* Some time ago, Super Human Radio featured Dr Mark McCarty, co-author of a study on fasting and exercise.

Exercise After Mini-Fast Burns Fat And Builds Muscle

Some good discussion here if you can stand the commercial breaks.

What I found impressive was the high adherance rate, as well as the effectiveness of the approach, compared to the usual standard seen in weight loss interventions - especially considering that participants were allowed to eat as much as they wanted throughout the study (though low fat, low glycemic food choices were encouraged).

Here's a few excerpts from the full text version of the study -

"With respect to the long-term sustainability of this regimen, it may be noted that author M.F.M. has followed this regimen for 12 years and, at age 56, maintains a body fat under 5%, having lost approximately two-thirds of his initial body fat."

Damn, sounds like Dr McCarty is ripped.

"It stands to reason that, if daily exercise is conducted in a way that optimizes oxidation of stored fat, and if subsequent meals are low in fat so that this oxidized fat is not immediately replaced (but a satisfying repletion of glycogen stores is achieved), a daily negative fat balance can be achieved that will persist until a new equilibrium is reached at a much lower body fat content [1,2,7]."

This goes in line with some of my own thinking regarding the post-workout overfeedings.

"Clinically, meal skipping has been associated withreduced risk for colorectal cancer in several epidemiological studies [24–27], and serum lipid profiles and plasma levels of acutephase reactants tend to improve during the month of Ramadan
in observant Moslems [28–31]."

Good stuff.

Bahadori B, McCarty MF, Barroso-Aranda J, Gustin JC, Contreras F. A "mini-fast with exercise" protocol for fat loss. Med Hypotheses. 2009 Jul 2. PMID: 19577377.

Read the abstract here

* Andreaz Engstrom, competing bodybuilder and former client of mine, put together a video showcasing some of his progress made with intermittent fasting this summer.

I coached Andreaz for a competition back in April. Shortly after competing, Andreaz got sick with shingles, which prevented him from training for six weeks. As you can see, he made a swift comeback. You can see his before/afters leading up to the competition in this post.

* Alan Aragon on supplement marketing . Good article, but I suspect he may be preaching to the choir. Nonetheless, well worth reading.