Can Intermittent Fasting Negatively Affect Your Workouts?

Hey, good morning friends. Once again, this is Patrick Ocheni coming to you live with another presentation. In today’s video, we’re going to talk about can Intermittent Fasting negatively affect your workouts?

Before I answer that question, what I want to do is remind you guys that Intermittent Fasting first of all is a way of eating, it is not a diet. In my opinion, it’s the best way to eat out there that is sustainable over time; it’s very, very flexible. I could go on and on about all the benefits of Intermittent Fasting.

With that being said, one of the main benefits is the fact that it is not a caloric restriction program.

What does that mean?

It means that you’re not depriving yourself of calories. One of the ways in which your workouts could be negatively affected is if you’re not implementing intermittent fasting the right way; and, there’s a right way to do it, there’s a wrong way to do it.

You understand?

If you do it incorrectly, yes, it can negatively affect your workout.

With that being said, what I want to do is give you guys a big picture view of how this whole thing works.

When you want to do Intermittent Fasting, you got to determine, what is your prioritized goal, what exactly are you trying to achieve in the first place? Are you simply trying to lose weight? Are you trying to become a power lifter? What specifically is your prioritized goal?

Because, guess what?

That would determine the next thing, which would be the kind of training/workouts that you’re going to be doing. For example, somebody who’s training to become a power lifter would train differently than somebody who’s training to become a marathon runner versus somebody who is simply trying to lose a couple of pounds or stay in shape.

And, finally, you’re supposed to eat to support your training. In this case, what kind of protocol you use for Intermittent Fasting.

Let’s say somebody want to become a power lifter. Well, guess what? I happen to know that power lifters their primary goal is to get stronger and stronger and stronger– lift as much weight as possible.

When it comes to the training, it means what? They’re going to be lifting heavy weights. With that being said, if they’re lifting heavy weights, they need as much muscle mass as possible; in general, the more you weigh in the power lifting world, the more you’re likely to lift.

So, what does that mean?

That means you have to consume a lot of calories, a lot of calories to help you build muscle mass and to help you with your lifting sessions.

Now, what does that mean when it comes to intermittent fasting?

That means that if you’re trying to become a power lifter, you have to take that into account. You have to make sure that because your goal is to become a power lifter you are consuming enough calories.

In this example, I’m just giving you guys this as an illustration of how you could implement Intermittent Fasting to support your goal that way it does not negatively affect your workouts.

So now, for this power lifter, they’re more likely or should be consuming most of the calories during their training. So, they want to build up a caloric reserve. And also, they want to make sure that the window in which they do not eat is not too big because, again, they need to consume a lot of calories.

For example, let’s say they go 24 hours without eating, it’s not going to support the training; it’s very hard to go lift really, really heavy weights on an empty stomach.

You understand? I hope that makes sense.

That’s just one example of, if you don’t implement intermittent fasting the right way, yes, it can negatively affect your workouts.

You have to also keep in mind, it depends on how adapted your body is when it comes to intermittent fasting. Are you a beginner or are you experienced?

For example, me personally, I’m so used to not eating before my workouts that it does not really affect me if I have not eaten for at least 18 hours. So I’m more experienced in that sense, but for somebody who is a total beginner to Intermittent Fasting and they’re not adapted to working out on an empty stomach, it’s going to impact their workout at least initially.

 Hopefully all that makes sense.