The FastDay Forum

Watching a repeat of the "Truth about Exercise" with DR M last night got me thinking how the concept of High Intensity Interval Training and Intermittent Fasting are both pointing to the same primordial lifestyle. It makes perfect sense to me that thousands of years ago our ancestors would have gone for long periods of time without food and then combined very short periods of high intensity movement to catch something and then spend a couple of days eating it, and so on.
This is the way our bodies are set up best to work efficiently and healthily, but unfortunately our modern lifestyle is working against this.

Any comments folks ?

[carorees]

I agree!

Seems to make sense to me!

I sometimes look at the health "advice" that is often passed on to us, eat a good breakfast, eat low fat products etc. I'm really starting to see that it doesn't really make as much sense as it seems when you look in to the details.

I'm going to start doing HIT, but what I did find on my fasting day yesterday was that exercise really helped! I played squash in the evening, played well and felt so much better for it - not cold or hungry. (I then overate at dinner but that was just foolishness not hunger...)

While I totally agree that HIT exercise regimes have great benefits for your body and are extremely god for you(you can't go past the documented evidence), I also think there is a real need for everyone to do other types of exercise. I believe that it is particularly important to do strength training regularly particularly to maintain muscle mass and maintain functional ability as we age. Strength training keeps our bones strong and stops us falling over. falls are one of the leading causes of mortality in older people with A large percentage of people who break their hip dying within a year.

If you are working hard fasting to make sure that your body will live longer with reduced chances of heart disease, diabetes and cancer, you also need to maintain its structure so it can support your health. Do some strength training people!

Right...off my soapbox now

I love HIIT. Couldn't agree more. Both fasting and HIIT are so far the best options out there to be healthy and fit. And... from the research, practicality and ease, both are cheap, give fast results and are sustainable. What more can you want!?

x Justina

I've been doing HIIT (Dr M's cut-down version which is 3 x 20 seconds of pedalling like fury on a cycle machine) for the past week and I find it goes particularly well with fasting because it warms me up! The extra warmth seems to last for a couple of hours (maybe that shows how relatively unfit I am?) and warmer feels better. It must be burning some extra calories in that period mustn't it?

Having written the above I did a bit of research (that's googling of course). It's called 'afterburn' and they don't reckon it uses many calories, but I'm not sure they are right, at least in my case. Anyway, it still warms me up...

I agree about the strength training, wasn't there a study of 80 yo women that showed they improved in all sorts of ways when they were taught some weight training.

I've been doing HIIT (Dr M's cut-down version which is 3 x 20 seconds of pedalling like fury on a cycle machine) for the past week and I find it goes particularly well with fasting because it warms me up! The extra warmth seems to last for a couple of hours (maybe that shows how relatively unfit I am?) and warmer feels better. It must be burning some extra calories in that period mustn't it?

Having written the above I did a bit of research (that's googling of course). It's called 'afterburn' and they don't reckon it uses many calories, but I'm not sure they are right, at least in my case. Anyway, it still warms me up...

I started following the same version a week or so ago. The bike I use counts calories burned, I was shocked at how few I use. I will check and make sure the next time I do a set, but I think it was as little as 20-30. That includes 1 min warm up and 1 min slow down between each set of 20 sec flat out.

I feel the same afterburn, really nice on a cold winters day

Sadly, when you are going flat out on your 20s bursts you will be burning v little fat.

Sadly, when you are going flat out on your 20s bursts you will be burning v little fat.

However in a comparison trial only the HIIT group lost any body fat - 8s sprint / 12s idling on cycle * 60 reps vs continous cycling at 60% VO2max.

http://www.nature.com/ijo/journal/v32/n ... gure-title

[carorees]

The calories calculated as being used by the biking does not take account of the after burn or the increase in mitochondria that occurs in response to maximum effort and results in a greater capacity to burn fuel.

skippyscuffleton wrote:

when you are going flat out on your 20s bursts you will be burning v little fat

Wherever the energy is coming from at the time, it must be somewhere immediate and so I'm not surprised it's not a fat store. No worries, IMO it will all come to the same thing in the end.

mole3 wrote:

I started following the same version a week or so ago... I was shocked at how few [calories] I use. I will check and make sure the next time I do a set, but I think it was as little as 20-30.

Snap! Re the calories - that sounds quite possible, but as Caroline says there is the afterburn to consider which surely must use at least that much again. And if you do it twice in a day that is say 100 calories burned, which isn't bad for 2 x 5 minutes time (2 x 1 minute proper exercise). Plus of course the other benefits (insulin response and VO2 max, the latter only if we are better responders than Dr M!) And we get warm...

Another good thing about doing HIIT on a fast day is that I cannot give in to the temptation to reward myself afterwards...

Dominic - I concur with all you are saying and am all for including hiit in an exercise session and do it myself when in the pool 3x pw. My curt posting above was merely to say that when you are going flat out you are almost totally carb burning. I like your last point. Many people (myself included) have the mindset that after exercise they've earned the right to a sugary treat or two or three. A dangerous way of thinking if you're trying to lose weight.

[carorees]

Didn't Dr M talk to someone who was saying about the sales of muffins in gyms?