Quote Originally Posted by Lukie View Post
I have done IF intermittently over the years, and with varying degrees of structure.

Try it and see. People respond very differently to IF protocols-- maybe you will like it, maybe you won't. Based on your schedule though I would make it a point to have a meal between working out and sleeping, even if that means not IFing.

I do have more specific opinions, for example I'm not really fully onboard with Berkhan's specific macronutrient recommendations, and I also don't really like doing fasted training although that latter point is more just a personal preference.

Honestly I don't really have a strong opinion of it either way. It can be helpful (or a pain in the ass) depending on what your schedule looks like and what you want to do with it. For example, it can be hard to keep your bodyweight UP if you are fasting every day and also eating clean. There are plenty of obese people in society who skip breakfast and eat crap for 8 hours and baloon up but as a general consideration, IF makes you eat less.


Also be careful with the starting strength recommendations. Rippetoe has actually put out some good material (e.g. practical programming for strength training is a fantastic book) but that forum has a strong cult like following and frankly encourages obesity. No they aren't consciously doing it but 90% of the advice is basically 'gain weight' even for people who have absolutely no business doing so.
Ya on this, The rippetoe culture is an odd duck. It's about the lifts, the gains in strength and personal bests, they don't care about abs and leanness for the most part. I'm kind of from the opposite camp. I don't care about he numbers. I care about how you feel, and about how you feel about your look and how you function day to day. If I can get by with as little hard work as possible and still be strong enough to do my thing and look/feel great then that is where I would rather be. That is why your diet is far more important than the gym and why if you suffer 10% on your lifts but lose 30lbs and feel great then so be it.

As for Berkhan, he broke open IF to the hardcore gym guys with brains enough to not follow the conventional dogmas about meal frequency and timings. He is a little hardcore and what your saying is true. I follow a guy called Brad Pilon who advocates 24 hour fasts a day or two a week. But he also believes in just doing what feels right. just take breaks from food, don't sweat the minutia and eat when you feel you need to eat. Your muscles won't fall off or disappear if you don't eat for a bunch of hours. It's just finding what works without sweating the "OMG I have to eat, It's been 2 hours since my last meal and I don't want to go into starvation mode!!!"