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16/8 Fasting Results: Study Investigates Short Term Fasting – Thomas DeLauer
From Thomas DeLauer:
“Wait a minute. There’s a flag on the play so hold the phone. When we look at a lot of fasting studies, we find that most of them look at longer term fasts, long duration fasts, 24 hours, 26 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours. But what about shorter term fasts? I’m talking about the shorter term fasts that are applied in intermittent fasting, which we’re always talking about, and a lot of you know me as the intermittent fasting guy, so let’s truly talk about intermittent fasting.
Let’s talk about some of the research that’s now coming out as intermittent fasting gains popularity. We’re talking about the intermittent fasting that’s 16 hours of fasting and eight hours of eating on a more frequent basis versus longer term fasts on an infrequent basis. I’m gonna give you two really awesome modern studies that are looking at this because the studies are really starting to go that way since it’s gaining so much popularity so we have to look at it.
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This first study was really interesting. It took a look at a 16-hour fasting period and and eight-hour eating period of time-restricted eating, also known as intermittent fasting. The whole goal of this process, the whole goal of this study, which was published in the “Journal of Translational Medicine,” was to take a look at the body response in terms of metabolic response, in terms of body composition, in terms of maximum strength, in terms of lipid profile, and in terms of inflammation. They really wanted to take a well-rounded look at individuals and what happened after they would go through a shorter fast versus being on a traditional three square meals a day, eating throughout the day, diet.
What they did is they took 34 men. They divided these men into two groups. They divided into a group that, of course, did a 16-hour fast and an eight-hour eating window where they ate at 1:00 p.m., at 4:00 p.m., and at 8:00 p.m. every day for eight weeks. Then they took the other half of the group and they put them into a traditional eating pattern where they ate at 8:00 a.m., 1:00 p.m., and 8:00 p.m. for that same period of eight weeks.
Now, they had them literally eat the exact same amount of calories. They had them eat the exact same macronutrient breakdown, and they even had them train the exact same way. You see, both of these groups, they took men that had had five years of resistance training experience. That way, muscle density and muscle maturity, training intensity, was all roughly the same. When they put them through any of their workouts, they had them supervised. They had them supervised so that the intensity was the exact same. Both groups did three times per week resistance training in the six to eight repetition range, doing compound movements, which means they did things like bench press, they did things like squat, like leg press, the exact same workouts between the two. That’s all that matters.
The other thing that was interesting is that they had both of these groups train between 4:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m.. They even had the time of day that they trained down to a science. They were like, “Nope, you’re only gonna train during this time. That way we keep this totally controlled and unbiased.” Well, get ready for the results, ’cause this is fascinating.“