FrenchFit 

I am not having a discussion with you. .

redlude97

FrenchFit 

... a cool thing about the BF, other posters will prove your point.

jsk

Not knowing anything much about Attia, the fact that you put him in the same category as Taubes tells me all I need to know about him (and you)...

FrenchFit 

Thanks, again.

OBoile

You've got it backwards. The majority of evidence, and the general consensus amount leading dietary scientists refutes these guys. Or, at the very least, says there's nothing special about their methods.

There are many successful endurance athletes that follow many different diets. A single anecdote isn't proof of anything.

FrenchFit 

No, I think it is proof of something, perhaps relating to that's person's metabolism and performance at a minimum, bur perhaps meaningful clues for everyone. I've listened to Jurek and Karnezes, two endurance runners who have performed super-human feats. Nikki Kimball running 273 miles relying on her 'bacon pocket' for energy. Nikki, one of the most accomplished endurance athlete in human history, her diet is high fat, low carbs and sugar - Taubes would approve. Similar themes keep popping up, and they do not gybe with the conventional wisdom of 'dietary scientists' about performance diets.

I have no issue with studies, but there are how many published every month? 50,000, 100,000 ..You can find a study to prove any point you're invested in. You can't find many people who can run 50/100/200 miles.

It would be foolish to ignore the experience of the people that are actually getting out there and doing it.

Carbonfiberboy 

If one has the talent and the desire to run 273 miles, perhaps this is the wisest diet. Otherwise it's otherwise. No one on the TdF or any Grand Tour or any Classic fuels their day's ride with bacon. No one. I don't know of a single rider who uses a ketogenic diet or fasts. No one, and I've ridden with a lot of people over the decades. I do ride with one person who affects a Paleo diet but he steals my cookies at rest stops and eats white bread sandwiches on tour. He's talented, though not nearly as fast as he could be. Slower than I am and about 15 years younger and I'm not fast by a long shot. So as you say, "it would be foolish to ignore . . ." Don't think that there's no pressure to excel in bike racing, endurance or otherwise. RAAM isn't really a bike race, it's an eating contest, and the winner is the one who eats the most carbs. Why? Because its calories digested vs. kJ out. One can put out a lot of watts on a bike because bikes are perhaps the most efficient machines for extracting work from the human body ever invented.

One of my little life rules is to avoid assuming that everyone else is stupid or wrong. Rather everyone is trying to do their particular thing in the best way they know how. And mostly, for them, they're right. Method always depends on what one is trying to do.

FrenchFit 

Well, perhaps another way of looking at it is how do you define "fit" or "performance"? The TdF is a death march, I do not envy the fitness or regime of those riders.Nor do I envy football players, I think they will all be using canes, on meds., when they're 50.

For me, fitness is about sustainable health, endurance, energy level, emotional stability, good sleep, mental acuity, cross competence, flexibility, etc. "Watts" on a bike ride is not even on that map.

KraneXL

Which is what I state is the first and foremost rule of IF -- determine your goal. Whether or not it works for someone depends on their goals and to what extent they apply it.

For example, I choose to use IF, predominantly as an anaerobic training tool. After some trial and error, I've determined that this where I can get the most benefit out of it with the least amount of negatives. It makes me a leaner/stronger cyclist directly through increased muscle hypertrophy as opposed to indirectly by lowering fat: anabolic training vs catabolic training. It may not the ideal goal for the competitive cyclist, but it is the middle ground which works best for me.

Also, some people are anomalies, but that's not science. There's not necessarily a right or wrong, but it has to be something that works for the majority, and is repeatable under similar circumstances to be valid.

wolfchild

I agree with most of what you're said here, but keep in mind that some intensity is essential in order to make progress and create adaptations. Your body adapts to stress and becomes stronger, but the challenge is to find just the right amount of stress, not too much not too little...There is no need to cut out carbs. You can be fit and healthy without cutting carbs and following keto or low carb diets and fasting.

OBoile

You realize that Jurek (a vegan) and Taubes (eat lots of fat and low carb) are pretty much complete opposites right? That's kind of proving my point.

FrenchFit 

Your point being: The majority of evidence, and the general consensus amount leading dietary scientists refutes these guys. ?

Jurek - vegan, Taubes - low carb, Karrnazes - paleo, Nikki - high fat, Attia - IF'ing, restricted carbs, etc., etc. I think the common theme is they reject the "majority of evidence, and the general consensus amount leading dietary scientists" and yet each one of them is pretty much playing a the top of his./her game. And considering the live presentations, movies and videos I've seen of this crowd they come off as very healthy, highly alert & articulate - and fit individuals, which you can not uniformly say for many of our modern athletes.

