Transcription
What are a few things in the world of fitness nutrition, whatever that you've changed your mind on in maybe the last five to seven years? There's been, yeah, there's been, you know, I would say a few things that I've changed my mind on, like as new data has come out. You know, I mean, that's what any scientist does. You sort of reassess the data and, you know, with new data become new conclusions, right?
Um, but there's also some things I kind of just, I would say the spectrum of where I fall on has changed somewhat. Um, probably one of the, the biggest things I've changed my mind on over the past few few years is, um, my stance on meal skipping. Skipping a meal. And, um, somehow this has become synonymous with intermittent fasting.
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Like people, when they think about intermittent fasting, they think about skipping a meal, and it's not. That's not intermittent fasting, so to speak, right? I mean, intermittent fasting is really, there's different types of it, and it has to do with like having a period of time without having food intake. Um, but the, when I say specifically meal skipping, I think mostly it's skipping breakfast. And I think that's actually what a lot of people do end up doing when they are quote unquote trying to practice intermittent fasting.
And so, um, why I've changed my mind, I on, I used to often skip breakfast myself. And, um, I think as new data has come out, and as I've talked to a lot of experts on muscle protein synthesis, and like Stu Phillips, for example, Brad Schoenfeld, I have, I've come to this, this, um, conclusion that, you know, not getting enough protein in that really important meal after you've been fasting all night. You know, we don't store amino acids. We don't store them like we do. We store glycogen for glucose, you know, we store fat in, you know, adipose tissue, triglycerides. We don't store amino acids. We need a constant source of it. And we, when we don't get amino acids, um, we start to experience muscle breakdown. And so it's always a balance between muscle protein synthesis and breakdown, right? And there's two signals for muscle protein synthesis. Protein intake, specifically has to do with essential amino acids like leucine being a major one that signals muscle protein synthesis. And then the other signal is mechanical stress, right? So just resistance training, essentially, right? The, the forces like mechanically like stressing your muscles, right?
Um, so that first meal, breakfast, is so important because you're essentially at the point where you, you need protein. And so you get into this sort of catabolic, um, you know, state if you're not getting protein at that point. Now, somewhat, if you're doing resistance training, that can, that can sort of help offset that a bit because you are getting that other signal, right, to help, you know, get the muscle protein synthesis going. Uh, but I think that then again, also, just if you're skipping a meal, that's an entire meal you're not going to have protein. So are you going to make up for that protein in your other couple of meals that you're going to have? I was not doing that. I was not. And I was of the opinion that, you know, I was getting enough protein. And that's kind of another, I think, area I've changed my mind on as well. But the meal skipping part, I think, is the big thing. Was a big eye opener for me because, um, there, there had been some studies where, you know, intermittent fasting had led to a little bit of, you know, muscle atrophy. And this, these were non-people that were doing resistance training, by the way. There's other studies that have shown doing like intermittent fasting in combination with resistance training, like, I, one in females comes off the top of my head. I remember the study on that, blunted some of that muscle atrophy effect. In other words, they could still, you know, skip a meal, but like they weren't going to get that atrophy as much. So I think the meal skipping is one of the biggest things.
And people go, "Well, is that time-restricted eating? Do you not like time-restricted eating?" No, I do think time-restricted eating is very important. And so time-restricted eating being eating all your food within a certain time window, and then having a certain window, a period of time where you're not eating, you're not digesting, you're not in that state. And I, I still think there's a lot of evidence that that, that eating within a time window is important, um, metabolically. So we are very insulin sensitive earlier in the day. As the day goes on, and we get towards like when we're producing melatonin, nighttime, we become less insulin sensitive. Like black and white studies on that. Like people given the same exact calories, the same exact macronutrients, the same meals at different times of the day, their insulin response, their blood glucose levels, much, much better. Everything metabolically better during the day, early morning versus evening, same meal, right? So you're more insulin resistant later in the evening, right? So you don't want to be eating your meal at like 10:00 at night, necessarily. Right? But also, you need a period of fasting to digest. I mean, sorry, you need a period of fasting to repair. You don't want to be digesting. Um, because just like when you're, when you sleep, your brain, you're not thinking, we're not like firing a bunch of neurons and, you know, cognition, it's not like happening. You're resting. Your brain needs to rest. Like if you never rested, if you never slept, like you'd be a mess. Like you couldn't think well. Digestion is the same way. When you're, when you're digesting your food, like all your organs are working. Like this isn't repair mode. You're not in repair mode. Um, so you need a period of time when you are not digesting, and that is when repair for your DNA happens. So like DNA repair is happening when you're in a fasted mode. This mostly happens during sleep. You're repairing the damage to your DNA. This is when things like autophagy happen, right? Like this clearing out other gunk and stuff inside your cells. So different repair processes happen during a fasted state. And so I think that is important to have that still. Um, so time-restricted eating, I still think is beneficial. But I don't know, people have like time-restricted eating and said, "Oh, I'm going to skip a meal and then I'm going to, you know, I have my time window shorter of eating because I skipped that meal. I'm like, extending my fasting part." I don't think that's the right way to look at it. I think that that is the wrong way to look at it because you're then skipping that whole protein bolus that you're going to get to make sure you're stimulating muscle protein synthesis and not becoming catabolic, right? And so I think that plus then maybe sometimes you're shifting your meals a little bit later. And again, um, and even to sleep better, like it's better to not eat like three hours or so before you actually going to bed because it's even if you have your last bite at like, let's say 6:00 p.m. or 7:00 p.m., it's like three to five hours of like all the digestion, all that stuff. Like so you don't even really start the fasting clock until like three to five hours after that last bite.
