Second attempt at intermittent fasting

Some months ago I tried to implement intermittent fasting into my lifestyle. I didn’t like it, I couldn’t do it and I stopped after a few days. I thought this definitely wasn’t something that I could do.

Fast forward a few months…

I’ve been busting my ass regularly at the gym now for several years. My eating is fairly clean and I do my best to implement meal prepping. If I can’t meal prep for whatever reason, I still eat fairly clean throughout the day. Yet, I’ve still to attain a six pack and I feel like there is so much more room for improvement.

Something’s got to give. I mean I train 6-7 days a week, sometimes twice a day. The training consists of weightlifting, varying forms of steady state and high intensity cardio, teaching Zumba and conditioning classes, as well as Brazilian Jiujitsu several times a week. I put in the work y’all.

So why haven’t I hit my six pack? Is my diet not strict enough? Am I eating too many calories? Am I not eating enough? Is it due to my blood pressure pills? Is it due to the decline in my testosterone? Am I training too much? Not enough? I don’t know what the hell is going on here! It’s highly frustrating.

In any case, my son is a huge proponent of intermittent fasting and he’s been pushing it on me for ages. I tried it that one time and I was done with it, but seeing the level of results that he has been getting lately has inspired me to give it another try. My boy always says to me: Pops, if you eat how I eat and combine that with how you train you’ll be ripped in no time at all. Based on what I’m seeing happening with him, I’m inclined to believe this. This is why I decided to give it another go.

Don’t misunderstand, there are so many other benefits out there revolving around intermittent fasting. They range from anti-aging health benefits to a potential increase in testosterone. Though I’m not sure that’s the case for everyone. I know of one dude who’s free testosterone was lowered due to intermittent fasting and an increase of sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) or sex steroid-binding globulin (SSBG). Google that shit if you want to know more about it, basically if there is more of that, which intermittent fasting promotes, there is less free testosterone available.

Don’t quote me on any of that stuff by the way, what I’m sharing is only as reliable as the source I got it from. Neither of us are doctors.

So because of the training schedule I keep, as well as the fact that I train some mornings and teach some nights on the same day, trying to find a way to do this was challenging. However, I decided to make it work for me one way or another. If some days I’m fasting longer or lesser, then so be it. But if I can get in maybe 4 or so 16 hour fasts and maybe one 24 hour fast every week, maybe I can still attain the benefits of fasting.

There are some folks who say the 24 hour fast eliminates the need for the more constant 16 hour fasts while others say it’s better to stick to the 16 hour fast. I figured that I would do both since my training schedule prevents daily 16 hour fasts. I cannot train and not eat, that’s just not an option for me. This week I was able to make the 24 hours and I felt mostly okay. So its definitely doable.

In fact, around the 22nd hour or so, I taught a very intense Zumba class and I was okay. I had a slight headache, but the heat in that group exercise room is dreadful and I get a headache every time I teach. So I’m inclined to think that the heat and dehydration was the cause of the headache as opposed to the fasting. A warm shower, two advils and lots of water took care of that.

So far for my first week in, I’m okay. I’m about to eat lunch. The only trouble I have is that I have ingest all my meals in such a small space of time so I’ll have to adjust my eating times. Let’s see how things progress for me, I’ll be sure to update y’all one way or the other.