To go back to the OP's intent, I'm suggesting, IF'ing is one of those remarkably effective disciplines to step up into a different level of health and fitness if you are subject to some degree of carb hypersensitivity, insulin resistance, or whatever you want to call it. It seems to fix the switchboard... and if you watch the 3 hour interview of Peter Attia, I think that's a good part of what he was saying ...in much different terms of course. . I don't suggest anyone is saying their diet is something you have to do...

FrenchFit 

And by the way, Gary Taubes is a local Oakland boy,,,so I feel a need to represent. Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, and he defied all conventional wisdom when he published his NY Times article, and his book in 2007. The respected scientific community has never gotten over his challenges to their mistaken conclusions. I think he ought to be pretty proud of himself, and he's doing pretty darn well for a sixty-something guy who adopted a disastrous meat & high fat diet decades ago.

OBoile

No, my point being There are many successful endurance athletes that follow many different diets. A single anecdote isn't proof of anything.
What Jurek or whoever does isn't proof. It doesn't serve as a meaningful counter argument to the fact that the significant majority of dietary experts do not agree with Taubes or Attia and that the majority of evidence indicates no significant special benefits from either low carb or IF. The fact that there are lots of people having success from lots of different ways simply shows that the human body is quite adaptable.

Seattle Forrest

You don't achieve hypertrophy by not eating.

Apart from "newbie gains" you need (1) progressive resistance, (2) a calorie surplus, and (3) sufficient protein and carbohydrate to achieve hypertrophy.

wolfchild

To get most benefits from anaerobic training you need to well fed with carbs and protein...If your body is starved you won't be able to put in enough intensity to make anaerobic training effective. No intensity means no adaptations.

KraneXL

Which you can consume more than enough of pre fast. Not directly, but you enhance it through fasting. It the hormonal response that's responsible for all the magic.

Carbonfiberboy 

Interesting. Do you have some studies that show that in say, powerlifters who got stronger when they fasted before a workout?

The glycogen thing interests me. We have two types of glycogen, liver and muscle. Maybe "types" is too strong a word, but the difference is so great it's maybe worth using it. If one eats correctly before a fast and isn't real active during it, then muscle glycogen will be intact and ready to go when one starts to work out. We all do that when we sleep and ride the next morning. However by the next morning, our liver glycogen is pretty much depleted. After an extended fast like you're advocating, liver glycogen is going to be gone. I once did a long easy ride with good muscle glycogen but low liver glycogen and had a terrible experience, almost passing out on the bike from brain bonk. I stopped and ate a few hundred calories and was able to continue. So I'm curious about how that works for IFers. They're not going to be in ketosis because of eating and ordinary diet. so their brains will still be running on glucose. No glusose, no brain.

KraneXL

Um, no. But even if I did it wouldn't pass on anything that biased and esoteric. The studies and research I quote are a lot more reliable and with less biased than that. Maybe if you rephrase the question if I misunderstand what you're asking?First, its an adaptive process. So it takes time to build up to the point of best utilization.

Second, I've expressed on multiple occasions, that I'm not an advocate of fasted cycling, nor do I intent to be anytime soon. I don't think that's the best application for IF.

Also we need to keep in mind that IF is a protocol, not a diet. Nevertheless, if you have any information about its effectiveness, I wouldn't mind hearing it. Which is one reason I'm not an advocate.

wolfchild

KraneXL

I knew that word would trigger a response (too bad this thing doesn't have a rating capability). Anyway, you're right about the first part, its not magic, (not that I was being literal), its science.

Unfortunately, you are incorrect on the second half. You manipulate a hormonal response every time you eat something. Which means you also trigger the opposite response when you fast. Try not to be so melodramatic next time. Its not necessary.

OBoile

Yep.
Yep.
Yep.

KraneXL

Recall that IF is not a diet, rather, a diet protocol to help your body achieve improved exercise efficiency and nutritional benefit from whatever diet and training routine you choose. Its multi pronged approach that places the body in a higher bio-active state for maximum nutritional uptake, and exercise recuperation. He makes some great points for many of the diet ills of western society, but I think Dr. David Reuben beat him to it. By the time I finished his book, I was afraid to drink water.

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Nutrition

Seattle Forrest

Any time somebody uses the word "magic" to promote a diet.

As long as you're doing a progressive resistance program and getting enough calories and hitting your macros, IF probably isn't hurting you much in terms of your goal of muscle growth.