Yes, – I can hear you thinking right now….
”What, I need to starve? What about my metabolism? won’t it slow down? I won’t have energy and I can’t build any muscle…
The most accurate definition is the simplest one. – it is merely alternating intervals of not eating with times when you’re allowed to eat.
Let’s take a look and you will realize that this concept is not so “otherworldly” in the first place. You see, everyone practices fasting to a degree already. When you sleep, you fast and when you’re awake, you eat. That’s intermittent fasting. – not so bad, right?!
You may be swept up in a day and have not had time to eat. That’s fasting too, but it’s haphazard fasting, not intermittent fasting.
I’m going to show you how to expand your fasting window so you can reap the benefits of burning more fat, building more muscle, improving aging, boosting your sex drive, fighting off disease, and strengthening your overall health. And you’re in control.
It’s actually an approach to eating that simplifies things greatly. Yes, there are detailed approaches to it, but the easy to follow principle is that you eat by the clock. You set the hours that you eat. This will give you enhanced food freedom as you’ve never had before.
The fasting window you can use can range anywhere from sixteen hours all the way up to thirty-six hours and each of these has their own specific benefits. I am going to show you how to make this new form of eating seem effortless.
Intermittent fasting is indeed the answer
Well, if it’s the answer, what is the question, you might ask. It’s really the only answer to the question on everyone’s mind…
“Is there an eating approach that puts me in control, that actually works…”
If you look at all the research and compare high-fat diets to low-fat diets, the high carb programs to low carb keto programs to the high protein ones you will discover that many of these do work to elicit an initial period of weight loss. There is no “killer food” that ruins your eating plans. What causes diets to fail, are psychological and social limitations that we don’t deal with, like booze, late-night eating etc.
You need something with rules that work for your lifestyle, something that gives you the flexibility to still have a life you can enjoy, whilst still having a body that you can enjoy looking at.
TESTOSTERONE PRODUCTION, starts at night and stops when you have your first meal. T is your friend and you want that to go on as long as possible
GROWTH HORMONE (GH) PRODUCTION, keeps you younger for longer and prevents break-down
On the most basic level, only 2 things matter: the calories you eat and taking in a balance of macro’s – proteins, carbs, and fats. The manipulation of these 2 factors will see you progress through the phases of the Thorfit approach.
So why do people struggle with their diets? It’s because the system is broken. People are taught that eating can only be done one way and this creates a system that is always hungry and anticipating the next snack. They burn less fat because they spend too much time eating. They miss the foods they are not meant to be eating and binge on those in moments of weakness because it’s hard to resist the foods you love.
This is why intermittent fasting is so successful. It eliminates all the problems that cause us to fail.
DIET FIX # 1
SKIP BREAKFAST
Don’t’ we need to eat breakfast?
Most people who fast intermittently will eliminate breakfast. Their first meal will be in the afternoon. This is exactly the opposite advice you’re given by dieticians and doctors alike. For years, we’re been told that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. In fact, people are scolded when they skip breakfast, especially those embarking on a weight loss plan. If we follow the calories in vs calories out, then the pro breakfast crowd are suggesting that you will be fuller and will thus eat less during the day. The only real argument here revolves around insulin sensitivity. The more sensitive your body is to insulin, the more you will burn fat and lose muscle. Increasing this sensitivity leads to more efficient dieting. The pro-breakfast crowd declares that insulin sensitivity is higher in the mornings. Eating a carb-rich meal early in the day is their way of taking in energy without weight gain.
When you do finally have food,
**you turn what you do put into your system into super fuel.**
Insulin will make sure that all the macros are placed where they belong. ie protein is going straight to the areas that you worked out.
The problem here, is that insulin sensitivity is NOT higher in the wee hours of the morning. It’s higher after a minimum of 8 hours of fasting. It just so happens that you’re fasting while you’re asleep. More specifically, your insulin sensitivity is highest when your glycogen levels are low, which is at the end of your 8 hour fast.
Intermittent fasting takes things a step further and turns your body into a fat-burning muscle-building machine. You see, when you skip brekkie and extend the fasting period, even more, you’re increasing insulin sensitivity even more. There’s another plus, – your insulin sensitivity is increased even more when you exercise in a fasted state. Your body is set to maximize its fat-burning ability even more.
When you do finally have food, you turn what you do put into your system into super fuel. Insulin will make sure that all the macros are placed where they belong. ie protein is going straight to the areas that you worked out.
DIET FIX # 2
YOU CHOOSE HOW OFTEN YOU EAT
You choose how often you eat
There is so much confusion about what you can and can’t eat, when it comes to other diets. Caloric restrictive diets like Weightwatchers create confusion when it comes to the frequency of meals you can eat. We’ve all read somewhere that in order to lose weight, you need to keep the metabolism primed and running by eating 6 small low-fat meals a day. This form of eating has been used by bodybuilders and dieticians so long, it’s been taken as fact, BUT IT’S NOT GREAT… – here’s why:
While it’s true that your bodily functions require some food for energy, don’t forget that the leftovers are transported to your adipose tissue and gives you love handles. Protein is the most metabolically expensive food. Up to 30% of the calories you eat from protein are burned up during digestion. Carbs are less metabolically active, burning between 6 to 8% of your intake. Fats, require about 4%.
The multiple meals per day strategy was based on the energy expended to digest the food, but as you can see, it only forms a small part of energy expended and in reality, your body doesn’t care about how many meals you eat. Read that again… You can choose how many meals you want to eat every day. – calories in vs calories out. The thermic effect of food is directly proportional to caloric intake, so there’s no difference between 3 meals a day or 6 meals a day. You can eat 10 meals or you can eat 1 meal, same-same as long as the calories remain the same.
At the end of the day, you should choose the approach that best suits your lifestyle. – the one that is most sustainable. I have experimented with both ways of eating, and the higher meal frequency plan has me thinking of food all day long. When it’s time to eat, the meal portions are small and I’m left feeling hungry. Less meals allow me to eat larger portions and this satiates more, creating a feeling of fullness.
When there are fewer meals, you have more control over the composition of these and fewer opportunities to mess up, by adding a slice of bread when you think nobody’s watching.
