Tag Archives: Intermittent Fasting

Leangains…

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Sometimes following links in links from links in web sites you follow can bring you to interesting places. This was the case for me discovering a curious site called Leangains.

The site owner has adopted the Intermittent Fasting approach, put his own twist on it, after extensive trials done by himself and his clients and coupled it with some very basic but powerful weight training exercises.

The results speak for themselves but neither do I nor does the site owner Martin Berkhan want you to believe straight out that this works. You should put some effort reading and understanding the underlying concepts of his approach. If you are ready to spent loads of money and time into ‘magic pill solutions’ which usually do not work at advertised, you can at least take a fraction of that effort and READ this method which makes no magical promises and demands you to workout and eat SMART and most important of all PACE YOURSELF. 🙂

Although I still am not 100% convinced that his approach is cut for my circumstances, as I have Hashimoto’s, I still decided to give it a sensible shot. I changed my IF from Warrior Diet (20/4 hour fast/eat) to Leangains (16/8 hour fast/eat) since last week. I will incorporate the basic weight exercises in that system into my training days as well.

Warrior Diet On and Off For Two Years

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So I mentioned on another post that I changed the way I eat and was eating in an intermittent fasting way more specifically Warrior Diet style.

Don’t let the word “Diet” mislead you, this can be a life style rearrangement for the better or, depending on your way of life, not. Its definitely NOT for everyone, but I would, unless you have health issues which strictly prevent you from doing so,  recommend you give it a try for at least 3 weeks or better yet, 3 months.

Its more of a change of mind then yet another diet to endure. Conventional health sources (most of which are generously funded by various parts of the Food industry) will tell you that just about everything about intermittent fasting and/or the Warrior Diet is unhealthy and I do NOT have long term results to rightfully argue that either side is right.

What I do have though is two check-up results and a changing wardrobe since I started eating this way mid January last year. In two years, all check-up test results are within normal range. Before starting the Warrior way, I had some cholesterol and blood sugar issues severing my liver but most importantly I have Hashimoto’s Auto-immune Disorder causing lifelong problems to my thyroid affecting practically everything else. Thyroid related test results along with the rest are within normal range which is quite encouraging. Despite common concerns, undereating (meaning eating quite light food which does not spike insulin or you could chose to not eat if you can endure) during the day with one huge meal in the evening has actually helped me stabilize the effects of my disorder. Drinking plenty of water throughout the day is essential, you can have unsweetened tea and coffee as well. In fact caffeine while hungry is claimed to have the opposite effect its normally associated with, which is assisting fat storage. If you need more details do read Ori Hofmekler’s book. He goes into to great details referencing scientific publications.

As for me, I am going to stick with this way of eating and keep monitoring my health for another year or 50 🙂

As a bonus I dropped from a size 34 waist to 28 in two years while only dropping about 5-6 kg (11-13 lb) in weight as I replaced most of my fat with muscles (not all of it yet 🙂 ) with the assistance of short and intensive Kettlebell and Bodyweight exercises. Fat loss is, after all, 80 percent what you eat and 20 percent how you move. Don’t let anybody fool you about this. Every magic pill out there, promising you quick weight loss has built-in Jo-jo effect, if you are lucky, or worse it will cost you your health. Patience and perseverance is what gets you there.

If you are shocked in disbelieve reading all this, you should have seen my wives face when I put on her comfort jeans and they fit the other day 😀

Kettlebell Workouts combined with Warrior Diet

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This week I started yet again another serious session of Intermittent Fasting as described in the Warrior Diet.

I discovered and started doing it Mid-January last year and was able to drop from 89kg (196lb) to about 76kg (168lb) in about 4 months prior to really getting into gear with Kettlebells.

I continued with the way of the Warrior feeding 🙂 after I started doing Kettlebell workouts on a regular 3 times a week basis. I gained weight as I was building muscles. After a while I loosened up on the way of the Warrior and along with muscles came back some bodyfat.

On an important side note, I have the Auto-immune disorder Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. I read one article and a couple of comments in forums that Intermittent Fasting actually has a positive effect on Auto-immune disorders. On my annual full body check-up it looked good. All values within the healthy range. And the ever so annoying tiredness in the afternoons gone.

Anyway, this year went less effective regarding my Warrior Diet style eating and although I didn’t put back on much of a belly but I was on the fattening road. Hashimoto’s has one interesting side-effect (at least in my case), changes occur slowly, no matter whether good or bad.

And this year I also decided to completely cut off supplements as well and did go that way. But now that I will do a low carb calorie deficit diet and shed some stubborn fat, I went out to get myself some liquid L-Carnitine for before the workouts, some Whey protein for right after the workouts and some vitamins for those days where I can not eat sufficiently.

With the decreased calorie intake the 16kg Kettlebell wasn’t that easy anymore but I still intend to move up to 24kg and 32kg soon. Less reps with more benefits.

Here is this weeks workouts I did on Monday, Wednesday and Friday:

Monday: 50 Snatches (25L 25R) 50 Plank to Pushup 75 2 Handed Kettlebell Swings 25 Burpees 5-10-5-10-5-10-5 (TGU & Windmills alternating hands, see former workouts) 50 Mountain Climbers

Wednesday: 50 Snatches (25L 25R) 25 Pushups 100 Two Handed Kettlebell Swings 25 Burpees 5-10-5-10-5-10-5 (TGU & Windmills) 50 Mountain Climbers

Friday: 50 Squats 50 Jumping Jacks 50 Snatches 25 Pushups 100 Kettlebell Swings (25L 25R 50 Two Handed) 6 TGUs with 24Kg dumbbell (3L 3R) <— sufficient to kill me off