Blog Archive

More and more I hear people around me talking about fasting and my question was:

Why does it work and how does it work?

Had this conversation with Andy once a while ago and always kept that in the back of my mind. Andy told me that he used to do it every once in a while and explained a lil bit.

I thought it was cool but didn’t really know the benefits of fasting.

So I did some research!

Study after study shows that whatever you want to call the protocol – intermittent fasting, fasting, alternate day fasting, or alternate day caloric restriction – it works very well for weight loss.

But does fasting work solely through caloric restriction, or is it doing something special?

That’s the real question. There’s no question that fasting causes weight loss through caloric restriction. Obviously, when you don’t eat anything, your body turns to its own stored energy reserves, reserves that take up physical space and have mass. Depletion of those energy stores reduces mass and thus weight. Total and absolute caloric restriction. That’s elementary stuff and studies from the 1960s show that.

To dig a bit deeper, let’s look at how weight loss occurs during a fast.

Secretion of growth hormone, one of the premier fat burning hormones, increases during a fast. In a five-day fasting protocol, men experienced increased GH secretion on day one and day five (the only two days where GH was measured). A later study showed that during two-day fasting sessions, growth hormone secretions increased in both frequency and intensity in men. They experienced more frequent GH bursts and each burst secreted a higher mass of GH. A more recent study found that 24-hour fasts increased GH by 1300% in women and almost 2000% in men.

Fasting decreases fasting insulin levels. The presence of insulin inhibits lipolysis, the release of stored triglycerides (body fat). Without lipolysis actually releasing stored body fat, it’s rather difficult to, well, burn that body fat for energy. During a fast, fasting insulin decreases and lipolysis increases. This insulin-blunting aspect of fasting quite literally allows the fast to be successful, because without the ability to access stored body fat for energy, making it through a period of zero caloric intake will be nigh impossible.

Fasting improves insulin sensitivity. 20-hour fasts were enough to improve insulin sensitivity in men.

Fasting increases the catecholamines, both adrenaline (epinephrine) and noradrenaline (norepinephrine). Both catecholamines increase resting energy expenditure during a fast, and guess where your fasting body finds the energy to expend? From body fat. Catecholamines activate hormone sensitive lipase present in adipose tissue, spurring the release of said fat. This makes intuitive sense, doesn’t it? If you’re hungry in the wild, you need to hunt (or gather, or fish, or somehow procure food) and you need energy to do it. The catecholamines help provide some of that energy while burning fat in the process.

Today kicks off another 5 week Strength Program.   Our focus will be off the traditional squat-strength approach as we switch to a deadlift and ring dip routine.

As Glassman says “The deadlift is unrivaled in its simplicity and impact while unique in its capacity for increasing head to toe strength. Regardless of whether your fitness goals are to “rev up” your metabolism, increase strength or lean body mass, decrease body fat, rehabilitate your back, improve athletic performance, or maintain functional independence as a senior, the deadlift is a marked shortcut to that end…” (see complete article here:  The Deadlift).

Improving our ring dips transfers over to increasing strength in other movements we do, overhead presses and muscle-ups being just a couple of examples.

Monday Tech:

Deadlift

5,5,5,5,5

Do all 5 sets with the same weight – about 60-70% of your one rep max.

Ring Dips

Ring Dips to be done in between Deadlift sets (4 sets total, wrapping up with Deadlift again).

For those who have a ring dip, do 3 – 5 reps of weighted dips per set.   If you don’t have a ring dip yet, complete 3-5 reps of negatives.  No band progressions today people.

WOD

10 rounds of:

10 KB Swings / 10 Situps / 10 Box Jumps

Let’s have a great week!

Fancypants

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Picture this – a crowd watches someone get away with stunted movement – within minutes the crowd is a group of haters that now don’t like the judge that was counting the shorted reps but everyone in the crowd were raising their eyebrows and commenting like “he doesn’t deserve it” and avoided contact with him post WOD where he was celebrating a personal best with a huge smile on his face.

We all saw movements at regionals that we thought should have not been allowed! We saw judging errors that damn right annoyed us but we were not the ones making the calls, we had not stepped up and judged. So it is time we put those things behind us and move forward and help develop all those around us so it does not happen any more!

HOW DO WE DO THIS??

Well first of all check out the new sign on the front wall of the school. Make sure you are doing these things every day you walk in, particularly look at number 6! This also goes for the people around you! Remind them if they are boarder-line, remember we only cheat ourselves out of the best quality improvements and gains. Lets all stick together and do things right and of course.

HAVE FUN!

Saturday

Sunday: Makeup Day

Have a great Weekend everyone!

Dashie and Tbear

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