I get these e-mails from time to time and it's always a pleasure to read them.

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"Martin,

after all the knowledge I have gathered through your site, and from your articles I decided to give this a go when i started a mini-cut.

After 5 weeks of mini-cutting I went from 167.5 lbs to 160.7lbs, Most of the loss would be fat throughout the entire process. Following the IF principles was cake, after day 1-2 the hunger cravings were non-existant, and everything was smooth sailing.

Eating big, and letting the body recover while keeping workouts simple and to the point were nothing but a walk in the park. Intensity was high and energy was beyond belief.

I really cannot exaggerate how easy of a lifestyle this is to a college student who spends countless hours in the library, studying, and working to support the needs to complete a college career and get a job. After 5 weeks of attempting this on my own I am sold on your research, your lifestyle, and the way at which people have been doing this for years.

After reading your testimonials, responses, and following an individual on bodybuilding.com who was a client of yours I always wanted to give this a shot, and did not know if I could change from the whole 6 meals a day thing, I have always had thoughts and wanted to just eat a massive meal 2-3 times a day and call it quits. Well reality sunk in, I gave in, and it is something that has happened to work very well for me.

Here is a link to my workout journal, and I took two videos. One of Before, and One of after (from 9-14-09 to 10-19-09 (Today)) Showing the changes my body experienced while utilizing IF on a cutting diet. Calories never dropped below 2500 on workout days while off days were a touch lower with lower carbs (i know you advocate that). Based off what everyone has said about this lifestyle it came true for me.

I wanted to e-mail and tell you this, that if I do decide to do a contest in the future, I will need your assistance with dialing in my body for the final weeks and work my way towards placing in a bodybuilding show (a dream of mine).

Thank you for all of your advice on the bodybuilding.com forums. It is GREATLY appreciated, because half of the people on there dont know jack shit.

Best Wishes Always,

- Bob Kupniewski

The Link and the transformation videos after a 5 week IF experiment:

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showpost.php?p=399364911&postcount=7383

I hope you get some good feedback from this, and understand what you are doing is working, and the more you promote the greater of an individual you will become. Keep up the hard work."

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By the way, I'm planning a "Best Of" post based on the long running intermittent fasting thread on bodybuilding.com. It will contain expanded and updated answers to questions posted there, and should be a good complement to Questions and Answers on this blog.

I rarely have time to keep up with forums and the ongoing discussions these days, but occasionally I'll take an hour or two and lazily browse around for a bit.

Just found this post from a client on bb.com and thought it might be worth sharing.

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"I just wanted to check into the IF thread and offer a few comments.

I am still on Leangains and working with Martin. I am glad to be down to the 178-180 range now. Started in March at 230+ and my pics start at 196 pounds and my recent profile pic is at 180. I will diet down to about 167-170 or a full six pack/ripped and then start a very slow bulk.

Over the past 7 months, I have had a fantastic experience with this lifestyle and method of eating. I do workout fasted (take caffeine and Xtend on lifting days) and have kept most strength. I have lost a little strength in bench, but when you drop 50 pounds, you cannot expect to keep everything and I am sure I will get it back when I slow bulk. My Deadlifts have gotten better and squats are about the same, too. Of course, bodyweight stuff like chinups are vastly improved as I can now do about 15 or so at bodyweight and 6 with an added 50 pounds, vs. doing maybe 2-3 at bodyweight when I started.

I need to get a substantial amount of protein with this method of eating, and I really enjoy eating lean steak, chicken breast and eggs (mostly whites) on a daily basis. I have stopped taking protein supplements completely and really endorse the whole foods approach, as it helps to satiate me quite a bit more than a protein shake. Fitday.com has been a great help for tracking. I am pretty lazy with carb quality on lifting days and enjoy Cocoa Pebbles with skim milk after many a workout. It doesn't seem to matter much as long as the calories work out.

One really cool thing is that I have not needed to adjust my calories since starting. Granted my weight loss has slowed as I get closer to goal, but compliance is easy and my metabolism is still great. I feel lucky to have found this. Anyone that is interested should give it a shot for a week. At this point, I cannot see myself going away from this method of eating...ever. "

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I hate to speculate without anything but anecdotes and personal experience to back me up, but the lean mass retention that I've observed with intermittent fasting really stands out. Others, non-clients that have read my material and applied it, also experience this to a much greater degree than with conventional dieting. People are keeping, or even gaining, strength, while dropping significant amounts of fat. I have my theories as to why this might be, but I'll save that for the book.

The post is from the long running IF thread on bodybuilding.com. Can't quite recall if I ever linked it here before, and there is a good reason for that. I would really caution against reading it from the beginning. Trust me, there was a lot of trolling back in 07. But there is some good discussion somewhere in the middle that might make it worthwhile checking out. I think even Alan Aragon made a guest appearance.

* 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.

I'll have another Q&A up soon, but I figure I'd drop by real quick and link some worthwhile reading and listening material.

* Ryan Zielonka writes about his experience with my RPT system.

