

Today, as suspected, my measurements have not changed a bit. I'm still 83kg around 10%bf. I feel somehow leaner around the love handles, but can't really call that a result in the face of so much effort.

Please consider that I am a human being, hence I may have got wrong the calorie measurements on myFP, have worked less harder on the HIIT or other stuff. Besides that, my personal considerations and the sensations I've felt on IF are these:

PROS
- IF is doable. No dizziness no nothing when you are fasting. It's better to have something to do however. Mornings are perfect if you are at work.
- IF is excellent to stay inside a low calories goal. I felt it's easier than on a six meals days. It's psychologically easier to skip one meal and have a decent chicken/rice/veggies meal later than eating two small crappy yogurts and one small crappy chicken afterwards.
- IF is convenient. You don't have to carry food around and you can survive easier during social events, having more calories at your disposal

CONS
- IF has not boosted my fat loss for any special reasons. It's supposed to raise GH and T levels by default, but frankly these effects I have not noticed.
- .. on the contrary, I was under the impression that all that food condensed in a 8 hours window raised my Insuline too much. I have more than once felt like having a cheat meal, although I was eating clean and under my calorie limit
- .. I am under the absolute personal impression that if you have a history of being fat (a.k.a. have lot of fat cells around) the 8 hour feeding window will do you more harm than the 16 hours of fasting will help. My body really knows how to survive and store fat, always had. I can eat everything anywhere and I can digest stones. And I have a history of being overweight.

I know that two weeks are not a big amount of time, especially when you are trying to go under 10%, so maybe I'm rushing this. But I had a better overall feeling with the five meals carb cycling and I'm switching back to that one. I'll update you in two weeks, hopefully with some results.

I hope that my experience helps. Still, I strongly suggest you to try for yourself before taking any advice for granted. Everybody is / works / eats differently.

A warm hug from Italy ;)

Ezio,

At the end of the day, use what works for you and if intermittent carb cycling is the way then great :-) I can say IF will not show noticeable reductions in bodyfat until at least 6-8 weeks of doing it. Your body also needs time to adjust to a reduced feeding window. I am now at the 4 month mark and it has definetly reduced my body fat and I feel great and am having great workouts. I am not having any cravings and I do keep my carbs moderate and sometimes lower them on non-training days.

As for insulin, IF has you eat your biggest meal immediately after you train not before (not sure if you were doing this). By doing this, insulin will use the calories you ingest for replenishing glycogen stores and repairing muscle. It also recommends training fasted. I can't do that so I train after just one meal. My breakfast is protein heavy, ligh carbs; my lunch post workout is even carbs and protein; and my dinner most of the time has no carbs at all and is protein heavy. I also am keeping my fats moderately high with every meal by eating whole eggs, coconut oil, olive oil, flaxseed meal, low-fat milk (not skim), and salmon.

John

All I can say is great job Ezio!! (@Juzaam). It is great to see that you tell us all what has worked for you and showing the time progression to back it up.

I agree this site has helped get through the murky information out there when it comes to fitness.

I would like to hear how IF is going for you if you so choose to do so. I am reaching my goals without doing IF but somedays am forced to do IF because I work in a stat environment in healthcare. If and when I get to a point where my goals aren't being met then I will consider IF more seriously.

Good luck man and thanks for the post.