So, um, I think that's one of the biggest areas where it's like, I don't skip breakfast. That's a, a big one. I think people, I've caught a lot of heat for that too, cuz like I, you know, for so many years, lost a lot of weight with intermittent fasting. But as like time has gone on, especially being lean, I'm like, well, if I fast a lot, then like there's nothing to really pull from. So I'm probably right. For me, it's become, okay, maybe two days a week of ETF. And it's nothing extreme. It's like where like if I'm going to fast, maybe I'll skip dinner instead of skipping breakfast. And like I've actually found that breakfast is probably one of the more important meals of the day because it's what you are literally breaking your fast with. And it's your time to, you know, "breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dinner like a pauper" has always kind of been my philosophy anyway. Um, so it's like fasting being a little bit more of the anomaly rather than the rule, you know, being something that's like occasionally be like, you know, "Yeah, it's a good day to do a 17-hour fast." You know, perfect. But it's not going to be something to do every day.
And you said something important too, like I do think, you know, a lot of people that do, when you're, when you're skipping meals, it's not just intermittent fasting, it's also you're reducing your calorie intake. Like that's one less entire caloric, you know, meal. Like that's gone, right? And people that are overweight, people that are obese, um, they can really benefit a lot from caloric restriction. You can lose a lot of weight, especially the more fat mass you have, the less you're going to be losing muscle from that because you do, like you said, you have so much to pull from. And, you know, so I think that it, it's certainly like, just, it's easier for people to implement. Like when they, they think of counting their calories, it's just too much work. But when they're like, "Oh, I'll just not eat," they're essentially, they're performing caloric restriction like through another way, right? Like it's just another way of getting less, fewer calories. But, um, and it is effective way to lose, to lose weight. But like you said, when you start to get like a little bit leaner, like let's say you're like that, you're like that mom that wants to lose that extra 10 to 20 pounds or something. Like, you know, there was, and this was brought to my mind from Brad Schoenfeld, he pointed the study out to me, that, you know, up to 30% of the weight loss can come from muscle if you're not doing resistance training because people are just not getting their protein. They're skipping meals, they're not getting that other extra two, two important signals. They're not getting one of them. And, and so, and then on top of that, if they're not doing resistance training, they're not getting any of them. So their protein intake's not enough, and they're not stressing their muscles to get, you know, to prevent the muscles from, your your body is essentially like, "I need amino acids. I'm going to pull from muscle." Muscle is a reserve. I said, I said, you don't store amino acids. I guess technically, like, yeah, your muscle is a reserve of amino acids, but you don't want to pull from your muscle. So it's not really like, no, it's a reserve. Last resort. Exactly. It's like, yeah, it's like a survival mechanism.
So, um, yeah, I think that you, you brought some really important points there with respect to like, you know, it is, it is a very effective weight loss strategy when done right. Um, certainly people that are obese and overweight have a lot more that they can work with than people that are not quite, um, you know, people that are just interested in, you know, "Oh, longevity. I want to like do time-restricted eating." Well, like, you don't want to be skipping breakfast every day. Like, if you're already like normal weight, like there's no reason to do that. Like you said, early time-restricted eating, or ETF, time-restricted feeding, is another way to do that where you're just essentially, you're eating the same number of meals, but you're doing it in a smaller window instead of just all day, right? Like spreading them out and like not having a period of fasting where you're like, "Repair mode." Like you want to be in repair mode. Like that's important.
Yeah, like I sort of have a standard of like my general rule is 12:12. Like I mean, that's kind of just what I naturally fall into. It's like I kind of just don't eat from like 7 to 7. Like that's like pretty, pretty easy for me to do almost daily, and I don't really think about it. I get up in the morning, I usually train fasted just because I feel better that way, and then it just so happens that my post-workout meal is also my breakfast, and everything's hunky dory.