"Intelligent HIT – the kind promulgated by Martin, at least – keeps volume to a minimum. Major movements are trained infrequently. Martin has taken his cues from guys like Arthur Jones and Stuart McRobert, altering the workout week to an extended 8-day schedule and emphasizing progressive overload over volume."

..."For the past four weeks I was in the gym three times every eight days. My bench press improved by 30lbs for five reps. My deadlift improved dramatically, over 80lbs for four reps. Back squat didn’t move as much as I would have liked, from four to six reps with a 15lb increase in weight."

- Ryan

Some pretty solid gains. I've been getting e-mails from people that tried my template from The Minimalist, reporting similar increases - the most notable being +160 lbs deads, +120 lbs squats and +75 lbs bench over 100 days (10 x 10-day cycles).

* In the trenches with Alan Aragon. Alan talks some sense on various issues. There's a brief discussion related to intermittent fasting.

* The Energy Balance Equation

For example, people will point out that replacing carbs with protein leads to greater weight loss although they have the same calories; ergo the equation is wrong. What they fail to realize is that protein has a higher thermogenic effect and this modifies the TEF value of the equation; the energy OUT side of the equation changes if you replace carbs with protein.

- Lyle

Let me talk about that last part for a minute. A new study recently came out where it was shown that increasing protein from 12% to 30% lead to an approximate increase of 75 kcal/day at the same total calorie intake (1). A researcher named Livesey proposed that the impact of 1 gram protein on your metabolism is about 3,25 kcal, and not 4 kcal (2).

Back in 2004, I came across Livesey's findings and created a diet called The Thermogenic Diet (4) - basically, a very high protein, moderate fat, low carb TKD (3). It's not very different from PSMF, but more liberal when it comes intake. I released it as an article on one of the swedish forums, where it became an instant hit, and still is. Among the many people that have used it with great success is natural bodybuilder and client of mine Andreaz Engström

Keep protein high, and you will lose fat at a higher calorie intake than on any other macronutrient combination. What's the point of this rambling? Not much, except serving as a reminder for you to eat your protein when dieting. A lot. Keeping protein high is a given; carb and fat intake is much more dependent on your personal preferences, and should be treated accordingly.

1. Veldhorst, et al. Gluconeogenesis and energy expenditure after a high-protein, carbohydrate-free diet. Am J Clin Nutr. 2009 Jul 29.

2. Livesey. Metabolizable energy of macronutrients. Am J Clin Nutr. 1995 Nov;62(5 Suppl):1135S-1142S. See this post for more ("Q: Why is protein kept so high on rest days?")

3. TKD - Targeted Ketogenic Diet (except with the Thermogenic Diet you'd not hit ketosis due to protein being so high)

4. There is no english translation available, but maybe I'll look into that if enough people are interested in reading it.

Hope everyone had an awesome Christmas, I sure did.

Just saw this piece on another site:

"..both calorie restriction and intermittent fasting along with vitamin and mineral intake, increase resistance to disease, extend lifespan, and stimulate production of neurons from stem cells.

In addition, fasting has been shown to enhance synaptic elasticity, possibly increasing the ability for successful re-wiring following brain injury. These benefits appear to result from a cellular stress response, similar in concept to the greater muscular regeneration that results from the stress of regular exercise.

Additional research suggests that increasing time intervals between meals might be a better choice than chronic calorie restriction, because the resultant decline in sex hormones may adversely affect both sexual and brain performance"

And then she made the following, false, statement

"It should go without saying that short-term cognitive and physical performance is not boosted by fasting, due to metabolic changes including decrease in body temperature, decreased heart rate and blood pressure and decreased glucose and insulin levels, so you’re better off not planning a marathon or a demanding work session during a fasting period"

Full article here

Short-term fasting (<72 hrs) does NOT lead to a decrease in body temperature/metabolic rate or heart rate in humans.

Let me post an excerpt from The Leangains Approach article

"A high meal frequency does not boost your metabolism, nor does fasting or a low frequency slow it down either. The latter has been shown quite clearly when researchers made people fast for 72 hours and found no difference in metabolic rate at the 12 hour mark, compared to the 72 hour mark. That’s three days without food, yet all subjects retained a fully intact metabolic rate. There are other studies looking at one meal a day and alternate day fasting that does not find an impact on metabolism either.

Some studies have actually found that fasting boosts metabolic rate slightly during the initial 36 hours - this is supposedly an evolutionary response, mediated by norepinephrine, as the body mobilizes extra energy when food is scarce. You can imagine it would be highly counterproductive to mister caveman if he found himself slow and lethargic when he needed to find food in order to not starve to death."

The studies referenced in this excerpt:

Zauner C, Schneeweiss B, Kranz A, Madl C, Ratheiser K, Kramer L, Roth E, Schneider B, Lenz K. Resting energy expenditure in short-term starvation is increased as a result of an increase in serum norepinephrine. Am J Clin Nutr. 2000 Jun;71(6):1511-5.

Webber J, Macdonald IA. The cardiovascular, metabolic and hormonal changes accompanying acute starvation in men and women. British journal of nutrition 1994; 71:437-447.